Rocky Lionmouth

I think you really should find a local teacher or at least geographically available one, someone who can give you feedback on your progress and who has the eyes to see if youre doing something wrong from early on. Books and websites give clues yes but no need to reinvent the wheel, there are a lot of coherent systems of Taoist practice out there. Many seem to be mixed with buddhist and confucian practice also, i guess its inevitable, but theres a lot of taoism going on anyway. Imo the specifics of all the practices are you, any practice is a systematization of hints to help you discover you and also you in relation to other things. First and foremost its to develop solid knowledge of the "raw material" and its possibilities and limits, later to experiment a lot more, refine the raw material according to and with respect of its own tendencies, strengths and weaknesses (all of them important!), not eradicate or change anything, but to use what is there as well and efficiently as possible. Curiosity and study, not wasting your energy, enjoying yourself. For some people its easy and they do however they please, but if youre like me, structure and base-line exercises help. Also: a teacher of Taoist practices isnt necessarily going to be able to help you all that much with anxiety and dealing with other sometimes deafening psychological phenomena, a doctor who is ready to listen carefully to you might be a good first step there. Took me a while to find a taoist martial arts teacher that suited me and a lot less to get to talk to a therapist about my anxiety troubles and depressions. Ironically, the sifu i looked for actively and the doctor i was pretty reclutant to go find at first, turns out they both operate in the same small area. Not being judgemental here or equating your situation with mine, just paying some helpful advice i got many years ago forward, might help, might not.

Gold!

Ok so i've been hand-lettering, calligraphing for a few decades and signpainting for a good five years now and it's all been activities within its important to unify the will, the body and the breathing to do correctly, and since qigong came into my life also developing the necessary softness and relaxation to refine and evolve the skills and work further. This stuff is like practice to me, the more grounded and centered i am, the better the results and the less wrung out i feel after a day of work. Its not unlike meditating on one-ness or observing within as well as acting without in a tai chi way for me. It develops my qigong and gong fu practice as well, cross pollination. I know you guys sit on a ton of ways you implement your practice into daily life, spill!

Ah! He's done one? I only ever read the book about enjoying life (awesome dry humorism and research), seems i need to buckle down. Link i posted was both decent and somewhat introductive/simplist but held a few key points anyway imo. Dunno if it helped.

Heres A link anyway, decent or not we shall see... http://www.goldenelixir.com/publications/eot_daojia.html I will now stare at it here, in bed, where one is at a full potential for good ideas and relaxation according (potential misquote alert) of Dr Lin Yutangs treatise on the art enjoying life.

*applause*

That happens all the time, sometimes its pretty nice and sometimes downright unpleasant. After its either dive back in or slightly change scenery. Accept, adapt and move on, sort of. Most times its just like a mental reset, letting go and finding freedom in a previously tight spot. Been taking a break from reading the old guys, i believe its easy to get stuck on the text and thereby get stuck on conceptual details, forgetting the living and filling my head with dead qi,(edit: you know like teacups and pouring etc etc?) In the end, of what consequence are footprints unless one needs them for a specific purpose, say to backtrack or follow?

Might be just living up to my self-appointed title here but here goes: Wasnt there a bunch of literati chilling out in a garden dealing in poetry, drinking wine, playing the lute, hanging loose and discussing how to follow the dao and its principles that is looked at as the context where daoism goes philosophical, historically speaking? As per usual i cant remember the source exactly, maybe i just dreamed it, but at least i dreamed it in the form of a book. What i clearly remember was that the Tao of Pooh (book i loved at first but have since come to loathe for its chirpy tone and forced and stereotyped brand of childishness) made the distinction between the religious and philosophical "branches" as being defined and in antagonistic relation, but im thinking they might be just two different contexts of discussion, where religious taoism concerns the metaphysical and philosophical is more theoretically oriented, wether it be about "big" issues such as the dynamics of the world or day to day practical mental tools. But wdik, really? Im still in a place where i guess CT is right, i'm looking at the footprints left in the sand by those who walked before me etc: following the Tao is at best 60% learning from teachings and 70% personal discovery, Taoism im still skeptical about.

