Why?

[Bearded Dragon]

If the authority on Taoism taught how to stick a sword down your throat, would you want to learn that on the internet? Would you do it just because he did it, without knowing why he did it or whether it was even that important?

 

Consider what you're doing and the effect it could have on the natural workings of your body if you mess it up. I would say that there is less than a 99.9999% chance that you won't do it exactly right if you're learning from a book or the internet. Everyone can think of the colour red but nobody will be thinking of the same shade as I am. Don't presume you have anything right.

 

I would not presume that advanced practices are all that important. Anyone who was ever good at anything has been immensely good at the basics. Consider it a basic everyday meditation to forget about a Taoist fantasy of advanced esoteric practices.

 

I felt like mentioning this because there's a lot of this stuff on TTB. People want instant fajin. People want instant kundalini. People want instant enlightenment. Forget about it. Work on what is easy first. Work on stuff that a local qualified teacher can help you with. Don't waste what little time you have.

 

In martial arts: Do you have decent physical structure and relaxation? This is the basics which never ends, which you can work on at any time.

 

In meditation: Can you let go of superfluous thought and emotion in an ordinary every day sense such that your mind is clear? This is the basics which everyone can work on at any time without being so formal about it.

 

 

All that aside, probably the best advice is to not believe a word anyone says. Including me, and especially masters who you trust (if for no other reason than misinterpretation). Believe what you know to be beneficial and true. Those qualities, again, are usually found in the basic material.

[deci belle]

Yay!!❤

[thelerner]

If the authority on Taoism taught how to stick a sword down your throat, would you want to learn that on the internet? Would you do it just because he did it, without knowing why he did it or whether it was even that important?

Yes, yes, yes and Yes. A chance to learn sword throat swallowing from the A of T. What's the url, where's the youtube? Damnit man, we need details. And an address to buy swords.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist. I agree with most of what your saying, but believe most of the people here know results are going to come from long years and decades of training. Hell for all the contention on the Mo Pai threads, people know Mo Pai requires extremely long hours daily practice. There may be newbies who look for the instant secret, but I think the majority here know results are going to come from a steady practice.

 

I bet if we did a poll we'd find most people know its a game measured in decades not secrets. That being said, I don't think its bad to try new wild things and report back. Sometimes its a dead end, other times you find master level people who can teach you a thing or two. Its not a substitute for long training, but it can add spice to it.

Edited September 29, 2013 by thelerner

[Taomeow]

Beginners don't know that they don't know, the self-important will never know that they never will.

 

Those who are both advanced and realistic know what they don't have -- that's their most important advantage, the "know thyself" ace that trumps every other card in the game. They also know that if they "don't believe a word anyone says," they have nowhere to get it. The more authentic and sincere the practice, the less room for cocky "I know and have and can better than anyone else can teach me" -- it's like an inverted cone of hubris, the deeper you go, the less room for that.

 

TTB has a sprinkling of both kinds of practitioners statistically commensurate with their numbers in the larger world. I.e. of course there's cocky beginners (but they might learn later), and there's inflated perennial beginners (who read a couple of books and had a mystical surge of some internal opiates in response to whatever fleeting glitch in their glitchy metabolism, which they take to have been enlightenment and consequently believe they've already arrived... these never will), and of course there's also sincere and humble (and sincere and not-so-humble) beginners who know they're that, and all these together vastly outnumber true masters and masters-in-the-making. It's always been like that everywhere.

[deci belle]

I want to add that this is akin to firmly grasping the root however clumsily and forgetting the branches.

[Bearded Dragon]

^ Yep, totally agree with all that as well.

 

It's really no different than anything else you learn. I look at it as a triangle where as the top gets higher the bottom must get wider. You need to keep watering the roots if you want to take that analogy.

 

It's very easy to forget this stuff. For example when I was learning piano I stopped practicing scales and doing drills because it was boring. I really have no hope of playing more difficult things unless I go back and reform the groundwork. A while ago I actually abandoned the idea of progression and relaxed into it more, much like I had been doing in kung fu. In terms of improvisation it made quite a difference. Using the previous analogy, watering the roots made the branches grow by themselves. You just need to set up a direction much like the wire around a Bonsai tree. It's not always necessary to meticulously mould the branches.

 

I'm not saying that will always be the case. There is a bit of a problem in that regard when you speak so generally. In any case it's always good to have in the back of your mind such that you don't lose sight of the groundwork required to advance. Knowing what is required is sometimes difficult, but if I were to assert an opinion I'd say a lot of the stuff we practice is not even necessary. Back to the title of the thread. Just know why you're doing it and whether it's worth your time.