How did you get here?

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

in october 2008 "these very things" all came upon me at once. i had a steady job where the management decided to make conditions at the workplace so unbearable people

would choose to walk away. i also had a sideline hobby of day trading ....you can imagine how that was going at that time. the previous 2 1/2 years i had 2 steady gfs and in that october both of those relationships ended. then my breathing nearly failed completely. it was measured on what i call a "breathometer" that had a range of

60-800. i could get it to 80. i checked myself into a hospital and after 4 days of breathing treatments every 2 hours, the medicines i was up to a level of 150 and went back home. over the next 4 months visiting a doctor(western) using all medicines prescribed my breathometer ratings stayed in the 120-200 range. i was not satisfied with my quality of life at all. i remembered from my past martial arts experiences hearing about chinese breathing exercises. i started researching about qigong and medicinal herbs. i quit my medicines and quit going to the doctor. i found a book online for 2$ Beginning qigong steve comei. within a month my breath was 250-350.

i started doing a little taiji. 2months later 350-450.2 months after that 650-800.

i decided to go into baguazhang and try and keep my thoughts in taoist thought. i am more flexible than ever. i know i owe my health to chinese ideas of herbs and qigong. in my area there are no tcm practioners. i was able to find the info i needed online and find which books to order and practice. my outlook has changed , i dont even think about looking for a job. i am not on any govt assistance. i now own my own house since may 2010. i play bgz everyday and my happinessmeter is way off the charts. i am in a romantic fascination with taoist thoughts/ideas. each and every day since i got onto this path has been filled with wonderful new discoveries. there are many things on my to do list. manitou i agree its all good

 

 

Zerostao, this is all very interesting but your posts are difficult to get through because you don't break apart your paragraphs and don't bother to capitalize 'i' or the first letter of a sentence.

 

So I suspect others also just kinda skim your otherwise interesting posts because they take effort to read. Please and thanks, a little effort on your part would be appreciated because you have good and interesting things to say

Edited February 9, 2011 by TheSongsofDistantEarth

[NeiChuan]

Felt like information I needed was here, wanted knowledge.

 

Was right.

[KCHooligan]

For me it was same as original poster. The 12 steps of recovery require a "God". This can be taken as G.O.D., or "good orderly direction". Not too much of a leap from there to find oneself studying the Way, or Tao.

 

I'm very much knee-deep in a fresh struggle with addiction. Different drug, same painful results. Getting myself deeper than ever into Taoism and related texts, as to have more guidance and tools available to me in my attempts to live life on life's terms.

[Vajrahridaya]

i've heard it said that when a soul is not in body, it craves being in body. To "feel", I guess. To experience sensation. So, even when times are bad the spirit is delighted to be playing out this little part. that just helps me keep it all in perspective.

 

Even when the seemingly bad hits, we can be reminded that all we're really doing is showing a movie to Spirit, or whatever we call it. Somehow I find that very comforting and it reinforces that it's all illusion anyway.

 

Actually, there is no "soul" there are only levels of consciousness and it's all a body, as consciousness... empty of inherent existence, arisen due to endless consciousness' all inter-connected, infinitely individual, but without prime essence, only inter-relative seeming substance.

 

You experience a body of sensation in higher and lower realms. Yes... you do... you really do.

 

Actually, the sensation is more intense and less hampered by pain in higher realms, and in lower realms, it is more hampered by pain and density.

 

A kiss in various pleasure heaven realms is like a full body orgasm on tantric sex here on Earth. Then there are realms that are so filled with bliss... man... if you get there in meditation or lucid dreaming... you won't want to come back, but alas.... karma.

 

mmmmm....

 

Seriously...

Edited February 9, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[Aaron]

For me it was same as original poster. The 12 steps of recovery require a "God". This can be taken as G.O.D., or "good orderly direction". Not too much of a leap from there to find oneself studying the Way, or Tao.

 

I'm very much knee-deep in a fresh struggle with addiction. Different drug, same painful results. Getting myself deeper than ever into Taoism and related texts, as to have more guidance and tools available to me in my attempts to live life on life's terms.

 

 

Hello KC,

 

As a recovered alcoholic, I wish you well in your own recovery. It's not easy, but it's well worth it.

