Harmonious Emptiness

Answering this is like doing puzzles, since there are so many variable factors to consider. However 1. In a large sense, yes, but not quite in the same way as other religions. Some people join a sort of comittee of Immortals, others become sort of omnipotent beings who can travel between stars if needed. More regular people still exist somewhere that their descendents can pray to them but I think it would be more akin to purgatory - however I really don't know much about that side of the culture. 2. Taoists have many gods. As Apech said, it's difficult to say whether the Tao itself can be ascribed human characteristics since it embodies all things and humans are a microcosm of the universe. From a Taoist perspective, many Christian prayers are an attempt to be in harmony with the will of God, which is not entirely different from a Taoist seeking to be in harmony with the Tao. Further, if only asking from a popular monotheistic view, then the negative emotions that have been mythologized as part of God would not correspond to Tao; however, again, many monotheists do not view God in this way. So, to answer in true Taoist style, yes and no. 3. That is very complicated and differs according to who you ask. I don't know enough about it to comment really, but there are similarities to the Khemetic (Ancient Egyptian) view where we have more than one soul/spirit and each does different things following departure from the physical body. 4. That which can be spoken is not the true Tao, therefore, all spoken truths can only be incomplete at best. Cultivate true virtuous energy within you and you will act with natural virtue. Taoism is a way to understand the humanity, nature, and the universe, so to get to all the things they understand could take lifetimes and still barely scratch the surface of the entirety. The knowledge of Taoism is ongoing so there is essentially no end to its discoveries. As things change, Taoism has more understandings to speak of. Some of the ways by which Taoism understands things, however, is through five elements theory, the eight trigrams, the three treasures (J,Q,S), and yin and yang. That is a start, anyways..

I'll repost from the "supplements" thread: yeah, iodine is awesome. I used to take kelp capsules in the morning. Would show up to early meetings bright eyed and bushy tailed. Just don't overdo it as you might end up with thyroid complications. I'd suggest only taking it once per day and skip weekends. It's not something to take continuously for ever as it can seriously imbalance you. Adding to the above, kelp is even better since it has the iodine plus many essential minerals to make it all work better. But again, be very cautious you don't end up having to take radioactive medicine (I'm not kidding, the medicine is actually radioactive) to combat thyroid dysfunction!! I wouldn't take it more than once in a while unless it's been suggested by a qualified naturopath with a more specific dosage and timeline. The reason you feel better is that it increases thyroid function which plays a central role in the body metabolism and distribution of hormones and things. This balance is very delicate, and an overactive thyroid is not easy to treat, as alluded to above.

Lots of good stuff in THIS thread to watch. Last night watched: Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion on youtube.

Just keep a bowl of shelled toasted pumpkin seeds next to your computer and drink soy milk if you want to avoid a heavy meat diet. Here's a great index of protein per serving: http://www.canadianliving.com/health/nutrition/how_much_protein_do_we_need_3.php 1 cup of soy milk has 8 grams of protein. Combine that with your your protein powder and you've got the same protein as an average pork chop. 1/4 cup of pumpkin seeds has about 20 grams of protein, compared to 8 grams in most other seeds and nuts. The nutrition you get from them is crazy too, especially if you mix them with sunflower seeds. They also prevent hair loss and there has been studies that showed hair regeneration with about 3 cups per day and cutting out sugar, white, flour, and pretty much all bad diet things. edit: yeah, iodine is awesome. I used to take kelp capsules in the morning. Would show up to early meetings bright eyed and bushy tailed. Just don't overdo it as you might end up with thyroid complications. I'd suggest only taking it once per day and skip weekends. It's not something to take continuously for ever as it can seriously imbalance you.

I think a large part of this has to do with accepting the movements of nature. To do this you need to be in a harmonious state where you're willing to go without or accept depending on the balance of time, opportunity, and harmony with other things. Cultivating this kind of virtue allows you get your work done easily and without compromising your virtue or virtuous energy. When things are done this way, they are lasting and create little or no future trouble while rallying unseen support to your virtuous endeavor. This applies to both the internal as well as the external world.

Ha. One more step towards science catching up with ancient knowledge. People have been listening to plants for 1000's of years. Eventually they will discover how the human body can sense the change that these chemicals make in itself, providing positive and negative responses.

What's it all about? There you are and here I am Off in the distance

most of too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmQ7ZjpIptM&feature=related Also, Hendrix's father (part Cherokee) was born in Vancouver where Hendrix lived for a while as a child.

"If people will emulate one who is good at being young and good at growing old, good at beginning and good at ending, how much more should they emulate that to which the myriad things are joined and upon which the unity of transformation depends" How true.

the love of fun. Like the heyoka, or sacred clowns of Native American tribes, who will purposely break consensus' of etiquette when it starts to strangle the love and nature of life (edit: though without disturbing the sacredness). Chuang Tzu was a Heyoka! Ho!

Reminds me of prayer in that you can't really ask God to make you a millionaire, but you can ask to be put in the stream that you are supposed to be in. Sometimes we sit in boring dead-end jobs, for example, and want something better, at least to be doing what we're supposed to be doing no matter how little glory it might give us. If I should be a fisherman, let me be a fisherman. If I should be a teacher, let me be a teacher. If I should work 13 hour days as a business owner, then let me be a business owner. I just want to do what God wants me to do, or what is in harmony with Tao if you rather, because I know that I will always be in the right place at the right time no matter what I'm doing if I can do that.

