konchog uma

he was involved in that worthless piece of trash "the secret"

from Victor Mair's "Wandering on the Way: Taoist Tales and Parables" Sir Motley of Southunc made an excursion to the Hillock of Shang. There he saw an unusual tree so big that a thousand four- horse chariots could be shaded by its leaves. "Goodness! What tree is this?" asked Sir Motley. "It must have unusual timber" Looking upward at the smaller branches, however, he saw that they were all twisted and unfit to be beams . Looking downward at the massive trunk, he saw that it was so gnarled as to be unfit for making coffins. If you lick one of its leaves, your mouth will develop ulcerous sores. If you smell its foliage, you fall into a drunken delirium that lasts for three days. "This tree is truly worthless," said Sir Motley," and that is why it has grown so large. Ah! The spiritual man is also worth- less like this." In the state of Sung, there is a place called Chingshih where catalpas, arborvitae, and mulberry trees thrive. Those that are more than a hand's breadth or two around are chopped down by people who are looking for tether posts for their monkeys. Those that are three or four spans in circumference are chopped down by people who are looking for lofty ridgepoles. Those that are seven or eight spans in circumference are chopped down by the families of aristocrats or wealthy merchants who are looking for coffin planks. Therefore, they do not live out the years allotted to them by heaven but die midway under the ax. This is the trouble brought about by having worth. Conversely, in carry- ing out an exorcistic sacrifice, one cannot present oxen with white foreheads, suckling pigs with upturned snouts, or people with hemorrhoids to the god of the river. All of this is known by the magus-priests, who consider these creatures to be inauspi- cious. For the same reasons, the spiritual person considers them to be greatly auspicious. Scattered Apart's chin was buried in his bellybutton, his shoul- ders were higher than the crown of his head, his cervical ver- tebrae pointed toward the sky, the five dorsal inductories were all up on top, and his thighbones were positioned like a couple of extra ribs. By sewing and washing clothes, he earned enough to make ends meet. By sifting grain with a winnowing-fan, he could make enough to feed ten people. When the authorities came to conscript soldiers, Scattered would wander about among them flailing his arms. When the authorities organized a massive labor project, Scattered would be excused because of his congenital defects. When the authorities handed out grain to the sick, he would receive three bags plus ten bundles of firewood. Though his body was scattered, it was sufficient to enable him to support himself and to live out the years allotted to him by heaven. How much more could someone whose virtue is scattered! When Confucius went to Ch'u, Chieh Yii, the madman of Ch'u , wandered about before his gate, saying "Phoenix! Oh, Phoenix! How your virtue has declined !The future you cannot wait for, The past you cannot pursue. When the Way prevails under heaven, The Sage seeks for accomplishment ;When the Way is absent from the world, The sage seeks but to preserve his life. In an age like that of today, All he can hope for is to avoid punishment. Good fortune is lighter than a feather , But no one knows how to carry it; Misfortune is heavier than the earth, But no one knows how to escape it. Enough! Enough! Stop confronting people with virtue Perilous! Perilous! All this rushing about dividing up the earth. Thorny dimwit, Don't wound my shins! Prickly scatterbrain, Don't wound my feet!" The mountain trees plunder themselves, the grease over a fire fries itself. Cinnamon can be eaten, therefore the trees that yield it are chopped down. Varnish can be used, therefore the trees that produce it are hacked . Everybody knows the utility of usefulness, but nobody knows the utility of uselessness .

A carpenter named Shih, who was on his way to Ch'i, came to Bent Shaft. There he saw a chestnut-leaved oak that served as the local shrine. The tree was so big that several thousand head of cattle could take shade beneath it and it was a hundred spans in circumference . It was so tall that it surveyed the surrounding hills; only above eighty feet were there any branches shooting out from its trunk. It had ten or more limbs from each of which yo u could make a boat. Those who came to gaze upon it were as numerous as the crowds in a market. The master carpenter paid no attention to it, but kept walking without slowing his pace a bit. After his disciples had had their fill of gazing upon the great tree, they caught up with carpenter Shih and said, "Since we have taken up our axes to follow you, master, we have never seen such marvelous timber as this . Why, sir, were you unwilling to look at it, but kept on walking without even slowing down?" " Enough! Don't talk about it! It's defective wood. A boat made from it would sink. A coffin made from it would rot right away. An implement made from it would break right away. A door made from it would exude resin. A pillar made from it would soon be grub-infested. This tree is worthless. There's nothing you can make from it. That's why it could grow to be so old." After the carpenter had returned to his own country, the shrine oak appeared to him in a dream, saying, "With what trees will you compare me? Will you compare me with those that have fine-grained wood? As for the hawthorn, the pear, the orange, the pomelo, and other fructiferous trees, once their fruits are ripe, they are torn off, and the trees are thereby abused. The big branches are broken and the smaller branches are snapped . These are trees that make their own lives miserable because of their abilities. Therefore, they cannot finish out the years allotted to them by heaven but die midway. They are trees that bring upon themselves the assaults of the worldly. It's the same with all things. But I have sought for a long time to be useless. Now, on the verge of death, I have finally learned what uselessness really means and that it is of great use to me. If, after all, I had been useful, would I have been able to grow so big? Furthermore, you and I are both things, so why the deuce should you appraise another thing? You're a defective person on the verge of death. What do you know about 'defective wood'?" When carpenter Shih awoke, he told the dream to his disciples. "If the oak's intention is to be useless, then why does it serve as the local shrine?" they asked. "Silence! Don't say another word! The oak is merely assum- ing the guise of a shrine to ward off the curses of those who do not understand it. If it were not a shrine, it would still face the threat of being cut down. Moreover, what the oak is preserving is different from the masses of other trees. If we attempt to understand it on the basis of conventional morality, won't we be far from the point?"

