devoid

Perhaps - as discussed the interpretation is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. From a social interaction point of view it is anything but charades - it is tools of communication. From an enlightenment point of view I agree that it really doesn't matter so much, but to everybody who does not happen to be in the state of wuwei a complement will provide a reaction in their emotions. Thus, I disagree entirely that a complement is an empty gesture. Now, before you complement yourself for being detached about it, please consider that you are probably not as detached about complements as you may like to think - why? because if you were, it probably wouldn't have gotten so much attention as to start a thread about it?

Hi Friends, I am sure many of you are familiar with the idea from taoist alchemy of a spiritual embryo which one grows and nurtures. Try to imagine this would one day come true / work out for you and it turned out that it had a personality of its own. What would you do about it? Would you set it free like one sets ones children free (as their own agents) or would you do something else? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas!

My health was in rapid decline and after a while I grew impatient with the single-minded approach of my doctors trained in western medicine. Acupuncture was an alternative I tried that led me to the theory of energy meridians. Qigong was the natural next step, shortly followed by internal martial arts. As I read about the tao for the first time, my earliest childhood intuition suddenly had a name.

Hi Hardyg, I can think of some other reasons for passing a complement: Empathy (either as an act, a display, or both) To help boost the spirits / mood of the person whom one is passing the complement to In other words, a complement can well come out of completely selfless acts and concern. As with most things in life, they can also be used as tools of manipulation. I also wanted to add something about cultural patterns in acceptance of complements as there are great differences dependent on the cultural context. As I can see you have already begun contemplating that ultimately it is up to the eye of the beholder. I don't disagree with this, but cultural contact has a greater impact in my opinion: To illustrate it, I would like to explain how complements are used in a typical business context in China: Complements are seen as a face giving opportunity and given the right circumstances it would be a vice not to use the opportunity to pass a complement. The receiver on the other hand is expected to act slightly apologetic about it and is expected to try to give the impression that the words of complement are much too kind and exaggerated.

Hi manitou, Thanks for your encouragement to join into the discussion. I decided to give it a go although I must tell you up-front I consider myself no scholar in the Tao Teh Ching, thus please forgive me for approaching it clumsily. I think it is great that Marblehead kicked off with the various variants through the different translations. Reading through all gives one multiple insights into the same. Just like the tao can never be explained fully (either too this or too that, yet sometimes quite the opposite) so too goes it with translation. I think the conclusion to each translation is the real deal here. It speaks to us just like Descartes when he realized Je pense donc je suis / Cogito ergo sum / I think therefore I am. Chapter 21 tells us that because of us contemplating chapter 21 and pondering on the tao, it is.

Hi Friends, Thanks for your posts. Hi pennyofheaven, So, I guess you're suggesting that by "teaming up" with it as a kind of spirit runner one could use it for gaining insights, right? Also, I am not quite sure about what you mean with transitioned here - perhaps I could ask you to elaborate a bit on that? Hi Rainbow_Vein, Yes, I think you are onto something related to nurturing. I am just not quite sure what that might entail. Also, assuming the spirit embryo can align closer with the tao, as you suggest (yet as its own individual being) then how do you think the practitioner might be able to benefit from this?

Hi Michael, I consider myself a travelling taoist because the idea of the tao appeals to my intuition and because a travelling taoist IMHO is free enough to decide what to place value on and what not. As such, I will consider any ideas and explore, modify or discard them as I see fit. Now, this said, I am not against following a well-defined and tested path. I am pretty sure I did that previously: lived ascetically and at the end of it, I decided that next time around I would want to experiment some more to try better to understand life as a human as well as what cannot be explained. I thrive with it and in doing so I keep learning, experiencing and gaining more insight. Thus, to me enlightenment as such has become more of a path than a destination this time around.