Hey people Sorry I kind of disappeared. Wasn't an intentional boycott, just got put out a bit by over analysis of words, though I was hoping for some in the beginning, I guess it got a bit too over my head after a while. So, in looking at this chapter, it seems Chuang Tzu definitely had some knowledge of esoteric Taoist Alchemy. A lot of the time it seems more like he's talking about virtues of humility and self-reliance, but here he seems to be speaking about things far beyond, yea?

Any other preferences on turning this into a multi-thread Personal Practice Discussion? Rainy_Day? Taomeow? Dawei? K?

Or at least so each chapter has it's own thread which will make creating a final pdf easier than scattered posts all throughout one thread. I could even volunteer to start copy-pasting the chapters into the new threads. Maybe everyone could then copy-paste their own posts into the corresponding chapter thread. I guess there would be about 30 threads in the end, each with its translation and terminology discussions much like the TTC forum, but we could agree to summarize the thread to a final post in each? To be quite honest, I may not be as active all the way through, since frankly I get tired of the wording disputes, but I could help set it up and come in where it seems helpful..

Hey. Just an idea - what about turning this into a Personal Practice Discussion so we can open different threads for the meanings of each chapter?

Just the name, Yellow Bamboo, seemed to tell me to stay away. Then I realized why -- yellow bamboo is sick and dying, lol. Why would they name their nei kung school sick-and-dying-bamboo? I guess yellow is lucky, and bamboo is lucky, but... maybe the bamboo absorbed the bad luck and kept the dubious business going!

@ Taomeow yes. that's why I thought it might be related to "pre-heavenly" but I guess there is probably a sort of Chinese prefix for that. edit: also, to your post #90 here, footnotes for key terms would do this nicely. It's always nice to learn more about these terms.

Personally, I appreciate the use of literal meanings as it helps to see more of what is meant or connected to the word. I also agree that "Celestial" has sort of lost all meaning. I think rather than just using the common translations for a word it would be most beneficial to English readers to translate literally and then have footnotes with the original word and an explanation. "As you probably know, tianzhen in ordinary Chinese means innocence or naivete." Is this related to "pre-heavenly qi" or not the same word?

Wow really interesting information in that second video (edit: interesting OP too!). for those who don't care to watch it: juicing raw leaves allows a patient to consume 60 times the CBD (canniboid molecule) than they would if the marijuana was dried or heated because it does not get the patient stoned even with that amount. The CBD is the only thing known to cause nerve receptors to exchange information in reverse which is beneficial for bringing the body back into proper function. an acre of cannabis sucks 5 times the amount of carbon from the atmosphere than 1 acre of trees. Great progress on bringing this plant back into use! I think our entire planet and its inhabitants are severely out of balance without using its endless potential benefits, which are exponentially more in the modern world.

You know, if I tried to answer all this, I would only stand to confuse myself. Definitive answers to things like this are entirely limiting. Even my above answer is very limiting since true and false and right and wrong have very little if any continuous existence. Trying to look at reality or truth through our lens of definition only enslaves. Even this truth is too absolute to be useful to any of us, and so was that one.

Yes. Agreed. Like when the "me" is there, you're not really doing what you're doing but imagining all these things. When the "me" disappears you're fully doing whatever you're doing, merged with it, like a drop in the ocean, more fully what you are, yet not realizing it. When the "me" comes back it wants to experience this and that but you can't "have your cake and eat it too" so really the "me" can only distance the experiencer from the experience, but cannot merge with the experience since as that happens -- it disappears and real life appears.....

I thought about taking capoiera just for exercise since it seemed like the people were there more to have fun than to fulfill their violent fantasies like so many places. I guess if you have lots of space it would be good especially for shorter people. But it seems risky to have so many tells before striking. Nonetheless, if someone really knows how to use it they just need to connect once with one of those kicks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaufKJ8M8js&feature=related Seems like the centrifical force is good on the ground too:

Hi Cameron We never really spoke much, but I appreciate you bringing your knowledge here for us. We all have to follow our heart, so I respect you doing what feels like the right thing to do. All the best to your path

I just feel like the thread with the translations shouldn't be tarnished with too much back and forth. It might never finish this way, and it will be difficult to find each chapter between pages of banters. I'm thinking we should let the first translation continue mostly unimpeded here, while we bring each part into another thread for further analysis where the disagreements won't distract too much. Maybe even have a third thread to post the finals of the second thread. I have to admit, the communication in some of the TTC and Chuang Tzu was pretty off-putting and made the whole thing very difficult to (want to) continue reading. Rainy_Day, since this is primarily your (greatly appreciated!) effort, what would be easier?

Thanks for sharing that man. That was great. Beautiful! Having experienced, mature, and aware people with you will be so beneficial, even if on the internet or in sacred texts. You've developed significant wisdom and this I think will keep you centered, like the North Star around which the Milky way turns. Chuang Tzu points the way on things like this.. Just keep these things in mind (I mean to say). I don't mean to sound like an expert on these things. I just remember having immensely similar realizations (you really brought back some memories) without the right influences at the time. I think even our last bowl of rice is better when we have the right people or person to share it with.