zerostao

that may have been the best version of house of the rising sun i ever heard. i do like the ones where they play the words of amazing grace to the tune of the house of the rising sun..... somehow i think ralis dont like country music too much i did see al dimeola in the 80's..... yes, jimmy rogers is music royalty, looks for the emoticon with the crown.... so how about alternative country? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7eHZxJA-WM (( 129 views!!! on youtube )) this one kinda sums up my mood this morning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAXnEI6-4ag and i found this comment below it op Comments * The 90s manifested the unfinished anger of the 60s in the most ineffectual fashion possible. It was an era of impotent rage at the powers that be. We all still dream of a better day, made by the people lifting each other up with our own hands instead of being crushed by the mighty. They expend all of their energy making sure that day never comes for us. Better days are coming my friends, and they are born from waste, excess and consumption taken so far we all hurt. anyways,,,

manitou, thanks for such a great presentation and commentary.(and insight) for me , it is a reminder of how cool a forum TTB is.

steve f , i am trying to find a thread to participate in here lately i agree with what you are saying and an example i can give is, and it may or may not be used in tai chi chuan. but i bet it is. i call it the tree exercise where i stand rooted in front of a tree , i place my palm on a tree and try to bring the energy up from my feet into my hands to push the tree off its spot. of course this never happens. but i do learn how to bring the energy up by doing this and not by reading it in a book. i could have never learned proper palm changes except by many many repitions.(in my baguazhang) it would be hard just from a book to realize how to emit qi or fa jin. etc etc i also find value in reading the books and hearing others ideas. and i think there is a yin yang for taichi like there is 5 elements for xingyi and 8 trigrams for bagua but learning it thru experience is the way. i do have a wing chun question , steve f, as i have seen you mention you have experience with it and with xingyiquan as well. in wing chun, is there a fa jin, and if so is it like the xingyi version? edit> i had of i needed or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-Xl17B-Z0A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHRU45U4bD4&feature=related wonders if that onion has been peeled to the inner layers yet?? and i kinda got confused as a member insisted another member be banned and then that member immediately insulted another member. how does that work? i think there were at least 2 members who pulled this one off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J_CmSi6CVI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXqFFfVpnhQ a change of pace (almost) a canadian man goes from sweet to screwed up, how does this happen?

i may get 1000 posts here , the rate things are going no worries american man admits to a long day of improbable and grotesque mischief while on vacation

ok just checked up top, so rolling out some more goldie oldens from nashville http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP13uJ1rYQg edit>> ok, maybe there is a screwed up american man here but it is a nice cover non-the -less

that song kinda reminds me of the amboy dukes playing To the center of the mind? sasafras tea is a personal favorite of mine. talk of american screwed up men in taoist discussion. has me thinking of GOB (good ol' boys) most likely i will keep posting here as a vigil to the screwed up threads. might be a ton of country songs to come. there needs to be an emoticon with a cowboy hat and pick up truck edit>> another screwed up american man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zY_cM0_6vA how many?

i like cats i am thinking of "songifying" all my posts to TTB from now on

tai chi chuan imo would work. even if i have no interest in the "quickest or easyest" (do you use spell check, i myself do but i usually let the mis-spelled word stand ) even if i have no interest in the "quickest or easyest way" i much prefer the slow-slow path. tai chi chuan imo would be in the slow category for me, i play the baguazhang and i hope the path winds along very very slow whatever physical practice you play you also need meditation, kinda like a yin/yang idea. so in other words tai chi chuan is a great choice if you play it to the deep levels but you will still need meditation to compliment it. .......wonders if dzogchen has a baguazhang component? imo i also feel martial arts are overlooked as being a good way to enlightenment.

jing to qi to shen and from shen to qi to jing, i left out shu , as i am not much of an expert either. but i am sure can go from shen back to jing http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/equilibria/introduction.html#top long ago i started experimenting by leaving "faith" out of the equation to try and come up with systems or process' that are "function" based. whether i have faith or not, the function of the system works or not on its own accord. there is the idea that faith alone can make something happen and much evidence to this. it does not matter in what you have your faith in, it is having a faith that makes the thing work. i also remind everyone we are now in 2011. in the 1990's scientists have already discovered , that by using the mind alone, one can heal oneself or one can make oneself ill. one can lose weight by using the mind alone one can build muscle by using mind alone etc etc (old news) -K- i like the idea of try, fail, try again. i am big promoter of trial and error rather than scientific method. and to clarify a bit. i do see usefulness in scientific method. i am thinking about condensed milk and maybe will acquire some for further insight. quantum philosophy like it or not , is the big deal real science of today, and has been the last century. just for fun and a bit off topic , as i always like to plug my friend http://creation.com/quantum-leap-of-faith and to get back on topic (almost)(on or about 30 months ago) when i was about to grasp for my last dying breath, it was not any faith, or any desire to keep living, i had no thoughts about tao or taoists or buddha, jesus or anything , i was accepting death but a taoist spirit did come visit and heal me and put me on this path i am currently on. i usually try to stay silent about this but it was/is a very real event. edit>>

