hod

Didn't know if this belonged in the Hindu forum or here, so I just put it here to be safe.

Floating through meditation is something you hear about in India, but I feel like you don't hear about it much in China. Does anyone know of any references to floating in Daoist mythology or folklore? If not, I am curious about what "outward" effects are referenced in regards to high levels of meditation refinement (I'm NOT so curious about what modern science can prove, but more of what exists in the mythology and folklore of Daoism). For this sort of stuff I usually reference all the Eva Wong books with folklore stories, but I'm not finding much in there about floating. And before anyone asks, I am in no way claiming I floated. I am just curious about filling the holes in my knowledge of Daoist mythology.

Was it someone from a Chinese / Daoist background doing it (as opposed to a India / Yoga background)?

I don't want to cough *hoax* but there are a lot of signs pointing to it here. Unverifiable findings and wild agenda pushing speculation - just saying.

So what the heck is going on in that video? How long was that guy supposed to have been there and who is he?

I will start with a question: Is there a girl in your life who you want to do it with, or is this a hypothetical problem for when there is a girl in your life? If the answer is that there no girl yet, then that is your big problem. Find the girl and the place for sex will come. If there already is a girl and you two just can't find a place to be alone, then this problem is not so big. Almost everyone I know has had sex in their parents house while their parnets are home or at girl's houses while their parents are home. It's no deal, just lock the door. If you can't bring yourself to doing it with parents around, tell them to go out for a dinner and a movie. Tell you parents you want to invite a girl over and cook her a dinner and you don't want them around - they will leave if you care about you.

Bliss is like a relationship / marriage. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes not so much; but you just continue to work at it and never give it up.

You just go to the youtube page for the video you want, copy and past the link in the the browser address bar. Then just paste that into your response and it should show up automatically (honestly, I was just going to paste a link, but the whole video showed up ).

Don't know if you know, but Donovan covers the song on his HMS Donovan album. A link to the song on YouTube:

I apologize for addressing the OP after all this great conversation - but driving the other day I had a good analogy pop into my head about the workings of wuwei. Say you are driving on a small side street that intersects a large busy street. You want to turn right onto this busy street, but there are no major gaps in traffic or traffic lights nearby that will create a major gap in traffic. To take the right turn onto the busy street, you will have to fit your car into one of the small gaps between cars in the closest lane. If by taking your right turn onto the busy street, you cause any of the cars already on it to slow down or have to switch lanes to avoid hitting you, then you have NOT acted with wuwei. But if you can merge onto that busy street without causing any of the cars to slow down, change lanes or even notice you turning onto their street, you have acted WITH wuwei. Why this analogy stuck out to me is that fact that making that right turn is taking action. Waiting at the turn forever without acting is what the OP was afraid of, but wuwei isn't telling you to not take the turn. What it's saying is, take the turn, just don't mess with the flow of traffic. Now you may return to the conversation at hand.

It does seem like a lot of people misinterpret wuwei as doing nothing. But really it seems to be what Marblehead said. Another way I've heard it put is doing things without desires or ego attached to it. This just means to be aware of the reasons you are doing things; and if the reason has to do with desires, ego or negative emotions, then it's probabably not something you should do. Daosim is not Buddhism, Daoist don't denounce actions and the world, they just just try to understand it and live in harmony with it - which involves doing a lot of things actaully. A Daoist day is a full day - not boring at all.

I was flipping through one of Eva Wang's book this morning and read the chapter on King Wen. It was interesting that she said the form of divination he invented involved having six sticks in a bag (three with yin carved on them and three with yang). He would put the six sticks in a bag and then draw them. If he pulled out more yin sticks, the first line would be yin, and vice versus for yang. I had never heard of this method, but just goes to show, there are many methods out there. The important part if finding one that you like.

I'd say I already focus on doing 1 and 3 everyday. But the 'surrendering of fear' part of 2 sounds like a good thing to add to my daily personal development. I'll give it a go.

The first gua is your current situation and the changing line in it is where you are in that situation. The second gua is the advice.

Sorry, forgot to mention I don't know any online resources for the diving procedure. I just consult the many boosk I have. The easiest to explain here is the coin method. Toss three coins six times to get each of the six lines. Below is the chart to know what lline you have thrown with each toss of three coins. Heads + Heads + Heads = Changing Yang -o- Heads + Heads + Tails = Yin - - Heads + Tails + Tails = Yang __ Tails + Tails + Tails = Changing Yin -x- All changing lines are changed into the opposite line. The gua with changing lines is your first gua, the one with the changing lines switched to opposites is your final gua. That is really basic, but the procedure. Taoist Master Alfred Huang's book as the best explanation of the many divining process.

Thomas Cleary's book goes into the Divination process the least of most books on the Yijing. Most of the other talk about two or three ways of diving - always the coin and yarrow method, and then some other ones. A quick history of the methods of divining from what I have read is below. The earliest form of divination off the book was using turtle shells. They would drill a few holes in the shell and then heat it up until it cracked. Then read the cracks to determine the gua. The next known practice was the use of yarrow or other types of sticks to divine the gua. There are stories from the Zhou Dynasty of priest preforming the divination this way infront of large crowds with five foot long yarrow sticks. The coin method seems to be the newest. In some books they talk about once you have mastered the Yijing, that you do not need to preform the divination anymore because the gua just comes to you that solves your problem - but this is always mentioned in the context of someone who has studied the book for years and has truely mastered it.

There are plenty of books out there to saying Jesus and Buddha were the same person. I feel there is a tendency in Buddhism to want to tie things up in a nice neat box, but that's usually not the way of the world. If you believe in collective consciousness, then of course similiar ideas are going to spring up in different places around the same time. I for one have no idea, but there is always food for though.

I'm fairly unfamiliar with the work of Zhuangzi but want to start studying them. I'm looking for a book that has most - if not all - of his work, and a good translation of it*. *Since there are many different preferences when it comes to translations, I will just say that I don't mind translators that deviate from the exact wording to make it more understandable for a western audience(iI.e. I don't mind Alan Watts or Deng Ming-Dao type translations). I was just curious what were some of your favorite translations?

Thanks Marble. I will have to check all those out. You have given me much to go through without leaving the inter-webs.

I'm looking to pick up Edward Shaughnessy's translation of the pre King When version of the yijing found in a tomb near Mawangdui. Here is the question though. He has two books on it. The first one is just called I Ching (Classics of Ancient China). It's description says that it is a translation of the yijing found at Mawangdui. This is what I want, but his second book Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the Yi Jing and Related Texts, says it also has the translated yiching as well as other texts. I would like to get the Second book, since it seems to have more. But my fear is that it's yijing translation might be trimmed down to fit it in this book with all the other stuff. So what I am hoping is that someone on this site has seen both of them and can tell me that the book titled Unearthing the Changes has the same amount of content on the yijing as the one just titled I Ching. Thank you in advance for any help.

Ah, it's only a little bit of it though. At least I can check out the table of contents to get an idea of what it's got. Thanks again Apech.

Oh snap. Thanks Apech. Didn't even know that was there.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

You best bet for info might be in some books that deal with religious Daoism. One of the best, in my opion, on the subject of religious Daosim is Taoist Master Chaung by M. Saso. It can be hard to find, but very much answers the questions in your original post. Another good one is The Monastery of Jade Mountain by Peter Goullart. Not so much about reilgious Daoism, but gives a great insight into Religious Daosim in China between WWI and WWII.

Realized that enjoying it was the purpose.