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Greetings, Despite the late introductions, I have been here long, cannot even remember. I stumbled here as a seeking youth maybe some ten odd years ago. For what I have found and attained, I consider many of you my benefactors. I hope to gain some more, but also share my knowledge, to protect and guide the seeking youth of tomorrow, so they may avoid some twists and turns and begin to enjoy the scenery. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Hi Folks, Been out of sight for a while due to personal reasons. Over the summer, my brothers and I recorded many videos covering our practice regimen and some short(ish) talks about how we approach Taijiquan and Dao, Daogong, and so on in our system. Feel free to share your thoughts here or on the youtube channel. Subscribe if you like We hope to make these an ongoing podcast series - the idea is, life is short, time is limited and we want to get some information out there on what we consider to be a powerful system. As the saying goes -- "proof of the pudding is in the eating", so we've shared some drills, etc, we use for training and teaching.

New here. Just getting my feet wet.

Hello everyone! Was the DAO Bums created because it was some kind of dispute between Original DAO forum and this one? Read some old post from the original DAO forum and they didn't seem to like the dispute between original DAO and bums? Does anyone know the origin story how the dispute started and why dao bums was created? Be blessed!

How do I start sensing energy? and how do I begin on my path of tao

Hi, im a lover of dao.. 🙏🏻

Hi from Australia. I’ve stumbled on this awesome forum after a long search with limited options in Australia to learn, including online in Australia. I’m confused about all the lineages and just want to commence further commitment to the Way. My background is Tibetan and Zen Buddhism for the last several years but I feel more aligned with the Dao and would now like to move forward. How do I do this? What is a good online Way? And what else can I continue to do offline in my small country town away from anyone else of this Way? Thank you all.

Hello everyone, First, I want to say thank you. I have been reading through many forums trying to deepen my understanding and have benefited greatly from the conversations many of you have had within the different topics of the forum. Even though I have benefitted greatly I still have a lot to learn which is why I am now writing this post in order to ask for advice. As a background, I am a 26-year-old male from Ontario, Canada. My lifestyle hasn't always been the healthiest, but of late it has become healthier, though since getting a puppy it does make it difficult for me to leave the home outside of work for prolonged periods of time. At least that is the case for now. This makes it hard for me to pursue the idea of finding a master/teacher to study under. I am not even sure if there is a master from a good lineage near me and honestly I am not exactly sure how to go about finding that out. That being said I don't wish to just be waiting around. I want to start building a foundation now so that, karma willing, when I do find a teacher I will be in a place where they can begin to teach me. Thanks to Earl Grey I was pointed in the direction of Flying Phoenix, which seems like a perfect fit at least for now of a complete chi kung practice to follow in order to start building a foundation. I do have a couple of concerns though. Does it matter that I currently can't feel qi (chi)? Will practicing the methods from percentage breathing to forms allow me, over time, to start to feel qi and cultivate it to the basic level of mastery for Flying Phoenix? My next concern is about flexibility. Honestly, other than my spine, the rest of my body is quite inflexible. What should I do to increase my flexibility? I know that some of the poses in the FP (Flying Phoenix) meditations insist on them being done in half-lotus, however currently as I said my body is quite inflexible. What kind of recommendations would you give in order to increase one's flexibility? Are there certain poses that you have found which really help to release the body? I have a few books on increasing one's flexibility I have been starting to follow. I just wanted to know if any of you had insights gained through experience that you would be willing to share. Thirdly, foundation building is an important aspect of martial arts. So much so that I am told that the internal arts usually aren't given to the students for years until they have built the proper foundations within their bodies for their bodies to be able to endure those arts. My third question is what kind of exercises, forms, weight training should I do in order to get my body into a healthier and more optimal state? Are there certain exercises/forms/poses that I should be practicing? Finally, I have a question about the mind. Only building a foundation within my body will create an imbalance between my body and mind. I also wish to strengthen my mind. As such, I plan on reading 'Secret of the Golden Flower', the first five books by Carlos Castaneda and 'Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines' by W.Y. Evans-Wentz. I am wondering if there are any other resources that you would recommend I read as well. I understand that everyone leads busy lives and perhaps doesn't have much time to sit down and respond to each of my questions, or any of my questions for that matter. However, I would be grateful for any wisdom and insight which you would be willing to impart. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope to hear back from you soon.

