dawei

Agreed... This would be an interesting topic. It would be about time that someone pointed out that Daoism is bigger than LZ and ZZ

Yes, that was the point of my definition... and not everyone wants a discussion to be an argument either

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:" -- ecclesiastes

I started in groups and this approach has forever jaded my view of how to practice energy work... the sheer amount of energy you can feel, exchange, transfer, share in a group is hard to match. I think this truly jump started my energy. There were times when one felt like they were glowing. I remember one practice set where about 12 of us were in a circle and we only used our minds to project energy to different others. This kind of practice quickly taught me the value of intention as opposed to all the focus often made on breath/breathing.

thanks for sharing the stories. You used that DDJ quote in a positive manner which is how I often think of it. Glad to see this usage. The only problem I have is there is no next chapter to read... I'm thinking you could write 81 stories?

Here is a simple one from Merriam-Webster 1 : a ground of dispute or complaint Does ZZ dispute or complain?

Something tells me we're missing a few details leading up to the dream... Was there a natural connection from birth? Maybe you have related this on TTB somewhere(s) else. --- I would only say that I did not come to Taoism but an understanding of Tao from birth. But no immortals have visited me yet. In a nutshell: Literature and poetry was always my love. Here are those writings which have most affected me: Those in bold the most. - Greek: Sappho, Callimachus, Homer, Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles - Romans: Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Ovid, Juvenal, Martialis - English: Blake, Milton, Chaucer, Pope, Shakespeare - Metaphysical poets: Donne, Marvell, Cowley, Crashaw, Herbert - Italian poets: Ariosto, Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarca - Existentialist: Camus, Husserl, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Sarte, - Chinese poets: Bai Juyi, Du Fu, Li Bai, Li Qingzhao, Li Shang-Yin, Meng Haoren, Qu Yuan, Su Dongpo, Tao Qian, Wang Wei - Zen- Bodhidharma, Huike, Sengcan, Daoxin, Hongren, Farong, Huineng, Shenxiu, Mazu Daoyin, Huangbo, Dogen. I didn't relate how I came to an understanding of Tao... Life; reading; experience. I left out any daoist writings... by the time I read the DDJ, right after my Zen period, it was all too obvious. It was a great 'duh'. I felt nothing was added except organized understanding. But it was like coming home. I would need to list the ancient chinese text separately as to its influence if that detail was wanted.

I know I am jumping in the middle of your discussion with Stig but I do find it interesting. I appreciate Stig's point of view and have had the benefit of time here in TTB to know his point of view and frustration with sharing it. But, I think your line of inquiry is worthwhile up to a point. It might be like asking what Christians were like pre-Apostolic age... it may be an anachronistic search. I might be more inclined to say there were Daoist but not Daoism... or else this pre-han Daoism needs to be defined by these pre-han Daoist. Consider that Lao ZI and Zhuang Zi both refer to 'past sages' or 'past times'. I think the single most important document we could look at is the Shen Zi since it pre-dates Lao Zi and it is clear that there is material borrowed from Shen Zi. I think Lao Zi may not be the great originator of thought as he is often thought... but that he systematized and distilled it into an 'ism' for the first time is to her merit. His gift was not as a founder but as the all-seeing.

Oh. I didn't realize that Meridian_Man considered himself a true Taoist. I am curious if Meridian_Man can speak for himself. @Meridian_Man: How would you like to be labeled? (If at all) And I missed where you shared your lessons learned from the Tao Te Ching... Was that in another post?

I am kind of curious as to the need to label others. It seems that some want to make everyone from the west an American Taoist, whether they consider themselves Taoist or not. I recall John Chang being asked by his biographer if he was Daoist and he emphatically said NO... yet the biographer felt compelled to subtitle the book to include the word 'Taoist'... It would seem to me that when others try to assign a label to others, they are doing at their own need. And even if someone never claimed such a label, it is put forth. As for ZZ... he was one quarreling bastard. His disagreements ran deep...

Ignore may work at times but it may be ignoring the issue too. If someone comes into a thread and those posts now derail the purpose and discuss and cause bad feelings then ignoring it is like the teacher letting the students do whatever they want at the expense of the class. So, we should keep some common sense as a part of an understanding of the issues... does asking moderators to publicly discuss private reports further the topic? It seems to go against common sense in my book. For others, it may serve some need.

