Harmonious Emptiness

@ Taomeow: You could make a compilation book, sort of like "Zen in the Martial Arts" by Joe Hyams, who shares anecdotes from his years studying with various masters. Sounds like you could make an interesting read. I guess I should share my beginner story now that I'm on the thread: Nothing spectacular really. In my teens, my older brother had "The Tao of Pooh" (probably from the alternative school he went to, which I believe at the time had a yin-yang theme in the emblem). I asked about it and he said "you know those guys on the mountain in old kung fu movies? This is their religion." I read it numerous times as well, later, De of Piglet. It was the first thing that made simple sense of the seemingly complicated business of living, and got me started practicing wu wei.. one of the best stories being about a bunch of people wondering what to do about a bucking horse in the middle of the street and the man of Tao passed the street and goes down the next one... Always wondered about awareness, connectivity between people; then had to pick a topic for a Communications/Humanities degree, looked up "awareness," and found this reel of a 1960's psychedelic educational type video about Zen. After some more research did the project on Cha'an tea ritual, (Anthro. course, Culture as performance) and talked about how the communication is the shared presence, perception of the reality, simple flower arrangement, simplicity of the tea hut, simplicity of manner, etc. "Essays in Idleness" by Yoshida Kenko was sort of a turning point after that ...

You ignored the actual post and responded to the one aspect that you had anything to counter with. This is troll behavior at its worst -- acting like there is an actual debate going on while only ignoring the crux of the persons argument. Wasting my time with you no more....

When you put it this way there is no need to branch off. This is not discordant to Taoism. A person does need to learn to balance themselves so that their desires don't burn them up and tear them down, creating a fool that destroys everything within and around them, yes this is true. It doesn't mean people shouldn't strive to create abundance. There is nothing wrong with abundance, though it might pose problems for people who want to learn how to shed desires is search for true inner contentment. This path is a choice for Taoists, not a filial obligation to anyone or anything else. I get the impression from the assumptions you've made about the limitations of Taoism that you have not delved very deeply into it even philosophically. Perhaps you should learn more about it before deciding that the model needs any alterations. I think you will find that these things you want are not at odds with true Taoist philosophy when you go beyond the surface of common quotations. The problem seems to be that you have equated the monastic path with the laymen path. A Taoist monk will not live the same as a laymen, nor a laymen the same as the monk. You mention self-determination, self-reliance, and love of abundance. Starting with self-determination: A Taoist does not let arbitrary social convention determine his path, for if he did it would be based mostly on anger, greed, jealously, envy, and fear, rather than courage, generosity, confidence, and good-will. A Taoist strives for what could be called sustainable abundance. He or she perfects the self and actions in order to avoid repurcussions of negative actions and emotions. However, abundance only allows for more generosity and time for good-will to others. These are the important things as any person on their death bed will say that what they want most is to be with their family and friends - this is the gold, the silver, and the jewels of life, the rest is just packaging. As for self-reliance, this is a large part of the purpose for the physical disciplines - so that one can be strong and self-reliant in order to accomplish what needs to be done both internally and externally. No need to be American.. just dive deeper into the waters sir!

Sometimes it works, mostly it still doesn't. Not sure when/why it works when it does.

Which post painted westerners as having the materialist relationship? Post #2. Your quotation assumed that some new "American" version of Taoism needed to be created to embody an individualist and avaricious (look it up for ESLs) bent. My point is that these things exist in China already with those who have a superficial interest in things Taoist. The other point was comparing those with a superficial interest (meaning not of depth, rather than materialistic) in the East and West. The western superficial interest is more commonly a philosophical one without going very deep into it, while the Eastern superfical interest is mostly to do with using Taoist means to attract wealth. Thus, your self-serving version of Taoism already exists and needs no label of "American" for you to practice it. The problem however, is that Taoism is very altruistic and this has nothing to do with Taoism, other than in a few words or appearances. Perhaps you could say it has a few influences from Taoism, but you would be entirely mistaken to think that Taoism has no interest in serving the greater good. It is entirely about serving the greater good, much as the function of the Taoist sage is to serve the greater good. The first 25 paragraphs of the Dao De Jing show this clearly.

