Scarlet Wampus

For those that first became interested in Taoist practices in their 20s (or a little younger) and are now in their 30s (or a little older), how have the exercises you do and their significance changed over the years? The experience of doing them? The meaning to you? The attitude you have? How your body feels to you? Comparison with your peers or other practitioners? If you could offer some advice to yourself when you first started, what would you say?

Hi Used to go by the name RedKooga here many years ago. Came back, although have long forgot password to my old account. Um, been long interested in Tao-ish stuff. Am male, 33 and live in BC, Canada. Can't think of anything else to say here so will proceed to topics on forum.

Thanks everyone for an interesting couple of days but this place just isn't for me. I'm somewhat skeptical nowadays and almost other every thread here is (from my perspective) chock full of the kind of magical thinking & extraordinary claims that I root out & carefully examine in my own practice. If I were to stay I'd contribute nothing but an unwanted voice of doubt on much of what goes on. I don't want that and I'm fairly sure no one else would appreciate it either. Have a great one & good luck with your cultivation.

Awesome! And any continued clinical research is likely to return very impressive results too, judging by the last decade. Unfortunately its unlikely to change the legal availability of entheogens for people who would make use of them. Some people are terrified by these things. The fear, misinformation & prejudice out there is simply too great to overcome with a few studies. Still, its exciting to see continued research confirm what every psychonaut knows full well applies to them personally (but may have wondered if it were true in a wider sense). I don't know how many know this but in the UK people discovered a legal loophole in order to buy & sell psychedelic mushrooms over the counter. It went on for a few years until the law was changed in April 2005. The last year before that they were widely available and that was an awesome year for a lot of people!

Hmmm. That's interesting to me Kate because, until now, the lack of anyone at all I have known living close to a graveyard mentioning something bad happening in relation to it or witnessing something bad happening in relation to it is partly what makes me suspicious. (Well, that and a fundamentally different understanding of the workings qi I have from the classical but never mind that for now). What I'm thinking is maybe you guys do something weird with your graveyards because the ones we had in the UK didn't seem that big a deal. A whole row of houses in the village I grew up in were alongside a graveyard. The graveyard even had one of those dangerous-in-FS churches in it. Nothing about the families in those houses seemed somehow different from the others. Really, I think it would have shown up somehow. Unless there is something very different about the ground used for graveyards the causality part of why they are supposedly so bad would surely be something to do with having corpses stuck in it. I mean, that's where this association with extreme yin is coming from right? Rotting bodies?

FD I hope we can all buck the trend. I'm 33 now and I really notice a difference in attitude and also how my body is, which is why I thought this thread might be interesting. In late teens / early twenties I was very impulsive. I had this whole boom & bust cycle going: I'd try to stick to an impossibly strict discipline until I felt ready to explode with pent-up energy - physical, sexual, intellectual, spiritual - you name it, I was getting overloaded on it. Next I'd go really wild; party hard & trip out until I was drifting into the arena of the unwell. That would prompt me to be wary and the whole thing would start over. I remember I used to think, "When I'm in my 30s this won't be a problem because my energy levels will be calmer & smoother." I was mostly right.

Wow, you know effilang I have doing those postures for a long time now and still can't get into full lotus!

I may be mistaken but I've noticed people free of sewpastecious qi appear to avoid the terrible harm that otherwise inevitably comes from living near a graveyard.

The pictures depict the times indeed!

The source of the wisdom in that film sure seems like an assclown to me.

They do when they're Hitler!

I suppose its no use accepting the notion that Hitler was a monster and also from another perspective no different than a piece of rotting tree.

heheheh I've only got one sibling and... either that was a different Wampus you remember, or you dated my gigantic hairy brother (in some phase where he wore dresses & called himself Catty). He is pretty wild though, so hmmm.

Given the range of different tools anthropomorphic deities could be using the popularity of dedicated killing tools does stand out. I think the deep answer for this is in our propensity for violence & war. I've seen a few esoteric explanations but to me they only appear esoteric in as much as they deliberately avoid the obvious.

Heheh, I'm skint too at the moment. I'm going to try the library first and if they don't have a copy to lend I'll find the money somehow.

Thanks. God bless you too Xian. Your enthusiasm is contagious. It'll be a week or so before I can get hold of a copy. I've come across lots of bits & pieces on the immortals but never read the biographies.

Hi Xian Will look out for Liexian Zhuan.

No thoughts on his change of lifestyle or whether he made a mistake. What I see is someone having a relatively good time of it. Interesting slice of life.

Woah, how did this forum pick up my old avatar picture without me setting it up? That's freaky!