unmike

Everything you said was just yes! She Comes First is a wonderful book, and having a positive attitude and practice is often the best incentive you can give a partner to begin cultivation. Lead by example!

It was even important in Christianity until the Council of Nicea decided to nix it a few centuries post-Christ.

It's the book that sent me from Western thought toward Eastern for the first time. It's also the book I've purchased, lent out, and never gotten back (because those I lent it to kept the loantrain chugging) the most times. Visiting family in Iowa this past week has been great for a number of reasons. The other day, unexpectedly, my sister returned me the copy I gave her years ago and forgot about. I'd been thinking about the piece frequently the past few weeks. Synchronicities are just too fun. I agree that it elucidated far more for me than the Watercourse Way did, though I read The Book first (and had little experience with living in Tao at either time). I think I owe his catalogue a redo. One of my absolute favorite titles, and heartily recommended. Glad to see someone else is enjoying it as much!

This is the prevailing and, sadly, often correct view. However, it's not always the case! Sprouting certain seeds, grains, and nuts, all easily purchased in bulk for next to dirt, leads to the most healthy food on the planet, guilt free. For us vegetablarians, they even offer complete proteins! Just add water, a little sunlight, and a few days of occasional rinsing. I recommend chickpeas/garbanzo beans and lentils as great, tasty starters at affordable prices ($2.00/lb, which is enough for multiple days of food). Carrots are another wonderful and usually affordable staple. Can't wait until I can pleachitecture myself a house from various food bearing trees... That'll be the life.

Google to the rescue! Second result for "zen sickness" (Please, don't die!)

Methinks you missed an "n't", sir...

As much as popular culture has latched onto the movie, I have to agree that there's a lot of gold buried in it, much of it even close to the surface. A long time insomnia sufferer myself, it struck a chord with me early on, even though I didn't see it until probably 2005. Starting your own "fight club" can be a wonderful experience, especially if you use push hands!

Hot cocoa warms palms When outside far too freezing Cool thread warms my heart!

Yep. Little tiny green +1 button in the bottom right corner.

People are after pleasure. Very few of them know happiness aside from dopamine rushes, the relief associated with cessation of something which induces suffering, and the like. Most people are after the good feeling they mistake for happiness, not joy and higher vibrational states. Even those concerned with achieving something loftier often fail to perceive the task at hand appropriately. If someone truly wishes to be "happy" in that sense, it comes from pleasant detachment. Being centered and solid enough within yourself that, no matter what arises, something negative inside you does not is a difficult feat to accomplish for most. Even those of us that have been graced with a taste often lose their way when their specific demons approach, or they fail to practice and maintain. Vipassana practice led me to emptiness led me to the most balanced and happy times of my life. I'm working to get back there now, one breath at a time. Thank you, sincerely, for helping me cement this in my mind a little better. Looking forward to a great thread! *edited for word omission

I've always parsed it as an admission that "Though describable, the Tao is everchanging". Dovetails nicely with the idea of impermanence in the Buddhist sense, and further suggests the finger and the moon. *edited for unintentional quotation

Love, specifically for the girl that is the yin to my yang, constantly sends me off balance. It leads to frustration when something I do upsets her, to loneliness when she is not around, to jealousy when others have her attention. The most intense emotion I have ever felt, both positive and negative, is the one that challenges me the hardest.

Knowledge is heady, intellectual, and conceptual. Wisdom is practical, and earned through experience. Knowledge is thinking with your head. Wisdom is thinking with your gut. Knowledge is power. Wisdom is discretion.

Excellent topic and even better examination! I have only a small thought to add, but as your post deals with something I've been struggling with recently, it seems appropriate. Forgiving all people, without regard to guilt/fault, the act in question, our disposition toward the transgressor, or any other quality, is a must. Letting go of our attachment to anger is, as you mentioned, a necessity for those who wish to remain in equanimity. This is especially true of hurts incurred by our closest loved ones. But an often overlooked factor in mercy is our own forgiveness. When we do something that upsets another or ourselves, it's easy to get trapped in a cycle of negative emotions and thought patterns. At each moment, we must take stock, realize that the negative is heavy and detrimental for us to keep carrying, and only weighs us down for as long as we shoulder the burden. Once freed, we can go about our business lightly once more, remaining clear and free to flow whichever way life takes us.

