Women & TTB

[Rara]

I'm curious how you mean 'this is the nature'..

 

Are you implying women are not as advanced as men 'naturally', {which is pretty much what I refer to as hate speech} or are you referring to the 'nature' of things as they currently stand/seem to be, or something entirely different?

 

Remember that in the past it was much harder or often totally socially unacceptable for women to be teachers, hold any position of power or even to be educated.. In that light, its hardly surprising that the spiritual and intellectual fields 'seem' to be dominated by men.

I say 'seem' because who knows how many great women there have been in these fields, that simply never got to speak in front of the masses, run the temples, have their reincarnations looked for and so on...

Surely by saying "this is sad" indicates it isn't hate speech.

 

I'll leave you to figure the rest =P

 

Edit: Just realised how that could have been taken the wrong way. No, I mean that by observing, you can see that men have dominated. This is a sad tradition. Even more sad is that some women (in the church) believe that you SHOULDN'T be allowed to have female priests.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Rara

[Rara]

Also, here's something to consider. How many female (exploring) Taoists are there in comparison to other religions.

 

I would have a guess that in a Christian forum, you would find plenty of Christian women...but in Taoism? Living in the west, I find very few practicing Taoists (hence my presence on a forum to discuss more) and if I do meet the odd one, they just so happen to be male.

 

How many women are interested in cultivation or esoteric practices? And if there are many, do they want to spend time on the internet talking or have they other things to do?

 

I'm speaking generally as I don't know...and being male, I'll always be trying to figure it out and still get nowhere.

[Aetherous]

How many women are interested in cultivation or esoteric practices? And if there are many, do they want to spend time on the internet talking or have they other things to do?

 

Here's something grounded in real life: just started acupuncture school (which is pretty esoteric I guess), and the class is 4 men and 14 women. Some of the women are just as passionate about various subjects as I am...and perhaps are even more disciplined in their approach and implementation of their interests than I am. But I guess they treat these subjects differently than guys...I don't think any of them use this forum.

 

For me, it's incredibly challenging to elucidate the way that they are different in general, or the way they treat these subjects. Anything I can think of to say, ends up being wrong in some sense. It's hard to pin them down and put them in a conceptual box, as women. As individuals I can easily say one is very passionate about using herbs in cooking...she was already doing that before attending school. I've seen what she eats for meals, and it's mostly home cooked and healthy food. The passion and the discipline are there for her, whereas I have nothing to show for this stuff. Another girl on the other hand, might have barely any passion or discipline at all, and maybe chose this school on a whim. Or maybe it's a feminine choice in our culture to attend acupuncture school. So to make a blanket statement about all of them, is misleading. To make a blanket statement about our class size, such as "women are more interested and dedicated to these arts than men" would also be false, if we consider the passion and discipline of the men in the class, compared to all of the women. I'm sure there's a mathematical formula to come up with the answer.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Aetherous

[C T]

lol at the pic!!

[dawei]

So to make a blanket statement about all of them, is misleading. To make a blanket statement about our class size, such as "women are more interested and dedicated to these arts than men" would also be false,

 

 

 

(picture not meant as a diss, but in good humor)

 

It may well be humorous for many...

 

But IMO, the pic is really a blanket statement... and a stereotype about women...

[Aetherous]

I will edit that.

[Rara]

 

Here's something grounded in real life: just started acupuncture school (which is pretty esoteric I guess), and the class is 4 men and 14 women. Some of the women are just as passionate about various subjects as I am...and perhaps are even more disciplined in their approach and implementation of their interests than I am. But I guess they treat these subjects differently than guys...I don't think any of them use this forum.

