contrivedname!

you just hit the nail on the head, and that reminds me of a quote from lucretius "what may be food to one man, may be rank poison to another" -- different strokes for different folks

my understanding is that this phrase is attempting to exemplify the operation of nature (kind of like what pie homie was sayin'). to understand the point being made you need the rest of the quote which is something like "the sage isnt sentimental, he treats the people as straw dogs", so it is exemplifying the sage as some one who doesnt play the game of one-upmanship, (s)he flows with nature and the natural operation (tao). in applying this as a ruler it would mean that you act impartially toward all of your citizens from the "lowest" to the "highest", e.g. if some commoner murders someone and there is a punishment for that, their punishment would be the same as your punishment (as ruler) for committing the same act. this is my take, anyway. so essentially, a ruler doesnt attach to the outward appearance but acts according to the inner nature oh, and james legge has a similar description in his commentary (as that of Lau) this could also be applied to birth and death (as pointed out by mpg); heaven-and-earth dont think "wow, i just love my new baby i created", and then ball its eyes out and say "oh, woe is me, my precious child has died" because birth and death are natural functions and no cause for increased egotism (i.e. attachment to birth and death as "good" or "bad"). again this is my understanding Chris

well, with the near 1,000 views this thread has as i type this i hardly think folks are talking at the void, unless you are using the buddhist paradigm of void

well there are lots of ways i guess. a great book that i would highly recommend (and it is in public domain ) is the book of tea by okakura kakuzo, which not only deals with tea but touches on some pointes in zen, daoism, confucianism, teaism, etc. one idea i took from there and really like was brewing some loose leaf oolong in a teapot along with some chopped up onions. might sound kind of weird, but the flavor of the onions really compliments the oolong well. if kakuzo's account is to be believed, in ancient china tea was prepared almost like a kind of soup with all sorts of herbs, etc. happy drinking; cheers! chris yeah once i started getting into better kinds of tea, and learning about tea ceremony, i shunned the micro-tea

sock puppet troll alert! sock puppet troll alert! everyone ignore this thread right now (ie use the ignore function) it is clearly obvious from the fact that he referenced the "beardliness" of a sage that he must be one and the same person who started another thread about it, purely for the desired effect of textually abusing people... so much of what we say is hearsay so why say? (snatches ian's baked potato and throws it to the next person; hot potato! hot potato!)

what doesnt pertain to the dao?

hehe this has become quite an entertaining thread the bold is my emphasis not quite two hours later... hmm funny that you accuse someone of being a bully and proceed to (attempt to) bully them i've already quoted him somewhere on here before but it bears repeating (imo), oh and he is the 6th ch'an patriarch, hopefully that is enough of a certification to make his point valid: "Should they fail to enlighten themselves, they should ask the pious and learned Buddhists who understand the teaching of the Highest School to show them the right way. It is an exalted position, the office of a pious and learned Buddhist who guides others to realize the Essence of Mind. Through his assistance one may be initiated into all meritorious Dharmas. The wisdom of the past, the present and the future Buddhas as well as the teachings of the twelve sections of the Canon are immanent in our mind; but in case we fail to enlighten ourselves, we have to seek the guidance of the pious and learned ones. On the other hand, those who enlighten themselves need no extraneous help. It is wrong to insist upon the idea that without the advice of the pious and learned we cannot obtain liberation. Why? Because it is by our innate wisdom that we enlighten ourselves, and even the extraneous help and instructions of a pious and learned friend would be of no use if we were deluded by false doctrines and erroneous views. Should we introspect our mind with real Prajna, all erroneous views would be vanquished in a moment, and as soon as we know the Essence of Mind we arrive immediately at the Buddha stage." doesnt the story go, that hui-neng was an illiterate wood cutter? cheers, chris

that is a beautiful post seadog, thanks for sharing

interesting topic, good points on both sides, however (and this isnt intended as an insult, and i likely am a 'kid' compared to many of the posters in this thread) some of the proponents of money charging that have posted seem to be pretty extreme in their view that money is necessary, going even to the point of saying you cant access teachings w/out that. that is wrong imo. i was hoping to see Carsonzi in this thread as he has posted something before to the effect that he doesnt charge his students per se, but allows them to give him a 'donation' of what they felt his teaching was worth, and if they feel it was worthless, he doesnt require any payment. this seems like a good middle path to me, plus it allows a student to show true gratitude for the teachings rather than a "set gratitude" which may be an unattainable amount of money for many and thus would turn the given teachings into something elitist. heres a hypothetical example, lets say i have 2 students, one is a homeless guy and the other is a wealthy business man. they are both very dedicated students, in fact they are both "great" students, which have been said to be hard to come by. the business man, being so grateful for the teaching, decides to give $2000, the homeless guy, being so grateful for the teaching, decides to give the teacher everything he has which amounts to $200. what would you do in this situation? being an enlightened teacher, would you take all the guy's money leaving him with little recourse in his ability to take care of himself? some may say that he needs to get a job and not be lazy or hes homeless because its his karma or something to that effect. just getting a job or making money isnt as easy as some have said. maybe when the economy is more stable, and maybe in america. sure if you are young, smart, strong, goodlooking, white, coming from a middleclass or better upbringing, etc. (dont necessarily have to have all of those traits, just some may work out) it probably is pretty easy for you to get a job and make money (here in america). what though, if you are 50, broken down from hard living for 20 years on the streets, and are required to register as a drug offender for the rest of your life, even though you have 5 years sober, will money just flow through the door and into your hands? doesnt seem so likely to me. is someone like this not as worthy as the successful business man? i agree lonehaven, the true value of the teaching would, to me, be reflected in the heart/mind (i dont really like to separate these two more than i already do ), for some maybe that means they pay you, for others maybe they selflessly give what they were taught to others, etc. just because society has developed to a point where money is nearly an inextricable part of most peoples existence, doesnt make it the wonderful key to accessing teachings. i am glad that you are well off, darin, not everyone is as fortunate as you. lonehaven, damn only three fifty? thats cheap, ill bet a lot of women would do business with your love for that, maybe you should charge more like $500, to narrow the field to only "dedicated" lovers great discussion, chris

