Yoda

JK, Me must obey their command when they tell me to do it me must do it. Me must. Me must. Me must. Me must I don't know what you are referring to... the problem must be with your computer. You should give them a chance. please or they'll hurt me!!!!! Yoda

I do it 3-5x a week. Relaxing. I highly recommend some sort of regular stretching routine.

So Master Sleeping Dragon tried to plead with Heaven to extend his lifespan but was interrupted and a lantern representing a Big Dipper star was knocked over by a commander rushing into the tent, so passed away. Gradually luck has been slipping away from the Western Kingdom and the remnant of the Han Dynasty... Two cool supernatural events are related to this: A northern kingdom commander who was fighting against Master Sleeping Dragon's Western Kingdom saw some evil clouds while invading the Western Kingdom and assumed it to be an ambush. Indeed, the scouting party sent to check it out suffered a huge ambush but surprisingly didn't lose any troops... they later figured out that this was the area that Master Sleeping Dragon's Temple was established and those were ghost troops. So the enemy commander makes offerings to Master Sleeping Dragon which calms down the clouds. Later, the Master visits the commander in a dream and thanks him for the offerings and tells him that the Western Kingdom and the Han Dynasty is doomed, that the commander's cause would prevail but admonished him to be very merciful towards the civilians which he agreed to do. The other event was that the Western Kingdom emperor calls in a channeler to give him strategic advice. The "goddess" in question gyrates the channeler around and puts on quite a show but the advice was completely wrong and sealed the dynasty's fate. This story fits in nicely with my belief that channelled entities are not to be trusted.

babel fish is a cool online translation program.

Chinese characters each have a root aka radical character inside them and there are over 200 radicals. I've sort of taken this to mean that these were the 200+ root ideas or building blocks of the written language. Of these the most used ones are the radicals that symbolize: Grass, Water, Tree, Hand, Mouth, Heart, and Insect. (in that order) From an intuitive perspective, it makes sense except for the insects... Were they a source of food? Did chicken domestication make bugs pivotal? Maybe mosquitoes were a huge bummer in the days before windows and netting? Mrs. Yoda says that after water insects are what farmers are concerned about, so that's probably why they get so much press. This one list of words formed from the insect radical suggests that insects totally suck and have been a big problem throughout history. All extremely negative associations: http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/sinogra...tml?q=%E8%99%AB Does this line of thinking make any sense from a scholastic perspective I wonder or is it just an exercise in random internet musings? Tao Toe, Yoda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kangxi_radicals

Little1, Awesome idea! I think the fluent Chinese speakers could have fun messing with the newbies! I haven't any idea what Sean is up to these days, but I know that Trunk and Mal and Sean sometimes brainstorm up ideas, so I'll send your thoughts their way. Your pal, Yoda

Mr International Taoist lecturer can now update his resume!!!

Walker, I've heard that the Chinese intend to build up their educational system in order to enjoy brain drain dividends. If true, I was sort of hoping that when my kids get older, they could take advantage of that wave somehow... Thanks for the link... that was exactly what I was hoping might be out there. Your pal, Yoda

home schooling is an option south of the mason dixon line. If nothing pans out, just make sure that you read Tom Sawyer to them so they know how to play the game.

RJ is his nom de guerre.

Alphone, Thanks for bringing up such great quotes! If memory serves, the Taoism in Journey to the West was vegetarian as well. I'm quite sure that there are a number of vegetarian Taoist schools out there and it is very good for one's health to eat that way and I'm sure it has a number of cultivation benefits too. According to my school, beef is avoided but other meats are fine. There are some practices and occasions that require strict vegetarianism for prolonged periods of time like the mourning period when a parent passes away and that can go on for up to three years and one shouldn't drink alcohol during that time either. I've heard it said that the above approach towards meat can be found in a number of Taoist and Confucian schools. Tao Toe, Yoda

I'm glad he's back! I'm sure Sean won't have any issues and the mod squad can deal with anything too crazy. Even if RJ just sticks around for just a short while, it'll be a nice change of pace.

Awesome report, Stig!!! I'm grateful that Taoism is becoming more than just a tourist attraction! Chia around? Tao Toe, Yoda

btw, I finally figured out how to use a Chinese-English dictionary... now I can find out what my teacup has been trying to tell me!

