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  1. Today
  2. NO. You care about yourself first and foremost because in this path no one else will SAVE YOUR ASS! The hard yakka is on your behalf, brother. Each to their own though. Different ways of approaching cultivation. This is the one I follow and has allowed me to go deep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Sutra Plus the unified work that Bagua (and Foundation work too) does. It touches all possible levels of reality and BEYOND! Amazing stuff. Big respect to ancient Taoists for merging Shamanic circle walking with Ancient Chinese Medicine. Yeah and for that reason you worry about viruses and wearing masks. Not in the entire Taoist canon (and Buddhist) there is a single mention of bacteria and viruses! The cause of disease is purely YIN & YANG IMBALANCE. This is the first level and then it escalates outwards in a cascading fashion: cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, stress, depression, the so-called mental illnesses which are purely excess of phlegm in the Heart/Fire force, eczema, colds and flus, etc., etc., etc. Modern society has just lost its way completely and it's only the beginning. YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT AND WHAT YOU THINK. End of story. My last post on this thread. Keep practising deep and with great effort. Good luck!
  3. Once again, as a decent human being, let alone a cultivator your main concern should be those around you, not yourself. Personally I stopped caring a long time ago about my own life. I am at peace with the possibility I could die at any moment. A car mounts a curb and knocks me down. I wasn't expecting to die today, but that's what happened anyway. Life is like that. I have no fear for my life. I do however, fear harming others. If I inadvertently caused another human being to suffer or die, then I would feel deep remorse for the wider suffering caused by my actions. If I chose not to wear a mask, and the Covid virus was transmitted asymptomatically from me to a vulnerable person, who later died, I believe that is tantamount to murder, or at least manslaughter. Would you be willing to have that death on your karma, just for the ego boost you'd get from proving to the world how fearless you are about your own health?
  4. arrogance of attitude does make a good student or master at any level...
  5. Knock, knock... WHERE IS THE BUFFALO!
  6. Too much for a TAOIST forum. Football players are not cultivators. You aren't either if you are fearful like the rest of humanity because they are not cultivators EITHER. If you practice DEEPLY: 1. You'll fear NOTHING not even PHYSICAL DEATH, because you have transcended it. Viruses? Please, don't make me laugh. 2. You'll become extremely healthy and strong. You'll eat less and sleep little. You'll connect with your internal organs and meridians of energy in ways that you wouldn't possibly imagine. 3. You'll realise that regulating the SPLEEN/EARTH ELEMENT is the key to good health and longevity. It is also the hardest organ/force to regulate because it's mother force THE HEART/FIRE is also an organ of desire. And desire will destroy you if not kept under control. It will weaken the Spleen and a weak Spleen is the cause of major internal imbalance and the lack of enough Qi to nourish the body. 3. You'll merge with the higher YOU and by that extension with the entire reality because in fact it is a product of your OWN MIND. Why a being that is capable of so much attainment should worry about a flu virus. HUMANITY LIVES IN FEAR. I was told this by Michael Guen (Bagua practitioner of the Gong Baotian lineage) back in 2012 in a discussion on the Empty Flower Internal Martial Arts forum. Spot on! I also came upon this realisation a few years ago. We live in an unconscious state of FEAR (and also WORRY). Theravada Buddhism has a wonderful practice to combat this state: Tudong. Practice by which forest monks wander on foot through the countryside either on pilgrimage or in search of solitary retreat places in nature. During such wanderings, monks sleep wherever is available and eat only what is offered by lay people along the way. Wandering Taoists also engage in this practice...AND FEAR NOTHING!
  7. Yesterday

  8. Eating and alchemy

    Taomeow replied to apdo's topic in Daoist Discussion

    My teacher's lecture on nutrition for the cultivator included many valuable tips -- here's some general ideas: When you're going to have a meal, first try giving your current appetite a rating -- say from 1 to 10, from "well, I could eat, if there's nothing better to do" to "hungry as a wolf." Skip a meal if your current appetite is too low on that scale. Try to never eat to 10. Stop at 7 or 8. Stop when you think, "well, that was good, I guess I could eat some more before I'm full." Don't go here: If practitioners always observe the rule of not going past 7 in satisfying their appetite, most of them don't have to worry too much about when exactly they'd eaten before starting the practice. But we're not all the same, our digestions are not the same, foods eaten at a given meal are not the same -- so self-observation is important. If you find, experimentally, that your practice benefits from giving yourself some time to digest your meal first, it's a good idea to give yourself that time. If you find it doesn't suffer or even benefits from your not being distracted by hunger, try the 7 out of 10 approach, see if it works better.
  9. Fascinating topic. Thanks for sharing @Taomeow Donald Hoffman is a neurophysiologist involved in Entangling Conscious Agents, Consciousness/Reality Interaction and Fitness Modeling research for a couple decades. I happened upon a short intro to the topic of Fitness Modeling and how humans hallucinate our reality. His work and revelations are fascinating in the extreme and he shares their implications in a very direct, accessible manner. I recommend any of his lectures, or interviews for anyone intrigued by the topic. Haven't sought out any of his books. I'd love to get in a time machine and invite he and Robert Anton Wilson for an evening of conversation on the nature of reality tunnels and human perceptual modeling...
  10. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187

  11. What made YOU laugh today/tonight ?

    Taomeow replied to zerostao's topic in The Rabbit Hole

  12. (I wrote the following for another context but would like to share here as well.) It´s probably happened to you too. I check out some product for sale on the internet, decide not to buy, and a day or two later up pops an advertisement for that product on a completely unrelated webpage. Some corporate thing-a-ma-bob has been following me around cyberspace, perhaps because I´ve never in my life said no to a cookie. On a related note, I wonder how much of my life has been videotaped without my explicit consent. Everywhere you go -- businesses, busstops, government buildings -- there are cameras silently recording. Now I know that the purpose is to prevent crime and if I had a vulnerable business you can bet I´d be installing cameras too. But it´s not bonkers to be concerned about the societal trend towards ever greater surveillance of the population, the bit by bit erosion of privacy, the end of solitude. This is real. What does this have to do with Covid vaccines? I think everything. It´s not so much that the current vaccines are safe or unsafe. In any case, I´m sure the scientists involved in vaccine creation have the best intentions. For the most part, scientists aren´t bad people, no worse anyway than the average linecook or cabdriver or airplane mechanic. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists administering the shots are similarly well-intentioned. No, what scares me more than vaccines is the specter of vaccine passports. In New York City right now there are restaurants that advertise themselves as vaccinated-only spaces. At the moment, it´s on the honor system: there´s no smiling immunization thug checking documentation in the entryway, likely because trustworthy documentation is not yet extant. If, in the future, vaccination status can be easily checked I imagine that it will be. Am I a crazy goofball to think that someday we´ll all be carrying digitized cards to confirm that we´re vaccinated, cards we´ll need to...I dunno...check-in for an airplane flight, attend a sporting event, go out to dinner? Maybe it won´t happen this way; the future isn´t fixed and knowable. But it´s not entirely loony to be concerned that the possibility of vaccine passports might one day further impinge upon privacy, putting control of our lives in the hands of some centralized agency. It would be different if Covid vaccination was a one-and-done game. I guess it might be. It´s possible that this single shot (or two shots) will confer lifelong immunity against present Covid strains and all future variants. Maybe. It´s equally plausible that we´ll be told someday that we need one or more boosters. Perhaps we´ll need shots every year or every five years. If we ever choose not to comply, the agency in charge of our vaccine documentation could turn off our card thereby turning off our access to restaurants, airports, public gathering spaces...who knows what. We will have turned over an enormous amount of control over our lives to some government agency. All of this is speculation and it´s entirely possible that things won´t happen as I´ve laid out. But these are not the ravings of a madman: please don´t call out the National Guard. To go from the scenario I´ve sketched here to the idea that future required booster shots could be used for depopulation does require a bit of an imaginative leap. I´ll give you that. Shake your head and raise your eyebrows if you must. Still, it´s not crazy to be concerned about the downstream societal consequences of life in a society where we are coerced -- or very strongly incentivized -- to be injected with whatever substance is coming next. History suggests that granting some government somebody this kind of control over our lives might not, after all, be the best idea.

  13. Two Steps to Not Two

    forestofemptiness posted a topic in Hindu Discussion

    A condensed presentation of Shankara's Advaita presentation: Even more condensed version---
  14. I guess the super highly evolved spiritual types are immune to COVID-19 as well as the Delta/Delta+ variant. Karma is a bitch!

  15. Are you vaccinated, or do you plan to get the vaccine?

    forestofemptiness replied to Toni's topic in General Discussion

    Always look on the bright side of life...
  16. This only happens in ur mind
  17. on a tangent: the historic Buddha died from Trichinosis , right? And not only was he healthy from later practice of moderation in life but also fully enlightened according to Buddhism along with having various powerful siddhis which he apparently and mostly kept under wraps.
  18. @Toni What is amusing about long term health problems from COVID-19?
  19. Football players in peak physical condition succumb to COVID with lasting myocarditis, probably for life. These guys were tested everyday for the virus. Some believe that if one is infected then just take ivermectin or whatever and all is well. Even mild infections cause long term health untreatable problems. https://www.si.com/college/tmg/tony-barnhart/myocarditis
  20. Sure, why worry about wearing masks, if you're not medically vulnerable or at risk of dying. Who cares about the elderly or sick, right?
  21. I believe many would find this interview interesting. At least I did. Enjoy
  22. Indeed!
  23. right (?) and if people are living under rocks why worry (or have concerns) about falling rocks... as for younger people (or any person really) in excellent and vibrantly strong athletic condition who still or almost succumbs to covid or other diseases then it is implied that they caused it, to which I say B.S.! Fear acting as a protective reaction has its place, panic on the other hand is a far more risky reaction. Worry also that does not become panic (thus is of valid concern) also has its place. For instance what kind of parent has not worried or been concerned about certain things regarding their kids ? Thus lofty sounding black or white generalizations about these terms can be wanting...
  24. Indeed. Worry and fear are amongst the worst of the viruses!
  25. agree, if you are healthy you don't need to worry about this
  26. In the same way that Cheng Tinghua couldn't dodge a bullet in the Boxer Rebellion, Bagua can't stop transmission of a virus. Magical thinking won't stop you contracting a virus and passing it on to someone else, even if your natural immunity means you're asymptomatic.

  27. Eating and alchemy

    exorcist_1699 replied to apdo's topic in Daoist Discussion

    It is said that stomach , our digestion ability , is the basis for our post-natal energy . And , kidney , jing inside it is the basis of our pre-natal energy , which is always symbolized as some kind of Fire . The ability of digestion , to the final analysis , relies on how strong that Fire below be . People after their 50s likely understand this easier as they now eat less , easier to have a feeling of stagnation after eating ..etc . To make thing worse, eating less means weakening the jing inside our kidneys.. so here is a bad , negative feedback circulation. How well ( easier to sense those delicate, subtle feelings , quicker to enter those statuses ..etc ) we can do the emptied Mind meditation is related to the quality and quantity of the jing we get ( this is crucial to differentiate the Taoist way from the Buddhist ) , so to any old -aged practitioner , of course, he /she has to pay attention to his eating and drinking . Hardly do Buddhist ways pay enough attention to this , but in TCM and Taoist alchemy materials , you get tons of mentions about them.
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