i guess this means that women have to get mass testosterone injections in order to "grow" their sagliness (aka beard). it now makes so much sense that so many religions consider men superior, it is the ability to become an outstanding sage (aka adept beard grower)

for a daoist work check out the liezi (wade-giles: lieh tzu). in my opinion this work is buddhist influenced as well

to me these practices seem insincere. i dont think "win friends and influence people" is a very good place to start from mentally. i think if we are sincere we will attract the kind of friends that appreciate sincerity. i think some of those are good guidelines (stigweards), like be a good listener or be sympathetic w/ others ideas and desires, however i believe if you are simply affecting these traits in order to "Win Friends and Influence People" you may not sincerely really care about being a good listener or being sympathetic, you are simply doing so for a precieved benefit to yourself. "...person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language" actually reminded me of some neighbors i had some years back. then i was really bad a remembering names, and while i hung out with the neighbors quite a bit, i would always forget their names. this seemed to bug a few of them, but one guy, who coincidentally never called me by my name didnt seem to care. i remember, then making an effort to learn their names and doing so and then one day calling, aaron i believe it was, by name and he says "please dont call me by my name, whenever i heard my name as a kid it was only when i was going to get in trouble" or something like that, so it made sense that he never called me by name and didnt care (or preferred) to not be called by name. this is a small pretty meaningless point at best, but in actual human interactions, ie not via forums, chatting, etc., if some is constantly saying chris this, chris that, hey chris, i feel like, man drop the formality already . as to mal's book, the initial six 'issues' seem to hit on some sociological pointes fairly well, but i dont agree with a lot of the solutions proposed. this one does seem to hit the nail on the head though, "If you don''t control yourself, someone else will" kind of like the idea of following yourself or following the societal standard of how one ought to act, think, etc. a lot of the other techniques, while probably more widely applicable, seem more geared towards leadership and management in a capitalistic sense. in my opinion, it seems that if you are really trying to help a person or even just be their friend, you shouldnt be trying to exert your influence over them, if anything you would want to help them exert influence over themselves, ie get in touch with their own nature. some of the points, especially in "win friends, etc.", seem pretty daoist on the surface, but we know what they say about appearances. i guess my main beef with them is that they both seem geared mainly to benefit the individual practicing them (and their outlook) rather than benefiting the whole (of the situation in which they would be applied). thank you both for bringing up these two, nearly diametrically opposed guidelines to behavior, they paint an interesting dichotomy. chris

hi pranaman, my question would be what are the mechanics of the punch in the art you perform? where do you begin from? are there any types of arm "torque" that go on? do you shift your weight into your punches?

i like what okakura kakuzo (a japanese guy) said in his book of tea. he basically said to have a complete [or at least better] understanding of either confucianism or daoism one should have at least some understanding of the other my personal thoughts are that while some of the things confucius did or tried to do were good things, i dont really agree with all the emphasis on propriety and filial piety

if you are still reading this easynow, i will attempt to send you a pm in a couple days, i realized that i had to churn through my experience and try to remember exactly what has actually helped and what i thought helped and separate, etc. more work than i thought but until then adj and trash have seemed to give some pretty good advice (perhaps better than i can give)

to follow this tangent, one of my favorite ranges here in good ol california is the trinity alps, breathtaking views of the whole valley panning out/feeding into the range from a large rock/dirt outcropping on an initial summit with a fresh waterfall behind, that you just hiked your ass up to get there

hello easynow, you are 2 years younger than myself and i must say it is quite interesting how parrallel some of our emotional and psychological blockages have seemed to develop. i had the same feelings of being unable to accept my masculinity/testosterone etc, and this partially stemmed from a negative relationship w/ a parent, in this case my mother (though in her defense, she is loving and well intended, though i think her personal emotional blockages having to do with males in her past were unintentionally projected on to myself). the same holds true w/ the porn thing, the drug thing, even the problems w/ sexual performance, though i have no physical problems there (completely an emotional block). some people will say that it could be attributeable to past lives, etc., while this may be true, i think in our current lives it is more important to focus on the root causes in this life as opposed to giving ourselves the potential "excuse" of the past live paradigm. i am at work and need to do somethings but when i get home i will attempt to write an in-depth of my experiences in hopes that they will be able to serve you in your current situation good name... easynow, like the state of mind you are hoping to achieve? chris