yesterday i experienced spontaneous instant laughter . i was alone when it happened. i have experienced it before , but always in the company of at least one other person. i looked at yahoo answers and found: It's a very serious condition called "gigglepuss-itis" and tends to exacerbate during times of individualized hormonal upheaval and transient premature self-actualizations among the most exquisitely intelligent of a species. Some Zen monks believe that this affliction, "gigglepuss-itis" is and shall be wholly responsible for catching and drawing the attention of extraterrestrial intelligent life to this planet someday. and: This happens to me sometimes too! Yesterday actually, I just kept laughing and my boyfriend looked at me weird and told me I was freaking him out. Haha I don't know why this happens, but I personally think it's amusing! Now a days everything is considered a disorder, it's so ridiculous. So we like to laugh? So what! and: You need to see a doctor about this. then i found this and apparently it is a proof of non-duality so , i am very interested to hear the buddhist view about this, the neo-confucian view, taoist view, zen view (even if we already have a zen thought on this gigglepuss-itis)nilhist view, etc do any bums have any spontaneous laughter moments they care to share and/or reflect on?

that video is great the translation of the prerequisites is sufficient to the level that i award a wave(or) to ms -K- that she does not ever need to concern herself with such formalities as having to actually having to remember any(cough cough) and she is free to explore the free plasma dragon course from mit, and any others she may be interested in without regard to previous whatevers. no one will enforce such things, i told them to look the other way. my own youth being (mis)spent as it was , i find this current world of education more to my liking. i am still free to laze around , do some baguazhang, at if i feel like it , and at my leisure i can check in on the latest cutting edge free exchange of ideas at cool places like mit , stanford, cambridge etc but cambridge (as much as i love them) does not give free plasma dragon lessons, they are a bit pricey in the 4th state of matter info. luckily i haver some first hand welding experience and i learned a bit of math playing poker. so, count me in for plasma dragon class at mit and i can still do the mirror symmetry thing. or was that on another thread? doesn't really matter. same with the prerequisites. anyways i think the rest of my day here is best used waving hands like clouds. yeah, wave hands like clouds is as cool as listening to pulsars

it is the "force" that sustains the universe

introductory class about plasma dragon it is even FREE http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-611j-introduction-to-plasma-physics-i-fall-2003/

would be great if there was/is

i do like the chinese brush art idk if it is taoist or buddhist ?? but the use of color with the brush strokes either on silk or paper (old chinese paper) cool stuff.

steve f , keep practicing for sure, and if you need a magic plant that would help with that let me know (on the DL ) i also liked Otis' post and his sharing experience. we do alot of barefoot hiking in kentucky and in the south in general. in florida i went a year without shoes( i had a bit of a hippie gf at the time ) ((and i agree with those who point out that when talking to someone who has never experienced for themself what it is you are trying to describe it is rather challenging and use of metaphor , or what one would think is metaphor can be somewhat useful but still manages to come up short)) idk, maybe 3 years ago? me and a friend were watching the Veria channel and there was this Kurt Johnson yoga show, in the early episodes Kurt had a move he called "float back" and it certainly appeared that he was floating back. after a few shows Kurt changed the move and name to "step back" and it looked like he was merely stepping back and no longer floating. i have been a little curious about this. did someone tell him that he shouldnt be floating on tv? censorship sucks edit> link for veria and kurt http://www.veria.com/yoga-for-life.html

well, if what comes from tao returns to tao...and if our origin is from the dirt,dust,mud, clay etc and our final resting place is usually back into the dirt,dust,mud, clay etc nevermind

and the secret life of jon tran http://jonnytran.tumblr.com/post/69315495/dragon-by-m-c-escher is this a zen dragon? ed> why is the tail going thru the body and the head thru the wing??

the I Ching embraces the various situations of life and their essential meanings. it allows us to shape our life meaningfully. it allows us to be equal in every situation. if we accept its meaning without resistence we can attain peace of soul. when we meditate upon its judgements we can intuitively perceive the inter-relationships in our world. the ancient sages gave us a way to put ourselves in accord with tao and its power and in conformity of what is right. by exploring nature to its deepest core, one can come to an understanding of fate. apart from being an oracle( one that is accurate) the I Ching serves to further intuitive understanding of conditions in our world. it penetrates to the depths of nature and spirit. the I Ching is in harmony with tao and its power(natural and moral law) so becoz of this it can lay down the rules for what is right for each person. when i first started posting here i never ever capitalized any words to include i or lao tzu etc but i ALWAYS capitalized the I Ching.