Ah, very good. Tantraux then.

Bit off topic but i've heard orgasm referred to as the little or minor death, although that might have been in some yogic or tantric tradition, i really cant remember the context, sorry.

Cheers! You're in for a treat, i can say Snuff was good too, but im a bit of a Vimes fan in general.

Ooo! Me too me too! Fifth Elephant and Monstrous Regiment are my faves.

Taoism im not sure, trying for all you're worth to follow the Tao i guess. Wich for me isnt about wether or not the world is modern or finding a true this or that, more like a method, a scientific method of observing as best as possible and not doing oneself the disservice of trying to organize the data by essentialism or reduction, or any pattern for that matter, im biased enough as it is and in the pursuit of accepting that. "Observing what?" one might ask and i'd reply "H*ll if i know, everything? Nothing? This and that depending on my fitness of the day..." I do like what Marblehead and Grandmaster were on about. Its the jurney, in a brand new retro model chassi designed for a few purposes and useful for endles amounts of applications To sum it up: acceptance, curiosity and observation...

I shamelessly rotate and neglect the following results of other peoples hard work: Robert W Chambers - The King in Yellow A Conan Doyle - complete Sherlock Holmes canon Ben Aronovich - Broken Homes With apologies to the authors //R.LM.

Looked around for it tonight, nothing "readily" available as in free dlc but im considering buying it, even though the wikipedia article about it gives me the impression it hasnt really been translated fully or well. Any opinions? Maybe its another case of "buy three different versions in english and fall asleep trying to read between the gaps and lines and perhaps dilute it all into a idiosyncratic summary wherein the 'point' is at best misplaced"? Is that just me being overly skeptical and/or overeager? Descriptions of it paint it as a key to incredible and detailed information about roughly everything of interest and then some Anyhow, im considering giving the italian sounding fellows version a shot.

Like my man Uncle Grga Pitic said: "I think this is biginin of butifurl frenshipp!"

And people keep talking about walking around in circles like its a bad thing! The sticks always seemed a lot more fun at least! How'd you bless it?

God do i feel like that a lot! I'll try to! I liked this one though, it had a nice personal resonance to it.

Nah man, just thought i'd pop in, make an ass out of myself and be on my merry way for a year or two. There's not really anyone to talk to otherwise. Who cares anyway right?

Wholeheartedly agreeing with Protector, please resume this topic! I'll throw something my small knowledge guesses is a retarded question as a kickstart: so understanding the trigrams in the context of the magic square (derived from linear and geometrical shapes constructed of dots) helps you understand the bagua and in turn that helps you understand the hexagrams and so on and so forth. *speed version* I'm all new to this aspect of it an my mind's a little blown now. I've studied the I ching a bit and always felt that the way it's marketed (with three coins to flip and a cryptic set of standardized answers provided for the 64 possibilities) was a bit hollow, tried to understand the visual pattern of change occurring and the circular table but to no avail. It just assumes different patterns and recently i saw that these patterns follow different rythm depending on wich organizaion of hexagrams you follow. Each version differing because (i guess) various practicioners had slightly differing views and therefore needed to adapt the tools to suit their method. If studying the trigrams helps you discover things in a certain perspective (as you said earlier that "lake" doesnt mean lake but it points to a dynamic of power that helped shape amongst other things: a lake) what does the succession of hexagrams collected from the DDJ allude to? Does it provide yet another mapping order for hexagrams? Do the hexagrams correlate back to the text somehow, like a third, "deeper" layer of meaning? Another question: how far does a tradition of teaching these methods go? Where is the the line between repetition of an experiment and uncharted territory?

