I am a Celestial Master

[Tian Shi]

If you have any questions I would be happy to discuss.

[thelerner]

Tian Shi, not a question but an observation that people who consider themselves high masters often don't do well here.  Its great to have experienced people who share.  But when people join and announce they're high masters, members are rightfully skeptic, and some get rude, arguments ensue.  Which is too bad. 

 

Welcome aboard, I hope you share without talking down to people.  Connect without lecturing.  Which can be a hard balancing act. 

 

We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation.  Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations.  Before you join give them a read. 

 

Most of it boils down to being respectful.  No name calling or trolling.  Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder.  Discussion and arguments are what the board is about.  Keep it civil, don't get personal.  Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. 

 

We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community.  Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. 

 

For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day.

 

 TDB team

 

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Quote

Tao bums is a moderated, privately owned, web site; all who agree with our guiding principals are welcome to join our discussions:

Treat other members with respect. No personal attacks.

Moderators are present to enforce this, please abide by their decisions.

Basically No personal attacks.
It is totally fine to vocally disagree with a person's opinion, technique, politics, approach, lifestyle choice, etc.

But no insulting (or links to attacks) of individuals, nationalities, genders, political preferences, lifestyle choices, etc.
While this may sound restrictive and categorically un-Taoist, I believe it is a useful guideline to help us stop for a moment and think about how to present our perspectives intelligently without just flinging unproductive rudeness at each other. This way other members can receive value from your perspective and you can gain clarity by reasoning out why you initially felt compelled to verbally put down someone else for being different.

 

No one, including the originating poster, gains anything from statements like "So and so is a complete moron", etc. If you have an opinion and you believe it's relevant to a topic at hand, post it as constructively as possible so we can learn from you, debate with you, ignore you, whatever.

If you can't abide by this simple constructive guideline, either create your post in a PPD or expect it can be moved. This is our mini-octagon here for those of you that insist on a more primitive breed of taoist war.

 

TheDaoBums' Three Foundations: Eclectic, Egalitarian, Civil.

TDBs' Cultural Context and Founding Principles  ver.2020-Jul-16
The purpose of this document is to concisely state the most fundamental framework principles that give TDBs it's distinctive shape.  This is not "all the rules, permutations, etc",  just the steel beams.

TDBs exists in the general field of "The Search for Truth".
The Usual organized formats (schools) for The Search tend to have:
    1. focus exclusively within a school
    2. hierachical learning structure, hierachical ability to speak
TheDàoBums' founding principles form a deliberate cultural counter-point:
    1. run independently of any school, which allows a more eclectic atmosphere
    2. conversational learning, egalitarian ability for members to speak
TDBs' social format is "cafeteria", not "classroom".  It's part of TDBs' premise that, broadly in culture, these two formats are necessary, distinct yet complementary.

TheDàoBums has a strong egalitarian ethic in that it's whole purpose is to provide a civil very open context for member conversations.  However, its governance structure is mostly top down; it's not a democracy.
- admins - own / run the board
- moderators - enforce rules
- members - converse 

TDBs' Conversational Context:
1. At TDBs member participation in conversation is non-hierarchical.  Meaning, members have equal ability to talk regardless of level of knowledge, achievement, or status / credentials of any kind.  TDBs has an underlying ethic of valuing the communication of each person.

 

2. TDBs most basic rules about conversation are around civility.

• While TDBs provides room for, encourages, lively, often vigorous and sometimes rough and tumble, debate ... that is balanced by protecting decency and sensitivity towards each other in such a variety of instances that no set of specific rules could ever adequately cover.
• A moderator's basic role is to moderate members' incivility toward each other in conversation.  
• Members support this process by 'reporting' offending posts

A fictional example of how 1&2 shake out:
If there's a TDBs debate about music between Mozart vs a beginning piano player, and it becomes heated enough that reports are generated for moderator consideration then, still, "level of knowledge, achievement, or status" are not basis for moderation.  Civility is, applied equally to each member.

It's up to each member, not moderators, to sort out the truth (and other questions of quality) for themselves in conversation.  Moderators just keep the conversation civil within reasonable limits.  For issues of staff bias, members can contact the current admin.

The staff (admins, moderators) also deserve and have protection against incivility and against abuse of staff resources.  Staff protection is enforced at the discretion of the admin, lead moderator/s, and by consensus of the moderation team.  The admin also has broad discretion to protect the civility and resources of any aspect within TDBs e-community.

 

signed,

- Trunk, author & past admin

- Sean, owner & admin of TheDàoBums

 

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[EmeraldHead]

What does this mean [celestial degree]? Have you formed that divine faetus thing spoken of in taoism?

[Taomeow]

The Way of the Celestial Masters was the name of a taoist school founded by Zhang Daoling in 142 CE.  It was the first taoist branch in history that adopted the form of an organized religion (a borrowing from buddhism).  It had a long and colorful history, absorbing some other schools and their teachings, splitting into the Southern and Northern branches, and mostly dissolving into other kinds of taoism around the 7th century.  It reemerged as a distinct school much later.  In 1949 its 64th patriarch, Zhang Enpu, fled to Taiwan, with subsequent disputes of authenticity between that branch and the mainland branches that survived under Communism. 

 

If the OP means he's an initiated member of that school, I'd be curious to learn more.  He would be "a Celestial Master" in the same sense that "I am Longmen Pai" -- not a claim to fame but a claim of lineage.  However, appointing oneself a Celestial Master without initiation into a lineage (I think Celestial Masters have the requirement of the lineage song to learn, among other things) would mean something else.  So I would be interested in an elucidation.    

[Michael Sternbach]

Hi Celestial Master

 

I am Star-Lord.

 

Nice meeting you!

