GrandmasterP

Two ice creams are better than one.

You are catching on a treat ET, well done.

Kev if you are new and interesetd in cultivating I strongly recommend you begin with the QiGong set known as 8 Strands of Silk Brocade. It's pretty easy to learn and once you have it remebered you'll find a lot of things begin to make more sense to you than they did before you began cultivating QiGong. Good Luck.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/tt/index.htm HTH

For anyone intersetd in QiGong theory then this is really good value for money (it is free) and there has a lot of work gone into it. It's as good as anything you'd pay £20-00 and a maybe a lot more for. Minor quibbles. Page 78 part 2... 'Gathering at Your Navel' is wrong, he means Lower Tan t'ien. Maybe the acupuncture info is a bit sparse too but anyone going into that would probably know from their teacher which texts they needed. He's not giving anything away moves wise, those DVDs look to be $100-00 for the set but one of the most 'generous' advertisements I've come across. Not being about those, it's neither use nor ornament for "basic Taoist teachings" . HTH

You'll feel differently once you meet the right person for you and want to settle down. And once the kids come along, forget changing the world mate. It's all you'll be able to do to keep up with your own little family. Sod the universe.

Tao may or may not change (I have no idea one way or t'other and frankly don't care as, in the scheme of any one life; it doesn't matter). What is for sure is that people change and we are the ones doing the perceiving (or lack of same). 'Searching for the meaning of the Tao' In Tao (ism) though there's a path involving 'us' changing in some ways. From Unconscious Incompetence (don't know don't care) maybe to... Conscious Incompetence (know a bit and know there's much more to learn and WANTS to learn) maybe to... Conscious Competence (Can do some moves pretty competently, still needs support, getting better by keeping at it). maybe to ... Unconscious Competence ('Master' proficiency in a chosen aspect of the way). Bit like how many times you changed gear with a manual shift last time you drove one. You don't know because you have unconscious competence in changing gear. HTH

Addiss and Lombardo here for no other reason than it's the most thumbed copy being to hand. It has to be preference, every translation being to some extent a re-imagining more so one from ideographic-pictograms into phonemes. TTC pictograms into Hebrew characters into English could be interesting. Sure to have been done. Anyone know of such an edition?

Q. How many Taoists does it take to change a lightbulb? A. NONE. Let it cultivate. It'll change.

No idea. Custom and practice I suppose. Like surnames. Miller is 'Dusty' and I can see that but why [in UK anyway] is Mr Clarke always 'Nobby' ? Stay at home mom is a hard job to do but probably the most important job in the world. We have go to work moms at our place and they universally hate it.

No idea. Custom and practice I suppose. Like surnames. Miller is 'Dusty' and I can see that but why [in UK anyway] is Mr Clarke always 'Nobby' ? Stay at home mom is a hard job to do but probably the most important job in the world. We have go to work moms at our place and they universally hate it.

Half Term Holiday [starts tomorrow]. Sheer Bliss.

That skin of trees poem. 'Bark' may not have worked as well as a title. Had Melville opted for Moby Richard would his book have sold?

Not me saying that Lindi tis the stars as foretell it. I just posted that scry to check back and see if it was accurate and pass on a couple of hot astrological tips for anyone who, like me; enjoys the occasional punt on the horses.

OK it's a story. Shamen tell stories. Some shamen are trance media. Not a few are illiterate. To a captain Earl may not be a captain but to Earl he's a captain. My clumsy attempted point was and is that TTC may well be a shamanistic text to some shamen . To others it may well not be. Of itself it just IS. The many and varied fascinating and fruitful interpretations arise when individuals read and discuss it. As we are doing here. No one interpretation can be entirely 'right' but every interpretation is equally valid and in no wise invalidates any other. The only paradigm being that with TTC there is no epistemological paradigm. To claim otherwise being an exercise in wistful longing for that which can never exist.

For a young man maybe going the other way from martial taijiquan TO TaiChi . Thing is the martial schools in UK anyway tend to be different to and separate from the internal classes [those do tend to be classes as opposed to 'schools'] Taijiquan IMHO is a kick ass external form. Personally for internal I'm a QiGong guy but I'm old, slow and very lazy.

Good point MH. It's maybe easier to put distractions to one side after we have 'done them to death' That was certainly Osho's approach. Maybe it didn't work for everyone but it sure was a whole lot of fun. On topic if someone really desires supernatural powers might that not be indicative of deeper psychological issues or suppressed wants?

You would not believe the BS paperwork involved in taking a class of English schoolkids out on a field trip. Once you do manage to get the indolent little ingrates outside it's only a matter of minutes before one of em has an asthma attack or somebody falls into a puddle.

Well it is an interesting subject anyway and makes a nice change from discussing the weather and soccer which, apart from work gripes; are main topics at work. Which is your favourite version of TTC MH?

Tibetan yep I'd agree but Zen and PL have their up sides. PL for preference. Nice 'n easy.

Probably all bollocks and I don't give a stuff about Australia [once the penal colonies closed it lost any utility] but let's see if those gee-gees win.

.............................. No 'blame' impled budy. Whatever floats anyone's boat is just that and good luck to them. It's a living for some is doing initiations, stasangs and the like for others they give it away, altruistic sorts that they are. Tony Parsons has to charge an entrance fee to pay for te hire of the hall. At the other end of the scale I had an invitation recently to an 'exclusive transmission' workshop, just a one-day gig. Fee was £350-00 and teh guy doing it gets that as he travels (First Class) all over the place putting these gigs on. If it's what folk need and want then someone will provide the service. Those who don't want it won't 'go' for it. Both those positions are equally valid as are any and all opinions. Attacking a messenger doesn't especially affect the message being carried.

I always thought that Dante's Inferno sounded rather fun compared to the anodyne visions of what is supposed to go on in the Xtian 'heaven'.

A man whose idea of forming disciples was to beat us up severely, one at a time; at least once a month. Nice guy if a bit 'old fashioned'.

"Pain is weakness - leaving the body" (Grandmaster Chang)