dawei

This member is a past banned member who keeps coming back in many incarnation. As someone stated, he may break the record for the most attempts to come back as a new member to sneak in for reasons we can't know, except he can't seem to avoid us...

1. Actually the chapters were from the link above them. Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Daoists/wenzi.html 2. A quick look turned up nothing new.

I don't find any controls over the PPD level to sort. Only once in a sub-forum there are some sort options.

or a New World [energetic] Order

His persistent and insistent gift is but a mental drift. You asked why he is unavoidable and I meant his power is to create an inability to be an avoider... Your desire to avoid or not is not within my power of voidance. he provides much more than eggs, rice and milk powder... He is providing a great dividing...

I take a broader view of Alchemy because the daoist tradition does as well. The step-wise march from external alchemy to inner alchemy is several fold and at least a thousand years of modification. So, just as Daoyin is the precursor to Qigong, external alchemy is the precursor to inner alchemy... but lest we neglect what happens inbetween, then we end up only describing alchemy based on about year 1200 A.D. onward. And something was completely dropped by modern times. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/daoism-religion/ http://abodetao.com/daoism-and-the-origins-of-qigong/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daoist_meditation This suggests the protoform of inner alchemy. By the time we get to what is often called 'Dual Culivation of MIng and Xing' (many threads here), spirits and gods are absent. the goal is to eventually create the self as spirit... maybe one can see how far from the tree the apple has fallen. Each turning of the wheel simply removes one part and creates a new way. PDFs: The Way of the Golden Elixir by Fabrizio Pregadio Edit: Fixed PDF link at bottom.

He is the gift that keeps on giving returning... you cannot be an avoider

If memory serves me... I think the older version handled this better... although also alphabetic, if you marked the site as "read", then they would only start to show up as they had unread content. Now, they all show all the time. I found it a bit annoying myself that they changed this. I'll have to poke around the back-end to see if there is some setting. It is not a 'group' setting so have to look at those sub-forums.

Does this relate to the Three Disciplines ?

Emptiness is something that cannot be described... Like Dao. Things described are not emptiness.

It seems to me you're having the battle of sense based, dualistic thinking about how you view happiness... insert any other idea and it is still the same. It is sense based, and sometimes a morality based layer is on top of it. You also reference Daoism but I think you don't really understand that quite correctly. Many traditions talk about a liberation but it is not for self but from self. Which is to say, from sense-based thinking on dualistic thinking and concepts. It is not the elimination or annihilation nor a cessation or extinguishing of desires; it is to see desires in its true or original nature; this seeing is not sense seeing. Laozi said when you see beauty then you will see ugly. He setup the case for dual thinking as in our sense-being. Hui Neng (sixth patriarch of Zen and major shift), said: "From the first, there is nothing that is". He also said, "A is A and is Not-A". This fits with Zhuangzi who often talked of neither this nor that; Stanford Encylopedia said: "Zhuangzi’s naturalism is anti-dogmatic, it neither denies nor asserts any particular set of distinctions as authentic". In non-duality, there is no picking of sides; there is no attachment to either side; thought does not reside in the senses but has moved to a place of Both/And. It is more like a suspension of seeing with the senses as 'competing sides' and an inner knowing/seeing that there is no separation in the polarity of duality. Not that you think 'no separation' but you simply don't choose a side nor think a side; not attachment to a side. While from a philosophical point of view this might feel like nihilism or emptiness-state but if you're thinking it, then it is still dualism. You might be asking, how can happiness rise out of this state? How happy did Zhuangzi sounds

A few days ago I had a big drop... but bounced back now.

Let's put a title to your terse sermon: Avoidance

Back to duality thinking. Let go of it .... ideas of living and dying, transforming, etc. As long as the mind ponders, considers, worries such things, there is no rest. Let go of duality... and the unity of vast heaven is in our hearts.

Seems an interesting discourse on how duality and non-duality reconcile... have one foot, have one eye, have one hand and foot in each side and you can reconcile they are the same.

I take it in the sense of Zen formula: A = A = not A Non-dual being presented.

I'm glad you clarified as I was going to ask you to explain more. Thanks For the topic in general... there is talk of the 3 turnings and I wanted to point out another time when '6' was mentioned by Buddha. D.T. Suzuki has given the west a great deal of exposure to Zen (I know not the topic but the similarity is interesting)... He questioned in his Zen Buddhism (selected writings) why the robe and bowl was not handed down after Hui neng. He must of missed Hui neng explaining that in his Platform Sutra. My memory is, Hui neng said that Buddha talked of 6 to come (can't recall the exact comment), and Hui neng interpreted his title as Sixth Patriarch of Zen to mean the robe was no longer needed to pass down; new teachings can emerge, which he was the next major shift... till the next shift of koans. I'm not trying to compare anything to Zen other than how someone interpreted a counting number from Buddha. Seems to fit to me that, as Apech has said, forth change if you want.... but it seems no more counting is needed. After the three foundations are developed, new developments now unfold.

STAFF REQUEST THelerner has been on his second tour of duty as Staff and I purposely asked him to do this second around. He has contributed in the way I had hoped; an old school guy of TDB who has kept step with the evolution of the forum and exemplifies to other staff how he balances that. Staffing is not for everyone. It takes a certain amount of suppression and detachment with an understanding of what matters for the board and its members. Rarely does someone come on as a perfect candidate, and why I say to staff that being a moderator is a form of cultivation; you learn a lot about yourself In that vein, which is not meant to scare anyone off but I hope it would also serve as a useful challenge to request for someone to volunteer their time as staff. I still would really like a TDB lady or two to consider, but will take any volunteers and I will be in touch if we think that would work out. Thanks in advance for any consideration

FYI: Somnus was banned as a returning puppet account... he keeps coming back in a new incarnation to be banned again. I guess he is rarely in the void

yes, only mods/admin/tech will see it... Sorry we didn't include the lowly Stewards... ah... Stewards+, I mean It won't go away for us till an actual upgrade

Buddhism is not about liberation FOR a self but FROM a self.

instead of tongue in cheek, this is tongue in gun...

The outline of FL is similar to a gun in the sign...

I see some great ideas out of this that would touch on education alone.... but then we'd be getting way off topic But one could say, such high thinkers and books were meant to 'teach' the average person or as least, offer an inclusive voice that they are not seeing or hearing.

I think that might of been in the highest thinkers but not the average person. I'm glad we got that idea put into books.