Thanks JK and Little1... every little bit helps! I tried to learn to speak Cantonese for the last several weeks but it didn't work out... no one in SC to talk to. I'm having *much* better luck learning to read it, though... there are lots of Chinese characters in yodaville, so that makes it much more fun. Tao toe, Yoda

Santa will bring me this http://www.amazon.com/Tuttle-Learning-Chin...2668&sr=8-1 and this (hopefully I've been good!!) http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Writing-Chin...ref=pd_sim_b_11 Some things can't be left dangling on the promise of my good behavior, so I've ordered these myself: http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Characters-G.../ref=pd_sim_b_1 http://www.amazon.com/What-Character-That-...ref=pd_sim_b_12 I already have this: 288 etymology friendly type characters with Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations geared for the newbie: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Chines.../ref=pd_sim_b_3 I have this, it's 'ok' so far, more Mandarin based: http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Language-His...ref=pd_sim_b_16 this Chinese character dictionary has both Cantonese and Mandarin romanizations... hard to use for total beginners, though: http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-English-Dict...010&sr=1-17 a basic Cantonese-English dictionary, also a bit overkill for the newbie as it turns out: http://www.amazon.com/English-Cantonese-Di...010&sr=1-19

Some books that I plan on studying here. From what I understand, learning Han Chinese characters as a second language it is very important to avoid rote memorization techniques and rather to adopt learning about the characters in some detail each so that they start to make sense. The following books seem to teach in this way. I'll review them as I have the time to study them: walk through San Francisco Chinatown plus etymologies of 288 basic characters... I've been studying this book for a few days and it is a nice entry into learning basic characters and focuses on etymology-friendly characters. Also found that the "wiktionary" is a good place to find the meaning of a character if it's already online.

Witch, You and Drew are both Boston beans... y'all should do lunch sometime! Both very cool practitioners!!! I don't know, but your situation sounds analogous to a two person type relationship that went through a breakup but is stronger now. As I think the benefits of entities thread on the realms of magick forum mentioned, the entity can interact directly with your energy system to enhance its functionality now that you have a closer relationship. Tao Toe, Yoda

The legend of the origin of Chinese characters: His conversation with the hunter greatly inspired Cangjie, leading him to believe that if he could capture in a drawing the special characteristics that set apart each and every thing on the earth, this would truly be the perfect kind of character for writing. From that day forward, Cangjie paid close attention to the characteristics of all things, including the sun, moon, stars, clouds, lakes, oceans, as well as all manner of bird and beast. He began to create characters according to the special characteristics he found, and before long, had compiled a long list of characters for writing. To the delight of the Yellow Emperor, Cangjie presented him with the complete set of characters. The emperor then called the premiers of each of the nine provinces together in order for Cangjie to teach them this new writing system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie

As long as they have internet, I'm good with it.

Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that, Thanks for the clarification, makes sense. Tao Toe, Yoda

Thanks for sharing CowTow! For anyone interested in the traditional Chinese angle, chapters 9-11 of the journey to the west are very fun and the pdf for the book is in the book club section of this site. Also the wiki on Hell notes is cool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_bank_note Mak Tin Si said that the Yin dimension is reasonably similar to our Yang dimension but that it's much more low tech, no sun, but you still need a job! The main thing is that the yin dimension can be much more disorienting than the yang and that the yang portion of a person's life cycle is often more pleasant, easy, and predictable. Journey to the West where the Tang Emperor goes to the underworld illustrates these themes: Good karma and in-the-know social connections are big assets! Having surviving relatives in the yang dimension making offerings, blessings, etc is a big plus. An interesting thing is that the better a deceased relative does in the yin the better the rest of the surviving family will do too and vice versa and this can have a compounding effect through the generations creating better or worse family luck. There's an interesting moment where a fight nearly breaks out between the Tang Emperor and his deceased brother... some tensions there but the episode is not developed. The goal seems to be making the time in the yin to be as comfortable and short of a duration as possible before the next reincarnation to the yang... the Emperor was certainly happy to get out of there. Tao Toe, Yoda

Growant, I started Stage 1 shortly after CNY and am now stage 2. It has been a good fit for me: lots of ethics, protocol, and discipline and not much energetics which I've never been particularly good at. I've been inspired to learn Cantonese as well! Tao Toe, Yoda

I just read the part where Kwan Yin loses her willow branch to Lao Zi while gambling... At another point her goldfish goes rogue and starts eating children! Apparently the fish was tired of being a good Buddhist day after day... Imo, the Tin dimension is better behaved in reality than is portrayed in J2W.

thanks! Maybe something of a frenemy situation.