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👋 Howdy y'all. I wanted to tell you that I've decided to: Revoke all existing moderators. Ask all committed right-wing members of the forum to leave. I realize this may seem extreme and come as a shock to many. I'll do my best to explain where I'm coming from, what this means for the forum moving forward and I'll also request help. > WTF? Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie. No replastering, the structure is rotten. I made a fundamental mistake in the foundational ethos for this forum: believing that "no insults, be nice" is a powerful enough core virtue to sustain a diverse, healthy community. The problem with "just be nice" is that it's impotent in the face of organized malice. In a society where marginalized people often suffer invisibly, taking a clear, assertive stance against the creeping normalization of bigotry and even outright fascism whenever possible is far more important than being "nice" merely to avoid rattling an oppressive status quo. I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." — Martin Luther King, Jr. > This is about Trump, isn't it? Donald Trump is a menacing buffoon but also mostly a disgusting symptom of a very sick society. He's also a kind of litmus test for how deranged I find someone's morality. Being anti-Trump is not "partisan" (if being nonpartisan is even possible or noble). One of the lowest ethical bars I can imagine is finding Trump repugnant. I'm not even going to waste time enumerating Trump's voluminous flaws and demonic policy positions. If you're pro-Trump you almost certainly already know and don't care. This isn't a debate. We have deeply incompatible values, and I'm drawing a line in the sand. > What should pro-Trump and other far-right members of the forum do now? You should leave. If you're pro-Trump, I'm asking you to leave this forum. You're not welcome here anymore. If you're right-wing, please leave. We might need a bullet list. Here we go: If you're pro-Trump, please leave. If you're right-wing, please leave. If you're pro-border wall, pro-ICE, racist, homophobic, transphobic or misogynist, please fuck off and leave. The web is awash with other far-right friendly dumpsters you can crawl into. If you think it's unacceptable that I'm booting members with dangerous, disgusting, antisocial politics, you should probably leave too. (Sidenote: If you're some strange brew of anti-fascist, social anarchist, left-libertarian, or anti-authoritarian, democratic Marxist, socialist or communist infidel, please stay and help me raise hell! ✊ Are there any other leftists here? 👀) > This is an outrage!! ** shits entire diaper ** You're the real fascist, watch this 4-hour Youtube video, something something ... I'm unfortunately acutely aware that if you're being asked to leave that you're not going to understand this decision. I trust that you're going to settle on a self-serving narrative in which I'm a cartoon, totalitarian-communist, "cultural Marxist" suppressor of your patriotic free speech. I'm a hysterical, intolerant "snowflake" that can't stand proximity to your brilliant, hard-truths, lest I be destroyed by sheer "facts and logic". I don't care. I've made peace with your ignorance. Allow me to repeat for those in the back: This isn't a debate. We have deeply incompatible values. So much so that I'm asking you to leave my forum without further discussion. > Did the moderators do anything wrong? I sincerely appreciate the time and energy the previous team put into tending to the forum. If they made mistakes in terms of moderating, I'd hedge they were mostly a result of inheriting the laissez-faire, lazy-white-guy ethos that I unfortunately fostered and encouraged. If you were a part of the previous team and are not being asked to leave and you still want to help out, please PM me. > But this is a spiritual forum! Spirituality without material roots is a dead tree, my friend. The notion that spiritual cultivation, of all things, should somehow be categorically divorced from moral maturation and praxis is a "bad take". This forum has always strived to be a big tent for all manner of weirdos from diverse spiritual and sociopolitical backgrounds. But there have also been times when new boundaries needed to be set. This is one of them. > But what about the terrible things that Obama, Hillary, etc. have done? As I said, I'm not going to debate, and this isn't a political 101 education forum. For what it's worth, here are some of my recent thoughts on the center-right led Democratic party and the rise of Trumpism: The Democratic Party is not inculpable for Trumpism Trump is not a unique Republican If the grotesque insincerity of center-right Democrats (e.g. Clinton and Obama) are the reason that