Maddie

I didn't realize your tradition was Judaism, but that is interesting as I think I'm in a place to perhaps take a fresh look (after a long time of not doing so) at the Abrahamic traditions again and see what they have to offer beyond the surface. Is there a specific type of Judaic practice you are a lineage of?

Then why do you dismiss God out of hand? And what causes you to think there are any immortals then? What do you base this belief on?

Your skeptical about that immortal? But not other ones that there are no evidence for?

How so? Do explain? What is it about the path to immortality that would have such an affect?

I mean there's the most famous supposed immoral of all, God and not only does he not hide it he seems to want everyone to worship the fact. So I'd say yes, it would seem there are immortals that very much want to be known as such.

I can't really assume to know what anyone wants, but being general since there is a large segment of the population in general that seems to enjoy fame then I guess it's reasonable to assume a proportion of immortals (assuming such a thing even exists) would.

Ok what?

Yes, how is that relevant? A better question. Do you know of anything that is permanent?

If you look at outstanding figures they try to hide and usually can't fit long. Jesus kept telling people not to advertise what he did but did that work? No, he was constantly thronged by the masses. He would go off with his closest disciples for solice and the crowds would still find him. If someone never died that would be hard to hide forever.

Interesting point. Another take on that is that I've noticed the longer I work on this stuff the issues seem in general to come from earlier and earlier in my life.

In the past when asking the Western monks at the monastery near me for advice on this topic they just looked at me like I was nuts.

I'm not really sure how I missed this thread but just the title is so relevant to me. Like a lot of younger guys when I first started this path I wanted power. I basically thought it would be cool to be a real-life Jedi. So I begin some practices and oddly begin to notice that my emotional life is crap. Not that the practices made my emotional life go to crap, but caused me to realize that it was crap and I just didn't realize the extent. So I thought ok I'll real quick take care of these emotions and then get back to developing the ability to shoot lasers out of my eyes. Now over a decade later I'm still working on the emotions, developing powers now seems low, and base, and a waste of time. Additionally dealing with a few stray emotions that I thought of like a puddle became an ocean.

Oops I meant to say Muladhara. Anyways in most systems, I've read about one of the root chakras colors is black and can relate to fear but as you say the more positive side can be reason. The Kidney/water element's color can also be black and its emotion is also fear but its virtue is wisdom which is very similar to reason. Next on the chakra system is the sacral chakra or Svādhishthāna which is related to sensual pleasure. It being the second chakra is also quite low and the kidneys store the sexual energy. Moving up to the solar plexus chakra it is supposed to be about power. In the Chinese system, the next element in the generating sequence is wood which is the liver and it is also about power. It's called the general, and in the chakra system, the solar plexus is called the warrior. Next in line is the heart chakra and in the Chinese system the fire element which is also the heart.

Very interesting but I'd always heard that Manipūra the root chakra related to fear. I think it's interesting how it's color is said to be red but also sometimes black and it's the lowest and then the kidneys color and the water element in the Chinese system it said to be blue but sometimes black and it's emotion is fear. So is fear the place that we begin?

Once upon a time a began doing Qigong and thought that was Taoism and made me a Taoist. As time went by I began to realize that doing Qigong made me no more Taoist than doing Yoga makes one Hindu. When I began to wonder what Taoist things Taoists actually do, believe, practice ect.. I realized I wasn't really sure. For some background as a kid, I was raised somewhat of a nominal Protestant, but then in my young adult life (while in the military), I became involved in a very fundamentalist evangelical Christian church. This church had a right and wrong way to do and think about everything and I suppose being in the military I was just fine with this or perhaps even found this comfortable. I was male and young and liked the feeling of having all the answers and knowing everything about everything. A few years later though this same aspect became tedious and wearisome. I began to question what this church said against what the bible said and found that they didn't have the answers to everything, and were not always right so I left that particular church but still kept the mindset of evangelical Christianity taking a rather literalist approach to the bible. A few more years later while in college and beginning to learn enough to destroy my illusions of knowing everything I then began to doubt the literalist understanding of the bible that I had had and left Christianity altogether. For a few years I didn't really know what to think or believe and became quite depressed and stuck in a bad relationship. It was during this time period that I came became friends with an herbalist that began to show me natural ways to deal with depression. Due to the effectiveness of herbal remedies, I became interested in other natural methods of health and wellness. I began to collect books on the topic and this led me to discover Qigong. I found it fascinating that techniques that only involved one's own body and no external substances at all one could feel better. Naturally learning about Qigong led me to learn about the Taoism that it came from. It was at this point that I just assumed that I was a Taoist. Fast forward a few more years and once I was in acupuncture school I began to run into Asians that were Taoist and when they began to tell me how Taoism was practiced where they came from I realized I didn't have a clue as to what Taoism was. I did learn that doing Qigong was not synonymous with Taoism though. Once I realized there was much more to Taoism than doing Qigong I realized I did not know what Taoism was, what they believed, or what the goal was. Being a former military and fundamentalist type guy I guess I liked structure and answers so this eventually led me to Buddhism which to me seemed to have very well-defined explanations, goals, and guidelines. One would think this would be the end of the story then, but since I do practice TCM for a living, and TCM is built partially upon a foundation of Taoism, and since TCM is very effective this makes it difficult for me to just drop the topic altogether. So I keep coming back to the question I still have been unable to answer. What is Taoism, how does one practice it, and what is the goal?

That's a nice one that I have dabbled with in the past. I like the simplicity of it.

Sounds very similar to Buddhism. What is daogong?

Which Qigong sets do you do? Lol the way you suddenly and randomly end with the gourd totally reminds me of the end of the book of Jonah where there's a gourd and then the book just suddenly ends LOL.

Then may I ask how you Tao specifically? At least as much as you feel comfortable sharing that is?

I had a feeling someone was going to say that lol.

I very strongly agree with this statement. If you add energy to an imbalance you just make the imbalance stronger.

I guess that depends on how you look at it. One of the major factors in the current environmental state of the world is run by greed. Greed for the profits that can be made off of the resources of the planet without consideration of how this will affect the planet and those that live on the planet, so also a lack of compassion and empathy. Greed, compassion, and empathy are all things that can be considered spiritual issues.

I'm curious. Do you mean immortality in the physical literal sense? Or is this some kind of metaphorical definition?

Something I have noticed for a long time but haven't said anything about yet is the gender divide in this forum, but also in spirituality in general. It seems that the majority of the "Dao Bums" are male, and most (most not all) of the videos on youtube about Buddhism, and Taoism are made by males. On the other hand most of the videos I see on youtube about witchcraft, paganism, and wicca are female. I wonder why that is. Please keep all comments respectful and kind though as the motive here to to truly understand and not start an internet flame war.

That is certainly your prerogative.