 

For me, it's incredibly challenging to elucidate the way that they are different in general, or the way they treat these subjects. Anything I can think of to say, ends up being wrong in some sense. It's hard to pin them down and put them in a conceptual box, as women. As individuals I can easily say one is very passionate about using herbs in cooking...she was already doing that before attending school. I've seen what she eats for meals, and it's mostly home cooked and healthy food. The passion and the discipline are there for her, whereas I have nothing to show for this stuff. Another girl on the other hand, might have barely any passion or discipline at all, and maybe chose this school on a whim. Or maybe it's a feminine choice in our culture to attend acupuncture school. So to make a blanket statement about all of them, is misleading. To make a blanket statement about our class size, such as "women are more interested and dedicated to these arts than men" would also be false, if we consider the passion and discipline of the men in the class, compared to all of the women. I'm sure there's a mathematical formula to come up with the answer.

Fantastic point! My girlfriend in fact is very in tune with plants, cooking, remedies.

 

There are many female yoga practitioners, reiki healers etc. So point taken.

 

Men just seem to want a lot of credit by the looks of things.

 

Ego?

Edited August 31, 2014 by Rara

[C T]

It may well be humorous for many...

 

But IMO, the pic is really a blanket statement... and a stereotype about women...

C'mon, there's no need to take everything at face value here. Aetherous already said it was put there not as a diss. If this is the line you are going to follow as Admin, then very soon TTB will just become totally sanitized where everyone has to guard not only their own words but also second-guess other's reactions to them... how tedious can that be? Not saying that one should be careless about what is written here, but to take something said in jest and turn that into an issue is, to my mind, an over-reaction.

[dawei]

C'mon, there's no need to take everything at face value here. Aetherous already said it was put there not as a diss. If this is the line you are going to follow as Admin, then very soon TTB will just become totally sanitized where everyone has to guard not only their own words but also second-guess other's reactions to them... how tedious can that be? Not saying that one should be careless about what is written here, but to take something said in jest and turn that into an issue is, to my mind, an over-reaction.

 

I said, "IMO"... I didn't post any staff notice.

 

I'd rather hear if any of the ladies felt that way...

 

maybe they see a male stereotype that no amount of instruction is going to get into the male head...

 

Given the topic, it is at best a lack of tact. Given the inability to really understand the topic, we get over-reaction from anything which seems to try and show how even our simple attempts at humor are possibly not what it seems.

 

Again, JMO.

[C T]

I said, "IMO"... I didn't post any staff notice.

 

I'd rather hear if any of the ladies felt that way...

 

maybe they see a male stereotype that no amount of instruction is going to get into the male head...

 

Given the topic, it is at best a lack of tact. Given the inability to really understand the topic, we get over-reaction from anything which seems to try and show how even our simple attempts at humor are possibly not what it seems.

 

Again, JMO.

'Maybe' - that's only an assumption. How do you suggest that the ladies will stereotype the gents of TTB based on that one post, which is based off the personal observation of one person? Aetherous offered up a perspective drawn from observing the dynamics seen at acupuncture class, ending with, i assume, him saying that he feels women have a varied depth to their personality, and it will require a certain type of sensitivity & intelligence to fathom their inner feelings and outer expressions of those feelings. If i as a man can deduce this, why were you so quick to presume, based on your opinion that the post was tactless at best, that there was an absence of sincerity in what Aetherous said?

 

As for that line about the inability to really understand the topic, not sure exactly who was that directed at. Again, another presumptuous stance on your part.

[Taomeow]

There's very few matriarchal tribes left -- I sometimes think I should join one of them, or else there's no practicing what I believe in. The one I have in mind, which is part of what the Chinese government lumped together as the Miao people, is being "modernized" in a hurry so now their ways are understood by tourists as their women offering free sex, which is nowhere near the truth... but I guess if I want to get to the still surviving traditional (real human) ways I'd have to hurry, the overlords are making their move... That tribe is interesting in that no one cares who the father of the child is because women take as many husbands as they like, there's no stigma attached to starting or dissolving any of these liaisons, highly selective but never saddled with any obligations of exclusivity -- and no social or material repercussions of doing as the woman sees fit because all property is inherited matrilineally, by the youngest daughter... And according to a Chinese writer who described her mother's life with the Miao, teenage boys of the tribe dream of attracting an older woman, the way it's always been throughout our true, matriarchal history -- for how else could they learn the real, cultivational rather than recreational sex?..

