Stigweard

MATE !!!! Great to see you here amongst the Bums! Yup that bus trip kinda tore a hole in the trip for alot of people. Even that crazy clown Aussie was glad to see the end of it. Couldn't believe that after all that (arriving at what was it ... 1am or something?) we had to sit through yet another banquet ... noooo! >.< All good though

Brilliant lecture: Leading by Omission | MIT World Very very interesting his admittance at the end of the conscious usage of Taoist principles. Gold you are presently my favorite person in the world (don't get used to it though because there's a few more points I have to debate ) Thank you for this connection.

I have just bought Ricardo Semler's book on your recommendation Gold ... cheers! Amazon.com: Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace (9780446670555): Ricardo Semler: Books

And I felt this was worthy or re-quoting as well

Yes yes yes !!! This is my current orientation as well. To initially provide some basic inclination of what a fulfilled life means to you, but to then let go of the reins and surrender and allow "destiny" (if there is such a thing) to naturally emerge. And I will concur with your experience, that, when I look back over my life, the moments of "high success" and achievement have come when there was that surge of energy that we could perhaps call destiny, or my preferred term "true inspiration". Thank you for sharing.

Well to be fair to the system, it does work for those of a particular mindset, i.e. technical analytical types who thrive from clear and defined rules and regulations. It was designed for the corporate environment and, if the syntax is followed, then it does produce results (it's actually part of my guarantee ). However, as we are discussing, it has increasingly become apparent to me that it doesn't gel with my core beliefs so I need to change what I am doing else I just have to get out of the corporate speaking arena completely. Following this thought I will openly admit that I want develop a new presentation that will work within my current market. But, in saying this, I am more mindful of speaking true to my heart rather than being attached to my current audience. I am sure that my abilities to adapt will go in my favour. Sure I hear you, but Taoism is not anti-materialism in the sense of being renunciative of the material world. What we are about is not creating artificial systems of hierarchical valuation of things and, by not indulging in such contrived preferential identification of material goods, we avoid the exhaustion brought about by incessant desire and craving. We certainly do embrace the fact that people need basic material things to "fill their bellies" and "strengthen their bones". But this materialism only extends as far as providing what could be deemed naturally arising sufficiency and abundance. The other thing to consider is the variants around our De. Now my POV of De is that it is our self-nature, our individual expression of the universal Tao. Now it may be that the persons individual De gives them a natural predilection, or even natural destiny if you wish, to be successful in the area of material wealth. In that case then the most naturally evolving thing for that person to do is to allow this natural wealth to manifest. Not to extraneously pursue or crave this wealth, but to simply allow its natural occurrence. To throw other examples around. Let's say someone was a singer and singing was the natural emanation of their De to sing. Do you think that this person should pursue their life path as a singer? Not for ambition's sake, nor for recognition or accolades, but because singing is the most natural thing for them to do. We could ask the same thing about a leather tanner, or a builder, or a medical practitioner and I am sure that we would agree that these people should follow the inner direction of their De. So what about the business man? What if it was the person's "higher calling" to excel at commerce? Should this person deny this calling because someone has declared that business is somehow "wrong"? Or is it perhaps that you think that in following Tao we all end up the same color of gray? Now non-ambition is a very important discussion to have, and I thank you for the Wenzi quotes that you have provided. This is one area that was definitely creating conflicting thoughts for me. The corporate world is all about ambition and managers just love it when I fire their staff up with ambition -- "Let's go hit them KPI's boys!!" LOL I believe this notion of non-ambition comes back to wei wu wei which, for this purpose, I am rendering as leading without controlling, or action without contrived effort. Is there such a thing as natural ambition? We discussed a similar line of thought over in Are preferences natural and thus in accordance with Tao?, and I believe the same points can be raised around ambition. Does a flower exhibit ambition as it turns its face to follow the sun? Does a lion have ambition when it stalks a gazelle? I think a differentiation can be made between when an ambition arises naturally from the "movement of De" and when it arises from contrived thinking. In one instance we are simply "going with the flow" of our inner inspiration, in the other instance we are trying to artifice something out of nothing or forcing something against its natural movement. And I think that it may not be absolutely correct to say that Taoists don't have ambition. Our intention is to "be one with Tao", to be healthy, to be harmonious. If we were puritan with our words then we would say that these things are the Taoists' "ambitions". True not ambition in the commonly used sense, but perhaps ambition all the same. The key again comes back to wei wu wei.

