Rocky Lionmouth

Ah, yes, i see. Being inducted by my sifu to his tradition of southern chinese daoist deity-service the formalities of offering incense and conducting introduction and specifying the dealings with names, honorifics etc is for the sake of the deity or spirit as much as ourselves, far too sybolic and specific to be considered as just mood setting. Once a well established report is in place formality goes into either shorthand or is quickly dispensed with, but essentially there is a social aspect to relationships with higher beings. Even if you’re well acquainted certain observations are important, in the beginning it establishes respect and a space to commune, later on they represent affection and intimate respect. But thats a whole different tradition, pardon the intrusion

Ah @dwai thats a very interesting technique! Besides stopping at discomfort or pain, wouldnt you recommend some incense, asking the particular deity to attend and explaining what you would like to do, have them consent and listen to their thoughts on the experiment before placing them inside your heart or even presuming to visit theirs? I was just thinking how i’d react if some stranger manhandled me into their insides out of nowhere and then jumped into my inimate heartspace, i’d feel violated and most likely pretty outraged, i’d definetly have words with them. At least wine and dine me before attempting any intimate contact, you know?

This! Thanks my friend. I had recurring tinnitus but over the years it lessned into almost never occuring, and that sound is horrible. Deeply unnerving even if compared to the sound of Dao which can be used as an analogy. The latter is not deafening or distracting, Dwais description of it as a thread of is very apt, eerily so. It’s my current understanding that this sound is like almost all of the things related to energy: not a perception or interpretation of the energy itself but rather what occurs as a correlated phenomena when that particular process is allowed to happen and experienced. But i think that, which is a sort of rule with these things, it is a confirmation that something has already begun and the meresr perceptible testimony of this is just that sound, at an early stage. Who knows about later? If you’d go to someone who knows evermore of this truly they prolly tell you to never mind the ringing in your ears, just like it is no accomplishment for a healthy body and spirit to acknowledge hunger or needing to pee. You go do your thing and get back to the important business.

Argh! Beware the essentialist path, it is fraught with horrors of backfed reinforcement of confirmational biases!

Isn’t there?

@GSmaster I seek no war and i will recieve no war, there is no war between us regardless of your actions and words. Your words have no purchase, your violence has no target. I apologized to you openly in my last post and owned my part inviting you to do the same, gave you the advice out of not wishing you further harm or humiliation three times over and still you persist in ignoring this. Why is that? You gain nothing from this and yet you have invested yourself fully as a gamble, playing a high stakes game out of whatever confusion is driving you. You have now thrice offered me malice and agression as presents, i will never accept anything from you. No apologies will remedy or suffice. Your words are vicious and your intent harmful. I wish with everything i have to spare that you find a different direction to pursue. We are done now. I leave you here where you stand on rotten ground and you will hopefully find that only despair and lonliness grows of the efforts you are engaging in at the moment. You will find no further replies in me and your magic is broken, grief is your reward.

I thought we were done @GSmaster, but my spidey-sense was tingling so i had to do my homework on the backstory and there i find you talking shit while having an R-Kelly sized meltdown. Flyboy, i do not apologize to people who respond with aggression after actively taking offense at statements who were EXPRESSLY not aimed at anyone. I’m guessing here so i might of course be wrong but here’s my question: Did you feel i was aiming at you while trying to maintain plausible deniability? If so then sorry man but thats all on you, i adressed that in a fairly lighthearted way and it seems to have backfired epically. Cease and desist with the shittalk and veiled threats or whatever you are trying to do. I resent the retard comment, gravely so and i find your escalation of this situation to be pitiful, uncalled for and unnecessary. I rarely do this if ever but your belligerent crap is way out of line and place, back off and behave like the responsible adult you claim to be, you’re acting like i should jump at the mention of your handle and before my patience with this childish nonsense of yours is at and end i repeat myself: Quit it. Quit this right now and back off, you don’t want to follow the path you’re currently rushing down all in a hurry. I did not mean to attack or offend you, if i did it was inadvertently and i am sorry for the carelessness. There is however no need to act as if i came to your house, shat on the doorstep and denied it all. Thats your indignation and resentment talking, not my actions. Own yours as i do mine. Now, for the last time: Quit it, you will not enjoy the results of the actions you are implying.