 

We used to be a matriarchal species for 99.9% of our history. If anyone thinks it was unfair and "unequal" (if we were supposed to be equal, nature would have us propagate asexually like amoebas do, or switch sexes in mid-life like pumpkins... yes, all pumpkins were created equal, but not us -- nature gave us sexual reproduction and she gave the womb to half the species only -- so matriarchy is what she did to us, and whoever undid this was not of nature, was not natural, and did something against human nature) --

 

consider the fact that we had no wars while at it, no degenerative disease, no crime, no slavery, no polluted environments, no poverty, no famines... what we did have was a universal planet-wide cult of the Goddess, the one and only divine power recognized all over this earth, and it was the cult of life itself. Life on earth was perceived as constant ongoing happiness and equated to the feminine principle -- and while it was understood as such, life on earth was good for everybody, men and women.

 

Which is one reason (out of much circumstantial evidence I've been collecting over the years) I believe that patriarchy was not only an artificial installation by the Intervention but a fundamental one at that -- it's not indigenous to our species, it's got to have been artificially implanted and cultivated to take root. Which it was and which it did. It won't be easy to uproot, but the goal of the original, unpolluted by Intervention, taoist proper cultivation, for both men and women, has always been just that and nothing but. What do you think "return to the Way" is about? Who do you think tao "the Great Mother" is?..

 

I don't expect the general population to radically change their perceptions anytime soon, after thousands of years of manipulative social engineering, but anyone who touches taoism from any angle must realize that your cultivation will all be for naught unless you get this one simple idea straight: to return to the Way is to return to the way of nature, Goddess, tao, the Great Mother... and none of these are guys. However you go about it, if you offend the Goddess by offending the Woman, you can never approach the Way no matter what else you do or don't do.

[Songtsan]

There's very few matriarchal tribes left -- I sometimes think I should join one of them, or else there's no practicing what I believe in. The one I have in mind, which is part of what the Chinese government lumped together as the Miao people, is being "modernized" in a hurry so now their ways are understood by tourists as their women offering free sex, which is nowhere near the truth... but I guess if I want to get to the still surviving traditional (real human) ways I'd have to hurry, the overlords are making their move... That tribe is interesting in that no one cares who the father of the child is because women take as many husbands as they like, there's no stigma attached to starting or dissolving any of these liaisons, highly selective but never saddled with any obligations of exclusivity -- and no social or material repercussions of doing as the woman sees fit because all property is inherited matrilineally, by the youngest daughter... And according to a Chinese writer who described her mother's life with the Miao, teenage boys of the tribe dream of attracting an older woman, the way it's always been throughout our true, matriarchal history -- for how else could they learn the real, cultivational rather than recreational sex?..

 

My girlfriend is from a matriarchal lineage...Tuscarora Iroqouis...actually the whole Six Iroquois Nations is matriarchal...of which my Granfather's Grandmother was Mohawk...so I am descended from a matriarchal tribe from my mother's side, and I also have Powhatan ancestry on my father's side (tribe that Pocohantas is from), which is/was also matriarchal. My Grandmother had six girls, who mainly had female progeny more than males -so most of my family is females, and she pretty much was the family head (my Grandfather was a quiet, relaxed man), and it influenced all her daughters - so I am used to matriarchy in some sense - on subtle/gross levels. My biological father is a stay at home dad, his wife works and runs the house...long story short is that I have been semi-conditioned to be used to female decision making - in fact my mother was the dominant one in my household...but I found myself rebellious to some degree to that influence, but I am also resistance to pretty much any authority, and have been officially labeled as having Authority Defiance Disorder...but I always felt a strange reluctance to being ruled by women, because it makes me feel 'weak' or 'subsumed' somehow....that's a complex issue..

 

In any event, I personally feel that both matriarchy and patriarchy is outdated and that it should simply be those who have proven themselves the wisest, not necesarily the strongest, or most socially skilled, who should lead. Women do tend, in general, to have elevated social maturity, and men do tend, in general to be the most confident, bold leaders, most likely due to social conditioning, but wisdom is something that seems equally obvious in both men in women, so I personally respect people based on that attribute for leadership positions.

