konchog uma

Sifu Jenny was in my dream last night, she was teaching me how to transplant orchids without killing them! Good omens.

i third that

i think you're right ChiDragon, agree on all counts!

verrry interesting! thanks!

Master Hua Ching Ni says darkness is lower level and don't be confused about "accepting everything as natural" because at the level of oneness (taiji) there is no darkness. So if there is darkness accept darkness, but in order to become enlightened or immortal one can not cultivate any darkness in themselves.

In light of how the later part of section 1, or the "inner chapters" as they are known, progresses, i am inclined to agree with Apech about relativity being the dominant theme. Of course, old Chuang would have known of cultivation so perhaps those references exist as he meant them, or perhaps they just exist cause i see them. Who knows. I love the part about the useless tree. When i was a kid i carved my life out of that story, and a couple other Chuang Tzu gems . I felt lucky to see the sense in not wanting people to be interested in me at a young age, and i still do. Now i have no profession to speak of (im a janitor and a freelance artist) but my life is so rich and happy because I have cultivated myself with special isms (daoism buddhism shamanism etc). Even just looking back on the last 15 years of cultivation brings water to my eye that story meant so much to me. Well, i have brambles for brains, tis a veritable forest in there, so i will let other people talk

i think it probably works on multiple levels of meaning at once

[geezer voice] when *I* was a kid, there were SIX elements! SIX thats right. kids these days and their five element theory! [/geezer voice]

Victor Mair divided the chapters differently. His "chapter 1" includes the first part of "section B" and his "chapter 2" is the 2nd part. I will be careful to make sure that good people like yourself are not confused by my posts. I should have double checked the content as well as the punctuation and made a note of it!

hey sereneblue, Daniel Reid's "Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity" p. 131 "Fasting triggers a truly wondrous cleansing process that reaches right down to each and every cell and tissue in the body. Within 24 hours of curtailing food intake, enzymes stop entering the stomach and travel instead into the intestines and into the bloodstream, where they circulate and gobble up all sorts of waste matter, including dead and damaged cells, unwelcome microbes, metabolic wastes, and pollutants. All organs and glands get a mch needed and well deserved rest, during which their tissues are purified and rejuvenated nad their functions balanced and regulated. The entire alimentary canal is swept clean, and what comes out the lower end should astonish and disgust first time fasters sufficiently to make fasting a colon cleansing a lifelong habit. " thanks for making me dig back into the archives! For a minute i wasn't sure where i heard that. As to finding corroborating sources of information, good luck. I don't know what to tell you except that sorry

those enzymes can target specific organs (depends on the vegetable juiced) and be more beneficial than just water in that way but just water is also super cleansing, and also more a spiritual fast than a physical one, or i should say both a spiritual fast and a physical one yes enzymes are very bioenergetic (qi)

Chapter 2 from Victor Mair's "Wandering on the Way" Yao wished to abdicate his rulership of all under heaven to Hsŭ Yu, saying, "If one did not extinguish a candle when the sun and moon come out, wouldn't it be hard to discern its light? If one continues to irrigate the fields when the seasonal rains fall, wouldn't it have little effect upon the amount of moisture in them? Once you are established on the throne, master, all under heaven will be well ordered . Yet I am still the ruler and consider myself inadequate to the task . Allow me to hand over the empire to you." "You are governing all under heaven" said Hsu Yu, "and the empire is already well ordered. If I were to replace you, would I be doing it for the name? A name is but an attribute of reality. Would I be doing it for the sake of attribution? The wren nests in the deep forest, occupying but a single branch . The mole drinks from the river, merely filling its little belly. Return, oh lord, and forget this business. I have no need for all under heaven! Even supposing that the cook were not attending to his kitchen, the impersonator of the dead would not leap over the pots and pans to take his place."

i think you are seeing Tao as a conceptualizable thing, which it amn't. I am with marbles on the silence thing. You can't understand life or why we are one with this matrix, just accept it and move through it gracefully and with integrity. There is only the freedom to accept that the fractal is reality. You can become one with reality but you can never be an outside observer. So don't try to "use Tao" just know that energy is infinite and the cycles do not actually stop in all likelihood they just keep in orbit. Acceptance of our own infinitesimal nature and of the VAST magnitude of the mystery is the first step to "freedom" which is a really relative concept anyway. Don't worry about freedom, or tao, or cycles, just stop worrying. Its a choice to worry, so make a choice not to, and just rest in humility and gratitude for the chance to experience life. Not because i said so or because its "true" or not but because you will feel a lot better by doing that, thats all. Try it out.

40 days is heavy! thats a serious accomplishment indeed. fasting past 24 hours is really the vital thing, that is the marker that gets the enzymes out of your stomach and into your bloodstream, where they start bonding with the heavy particles in your organs and tissues and dragging them out of where they are lodged. So i think for most people, just fasting 2 days is more important than fasting for long stretches! I am not saying you are wrong Gerard, I don't even know about experience about a 40 day fast, but i have done a couple 21 days fasts and that was spiritually awakening, as you say, keeping the ego on its heels. 40 days is for very advanced people, so most people have to build up to that sort of thing slowly and carefully. If they go for it right away, there can be problems, or course. When i got to the 10 days marker i found that i could relax into the fast and accept it easily, and i also remember the sensation of energy circuits opening up that allowed me to gain energy from my environment without eating. I was clenched until i kinda "popped" open, and then fasting became a lot easier and i became a lot more sensitive. Hahaha i remember being able to know when i was close to trees because I could tell the oxygen levels in the air i was breathing from the levels in air that wasn't near trees. But mostly, what is important is fasting beyond the 24 hour mark, because that is how long the stomach enzymes have to go without food before they start circulating in to the bloodstream and cleaning the body up on a physical level. All that energetic stuff could be different for me than anyone else, and it might be something that some have opened up in different ways, so take all that as just personal experience. But 24 hours is the physiological mechanism of hte human body!