Hi Humbleone, I am afraid you can only really turn to yourself for the proper interpretation of your own visions - what you see gives you clues, but after all, they come to you from your own mind... Many people report associating feelings of traveling at high speed with switching into different frequencies / dimensions - let's just call it other mental states. If the snake seems too dangerous try to replace it with something else - Einstein's lightening speed train, for example (Don't despair if this doesn't work straight away) Remember to ground yourself properly and maintain the taoist safety postures (straight spine, chin slightly in, abdominal breathing and no limb fully stretched).

Hi humbleone, The lion's are your fears of going deeper into it and your higher self trying to save you from yourself. Ask your higher self for assistance (even if you don't realize yet that you have one) and tell your higher self that you really want to get further and you need the assistance of your higher self. Additionally (and I think this will be hard for you given that you are so purpose driven / hell bent on this) - let go of wanting to know the answer to XYZ! Tell yourself that in this and the next many sessions, you will in fact not be asking for any such answer - instead you will want to explore your environment some more - perhaps try to meet up with a dead relative that meant a lot to you. When dangers abound, imagine that you are protected from them, immune to them - realize what they are (your own thoughts!) and tame them - if you can't simply stop - give it a rest for a day, a week, a month - as long as may be required. As an example that might help you: When I just started I would sometimes encounter a lioness and once I overcame my fears and scratch her behind the ears she's really quite nice :-) About visualization: it is a great tool to get into an altered state, but if you allow it to take overhand, fantasies will abound and it will be hard to tell fiction from answers. Thus, once you 'get in there' - try to scale back on the visualization and start listening / sensing. NB I know you said it for fun, but I suggest avoiding LSD or any type of drug (including legal ones) for clarity.

Hi Non, In the biography Steal My Art - the Life and Times of T'ai Chi Master T.T. Liang by Stuart Alve Olsen is a little story attributed to Master Liang about his view of "The Three Religions": Obviously it's a caricature, but sometimes the perspective of humor and exaggeration helps to shed light on subtle differences.

Hi Humbleone, I would try to approach this through a couple of sessions of deep mediation / trance and looking up my akashic records for advice in doing so. After doing that a couple of times, I would sit down and try to conclude what my intuition and instincts are telling me (which is likely to be opposed to what the intellect is saying). I would then force myself to spend a bit of extra effort on pursuing some of these unlikely paths (paths that I would probably have discarded under "normal" conditions in spite of not being fully convinced why I should do so). I don't know how far you are in your practices. If you're starting from scratch this is not something you accomplish in a fortnight. Feel free to PM me if what I said speaks to you.

Hi Astral_Anima, Thanks for this post. I agree - it is very intriguing: -yet at the top of the page it says that nobody but the master himself was able to obtain full mastery within the past 50 years What always gets me when looking more into such things is that they can never really articulate what happens or what makes it work other than in very general terms (and I would say we have a ripe example of this in the quote above). Usually they will give you the impression that they know, but won't tell you till you've proved you're worthy. That's when the snake oil alarm goes off with me.

Hi Cat Pillar, You're onto something very important here. Loving and respecting oneself is a very important tool in facing ones challenges. Affirmations can also be helpful in addition to the inner smile and similar practices - both from within and from the outside; i.e. "I love and respect myself as well as My surroundings / The Universe loves and respects me." - sorry if it sounds a bit cheesy, but it can be a lot of help when feeling unsure or hurt. This way you can close your eyes, take a deep breath and connect your mind and body: That's soul food for the spirit

Hi Cat Pillar, Good question. You are the product of yourself in the environment that surrounds and influences you. As such, placing blame serves no real purpose other than trying to feel good (but the catch is that it only works when one is able attribute the blame to something else than the self). Hmmm, so what do? You still want those hurdles out of the way, right? Well, keep working with them, but try to look at each as a blessing in disguise - a challenge or perhaps even the start of a small adventure rather than an obstacle or a even a fault. The inner smile will help take this longer view. I wish you lots of happiness and contentment.

I'm not!