[Nungali]

There's very few matriarchal tribes left -- I sometimes think I should join one of them, or else there's no practicing what I believe in. The one I have in mind, which is part of what the Chinese government lumped together as the Miao people, is being "modernized" in a hurry so now their ways are understood by tourists as their women offering free sex, which is nowhere near the truth... but I guess if I want to get to the still surviving traditional (real human) ways I'd have to hurry, the overlords are making their move... That tribe is interesting in that no one cares who the father of the child is because women take as many husbands as they like, there's no stigma attached to starting or dissolving any of these liaisons, highly selective but never saddled with any obligations of exclusivity -- and no social or material repercussions of doing as the woman sees fit because all property is inherited matrilineally, by the youngest daughter... And according to a Chinese writer who described her mother's life with the Miao, teenage boys of the tribe dream of attracting an older woman, the way it's always been throughout our true, matriarchal history -- for how else could they learn the real, cultivational rather than recreational sex?..

 

We used to be a matriarchal species for 99.9% of our history. If anyone thinks it was unfair and "unequal" (if we were supposed to be equal, nature would have us propagate asexually like amoebas do, or switch sexes in mid-life like pumpkins... yes, all pumpkins were created equal, but not us -- nature gave us sexual reproduction and she gave the womb to half the species only -- so matriarchy is what she did to us, and whoever undid this was not of nature, was not natural, and did something against human nature) --

 

consider the fact that we had no wars while at it, no degenerative disease, no crime, no slavery, no polluted environments, no poverty, no famines... what we did have was a universal planet-wide cult of the Goddess, the one and only divine power recognized all over this earth, and it was the cult of life itself. Life on earth was perceived as constant ongoing happiness and equated to the feminine principle -- and while it was understood as such, life on earth was good for everybody, men and women.

 

Which is one reason (out of much circumstantial evidence I've been collecting over the years) I believe that patriarchy was not only an artificial installation by the Intervention but a fundamental one at that -- it's not indigenous to our species, it's got to have been artificially implanted and cultivated to take root. Which it was and which it did. It won't be easy to uproot, but the goal of the original, unpolluted by Intervention, taoist proper cultivation, for both men and women, has always been just that and nothing but. What do you think "return to the Way" is about? Who do you think tao "the Great Mother" is?..

 

I don't expect the general population to radically change their perceptions anytime soon, after thousands of years of manipulative social engineering, but anyone who touches taoism from any angle must realize that your cultivation will all be for naught unless you get this one simple idea straight: to return to the Way is to return to the way of nature, Goddess, tao, the Great Mother... and none of these are guys. However you go about it, if you offend the Goddess by offending the Woman, you can never approach the Way no matter what else you do or don't do.

 

regardless of how true or not the history / anthropology of the postulated matriarchal world wide society was, as outlined above .... I want to find a place like that too .

 

Traditional Aboriginal culture here, which goes back to and is a remnant of those times isnt that matriarchal at all . However some of the components and teachings for the older most advanced and initiated men come from the women (when they get old and smart enough to be able to get it ) ... maybe they have to work through the 'testosterone' first ?

 

But it manifests in strange ways (to us), including the end process of subincision , where the cut at the base of the penis is gradually extended all the way to the eye at the end, so the whole member, when erest flattens out like a stingray and urination comes out of the whole at the base, requiring the man to have to squat to urinate - like a woman.

 

Any of the guys here up for that ?

[Nungali]

... wisdom is something that seems equally obvious in both men in women, so I personally respect people based on that attribute for leadership positions.

 

I would accept any political system that could appoint and maintain leaders of any type ... if it was based on their wisdom

[Taomeow]

@ Songtsan:

 

Interesting ancestry!

