My Meeting with Mak Tin Si

[Pietro]

It is now more than 2 weeks from when I met Mak Tin Si. I have been asked by a couple of Bums to share my experience. In the past I have always enjoyed and found useful the review written by others over this or that school, workshop or teacher.

 

So moved by a sense of duty, more than a sense of creative generosity, I decided to add my coin.

 

I was passing through Toronto, on my way from Canada to Europe. So I decided to take the midday off and go and see our very honorable Taoist Priest. Reaching him wasn't the easyest thing in the world. You need to take the subway until the latest station, and then bus number 2. Which is not on platform 2 (or it would be too easy ). In short by the time you have figured out everything, you might need to go the next day.

 

The Taoist Temple, from the outside is like a shop. It reminds me of the Meditation Shop in Ubud, Bali. As I entered A very nice Temple was on the left, while the Tin Si, was giving suggestions to one of his disciples on the right. I made the greeting gesture, as we learned in our school, and he made the greeting gesture of his school. It was funny, for a second it seemed he stayed a second trying to sort out my greetings. I was then adressed to the waiting chairs. Above the waiting chair a sign: here is where faith is born (or something similar). I found this clever and telling. Clever because people, at least at the beginning can get easily bored. If they know that there is something special that is going on in that time, they will not get that easily bored. I found it telling because of a long lesson we received from Bruce on how Taoists do not consider beliefs and faith to be important. Something was already not in sync.

 

I waited for probably half an hour, while the priest was going through his teachings, and suggestions. It was obvious that FU were very important in his teachings. He practically had FU for every occasions. My regards for privacy prevents me to enter into any detail over what they were discussing, so I will just gliss over it.

 

While I was there I also had a good time to observe the room. The temple was beautiful. And it had something peculiar. If you can feel/sense spirits, this temple was packed. Have you ever seen a room so crowded that you cannot move. This is how the area in and around the temple felt to my untrained eyes. Eventually the student left, and the priest was ready to speak with me.

 

We spoke briefly. I asked about the temple, about the heritage, I also aksed about the story of Taoism, and a bit about FUs.

 

All the time he answered holding some weird multy threaded whip in his hands. It made me think he was expecting some weird demons to come out of me at any time. It was weird, as he did not seem to feel the need to hold such defensive tool for his student.

 

My sensation was of a person who was very honest regarding his work about FU, knowledgeable about spirits. But also a person who claims that an immortal is teachin him, in dreams. In nearly everything he said I felt he was telling me the truth, or at least what he honestly believed being the truth. When he was speaking about the immortal, from China, which he never met...

well in that moment, it was not so much that I did not believe him. It was that I felt he did not believe it himself.

 

Sometimes life pushes us in a role where we are not hold a mask, and are not even allowed the benefit of doubting about something.

 

So all together, I would say a mixed review. Very competent in some regards. Very honest in some aspect. But I wouldn't hold my breath that his immortal-teacher would materialize in front of him very soon.

 

When I left I also realised: he did not ask me a single question about my path, my school, and my practice. He probably was not interested.

 

Pietro

[Stigweard]

Thank you for sharing Pietro.

[fizix]

His trying to market on Taoism is annoying and I do not think he is any position to teach.

[orb]

It is now more than 2 weeks from when I met Mak Tin Si. I have been asked by a couple of Bums to share my experience. In the past I have always enjoyed and found useful the review written by others over this or that school, workshop or teacher.

 

So moved by a sense of duty, more than a sense of creative generosity, I decided to add my coin.

 

I was passing through Toronto, on my way from Canada to Europe. So I decided to take the midday off and go and see our very honorable Taoist Priest. Reaching him wasn't the easyest thing in the world. You need to take the subway until the latest station, and then bus number 2. Which is not on platform 2 (or it would be too easy ). In short by the time you have figured out everything, you might need to go the next day.