Hello my name is maske and I'm a young man who is interested in cultivation i have always loved the feeling of meditation and just finding your own spiritual self. And I really love the idea that a human having the ability to use QI wich excites me because I always had a feeling that the human race has more potential and now that I have found out about this feels like the best thing that has happened in my life. But I don't really know how to start what do I do? Or am I doing it right sometimes I feel warmth in my hands and I once listened to monk music once and and closed my eyes while listening very closely to every single sound and I felt my soul being outside my body I felt it over my left shoulder but the second I noticed I went back into my body those were the only things that gave me hope to keep going but know I want to really know i want to do this. It's my dream to become good at cultivation and I want to learn more about daoism. And so I want to ask you all as my seniors if they could share or even show me how to cultivate. Thanks

Hi I'm a newbie, I've started to get into Taoism only recently, and beside the confusion around lineages, efficient practices, light body, real/fake teachers, etc., something more foundamental isn't quite clear to me: what is the actual goal of cultivation and of Taoism more in general? I come from an induism background (I'm not indian, but I've been to India, had teachers, studied scriptures, practiced meditation, had great unexpected results, etc) and if you consider that tradition, even though nobody can't really describe well what Enlightenment is (for obvious reasons), at least a newbie can have some sort of idea. I mean it's also called with a name and a good description which is Turiya and Sat-Chit-Ananda. Then if you are lucky enough you experience what it actually means concretely, which is not a state of unchanging perfection where angels cuddle you and pay the bills for you lol, but of course it's pretty amazing compare to "before" so to speak. All this to ask you guys, what is the so called Enlightenment in the Taoist tradition? I'm asking this for 2 reasons: 1. I don't see the connection with endless cultivation, I mean to achieve what beside permanent peace, happiness, satisfaction? 2. If a person, as in my case (I'll spare you the whole story which started with a spontaneous kundalini awakening until the crown chakra and it happened out of the blue, but I've been extremely lucky and blessed, I'll be grateful forever), does feel, or "has achieved" if you prefer, permanent peace, happiness and satisfaction, what is the point of cultivation? I'm asking genuinely, these are not rhetorical questions. I see that basically in the end all traditions point to the same thing which is Pure Awareness, calling it with different names (Rigpa in Tibet, Nirvana in Buddhism, Dao in Taoism, Moksa/Turiya in Hinduism, etc.), so that's why I don't get the whole cultivation thing if you have to anyway "simply" dwell in this ever present Consciousness. Of coure there is no end to the Evolution, it would be naive to put a limit to the infinite, but I'd say it's much "higher" and healthy to be full of love, peace, compassion, kindness, etc. compare to being able to levitate, fly, light up things, or who knows what other siddhis there are... I hope I have been clear enough to give you guys the opportunity to shed light on. Thanks a lot! P.s. If you are wondering about my nickname, well yes I'm genuinely looking for a real efficient safe practice to see what light body actually means, especially if it improves compassion, kindness, love, etc. You are all welcome if you wanna share something

Namaste friends, I have had this site bookmarked for a couple years and come here sometimes to read, tho recently had the urge to be more involved, so I made my account and am making this post now in the Newcomer section. What got me into Taoism was my instructor for Yellow Dragon Kung fu, he recommended some books on Taoist philosophy, and from there I had read more books and resonated with their content. Some of the books I like are the following: The Chronicles of Tao 365 Tao Fourth Uncle in the Mountain Bones of the Master Enter Mo Pai etc. Some of these books may not fall into the strict genre of Taoism (tho technically we can say everything falls into Taoism...) I got similar stories and vibes from all of these books, however. I look forward to discussing these subjects with all of you! Eternal Love & Light, Arya

https://www.medhajournal.com/non-dual-awareness-is-without-attributes-but-what-about-love/

I don't think there is a point where we stop or reach an end goal post like enlightenment, nirvana or moksha, etc. The spiritual growth is like the expansion of this universe. It's been going on from the time of creation (or start of bigbang) and it will continue. The same is the case for jivas or individuals also. All of us are expanding to various levels each day and all the time. Even if we expand to become everything there is, that 'everything there' is ever growing and we grow with it. Perhaps until the time we dissolve into the Emptiness or Dao. Like the universe shrinking into what it was before bigbang. Then, another explosion and expansion, and so on....