 

Aaron

[Aaron]

Actually, there is no "soul" there are only levels of consciousness and it's all a body, as consciousness... empty of inherent existence, arisen due to endless consciousness' all inter-connected, infinitely individual, but without prime essence, only inter-relative seeming substance.

 

You experience a body of sensation in higher and lower realms. Yes... you do... you really do.

 

Actually, the sensation is more intense and less hampered by pain in higher realms, and in lower realms, it is more hampered by pain and density.

 

A kiss in various pleasure heaven realms is like a full body orgasm on tantric sex here on Earth. Then there are realms that are so filled with bliss... man... if you get there in meditation or lucid dreaming... you won't want to come back, but alas.... karma.

 

mmmmm....

 

Seriously...

 

Hello Vaj,

 

I wonder if you understand exactly what Manitou refers to as the "soul"? In my experience the soul can mean many different things for many different people and assuming one definition as the definition being used in any particular instance isn't necessarily accurate. Perhaps the best thing to do is ask what she means when she says "soul"?

 

Aaron

[Vajrahridaya]

Hello Vaj,

 

I wonder if you understand exactly what Manitou refers to as the "soul"? In my experience the soul can mean many different things for many different people and assuming one definition as the definition being used in any particular instance isn't necessarily accurate. Perhaps the best thing to do is ask what she means when she says "soul"?

 

Aaron

 

Well... in reference to her other posts... I feel she means some sort of inherent existence, some sort of self shining that is behind everything both individually and universally. Soul in a very Upanishadic notion.

 

Which the Buddha debated as a very subtle delusion leading merely to further recycling and not deep insight into the true nature of things... thus, no liberation, do not pass go... do not collect 100 instances per second of un-conditioned experiencing.

Edited February 9, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[Marblehead]

For me it was same as original poster. The 12 steps of recovery require a "God". This can be taken as G.O.D., or "good orderly direction". Not too much of a leap from there to find oneself studying the Way, or Tao.

 

I'm very much knee-deep in a fresh struggle with addiction. Different drug, same painful results. Getting myself deeper than ever into Taoism and related texts, as to have more guidance and tools available to me in my attempts to live life on life's terms.

 

I wish you the very best at overcoming your addictions.

[Marblehead]

Well... in reference to her other posts... I feel she means some sort of inherent existence, some sort of self shining that is behind everything both individually and universally. Soul in a very Upanishadic notion.

 

Which the Buddha debated as a very subtle delusion leading merely to further recycling and not deep insight into the true nature of things... thus, no liberation, do not pass go... do not collect 100 instances per second of un-conditioned experiencing.

 

Just wanted to point out that I believe we all have a soul and a spirit. The soul being the subconscious aspect of our mind and spirit being the pure essence of Tao, our personal Chi. We can lose spirit, or the Way, but we can never lose soul as long as our brain is functioning. Yes, even though we can lose spirit it is always ready to become a part of us again whenever we are ready.

 

But no, they are not independent entities, they are a part of us, a part of Tao.

Edited February 9, 2011 by Marblehead

[3L3VAT3]

Always thought about the 'big questions' of life...

 

Wasn't happy with myself or the world... started on the long, painful road of addiction. Continually bumped my head against the wall, but never really gave up looking for solutions, read Dr. Morris's books which really opened my eyes to another way of doing things and slowly started to implement some of the stuff in my life.

 

I found this site also by doing a search on him... and I've stuck around since then cuz i mostly liked what i saw! Making progress little by little from an almost hopeless situation/outlook...

[joeblast]

Funny thing. So did I.

Found myself in Austria for the season of 92, skiing, and after months of doing the same thing over and over again, I found myself lying in the forest with my skis on, breathing heavy after a wipeout, and happened to stumbled over, just by accident, something I much later would recognize as a genuine spiritual experience.

And for the most part, it has brought with it a shitload of trouble. After that, things really didn't make sense the way it used to. And I've been trying to cope ever since.

Meditation, qigong, philosophy, art. It all ended up being this big pretense.

 

Only later, realizing my huge hubris of copying an experience of reality did I come across the realization:

how tremedously idiotic it is to chase after the experience of losing one's self consciousness.