 

The Taoist Temple, from the outside is like a shop. It reminds me of the Meditation Shop in Ubud, Bali. As I entered A very nice Temple was on the left, while the Tin Si, was giving suggestions to one of his disciples on the right. I made the greeting gesture, as we learned in our school, and he made the greeting gesture of his school. It was funny, for a second it seemed he stayed a second trying to sort out my greetings. I was then adressed to the waiting chairs. Above the waiting chair a sign: here is where faith is born (or something similar). I found this clever and telling. Clever because people, at least at the beginning can get easily bored. If they know that there is something special that is going on in that time, they will not get that easily bored. I found it telling because of a long lesson we received from Bruce on how Taoists do not consider beliefs and faith to be important. Something was already not in sync.

 

I waited for probably half an hour, while the priest was going through his teachings, and suggestions. It was obvious that FU were very important in his teachings. He practically had FU for every occasions. My regards for privacy prevents me to enter into any detail over what they were discussing, so I will just gliss over it.

 

While I was there I also had a good time to observe the room. The temple was beautiful. And it had something peculiar. If you can feel/sense spirits, this temple was packed. Have you ever seen a room so crowded that you cannot move. This is how the area in and around the temple felt to my untrained eyes. Eventually the student left, and the priest was ready to speak with me.

 

We spoke briefly. I asked about the temple, about the heritage, I also aksed about the story of Taoism, and a bit about FUs.

 

All the time he answered holding some weird multy threaded whip in his hands. It made me think he was expecting some weird demons to come out of me at any time. It was weird, as he did not seem to feel the need to hold such defensive tool for his student.

 

My sensation was of a person who was very honest regarding his work about FU, knowledgeable about spirits. But also a person who claims that an immortal is teachin him, in dreams. In nearly everything he said I felt he was telling me the truth, or at least what he honestly believed being the truth. When he was speaking about the immortal, from China, which he never met...

well in that moment, it was not so much that I did not believe him. It was that I felt he did not believe it himself.

 

Sometimes life pushes us in a role where we are not hold a mask, and are not even allowed the benefit of doubting about something.

 

So all together, I would say a mixed review. Very competent in some regards. Very honest in some aspect. But I wouldn't hold my breath that his immortal-teacher would materialize in front of him very soon.

 

When I left I also realised: he did not ask me a single question about my path, my school, and my practice. He probably was not interested.

 

Pietro

 

Thank you for the effort of keeping your review as unbiased and as objective as possible.

 

His trying to market on Taoism is annoying and I do not think he is any position to teach.

 

I agree he does seem to have a problem with unnecessary talking ....

[Aetherous]

I'm interested in seeing if the FU stuff works.

 

It doesn't require faith for it to work, does it?

[Yoda]

Pietro,

 

Mak Tin Si is obviously a very different cat from your typical taobum and I'm sure it was hard for both of you to relate to each other. This is sort of the reaction I would expect to have with any traditional taoist born into the system.

 

I'm really happy that we all have enough in common for him to at least share his thoughts here even if we can only overlap partially in vibe.

 

Thanks for the review, Pietro! And thanks for sharing your knowledge with us Mak Tin Si!

 

Your pal,

Yoda

[Mak_Tin_Si]

Hi Pietro,

 

I am happy to meet with you too. I was holding a whisk in my hand when I was talking to you because it is a way of respect for a taoist to hold a whisk while talking to any visitors. The whisk means to clean and purify that means I will try to clean and purify whoever I am takling to. which also means giving blessings. Maybe you do not understand the culture, but that is the reason.

 

The immortals I have been learning from is not in my dream. I do saw them with my eyes when I am trianing in fornt of the altar. If you train under the system, you may see them sometimes around the altar. Some of my students already saw grandmasters (immortals) around the altar alot of times already. If you do have the open mind to feel and see sometimes, you may see it too.

