trailmaker

when i was in as a line medic, there was no work would rather have been doing. had several years of taoist focus and special forces medical training back then. the latter was invaluable at times, and at other times, counseling, that focus was equally strong medicine. remember a couple of multi-denominational chaplains that were real good to drink beer with and talk comparative religion. airborne chaplains - surreal. best of wishes in the ranks of military clergy. noble service.

hello mokona - pretty coherent 'mess' - welcome.

nutrition - medicine - education, for the highest good.

finest kind hobby for sure - welcome. hats off to sino-linguistic endeavor. major undertaking for any westerner.

ever read jack kerouac's 'Dharma Bums'? good stuff. i read that and his other works at a young age; those reads had huge impact. 'taobums' sounded great to me right away.

hi apepch7 - we were down to the wire with that one. it's busy up there satellites spinning soundless but wait what's that noise?

sky rockets in flight joyous in celebration lifting high my cup

glad you're here - mighty refreshing talking with and listening to taoists, for sure. welcome.

hello LoneHaven - welcome. like your question - what's your take on 'the will'?

belated welcome spiral trance - began contemplating tao way back then living in nottingham, nh, usa. always wanted to see nottingham, uk. irrelevant perhaps but hello, anyway.

i used to teach high school, and all of the above fits right into the application of method that a teacher must get good at if one is to have success (and fun).

waves wash over me carminative cleansing rain transcending the mire

waves wash over me unseeing but receptive when to surrender?

no time without change...welcome!

facial tissue is loaded with receptors. which activate something. maybe inner smiles?

nice way to go off to a good read. neat intro.

waves wash over me the wind then brings only tao along the way, peace

generally, does not christian upbringing, as with any formal religion, require continual sorting out of knowledge, belief, and faith? that internal dialog is sufficient for many. the excellent simplicity of 'fundamental' taoism is certainly to be found within those sets of constructs, however obscured it has become by the schisms of interpretation. i am confident that at this site you will find the clarity you seek. sometimes 'learning' goes hand in hand with 'unlearning'. and so, welcome.

hello jack - am sure you will find this a safe place. quite a remarkable 'sanctuary', in fact. there are many here much more advanced in formal study than i, and responding to questions/problems with taoist wisdom very much the order of the day. plenty of humor, too. seems like the thing to do, as carsonzi suggested, is to make familiar, more specifically, your taoist background/practices/methods for coping that forwhatever reasons aren't working now. once found, solutions are amazingly simple. everyone needs help finding them sometimes. not easy to tough it out alone. welcome.

vortex et al - having dowsed for water many years (12 out of 12 wells have come in as 'felt' at the time), and there's always a feeling of the 'qi' being 'topped off', as stigweard said, when process concluded. my take on that feeling has always been that it seems like a recharge which varies in intensity, perhaps depending on the level of one's 'gauges' on initiating the process. bit of an aside, but seems in there.

hello sebastjan - welcome. have you formalized the practice in any way? i.e., is wu wei implicit in the term?

"convention is the safeguard of society and also its potential executioner." don't remember who said this, but its easy to think of extensions of these metaphors in terms of taoist paradigms, and certainly explicit in your essay.

yes, always did prefer 'specialist' to 'expert'.

right on - central and correct.