Hey man, I wish I could offer better advice. The only thing I know of is listening to things at low volumes to try to build up the sensitivity. I heard this advice from a hearing specialist for a young child and employ it myself to preserve my hearing which I've been told a number of times is exceptionally good. Anyway, worth a try. It might just tune the brain to those frequencies at the very least. The trick is putting things at a level where you have to strain just a bit to hear them well enough. This way the hearing faculties are naturally engaged more than with more passive listening. Also yawning can be good for the ears as it stretches the inner ears. I've read convincing nutritional research to suggest that eating lots of pumpkin and sunflower seeds grows hair. I eat lots of them for protein (being mostly vegetarian) and people are amazed at how fast my hair grows. Perhaps this could help with the hair folicles in the ears as well? I dunno. I actually wouldn't be too astonished if medical qi gong could make some amount of difference if it's not hair follicle related.

I was reading some Shao Yung the other day and saw something which I found to be very illuminating on this. He said (approximately) "It is for humanity to seek and heaven to bestow. Thus, one should just work on perfecting the self and diligently seek without expecting result, as it is up to heaven to determine results." From this I realized that balance of action and inaction in balance. If we can seek, undeterred, and leave the results up to heaven to allot based on our inner work, then we can maintain tranquility while persisting in our task. This leaves greed and selfishness aside while persisting in seeking. It's the greed and selfishness that causes us to try to control things, and often mess things up, including our ability to LISTEN in the sense that Ya Mu explained (imo at least). Of course, this is not always easy however. What Shao Yung seems to be speaking of is Ming\Destiny\Heavens Government, saying to leave this to heaven. When comparing to Wu Wei, which more literally means "absence of governing action" this, to me, makes sense as Wu Wei in action. As to what Ya Mu was saying about LISTENING, that was a generous explanation. I can say that more recently, since I've been learning a few things from Ya Mu's (shall we say) program (and I don't mean to make a plug, it just seems to be a timely factor) I've become much more aware and comfortable with wild and common coincidences. One being that about 10 times in a row after meditating in the morning I would leave my place, jaywalk when the chance comes up, then walk 3 blocks down a side street and turn to the main street where within the same pace of steps, the light would change to green just as I was about to step onto the road, with no logical intention to make this happen. Every time, day after day, so long as I meditated before leaving, this would happen and I wouldn't check the time since before meditation. When I was in a rush or got distracted with something and didn't meditate, it wouldn't happen, and then the next time I would meditate and it would happen again, literally in time by 1 footstep, over and over and over again for weeks. The unexplainable coincidences become so frequent that they become acceptable as "oh, yeah, just that sychronization thing of course "

No, but it sounds like I've seen it..

[Now to go almost completely off topic in the no off-topic thread:] How many students still do all their teachers chores and basically treat them like their own elderly parent? Seems the students have changed the game too. How many students do whatever their teacher says, whenever, no questions asked? Not doing that either. The days have changed, the barter has changed. It used to be that teachings like that from Wang Li Ping would only be earned from years of loyalty. Well, people don't have years 'cause they need money, so what they have instead today is money. Money is time and time is money. One has to prove some degree of commitment to deserve an accomplished teacher's care and close attention. That's just the way it goes. Otherwise people just waste people's time and don't do themselves any favours by not valuing what they were given and taught, nor the time and attention of a master. So good for you if you give away free 8 Section Brocade lessons and create a community of like minded people who benefit from gathering and so forth, this is a truly admirable community service, however, just 'cause you're giving away free rice doesn't mean that the gourmet chefs should give away what they have to offer. They would either starve or have no time left to benefit others as they also have to practice at least a few hours a day by themselves. 8 hours of of work + 3 hours training + 2 hours eating + 8 hours sleeping leaves 3 hours in the day to relax. These teachings would disappear, and that would be a whole lot worse than people having to pay..

Makes no sense to pin this materialist side on the West when so many Chinese people use Taoism simply as a means to money, using Feng Shui to bring money into the house, creating Buddha statues with money around them to bring in money, having Buddhist or Taoist shrines at the entranceway to businesses. Seems that the most common usage of Daoism, in the way that it is just a part of the fabric of Chinese culture, is that it is used to bring fortune, money, success, luck, etc.. I'm not saying it shouldn't be used to bring success in all aspects of life, but this is more common to Chinese familarity with Taoism than it is for Westerners. Seems it is more common that the few Westerners who partially involve Daoism in their lives do so for philosophical and moral guidance, whereas it is most common that Chinese who partially involve Daoism in their lives use it merely for luck in money, business, etc., with little to no knowledge of Daoist writing other than the cross overs from Confucianism, or Buddhism. To paint Westerners as having the materialist relationship to Taoism here would be a hard sell, here or any Chinatown Feng Shui shop.