 

The sifu in China have not met with me face to face, but we are communicating via the altar daily. That is how taoist teach taoist in the old days because of one reason. The only reason is that the master is too pure, he really have to get out of the public society and leave the polluted world, but he also have to pass on this knowledge he have. So he find a middle person and search for a student. Then the student learn and get attuned by the middle person. From then on, the student will then learn from the master in the mountain via the altar with a special trianing. Of course that is not found in a book or magazine! This way the master will not be polluted and secondly the master will be able to teach the student face to face (via the altar).

 

That is a tradition in Taoism. That is how the old masters teach. But of course it is rarely open to the public to see the back story.

 

It is a pleasure to meet you in the temple. Good luck on your trianing in the future.

 

I did not ask you for your info not because I am not interested. I am there waiting for any faith to come. If faith come, you will tell me, if you do not want to tell me, why bother asking? That is just a way how Wu-wei is done without anything intention. It is a kind of phillosophy build into the mind. I do not ask anything unless you want me to ask. So I just sit and wait for you to ask. You are the guest, not me. Right? haha!

 

 

Mak Tin Si

 

You can of course try out how the FU works. It does require trust to get it to work. If you judge the fu and treat it without respect, the energy on the FU will not work. That is because FU need the "intention" to work with the FU. If you burn a FU into water for bathing, thinking about eating burgers, the FU will not have 100% of the effect, maybe only 30. You have to think, this fu is going to make me cleans my body and energy and purify my mind. Then the fu works great!

 

If you want to try one, I suggest a FU call bathing FU to you. Take 2 and try it the first time, you may feel the difference right after the bath.

 

I have had a reiki master who did reiki teaching for 10yrs, she was shocked by how the bathing FU worked for her and she got addicted to it too! haha! she called it the "energy bath". She saw all kinds of lights on the water surface and golden sparkles in the water when cleansing. Very nice.

 

I'm interested in seeing if the FU stuff works.

 

It doesn't require faith for it to work, does it?

[Mak_Tin_Si]

note: It takes knowledge to understand what every movements, actions, phrase or even a word a taoist master present. If you lack in this field, you will mislead yourself and fall in the wrong direction sometimes. So when you meet with me in the temple, you surely will need alot of knowledge to understand ALL of what I present to you in a short period. If you understand abit, you will understand more later in your life, and abit more later in your future. It is sometimes very valuable to look back at what happened on that day in the future. You may find other interesting things.

 

*You felt the energy packed, that is from the immortals around and energy expanding from the altar. Just that you can feel the energy but you cannot SEE it with your eyes. (you could if you go through a special training.)

[eighty4proof]

I was holding a whisk in my hand when I was talking to you because it is a way of respect for a taoist to hold a whisk while talking to any visitors. The whisk means to clean and purify that means I will try to clean and purify whoever I am takling to. which also means giving blessings.

 

Pardon my ignorance but what do all the rituals and superstitions have to do with the Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching or the Tao of Chuang Tzu? The writings seem to be philosophical to me and I can't find any references of specific Gods or rites that should be performed. How did they come about?

[Mal]

Pardon my ignorance but what do all the rituals and superstitions have to do with the Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching or the Tao of Chuang Tzu?

 

This one may help http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showto...amp;#entry93653

 

Mak_Tin_Si is part of a tradition. Strange enough traditions have all sorts of traditional rituals and beliefs that have evolved over time.

 

I love how we get a wide mix of different paths here. Lots of sharing.

[Mak_Tin_Si]

Lao Tsu, Chuang Tzu are just a few people who contributed in taoism. Tao Te Ching is NOT the only book in taoism. It is like you going to a school that teach math, science, english and physics. Now you look at only the math books and ask " I never see english and all those courses that you talked about in the school"

 

Take a step aside and you shall know that there are much more to explore.

 

Taoism is a Chinese thing, you shall know this. There are many things not translated or open to the west now. Including all kinds of FU and mantras you have not seen. I am here to share more about this, but just need time and effort. Please excuse me for the delay.

 

Pardon my ignorance but what do all the rituals and superstitions have to do with the Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching or the Tao of Chuang Tzu? The writings seem to be philosophical to me and I can't find any references of specific Gods or rites that should be performed. How did they come about?