[Cleansox]

On 2020-09-16 at 5:00 AM, Tian Shi said:

If you have any questions I would be happy to discuss.

Yes. 

 

Can you direct me to more information about the three terraces (santai)? I tried to Google the subject, but with the exception of a really expensive book (which I bought), I haven't found anything useful. 

 

Or, can you write something about the subject? 

 

 

[jack hammer]

Are there any immortals roaming around the earth these days,who are 1000+ years old?

What's your opinion on the documented chinese tradition of mercury and sulphur in alchemy?

[liminal_luke]

48 minutes ago, jack hammer said:

Are there any immortals roaming around the earth these days,who are 1000+ years old?

 

There was one here but we banned him for trolling.

[thelerner]

1 hour ago, jack hammer said:

Are there any immortals roaming around the earth these days,who are 1000+ years old?

What's your opinion on the documented chinese tradition of mercury and sulphur in alchemy?

On netflix there is the movie Old Guard.  A 5 semi-Immortals, all hundreds of years old, the leader, 1,000+ years.  They spent alot of time worrying how small the worlds gotten, how invasive electronic surveillance is.  It'd be hard to escape attention.  These days major cities are covered w/ AI cameras.  Even remote forests have cameras put there by naturalists to collect information.

 

There was a famous taoist herbalist* who claimed to be 256 years old.  They said he married many times, had some kids.  Yet his wives died, his children all seemed dead.  If he had any secrets, he didn't pass them on, seemingly not to his family, not to his friends or customers. 

 

I think following the Tao can grant a very long healthy life.. maybe some advantages when the body goes.  But don't think bodily immortality is in the cards. 

 

*wikipedia

"Li Ching-Yuen or Li Ching-Yun (simplified Chinese: 李清云; traditional Chinese: 李清雲; pinyin: Lǐ Qīngyún) (died 6 May 1933) was a Chinese herbalist, martial artist and tactical advisor, known for his supposed extreme longevity.^[1][2] He claimed to have been born in 1736, while disputed records suggest 1677, implying an age at death of 197 and 256 years, respectively. Both far exceed the highest verified ages on record. He died three days after his 256th birthday in 1933.

His true date of birth was never determined. His claims are considered to be a myth by gerontologists.^[3] While his claims have not been verified, they have been widely circulated as an Internet hoax.^[4]"

 

 

^{on the hand, I have a tincture called Perpetual Youth Tonic Tincture, made w/ Reishi, Astralagus, He Shou Wu, Schizandra, Goji Berry & Maca.  If it doesn't keep me perpetually young, then I'm out $38.} 

 

 

[jack hammer]

Quote

  Even remote forests have cameras put there by naturalists to collect information.

honestly I dont know if thats part of that netflix movie or real life. this is the point to where things have gotten.

[Nungali]

21 hours ago, EmeraldHead said:

What does this mean [celestial degree]? Have you formed that divine faetus thing spoken of in taoism?

 

Isnt ' The Celestial Master' sorta like the Pope of Daoism  ?

[Nungali]

On 16/09/2020 at 1:00 PM, Tian Shi said:

If you have any questions I would be happy to discuss.

 

yes. I have a question.

 

Why do so many people seem deluded ?

[EmeraldHead]

3 hours ago, jack hammer said:

Are there any immortals roaming around the earth these days,who are 1000+ years old?

What's your opinion on the documented chinese tradition of mercury and sulphur in alchemy?

obviously. the sumerian tablets of kings rulership, the bible, very clearly mentioned lifespans....annunaki too

 

I assume it's a matter of inherited and dna programming. For example buddhism says the likes of nagas can remember naturally past lives, up to 14. Humans need meditation for it.

 

At the end of the day it's just a body. I imagine its way less effort and time consuming to obtain a cultivation that lets you house multiple physical bodies, switching about, then to perfectionize one physical vessel. Still, the same can be said about the desire to house another vessel in this TIMELINE in this point in time to stay with or finish business with whoever. It's a desire to which normal humans easily fall under it's spell. Another or a longterm vessel is not a laughing matter, for it's a vessel of life itself. Such desires (constrictions) would preferably be eliminated before starting to cultivate for such skills.

 

Could be my uneducated observation (meaning positively wrong) but there are more stories of body transfers than huge lifespans.

Edited September 22, 2020 by EmeraldHead

[Cleansox]

7 hours ago, jack hammer said:

honestly I dont know if thats part of that netflix movie or real life. this is the point to where things have gotten.

Its real life. 

There are places where you can follow the migration of animals and so on. 

[shunka]

Ah my dear people....

 

see what you've done,

you have scared him off

and now we will never know....

 

and I was looking forward learning about that  taoist school founded by Zhang Daoling in 142 CE

that TaoMeow mentioned.

 

 

 

13 hours ago, Cleansox said:

Yes. 

 

Can you direct me to more information about the three terraces (santai)? I tried to Google the subject, but with the exception of a really expensive book (which I bought), I haven't found anything useful. 

 

Or, can you write something about the subject? 

 

 

 

umm Cleansox?

"Hitta boken iett blibliotek Alla foersaeljare" ???

was bedeutet das? or is it ancient Nordic?

Wait! are you actually a secret Finnish Scholar hiding out here?

Please Teach me the secrets of the Sami Noaidi  Oh Great Sox!

 

walk in beauty

shunka

Edited September 23, 2020 by shunka
its a joke

[Cleansox]

That would be modern swedish actually 😁

[Cleansox]

On 2020-09-22 at 8:13 PM, Cleansox said:

Yes. 

 

Can you direct me to more information about the three terraces (santai)? I tried to Google the subject, but with the exception of a really expensive book (which I bought), I haven't found anything useful. 

 

Or, can you write something about the subject?

Obviously not. Too bad, could have saved me some time and effort.