anyone reading this has hitched to the neoreactionary Trump dump-truck, please find a local shaman to unbind this rotten hex. There's a better and much more magical way forward. ✨ > I'm not right or left, I'm a truth-seeker, you're being unreasonable. I've found that people who claim they're "neither right nor left," especially U.S. citizens, are usually center-right at best. (And often worse, e.g., right-wing libertarians or crypto-antisemitic conspiracy-theorists.) The political terms "left" and "right" have ideological meaning. Likewise "centrism" is not defined via an attempt to locate a compromised middle ground somewhere between right-wing Republican monsters and diet-right-wing corporatist Democrats. I've written more about this here: This is what passes for "reasonable" politics. > What about free speech? There's a popular notion that the only civilized approach to social disagreement is to always hear out "all sides" in the "free marketplace of ideas", an imaginary immaterial abstraction. That opinions, no matter how brain-dead stupid or toxic, should always be honored and meticulously ironed out via public "intellectual" debate. But this kind of free speech absolutism is often a pretentious stance weaponized to platform memetic bigotry and silence already marginalized views. By extreme analogy, imagine if there were pro-slavery members on this forum. My stance is that it's a complete waste of time to argue with these people. It would pollute our space with the delusion that both sides of this "debate" are legitimate. I think most of us would agree that bans of racist and violent speech are appropriate. I'm drawing a new, firmer line in the sand. No racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, climate change denial, fascism, crypto-fascism, antisocial bigotry, or far-right bullshit in general (including QAnon and Pizzagate lunacy). There are plenty of other reactionary ashcans on the Internet for these "very fine folks" to brigade. Speech is not harmless. Speech has real, immediate, direct, material consequences on other human beings. Implicitly allowing socially toxic rhetoric to continue platforming itself unchecked in a space, poisons that space, and disproportionately harms the least powerful. > This is a slippery slope, where will it end? Fully automated luxury gay space communism, obviously. You should probably leave now before the communism and gay-stuff starts happening. 🍆💦 > This seems exclusionary and mean. It's exclusionary and not nice, but I don't think it's mean, at least not senselessly. Ask yourself, how many thoughtful, gracious members of this forum have quietly left after seeing relatively uncontested right-wing bullshit plastered across the forums here? I'm aware of several personally. And I don't think the bullshit here is undisputed because of implicit support. I think it's merely sidestepped for the same reason most reasonable people avoid challenging someone screaming evangelical diatribes on the subway. It's literally just not worth the effort. i.e., "the amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it." There's plenty of other subways on the internet to scream inside. This one is no longer tolerating right-wing bullshit. > Are we abandoning confused people who maybe need this forum the most? Meh. I think this question comes from a decent place. But this isn't a political education forum. My stance is that we need to reestablish a bare minimum baseline of shared values. > Are you still with me? If so, that must mean: You weren't asked to leave. You think it's okay and even very good that I've gone full heruka. Welcome! I'm delighted to have you here. I hope you'll stay. ❤️ And I hope you'll stand in solidarity with me as I perch precariously on this fraught limb I've now climbed out on. It's my sincere hope that we can reclaim and reenchant The Dao Bums as a weird-left-friendly space again. > Will you help me? I do need your help. In fact I won't be able to do this without you. Please PM me if you're interested in helping our community. There will be free snacks. 🙃 With Love, Sean

Took a picture of my fruit bowl this morning. You may notice that it is presently occupied by my cat Haomao. I've plenty of space that might seem far more appropriate and convenient for him to claim. But this is what happens every time I run out of fruits and nuts. This morning I was watching him impersonate fruits and nuts like the rest of us do but even more explicitly, and decided that this picture might be a good way to inform the rest of the fruits and nuts that the cat is now officially out of the bag. And unless this place goes once again from "too fucked up for me" to "too fucked up for me" in a smooth succession (may it not come to pass), I'm back. Hi old friends.

