Nihro

I don't know that someone should try to change the world. Man today is a person living in a sea of billions. Instead of trying to hold onto and shift towards the impossible wouldn't it be better to just focus on what you currently have and move outward from there naturally? I think it's probably just better to become secure in yourself and good natured towards those around you. Nobody can help everyone and nothing is totally complete in the world of man as we are eternally imperfect. Big ideas of changing everything are just idealistic reflections of a perfect solution for an imperfect people. Just do you and do you well enough to the point where others are impacted by your positive actions and focus on that. If enough people did this we probably would "change the world" though nobody would realize it until years after the impact had been felt.

Wow thanks for all of the recommendations. I agree silence is usually better I just felt like trying something new. I figure it's good to break the routine up every once in awhile.

I was thinking that it might be nice to try meditating with some Chinese music and incense in the background. Does anybody have some suggestions as to a few good bands or CDs to meditate to? I still plan on meditating in silence and whatnot but figure this could be fun to try.

Thanks Jetsun I'll check him out when I get the chance.

Thanks for the tip, I'm somewhat new to the forums and don't really hop on too often. Usually I just do my own thing anyway think I'll just stick with the philosophical school for now. Maybe one day life will bring me back towards the religious forms maybe not, either way the Tao is pretty rad in my book.

Thanks for the book recommendation anamatva. Regarding your post though Kali, I don't have any problem at all regarding religious teaching I just have a hard time accepting and internalizing things which can't be proven. I do find it interesting to have conversations with people of a religious nature and am not an atheist I'm just firmly in the camp of "I don't know, knowing is largely impossible, and I'll just be the best person I can until the day which I find out." I think more than likely all "religions" are probably partially right and partially wrong I just can't get into the idea that there is only one way. I enjoy philosophical Taoism because it is how I naturally think and I believe the principals and teachings contained within it are of the utmost relevance towards living a good and harmonious life for yourself and those who surround you. I have and will always continue to experience things which I cannot explain. However, I don't think these things are capable for men to entirely understand at the end of the day and am somewhat of the opinion that attempting to explain them in mortal terms takes away from the true nature which exists in their inherent vagueness. I think that more than likely there are things in this world which will never be explained and attempting to do so draws the energy away from the person who attempts it. I've never heard of John Chang before though I'll check him out before replying further. Scratch that actually I remember hearing about him around 2005 at my old Karate Dojo.

Maybe what you view as the world living a lie is really just our world living some form of truth that words cannot justifiably represent. I've found it personally best to just take things for face value and work with what you have. Honesty can never be a burden it just is what it is: honesty. Here's a link to one of my favorite poems called "Fear of the Inexplicable" by Rainer Maria Rilke. http://www.stanford.edu/~rty/poems/rmrpoems.html His end line in particular is one of my favorites. "...perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps something terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." Everybody has hardships and often we allow them to corrupt our initial view of the world. It is only when we take our hardships at face value and meet them without fear that we are able to transcend our initial view of them. They are after all, just things. Living a lie might sound easier but at the end of the day all you're left with is a paper tiger with no substance and you've discarded your own true essence. If we are to take these trials at face value and work within their own boundaries then sooner or later we can view them for what they really are: aspects of our life which will eventually make us into who we are meant to be. I wonder more about your first line, is truth personal? Surely truth is just truth as the name implies. Truth has as many shades and possibilities as anything else in life but there is nothing inherently bad or damaging about accepting what is there. To me, truth is best met with honesty and is instantly discarded the moment a better truth shows itself. However, even once this past "truth" has been discarded what is there is still truth. Everything is in essence stagnant while it evolves within the boundaries of our own perception.

That's sort of what I felt like meditating while thinking about the principals of meditating. Felt like going away from the point which is just ... whatever the point is. I guess I'll just go back to what I was doing before, you can't force understanding anyway.