oh my mistake in your meaning of "I still can't believe someone claiming to teach mahamudra would actually say something that sounds like a teenager with no understanding would say." , i guess we're more on the same page then i thought

i enjoyed hua hu ching when i first read it (and still do) i initially was drawn to Brian Walker's because it said "the unknown teachings of lao tzu" from my narrow experience i would poist that it seems to have too much of a buddhist influence to be by lao tzu (and i read that somewhere too). i also understand that brian walker didnt actually translate it per se, he interpreted it from hua ching ni's translation "Although traditionally attributed to Laozi, most scholars believe it is a forgery because there are no historical references to the text until the early 4th century CE." from wikipedia however, even given the above factoids, i still found this text to be an interesting synthesis of daoism and buddhism. to me it seems to lean more towards the side of doing good and has some karmic ideas therein. if this discussion continues, i will reread (its been months) it. i would like to bring up these questions for discussion: what similarities do you find this book to have in common with the dao de jing or zhuangzi? what differences? if you buy what i said about buddhist influence, what do you see as examples of that in the text? or if you dont think that would you care to refute my position? does anyone seem some similarities btwn this text and The Liezi (especially given the fact that most scholars date them to nearly the same era)? chris edit: oops, by lazily glossing over mal's post i noticed he already mentioned the "forgery" potentiality, but i feel the same way about wisdom that you said, much the same has been said about the liezi, which is usually considered one of daoism's "primary" text

whats a cult but a religion that is unnaccepted by the masses, or a structure attempting to dupe its followers into following blindly, or both simtaneously? his own interpretations of the dharma... so who doesnt give that, oh thats right, the automaton that regurgitates the same exact thing that their teacher taught them in order to make sure the teaching is narrowly "authentic." to me it seems dharma teaching should be colored w/ the masters personal experience. i have seen a lot of what you speak of going on with the "oh this teacher is nice" thingy. i'll admit i find it a lolish type of snap judgement, but then this could be my own lolish snap judgement. it would be very silly to assert that all gurus are bad and corrupt, similar to the above judgement of hardly examining a teacher before exclaiming how wonderful they are the i net is a good tool, but i would hardly consider it an accurate depiction of who someone is and thus form a value judgement based on what could be extremely biased information. to me not listening to someone because they speak in a way you consider childish is on the same level as just immediately asserting that a teacher is nice or all gurus are bad w/out some real discernment. there are plenty of extremely eccentric masters that have been recorded about throughout history. for me, true teaching doesnt always come in an "authentic" package (though it can).

sorry to bring contention to this thread, and thank you stigweard for volunteering to do your own healing while donating the funds collected to sean for the forum, a definate win-win. if you feel $300 is pennies, perhaps you have never been poor/homeless. $300 is most certainly not pennies for a large portion of our population, for many it equates more than half of a single paycheck. that and the potential mouths to feed to boot, including one's own expenses of living, rent, bills, etc.; is $2000 a realistic price for someone who is in need of healing desparately yet is forced to live pay check to pay check because of their current circumstances? what of the mentally ill?, what of those w/ severe addictions? are not some of the individuals in some of the situations i just mentioned perhaps those the most in need of healing? or should healing be simply reserved for the elite, who happen to have hundreds to thousands to spend on various healings, that may or may not be proven to work? you are far from the jack rabbit jumping up and down that stig mentioned... (my own assumption based on your last phrase ) @ gossamer: i am glad that you have decided to allow stig to help ya out, and i agree with your discernment of the situation regarding MTS, now stig has decided to FREELY give you the healing he is able to perform, but like he said he can give you a "spark" and help with a bit of the footwork, but it is ultimately up to you to do the walking. if you are wondering just who the hell i am, we have had a small bit of interaction on dao is open forum.

good point, to give a cliche "daoist" response i will say that perhaps it is good to find a balance of the two

i wouldnt have posted if you hadnt asked these last questions, but i would like to answer you question with zhuangzi "by standing beside the river ho". it is curious how that kind of advice seems to be popular in this regard, when folks want to discuss something they are told to get a transmission or ask a teacher or something, what good does this do?

no thank you sir thank you! you made me realize an earlier post of mine, A Note on Extraneous growths was in fact part of your graceful system of 'Apologetics:the Manly art of Self-Defense'. you sir, have the 29 marks of an outstanding sage. for the 29 marks of the outstanding sage see my guide "The Fine Art of Sarcastic Upheavla", book 4, chapter 65, page 693 verses 20-40 i will let everyone know when i have written it. a big thanks to you sir! chris aka contrivedname! "There is this and then ther eis that"

this is a teaching of the daoists as well, hence avoid "fame and reputation"