Thanks all Well not lying exactly I mean the system has been proven and is guaranteed to work, and it is the sort of treadmill cogs and wheels system that corporate Human Resource people like. However I have increasingly found it stifling and quite frankly dead boring. But yes there is an ethical question over me promoting something that I really don't believe is the best. LOL is the Taoism that frowns on something still Taoism? But I do hear ya But I don't think Taoist principles are "100% contrary to business". Just to extend the conversation and explore all corners: Which Taoism are you talking about when you are saying that Taoists frown on the view that the world is made of matter? Taoism in my view is very pragmatic and realistic. That the world is made of material things is just a simple reality, no point trying to abstract it into anything else. But yes material things are not the cornerstone for happiness. However, Taoists, being the natural philosophers they are, observed that when nature is in harmony then life grows abundantly of its own accord. Just so it can be seen that when a community of individuals are in harmony then abundant sufficiency is the natural and effortless result. So there is a direct link between the Taoist integral wholeness and the naturally emerging level of prosperity of an individual or community. So when you look at the outline I have given, that is what I have endeavored to articulate. You have raised some great points Gold and I want to get to the all. No time for now. -------------------- I do want to speak directly to Twinner here ... what do you think is more offensive? Gold's vernacular or your intrusion into my topic to pursue some sort of personal vendetta? Gold and I have a great history of exchanges and we know where each other are coming from ... I consider him a friend and a great debating partner. Trust me, when Gold is insulting me its actually a compliment. -------------------- Enough for now ... I want to keep pursuing this.

I may not be necessarily saying this is my perspective, but some people believe that impartiality is impossible and inhuman. For example, we will always prefer to eat food over poison, will always prefer to save our own drowning daughter vs. our sworn enemy who raped our wife, will always prefer to protect people who have personally contributed to us vs. unknown strangers who are acting crudely and hurting the feelings of our friends. In terms of Tao it could be said that, yes, there is Tao that is beyond perspective and preference (so in a sense impartial in a conceptual sense) but this same Tao is not separate and is expressing Itself AS every perspective, as preference, as the complete dynamic range of human feelings and behavior. So the perspective is to recognize what is natural and what is human. Not far away and metaphysical. To find comfort with the human experience that is inevitably infused with preference while also resonating with the clarity of Tao that has none, without making an enemy of either. So what is your perspective on this, are human preferences natural and thus in accordance with Tao? If so is it kosha to treat people preferentially?

Oh absolutely! Being a marketing man yourself you would know that the reason why people say they bought something can be light years away from the deeper impulse that motivated the purchase. And I agree that environmental factors as you have explained have significant influence of character behavior. As you have said, things like sights, sound, air quality, feng shui, diet, exercise, drug use, etc (in other words things that we could call "environmental"), play a profound part. But even in these factors there are things we could deem discretionary and things that are mostly involuntary. For example, in England and far northern countries the folks don't have much choice over the fact that the sun doesn't shine for 3 months of the year. This lack of light has been proven to create significant changes in behavior. There may be a few other environmental factors that we could call involuntary like the feng shui influences of our surrounding environment (though it could be said that we have choice over where we live), cosmic influences etc. But the environmental influences that we do have direct choice over include things like diet, exercise, substance use, and the feng shui influences of how we order our living space. These discretionary environmental factors, I believe, are choices arising from our "mindset and belief structures". Yes they in themselves create environmental contributors to behavior, but again I suggest that these influences are simply reinforcing the deep underlying frame of reference that brought forward the choice to experience the particular environmental factor. Let's look closer at the example you have given: Firstly the discussion of whether or not beliefs create reality is not being talked about here. We are talking about the fundamental causes of behavior. And yes absolutely there is significant environmental impacts going on here with little Johnny. But the question is, why can two people experience exactly the same environmental factors and come out displaying completely different behavioral traits? If it was totally up to environmental factors then, once again, two people experiencing identical environmental conditions would display, within an acceptable range of difference, identical behavior patterns. But once again this is not the reality. What creates our internal frame of reference, what I have previously referred to as our fixed conceptual descriptions, is how we choose to interpret these environmental factors, in other words how we choose to describe it to ourselves -- how we choose to "frame" these environmental conditions in "reference" to how we view ourselves and our world. Now note that these descriptions are not necessarily our own. As we develop as a child we fairly much involuntarily adopt the descriptions of those closest to us -- parents, siblings, friends, authority figures etc. Popularly called social conditioning, these adopted and often imposed descriptions mesh together to eventually (usually by the age of early teens) solidify into the individual's world view. It ends up being a feedback loop -- (of course taking into account the involuntary environmental influences) our frame of reference determines how we think and speak (i.e. the words we use), how we think and speak creates behavioral actions, and the often repetitive consequences of our behavioral actions reinforces our frame of reference. EG The belief "I'm a loser" creates not trying hard enough because of the belief that "I always lose so what's the point", which creates the consequence of losing, which serves to reinforce the originating belief of "I'm a loser" etc. etc. And you are absolutely correct, it can be near impossible to help someone drag themselves out of such a self-imposed, self-destructive and very entrenched cycle. And you are also right, I believe, about your suggested course of action. Recognizing that environmental factors do have a definite influence over one's behavior, then perhaps one of the absolute best things we could do to try and break the cycle is to identify the things that can be changed with relative ease like diet, exercise, living environment, etc. Removing these environmental "contaminants" could well provide the boost to both mental clarity and physical wellbeing so that the individual could get a better view of themselves to try and start making the internal mind-set changes that would lead to different choices/preferences and thus start creating different consequences. But these internal fixations are not easily budged. After all it's taken a lifetime of incessant self-narration to form these belief systems, so just saying a few affirmations is not just going to "make it all better". It's about creating whole new patterns of behavior, habits, and self-description. And, to go on a Taoist promotion , this is the reason why I believe the Taoist arts of qigong, neidan, etc. are so profound and beneficial because there is the recognition that these internally fixated structures of conceptual belief are in fact energetic in nature. In other words, the construct of these fixated descriptions are held within our energetic matrix manifesting as blockages and obstructions to our free-flowing life-force/qi and, because qigong, neidan etc work directly on liberating our full and free energy, then these arts are perhaps the most direct and fundamental thing we can engage in to transform our internal landscape, freeing our perceptual awareness and thuswise helping us to manifest the preferential choices that are effortlessly beneficial to our natural wholesomeness. [whew! takes breath, finishes glass of wine and goes has dinner with lovely wife]