[Stigweard]

I love how we get a wide mix of different paths here. Lots of sharing.

 

I'm cashing the cheques you are writing my friend.

 

[Mak_Tin_Si]

In the Taoism study, there are way more than Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. If you do try to learn under a master, you will know that the phillosophies are all blended into the prcatise and tradition already, you do it as part of the nature in yourself, so we do not SAY the phillosohpy all the time, it is in you already when you start to learn under a master. It is just matter of when you GET IT or not.

 

The better you train in the system, the more you understand about nature without books reading.

[Pietro]

Hi Mak,

 

Hi Pietro,

 

I am happy to meet with you too. I was holding a whisk in my hand when I was talking to you because it is a way of respect for a taoist to hold a whisk while talking to any visitors. The whisk means to clean and purify that means I will try to clean and purify whoever I am takling to. which also means giving blessings. Maybe you do not understand the culture, but that is the reason.

 

Ahh, that what it was. I should have asked. Instead of just assuming (around here people say ass-u-me, to mean that when you assume you make an ass of yourself and of the other person, as I did). Sorry about that.

 

I too, tried for all our encounter to keep myself in the heart-mind. As I have been instructed. That was the blessing as it is coming from the tradition I come from.

 

The immortals I have been learning from is not in my dream. I do saw them with my eyes when I am trianing in fornt of the altar. If you train under the system, you may see them sometimes around the altar. Some of my students already saw grandmasters (immortals) around the altar alot of times already. If you do have the open mind to feel and see sometimes, you may see it too.

 

The sifu in China have not met with me face to face, but we are communicating via the altar daily. That is how taoist teach taoist in the old days because of one reason. The only reason is that the master is too pure, he really have to get out of the public society and leave the polluted world, but he also have to pass on this knowledge he have. So he find a middle person and search for a student. Then the student learn and get attuned by the middle person. From then on, the student will then learn from the master in the mountain via the altar with a special trianing. Of course that is not found in a book or magazine! This way the master will not be polluted and secondly the master will be able to teach the student face to face (via the altar).

 

That is a tradition in Taoism. That is how the old masters teach. But of course it is rarely open to the public to see the back story.

 

It is a pleasure to meet you in the temple. Good luck on your trianing in the future.

 

Yes, I realised when I wrote it that I was being imprecise. I just could not remember better. You did not say that you met him in your dream.

 

But let me clarified further what I said, why, and where was it coming from.

 

For a period of my life I have studied with a native american sciaman. The teachings were mostly about emotions. And in a particularly good series of workshop we participants were all able to be very well in touch with our emotions. Once this level was reached we discovered that in this state we could easily spot if someone who was speaking was not being totally truthful. I worked on this for a long time, so now I know that this is done by hearing the vibration in the voice. When a person is telling the truth, all the truth and just the truth, then its voice vibrates with the emotions, but does not falter. Instead there is a particular way in which the voice vibrates when you are saying something that you do not believe yourself. FOr all the conversation your voice was connected, honest. When you explained how your teacher was this immortal, I felt it faltering. It is hard to explain for me what I felt. And of course you can deny that it happened. Or explain that it has another meaning. I felt I could not write this review without raising this warning, as I perceived it. I felt if I did, I would not have been truthful myself to the task I was doing.

 

Said all this I find very interesting your explenation about taoist altars. I also would like to clarify that I did not find the energy to be packed, but to be packed with presences. Like if there were many beings in a little space.

 

I did not ask you for your info not because I am not interested. I am there waiting for any faith to come. If faith come, you will tell me, if you do not want to tell me, why bother asking? That is just a way how Wu-wei is done without anything intention. It is a kind of phillosophy build into the mind. I do not ask anything unless you want me to ask. So I just sit and wait for you to ask. You are the guest, not me. Right? haha!