Howdy Bums, I wanted to drop in and say I'm sincerely sorry for being AWOL the last few months. 😔 Some context on what's going on with me. Last year I was increasingly feeling pulled into some intense life crossroads/transitions. OK, turbulent, I can do turbulent. 😐 But then I received a few quite impressive combo punches. Most notably, an unexpected (albeit amicable) separation with my wife, followed up shortly after with getting laid off from my job thanks to COVID-19. Goddamnit. 😵 I'm OK. Not great, or probably even good. But OK. I've been marching through several demanding technical interview processes to find a new job which is consuming most of my mental and emotional energy. I've bumped zuowang to medicinal multi-hour dosages. Otherwise I'm just being my weird, aspie, hyper-introverted self in my mountain-hermit quarantine. Le sigh. Deepest thanks to everyone who patiently reached out to me in my absence. Sorry for lack of responsiveness, I'm just in "sick dog healing under the deck" mode. I'll survive and hobble back here in due time. 🤕 In my leave, I've given Trunk the superpowers to help with any fires. Please be kind to him and to each other (but not to fascists, always be extremely mean to them whenever possible). ❤️ Sean

This is going to be a difficult thread to write, because something of the most profound nature happened to me last night. I can offer no proofs other than a re-telling of my experience. As DB's, we can inadvertently get a little competitive, as evidenced by the occasional spats on the threads - but I ask you to set ego aside as I relate this. I offer this as a glimpse into what we all want here - enlightenment. About 7 months ago I moved to the Palm Springs, CA area after my husband died. The grief I experienced for over a year seems to have honed me in some way; like going through a fire and having the extraneous burned off. In the complex that I live in, there is a place I go daily to walk the dogs. I met the people who live right there because they have a dog that looks exactly like mine. We struck up a friendship. Unknown to me, the man in the duo is a Bujinkan master. He goes to Japan regularly to hone his incredible skills under Masaaki Hatsumi. He is a well known teacher of this incredible ninja martial art in the U.S.. and other parts of the world. I asked if he had videos online, and he indicated that there were several on youtube. I starting watching his videos and those of Masaaki Hatsumi. What I saw in them amazed me. It is the Dao brought into the physical. I recognized it immediately and confirmed it with him. Captivated for some reason, I watched them over and over - couldn't get enough. He gave me a study manual (much spiritual and psychological as well) and I've been reading it carefully. For some reason, this tying together of the Dao as a philosophy and the Dao in form (Bujinkan) was what I needed to see. I've talked about self-realization on this forum for a long time. Apparently I didn't know what it really was. I've walked the path of AA for 38 years and in working the steps, one removes layer after layer of shadow within - both through acknowledgment of the flaw and making amends for things done in the past. I knew I was on the path to self-realization (I used to go to Manley Hall lectures in Hollywood and the seed was planted early in me, in the 1970's). My association with TDB's has been just about the most instrumental vehicle for furtherance of this path because we come from so many points of view, and yet there are truths that lie at the bottom of these points of views, or paths, that are universal. After a while, rough edges and firm opinions within us are eliminated here. In addition to the study of multiple religions to the point of transcendence of any particular path. So, last night. I was walking the dogs before going to bed and I stopped and looked at the stars for a few moments. I was hit by a jolt of energy, seemingly coming from the stars, that I've never experienced in my life. I immediately thought about Saul on the road to Damascus, how he was hit by a jolt, from my old Christian days. I felt a little snap in my heart or brain, like someone snapping a small twig. Something unblocked. Immediately after being hit by this jolt which felt like an inner gulp of realization - not anything of the brain - I heard a voice in my head that said 'I AM an enlightened being'. I immediately felt energy rushing out of me, going in all directions. I started to tremble. I have been a proponent of the I AM consciousness for 20 years, ever since studying The Impersonal Life by Anonymous. Within this consciousness we realize who we really Are. But I know today that I had never taken the actual inner gulp of self-realization that I took last night, where I actually experienced it. At once, my whole essence had no fear, no discomfort, radiating warmth, and an overall feeling of love for everything. The realizations continued when I got home. I jotted them down so I could tell you about them today. First realization: There is a responsibility with enlightenment. It is our purpose as enlightened beings to act like an enlightened being, in speech and deeds. It doesn't matter what we do with it, on how big or little a scale. We are the torch bearers, the frequency holders. - We are all enlightened beings. Every single one of us. But it's not until we get that gulp of realization that we really are that we truly feel the truth of the matter. No doubt remains. No questions, no measurement of yourself vs. some master or fellow poster on the Bums. You know in your entire persona. Today I woke up with the thought 'I am an enlightened being' on my mind, first thing on waking up. The glow remains with me. I offer this experience to hear from others who may have gone through this, or as a little roadmap for what is no doubt coming for you too.

It has been an honor to serve as a moderator for this great community. I need a break. I will never not serve those that I love and those I love are inclusive of those who might prickle my skin. They get more love. I value every bum. I read, or skim, every post daily. It is like taking the pulse. I will never not be here for you bums. I would like to take a more behind the scenes approach as in setting up PPFs, changing names, whatever Tech type things that I already do. When my mod ship is over I am still here for you and I was still Advocate and help in any way that I can. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you all and I thank you very much. Now, two people raise your hand before I nominate you.