Hi Dao Bums I practice meditation, energy work, healing sounds, have studied Tai Chi, QiGong, chanting, and have attended many and various workshops/conferences/retreats. I have been actively involved in spiritual seeking since the age of 13 . I like neuroscience principles (coming from books like "The Craving Mind," "Mindsight," and "Aware") to articulate Daoist principles/the Tao. In kindness, NeuroscienceAndDao

http://www.mukti.world/2018/04/dao-and-brahman-they-are-non-different.html

I have been a student of the Daodejing for many years. My study has largely consisted of reading various translations and interpretations of DDJ and reflecting on its meanings. I think this is the way many of us have started with Daoism. As I read the various translations and interpretations of DDJ, I began to see the influences that the writers had on rendering the work; their point of view, as it were. As must be the case, these points of view are decidedly western, and quite often Christian. Even the more scholarly efforts, in spite of best intentions, often contain traces of western and Christian thinking. Being aware of this, you can recognize it and make what ever accommodations you feel inclined. Still, I began to suspect that some publications were actually more interpretations than translations, particularly the less scholarly ones. Researching the background of the writers, particularly their ability with written and spoken Chinese, and reviewing the bibliographies of their works, helps in sensing how much more a work is of interpretation than translation and the amount of value you can place on the work. This has led me to question how informed the translations are ... or rather, how the translations were informed? What, beyond ability with the Chinese language is necessary to translate a work like the DDJ. Knowledge of Chinese culture, as a matter of general understanding, certainly contributes to translation, as does understanding of Chinese history. Even so, as I read the various DDJs, I still struggled with the seemingly enigmatic language and symbolism of the translated text, despite having tried to select works of knowledgeable translators. Many translators don't provide much explanation. Simply relying on the truthful feel of the DDJ, however strong, was not developing my understanding. I just felt the need for a more appropriate and specific context in which to make sense of the DDJ. Something that might make the DDJ more actionable in terms of practice of the ideas put forward. To that end, I began to look at translations of other source texts. Certainly, there is no shortage of references to such texts, particularly in the more scholarly translations. I settled on two such works that have opened up for me a whole different level of understanding of the DDJ; The Seal of the Unity of the Three by Fabrizio Pregadio and The Thread of Dao by Dan G Reid. It is with this backdrop that I start this thread. I am not a scholar or academic but simply one on the journey, seeking to share my impressions. My hope is that others, familiar with these works or not, will share their ideas as well. So, initially, what do the Bums think of these two works in general and how have you used them? btw, this is my first attempt to initiate a thread. If I am violating and rules, customs or conventions, please let me know. ; )

Hello Glad to be here. Practice zen meditation, influenced by Taoism. Hence here.