 

Better yet how destined to be its own downfall any attempt to gain insight into experience by having an experience is. No matter how groovy.

And how basically stupid it is to work at something that eludes any understanding.

But I guess there's nothing else to do, like a mosquito drawn to a flame. No use trying not to get burned in this life.

 

h

heh...can relate just about perfectly with the exception of chasing after losing one's self consciousness!

 

I had little respect for gravity growing up, especially when I had a pair of skis on Soared higher than trees and chairlifts, fell off small cliffs, belted by countless tree branches, hit a trunk or two, more double binding release landings than I care to recount...but also unbelievable rushes of brilliant joy, especially when its untracked...if you didnt fall, you werent skiing hard enough My brothers and I were...lol, are...fiercely competitive, when its time for some competition.

 

Sometimes it feels like I could give the guys on jackass a run for their money in terms of bumps & bruises with my teens and 20s. Back surgery slowed me down a bit, but really only in terms of structural safety, and it made me restructure my posture.

 

I was always a fan of bruce lee growing up, studied a little wing chun but the guy I was learning from was an hour away and making class every week became impossible, just way too much running around, so I decided to start filling in knowledge with books, and then, came across the subject of qigong...and as the 30s crept in and one realizes that wait a sec, I wont be young forever...

 

and found way more down the rabbit hole than I ever imagined.

[manitou]

Hello Vaj,

 

I wonder if you understand exactly what Manitou refers to as the "soul"? In my experience the soul can mean many different things for many different people and assuming one definition as the definition being used in any particular instance isn't necessarily accurate. Perhaps the best thing to do is ask what she means when she says "soul"?

 

Aaron

 

 

The soul. I couldn't define this if I tried. Yes, there are countless layers and various levels of manifestation. I haven't put words or a structure to them, I don't see the need to.

 

I am speaking merely of that Thing that hasn't aged since the day it was born into this body. It's the same today as when I was a little child. It is the thing that dwells inside me, which is the same entity as the Thing that lives inside you.

 

I spent my entire life in a left brain construct. I've been a detective since 1983; structure was my middle name, always has been. This is why Buddhism is too structured for my tastes, although I can understand someone coming from a different perspective grasping at it.

 

The Tao's beauty is in its formlessness, to me. It's just a personal thing. I think these arguments are silly and I don't like participating because they're mental masturbation for the most part. We'll never stop arguing over it until we find the merging piece, the piece that satisfies all of us, and we hear the clicking of the tumblers falling into place.

 

I'm gratified to see other recovered alcoholics or druggies here - the clearing out process of the 12 steps is probably very much akin to a Buddhist meditating on non-attachment, if I'm understanding these discussions correctly. The degree of impeccability we utilize our own personal house-cleaning is the very thing that enables spirit (?) to manifest. I think the clearer we make our channels, the more solidly we can manifest with intent.

[hagar]

heh...can relate just about perfectly with the exception of chasing after losing one's self consciousness!

 

I had little respect for gravity growing up, especially when I had a pair of skis on Soared higher than trees and chairlifts, fell off small cliffs, belted by countless tree branches, hit a trunk or two, more double binding release landings than I care to recount...but also unbelievable rushes of brilliant joy, especially when its untracked...if you didnt fall, you werent skiing hard enough My brothers and I were...lol, are...fiercely competitive, when its time for some competition.

 

Sometimes it feels like I could give the guys on jackass a run for their money in terms of bumps & bruises with my teens and 20s. Back surgery slowed me down a bit, but really only in terms of structural safety, and it made me restructure my posture.

 

I was always a fan of bruce lee growing up, studied a little wing chun but the guy I was learning from was an hour away and making class every week became impossible, just way too much running around, so I decided to start filling in knowledge with books, and then, came across the subject of qigong...and as the 30s crept in and one realizes that wait a sec, I wont be young forever...

 

and found way more down the rabbit hole than I ever imagined.

 

Ah, the double release... These days stomping landings seems to to be a breeze since the width of fat skis have revolutionized cliff jumping, and powder skiing for that matter.