I agree completely. It's like, out of the infinite spectrum of cosmic emanations, the human experience is a minuscule bandwidth. To become a "completed human" we must illuminate all the bands and filaments within the human range. But if we were to step outside that bandwidth then we would become, by necessity, not human any more. The tantalizing question there is: Do we have the capacity within this life to breach the boundaries of the human bandwidth of possibility? An interesting perspective. To paraphrase, you are saying that we are the products of our environment and that our behavior, whether virtuous or immoral, is predominantly dependent on our environmental factors and that our internal mindset and belief structures have a negligible influence on behavior. This model assumes that we could take a serial killer and rapist from the Bronx and put him on Mount Hua and he would become a saint. And conversely we could take a saint from Mount Hua and put him in the Bronx and he would become a serial killer and a rapist. I am confident an empirical study would reveal that this would not happen. Therefore I could likewise say that the idea that the primary causal factor in some human act of atrocity could be that this person lived in a degraded environment like a slum and used it to rationalize something has very little basis in reality imo. I recall a prominent design engineer quoting: "We create our built environment, and our built environment creates us." My view is that there is a direct symbiotic relationship between our belief structures and our built environments. The designs and structures we see are an outward expression of the established cultural view, and such external structures serve to reinforce and perpetuate said cultural view. But in terms of the chicken or the egg, the first cause that creates a "toxic environment" is our internally held views and beliefs. Once created the toxic environment mirrors back to reinforce the propagating belief structures and the cycle continues. So I say, yes, environmental factors have significant and proven effects on human behavior, i.e. the preferences we make, but I still maintain that the deeply held conceptual beliefs we have of ourselves and the world is the fundamental platform from which our choices arise.

I appreciate you sharing your practice. When working on our artificiality we can sometimes try to "harness the horse", in terms of placing artificial controls on our artificial tendencies. This I believe just creates more internal stress and serves no benefit at all. Laozi promotes a manner of liberality and allowance whilst giving a foundation to inspire appropriate response. What I get out of your practice is that you are not controlling but instead increasing mindfulness to your desires and preferences and letting natural wisdom or inspiration be your guide. Would this be correct?