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Hello senior students, I will start with myself, what most people see me as. My body was born 1995 in hamburg, germany. It is 22 years old by now and I started to wake up around one year ago. I always went straight against the system and I had a rather hard life for some german guy in germany. Authority from someone because his backing is too big for me to handle? Shutting up because others might talk bad about me? At first, I never cared about stuf like this. Not after the manipulation started for real. It was after getting into highschool. I had to fight everyday, after a while it was too exhausting. All of the other students started to let it be and to make the best for themselves. It was only me who stood up against her, when our homeroom-teacher started to insult our parents. It was me who stood up for the other students. It was only me who went against the authorities. Because some delusional people might laugh about me, I have to stop? Yeah todays society is not so much different from those wuxianovels. I will not stop doing the just and protect what makes us human because others might lock me up or kill me! So what, I would have to start anew from scratch. But I have total trust in my soul, that I would again went against the corrupt and evil system. What is the situation in germany like: Teachers which have no clue what they are doing. School and kindergarten being a tool of mass manipulation. Politicians which are being controlled by banksters, instead of shielding their people from them. People letting themselves getting manipulated and not doing a thing about it, but hitting on those which protect them and their rights. Governments speaking about peace and freedom, but making war and censorship. Humans killing the earth which gives them life, to create a monopole of food and water. Police being allowed to use violence, but people are not allowed to protect themselves. Society biased on laws and not on trust. Being PERSONAL instead of PERSONA. Not having a REAL document of proof that we are german. Globalism destroying culture and life in the nation. Only a strong nation can have strong relationships with other nations. A strong nation is held together by trust and not by fear! By manipulating the people they established a system in which the weak rule the weak and kill the strong. Strength is to PROTECT the people you love and in this time we need to get as strong as possible. Why? We need to fight a group of people which have been ruling us for thousands of years, practising satanism, stealing, raping and murdering our children. Running the money system and the big industry. Making us sick and selling us toxic cures to make us think that we are getting help. Talking is not enough to ensure our safety. Those people do not care about right or wrong, just or unjust. Those who seek wisdom and knowledge are getting denunciated or even killed. So if we want to spread the world and convince others of the way, we need to start walking the way. We also need to have the strength to protect ourselves. Do you think one of the real masters has to fear anything in the world? They know about chi and how powerful we are, but they chose a different path, full of blood, rape of children and ritual offerings to satan, instead of meditation and inner alchemy to gather chi. I asked myself: What can I do? When I first learned about mopai, i wanted to gain insight and strength to be different and to proof myself and others, that there is more. The deeper I got into neigong, and eastern arts and kept reading wuxia novels, i started to realise that our world is not too different from what I read in the novels. They are a few people, not strong as in the novels, but with dark and evil intentions they built up a system, in which the evil can do whatever they want to do. Not to fear anyone on this planet, except a few masters, which still don't see the need of spreading their wisdom or take in the ones which really want to become strong to protect as many beings from suffering. Reading the Dao De Jing, Breaking the Habit of being yourself, Spiritual materialism and other highly spiritual and philosophical books, I build a foundation of how the world works in my eyes. Now with the political situation being how it is now, we only have one chance. Waking up! The way is full of moments of awakening. So many moments to enjoy and to be. It has never been that easy to gather information. Stick with mopai. No need for the other levels because it all is in us and it will come to you when you are ready for it. But How? Right! We need to cultivate. Do not think about failure or success. Just do it and you will find the way. Imagine a reality, as real as possible. You have to react on physical level to it. What will you feel in a certain realm. This is possible thanks to empathy. I call it comprehension. If you are able to comprehend how it would feel to break trough the first level, you will break through in no time. What is my 'I' doing now: Today I am learning alternative medicine, after that I will go to asia and see wether I can be taught by a master or in a taoist monastery before studying traditional chinese medicine in a chinese university. To protect life, I would like to travel the world to spread the words to those, who can't hear them now. To help those, which can't be helped. To ease their worries and to illuminate the darkness surrounding them so they can see just like us. To do this, we first have to understand darkness. Understanding gives birth to love. Love is what we need to illuminate darkness. Illumination of darkness is to understand it and to understand it as part of you. By understanding darkness, you illuminate it. I want to cherish life. But to cherish life you have to know death. To cherish death, you need to know life. Ask your selves, why am i living. What is the meaning of death? And what is the meaning of living? Is death really something bad? What would happen without reincarnation? What does my ego hope to get by joining this forum? It hopes to find allies to protect what has to be protected. It hopes to find allies to walk the way together, hand in hand and each one for himself. It want to hear your wisdom and wants you to listen to mine. Let us go this way together, what do you think?

Nearly four years ago, my best friend came across a Daoist master while backpacking across South America. He demonstrated his power by throwing him to the ground without even touching him and even saw a glowing green and blue energy substance emanating from his fingers during evening Tai Chi practice. His stories of this man ignited a flame that has consumed my entire life. After vigorous training and continuous research of the origins, roots and different sects of qigong I finally managed to fly out and train with the legend if a man that ignited my passion in the first place. My life is now completely entwined with the path of the Tao and training to achieve the highest level of power I can achieve in this lifetime. Humans were meant to be so much more than we are today, I hope to rediscover what we once were and be an example of what we can actually become if we dedicate the effort in training and meditation.