In eighth grade, I was so tone deaf I couldn't tune my first guitar myself. I literally was unable to tell if one note sounded higher or lower than the other. By the time I was a senior, I was seriously considering going to college for vocal music, because the interim years saw enough practice that I had conquered my issues and could hold my own with the best singers I knew. Everyone, and I mean everyone*, can learn to deal with pitch better. If we practiced ear training the way we practice anything to do with language, or skills we're attempting to cultivate in any other arena, the improvements work just the same. Moreover, with enough practice, anyone* can learn perfect pitch. *Except the unfortunate souls with ear damage that prevents it Your solution? Sing with her! Practice! Especially if you're any sort of musician yourself, not only will it be a wonderful bonding experience and exercise, but it will be good for both of your ears and voices!

Tai chi is many things. Biomechanically, it is an application of judicious and gentle force and relaxation, a wonderful interplay between push and pull, and a dynamic exercise in balance and positioning. The stretch and release of fascial tissues, musculature, and our own perceptions allow one to flow in and out of graceful movements, all the while generating positive effects on our various tissues, as well as massive ability to move people and objects, based on the tension various motions incidentally incur. Spiritually, it is an application of patience and practice toward the end of balancing our mind and spirit with our physical body and external surroundings. It generates chi, but it also generates stillness inside. It is a coaction of opposites, complementing and completing each other, on many levels... In a word: Harmony

A workshop in California would be a wonderful idea! I would definitely participate, as would several of my friends, and I'm certain we could drum up enough interest. How many people does a successful workshop entail? I saw that you were interested in a TCM school in Santa Cruz, surfingbudda. Is that where you reside? I know Los Angeles has a fair number, some of which are well respected. I've been weighing my options as far as the healing route, as well. Ya Mu's program is incredibly enticing, but a workshop would really let us feel it out!

@ simply puzzled The way some patterns seem to "wear a groove into reality" that others can easily slip into is profound, both in implication and linguistic formulation. The Tao is definitely groovy. @GIH/forestofemptiness A student of the Indian system will learn about chakras and nadis, a student of the Chinese system will learn about meridians, dantiens, and qi, and a student of the Tibetan system will learn about rlung, drops, and subtle winds. A student of reality will learn about all those systems and how well they usually correspond to something subtle that's going on. Meridians, for example, are very precisely correlated with the trains of myofascial webbing that give our major pull lines expression. Practical, simple, and elaborated scientifically. The dantien is somewhat more complex, but no less scientifically grounded. Bare facts: the abdomen is where all of these trains come together, permeating organs and flexional apparatus alike in a densely packed mesh. Collagen fibers, when stretched appropriately, shear, resulting in a piezoelectric charge. These fibers are cleaned regularly by osteoclasts; uncharged and damaged fibers are culled. Osteoblasts come and lay down new fibers over the cleared space. With sustained, gradual, daily practice, one can literally build a dynamo in one's abdomen. Understanding how potential difference can induce a current and how breathing both actualizes a change in quantity of nearby free electrons via O2 (thank you superefficient fractal bronchi!) and deforms the current field/generator gives one a better understanding of the processes involved. Switching systems, nadis are supposedly channels of light carved through our beings. What of the fact that UV light is constantly emitted by every living cell? A convenient fios network, it seems, would be just about the called for mechanism... The more interesting things I stumble across in my "modern" research, the more esteem I have for the ancients that did it the hard way. Next up, scalar waves!

http://www.interferencetheory.com/index.html Working on an art project for my ladyfriend, I stumbled across this link. Many hours of reading and research later, I'm baffled but intrigued at the concepts involved, especially the implications it has when coupled with holographic theory. I'm especially curious what drewhempel thinks... Any other bums poked around this site, or even read the book?

After careful perusal of the qigonamerica website, I can't find any info about workshops other than the UK one coming up. Will there be any stateside this winter/spring? I'm currently in California, but will be headed back to the midwest for family illness issues and the holidays, and it would be wonderful to spend some time learning with such an amazing teacher. Ya Mu, what's on the docket?

Didn't see anything, but heard bits and pieces through the grapevine at the office. Any reliable info? I was outside a good chunk of the day.

Bacteria are interesting critters, as we've learned time and again! What I'm curious about is how this factors into the Taoist equation. What role do they inevitably play in cultivation? Are they connected with the 100 day mark? Do they perhaps feed off micronutrients accumulated after a long time without flushing the pipes, so to speak? What about practices like tummo? Are they the real tiny red spirits behind the ability to generate heat? Do they allow us, in certain situations, to tap into other bands of the energy spectrum than we would normally have access to? Considering 90% of our serotonin resides in our guts in close conjunction with all these tiny thinking cells, suddenly possible correlations and connections are whizzing around my not-quite-conscious at breakthought speed. Intriguing stuff, to be sure. Any bums want to weigh in? Taomeow, I'm angling your direction.