Because the coronavirus epidemic that originated in Wuhan continues to spread, I wish to share a simple immunity-promoting technique with members and visitors here. Coincidentally, I learned this incredibly simple and easy method from a student of Andrew Nugent Head while visiting Hubei province, the origin of the current coronavirus epidemic, in 2016. Andrew Nugent Head learned it from Dr. Xie Peiqi (解佩啓), a master of Yin style baguazhang. The Yin bagua practitioners were in close contact with Forbidden City doctors during the late Qing dynasty, and a great many wonderful medical and health promoting techniques were absorbed into their teachings. This is one of them, and it is something that apparently Dr. Xie would make some new baguazhang students do for an hour a day before training anything else. Andrew Nugent Head said he sometimes used to do it for two hours a day. The fellow who taught it to me practiced it while living in a very polluted Chinese city with bitterly cold winters. He and his wife did this method for an hour each morning and neither of them caught a single cold in two years. After learning this method 3.5 years ago I have not gotten a single cold or fallen ill in any other way. I do not think you need to do it an hour every day to get results, and in fact I almost never do it any more. After doing it for 20-40 minutes a day most days of the week for about two to three months, I could feel that my body had reaped the effects of this method, and I was able to feel that I no longer needed do it with regularity. I now only occasionally use it if I feel that I have been affected by pernicious wind-cold qi and need to, in the words of Chinese medicine, "clear the exterior." I would estimate I have done it only three of four times in the last year. Here is how to do it: 1. Stand with approximately feet shoulder width apart in a stance that you find comfortable. Relax your body. Your knees should be straight but relaxed. This is not a horse stance, going low will not help. 2. "As though" there were a ping-pong ball inside of your belly button bouncing constantly up and down at a fast pace and guiding the shaking of the rest of your body at its pace, shake your whole body. I say "as though" because this is not a visualization; the ping-pong ball image is just a suggestion to the body. Do not think of this as "filling the dantian with qi" or anything like that; do not strive to imagine a clear image of a ball. It's just a feeling. You can also think of shaking a big sack of rice to get the grains to settle. The most important thing is relaxing and letting yourself get a chance to know what feels right. 3. If you wish and your environment permits, after you have done this for 20 or more minutes, you can let out a few loud "ha" sounds emanating from your lower abdomen. Three to five is of these sufficient; do not do more than that. 4. Close practice as you please. Best to stand in stillness for some time after you stop moving, until your body feels settled and normal. Then go about your day. Important notes: -If you have time, I recommend doing this 30-40 minutes per day when you begin learning. This will give you enough time to get accustomed to the method and get the desired result. What is the desired effect? After about 20 or 30 or 40 minutes you will clearly feel your whole body has become relatively "open and unobstructed" (通). This is an unmistakable sensation. For me it feels like a shock wave that emanates from my lower abdomen region and then hits the entire surface of my body at once; making the "ha" sound with your belly after 20 minutes can help to trigger such a reaction, but the sound is not necessary. When you shake unto the point of "open and unobstructed" you will feel subtly blissful and get a sense of "that's good, I'm finished now." Important: For the purposes of strengthening the immune system against external pathogenic wind-cold qi (and "breaking" pathogenic qi if you have already succumbed to a small amount of it but are not yet sick with a cold or worse), it is crucial that the wave of "opening" reaches the exterior of the body. This will happen naturally, though, and you must not try to force or guide it. -Your shaking frequency can and will naturally adjust as you practice. That's great, let it happen. It's vigor and up-down range may also naturally change, also great. However: do not sway left and right. Do not wobble or roll your head. Your body and head should basically stay upright, and your posture should be pretty straight. There should be no twisting or spontaneous movements except for small, subtle ones. This is not zifagong and if you trigger zifagong you will get different results. -If parts of your body feel sore during the shaking, try to let them naturally "connect" to the origin of the shaking in your lower abdomen. Feel the connection and observe it. Do not force anything. -Always keep your feet entirely flat on the floor. No jumping, tiptoes, no spontaneous qigong. You need to keep rooted. -Again, try to do 30 to 40 minutes the first many times until you are totally clear about what the "open and unobstructed" feeling entails. Once you understand this feeling, you can just stop when you get that, which might only take you 15 or 20 minutes. -This method is especially good to do if you feel you were exposed to wind-cold and you have the sort of feeling that you get right before you succumb to a flu or cold. If you use this method at this moment, you have a high chance of preventing the onset of a