Sure, no reason that Qi Gong teachers should post here with free info for their students or anyone interested in what an actual master has to say about true Taoist traditions. Surely we all came here just to hear the B.S. between the lines of actual Daoist related content. Surely can't wait to talk about sacred texts next to somebody's fart joke or newsflash that they just masturbated today and will update you on the next great effort. Surely masters will be piling in by the dozens to share their wisdom, and intelligent thoughtful people will hang around to contribute.

There is an interesting religion in Vietnam called Cao Dai which includes influences from Daoism, Buddhism, and especially Christianity. It doesn't claim to be a sect of any of these however. If someone is going to start something with various influences, that is up to them, but to assume or act like the new creation is a legitimate lineage of the influence is inconsiderate of those influences.

Yeah, that was nasty, and I think it should be deleted. There are limits. Get real..

Personally, I find that Legge is the most word for word in his translations, however, his old style of English can sometimes be confusing with certain word uses having meanings that they rarely do anymore. He usually puts words in brackets which were not in the original text but required to mean the same thing in English. Maybe cross a Legge translation with a Watson translation for accuracy.

Yes, though not really. It was too scholarly for me, though seemed to deal mostly with basic historical stuff you may have already read in other similar books. The actual translated part is very short. For translations of the Mawangdui finds on the topic, see Sex, Health, and Long Life: Manuals of Taoist Practice (Cleary). See the intro at link^.

Ahhh, just found this video. Been studying the book for months now. Looking forward to this ! Enjoy it with me? Part one (of 12) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfDJB-f0waI pdf http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/liaofan.pdf

Who'd like to do the honours? I suggest (for starters): healing chi gong videos hard chi gong videos chen tai chi baguazhang Buddhist Dharma talks Taoist philosophy videos Karrady movies How do you do the "spoiler" hide feature, pls?

yes. Thanks for asking.

This is not a discussion question to be answered with elaborate description. It's answer is something that can only be known when the mind has gone beyond words, questions, correct, incorrect, knower, known, here, there, never, and forever. You exist now. Did you always exist? Your curiosity exists now. Did it always exists? What is true now, yesterday, and before you were born, that has always been? The Truth.

I don't see how any of the pronouncements about "this is American Taoism" have anything to do with Taoism in them, other than an affinity for a few stanzas within the DDJ (the ideas of which can likely be found elsewhere just the same). Even calling it "American" is rather inadequate, as most American's would profess an affinity for compassion, and amassing material goods beyond one's means is no more American than it is Japanese, Swiss, Korean, whatever. I'm not sure that Takaaki took this too seriously, but...

Perhaps the Now is merely a belief, not separated from the past nor future.

I'm pretty sure there already is a policy against intentionally going off topic. Who's to decide what's off topic really.. Some things seem off topic to one person who wants the discussion to go in a certain direction without considering things about it which are important to other people. The reason TTB is not a ghost town is because people can say whatever they think needs to be said so long as it is relevant and not abusive. I think the mods are doing and a good job of moderating moderately whilst still moderating. They could maybe turn it up from a 1/10 to a 2/10, but the rules being requested are already there tmk.

What is true now that has always been true?

Showed me that much of Taoism is actually accessible on some level, and how little I actually know about it, and opened many many doors to deeper study of Taoism and Buddhism. For self-directed study, it's been like walking pace to driving pace in terms of finding new nooks and crannies to discover. Like a good professor, it makes me look deeper at what I'm learning and so many things when I go back and read them have many new colours and textures thanks to the resources I've been put in touch with via members here. Yes, thanks to Sean and the many members here who take time to share their knowledge with generosity, patience, and thoughtfulness

Something like the "Holy Spirit" being the femine aspect of the Mother Father Son trinity, seems to me that the Dao is like the personality of the "Higher Power" which maybe is this "Valley Spirit." The Dao being how this higher power works but not the power itself. This seems to fit the male/pattern + female/substance = Yin/Yang balance ideas. Agree? Disagree?