Stigweard

LOL so far it has been the source of much amusement amongst the locals.

A quick pop in folks ... now at the Trader Hotel in Beijing after a few days exploring the sites (great wall, forbidden city, summer palace, jingshan park etc). Have just registered for the conference with the main event starting tomorrow at The Great Hall of the People (opening ceremony, banquet etc etc ) The line up of dignitaries is impressive indeed including Livia Kohn and Michael Winn. I will use this thread as kind of a journal over the next couple of days. Then its off to Zhengzhou for a sacred sites tour. Will be going on from there to Wudangshan. Interesting enough it looks like I have to accompany a Wudang master back to the mountain Stay tuned

On plane now folks. Signing out

The rainbow too smiles My plane turns toward China Up, up, and away

the autumn wind blows auburn leaves float listlessly like words once spoken

Not quite. The model provided is more of a "spectrum effect," or a sliding scale if you wish. Part of the self, the core self, is intrinsically linked to "Step 1. The causal phenomena in it's full spectrum totality." It is the self that is perceiving the direct flow of Universal life-stream in it's totality. The subject and object are one. It is the filtering process of Steps 2 - 4 that creates the "illusion" of separation. Once again we see two views of the world in operation. Your view posits that everything, even intuition, can be logically described. Whereas, once again, I embrace a Universe that is infinitely more mysterious then we can ever imagine. Whilst I also seek full awareness it is more of an "alignment of energies" rather than logical comprehension.

Do you suppose that you are analyzing love to the point where it can no longer happen? A farmer who incessently plows the field never let's the plants time to grow.

Master Moy, by his own admission, adapted the traditional Yang style to "conform" with his Taoist principles. He effectively removed all martial arts out of the form and also the tailbone tuck claiming that these were both damaging the health of practitioners. 9PKWaECjf-I

gnawing happenstance I am so damn excited going to China !!!

Reason and rationale depends on words and descriptives. They are in fact 3 steps lagging behind the truth. Step 1. The causal phenomena in it's full spectrum totality. Step 2. Perception of said phenomena filtered by the limitations of human sensory capabilities. Step 3. Interpretation of said perception filtered by the individual's 'view of the world', i.e. by the belief structures on 'how the world works'. Step 4. Description of said interpretation filtered by the constraints of language and the individual's linguistic capabilities. And then, if someone else was to try and understand this description, it is filtered even more: Step 5. Comprehension of the description given filtered by the individual's linguistic capabilities. Step 6. Interpretation of said comprehension filtered by the individual's 'view of the world', i.e. by the belief structures on 'how the world works'. Step 7. Description of said interpretation filtered by the constraints of language and, once again, the individual's linguistic capabilities. So if we really want the "truth" we have to "catch up" with the reality of the primary causal phenomenon by riding the front of the wave of the ever-present now instead of merely catching the watered down echo provided to us by rational description. In my view, though commonly called intuition, the best term for this direct flow of knowledge is "knowingness."

"The process of spiritual attainment proceeds through six phases or levels, beginning with personality refinement and conscious refinement and culminating in becoming Tao. Step One: Chi refinement and Natural Meditation as the cultivation of chi. Step Two: Teh Tao: Receiving or discovering the path and learning the Tao. Step Three: Wu Tao: Enlightened by Tao. Step Four: Ming Tao: Lucidified with Tao. Step Five: Teh Tao: Gaining Tao, and Tao also gains you. You live beyond your personal cares. Step Six: Chen Tao: Attaining Tao. Your physical presence gradually merges with the invisible reality of Tao, but you are still able to respond, if you choose, and appear in form. You have achieved spiritual immortality, not physical immortality in the ordinary sense of a life that needs to eat, sleep, and pay taxes." P65, Ni, Hua Ching, "Enrich Your Life With Virtue", Seven Star Communications, CA 1999

Who is your Master? I will be at Wudang 12th & 13th November

Hahaha!! Cheers Drew No rock paintings in the immediate area around where I live. My mother recently went on a 4 wheel drive tour up through central Australia (Canning Stock Route), they got to see some excellent rock paintings.

Just reaffirming my commitment to these guidelines.

Ok chaps we do have a "no excessive swearing policy" in effect. http://www.thetaobums.com/Moderation-Guidelines-t11707.html Please keep this in mind. <-- The Mod Squad -->

Just to throw a Daoist slant in amongst the midst, or perhaps a cat amongst the pigeons, the concept of Karma, in its commonly excepted form, doesn't exist within Daoism per se. Rather we have what can be referred to as The Law of Universal Energy Response. Within this view it is observed that the Universal flow of nature is always seeking harmony. Thus a discordant action will beget a harmonization response. This natural law also states: One's life experience is in perfect synchrony with one's internal energy vibration. One's internal energy vibration is determined by the sum contents of one's mind. Also there is the recognition that collective energy vibrations exist. A family, for example, will have it's own collective vibration made up by the sum vibration of the individuals. Just so it is for a community, nation, and planet.

In magic we call them "proofs." In essence we are trying to "prove" to you that everything is legit and scientifically viable. For example, in a rope escape I used to do, I will get two audience members up on stage to check out all my props before I get the biggest, meanest, ugliest bloke in the audience to tie me up. Each one of these elements is a "proof" in that I am leading my audience to believe that it would be humanly impossible for me to escape. These sorts of "proofs" can also be used to distract the audience's attention away from the real action.

LOL yes indeed ... "coarse" it is Appropriate editing done.

I would concur with this. In terms of "coarse thinking", I believe Zhuangzi is referring to contrived or artificial rationale. He is distinguishing that we have subtle consciousness linked our De / Teh, maybe what you could call "The quiet voice of the spirit". An analogy maybe this: You can't see the view of the valley because of the trees. The coarse mind will bring in bulldozers and clear the trees away. The subtle mind will simply ascend the mountain.

I have been pretty slack in keeping up with the inventorying of relevant threads for the TaoBums FAQ so I kinda need your help. If you spot a good topic or article here on TaoBums that deserves to be added to the topics I have begun to list could you please post them here so that I can catalog them properly. You can see that there are quite a few areas that haven't been cataloged properly (i.e. I haven't found threads covering these topics). If you would like to help either do a site-specific Google search using the topic. Eg. To find topics on "Shen", enter the following in the Google search field: site:www.thetaobums.com shen OR use the advanced TaoBums search function. If you find relevant topics of 20 posts or more then please post them below. Also I would appreciate you letting me know if any of the topics I have already cataloged need to be weeded out. I will rebump this thread every month in an effort to keep the FAQ as up to date as possible. Cheers

Cheers for the above. I have fleshed out the list of topics for the FAQ http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?act=ST...t=0#entry108717 You can see that there are quite a few areas that haven't been cataloged properly (i.e. I haven't found threads covering these topics). If you would like to help either do a site-specific Google search using the topic. Eg. To find topics on "Shen", enter the following in the Google search field: site:www.thetaobums.com shen OR use the advanced TaoBums search function. If you find relevant topics of 20 posts or more then please post them below.

Cheers Mal. Just wanting to make sure all the good threads are kept tab of. So if any relevent topics come up with good discussions (i.e. 20 + posts) then popping them in here will be good so I can catalog them properly for future purposes.

My preferred method is using seeds: Created 6 piles of seeds from bottom to top to form hexagram and then another larger pile to the side for the signified line. The lines are sorted to see whether odd (yang) or even (yin) and the large pile is divided by 6 with the remainder being the signified line (i.e. keep sorting out 6 seeds until a pile of 6 or less is left over).