top 5, cool idea Cameron i don't know enough about all the teachers out there, so i will just list the 5 people i learned the most from this year. In no particular order, of course. Dr Yang Jwing Ming - http://ymaa.com/publishing/authors/dr.yang_jwing-ming - i have been reading his books on qigong, which i started to study in earnest this year. His videos are also awesome, and he is one of my teacher's teachers, so I feel connected to his teachings. Terry Dunn - http://taichimania.com/tdbio.html - i have also begun practicing Flying Phoenix qigong, which is profound. Its a daoist qigong that generates some really amazing energy. Sifu posts here, and there is a long thread about Flying Phoenix that i have found really helpful to sort out those dvds. I suggest anyone looking to practice qigong, but can't find a teacher, look it up. Sadhguru - http://www.ishafoundation.org/ - Every time i watch him he opens my eyes to the miracle of life and helps me to let go of something i didn't need. Thank you sadhguru! Jenny Lamb - http://www.easterninternalarts.org/ - Listening to her interviews and practicing her qigongs and exercises has helped me a lot. She has a great attitude about spirituality which is approachable and kind but completely uncompromising at the same time. Ken Cohen - http://www.kennethcohen.com/ - I think he is awesome. I like his broader take on shamanism and indigenous spirituality, it actually helps me to grasp his approach to qigong. i also thank my qigong and taiji teacher, Dr David Clippinger - http://www.stillmountaintaichi.com - he is definitely the person i have learned the most from this year, and my meditation teacher, who doesn't have a website or any kind of public face. Bless you both and thank you!

everything youre thinking too hard about it, way too hard probably why youre tense practice standing still in a relaxed way. loosen your hips and straighten your back while relaxing every muscle you can. just do it a couple minutes and build from there. when you walk, relax. when you feel tense, smile and relax. the mind and energy and body are one. Its only artifice that seperates them.. RELAX and the artifice will dissolve keep it simple sir

thank you for telling us those stories @sinfest: i often feel like we all know what we need to know, we just have to go through life process of digging it up to the surface and learning it all over again. i don't know if that has anything to do with what youre talking about.

oh i missed that when you posted it. i love that story, another one that i took to heart as a youth. its late, i'll post the Mair tomorrow! gnite

wild! thanks for the pic file under things to buy if i get rich

i guess i was comparing us directly without really meaning to do that! Sorry about that! Yes a phobia is a difficult thing to overcome, while anxiety is not so tough. I did not intend to diminish the difficulty of what you deal with by saying "oh i dealt with something like that".... just wanted to share my experience and that time and perseverance and realization helped me to change! I hope you overcome your phobia the truth, even if it is very difficult to see now, things can change. Bless you!

you're welcome!

sure don vedo, i will do my best regulating the mind, and talking about regulating the mind , is hard because the mind is very subtle and slippery. In the qigong model of the teacher i mentioned, there are two main components that generate thoughts, Yi and Xin. Yi is the mind of logic and intention (to keep it brief) and is called the horse mind because when you get it to be your friend it is calm and can work for you. Xin is the mind of non-logic and emotions (again keeping it brief) and is called the monkey mind because it is always in motion, being mischevious and generating thoughts and feelings that feed off each other endlessly. As Dr Yang says, the banana for the monkey mind is focusing on breath. So he is an advocate of the Yi and believes in sublimating the Xin, although there are many different ways to address those two aspects of mind. In short, when the horse mind is calm and working smoothly and the monkey mind is not jumping around everywhere, the mind can be said to be regulated. another way to look at it is simply your measure of calm. Calm abiding is like a skill that we practice in meditation and throughout the day. It speaks for itself so i don't need to go on at great length. Just abide in calmness instead of leaping to react, mentally speaking. another way to look at it is that the mind is too subtle to really pay close attention to outside of meditation in the way you can watch it during meditation, but both meditating and going about your daily affairs, there is a model that i find helpful for regulating the mind. It is based on the wu xing, or five elements of chinese medicine. It deals with the elements in an energetic way, and with the concordant emotions of the energies. The emotions are like the surface tension of the mind, that we can feel and are tangible. They are like the gateway to measuring the health or regulation of the mind since we can feel them so readily. When the mind is regulated, the manifestation of the energy in question will be the virtue of that element, not the emotion. If there is the emotion, one needs to address it with healing practices (like meditation) to bring it to regulation. element----------energy-------------emotion------------virtue ____________________________________________________________________ fire.............expanding..........joy/exitation......contentment earth............dividing...........worry..............love/empathy metal............contracting........sadness/grief......courage/conviction water............sinking............fear/paranoia......clarity/insight wood.............shooting...........anger..............patience so to answer your question, i think that focusing on what one is doing brings clarity. But as you can see, clarity is considered the virtue of water in that model, so its only part of that picture. As to meditation for hours, just sit til your body or mind tell you you are done sitting. Listening to yourself and developing intuition are the goals, not holding a body mudra for hours on end. That comes naturally as you adapt to longer and longer sitting. Just listen to your self for when to quit sitting. Do it naturally, theres no right or wrong. Sitting just 5 minutes is better than not sitting by thousands of times. If the mind is full of the emotions and not the virtues, then the qi might go down the wrong pathway because the mind is agitated, but still leads the qi. It might stagnate or do other undesirable things. These are the words of Yang Jwing Ming, i don't have experience with that. I practiced sitting for ten years before starting qigong, and took things in a nice order, and i haven't had much but smooth flow as a result. I hope that was helpful and not confusing. Anamatva

