GrandmasterP

Good thread topic. Best of luck with that quest oanry and maybe keep posting to let us know how you get on..

Anything about cats in Li Ching-Yuen? I like cats.

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Malcolm++Smith That's a link on John Thusness's site to the DW convo.

Auras aren't cohesive though. If you look at someone's aura you can see where differences lie. For example someone with an underlying medical issue might present with a ' greying' around where the issue is. Same with a Qi blockage those can be dark or pulsing red sometimes. That's not to generalise though as we don't 'see' auras in the same way that we physiologically see the chair the person is sitting on so there's a degree of subjectivity on how different seers see auras/ chakra effusions and related emanations. With seeing auras and the like it isn't just our physiology involved there's psychology happening as well. Hope that helps.

Yep that's a fact and no mistake. Far as the content went about those seven guys, frankly; I couldn't see where the issues lay. Seven guys doing their own thang in a bamboo grove. Good call.

OK. Thanks. I'll bow out at this point. To address the OP one would presumably need to have access to John Thusness's writings in order to comment. Thanks for the Malcolm/ not-Malcolm heads up

OK I'm lost now. Who is 'Thusness'?

This lass will teach you more. For a price. http://www.erinpavlina.com/blog/2010/05/the-difference-between-auras-and-chakras/

Well you live and learn. Thanks for that. I always thought that DW ' Dzogchen Malcolm' was ' Lopon' Malcolm Smith touting for custom on DW. How strange that they are not. They say exactly the same things.

Is it not the same guy? Well I never! But Malcolm on DW knows everything there is to know about Dzogchen ( apparently). ;-)

You could always ask Malcolm over on DW . He's always around the Dzogchen section. Made it quite his own in the five years since he 'qualified'. Good luck to the lad.

+1 MH ' Truth' is a slippery concept at best and tends to arrive accompanied by questionable antecedents wherever it is claimed. Whenever one is shown a finger pointing towards a claimed 'truth' it is advisable to also look in the opposite direction. Seek to identify, the 'eloquently-silenced untruth' that the truth claimant is, possibly unwittingly; attempting to divert one's attention away from.

" The Method of No Method. The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination." By Sheng Yen. A short book but full of useful tips and helpful information. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Method-No-method-Practice-Illumination/dp/1590305752/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397391141&sr=8-1&keywords=The+method+of+no+method

Thank you for that welcomed advice.I'd rather steered my comments towards the current political actuality of those seven short films. My call is that they are nasty pieces of Chinese government propaganda featuring bought and paid for academics parroting the Party line. " Quietly comply and be left alone. Buck the One Party system and suffer the consequences." No biggie though, all history is to some extent fictive; and we each read 'text' in our own chosen ways.

Fair enough. It was that other sort of 'truth' I was referring to. The one that excludes its perceived opposite. " This is TRUE... Hence... That is FALSE." That one. The dualistic one.

'Truth' may not the mother of dualism but for sure she's its prissy maiden aunt.

"There was no point freezing your nadgers off on top of some mountain while communing with the Infinite unless you could rely on a lot of impressionable young women to come along occasionally and say Gosh." ( Terry Pratchett. Maskerade).

" Fire Exit" That little green running figure with an arrow pointing to a Fire Exit. (Pro)Found in public buildings. As a symbol that one always puts me in mind of 'holy' books, Bibles, Sutras and the like.

Man those Abrahamic paths sure have long tentacles! ;-)

NOOOOO! I say again... NOOOOO! 'Inner truth' is the very last thing that anyone should ever 'conform' to. If we start out meditating on concepts like 'truth' then we're sunk before we even set sail. " If you meet the Buddha along the road. Kill him." ( Buddha). Apart from that, it's a good post Apech. :-)