What seems interesting to note is that among 20 asian translations in english, they all choose not to translate Dao at all. This is one of the chapters where "Way" does seem to work well enough to translate.

One thing appears to be overlooked: The state of desires is not just a state of emotions but whether the block is uncarved or not. Thus, from a microcosm point of view, the state of desires of the person IS the same as the state of manifestation of Tao. If one sticks with the MWD text then desires seems to work best within its original line. If one goes with the comma after Wu and You, then I see the replacement to boundary seems better. MWD-A: 6. 恆有欲也以觀其所噭 HSG: 6. 常有欲，以觀其徼。 Rec : 6. 常有，欲以觀其徼

The problem may be... what if Sean doesn't response? I think this points out some weakness in the TTB: if you need an admin to do something, there should be more than one person available. This is common sense for a website. Second: don't stop the study. If you really need to, then we report posts to the moderators and say "if this was in the sub forum, I can take care of this but for now you need to"... maybe after enough reports, they can impress on Sean the need to do what is common sense for organizing threads. Did I say... Don't stop the study? Aaron: Enough of us support this study and don't feel like your carrying any weight of it. I vote we move on together!

As 宁 suggests, there is something personal about everyone's practice. What you encounter and struggle with and succeed in is yours alone... it will certainly have some common ground and experience with others practice. Your experience is natural for you. Just forget anyone else's disbelief. So let's just talk straight. You raised an interesting point of: 'what happens afterwards'. I recall when doing group Qigong where energy was practiced as shared and exchanged and sent around the group... but the last 20 minutes of practice was to lay down and empty oneself. That last 20 minutes was the most energetic moment of the entire 2 hours. It was as if the energy which was moving for the past 100 minutes needed to now really "do it's own thing". It would race all over my body like christmas lights. When I went home, I could not sleep until 3am. There was a universal light bulb during the day. And I floated around. Later when I engaged other practices, I learned to generate that Qi floating feeling. As an example: You can raise your arm with Qi, and this works well with Tai Ji practices. I don't know all your practice and direction but I will warn you to tame your excitement. I was practicing everywhere possible including at 33,000 feet on my business trips. I found every excuse to practice and push the limits... I literally shocked myself seeking the merging of Yin and Yang. And now my nervous system has some fall out from that. There are days I have it under control with breath or the third eye; and other days it is a vibrational symphony. My study of Medical QIgong has probably kept me together more than anything else. Healing others really starts with healing self... so I pulled back from that study to focus on the basic truism of life. I will leave you with that.

Evidently, you needed to get that off your chest... good... it may be therapeutic. How about moving on to something of substance.

This is indeed hard to produce one needs a public emergence on some level. I don't think such issues were considered in the past. Instead, simply following of a leader was a more private matter. Tribes depended on their own, and there was not enough size (think a city-state or society) for the idea of a sect. Tribes were sects to some degree and archaeology clearly shows the 'groups' practiced together. IMO, this is the Shaman influence on later religions. Or maybe just an application of Daoism he disagree with? It is interesting that he feels the Sage-Kings was the falling away from Dao (for the rulers), while others have mentioned them as in the line of Shaman Kings.

I tend to think it recurs due to it's practical humanistic side; people like to apply stuff to the here-and-now. So whether various admonitions were meant for the ruler or not, the people find wisdom in what is said "to do". I would sum up chinese thinking with the thought of what "to do". I tend to view issues about Dao as a continuous unfolding microcosm. Thus, what we see later has its roots earlier. So I would probably say I do not see shamanism in the later Daoist sects in the shamanistic way, but the appeal to immortality, to deity worship seem rooted in shamanism, and has evolved in its expression. My position seems to be as was stated In that article: "Finally, I will argue that a more satisfactory state of affairs will depend not on imposing standard definition but on being explicit about which of the many senses of Taoism we are invoking in each instance". So, I would not directly look for Shamanism in latter sects but the influences of Shamanism on later sects. One far-reaching example which appears completely unrelated, I would say is from 'influence'; Shamanistic influence on Wang Bi. That may seem the longest stretch possible. It was Wang Bi who put the emphasis on the idea of "Wu" (non-existence) vs You (existence). While he comes out of the 'dark philosophers', the connection to the Shaman (Wu) is without question, IMO.

