The Tao of disappointment

[Starjumper]

13 hours ago, Ilovecoffee said:

 

Jim was the top Western student. Jim progressed faster than most of the Indonesian students. John no longer teaches, but we still preserserve what Jim ... brought back to us.

 

Professional analysis of the state of Mo Pai in the West, and you can see that Jim has some major flaws in his method.  If he's one of the best they've got then that's another big red flag

 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2018 by Starjumper

[Starjumper]

On 6/3/2018 at 2:32 AM, Mudfoot said:

Wrong animal. 

It's horse, not bull. There are just some common denominators. 

 

Actually it's horse shit piled on top of bullshit, a rare occurrence.  They are referring to energy vampirism as a way of cultivating energy.  The idea is to have many lovers (healthy young females are required, of course) and to take energy from them in order to increase their own energy.  This is accepted in the Southern school but rejected as being unethical by the Northern school.  

 

Southern school:  "I mean, they are just going to waste their life energy anyway, so they might as well give it to ME so I can become an immortal" (they probably also believe that when they go to heaven they'll get 72 high breasted virgins).

 

Of course the ethical way would be to not cheat and to be granted permission by the healthy young ladies to take her energy, but ...

 

For one thing there are hardly any healthy young ladies any more, and whoever wrote the book in question is just a plain old pig.  I also suspect that they are NOT in a long lineage of celestial immortals.  Lots of lies, fits well in the modern world.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Starjumper

[silent thunder]

I'm still not disappointed...

sigh...

I must be doing it wrong.

[Starjumper]

3 hours ago, Starjumper said:

They are referring to energy vampirism as a way of cultivating energy.  The idea is to have many lovers (healthy young females are required, of course) and to take energy from them in order to increase their own energy.

 

Actually it's just more perverted  idiocy, because if they knew anything they could take people's life energy without touching them.

[Limahong]

On 5/12/2018 at 6:01 PM, Marblehead said:

Perhaps you first need to empty your cup?

 

Hi Dada-da,

 

 

TGIF - a great weekend.

 

- LimA

[rideforever]

On 11/05/2018 at 9:46 PM, Stewart said:

I’m about ready to throw in the towel on the Tao.  

Perhaps you are sick of people using Taoist philosophy to explain away things and not engage in life.

 

As fools listen to Taoist or Buddhist philosophy, they translate it into their coarse unintelligence.  And then it becomes an empty meal.   One reason they do this is because they refuse to practice and refuse to change.   They are in fact not interested at all.

 

Giving up on such people is a sign of health.

 

Light leads to Light, and is quite rare.

[Limahong]

4 hours ago, rideforever said:

As fools listen to Taoist or Buddhist philosophy, they translate it into their coarse unintelligence.  And then it becomes an empty meal.

 

Hi rideforever,

 

The issue is not in the two philosophies,

But from the translation to the practice.

 

An empty meal isn't full,

It is a concoct by a fool.

 

Giving up on these people is healthy.

Light leads to Light -  natural to a T?

 

- LimA

[Stewart]

Okay, I'm done.  I am out of here.  The level of bullshit here is drowning me.  Ya'll need a check up from the neck up, as Kinky Friedman used to say.  Anyway I shall run naked and screaming into that good night. Good day.

[wandelaar]

7 minutes ago, Stewart said:

Okay, I'm done.  I am out of here.  The level of bullshit here is drowning me.  Ya'll need a check up from the neck up, as Kinky Friedman used to say.  Anyway I shall run naked and screaming into that good night. Good day.

 

Just use the ignore list to clear away the bullshit, and you will be OK. 

[Ilovecoffee]

19 minutes ago, Stewart said:

Okay, I'm done.  I am out of here.  The level of bullshit here is drowning me.  Ya'll need a check up from the neck up, as Kinky Friedman used to say.  Anyway I shall run naked and screaming into that good night. Good day.

 

I feel you man 110%

[Marblehead]

1 hour ago, Ilovecoffee said:

I feel you man 110%

Where did you get that extra 10%?  I would like to buy some.

 

[Ilovecoffee]

5 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Where did you get that extra 10%?  I would like to buy some.

 

 

Trolls give it away free no need to buy anything.

[Mudfoot]

2 hours ago, Stewart said:

Okay, I'm done.  I am out of here.  The level of bullshit here is drowning me.  Ya'll need a check up from the neck up, as Kinky Friedman used to say.  Anyway I shall run naked and screaming into that good night. Good day.

But were you entertained? 😁

[Stewart]

Sadly, no.

[Stewart]

On 9/21/2018 at 11:54 AM, Marblehead said:

Where did you get that extra 10%?  I would like to buy some.

 

 

"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment" - Rumi 13th century Persian poet.

 

[silent thunder]

Rumi!  What a treasure his words have been in my life...

 

Some time ago I traded certainty for wonder.  Hard answers for living, fluid, ongoing questions.  And rigid life rules and expectations for simple presence.  The result is a stunning unfoldingness of simplicity, love and bliss.

 

Rather ironically, it seems most of my seeking was the very thing preventing me from realizing I already was, what I was seeking.

 

 

[Stewart]

On 5/11/2018 at 4:27 PM, Lost in Translation said:

Failure is an excellent teacher. Whether on this forum or in life you will meet disappointment, but that does not mean you cannot learn from it. I suggest you exercise patience in this matter.

From Failure I learn to expertly fail.

