Yoda

I'm having a great time with: http://www.rawhealthmastermind.com/ Just launched a few days ago and it's a dollar to check it out and then $10/month from there. If you are raw curious you gotta at least do the trial period. It's by the author of "Raw Secrets" which is a decent book but this site is much better. Great resource if you are a raw newbie like Yoda. Gettin greener by the day!

That sounds much healthier than what I did... 30+ minutes at a stretch. Maybe do some kettlebells afterwards?

TheSongsofDistantEarth, I don't mess with it anymore... my luck crashed on the program, but I'm definitely a huge believer in getting out in the sun on a daily basis. Keep us posted how it goes! If you stop eating be sure to brag! Your pal, Yoda

Leon, There's free pdf on the web and the discussion is in the book club here: http://www.thetaobums.com/Journey-to-the-West-t11372.html It's a very long and sometimes repetitive book but it is the best single resource on Taoism that I have found. My fav chapters are 9-11 and 15-75 or so. Your pal, Yoda

so coming from a secular/Christian/Buddhist background before becoming a Taoist, I was always pretty used to the concept that enlightenment/development/salvation/etc is an individual thing and assumed it was more or less the same deal for Taoism. I'm surprised to learn how collective a program it is at least in some forms of Taoism... One's individual actions count the most but the actions of one's parents, spouse, and children seem to come in at a very close second. Very much like the Hebrew notion of the sins of the fathers can go for ten generations type thing. I've heard that the Christians and Catholics are softening their approach in China and allowing ancestral worship. I've heard it said that modern religions are all individual oriented and the old ones are more family oriented. Maybe Taoism is old school like that? Yoda

So Xuande is the most noble leader in the book and has the best warriors but he just can't win many key battles. That might be turning around for him after meeting the Taoist, Still Water, who put him onto an amazing strategist but Cao Cao then lured the strategist's mum to CC's HQ as a well treated hostage... we'll see how it goes!

anyone know about jasmine tea's effects on the body?

Easy, I 100% agree with you... that book has been the single best resource on Chinese religion that I've come across and we have a book club discussion firing up on it and it would be great to see you on the thread! We can argue about the east/west thing there too! Your pal, Yoda

Great idea!

So I'll report on Mao's margin notes... Cao Cao's son saw a flash of red light in the story and Mao said that that was a sign that one day Cao Cao's son would be the emperor and the woman in the room would be the empress. I wonder if Mao saw any flashes of red light, etc?

thanks... I look forward to that part! I just finished reading about a ruler who kills a Taoist teacher saying the guy was evil but it sounds like maybe the ruler's mom was right that the guy was good. Anyways, the taoist dies and haunts the ruler so a few weeks later he's dead too and they can sort it all out downstairs! Teacher consensus is never going to happen! There's only a bit of discussion of the Celestial Master popular uprising in the 3 Kingdoms... barely alluded to. Cao Cao puts it down. I would love to hear more about the back story on that one if anyone knows it. Poor Xuande... bless his heart... he's the nicest guy but he has a really hard time winning battles... Cao Cao has him on the run! Cao Cao is quite the warlord! Yoda

time away from TTBs is a healthy thing! Welcome back!

Stig, cool article thanks! Has anyone read: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081269088...;pf_rd_i=507846 The Disputers of the Tao? It looks like a history of Taoist debating practice. If debating has a long history then that might mean that Taoism as a philosophy has been around for quite some time.

I'm just sitting down to study Chinese history 101 for the first time and based on what can see from China's past, I'm not seeing any 'seeds' of democracy and it looks like there will always be some sort of non-democracy type rule for quite some time. Not that this is a problem... the kingship model has a number of advantages. It seems that China has been used to pretty cut throat politics loaded with internal spies for centuries. I think that Taoist, Buddhist, and Confuscian ideals have maybe infused the ruling class with idealism on and off through history but there's seemingly very little of those sorts of ideals still meaningfully active. (?) So that might be a negative trend at the moment but it seems that Chinese history has had a lots of good and bad in its past that the current state isn't such a train wreck as I had supposed, perhaps. Perhaps they'll bounce back at some point? It does seem that in the last few centuries the Taoism/Buddhism/Confuscianism had been losing their edge. Maybe the current state is more of a religion meltdown than a political meltdown? Yoda

So I reached the 1950s in my Chinese History course... amazing story!!! Recent history is seriously brutal stuff but the worst of it is over, fortunately.

picaradin or picaridin... isn't as good as deet but has a much nicer feel to it. I prefer it to citronella oil myself. Of course, Mak Tin Si has a mosquito control FU but it's too expensive for me to check out.

anonymous, wow... sorry to hear that... I didn't realize you had been through so much. Very sobering that such a an amazingly bright guy in so many ways can go off the rails like that. In my study of teachers gone wild, I am convinced they somehow convince themselves that they are ultimately benefiting others and do perform genuine healings but are aware that what they are claiming to teach and do isn't exactly what they are up to. They get in the habit of telling lies all the time and start to exude a general cloud of BS. Your pal, Yoda Just for everyone's reference, my friends Beingbliss and Adi Padma who posted in support of Dr Sha in the thread above are now studying with their previous teacher and I don't know any details of why they left the doctor.