In context of self-inquiry and self-realization, when one starts down this path, one is ignorant of their self-nature (this ignorance is called avidya). The ignorance is because one identifies as their "Self", the body and mind, and the various things that the body-mind allegedly possesses and does (profession, possessions, passions, talents, skills, so on and so forth). So one might say, they are blissfully unaware of the "reality" and live mired in drama of samsara. As one starts the journey of self-inquiry, eventually they will encounter the fact that all that they had previously thought of as being their "self" is not actually that at all. Not everyone gets there quickly. Some suffer and struggle as a result of the inherent lack of knowledge of the fact that, IT, that which observes the body, mind and the countless objects of the universe ebb and flow, is the Self. But this Self has no properties that can be really observed, as it is the very subject that is the source of all experience, and all objects. In the period between embarking on this path and realizing what one truly is, is a painful period (at least was for me). It is rife with suffering of a special kind (some call it the "dark night of the soul"). It really is a "trial by fire", a "rite of passage" and paying debts with "blood"...but I wouldn't have it any other way, in retrospect. However, what drives me to write about this, is the news of that poor kid who committed suicide after going to a vipasana retreat for a week. That was really tragic. But we know that karma has a role to play here. As I reflect upon my "suffering" during the period when I was clearly in witness state and yet did not know my real identity (or a lack thereof, in the common sense), it was a struggle. I was unable to stand crowded places, unable to look people in the eye as the contents of my mind would rise forth as I was having a conversation with them and "negative" thoughts involving them would fleet through my brain. I truly thought I was a bad person, as a result of the contents of my mind (and habits that were driven by the stuff I was living on - social, nutritional, etc). As a result of this (for almost 6 years), I struggled every day. I would still stubbornly do my taiji forms, my standing meditations, my yoga asanas, pranayama, etc. As much as I knew that if I stopped these things, I would probably over time go back to being blissfully more ignorant, or oblivious; still, I could not stop. Eventually, I entered a phase, where I grew numb and oblivious to the world around me. It didn't matter whether I had a job or not. Whether I was with my family or not. Even whether I did my practice or not. During this period, I would intermittently stop practice and then start again, when I felt like it. Maybe, I was comfortably numb. In retrospect, becoming numb actually helped me handle the energies and process the goings on. But then my first teacher moved (it was his guidance and twice a week of contact (for several years) that kept me sane during this period and kept me going), and introduced me to Master Jose. Even before meeting Master, I had met him in dreams and he worked on me (for stuff I had asked him to help me with). When I finally met him in person, and he transferred his consciousness to me with a touch of his index finger to my 3rd eye, he literally kicked my butt across the line and I spent about 15 days subsequent to that in a state of ecstasy/bliss. After that, for almost another year and a half, I stayed in a split state of being completely Self-aware and in the local-mind/ego state (Master calls it the Spiritual Mind and the local mind). During this period, for the most part, the Ego was unable to flex its muscles - it stayed a humble servant to the spiritual mind. And around 6 months after meeting master, my friend who had seemed like a died-in-wool materialist started practicing self-inquiry too, in the classical advaita vedanta mode. As he and I started discussing this, I started to try and articulate what was happening to me, to explain in words my "experiences". This started a process of categorization and rationalization, which resulted in my "dropping out of the split-state" eventually. There was a decay going on, as the old habits and grooves started to re-appear. I was rather depressed as I realized that, thinking "huh! I knew that it was too good to be true...". So I asked Master, to which he said "two things are happening. Your body is getting used to the energy and emptiness and old habits are re-appearing. But this is the opportunity for you to work through them and get back to the blissful state". And true to his word, the return to bliss is working, steadily and surely. The old "cold and indifferent" state (Stone Buddha?) has been replaced by awareness of the awareness of being, which is so completely ordinary, that I would have never even imagined that it is that way. We read so many glorified and idealized descriptions of this becoming "Self-aware" that it is almost anti-climactic when the realization occurs. And along with that realization the other thing that happens is the realization that there is no moment that one is not that (Self). Old habits and samskaras that used to bother me quite intensely, have become amusing. The "blissful" state is really a non-state. It is always there. It is just that before the mind-body identification had so total a hold on me, that it was constantly masked (except for those fleeting moments when the mind would stop). I won't even say that the mind stops completely. Just that, by being aware of the etherealness of the mind and not identifying with the body, the background looms large and it's ever-present nature is apparent. This too is a stage, I know now. The dive is going to keep getting deeper...