Not bad, Marblehead

Hi cmpunk50, I used to practice these for years before getting into internal martial arts. The 5 rites is a great way to start the day and also works great against back-pain as it exercises and strengthens many of the muscles in the back and torso. I still do them on and off if I need some complementary stretches to whichever IMA forms or qigong I am working on. Will any such exercise "open up your chakras" - well, some might argue that - IMHO it certainly gives you a nice light workout and a good stretch and as such would open up what many Taoists consider bodily meridians. Some people like to emphasize such benefits more than others. I think everybody agrees that such an allround strech is good for you regardless of what your your next task might be. If done prior to meditation, desk work, or monotonous work it helps against pain from being in a static position. Remember that the most important thing is not so much whether you choose this set of of whole-body exercises or some other - the important thing is that you stick to it day in and out over several months. This way you will really realize the benefits as you get better and better at the exercise and begin to realize how wonderful it is to work out those inner torso muscles that you never knew existed. Happy training!

Hi richardliao, I must admit I do not know what the Flying Asia is. Regardless, welcome to the Taobums

Hi Lucky7Strikes, I think you have made a very important and universal observation: the method of meditation is a mean, but not a goal in itself. This goes for meditation on emptiness as well as meditation with focus on something else (in order to shut everything else out) whether the breath, any of the senses or even nothingness for that matter. Once one has done this intensely enough (and obviously, you have) it simply becomes a matter of connecting the heart and mind. I think many people (including many people who consider themselves teachers) fail to realize the importance of this point.

Hi bodyoflight, It is often said there are no stupid questions. I would like to suggest that people who say that may not been have been exposed to enough questions... Yet, at the same time, this of course doesn't mean that there are no great questions... The point I am trying to make is simply that a good answer requires a good question. In other words, if you cannot articulate what you are looking for in a meaningful way, then how can you expect people to tell you the answer?

Hi strawdog65, For as long as I can remember people told me that in 20-40 years the oil will run out. Perhaps they're right this time around, but they sure weren't right when they said it 30-40 years ago and they weren't right 10-20 years ago either. New reserves are discovered constantly and the ones that would never be "economically viable" are suddenly good enough to squeeze out another bazillion barrels. This said, I think the world will be a better place when we get weened off the remains of our fossilized predecessors. Perhaps then will we start to think smart about using the yin and yang forces around us: Sunlight, darkness, The waves of the ocean rolling in and out, the winds stirring, etc. Sure, for the type of person who loves his V8 pick-up truck the world probably looks very scary without oil. For large parts of the Middle East and Africa it will be catastrophic for those currently serving the drug, for others it may well be a blessing in disguise although it will require some strategic and advance thinking - something which seems largely lacking at this stage in many places. Anyway, who knows? It will be interesting to see what the prognosis is 20-30 years from now. Maybe I'm in for a surprise, but I doubt it.

Well said, center!

IMHO no one-size fits all

Hi Friends, I really don't see the need to put RB down by saying that he doesn't cover this or that or trying to label or group him into one or the other tradition. Just as anyone teaching, the teachings of RB are what they are: He gives people some tools which enable them to understand their bodies better and how to obtain trance-like meditation / visualization experiences. He does that using plain English in a down-to-the-earth fashion that only an Australian can deliver. All the nothingness meditation is great for many people and several Buddhist traditions, but it is not in the syllabus of what I have seen so far from RB. I guess his premise is that rather than waiting for something to appear out of nothingness, one can simply go to where one wants to go (by using ones intent). IMHO that way you can get all the way into the tao and the nature thereof. So, many traditions will disagree - and Vajrahridaya, you have a valid point about running the risk of letting ones visualization fool oneself into thinking that one discovered something great. In other words, I think RB has an interesting proposition and approach to people who want to get started without too much fuss and see where it can lead them - especially for those who can't really seem to get along with all the formalities around many formal religions and even philosophies.