zerostao

most excellent post Encephalon.

the culture is easily grown from an unflavored raw organic kombucha drink. i have heard it called a "russian mushroom!" if i am not mistaken but it is not a mushroom at all. basically you just add some black tea or green tea , or both and some sugar. http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/kombucha.html http://www.ehow.com/how_5028687_make-homemade-kombucha.html i learned of this while watching a show on the VERIA channel. i am sure on their website the directions are archived. i have notes somewheres lol

i will PM you Ms. -K- on how to make your own. give me a day or 2.

when the book listed above it Sun Lu Tang's treatise on xingyi boxing comes back into print. some one let a bum know!!

tinctures seem to be highly effective. they have some new non -alcohol (so called) "tinctures" out now, that i havnt tried. a non alcoholic kombucha probably wouldnt work so well? alcohol is medicine. ancient medicine. can it be over done? of course. a shot or 2 of herbs in alcohol base each day. nothing wrong with it at all.

that dude sure must have resin'd up his bow, here is ol george just tellin it "straight" "to hell with the red wine" let the holidays begin, Yo rudolf

true dat! hi R_V, happy holidays!

i drink a bit of white tea. usually i just throw in whatever herbs and or teas i have on hand and mix them up together. water is so boring? no no no!! i think one of the main keys to having really great tea or coffee is having really great water. edit> but it is really about transformation, hmmm

another fairy tale? i hope it has dragons! i always enjoy steve's and Sloppy Zhang's posts and insights too. all bums really. i do have troubles expressing what i wish to convey while i was speaking threory, i was feeling,,, feeling. we feel our internal taijiquan? yes? no? we feel our external taijiquan too? we flow? steve, thank you for dis-agreeing with me. sticking, sticking, sticking yes. reading your post i do not dis-agree with it at all. Bagua seminar?! wow, great stuff there. i am willing to hitch-hike, hop a train, steele a car to get to such things as that. 8th palm change. i got stuck and frustrated at 6th it is the frustration i cannot live without.

the OP mentioning of zhang sanfeng and taijiquan has me thinking this is about origins of taijiquan. the Op stating taijiquan as a Taoist art has me pointing to the relations and meanings of taiji in taijiquan. imo this can not be properly addresed with a couple of posts. i am taking the position that taijiquan originates from taoist family with the goal of ultimately reaching enlightenment. and in so doing achieves the TAO of unification between human and heaven. i saw this very recently on another thread only they said uniting human qi with heaven qi, and i fully agree with that. anyways.. the final goal of practicing taijiquan is not to be the grandpa badass (to borrow from another thread) but rather to reach a unified harmony with wuji. the wuji of the human and with heaven. and by practicing taijiquan we come to understand/comprehend the meaning of the universe and the meaning of human life. the truth, the tao, the true tao. in the meanwhile , i dont think there is anything wrong with being a grandpa badass, just saying. it is a challenge to express feeling and sensitivity , spirit and awareness, things of taiji, taijiquan, tao in black and white words that someone reads on their monitor. Joeblast, Trunk, Taomeow , starjumper7, and others here do it alot more effectively than i do. edit> i posted this b4 i saw Taomeow's latest addition to this thread. wow that is a good one .and i wanted to add this thought , i try to think of my mind as being the taiji in the taijiquan.

+1 SZ. i have to go to class now %^&*!!! i will edit this laterz.

excellent post SZ. and how quickly you pointed out my link from Wang Zong Yue to Zhang Sanfeng! in fact i have never claimed to have met Wang Zong Yue or Zhang Sanfeng in person even if i do reckon they are lurking about. so many taoist legends , do you reckon any of them really ever existed? Lao Tzu, Yellow Emperor, Fu Xi. also the un-named taoist hermits who went about teaching Baguazhang to people that we can say in fact did exist. Does Lu dongbin exist? did he ever? Sun Tzu? did the shaolin da mo ever really exist? If they never existed it is curious that these knowledges , arts, philosophies, great gifts to humanity do exist? where do they come from? ah, from folks who never existed?

in Kenneth Cohen's book Way of Qigong he strongly suggests that DHEA is jing. in Dr. Yang Jwing- Ming's book Taijiquan Theory he hints at it.

i thought about posting this one in the "entry level taoist" thread. a lot of great points being made there. and it could be most useful for an entry level taoist as the terms wuji, taiji, yin yang, 5 elements, 4 phases, 8 trigrams, emptiness jin,qi, shen,etc could all be adressed. in this thread i can also say welcome back to Stigweard welcome back matey!! hope all is well in your neck of the tao?! so, without knowing the theories of the above terms i have mentioned(plus others) and without knowing the theory of Tao, one's taijiquan practice would be limited to the external form and movements and thus one would have lost the real meaning of practicing taijiquan. such a waste that would be. sure external taijiquan is still a healthy exercise but it is much much more. as Taomeow has mentioned recently, a post , a thread is a very limited space to address these deep theories. Taijiquan has its origins in the I Ching and The Tao Te Ching, its origins are Taoist. not only does the limits of a post or a thread but even of time itself restrain what some of us on this forum would greatly enjoy to share. i will share this from Wang Zong-Yue a taijiquan master from shanxi province during the qing qian long period. "What is taiji? It is generated from Wuji, and is a pivotal function of movement and stillness. It is the mother of Yin and Yang. When it moves it divides. at rest it reUNITES. from this it is known that Taiji is not Wuji, and it is not yin and Yang. Instead as inclination of the natural pivotal function which makes wuji derive into Yin and Yang also makes the Yin and Yang reUNITE into the state of Wuji. this natural pivotal function of movement and stillness is called the "TAO" or the rule of the great nature." and from Zhou Wen Wang (who was the first ruler of the zhou dynasty, some 3000 years ago) who points out as he wrote an interpretation for The Book of Changes, that becoz of the existence of taiji(grand Ultimate) there are changes in the universe. taiji is an invisable force which makes the wuji divide into 2 polarities and also from 2 polarities return back to wuji state. what is taiji? it is the tao.