I can relate to the jack-ass attitude. Did my back no good as well. Fell down a glacier in France and fractured it on a cat track.

 

From what I hear, your paths are somewhat ehh... pararell.

 

But the young forever part? That boundary is very flexible...

 

h

[FT88]

I experienced a death in the family.

From that day on 15 years ago, my spiritual quest started.

I don't know if I'll ever find the answer though.

 

There is no answer to be found

[Red Pheonix]

I came here because this is the only place to get the sacred Mo Pai training manual. It's supposed to be here soon, I'm sooooo stoked! *giggles*

[manitou]

and not deep insight into the true nature of things...

 

 

My darling Veejay,

 

It just isn't fair to tell someone they don't have deep insight into the true nature of things, just because they haven't walked your Buddhist path. This is the height of arrogance, my friend.

 

Please join us in the Tao Te Ching book studies so you can understand more of what is really happening here. I am afraid, at this point in time, you are clueless....

 

Love, Barb

[000]

[Listener]

I'm not sure when I first started visiting this site. Several years ago. Probably as part of a search to find out how to deal with my stress/anxiety/tension and specifically the sexual problems it was causing.

 

More recently I joined the site as part of a bigger attempt to deal with my regrets that had become overwhelming and I was a complete emotional mess. My stress and anxiety issues are still not resolved. And also the very uncomfortable limbo state my religious/spiritual views have been in since I left Christianity. I made a determination to finally really deal with these issues, until they are resolved.

[Mark Foote]

 

Any other examples of seemingly bad becoming seemingly good?

 

I really wanted to join a Zen monastery back in the seventies, but I couldn't sit the lotus, couldn't sit half-lotus without pain and numbness either. A teacher I respected said, "take your time with the lotus". So I did.

 

Now I sit the lotus for 40 or 50 minutes in the morning, and it feels pretty natural; no pain, although there's often a little numbness in the top foot when I uncork it. I expected the lotus would change my posture, which has always driven Zen and Tai Chi teachers to correct my alignment; I don't know that it will. I always expected when I mastered the lotus, I could lead a more normal life, have more balance between work and home and contribute more to my society. Hasn't happened yet. But I think I have more feeling in what I do, in general.

 

Enlightenment is a lofty ambition; being a Taoist adept or an internal arts master is a lofty ambition. I realize that I only want to see the lotus come West; if I can do it, anybody can do it, but evidently I will have to consider my ambition to be lofty too, 'cause I haven't yet found a way that's straightforward for people to learn it. And I do think that some sort of crisis of spirit is necessary, and the connection with breath is almost like hypnosis if not hypnosis and opens all kinds of pandora's box stuff, and I'm still trying to explain that to myself- but that's why I'm on this thread!

 

My own crisis just revolved around trying to get down to what was really necessary to me to survive; I couldn't see a way to make a positive contribution with my life, early on, so I tried giving things up until my survival seemed to dictate what I kept. And that turned out to be positive, and I kept going with what I had, and where I was. The great camp-out, mostly indoors, I think fortunately.

 

Love you all!-

[pilot]

Yes to the OP, and it only continues to do so perhaps more severely than before for a reason I or anyone else still cannot diagnose. But my choice of pursuing the path started with deep curiosity combined with my own undeniable rationality in favor of it, and not too long after it became the main aspect of life. It happened quite early in life and all on my own, in the company of books and contemplation.

 

It's true, once you 'start', there's no turning back, ever.

 

a very nice topic, thank you OP!

[Easy]

So far I have been lucky, or maybe I'm a little too thick to realize life has kicked me around. Either way I rode into this territory, no problem, 30-some years ago because a girl friend had a little I Ching primer called The I Ching Workbook. It had a nice, though superficial, condensation of Taoism in the introduction that described a perspective similar to my own and my exploration followed from there. I could never truly call myself a Taoist because I had spent a significant portion of my youth in a non-Euro-American culture and realized the futility of trying to assimilate fully to a philosophy that arose from deep in the roots of another culture. What is produced from that attempt seems to me to be a hybrid. I have no negative judgments of that path...it may well be a better way than my own...but purely as a matter of personal preference and for ease of travel I choose not to embrace the Taoist way but to keep it in mind (as best I can) as a point of reference by which I can triangulate my own somewhat crooked way.