The issue remains, unless they catch the sarcasm of your laugh (which a single lol-face might not suffice to deliver) theres still a lot of odd laughs going on for the reciever. Now, i enjoy and find Starman and his content interesting for the most part so i aint got no beef with him or anybody else (looking at you Flyboy, drop the threat display and posturing son, i don’t believe any of it) so please read the following with a benevolent approach: While i don’t consider it to be a trait you carry or use that much what you wrote above is well within the confines of passive agressive behavior. I know you have a style and phrasing that doesn’t shy away from confrontation which is what i most appreciate on here, people who arent afraid to speak their mind and with integrity. Sure, you don’t have to deal with a ”debate” (it never is) but it also means you don’t really stand by your critique, it signals more of ”im way above you” rather than ”what an idiotic thing to write!” To me, maybe not anyone else, who knows? In a face to face group talk that might pass or you might get called on it but in text it becomes part of that sort of half overt sense of superiority that is commonplace in forum culture webwide. A spiritual and tao-oriented forum should aim loftier, being frank and not easily hurt would fit us better. Just as not treating apologies and olive branches as expensive jewelry... I think it wouldnt be uncivil if a more familiar tone where an acceptable statement would be to post a reply along the lines of ”now thats a moronic idea imho”. Most Bums could and would probably reply something like ”duly noted arseface, thanks” and that conflict just dissipates, unless they’re stupid enough to provoke a Known Frequent Offendee who is also a self proclaimed master of wordfencing. We have a few of those, less now since the Second coming of Sean, which i think is marvellous. Idk, for what its worth i think TDB would benefit from folks being more open and less academic in conflicts. If those that do possess the level of integrity to confront without taking the bait take a lead people might start to follow.

Your inconveniencing was unintended, your belittling tone unnecessary and your vicious reaction uncalled for. I don’t care for glory or being a hero and i’m downright uninterested in your thoughts on anything, even less so if they regard me. I was not playing. Should you want to discuss this any further you are welcome to levitate in and knock on my door and we’ll take it from there flyboy.

I never saw this ordering before This is what it looked like when the new year began? I gotta study this very carefully, thanks Meow! ❤️

Sorry been busy for a few days so i missed the depressing thing and the uplifting trajectory of the puns which successfully elevated the mood right back to a floating breeze. Well done! To everybody and nobody in particular: I would like to share that anyone foolish enough to mess with Luke automatically gains an enemy in me. This might mean bupkiss to you, but to me it means a lot. He doesnt need me backing him up, obviously, but nonetheless here is a solid principle to remember: Target one as your foe and you shall gain twice that number of enemies. Give one a shove and you shall earn twice in return. Give one love and twice it will be repaid in kindness. Help me once and i will not rest until i have saved you twice.

Now if levitation is or isnt possible, is it even desirable? I mean if someone catches you doing it there’ll be a shitload of exasperating interaction to follow. People’ll start asking you to fly over to the store and pick something up, etc. I think levitating is the social equivalent of having a fly ass ride but always being the designated driver because nobody actually cares more than to have their own thrills and be like super nice feeling all awesome. Another probability is that levitation is a little bit like cocaine, it amplifies your experience and personality, also those parts that you’re not too proud of. I wouldn’t want either. Too much hassle, get found out and everybody suddenly wants your favours for themselves. EDIT Threads like these in the daoist section spontaneously bring a hilarious line by Lauryn Hill to mind: No disrespect to anyone in particular but this siddhi talk is usually the precursor to escalating conflict, ad hominems and all sorts of grief and grieviances.

Even moreso: kitty has refined the Pill of Fur.

ZYD litterally speaks volumes on the matter while staying on point. I am amazed and inspired, thank you sir!

Second that thought, sounds like the best advice at this particular time. Oh, this is another one of those things where you ought to not worry, for your own sake. Battle one of these gross misconceptions and fifteen new rapidly multiplying ones arise immediately. Not to mention all the bonafide crap that turns up just about anywhere you turn your head. Just spitting a few random ones out of the top of my head results in the following: ”Tao of this sort of business venture”, ”Lao Tzu is Jesus but Jesus isn’t Lao Tzu” and ”Dao De Gym”. I would not be surprised to find out they are in fact real books. For every real perspective into Daoism there are at least ten thousand fake ones, both malicious and well meaning. These things will die soon, dont worry about them.

Yo those guys need to check their animal friends who are currently either spitting or vomiting in the tripod...