 

Yes, agreed -- and even if we were to return to matriarchy "someday," it would be meaningless to try to pull off today, since, like I said, women and men alike would have to become different from what they are today. (One could never convince me, e.g., that Hillary is a woman, despite any anatomical or dress-code proof. She is one of the "honorary males," i.e. women who are in the positions of power which is, however, administered in a patriarchal manner and has nothing to do with what a woman's power is like. An example of a woman in power, the only one I know of, who behaved a little bit like a woman in her rule was the Chinese empress Wu, who actually had to declare herself emperor because "empress" was not a position of power. She was the one who invented meritocracy, in the form of the famous imperial exams, which resulted in the talented rather than only the high-born getting a fair chance to move to powerful positions in the government -- though it was males only still, the idea that it has to be the best males to choose from was introduced by a woman... a very female move, selective preference for the hard-working smart rather than the privileged who may have been rendered lazy and dumb by the very privilege. She also invented democracy, to the extent possible, by making it possible, for the first time in history, for common folk to complain directly to the emperor -- herself -- or her appointed officials about the wrongdoings of the feudal lords, and actually get to know the people she ruled and their troubles and sorrows. That was another female-rule move -- patriarchal rule tends to be impersonal, the rulers don't know and don't want to know their constituents, they want to know who their friends and foes are, that's the extent of their interest in the commoners' lives.)

 

So, here's two features (out of a lot more) pertaining to power application that are distinctly female in origin regardless of whether a woman or a man administers them:

meritocratic choices for positions of power instead of bloodline choices (women are not worried about "their" blood being inherited by their children, this is always guaranteed -- while inheritance of "MY bloodline" is a male concern since this is not guaranteed unless the woman is forbidden multiple sex partners; a lot of historic injustice is the outcome of this male concern, not shared by women, a lack of meritocratic societies being one of the outcomes);

 

and personal rather than impersonal ruler-subject interactions, based on the need to know rather than the need to not know the subject's heart (this, again, is female in nature because of the original close bonding between the ruler-mother and the subject-infant -- if she doesn't know the baby's needs closely and intimately, the baby will suffer and the outcome later in life will be, SHE, the mother, will suffer, due to the lack of bonding and understanding. This pattern is automatically extended to any ruler-subject relationships in a matriarchy, while in a patriarchy it gets cancelled, since the father can afford not to know the needs of the child -- he can just accomplish obedience by force or threat of force, and in a paternalistic scenario, this is what happens with every father-of-the-nation.)

 

So, if we were to start moving toward a sensible human society, we would perhaps need to take one step at a time away from the habitual ways of patriarchy (invisible many of them, all-permeating all of them), and determine clearly, for starters, which of our habitual ways are the perilous patriarchal ways, and start ruling in the opposite manner -- who the rulers would be anatomically given this premise wouldn't matter. A sensible man is fully capable of ruling as a mother of the nation, although it would perhaps be more challenging for him than it would be for a sensible woman. But if he can pull it off, I'll vote for him. And if "she" is, by the same token, behaving as yet another "honorary male," I won't, she's never a woman to me, as the song almost goes.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Taomeow

[Nungali]

An attempt at instigating a matriarchal society ;

 

[Songtsan]

I have much more to say, and my girlfriend will too...I am going to ask her to get in on this, as she loves to talk about these issues!

 

Honestly, I am rubbing my hands, for I have always wanted to express some opinions on this stuff, and I have only been superficially posting in this thread so far....prepare for deep-ness!

[Aetherous]

Fantastic point! My girlfriend in fact is very in tune with plants, cooking, remedies.

 

There are many female yoga practitioners, reiki healers etc. So point taken.

 

Men just seem to want a lot of credit by the looks of things.

 

Ego?

 

Well, it could be said that becoming a reiki practitioner or yoga teacher is an ego thing, too. All of that stuff veers on the side of "spiritual materialism" rather than mature spiritual cultivation. And on the other hand, it could be said that men have a strong passion for various topics, to the point of obsession. I mean is there a single female cultivator who takes it to the level that Drew Hempel does, for instance (not that I agree with half of what he thinks)? But then again, the same could be said for women, such as the one in my class...there is true passion and discipline there. Who knows.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Aetherous

[Aetherous]

I didn't laugh. Just looked at the picture for some time. Contemplating it.