[manitou]

So far I have been lucky, or maybe I'm a little too thick to realize life has kicked me around. Either way I rode into this territory, no problem, 30-some years ago because a girl friend had a little I Ching primer called The I Ching Workbook. It had a nice, though superficial, condensation of Taoism in the introduction that described a perspective similar to my own and my exploration followed from there. I could never truly call myself a Taoist because I had spent a significant portion of my youth in a non-Euro-American culture and realized the futility of trying to assimilate fully to a philosophy that arose from deep in the roots of another culture. What is produced from that attempt seems to me to be a hybrid. I have no negative judgments of that path...it may well be a better way than my own...but purely as a matter of personal preference and for ease of travel I choose not to embrace the Taoist way but to keep it in mind (as best I can) as a point of reference by which I can triangulate my own somewhat crooked way.

 

 

I love your use of the word hybrid - I'd be interested to know if anybody on this site at all is a pure Taoist. I don't even know what one is. All I know is I fell in love with the Tao and did an almost daily meditation on a chapter at a time (various translations) over a 20 year period.

 

As for leaving Christianity, as the Lerner said, it seems like many of us here have outgrown the traditional Christian mindset of our youth. It is hard to walk away from Jesus Loves Me This I Know, because the mindset is so comforting. It truly is a feat to merge all this stuff, and in some ways I really don't think we can totally turn our backs on something that was imprinted on us at young ages.

 

But it does merge, or at least in my experience it does. I found myself unexpectedly on a shamanic path, not of my own doing, some years ago. It occurred to me one day that this is easily merged with my old Christian roots if I look at Jesus as a shaman. Hey. He manipulates energy just like a master, if the incidents in the bible are to be believed at all. Walking on water? Calming the winds? Turning water to wine? Healings? The man was a shaman, pure and simple! He was one of us, only he did it really well.

 

Assuming a little further that he was a true person who underwent the trial, got crucified, etc., it seems to me that the man was practicing wu-wei at the end of his life! (Not that it worked out all that well for him...) He spent the night in the Garden of Gethsemane, where perhaps he was able to 'see' the plan as it would unfold. He knew what was coming. He prophezied what was coming when he told his disciples that they would betray him. When he was arrested and went to trial, they tried to get him to say or do something in his defense; he chose non-action. They practically pleaded with him to defend himself, he still chose non-action. Wu-wei. He let it play out, knowing full well what was going to happen.

 

I think it's food for thought, at least...

[lifeforce]

I'd be interested to know if anybody on this site at all is a pure Taoist.

 

What is a pure Taoist ?

Remember that Taoism is a religion and not the Tao itself.

Religions = control of the masses based on fear.

Tao = unknowable, ungraspable, undefineable.

[Mark Foote]

Many interesting and sincere contributions, on this thread!

 

Vaj, on the subject of soul- I was writing to the father of my sweetheart the other day, in support of his decision to stay home with his pneumonia instead of entering the hospital, and I found these words:

 

"There is, I think, an umbilical cord of greater being that acts quite palpably in us, and in which we can forget ourselves in the course of a movement of breath; hospitals tend to make that action of the greater part less palpable somehow, and in so doing they can make the peace of forgetting ourselves harder to find."

 

I'm now rewriting this for possible submission to the blog of an outfit I'm working for, and I am thinking to rephrase it as:

 

"There is, I think, an umbilical cord from the unconscious that acts quite palpably in us, through our sense of location. As we accept the stretch, activity and feeling this umbilical cord provides, we can forget ourselves, just in the course of a single movement of breath. When I forget myself in this way, I still have my presence of mind, and I bring that presence of mind to whatever choice I have to make in my daily life."

 

I understand where you are coming from with dependent origination, and I know that you have had amazing experiences behind letting go, through dependent origination. I'm more comfortable with that than with the notion of soul, but I think as far as a working practice, it's the same. Ok, just a thought.

[devoid]

[...]

Remember that Taoism is a religion and not the Tao itself.

[...]

 

I wish to add that to many Taoists, Taoism is a philosophy and not a religion.