Some people consider daoism a religion. Some people consider it a philosophy and not a religion. What do you think, and why? What qualifies it as such, or disqualifies it as such, for you?

Hello. I have been putting off making this thread since it's hard to put this stuff into words. As I said in my intro post, I have strong influence from schools of Chan, and an inclination towards Dao, even though my background on these is rather on the lacking side. I mentioned that I don't like to subscribe to a "religion" because of their coercive nature, but I do like to inmerse myself when something interests me. I don't know much about Dao besides having read the Daodejing a few times (actually, I usually stop where it stops making sense for me, near the middle of the book), even less about the religious aspect of this. I don't know much about buddhism either, so I try to stay in the point where both systems (Dao and Chan) overlap. I think at the core of my aspiration lies one single idea: Simplicity. Which is probably why I have a stronger inclination towards Dao. That is one reason that I don't go into the more exotic aspects of either school. As with any discipline, mastery of the fundamentals is where the substance lies, where the plethora of different techniques and variations are like the flowers that stem from the roots of a handful of "strokes", as I like to call these fundamentals. Back to the point: Simplicity. Once I saw a video of a chinese old man making a porcelain vase, and it caught me. The man was putting his whole mind into it, and after decades of doing that, he had developed a sort of perfection (or as close as it gets) in his practice. That's why works like the Ox Herding Pictures are so appealing: as they simply and succintly express the path (any path, really) with 10 pictures. Where the void picture is not the last, but "Return to the world" is the culmination of it. I don't know if I am making sense here, but for me, this last step for return to the world represtens the maximum point in simplicity: You're no longer a master of X, but one more among men. Dao represents what would be the pinnacle of simplicity, and it's immutable nature, present in every situation and in every living being, a manifestation of such simplicity. I like to think life is essentially simple, and that we overcomplicate ourselves. Contrary to the Western mindset, I think we ought to rediscover our animal nature. Well, that's kind of what I strive for, and I am way too far from that yet. I am an overcomplicated person with possible ADD who is very confused about his path in life (and a huge ego that keeps talking about itself ). I can't even put my thoughts succintly into words. What do you guys think of this? I mean about the whole "simplicity at the core of it all". I know this is a Daoist forum so perhaps everyone will agree, yet some feedback will be nice. What do you think about the multiple practices of "daoism" in relation to this? Thanks for taking the time to read.

I've done some research but I've started to understand how this energy works. It has came to me mostly thru qigong, sexual kung fu and sexual yoga practices, the latter of which I've done with my current partner. I also should mention that I practice retention and cultivation and I have my own observations thru this, namely, when you don't emit semen often all of the energies seem reflected back into your body and everything gets more intense. I ejaculate once in awhile, i'm still young and my partner sometimes enjoys it, but when I'm older I plan to limit it even more; I've discussed this with her and she understands how we will ultimately move toward Karezza. Basically i believe that puberty / time naturally make a male more Yang and a woman more Yin, but because balance is quintessential in all things it's important to keep in touch with the other side. For some reason when I think of yang I think "upper" and yin I think "lower." Losing jing often seems to make the body more yang, and vice versa seems to help balance and dissipate. That's another thing, yin seems to disperse and yang to gather. Yin would be going for a walk or run, yang would be lifting weights. My experience has also been that one extreme causes a tendency toward the other in myself, I seem to have an internal sense when I am out of balance for my own health which is really what this is all about. Shooting in the dark a bit here, but any thoughts? Thanks