Oh yes you are right ... perfunctory is the wrong word. How careless of me, sincere apologies. Correction: fiveelementtao, in my opinion, has presented his case diligently and accurately in my opinion. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

No need to apologize at all ... I agree completely that objective investigation into the history and validity of any path is a must. I also recognize that, in your efforts to reveal a broader picture, you slanted to the left to try and "balance out" those leaning to the right -- which on the surface made you look like you were taking the negative view. You have presented your case perfunctorily and accurately in my opinion. I know that when I discovered the bare facts of CC, I myself had to go through the passage of shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, and acceptance. During the anger phase I was decidedly anti-Casteneda with the same passion of a reformed smoker who took every chance to take pot-shots at the "delusional believers". Now I see CC's works for what they really are ... tales of power to be neither believed nor disbelieved. To believe them at face value is to fall into the trap of blind, ignorant faith, and to disbelieve them out of hand is to fall into the trap of closed-minded bigotry. Neither of these options serves any benefit to one's development. Carlos' works fall into the Coyote teaching category for me. I remember my first meeting with a native Lakota man, Micheal Redshirt, a self-professed coyote teacher. I had to take a big wad of tobacco with me and keep rolling big fat chunky cigarettes for him. He told me that whenever he was smoking tobacco he couldn't lie, but if he wasn't then he could lie to me and tell me any untruth he liked. I lapsed a few times and later had to try and piece back together the meeting and sort the lies out from the truths. Very interesting. I am certainly not trying to justify CC's obvious fraudulent propositions and despicable behavior. But I do know that, with the same objective approach you are suggesting, many and great riches can be found amongst his legacy.

Wow FET, I'm surprised at you... tsk, tsk... Seeing that you were referencing my post I can only assume your denigration was aimed at myself ... so please explain how my expressed view was either: * Sticking my head in the sand * Depending on others for spiritual validation ???

I think this has been an excellent discussion ... good job everybody !!! Regardless of authenticity, the effects of CC's works stand as testimony that they were indeed an act of power. For good or ill, directly or indirectly, reading the series has transformed the perspective of thousands of people. If there was ever any "one good thing" that I see has come out of CC's efforts is that, by presenting a believable alternate view of the world, a solid blow has been delivered to the fixated Western perception. A blow whose ripples can still be tangibly seen and felt in today's popular exploration of spiritual evolution. So yep, there is seemingly irrefutable evidence that CC was a fraud, and this makes the reliability of his works questionable at best. But there is also this ... the alignment of power that sparks the transformation of consciousness can come from any source ... a holy book ... the words of a master ... the gentle caress of a lover's hand ... a sunset that inflames the horizon ... or the fraudulent babblings of a sex-starved, ego-centric try-hard. It all depends on one's own personal power and impeccability.

LOL Guilty as charged Didn't see your earlier post ... many apologies.

I am not questioning anything you are saying about CC ... there's plenty of evidence to support all allegations. My point is that it's too rigid a view to say that Carlos' contributions were "all bad". Are you upset that Zhang Sanfeng, the legendary founder of Taijiquan, is a nothing more then a literary myth? Are you upset by possibility that Laozi was not really a living person but perhaps a collective of sages including women? We are told they were real people so they are just different shades of lies, aren't they? Poisons are bad right? But at homeopathic doses poisons can heal. So are poisons "all bad"? Pain is bad right? But pain can be the catalyst for positive change and helps us learn. So is pain "all bad"? My point again is that it may be rash and somewhat prejudiced thinking to simply whitewash a persons contribution to society as "all bad".

Ahhh ... so black and white is it? Here is the BBC documentary on Carlos: Carlos Castaneda And The Shaman. Tales From The Jungle | ultraorange.net The truth is that, as any good work of fiction is, Carlos' books were part anthropological research and part story-telling. So there is verifiable Toltec cultural ontology within his work. Unfortunately its all the other crap that you have to sift through to get to the good stuff. If anyone is interested in getting a more practical transmission of the Toltec Way of the Warrior then I would highly recommend Warriors Keep: The Toltec Teachings by Theun Mares

Leading without controlling, Leaves nothing out of control. Practical Laozi 101.

Exactly the same thing happened to me ... found my hands in my dream ... very groovy!

Chapter Three -- Peaceful People When the worthy are not exalted, There is no contention amongst people; When rare goods are not treasured, There is no theft amongst people; When causes for desire are not seen, There is no confusion in people’s minds. Knowing this the sage counsels: Empty their minds, Fill their bellies, Weaken their convictions, Strengthen their bones. Preserve people’s subtle view and innocence. Give no cause for cunning and contrivance. Leading without controlling, Results in nothing out of control. Stigweard's Daodejing 道德經 Original Text: Translator's Notes and Commentary: