The Connection between Taoism and Mountains

[ThisLife]

[thelerner]

Good post, I agree. It reminds of commercials during saturday morning cartoons that tell kids to get up, get out and start playing outside .

 

We just had a post on healing (against modern medicine) where a poster said true healing is here and had some breath taking shots of mountain scens.

 

Spring is coming, maybe we can find our mountains within the trees, clouds and stacked rocks .

 

Living in the flatlands.

 

Michael

[hagar]

As this post probably was as close to being customized to my particular interests :

Taoism, Nature, mountains, climbing, skiing, philosophy and technology studies;

I even bring mountains into my practice, and find them to be great, mute teachers. They have, basically for just being there, dictated a large portion of the choices I have made in my adult life.

Been around them since toddler years, and has spent considerable time going up, down, or to them. A sickening amount of funds to make it happen, and willingness to let any good relationship I'd have slide in the process.

 

I should have been keen to answer with wit, insight and knowledge.

 

But instead, I feel really not able to answer at all.

 

What's up with that?

 

h

[Gerard]

Diane Perry, aka Tenzin Palmo, is an Englishwoman who decided to follow the path of The Buddha. Ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist Drukpa Kagyu lineage she ended up living for 12 years alone in the Himalayas in a small hut, the last 3 in strict meditation retreat.

 

In these videos you can observe the profound transformation she experienced as a result of living in a Himalayan mountain:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohyWKI8JKAs...feature=related

 

 

Just look into her eyes.

 

 

This is just an example of what mountains can do for you, connect you with your true nature in harmony with the macro and microcosmic forces.

[三江源]

I love mountains too, and crave them.

 

I dont however, feel that I do so for the same reasons that the author outlines. I feel that a person, and of course a person who practises meditation and energy work, can get a sense of the earth and its history and our place on it from walking down a crowded street. From an urban stream. From a city river. From a peeled billboard. From the sight of someone asleep in a cardboard box in a subway.

 

I think a mountain is also a dragon. This is why Taoists love mountains. Mountains offer a lot, and there is a vibrational level to mountain energy/spirit which is compatible with Taoists.

 

That, and the purity of the air.

 

Jungles are very wonderful too, and offer a huge amount. But they are not dragons of the same element and intention.

 

Possibly a tropical jungle is actually the opposite of a computer. If one were interested in opposites.

[i_am_sam]

In The Magus of Java mountains are talked about as having lots of yin energy, hence their attraction to mystics and seekers of higher realities

[freesun]

As this post probably was as close to being customized to my particular interests :

Taoism, Nature, mountains, climbing, skiing, philosophy and technology studies;

I even bring mountains into my practice, and find them to be great, mute teachers. They have, basically for just being there, dictated a large portion of the choices I have made in my adult life.

Been around them since toddler years, and has spent considerable time going up, down, or to them. A sickening amount of funds to make it happen, and willingness to let any good relationship I'd have slide in the process.

 

I should have been keen to answer with wit, insight and knowledge.

 

But instead, I feel really not able to answer at all.

 

What's up with that?

 

h

 

Hagar, living in norway, for you it would be quite difficult to avoid being in the mountains even if you tried really hard

[minkus]

In The Magus of Java mountains are talked about as having lots of yin energy, hence their attraction to mystics and seekers of higher realities

 

Mountains itself are very yin in nature although they are also very high .. close to the heavens so good yang should be available also. This and that mountains are often remote, quiet and relatively unpolluted. They even have caves

 

Ideal cultivation grounds !

[Bruce]

I do believe there's a certain energy in the mountains. I've always felt it, anyway. When I lived in California, I would head up into the Sierras whenever I felt low (no pun intended). Being in the mountains never failed to rejuvinate me, to some extent. Likely, the reason is simply because I would relax and change my thinking.

 

Now I live in England, out in the countryside amongst the rolling hills of Cornwall. There is a woodland just a short walk from the house. I go there to rejuvinate now, but I almost always climb the highest hill there and just sit. Usually, I have to make myself get up and go home. It's not the mountains, but it's the best I have right now.

[hagar]

Hagar, living in norway, for you it would be quite difficult to avoid being in the mountains even if you tried really hard

 

South-east Norway is pretty mellow. Only rolling hills and the occasional cliff.

 

If you go west and north, it's a whole differnent country all together.

 

As for good qigong landscape the north of Germany; Sylt?

 

h

Edited February 11, 2009 by hagar

[Gerard]

Imagine living in that beautiful place:

 

 

Lhotse (Tibet - Nepal border)

 

 

 

Hmmm, I can feel the spirit of the mountain from here. So wise.

 

I can't wait to get there.

[ThisLife]

.

 

 

What a staggeringly impressive photo ! I don't think I've ever seen a picture that so perfectly conveys the power, the presence,... the sheer essence of a mountain. For someone like myself who has hiked through the Himalayas many years ago, this photo brought back a whole flood of memories that I was unaware I had stored upstairs in the dusty shelves of my 'hard drive'.

 

Thank you for this perfect visual reminder me that this is the face of the Tao,... and not words, ideas or concepts on computer screen or paper.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

ThisLife

 

 

.

[三江源]

 

Thank you for this perfect visual reminder me that this is the face of the Tao,... and not words, ideas or concepts on computer screen or paper.

 

Cheers,

 

ThisLife

 

.

 

ha, the face of the tao is all other things too. I dont think you can choose only the heroic images ...

[ThisLife]

Ha,... the face of the Tao is all other things too. I dont think you can choose only the heroic images ...

.

 

 

Thank you, Cat. Point well taken. You are exactly right. It seems to be the unconscious 'hard-wiring' for most of us that when we find a philosophy we're attracted to, we always want to see it dressed up in a pretty package. But, even that one-sided attraction to beauty, is equally the face of the Tao.

 

To be completely correct, the person who posted the lovely photo of the mountain as a reminder of the Tao,... could with equal validity have posted a glossy colour photo of a fresh pile of dog shit to remind us of the many faces ot the Tao.

 

But,.....

 

 

 

.

[Gerard]

ha, the face of the tao is all other things too.

 

Agree, but the ugly face. Also, remember that Taoism was developed in the mountains. Forget about achieving it in a slum of Rio de Janeiro.

 

 

Edited: typo.

Edited February 13, 2009 by durkhrod chogori

[Spectrum]

Buddhist Practice Up High Way

 

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Edited February 13, 2009 by Spectrum

[Gerard]

Nice.

 

Huashan's turn:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keXJwQtM6c0

 

 

Edited February 13, 2009 by durkhrod chogori

[三江源]

 

Agree, but the ugly face. Also, remember that Taoism was developed in the mountains. Forget about achieving it in a slum of Rio de Janeiro.

 

 

Edited: typo.

 

 

There isnt such a thing as "ugliness", actually, from the point of view of the tao. That very judgment is a sign of dwelling in the illusion of being split from the One.

[Gerard]

You are mixing Zen stuff with Taoism.

 

Taoism is not about illusion. It's about experiencing the flow of nature: yin and yang and returning to the source. This can only be experienced in solitude away from humanity and grounded between mother earth and father heaven. London won't help you return to the source, excess yang energy is deluding you, for sure.

 

Listen:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pejkQMNxdg

 

Practice.

[三江源]

You are mixing Zen stuff with Taoism.

 

Taoism is not about illusion. It's about experiencing the flow of nature: yin and yang and returning to the source. This can only be experienced in solitude away from humanity and grounded between mother earth and father heaven. London won't help you return to the source, excess yang energy is deluding you, for sure.

 

Listen:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pejkQMNxdg

 

Practice.

 

You are mixing theory up with reality.

 

The word/concept/experience/trap of ' illusion' does not belong to Zen.

 

The flow of nature is in all things.

 

The source is us and all around us.

 

Your presumptuous statement that excess yang is deluding me for sure...

[Gerard]

More nice places conducive to spiritual liberation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All these photos were taken in the Pyrenees.

[Spectrum]

Cat,

 

There is

A Difference

 

Between Ash and Pollen

Seeds Between Seem Fallen

 

When Where and Why, What and How Who

Dip Low, Fly High, Rock Water Fire Metal and Sky

 

The difference is the means, the mean the measure.

Naming a pile of shit a flower, doesn't make it a treasure.

 

N5WVnrSaEPc

SYRST7XaVGQ

Edited February 14, 2009 by Spectrum

[the buddha & the beast]

i never realized that i felt all those things about mountains...but it's true. they put me in my place, they show me beauty, they make me see how different where i live is, and they make me see oneness all @ the same time.

[DaoChild]

Sure it's EASIER to experience it away from humanity in solitude.

 

Of course -- living among like-minded spiritual people, or beings, or nature is the easiest thing of all. But to embrace the Tao in daily life is the most difficult of all. Just like meditation with soft music and no ambient noise may be perfect - but when you need it on the subway, can you do it?

 

We are but fish in the sea.

[ThisLife]

There isnt such a thing as "ugliness", actually, from the point of view of the tao. That very judgment is a sign of dwelling in the illusion of being split from the One.

 

 

Thank you for a very thought-provoking reply. It's very short, yet contains two thoughts which are written as part of a whole,... but personally, I think one is correct, and the other just doesn't go deeply enough to approach a 'truth' about existence.

 

When you say that "there isn't such a thing as 'ugliness' from the point of view of the Tao",.... I think this is simply a product of not having thought carefully enough about our attempts to conceptualise the Tao.

 

I know 'conceptualising has a bad name for all of us seekers who are striving to understand/experience 'Reality' without the intermediary of concepts. But, without creating a name and a concept, nothing can be even thought about, let alone discussed, studied, contemplated etc. I think part of seeking is in gradually refining our concepts through the dynamic interplay of our life experiences with whatever store of concepts we hold that make up our mental continuum. This dynamic process carries on at every moment that the 'life experience' is happening through us,.... from our birth till our death.

 

So, we cannot do away with concepts, yet need to always update and refine them.

 

With regards to "the Tao", I'm sure it would get a pretty unanimous agreement to define one of its qualities as "the source and substance of all points of view". Therefore, as a single trivial example,.... my finding of the above photo of a mountain as "beautiful", and a pile of dog shit as "ugly",... cannot be separate from the Tao's point of view. These concepts of 'beauty' and 'ugliness', have their source and substance in the Tao. They were created by the Tao, and are inseparable from it, as are all points of view.

 

Regarding your second statement, that my very judgement of something as 'ugly', indicates my "dwelling in the illusion of being split from the One",...here I think you are completely corrrect.

 

I think that this paradox comes as close as my mind can approach to the limits of rational thought. This is the chasm that separates this dualistic consciousness we are obliged by our body and mind to experience existence through,... from what we can only intuit via the experiences of others (whom we often think of and label as 'realised beings'),... and which we then conceptualise and name, "the Tao".

 

So, to summarise all these ramblings,.... dualistic appearances like 'beauty' and 'ugliness' occur constantly to my mind because that is the way the Tao functions through me,... 'created me', if you will. They occur only because I am 'inseparable ' from the Tao.

 

And yet, my experiencing of these Tao-created opposites, is the unmistaken sign that I am living in the illusion of separation from the Tao.

 

To me. therein lies the essence of this paradox of our existence. This is the problem I am trying to resolve, and which has led me to many places over the years, such as this forum just now,... in the hopes of resolving.

 

 

ThisLife

Edited February 14, 2009 by ThisLife