The effects will differ based on the practices and the person, and I am thinking mostly in terms of energetics. I don't think what you experience is anything unusual. I had some tremendous energy increases at different points, so it doesn't have to be just at the start. Also, consider that your exchanging energy with the universe and the energy circulating in you can be likened to oil in a car for my example... Your energy exchange with the universe will also act like an 'oil change' as you purge junk out and get clean energy to replace it. What is the energy junk which is purging? It can be coming out of your limbs, your organs, your stored emotions, etc... Do you know when people say after they've had a tremendous emotional lift once a burden comes off their back... What has really come off of them? Or purged out of them? The advantage in what your doing is that your accessing universal energy and can do it 24/7, not just during practice.

I am not interested... and that might be one viable reason we see. I don't mind hearing what they said about the chapters but it's still unclear when they are actually talking vs your interpreting for them on stuff they didn't really explain in detail.

You made an assumption anyways... but at least that is one we know is not the case. Almost every ancient chinese philosopher is translated as well as the Guodian and MWD texts... Objectively and logically, I would doubt this book is "impossible to translate".

realize that the link provided in no way suggests this rendering... that is too word for word. The author expresses this as a dynamic interaction... Thus, Riyue has come very close to expressing that author's idea of 道可道非, 常道 /恆道 as 一陰一陽之謂道. For the author, Ke and Fei (可 and 非) are Yang and Yin; Ascent and descent; left and right; You and Wu (有 and 無). Thus, it leads to line 3 and 4: 3. 無，名天地之始。 4. 有，名萬物之母。 Once the correspondence exchanges are made, we see: 道可道非, 恆道 - The dynamic interaction of Dao-Ke and Dao-Fe is the eternal Dao [at work] 道陽道陰, 恆道 - The dynamic interaction of Dao-Yang and Dao-Yin is the eternal Dao [at work] 道無道有, 恆道 - The dynamic interaction of Dao-Wu and Dao-You is the eternal Dao [at work]

I think most arguments rely on a physical understanding and metaphor of cultural specificity. And if our understanding is purely about a physical body alone, then the arguments make sense to me. But if there is energy and light and spirit... then that means there are connections beyond the body. Over millenia , we have probably shut down most of those connections but they exist. For those who gain access to something beyond the physical, whether they realize it or not, then there are no cultural boundaries just as Dao is unbound.

The issues seems to me to be two-fold, which I think Mark mentions (whether in the article or here). 1. Theoretical: The distinction being made about philosophical vs religious daoism 2. Practical: Whether what we see in practice are people picking the parts (sometimes more parts and sometimes less parts) they are interested in and make that a part of their life. The first one is debatable but the second is a reality. I think most of the debate over the issue tends to overlook the latter and this causes the debaters at times to seem to be out of touch with what the other 'feels' at the practical level. My feeling is the arguments tend to from our practical perspective and application. My personal view is that Daoism is a set of continuous parts which are a whole series of time events (let's set aside whether time is real). For this reason, I say Daoism started in primitive cultures. When the ancient text said: “In the old times of King Fuxi’s regime, he observed sky and the stars when he looks upwards, and researched the earth when he looks downwards, and watched the birds and beasts to see how they live in their environment. He took examples from nearby and far away, and then made 8 Yin Yang signs to simulate the rules of universe.” And Zhuangzi pointed back to the time of perfect virtue as that time of 'making knots with cords'... there is little doubt that he also was talking the neolithic period. If we are caught up when Daoism was organized and systematicized into thoughts put in books, we've lost Daoism, IMO...

I think if it is in this section of TTB, then this study can be focused to this Received Text and the Scholars who write it, at the exclusion of english speaking people. What gets lost is where it is the scholars thought vs someone elses. I think it is inevitable that something is getting added to what the book said as the book may not of had the goal to be exhaustive as debunking the variations or common text. I don't yet hear such things and this may be why the west has not taken notice of the book if it appears to be yet another commentary.