Completely understandable about the reproductibility of that silence. Its sort of like a combined set of dynamic effects, like a multiband compression as well as filtering down or out certain frequencies. Agreed on the language of snow and its layered history and dialect, beautiful description Meow!! Funnily enough different temperatures and textures of snow generate different types of silence. Close to 0C snow speaks very loud and schreechy, i think its almost clingy in what it says. At those temperatures when spruce collects large, sticky chunks of really heavy snow its one sort of soundscape. Dampness in the air feels heavy, gusts get that sharp edge that cuts the skin almost. Similar to when hard crystal powder is blown strongly, but sharper and less like pins and needles. Wet snowscape sounds fairly yin to me. Thaw and powdery snow is more yang, while frozen top coatings under new, soft and undisturbed snow is so rich an experience i can hardly lift my gaze from my shoes. I wish i knew those specialty words for snow that some languages have. Swedish has some, but they’re more basic-descriptive groupings. Wetsnow, powdersnow, cracklytopsnow, hardsnow, snowsmoke (refers to hard and fine powdersnow blown about violently enough that it looks like billows of smoke and coils over surfaces like rich moist arabic hookah tobacco smoke), snowmist (more of a phenomenon) and such. Its said some indigenous words for snow are strikingly poetic and descriptive. I really miss the four season areas. Where i’m at currently it’s two and a half seasons, mostly nasty sort of wet and sharply windy, snow is very rare...

I’m getting the feeling a lot of people are responding to this new year and cycle in way that seems agitated or hyper. From where i am it looks like time is speeding up and i’m still slow as usual. Gotta get my casting thing working, stuff to learn.

There is something about snow, especially in a spruce and pine forest when the branches are dropping dry snow. It’s like the air gets to grab something through my lungs and pull it out, replacing it with fresh akr and clarifying energy. And that snow-silence is just unmatchable. Only the important stuff carries. Love it.

It comes off like an attempt to distill a snack-size introduction to Lao Tzus teachings. LT was very clear about his three treasures and De, the virtue/power that manifests in those that follow the Way. The quotes don’t really convince me, they come off as a very basic and almost overly simplifying rendition, LT as i read it wasn’t close to being this ”hippyish” in form or message. The video isn’t exactly wrong about it nor is it right or spot on describing it. Nobody will oppose themselves to the good of the stated cardinal points but that Lao Tzu would have walked around teaching this all over isn’t right. Afaik he was forced to write his message down while being halted by a border guard who knew him and followed his ideas, the soldier basically forced him at spearpoint to consolidate his wisdom in text before dissappearing from knowledge and sight forever. He wasn’t really one to put on airs or proselytize some loving kindness and how to succeed in life being a saint, rather he was conscious of the reluctance and disdain many had for his ideas. He wasn’t first nor last, but what the DDJ made was a very early writing from a daoist view of the dao and its virtues on very cosmological and high levels of consideration. ZZ was more folksy, but they both pointed in the same direction more or less. The video isn’t a shoddy or crappy one, it’s just incorrect in framing and tone, imho.

If not looking appalled and telling us to never mind such foolish talk, eat our veggies and jumping on a casually bystanding crane and take to the heavens shaking their head...

For those who are looking to build core strenght and such and already have at least an intermediate proficency in martial arts and long time basic sung training i can recommend trying to do it with a plate carrier, that is a military style upper torso body armor carrying vest. Crossfit nerds have gone bananas on this training form but since i find their training style too destructive/unsafe to joints and spine in the long term i’ve tried to adapt PC-training to kung fu purposes. Since the plates are solid and the design of the carrier, when worn correctly, it adds a top heavyness that really forces you to maintain proper relaxation and posture during footwork training and forms. This of course also means shelling out for a decent quality yoked pc-vest with weights (i went for two plates for front and back, each ar 3.3 kg) which isn’t going to cost peanuts but it does ensure those plates will stay put on you, inside the vest (not sliding out and breaking your feet) and distribute the weight on the right places while you retain a fairly high range of motion. Do not buy cheap plate carriers, they’ll fail at the stitching or plate retention and you will be very sorry. If you know someone doing crossfit training on the ambitious level ask them if you can borrow a vest from someone to try it out. As far as i’ve tried it for shorter sessions the weight isn’t very noticeable at first, but you will feel it afterwards, and as all these power and strenght and proper relaxation things it’s a cumulative practice. Try doing horse stance to bow stance stepping patterns and you’ll notice results on your technique, power and strenght. Add Iron Ring training on your forearms (strenght, momentum conservation and arm conditioning) and you’ll be doing fairly hard work that’ll increase core strenght and the transmission of power and structure in the gua, both upwards and downwards. Coiling and turning doesnt seem to be affected in the same way with the pc-vest but i havent tried it very much yet, still sticking to basics and seeing if ilive to regret this investment...

It is dense and clear, i read the first three chapters all in one sitting. This is going to be very interesting once i start taking notes and cross referencing.

It’s that time again when this silly Red Panda or CatBear gets it in his unkempt head to give the I Ching a new chance to confuse me. Last time i got not far and without any insight. I find there is a treatise, a Great one if not THE Great Treatise on the classic of change, i would read it if i knew one who makes it justice in this barbarian language of ours. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

YAS! Thank you Meows, purrs and headbutts, found it on e-book, will begin my studies NOW.