Harmonious Emptiness

just remember that there is the "letter" of the law, and "the spirit of the law" which takes everything into context..

Obviously would never happen, however, if there was a mercenary with Chang's power, he would be subdued by Buddha's radiant awesomeness and immediately become his disciple; or the gods would strike him down with a heart attack or sap his body of all power as soon as he attempted anything; the karma would make a tiger jump out of the woods and attack him from behind; lightening; you get the idea...

Scotty, you're scavenging for reasons to get sunya banned and it's really obvious. This stuff is blatantly frivolous. You want to threaten a copyright violation because he posted a message you sent him? Seriously. People are not as blind as you might think them to be, and it's not hard to see that this just juvenile. You started a "my dad can beat up your dad" contest and it ended like it started. That's how karma works. You would have seen the karmic ripple effect that would cause and not pushed it (wu wei) if you didn't want the battle you're in. Your Enlightened attitude ought to wu wei itself out of this conflict........

Scotty, I think you'd better report yourself for insulting us all. Oh, wait, I don't care... Ok. Carry on....

Read the Diamond Sutra. It actually says that if anyone shares the light of those truths then they get the merit of 100,000 whatevermedevers or something. Pretending to be more adept than you are is against precepts, but trying to understand the philosophy in a group of people.. no. Saying "this is the way it is" and misleading is wrong if it's not put as "in my understanding" or similar. Actually, I've never heard anyone say they are Enlightened, lol, until recently.. To quote sutras, etc., that is sharing the Dharma and is viewed as very good karma if not done to tally up points but to help people understand what was actually taught. Where are you getting this 3 questions thing from? Either way, a temple is not the only place or way to become Enlightened. FYI, I did go to a Zen dojo for a little while but it didn't work for what I do in meditation (because of the mandatory complete silence even of breathing, and also the time segmenting) so I meditate on my own for now and read on my own (which is also recommended by masters such as Liu I Ming, a Taoist, until you find the right teacher).. The time in the dojo was helpful, but I felt it wasn't the best for me right now, and it was the only place I could find that was similar. I may go back, eventually, but for now I find I'm learning most from the writings of ancient masters and trying to apply their teachings in practice... Does that make me a Buddhist or a Taoist? In some legal sense maybe.. but I don't claim any mastery or adeptness. If someone thinks I can help them, and they ask, and it helps them, I'm happy, they're happy, and Buddha's happy too

Provocation is something, and someone could indirectly provoke you a lot worse than Seth provoked you directly.

Scotty, what I saw was you calling something "Buddhist nonsense" as if it was nonsense because it was Buddhist. And just because you disagree with someones chosen "brand" of Buddhism doesn't mean you're right and their wrong. Nor do I think what you said deserves for you to be banned or suspended at this point, as I've shown my view towards this overreacting. If you and Seth acted like this consistently, then yes there's a bigger issue, but one school yard scuffle doesn't deserve suspension. Zero tolerance is BS.

I think it would be a good idea too. Buddhism is a very important aspect of modern and ancient Taoism so its philosophy should be able to be discussed freely without ticking off or inviting people who want to attack its presence here.. imo..

You do realize that you were insulting an entire tradition, one strongly connected to Taoism, the theme of this forum? That is worse than one person having it out with you after you've both raised the stakes of the argument. Now you want extreme measures taken but only against the other person. If you PMed someone with language like you did to Sunya, strong measures are deserved, as it shows that you had completely flipped your lid and really wanted to injure that person emotionally. That is what the rules are for. If someone needs to be put in their place, people should be allowed to do it. When it gets to far, it gets broken up and life goes on. Hopefully you'll have enough respect for whatever teachers you had not to insult the Buddhist tradition in the future. It's not appreciated here any more than it is with any traditional lineage. This is also a large part of the reason that Vmarco got suspended. He was repeatedly disrespectful to other traditions.

I think it's pretty obvious that Scotty is holding others to a different standard than himself here. Rules are meant to maintain a level of harmony. If that harmony is toppled by one person then it's a legitimate free for all until the teacher comes in and tells them to shut up, imo. If they refuse to listen, then action needs to be taken. Otherwise, we don't need to treat everyone like a bunch of inmates that need to "toe the line" of arbitrary rules. To say "oh oh the rule was broken! ban him! ban him now!" is absurd and uncivilized, imo, especially when it was provoked. And just because the provocation was better worded doesn't make it any less disrespectful not just to a person but an entire tradition and everyone in that tradition.

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to compile specifically Taoist notes to meditation. Not to compare to others, but to bring the purely Taoist perspectives: 1 That's my answer

Found the following article "Heart-Mind Fasting Meditation" http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/4817-heart-mind-fasting-meditation/ Seems like a bygone day of TTB when I read some of the topics and posts circa 2008... Would be nice if the same amount of dignity and respect was as apparent today. We might even hear from some Wayfarers like Dao Zhen again (not to diminish the accomplishments of the few teachers who, thankfully, do continue to share their thoughts here )

references? sources? You can't just toss that out there without some backup information

fwiw, sounds like maybe your heart center is a bit "off center." As the heart governs the other organs and their "spirits" (related to things like ambition, intuition, courage, groundedness), if the heart is over excited or under active, then we lose some ability to direct intentions -- like being offensive and not knowing why. Maybe just ground yourself, slow the heart down a bit.