full-blown cold. Unfortunately, if you already have a full-blown cold, I have no idea whether or not this method will help at all (again, I haven't gotten one cold since learning this). -Going overboard past the feeling of "open and unobstructed" resulted in dry stool for me. No need to do this to excess. I think I saw a video where Andrew Nugent Head said that old men in the parks in Beijing in his day would do this until they got "that feeling" and then they'd stop and as, "ah, great, 'open and unobstructed,'" and then start training other things. -Never do this method right before lying down to sleep or rest. Only do it when you will remain upright and reasonably active afterwards. This is because doing this method stirs up a lot of "gunk" in the body, which then needs to naturally mobilize to the places the body will put it to help it leave the body (remember, for example, that lymph fluid only moves if your body moves, and cartilage only gets nourished and cleaned by intercellular fluid if you move). My friend said he once ignored this warning and did this for an hour one morning before deciding to go back to bed. He got back up an hour later feeling awful. -A very influential qigong master in China in the 80s and 90s included this method in his foundation practices required for all beginners. His idea about why it is so useful is very interesting, so I'll share it here. He pointed out that if you put iron filings on a flat surface and then cause that surface to vibrate at a steady rate, the iron filings will spontaneously organize into regulated patterns. He theorized that the various qi, electrical, and magnetic fields of the human body react in a similar way to shaking/vibrating. In other words, doing this practice takes a chaotic, disturbed "pattern" of qi and then "reorganizes" it. This, he postulated, makes it much easier for the body's natural defenses to operate, and has the effect of strengthening the factors that taken together are what Chinese medicine calls "defensive qi" (衛氣/weiqi). Given that I have not succumbed to wind-cold in several years and this method protected my friends in a very polluted and densely populated city in the same way, I think there is a lot of wisdom in this statement, even if it is just a hypothesis. If anybody has any practical questions please let me know and I will try to answer. Best if you try it a few times and then ask questions if any arise. Let us avoid theoretical and speculative discussion if possible, in order to keep this thread simple and accessible for people hoping to improve their immune systems. 祝 身體健康

Dear Friends, I wanted to share with you an exciting bit of news (for me at the very least ). My new novel titled "The Mahāsiddha Field" is scheduled to release worldwide in paperback and Kindle eBook format on December 10th, 2019. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081SPR24B Some of you longer-term bums here have read the initial parts of the book a few years back (then under a temporary working title). I thank all those who encouraged me to complete the book, and for valuable feedback when I had requested it a few years back. I hope you will get a copy of the book and enjoy it. I know the words I am going to type below are used very frequently, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart, nonetheless. I thank all you Dao Bums for being such a constant part of my life since I became a member back in 2007. I couldn't have done this without you all. Love and Best Regards, Dwai

Just returned from a delightful evening exploring new perspectives of gender dynamics. From a general, simple perspective, each gender's foundational vibrational energies have a particular shape: The masculine energy has a thrusting virility, strong, linear, direct, active, cutting, unwound, and structural. The feminine energy is soft, receptive, nurturing, inviting, caring, round, circular, elastic, and seductive. What I've learned tonight, from a female perspective, is that often women walk a fine line in how much safe space they feel there is to expand their energy field. Because when they do expand, it is often perceived as an invitation from the masculine perspective. How are women supposed to feel safe expanding into their natural power when men think it means the woman wants to be a container for his thrusting energy? The women I've known who do expand, have been some of the most courageous and strong humans I have ever known, and they must navigate male projections with regularity. This inner strength they have is a type of divine masculine stability they have cultivated within as a pillar to support their expansion. From a masculine perspective, the energy expands naturally, ever seeking an outlet, an invitation, a place to call home in the outside world. Setting and accomplishing goals and fighting others over them. Winning and losing. Conquests of strength and skill. The energy wants to thrust forth so lets do something with it. When men sleep at night, finally returning to a still enough place for the jing energy to condense and/or come forth from ming-men, it courses through the penis to form a non-charged erection that easily may become charged and eject at the slightest traces of desire. Because of the increasing proclivity of this masculine virility to not be contained, it easily responds to any invitations of yin, be they sexual, recreational, business, aggression, competition, or otherwise. And yet, the best examples of the divine masculine I have met have the strength to contain