hahah well not being from brazil i appreciate knowing how to pronounce these kinds of words youre not a smartass for telling people that sort of thing

those are interesting points sloppy zhang, and i like your take on that, very pragmatic. However, just to play devil's advocate, i should ask, isnt a mark of highly spiritually accomplished people Personal Integrity? Why dress up the plain truth a little bit if you are marketing yourself as a daoist energy teacher? Thats not very dao man . Don't get me wrong thats all just point counterpoint, i am not against Max at all. I don't get caught up cultivating those kinds of personal opinions. I just have a hard time understanding why someone who has developed their spirit to such a high degree would engage in anything less than a straightforward representation of their practices, lineages, etc. Why bother with marketing angles? It would seem like, from a teacher's perspective, that would attract the kind of people that you wouldn't want in the first place! ?!? I have read that Kan is rather adept and Sifu Matsuo also has quite a reputation for being accomplished. So the fact that he can teach his art to these people speaks for itself. I am sure they are not the only ones among his students who are accomplished. And there is a big difference between being energetically accomplished and spiritually accomplished, they are related, but totally different things! So take it easy on those questions you bums, I have a right to question Max or anyone else in a respectful straightforward way. He is not above scrutiny, as i said before. I know you love him, but that doesn't mean it is against the Law to say "i wonder why he did that". So before you get all upset about my questioning his methods or motives just take a deep breath and remind yourself of the benefits of critical thinking. Thank you. I am not interested in getting personal with anyone, just to discuss this interesting phenomenon from a logical point of view.

Brujo?

maybe that guy is some distant relative of nicholas cage. i mean there are only so many types of facial features so in hundreds of years people are gonna look exactly alike, its just the mostly nobody remembers that long. also, why can't he just be an immortal? theres lots of types of immortals, but all the hype i have seen about this pic (and i saw the ebay auction when it was up) is like "oh hes clearly a vampire" hahahah if he had blood running down his face i could see it but then again, i guess thats the only kind of immortal left in the common conception of immortals. too few people watch highlander to care anymore about the blue lightning i guess. there can be only one, nick.

neat track although enya mozart and coldplay are all emotional musicians, and weightless there is just synth but not a critique just an observation, i found it relaxing!

oh yeah im the same way man. Im just touchy, like overly sensitive. Claws and teeth on a dime.. for the same reasons

yeah good points! i think he is saying too that those offering the opinion "i dont cultivate and i feel ultimate" are insignificant like insects but cultivation itself is so awesome it can't be measured.. no one is sure how big it is or how awesome it is hahaha i like that he says the sky they look at looks the same from below as from above, like he is saying what they fly in (dao?) is the same from all angles but their capacity for flight is so different loaded with metaphors! i like your thoughts, thanks for sharing! it is definitely a breath of fresh air to get deep into this text! i am loving it already

heheh choose your own adventure if you're not afraid of darkness youre either crazy or stupid i think, but generally speaking, i am not insulting you witch just saying tehre are serious forces out there some respect is a healthy thing the light heals but its not for everyone, don't listen to me, listen to your heart and higher self

i don't personally think there is a god either, but in the realm of imagination and energy, there are no limits and no "true" and "false" in the classic sense. There is only what you can invoke and connect with. So like i said my point isnt hogtie god, but my point is that anything you iMAGIne has a connection to reality. You are a witch so i needn't explain myself more. I am only encouraging, for no reason other than that i do it an its works really well, you to tap more cosmic and vital sources than your consorts. There is nothing really behind it except conversation for conversation's sake, and the fact that it works for me. As to the entity problems, everyone who reaches out beyond the bounds of "normality" will encounter entities. EVERyone has entity problems at some point; you are lucky to know it, and have the power to deal with it. Entities are everywhere and most of them are naughty or mischevious to some degree. I doubt that most people even KNOW they have entity problems they just HAVE entity problems and think "oh my life is so weird sometimes" or just explain it away with rationality or some western nonsense. Maybe they just watch television i dunno. My point is don't worry about entity problems, learn to tell entities no, and to develop strong defenses. I think the best thing to do is cultivate relationship with the planet or a patron/matron deity because with prayer to awesomely powerful beings, you can save yourself a lot of mistakes and effort. But these comments are not so much for you witch as for just people reading this in general and thinking "maybe *I have an entity problem". I digress.

i wish you the best, with your practice and with your job and everything. as far as being invited over the threshold, i would strongly recommend respecting that, but i'm (again) not trying to be patronizing. I think that its just two totally different things, with permission and without. vampire is a *very dark archetype and surrounded by negativity and pain. Not like the glamorous dramas of immortality and blood. What you are doing is just natural witchcraft. Energy is not ours, we just have it like a gift for now and we might pass it on, or might grow it and keep it, but there is not any law that says its unnatural to take another's energy in the situations you describe, or to give "your" energy to another. So if you are concerned with karma, i would suggest not identifying with "vampire" and just consider what you do "witchcraft" which is natural really, just energy doing what it does, so to speak. i have natural concern for anyone who identifies with being a "vampire" because there may be more reality to that than most people think, and its full of pain and torment. Absorbing sexual energy does not make you a "vampire" it makes you a sex witch so be careful what you identify with is my advice!! It might seem like minutiae but it might not be. But i say all that not because your life is my business but because i for some reason happen to like you and have concern for you thats all.