So it sounds like you've learned how to use the heat (see my edit comment), so it's probably not so dangerous. After your early experience, I didn't want to suggest generating lots of heat as it sounded like you were just beginning to experiment with it all. So again, I suggest ocean wave breathing and visualization. There's surely more ways, but those 2 are fundamental.

Hopefully some people with more expertise than myself will chime in soon, but my thoughts are that intense heat in one area is not necessarily so good, unless maybe a master is doing body work on that area for some reason. Some warmth and feeling is good and adequate, in my non-expert opinion. More than that is not so necessary and bad if it's painful as that will cause you to involuntarily stress and tense up which messes up the groove. Some things you might try: 1) ocean wave breathing - basically hold an invisible chi ball in front of the dan tien which expands and contracts slowly with the breath 2) if you feel heat in the ming men, bring it up to the dan tien with deep slow breathing (bring it up with the inhale, then relax with the exhale, repeat). double check if the "burning moxa" didn't create a subconscious resistance to the experience... In fact, intent has a lot to do with it (sort of like intentional placebo-- the body ends up doing what it believes is happening) so you might even imagine a burning moxa in the dan tien while you do this edit- for the record, posted at the same time as Informer.. was not making any comment about his skillz, lol. Also, I should say that more heat might be used in higher level healing practices, but they know what to do with the heat so it's safe[r].

Well Mrs. Vajrahridaya, the thing with that is that we are not software and computers. It's not the soul that needs the body to survive, rather the other way around. Our personality might make its imprint on our spirit which continues on, and its very common for people to see someones spirit leave the body. I've heard it said that our temperament develops over time, but our personality, to a degree, is something that a child is born with. So cultivate your spirit. It's all that you are. Be generous, kind, loving, wise (surely you already are). These are the only treasures that we can truly grow and share forever and ever.

I'm glad you bring this up actually. It's an interesting facet of "knowing the time," that is, hearing the call that leads us to destiny. Makes me think about how one's Heart/Fire Spirit is also the locus of desire. The lungs/po spirit have a lot to do with intuition, but the Heart has a more subtle intuition, to my understanding, and when the Heart Spirit is healthy and balanced, people mange to be "in the right place at the right time" as is also the case for destiny

I've described my feeling during Qi Gong and sometimes sitting meditation as "sweet juices running through my body" so I can definitely relate.. During times when I neglected doing qi gong for a while, I realized that I was lacking in positive energy and so had none to give. Then I would do a qi gong set (5 treasures), and afterwards felt that I had enough positive energy to be generous with it and not have to hold onto what little life force I have left like it's my only dollar... Your friend might be addicted to the pleasure and satisfaction of feeling full. She might find this is another way to feel full, but it's also a fullness that she can share (or am I just talking %&^*?), and that can make her feel full not just in her stomach, but her whole body, legs, arms, muscles, organs, oxygene in the cells, and full of health. This can also trigger the same response in her brain that she satisfies with unnecessary eating, so she might be able to feed that need with it. I think one of the most difficult things that people need to overcome is an unnecessarily vast need for pleasure, regardless of where they get it from. Not being too dependent on pleasure can solve many many issues. Being able to still get positive energy without having to motivate it by quick pleasure, I think, is key to a good balance.

what do you think..?

It could be too hot, but if your purging and nourishing with qi then I think the balance will be there..

Yeah, it seems like a pretty intuitive thing to do to focus intent and guide chi. I guess I've always done this during Chi Kung though more intensely sometimes than others. I'm not sure how people would maintain their sense of the qi without having this type of focus.

I find this approach to appear in what I think can safely be called the most authoritative Taoist writings. It might also be said that the more southern school/water/energetic methods are transmitted by teachers rather than books so they are not written down in very many "authoritative texts." Nonetheless, I do have faith that the masters like Chang Po Tuan lead many people to great attainment with the "sitting and forgetting" practices. I tend to view chi kung as martial arts were described in the Shaolin Grandmasters Text (http://www.amazon.com/Shaolin-Grandmasters-Text-History-Philosophy/dp/0975500902).. ie., it's just exercise to keeps your body and physical discipline tuned up so that you can pursue the higher goals without having to worry about other basic human necessities, like standing up (at least literally, if not figuratively).. Another important point to the OP, imo, is that in the "intentional practices" a lot of the time people are trying to reach different "signs along the roadpath" like Siddhis which, I believe, arise naturally after disciplined "sitting and forgetting," BUT, there are also a lot of things Taoist masters learn to do beyond the meditation cushion which do require "intentional practices," though it might be said that those practices are learned as part of the VOCATION of being a Taoist shaman or priest and so for most, cultivating shen and xin (heart mind) are all that need to be focused on. I think there's a lot of truth in what Zen master Zibo said (approx.) "You need to cultivate the heart of Confucianism before approaching the Zen mind. And if you haven't realized the Mind of Zen, what time do you have for Taoism?" I rarely read books in a chronological order myself though anyways..... Knowing where we're going helps to know where we are too sometimes..