their virility. They are pillars of stability, calmness, patience, and temperance. They are like this because they have cultivated divine femininity within themselves to form a yin container for their thrusting yang. This is rare, as men in the western culture are taught that feminine softness is not a quality to be nurtured. Is it any wonder that in a society that frowns upon nurturing masculine receptivity, that the masculine scoffs at the idea of containing itself? Even on these forums, for nearly a full year we had a main board specifically for masculine issues, that remained completely empty (until I started a topic there: "the men have gone"). This male forum was empty, despite the main forum areas being literally overflowing with topics about semen retention and ejaculation. It is not in the thrusting-yang's nature to think it should be contained, and even after it was suggested many times for these topics to find a home this was not thought necessary. For some months now, they have found their way home, and many thanks to our staff for this! Also on these forums, there is a space held for women's topics and discussions, where men are allowed to post, yet are requested to avoid dominating the flow of the conversation. Again and again we see topics about things that only women would know anything about, where men are posting with authoritative ideas. They tend to post more rapidly, not allowing space for the women to guide the flow of things. This is a perfect of example of how the masculine is so naturally inclined to project itself everywhere, with the effect that the feminine does not feel it has an easy time of expanding its receptive field unless it wishes to deal with a whole flood of entitled masculine projections. And the masculine, unless educated, is often completely oblivious to how it is affecting the feminine. The realization I arrive at, is that for both genders to awaken to their true power, they need each other. Not in the old way, were the female is expected to contain the male's power for him, however he wishes to wield it. Not in the old way, where two halves become one whole. In the new way, where each supports the other with what they need to become whole unto themselves. The male supports the female by providing the pillar of strength which she can trust him not to violate her expansion of yin energies by being expected to be a home to his yang energies. The vulnerable female who has been scared to stand up for herself on her own may not be very trusting of the masculine strength and may not understand how to utilize it to empower her own unfolding. And yet if this trust is cultivated, the contained masculine is able to hold the space to support the expansion of the feminine and help nurture the development of this strength within itself. He does this by doing more to hold stable space than to take any lead - the feminine requires this space and needs to take some time acclimating to it before she may feel willing to expand. In time, after using this stability to understand how to expand, she learns what it feels like and begins to cultivate the strength to do that on her own as well. First she needs to feel what it is like to be able to expand and take the lead, in any silly ways she may wish to explore, and, in time, she will be able to learn what it is like to work on consolidating those more yang expressions into a strength and stability so that she is not limited to relying on the male to hold space for her. Simultaneously, the female supports the male by being an example of how to contain virile energies. She does this through softness, acceptance, and unconditional receptivity. This yin energy, which is ever present within the Earth, must be cultivated within the masculine. The masculine will feel pulled and seduced by the receptivity of the feminine. Yet, in feeling this pull, it demonstrates the operation. The male needs to develop his own pull, his own seduction, and a good beginning place for this is by taking time to rooting energetically into the earth. Standing meditation is a great way to first cultivate what it feels like to sink into and draw in the the yin energies of the Earth so as to use it's enfolding powers to contain the thrusting-yang. Gaining understanding of how this works, when the male is in the presence of the female whom often presents an even more noticeable seductive pull, an opportunity is presented to feel the how this feminine pull operates. He can match that pull by rooting more deeply, using one's intention to wrap one's thrusting-yang in one's own seductive field before it rushes out into the feminine seductive field. As a parallel to this, the male should avoid responding to every female conversational invitation as well. As she is expanding and learning to explore this expanded space with her own yang expressions, she may be naturally less grounded and more expressive without any particular focus. As she is exploring this space, the male is learning to hold the stability for it by saying fewer words than many. He allows his stability to provide the space for the female to open and take the lead, without trying to match her. This can be very trying on the male's desire to ever be in the lead, but provides a great opportunity to practice developing a more inward focus to nurture his containment field. In this way, the masculine is able to develop an understanding of how to cultivate a flexible and nurturing container for his virility. This virility changes and grows over time, and