 

[Desmonddf]

On 11/05/2018 at 5:46 PM, Stewart said:

I’m about ready to throw in the towel on the Tao.  When I first came here (Dao Bums) I said I was looking for a purer form of the Tao.  Something free of Buddhist teachings about Karma, Dharma, reincarnations, Suffering and the eight fold path.  I also asked if someone could tell me what a Tao Sage was and if there were any still around that I could meet.  Now I walked into this conversation knowing full well that I would encounter people trying to be clever, and others being true believers of their interpretation of the Tao trying to convince me that their way was THE way.  But what I did not expect to find was nothing.  There doesn’t seem to be any serious cannon beside the 81 verses.  I find parts of the verses helpful, but they kind of echo ideas that I have already come across.  I suppose my experience would be much more meaningful had I found a mentor.  Forget a Sage, just a knowledgeable person.

Recently I purchased a book call “Taoist Meditation” translated by Thomas Cleary and was disappointed at what I read.

Example:

Human life is the ultimate; when the ultimate goes into action it produces positive energy as fire.  Fire is spirit.  When the ultimate becomes quiescent it produces negative energy as water.  Water is vitality.  The fire of spirit and the water of vitality combine subtly and congeal between the two kidneys to constitute the root of original energy.

You would have to search far and wide to find a bigger load of horse-pucky than that.

 

That Gertrude Stein quote about Oakland CA, “there is no there there”, sums up my current experience with the Tao.  but just maybe that is the point of the Tao.

 

If you intend on finding the Dao through the mind, I would recomend literature and science as means of cultivation. Read book after  book, always seeking to improve your reading and comprehension skills - as well as keeping tabs on your own health and on "how to do it in a healthy way". 

 

The Dao is pratical in nature. You won't find much written material about it, because the Path isn't something the Mind can comprehend. You must experience and feel - otherwise you'll be unable to progress in the comprehension of the Dao. 

[Son Yu]

You should be meditating instead.

We all should. That's the Tao.

And coming from a deep meditative state, sometimes its hard for people to describe anything with words. Realizing infinity and nothingness makes a person quieter and sometimes more vague. I assume majority of people here are like that.

 

First verse of the Tao de jing, "if it can be spoken it is not the true Tao" you must find the answers you seek on your own.

But here you have support 🙌

[wandelaar]

Even the first chapter of the TTC recognises that meditation (or the nondual viewpoint) is only one side of the coin:

 

http://www.wussu.com/laotzu/laotzu01.html

 

It's a huge distortion of Laotzian Taoism to focus on meditation while ignoring the many lessons of living well that are contained in the TTC. In my opinion this unbalance is an important reason for the many cases of meditation sickness we read about lately.

[mrpasserby]

While sinking up my own practice with neidan, and attempting to comprehend the tao, I have noticed that there dose not seam to be as much effort in the direction of neidan as I had first supposed. However my studies of the tao are still a work in progress. 

Edited February 21, 2019 by mrpasserby
spelling error

[Son Yu]

5 hours ago, wandelaar said:

In my opinion this unbalance is an important reason for the many cases of meditation sickness we read about lately.

Makes perfect sense to me. Can you go more in depth about meditation sickness? I think i understand it but this is the first time I ever heard that.

[wandelaar]

36 minutes ago, Son Yu said:

Makes perfect sense to me. Can you go more in depth about meditation sickness? I think i understand it but this is the first time I ever heard that.

 

We recently had a topic about it:

 

[mrpasserby]

The following is abbreviated full info. at http://www.northernshamanism.org/dead-men-walking-shaman-sickness.html

 

The term "shaman sickness" is not one that you'll generally hear outside of most spirit-worker circles, and that's because we have only relatively recently learned to identify it again, after centuries of not understanding what it is that happens to shamans at the beginning of their careers. The term denotes a period of illness (often seriously life-threatening in some way) which is caused by the Gods and wights in order to completely remake someone and turn them into a shaman. The phenomenon of shaman sickness is found in tribal cultures around the world, with remarkably similar sets of traumas. It is the hallmark of the classic shaman in many parts of the globe.

Whether his calling be hereditary or not, a shaman must be a capable - nay, an inspired person. Of course, this is practically the same thing as saying that he is nervous and excitable, often to the verge of insanity. So long as he practises his vocation, however, the shaman never passes this verge.

The Chukchee call the preparatory period of a shaman by a term signifying "he gathers shamanistic power". For the weaker shamans the preparatory period is less painful, and the inspiration comes mainly through dreams. But for a strong shaman this stage is very painful and long; in some cases it lasts for one, two, or more years.

 

"The young novice, the 'newly inspired' (turene nitvillin), loses all interest in the ordinary affairs of life. He ceases to work, eats but little and without relishing his food, ceases to talk to people, and does not even answer their questions. The greater part of his time he spends in sleep." This is why "a wanderer . . . must be closely watched, otherwise he might lie down on the open tundra and sleep for three or four days, incurring the danger in winter of being buried in drifting snow. When coming to himself after such a long sleep, he imagines that he has been out for only a few hours, and generally is not conscious of having slept in the wilderness at all." However exaggerated this account of a long sleep may be, we learn from Bogoras that the Chukchee, when ill, sometimes "fall into a heavy and protracted slumber, which may last many days, with only the necessary interruptions for physical needs."

http://www.northernshamanism.org/dead-men-walking-shaman-sickness.html

[Manas]

Meditation is your only hope.

But only if you're really serious.

 

Otherwise, relax.

.