Scott, I'm happy that I can finally be at peace with sucking at energy practices... my personal practice discussion is a train wreck! Of course I'll let everyone know how I do with religious Taoism! It's not nearly as quick as many other paths, but I'm totally fine with that. On the website, Mak Tin Si took down the "no channeling" lineage rules and put up the stages of practice in the lineage which is fun to see. The lineage rules don't concern non-lineage people, anyways. Your pal, Yoda

At first glance, it appears as if China and the USA have the same amount of easy-to-use farmland, same rainfall, same latitude... so why the difference in population? I'm thinking it's due to the idea that in China children are the more highly valued than in the USA from both a practical as well as metaphysical perspective. Just a guess, though. ~~~ Mal, made the correction, thanks. Just about done with book one of four... Lord Guan is cleaving dudes in half on his way north to be reunited with his brother. Learning about valor and honor... After each person dies a poet assigns a score to the person's life with the circumstances of their last stand figuring in very highly into the equation. Cao Cao is a bit of a bad boy lord... he put out a hit on the emperor's pregnant concubine for instance but also makes an attempt to be "by the code"... he takes care of family members of honorable people he has killed but will also nut up and kill off whole families if he feels threatened by them... needs zoloft. Lord Guan and his oath brothers would certainly be more honorable but it's hard to be 100% honorable during a civil war with friends on all sides and broken oathes all over the place. Not much Taoism, but still it is interesting to see the warrior culture in action. In the back of the book are Chairman Mao's margin notes. He kept a copy of this book with him as inspiration on the long march. Yoda

Biff, I'm not going to get into all that. Suffice it to say that I'm very happy to be an Ng Yin Do Pai Taoist. Your pal, Yoda

Scott, Mak Tin Si says that there are Taoist Celestial (Tin) realm masters who are able to assist us in the Yang dimension and that there are lots of entities in the Yin dimension who can mess things up. It's not that Yin beings are necessarily bad but they just don't belong with us in the yang... sort of like having squirrels living in one's house... the energies are incompatible. The way that Tin beings and Yin beings interact with us are very different: Tin dimension beings are incapable of channeling through us, moving our bodies, automatic writing, etc... they would fry us instantly if they tried. The Yin beings can be picked up on night time photographs, can do spontaneous motion and channeling with our bodies and tend to be more powerful in cold, dark, low air pressure conditions and at night especially at 3am. Long term interactions with yin beings often results in health problems, lower vitality, and lowered luck for oneself and one's family. It is best for all three realms to keep a healthy distance from one another. Like I said on the sex with entities thread, even the Dalai Lama had trouble sorting the difference between these two groups but that's what a tradition gets if they channel... Staying away from spontaneous motion and channeling and making sure one's practices work best in full, warm sunlight are a good first step in keeping clean. Your pal, Yoda

Biff, No entities, please! One of the things I like about the lineage is that there is no channeling, spontaneous motion, seeing things in the dark, etc. I've spent a fair amount: the Ng Yin Do Pai path for stage 2 and up does require to make minimum $1CAD donations on the lunar 1st and 15th plus on several Taoism dates and the Stage 1 blessing is $90CAD and the Stage 2 blessing is $150CAD and the Stage 3 blessing is $30CAD: http://taoismcanada.com/elearnings.html. Other stuff like FUs, etc are available to students or non-students and, I believe, are mostly optional. The FUs start at $10CAD and, I'm assuming, can be as pricey as can be. In old China, some emperors and wealthy families spent a *lot* of money building Taoism temples, etc expecting to gain benefit in this life and in the next. The Ng Yin Do Pai path is a good fit for me but there are *many* aspects of it that would not appeal to most people... the financial aspect is just the very tip of the iceberg. One interesting aspect is that there seems to be no energy cultivation/chikung/neikung/yoga/etc in the Ng Yin Do Pai. It seems that Taoist paths focus on philosophy, energetics, or religion with thetaobums mostly focusing on energetics and Ng Yin Do Pai focusing on Taoism as a religion for stage 2 students and up. I very much enjoyed energetic cultivation even though I sucked at it and I finally threw in the towel after I discovered a better fit for me. Your pal, Yoda

Biff, I've met the Dalai Lama and he's a super great, compassionate guy... he'd definitely never kill anyone. It's true that this can bring up the topic of 'well, who can you trust then?' Like Lino may be suggesting, maybe the best answer is not to even train in the first place. I don't have any great answers to this question, but it's at least good to be aware that there can be problems out there. Imo, schools that avoid: channeling, spontaneous motion, automatic writing, ouija boards, or other forms of entity relations are vastly superior. Imo, practices that can be done best in full, warm sunlight are superior. Imo, entities have longer life spans than we do so have more time to train/feed/gain power/etc. Your pal, Yoda

It's good to keep in mind the Dalai Lama's entity experience... at first benevolent but later bad news... If the Buddhist high command has a hard time telling the good ones from the bad, what hope do we have? We only train 80 years maximum but these entities train for 100s of years concurrently... even attained teachers with the best intentions can be mislead. Yoda ~~~ the wiki on the Buddhist Dorje Shugden controversy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorje_Shugden_controversy Additionally, there are accounts that it was Dorje Shugden was the entity who actually assisted the Dalai Lama to escape Tibet and there may be entity squabbling going on as it may have been the Dalai Lama's channeler who moved against DS: http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:17y2R...lient=firefox-a The point here, I think, is that there is a lot of room for disagreement about entity interactions.

nanema, Great idea for the book club! A friend of mine on another thread said that Confucianism is more interested in maintaining excellent virtue without as much emphasis on internal cultivation to support it so is simpler than Taoism in a way but more challenging in another. Thanks for bringing up the 4 year thing... It is a part of Taoism as well. Per Taoist theory, the recently departed need time to make their transition to the yin dimension and like to be with their yang family members. The need for this connection lessens with time and I'm sure varies tremendously per individual. So during the mourning period, it is best to be as ethical, happy (but not manic), clean lifestyle, and as positive in talk and thought as possible. It can be a time of reduced luck and happiness for the yang relatives as they are carrying a bigger energetic load than normal so anything that can help the transition process is a plus. Death of a friend is similar but on a smaller scale. your pal, Yoda here's a Confucius pdf: http://afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php?l=Lunyu&no=1