exercise and qigong are important ways to absorb this energy as it grows - it is never good to simply contain it under pressure without doing anything else. And yet even as it is absorbed, the principle of the thrusting yang continues to build without the development of a yin container. In addition to this, the lunar cycle, especially after the full moon's ripe potency is no longer supported by sustained growth begins to dissipate. This waning following with full moon provides another strong, often volatile pull on the male virility, unless he is able to pay attention to the change and prepare his own yin receptivity first. Having a practice where the male is able to nurture sensitivity to how his container needs to be regulated is easily accomplished by spending deliberate time holding trusting space for the female to expand. This allows the male to navigate changing circumstances in every day life with the ability regulate his container as needed. In addition to spending time navigating these pulls together, it is also important for each to spend time apart to work on cultivating these strengths on their own. For women it can be very helpful to work in a group of women, where there are no masculine projections, but where the combined energies can be very supportive of practicing empowered expansion. For men it can be very helpful to develop a solo practice where the man is able to return within, through soft, flowing qigong movements, gentle touch of one's own body, spending time pampering one's self, and generally learning to seduce one's own yang in non-sexual, non-yang ways. The dao de jing says to know the male, but keep to the female. In this way we learn to cultivate the softness with which may contain our hardness. Currently in our western society, there is much bodily objectification in the media and internet. It is common for men to be expected to ejaculate whenever the feel they pressure building up, often by looking at porn. This simply encourages the tendency of the male to let off pressure through external means whenever any pressure builds up in physical, emotional and mental ways as well. Meanwhile, the feminine feels the air charged with projections of this masculine and is not excited about expanding into a field where their receptivity is expected to give a home to it all. This is why it is important for our society to begin to consciously recognize what is going on and understand how we also have the potential to work together as genders, for we each hold the key to strengthening the other. The gender energetics are complex, and each gender has their own yang and yin. What is important is the balance and temperance of these dynamic energies, and how we can support each other to accomplish this.

Hey bums! Due to the Coronavirus my teacher asked me to translate and share around the following article. I wasn't sure where to publish it, but though you guys might find it of interest. It details a breathing method to boost defensive qi (weiqi) and help restore the body after an illness. The method is a little intense so be careful with it. Make sure when breathing out to complete release and relax the body. Moving Jing to Change into Qi: A Method for Restoring Health from the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic From a talk by Wang Liping Written by Hu Qiao Translated by Nathan Brine The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic can be split into medicine based on human physiology, and medicine based on scientific inquiry into the relationship between humans and the cosmos. With the later, the Inner Classic discusses how people can stay healthy and live longer by understanding the correct time and space to do things, and the relationship between people and things. When external disturbances do enter, such as wind and cold, the inside of the body might go through some small adjustments, but will we not get sick. The Inner Classic also pays particular attention to what a person should do if they are already ill. The Body’s Order of Life (人體生命之續 renti shengming zhi xu) is an important concept that arose out of medical research into organ function. The Order of Life refers to energetic processes in the body. In the old days, when illness had been basically cured after a serious illness or epidemic, there was still the issue of rebalancing The Body’s Order of Life. No matter if the person is still sick or not, there will be traces of the illness left behind. Mind and body, energy channels, and internal organs etc. will all be damaged to some extent. Therefore, we need to work with the four stages needed to rebalance the mind and body and bring The Body’s Order of Life back to normal. The Four Stages Rebalance (調整 tiaozheng) Condition (調理 tiaoli) Repair (修復 xiufu) Rehabilitation (康復 kangfu) In the rebalance stage, we follow the cycles of heaven and earth to rebalance daily life. We use the outer world, such as medicine and food etc., to rebalance internal energetic function (jing-qi, blood-qi etc.). Gradually, the Body’s Order is restored. In the condition stage, the emphasis is on rebalancing a person’s mental state and mood. In the repair stage, the focus is on repairing the harm done to the internal organs and energy system. At this time, The Body’s Order has already been restored to normal, but because of experiencing an epidemic, a person’s whole body will be weak, thus we will need to repair each internal organ one by one. In the rehabilitation stage, people can work to recover the body by doing baduanjin, tendon