How Now, my brown cow does the poopoo make mushrooms? you are quite blessed! MOOOOOOOOO

oh yours was way better

The answer is now. Wait! I forgot the question. This ain't Jeopardy.

hahahahah our mudra will be the horns we will only drink tsing tao beer the thrash that can be thrashed is not the eternal thrash

those three regulations are prerequisites to regulating qi, as i have been taught. so body, breath, and mind, also qi, and shen (spirit) are the five regulations, as taught by Yang Jwing Ming they didn't really change my practice cause i learned them from the beginning, and as i understand, they are fundamental, or essential. Since they build off each other, one should not regulate their qi before they have regulated their mind to the point that it is regulated automatically and constantly, so in other words, meditation is a necessary prerequisite (or at least a concordant practice) with qigong.

octopi have 3/5 of their grey matter in their arms. but they still have brains in their heads. that new creature sounds neat.. i love anomalies. as to the rest, fair enough. I wasn't trying to start a debate anyway. You are more than welcome to your opinions about rocks peace marblehead

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/5259-yin-and-yang-foods-tcm-medicines-meridians-enhancement-refinement-etc/page__p__58801__hl__yin%20yang%20difference%20between__fromsearch__1entry58801 good thread.

i used to be really shy, i could hardly speak up. Now i can talk normally to just about anyone. When i get socially anxious i think "whats the worst that could happen? These people might not accept me, they might even laugh at me, and I will leave and go somewhere else, or for a walk in the woods or something. Who cares what these people think of me in the first place?" my favorite thing about life is that its not a popularity contest. So if people don't like me, that's their right and i try to respect it. Sometimes people are cruel, and that comes from insecurity and pain, so i try to have compassion for that if thats the case. Beyond that, most of the social anxieties we feel are of our own creation so lets stop creating them!

nice thread. I started the day off with some darjeeling whole leaf (organic FTGFOP!), but i'm drinking an americano at present i used to drink a lot of coffee but the more i cultivate my qi, the less i like it. I keep it to one cup a day now (or one drink in the case of the americano). I have been planning to eliminate coffee entirely for some time, but hmmmmmm i never get around to it! proof that its addictive hahahah well i like to get bulk teas at the local food co-op, but i drink some bagged teas too. Filtered water makes all the difference. If you make your tea with tapwater you are missing out (and fluoride is really bad for you btw). So next time you're at your local food co-op buying some whole leaf tea, get some clean water too!

I think its good to remember that that bird might not be a bird! I am curious flowing hands.. how did you know it was your spirit master in human form?

Rocks speak really softly, you have to be very quiet to hear them. Mostly they don't have much to say, crystals talk more. Hermetic thought recognized the mineral realm as possessing consciousness. Plants don't have brains but they respond to speech, and again, if you're very quiet and respectful, they might even say something nice to you The delusion might be in thinking that consciousness is a brain-based thing. You could not possibly prove that it is, but several notable researchers (like Nikola Tesla) had technology that could interface with the spirit world, suggesting that one can be self-aware without a brain. Even if you don't believe those stories or think, for any reason, that I could not possibly prove that consciousness is not brain-based (which i can't by the way), the best thing to do is remain open to the mystery of life. I just heard a story the other night about a woman who came into possession of an ancient crystal skull and it talked to her and gave her guidance which she tested and found to be accurate. I heard the story on coast to coast AM, but she (and her crystal skull) have a website http://einsteinthecrystalskull.com/

i sleep on a futon. I can't stand soft mattresses.

intuitively, i think thats good advice about the whole body, not just the hemispheres.. thanks! I look forward to expanding what i've been doing with it. Thats just the sort of feedback i had hoped this thread would yield, so I really appreciate it. Again, thanks trunk that's all really helpful. I've been working on an emotional stagnation spot between my shoulder blades with yoga and meditation, and last time i did the KYMQ it really helped soften it up. I know what you mean about things coming together... I will give it more time. Its a great practice so far, and i've only begun to scratch the surface.