The other fact to maybe bear in mind when listening to those Chinese tenured academics pontificating on the films is that as here in the west all Chinese academic journals are peer refereed. Unlike here in the West the referees of Chinese academic tend to be Politburo. Nothing written by any Chinese academic ever sees the light of day in print unless it has been first censored and approved by the State. Woe betide the Chinese academic who strays beyond the official Party line. Losing her or his job would be the least of the troubles coming their way right down the pike. Seen 'em all now. Nasty! :-(

Interesting (or synchronicity?) that just this morning, elsewhere on here; one of the chums has begun a thread on conformity. Those seven sages lads were privileged 'by' and well connected enough 'to' the Confucian hegemony of their day. Most had married well and held sinecure paid government posts that required neither work nor attendance at the office so that they could chill out and do their own thing in the grove. I doubt that they actually lived there in that bamboo grove. It seems to have been some sort of frat or lodge meeting set up. Kinda like the shriners but with stringed instruments. Maybe they got together on holiday or for recreational musical soirees. " Hey guys, we can put the show on right here! In the Bamboo Grove." I'm reminded of some privileged kids of celebrity parents I once met. They were hanging out at the DL's winter compound near Hubli in South India. They were lucky to be able to have been born who they were, where they were and when. These bamboo grove guys seem to have been similarly privileged and singularly blessed to be born to a rank and in a time that permitted their 'non- conformity' to the Confucian norm that succored and supported them. Was the sub text of that docu series... " By all means do your own thing but leave the state alone, and then it will leave you alone. After all, it is the state that permits your non conformity. Be happy but BE VERY CAREFUL!" All heil that most benevolent of polities. :-)

Conformity, all of it; is outward and visible. In engineering terms the two wings of a plane 'conform' yet one wing may develop cracks whilst the other does not. Of necessity, using driving as one metaphor; we all conform by sticking to the road and not driving on the sidewalk. However whilst driving on the road some drivers will be listening to Country and Western or a gospel shouter on the car radio whilst other drivers may be cultivating nembutsu. All are bound for different destinations for different purposes be those business, social or pleasure. Conformity is an essential social emollient that in no wise constrains the inner- invisible. Some of our identikit dressed and ' same- latest' technologically kitted out first year undergraduates often rail against 'conformity'. No sense of irony - some youngsters. :-)

With all due respect I beg to differ.Wudang is Dao Disneyland. A tourist destination of choice with all the hucksterism associated with well organised mass tourism. Shows to see and merchandise to buy. If anyone from the west believes that a protracted sojourn on Wudang might lead to them becoming an 'insider' then one would direct their pre- reading to David Chadwick's book ' Thank you and OK'. A fluent Japanese speaker , ordained and living/ working in Japan over a number of years as an ordained officiant of a working Temple community and part time English teacher. Chadwick has a Japanese driving licence, he marries his ( American) wife in Japan. When not about his temple duties he lives in a Japanese suburb socialising with Japanese neighbours. For all that effort and all those years he is integrated as 'belonging' not one single jot and admits as much in the text. Wudang is just about the last place for any westerner to learn anything beyond what it is to be smiled at whilst being royally fleeced. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step hence, if one cannot find effective encultured cultivation close to home; it will never be found in foreign climes. No one is ever as smart in a second language. No tourist, howsoever extended their tour and notwithstanding the robes they are sold to wear whilst 'abroad' is ever anything beyond the tourist, spiritual or otherwise; that they were and always shall be. The act and the fact of seeking 'enlightenment' far from home negates the efficacy of that laudable impulse. If valid cultivation cannot be 'here and now' then it cannot be anywhere else either.

MH did you catch that riff in episode 1 where the voiceover script has it ( paraphrased)... " There is a retreat into hedonism in societies wherein citizens fear their rulers." I have watched the first episode twice now and, quite frankly; find it slightly chilling. ' Official' Chinese documentaries sometimes have that effect on me. There was that recent mega TV documentary series on China released to coincide with the Olympics. Stunning imagery , stark subtext. I have come away, thus far; with the distinct impression that this ' Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove' production is as much about the current Sino- Political worldview as ever it is about the politics and philosophies of the times it purports to depict.