Mak Tin Si

 

How interesting! This is such a clear example of a cultural difference. In the culture I come from asking questions (not too much, kids can easily exagerate ) is regarded as making a person at ease, in general. As you let the person speak about something they are really interested. And meditators who usually disregard in some sense some of the usual social norms, still tend to ask often many questions. The meditator world in the west is so differetiated, that each meditator can often tell you some really interesting and diverse stories.

 

 

***********

 

Something I would like to add to my review:

 

I also noticed that Mak did not have a full mastery of English. So he expected his students to learn Chinese. Personally if I were to study with Mak I would be grateful for this extra element, as there are many teachings that are implicit in a language itself.

 

Some time ago someone (goldisheavy?) commented that traditions should be translated. Yes, that is true, but to translate a tradition you need to have mastery both in the tradition and in the language. If you knowledge in any of the two is limited this will give problems later on in life. Probably Taoism in Nature's teachings will eventually all be translated, so that people do not need to learn chinese. But this will not happen at least for another generation, maybe more. Only a taoist who is mother tongue english will have the proficiency to translate something of the depth of a tradition.

 

 

Cheers,

Pietro

 

His trying to market on Taoism is annoying and I do not think he is any position to teach.

Hello fizix,

you sound frustrated.

 

Even though Mak is selling Fu's, so his presence over here is increasing this business, my understanding is that he is not using this money for himself. Also he seem to be very nice in only commenting on his own threads (and few related, like this one), so if you do not want to read his point of view, you can quite simply ignore him.

 

Regarding the fact that he can teach or not. I am not sure about you, but I surely don't know, for example, how to open, and keep an altar like he does. This for example is something on which I have a lot to learn. Although of course you might not be interested, yourself.

 

Pietro

 

I'll be travelling for the next days, until after Christmas, so I might answer later any comments.

I hope the review was helpful.

Pietro

[Mak_Tin_Si]

hi,

 

The study you have with the native american sciaman was interesting but you forgot the other elements in speech. Energy from a person will be changing the vibration of the person's speech too. When i was telling you about the immortals teaching me, that was for sure true but "faat" taoism energy was transmitting during the period when I was talking to you, so you will feel different. That is because whenever I tell people this, energy will be passed on too - for blessings.

 

In Taoism there is a training call "TA SUM TUNG" meaning mind reading ability, it comes with the 3rd eye ability. That is what you can train to actually tell if someone is telling the truth or not. This practise takes along time to build and it is more accurate than what you have learned. I can say this because I do have experience in this and I know what you are talking about.

 

For the "beings" you felt is not all, because you can feel only part of what is there. The beings are there to help and bless people also. So called grandmasters around. If you have the ability to see more around, you will see immortals and god around the altar too. But that takes more trianing and fate.

 

The way what I teach Chinese to my student is because I want them to learn the language for their own good. There is no way you can train in taoism without knowing Chinese. Tell me how you can do a mantra without CHinese for Taoism? NO WAY. So it is always good to learn more Chinese and get a feel of the culture. It is a Chinese ancient form of art, when you as a westerner want to learn it, Chinese is of course mandatory for the learning process. It is a form of respect to learn Chinese to learn Taoism too. You pray to the immortals and grandmasters who are Chinese.. with ENGLISH or CHINESE? English is okay, but Chinese show more respect of course.

 

Long time ago, business person who come from other countries to China have to learn Chinese to be able to do business with the king in China. This already show you why people shall learn the language instead of asking for translation all the time. The masters are always more than welcome to teach in English and also teach Chinese during the mean time.

 

**btw, from the time I saw you, I can also see your aura is not too clean, you may want to consider doing some cleansing for yourself. You can choose any methods you want to clean the energy, but I just say this because it is what create illusions and non-accurate feelings for yourself call SUM MOR (heart devil). The energy is not clean from your body because your facial energy color show me greyish and green, and abit of grey in the mid forehead. Pretty badly polluted. So that is already telling me what you have. If you want to proof this to yourself, ask a friend who is sensitive to help you out, they may also see it too. Get more sunshine and you will be better.