cool, so i reckon we dont need a specific thread debating if tai chi is of taoist origin. i love it when Taomeow shares/gives her opinion. Tai Chi Is THE Taoist art. ( i am about to start a new thread however about baguazhang (which is also very very taoist) but it being from shaman origins. some could say taoist came from proto-taoist which came from shamans, sages. so lets save our comments about that for that other thread. ok, enuff of my quasi ranting borderline derailing except for this @Harmonious Emptiness, i woulda gave you a +3 for suggesting The I Ching!! but then you went and dissed JUNG so - 3 for that one. again i see(insist) other threads Muqtada, thanks for your thread (leading to new threads!!) and all the best luck with the Taoist Journey!!!!!!!! Muqtada, you did get alot of great suggestions here. Welcome to the Tao Bums. you bum you.

"*nods quietly to self* " quietude... so, i reckon quietude leads to a different flavor of thought(s). didn't ancient taoists teach that in the contemplation in quietude lead to the hidden recesses of hidden creativity? and that from that realm beauty becomes manifest to the objective world? higher level self-cultivation gives absolute freedom and serenity allowing for natural reflection? and without preconceived notions and distortions? so, we should take full responsibilty for our meditations.

fun stuff congrats to medhavi, tactile ,and jaysahnztao. thanks to ya mu for the contest. isn't it just great to be a tao bum?!

well yeah 108 is a good #, i won with that in april at a cash party. so let me reverse it 801, yeppers 801. and i will second steve's appreciation for the chance.

i know i will smashing a few pumpkins tonite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJOGq5XTojo

looking forward to lesson 6,740 as well. hmm taking full responsibility for each and every thought? even if i dont hold onto that thought or dwell on it or act on it? hmmm every non action is an action is what my ol' dad told me. dammit Marbles , you go deep sometimes. i will ponder further.

last week , i rode down to Atlanta with a couple of friends to meet up with some potential BGZ players. many of you bums already know , i live out in the boondocks, nature , a sprawling metropolis of 2,000 folks. yes, that is not a typo. two thousand. anyways , i was in the back of a camry. i had been up since 7 am and tonya also been up since like 6 am. my good kung fu bro, mike, actually managed to find time for a 6 hour nap. so mike drove from southern kentucky all the way thru tennessee. which isnt very far ... and he explained that he couldnt stay awake any longer. as soon as he crossed into georgia, tonya began to drive. i am used to having the road to myself up there in the hills and as long as the vehicle is kept between the ditches everything usually goes well. well, the closer we got to atlanta, this keeping it between the ditches idea was becoming quite the experience , drifting from one lane into another. some vehicles, some semi trucks blowing their horns, that sorta thing going on., i was like tonya, are you alright? tonya are you awake? TONYA , PLEASE PULL over and let me drive!!! so mike is completely knocked out , his head bobbing up a little as tonya drove over the part of the road that makes loud noises when one does that. for a good half a mile she was perfectly straddled the white line that divides the lanes. really much safer for that time as no one could pass and we were not too close to any vehicles in any lanes. so somehow we made it into atlanta , tonya pulls off an exit ramp , mike wakes up as we are closing in fast on a parked vehicle. he yells. Tonya!! dont hit that #$%^&* truck!!. i was like, chill out man that wasnt even a close call the 6 inches away from a 53' tractor trailer the 6 inches from broadswiping a concrete wall, those were closer calls. ANYWAys. all went really really good in atlanta. 3 day workshop, mid november!! dang they threw us "road money " and treated us to some great southern hospitality. we all LAUGHED all the way back to kentucky. and we are still grinning ..heheheheh so any bums in atlanta area? hit me up.a spot or 2 (at the most)remains open. one thing we will go over is the bagua iron shirt, here is a famous tai chi teacher doing her version of iron shirt. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=4HdqtIsf-dI

yeah i really like this one joeblast. i am a companion of owls for which i was semi -attacked over by a fellow bum anyways, other birds, hmmm are penguins birds? really i think penguins are just penguins. sadly, some resort to a life of crime and cheat their comrades.

on my kombucha bottle i found this "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

gooooooood evening http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB0wLR8CiUg&feature=related disco dracula my life, my job,my curse is to vanquish EVEL

yeah, he gave a quick lesson is taiji, bagua, wing chun/xingyi and whipping strikes and more in under 15 minutes good stuff