New Taoist Home-Study Course

[Stigweard]

Proposed Taoist Home-Study Course:

 

~ Spanning 3-5yrs,

~ Each month you received four lesson booklets, together with a copy of a monthly magazine, and supplementary material,

~ One-on-one mentors,

~ Gatherings, retreats and workshops,

~ Locally based "seed-groups",

~ Opportunities for further study and training would be available.

[Stigweard]

Cheers for those couple of votes. Keep em coming

[Reader]

Proposed Taoist Home-Study Course:

 

~ Spanning 3-5yrs,

~ Each month you received four lesson booklets, together with a copy of a monthly magazine, and supplementary material,

~ One-on-one mentors,

~ Gatherings, retreats and workshops,

~ Locally based "seed-groups",

~ Opportunities for further study and training would be available.

 

Stigweard: Who is sponsoring the course?

[Mal]

~ Gatherings, retreats and workshops,

~ Locally based "seed-groups"

 

I was going to vote not interested as my cup is getting full and I'm not really looking to learn an 'ism. But went with 3 as retreats and local groups of like minded people would interest me.

[Stigweard]

Stigweard: Who is sponsoring the course?

Heya Reader, That is yet to be officially determined. Let me share the process that I have been following.

 

You may or may not be aware that I recently attended a Daoist Summit in Beijing. At that summit I submitted my paper addressing the need for greater accessibility for aspiring students of Daoism in the Western world.

 

With some interest expressed by delegates at the summit I have since shared my paper amongst my networks to see what sort of feedback I could gather. I have collected some of this discussion over at http://taowizard.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?...p;f=3&t=100

 

Now I am wanting to get a formalized measure of the interest online to verify the validity of taking this course to the next step. With this sort of statistical proof of interest I can then approach would-be auspicing organizations and/or sponsors to help with the next step in the progress.

 

I trust this clarifies "where I am coming from".

 

[Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that]

I think it rather depends on who creates the course stigwerd, as well as the content, I know content has kind of been dealt with on another thread. Personally for me I wouldn't be interested but then again if a few well known teachers chipped in with various stuff it might sway me... but then people might argue as to what teachers are valid and so on.

[UTI]

I gave a four, under the assumption that I would be interested in the content and teacher available to me.

[Stigweard]

I think it rather depends on who creates the course stigwerd, as well as the content, I know content has kind of been dealt with on another thread. Personally for me I wouldn't be interested but then again if a few well known teachers chipped in with various stuff it might sway me... but then people might argue as to what teachers are valid and so on.

Valid comments Ninpo. In fact the entire success of the project would come down to the contribution of reputable teachers. By the way, I don't consider one of those teachers to be me. I'm just the bright spark (or damn fool) who has got a bee in his bonnet over wanting to see this type of course become a reality, so at best I am merely a facilitator, cheer squad, and gofer boy.

 

Ideally it would be a collaborative effort by a focus group consisting of both Western scholars and Chinese masters.

[Stigweard]

Seeing that the topic was raised...

 

Who would you like to see contributing to the content of such a course?

 

My votes:

 

Master Hua Ching Ni

Master Chunyi Lin

Prof Livia Kohn

Prof Michael Saso

 

Yours?

 

[Creation]

[Tao99]

Good points creation. I have same concerns. I would change my vote if a teacher as you recommend was teaching it.

[soaring crane]

Seeing that the topic was raised...

 

Who would you like to see contributing to the content of such a course?

 

My votes:

 

Master Hua Ching Ni

Master Chunyi Lin

Prof Livia Kohn

Prof Michael Saso

 

Yours?

 

 

Just off the tip of my feathery head...

 

Victor Mair

 

Brock Silvers (if you can find him)

 

Joseph Yu

 

Eva Wong

 

and maybe some chick that calls herself Taomeow...

 

I would expect a course like this to include very thorough schooling in Astrology/Feng Shui. Would that be in the plan Stig?

[Ya Mu]

I want to know one thing only; if I take this course, can I be assured of ability to have winning arguments on thetaobums.com website?

 

OK, seriously, it depends on what you want. Do you want the course to have scholarly Taoism or practical Taoism? It is not the same, as you well know. Perhaps a mix of both would be best?

[宁]

Stig,

 

My guess is that no decent taoist teacher or master would teach anything worth teaching without a personal relationship with the student.

If the home-study course is only history and philosophy, I think it may work.

 

Another issue is the source, and the view, which are correlated with the lineage... of which you cannot partake with online courses.

 

I think there's something else worth teaching with a home-course: many of the daoist students present on the forum, that belong officially to a certain lineage, could only speak about what NOT TO DO, what NOT TO THINK etc

 

I know it sounds a bit shallow and cheap, but my guess is this may help alot: if mind is to be involved in the teaching, then let it be the correct STRUCTURING of the mind, related to a topic such as daoism...

 

And i didn't vote

[Stigweard]