 

 

 

Hi Mak,

Ahh, that what it was. I should have asked. Instead of just assuming (around here people say ass-u-me, to mean that when you assume you make an ass of yourself and of the other person, as I did). Sorry about that.

 

I too, tried for all our encounter to keep myself in the heart-mind. As I have been instructed. That was the blessing as it is coming from the tradition I come from.

Yes, I realised when I wrote it that I was being imprecise. I just could not remember better. You did not say that you met him in your dream.

 

But let me clarified further what I said, why, and where was it coming from.

 

For a period of my life I have studied with a native american sciaman. The teachings were mostly about emotions. And in a particularly good series of workshop we participants were all able to be very well in touch with our emotions. Once this level was reached we discovered that in this state we could easily spot if someone who was speaking was not being totally truthful. I worked on this for a long time, so now I know that this is done by hearing the vibration in the voice. When a person is telling the truth, all the truth and just the truth, then its voice vibrates with the emotions, but does not falter. Instead there is a particular way in which the voice vibrates when you are saying something that you do not believe yourself. FOr all the conversation your voice was connected, honest. When you explained how your teacher was this immortal, I felt it faltering. It is hard to explain for me what I felt. And of course you can deny that it happened. Or explain that it has another meaning. I felt I could not write this review without raising this warning, as I perceived it. I felt if I did, I would not have been truthful myself to the task I was doing.

 

Said all this I find very interesting your explenation about taoist altars. I also would like to clarify that I did not find the energy to be packed, but to be packed with presences. Like if there were many beings in a little space.

How interesting! This is such a clear example of a cultural difference. In the culture I come from asking questions (not too much, kids can easily exagerate ) is regarded as making a person at ease, in general. As you let the person speak about something they are really interested. And meditators who usually disregard in some sense some of the usual social norms, still tend to ask often many questions. The meditator world in the west is so differetiated, that each meditator can often tell you some really interesting and diverse stories.

***********

 

Something I would like to add to my review:

 

I also noticed that Mak did not have a full mastery of English. So he expected his students to learn Chinese. Personally if I were to study with Mak I would be grateful for this extra element, as there are many teachings that are implicit in a language itself.

 

Some time ago someone (goldisheavy?) commented that traditions should be translated. Yes, that is true, but to translate a tradition you need to have mastery both in the tradition and in the language. If you knowledge in any of the two is limited this will give problems later on in life. Probably Taoism in Nature's teachings will eventually all be translated, so that people do not need to learn chinese. But this will not happen at least for another generation, maybe more. Only a taoist who is mother tongue english will have the proficiency to translate something of the depth of a tradition.

Cheers,

Pietro

Hello fizix,

you sound frustrated.

 

Even though Mak is selling Fu's, so his presence over here is increasing this business, my understanding is that he is not using this money for himself. Also he seem to be very nice in only commenting on his own threads (and few related, like this one), so if you do not want to read his point of view, you can quite simply ignore him.

 

Regarding the fact that he can teach or not. I am not sure about you, but I surely don't know, for example, how to open, and keep an altar like he does. This for example is something on which I have a lot to learn. Although of course you might not be interested, yourself.

 

Pietro

 

I'll be travelling for the next days, until after Christmas, so I might answer later any comments.

I hope the review was helpful.

Pietro

[Pietro]

Get more sunshine and you will be better.

Yes, I am in Italy, and I suffer quite badly haing to work in the cold north.

FInally I found a job in a warm country. My next academic job is in Portugal, so hopefully this will take care of itself.

 

Pietro

[Mak_Tin_Si]

Good. No wonder I saw the grey in your face. Um..Good luck is coming soon, because you are getting more sunshine soon! haha!

 

If you have a chance to visit the temple again next time you visit, you can experience "burning incense" and really feel how it work on the energy side.

 

Good Luck!

 

Mak tin Si

 

Yes, I am in Italy, and I suffer quite badly haing to work in the cold north.

FInally I found a job in a warm country. My next academic job is in Portugal, so hopefully this will take care of itself.

 

Pietro