 

One of the questions that came to mind...who would have authored it?

 

(Edited to add first smiley.)

 

For someone who didn't laugh, what you just said was pretty damn funny.

[3bob]

regardless of how true or not the history / anthropology of the postulated matriarchal world wide society was, as outlined above .... I want to find a place like that too .

 

Traditional Aboriginal culture here, which goes back to and is a remnant of those times isnt that matriarchal at all . However some of the components and teachings for the older most advanced and initiated men come from the women (when they get old and smart enough to be able to get it ) ... maybe they have to work through the 'testosterone' first ?

 

But it manifests in strange ways (to us), including the end process of subincision , where the cut at the base of the penis is gradually extended all the way to the eye at the end, so the whole member, when erest flattens out like a stingray and urination comes out of the whole at the base, requiring the man to have to squat to urinate - like a woman.

 

Any of the guys here up for that ?

 

don't put me down for it either

[Songtsan]

I am at a restaurant and just randomly thinking these things:

 

Regardless of surface appearances, it is inimicable to nature for there to be Yin/Yang imbalances for long. So we already exist in the Ocean, which is divided into Seas, of Man/Woman give/take, dominance/submission, and polarity deliciousness. Matriarchy and Patriarchy, as well as Patralinealism and Matrialinism, have co-evolved and changed faces many times through history. The coin spins on. On one side is a Woman's face, on the other, a Man. Both are equally top and equally bottom, follower and leader. One without the other isn't so neat. It taketh the twin soul to be complete. So recognize the man within the woman, and the woman within the man, and you will find the yummy spiral that leads to the land of Peter Pan- that Never Never Land before grown-up thought, in whose threads, we have oft been caught.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Songtsan

[thetaoiseasy]

Here are a few diagrams that illustrate the importance of the feminine principle. Maybe they convey ideas that are harder to speak about.

 

 

1. Tai Chi

 

 

Chinese Character for Mother ------> Tai Chi

 

 

2. Hexagram for Peace & for Stagnation

 

 

 

Peace

 

In this hexagram, the earth trigram is on top as the first three broken lines. The heaven trigram is below as the bottom three straight lines. In other words, peace occurs when the the yang force takes the lower position to the yin force.

 

Compare this to the Hexagram for Stagnation.

 

 

In this hexagram, it is reversed. The yang force is on top as the three straight lines, moving upwards. The yin force is below as the three broken lines, moving downwards. When the yang force does not lower itself to the yin force, there is stagnation.

 

3. Internal alchemy is often compared to cooking -- conveyed by the image of a pot on the stove. This is also portrayed by the hexagram called Accomplishment.

 

Note that the yang fire must be placed below the yin water for cooking to begin!

 

 

 

4. Lao Tzu said "Humans follow earth. Earth follows sky. Sky follows Tao."

 

This is the natural order of life as the great sage envisioned it. As humans, we follow earth which is the receptive yin force. Is there anyway around it?

 

TTC Chapter 28

 

知其雄，守其雌

Know the masculine principle;

abide by the female principle.

Edited September 1, 2014 by thetaoiseasy

[soaring crane]

we already exist in the Ocean, which is divided into Seas, of Man/Woman give/take, dominance/submission, and polarity deliciousness.

 

this must have been about the time the appetizer was served, right? haha :-)

 

Sorry, ignore me.

[Songtsan]

Here are a few diagrams that illustrate the importance of the feminine principle. Maybe they convey ideas that are harder to speak about.

 

 

Note that the yang fire must be placed below the yin water for cooking to begin!

 

 

 

知其雄，守其雌

Know the masculine principle;

abide by the female principle.

 

 

 

This is helping me so greatly...I bow in deference to the Mother.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Songtsan

[soaring crane]

re the hexagrams above I think it's western thinking that associates the top position with importance and rank.