Here's how i feel right now: the emperor is naked, and he looks pretty at ease with it. Of course the teachings are bullshit. Everything is bullshit. But even bullshit can point out a whole bunch of directions and gently nudge you around in a little circle or until a step in some direction is taken. The teachings are a box of tools and if they appear as a screwdriver when you need a hammer then go get a hammer or use your shoe! Self, no self, crap, no crap. Everything is broken, nothing is anything without being in a relationship to everything else or something is something only by making it not another thing. There's no point in being good, no point in choosing something and sticking to it unless it works for you. Mind, emotion, sensation and whatnot is at best a function of gathering information, trying to stick some order to it can be useful but if you ask me it needs to be practical. If i went to a mountain to find my peace and succeeded in finding a peace that requires me to stay on that mountain i hope i'd still be sane enough to take the quickest way down the nearest precipice. There's a lot to be theoretic and understanding about but going about your day has to be the one thing were it all sums up right? You wake up, hopefully have the possibility to eat and maybe take one good shit and try again tomorrow. Struggle, pain, happiness and peace all in a day. I've been wallowing in my own crap for decades, this last five years mortality, self worth, building meaningful relationships and surviving in society has really been kicking my ass. So, what to do? I'm still alive and i do what i do and try to minimize energy drains. One day i might even kick the habit of feeling sorry for myself and be more free to do and build where i stand. I keep putting in work on myself because i feel i need it to make things less hard to deal with. For this tools are needed, comparisons have to be made in order to keep going. Next step is next. Next discovery is shrouded until further notice. The teachings are a con job and it's great because they've helped me deal with some crap and shape tools to deal with similar aspects of similar crap, motivators, and i've been disillusioned to them. I use them as i see fit, most of the time making a lot of mistakes that tell me something about adapting. When i teach kung fu or qigong techniques and i see my students are losing motivation i sometimes add some "fluff" to the practice and make sure they forget about thinking something is boring and just keep doing it, albeit dressed in a different set of clothes. I like keeping myself distracted and hard at work as a strategy, but it's a long term failing one since neglect follows closely. Long term solutions are like quick fixes. All one needs to do is keep going and constantly switch strategy according to the situation. I can go on for ages about this. Maybe it's a good rant, probably its just like the teachings: useful crap. And i'm so gonna be reborn a worm for posting this.

Yo! So yeah, i was reading this book series called "Dark Heavens" and discovered a deity i'd almost totally missed (except for an article on "Dark Warrior Ba Gua" in an old magazine a while back): Xuan Tian Shang Di AKA Xuan Wu, the North Wind, Black Turtle and Snake, Emperor of the Four Winds, he is the Water element personified and second only to the Yellow Emperor himself. Pretty serious dude, apparently very popular all over China too. He's the main male character in the books and it seems the author Kylie Chan is pretty well researched in mythology and martial arts. Apart from using the word "kata", wich really feels inappropriate to me, but i'm into traditional kung fu and therefore picky about terminology (apparently). I'm liking the novels, it's a lot about impossible romance, friendship and loyalty in a modern day world where Gods, Immortals and Demons can walk the Earthly plane. Great beach-litterature. So i got curious about Xuan Wu and wanted to know how he relates to Daoist practices, both in religion, qi gong and kung fu. It's obvious that he's associated to the Wudang Shan arts and he holds a certain mudra called "Three Mountain Seal" (outstreched index, thumb and long finger connected, ring finger folded and little finger folded over the ring finger). He's got Lu Dongbins magic sword as well. Wudang boxing seems to have a number of styles related to him: Xuan Wu Ba Gua Zhang, Xuan Wu Quan and Xuan Wu Gun (staff form). I'm guessing there's a straight sword form dedicated to him as well. Being so very Yin i'm also thinking there should be some meditation practices related to him. Wikipedia has a pretty good article about him. So, any of you guys know him better? Or is this perhaps a secret and now you have to kill me?

That connection never occurred to me before but i can dig that. Im guessing that embracing the fear of death leads to embracing the concept of death wich (hopefully) leads to embracing life and that in turn eventually leads you to embrace the cycles of life and death. I witnessed the death of a dear one up close once and to me it was like watching someone being born, but from "the other side" if you catch my drift? That feeling of the deep silence that permeates all things came around some months after that event, while dealing with grief and sorrow and the fear of death in a very understandable presence.