I understand that there's a lesson to the material regardless and respect the material for what I think it might convey. I suppose I'm just considering dropping this area of Taoism for now and going back into the Philosophical side which I've come to live my life by. It just seems strange to me that there would be two aspects of something such as Taoism which seem so greatly distanced from each other. I understand that this statement may seem strange considering the topic we are discussing uses the Yin-Yang as its representation and that the mere reflection itself comes entirely from my own Western ideology but I'm just trying to understand. I would rather have some developed understanding of this subject matter before I make up my mind further I suppose.

Hello, I've been reading up and studying Taoism for a few months now and have been enjoying it greatly. Philosophical Taoism provides me with many aspects of my own life, which I had been aware of some time but had yet to find names for, and setting these concepts in place has done wonders for lifting some unnecessary weights off of my shoulders. Recently I've been trying to read and understand more portions of Alchemical Taoism along with versions of the more Religious side and I seem to have hit a barrier. I have a hard time buying into these aspects as, to me (and I realize very well that I am speaking out of ignorance at this point), they remind me of Christianity and the more intangible seemingly man-made myths about religious life. I realize that this may be just my own bias towards function or simplicity, but focusing on the idea of Gods and Immortality and evil spirits just seems like a bit of a distraction from reality. I have been able to incorporate, although roughly, some of the internal aspects regarding my own meditation but sometimes I feel as if I'm living more in my imagination and getting away from my true core. The teachings of philosophical Taoism along with some readings on Zen Buddhism have gone a long way towards getting rid of some neurotic tendencies and the shift has been very noticeable. I feel much more at peace lately in all regards, and socially I have never been better. As I have said I'm new to these matters and realize that much of what I have written may just be my own ignorance. Could anybody help me out with a book or two to get me started or some guidance as I continue my study. Assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I've just started my official Taoist journey recently and as of late I've been reading books about society comparing them to Taoist values. Most specifically I've been reading the Songs of Ice and Fire series. I ask you all, what would a Taoist city look like? How would the infrastructure be, how would the people treat each other and how would they live amongst themselves and other non Taoists? What structures would we create, what bridges would we make, and how would social problems be solved? Would we live in simple huts devoid of technology creating what only the land could provide, or would our Taoist society naturally progress towards technological and inventive gains? Harmony is the root of true living in as much as I have learned but this idea seems difficult to propagate on a large macro scale. So what do you think a truly spiritual Taoist society would look like?

Unfortunately I can't afford to do something like that right now, I'm on my summer break from GMU going into my senior year and money's tight at the moment. Had to drop martial arts for the summer and move back home until next semester so I've been practicing on my own hitting the heavy bag and sparring with friends in between form practices and so on. Thankfully I have more than enough time to read though so cracking through some material should be fun. How does one go about locating a teacher anyway?

Cowtow: I still have an appetite for Buddhism but I think I'll focus on this for now, not trying to bite off too much at once. I will definitely check those authors out once I've absorbed a bit of the basic though thanks for the recommendations. To be fair when I was reading about Buddhism I was getting heavily into Nietzsche and it may have colored things incorrectly for me. I just don't believe that focusing constantly on the idea of struggle is healthy though I have experience more than my fair share of that aspect of life and am somewhat lucky in that regard. Twinner: I've never really read much about Zen, I've read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance a few times but that's about as deep as my education goes. Do you have a specific Zen book in mind? I believe I read a little of Alan Watts in my religion class during sophomore year of college though I don't think we went too deep into the study as the teacher was more interested in focusing on Christianity. My friend lent me an old copy of the Tao Te Ching translated by Raymond Blakney so I'm about to begin reading that first. Admittedly my studies in philosophy have been largely western based thus far and I suppose I've neglected the eastern side except for obvious texts like "The Art of War" and The Book of Five Rings. Most of my eastern philosophy comes from practicing martial arts and that focus has been more external hard arts such as kung fu and karate and less on the internal arts, I've recently added Tai Chi to my practices though so that should be interesting.