changing practice, tai chi etc. to nourish vitality and return to full health. During the repair stage we must make our body’s jing-qi (essence, vital energy) full, and bring the blood-qi back to normal. At this time we must use the yi jing bian qi 移精變炁 (Move Jing to Change into Qi) method. Yi jing bian qi is an ancient method using yinian (意念 intention/awareness), yishi (意識 consciousness), and shenyi (神意 energy of our spirit and intention together) to move the jing-qi and blood-qi to rebalance the energy channels, internal organs, and surface of the skin etc. Thereby returning the disarray of the body’s energy system back into a state of ordered homeostasis. In the old days, yi jing bian qi was divided into three stages: Use yinian to regulate the movement of the torso and four limbs to replenish jing-qi, to bring us back to normal in terms of daily activity. Use yinian and yishi to rebalance breathing and the movement of the torso and four limbs, allowing jing-qi and blood-qi to flow unobstructed. This will soften the breathing, still the mind, and relax the body. Use yinian, yishi, and shenyi to regulate the movement of jing-qi and blood-qi in our body. By using our yishi to regulate our qi, we will restore internal organ function, open energy channels, and allow the body’s entire energy system to run smoothly. This process reestablishes the Body’s Order of Life. Yi jing bian qi has many techniques. Initially we recommend a Taoist technique to rebalance the upper and lower parts of the torso, what medical practitioners call the upper and lower burners. There are four methods to rebalance the upper and lower burners: standing posture, stool-sitting posture, cross-legged sitting posture, and moving posture. How to do the three static postures (including how to use the yishi, yinian, shenqi, and shenyi) are all the same. For now, let’s discuss the three static postures. Standing Posture Use the wuji standing post posture. Stand naturally, feet shoulder width apart or a bit wider, both arms hanging naturally at our side with shoulders, arms, elbows, and wrists all relaxed, palms facing inwards, spine straight, chest relaxed, the two kua 胯 (two insides of the groin area) relaxed, two knees bent slightly, and two feet firmly planted on ground. Stool-Sitting Posture Sit on a stool with two feet naturally hanging down or touching the ground. Fingers naturally open, palms facing down, lightly placed on top of knees. This hand posture is called “Peaceful Form.” Cross-legged Sitting Posture Sit on a cushion or floor with legs crossed in front. Palms of both hands facing down on our knees. Relax whole body. After settling into our chosen posture, use both eyes to look straight ahead, look afar, the farther the better. Put yinian in the distance. Slowly bring the light of our spirit (神光 shenguang) from the horizon back to between our eyebrows. Slowly close our eyes. First, become still. Put yinian on our breathing. Make our breathing fine, even, and long. Inhale and exhale evenly. Slowly let our physical body relax. Let our heart beat more calmly. Practice Regulate Upper Burner Step 1. Breathe In Take a deep breath with our nose. Put yinian in our chest cavity and lungs. As we breathe in contract tightly. Let the qi reach the chest cavity and lungs (this is called Qi Fills the Metal Chamber). Breathe in until we cannot breathe in anymore. Do our best to also tightly contract the ribs. Hold Breath Now, do not breathe. While holding our breath, use yinian to expand the ribs, chest cavity, and lungs forcefully, at the same time let the spine become straight and centred. Hold it for a bit. Breathe Out Slowly exhale through nose (or nose and mouth together). As we exhale relax ribs, chest cavity, lungs, spine and whole body. Completely expel the old air from the lungs. Step 2. Breathe In Again, take a deep breath with our nose, use yinian and yishi to tightly contract the chest cavity and lungs. Do our best to fully inhale, filling the tips and lower parts of the lungs. Hold Breath Do not breathe. While holding our breath, figure out how to use yinian and yishi to expand our lungs, ribs, and chest cavity forcefully, and slowly extend the spine upwards. Hold it for a bit. Breathe out Slowly exhale through nose (or nose and mouth together), and completely expel the old air. Step 3. Breathe In Use yinian and yishi to breathe into our lungs, lungs contract at same time. Then breathe in again, and again contract lungs tightly, until we cannot inhale anymore. Hold Breath Do not breath. As we hold our breath use yinian, yishi, and shenyi to expand our lungs, chest cavity, and ribs. Figure out who to let the chest cavity expand to a point where the whole body gets hot, this will fill out the couli 腠理 (protective layer between skin and muscle in the body) of the body with jing-qi. Breathe Out Endure for a little, and then slowly and completely empty the breath out of the lungs. Regulate Lower Burner Step 4. Breathe In Take a deep breath with our nose. At same time lift up anus, pull up on genitals, and contract xiaofu 小腹 (lower abdomen. We lift up anus to seal in digestion qi, and contract genitals to seal in qi from our urinary tract). Use yinian to contract xiaofu. Contract as tight as we can, the best is to have the front and back of the body stick together. Inhale until we can not inhale anymore. Hold Breath Do not breath. Hold it. Use yinian to let the outside of the xiaofu and the xiaofu to expand. Then hold it some more. Breathe Out Slowly exhale through our mouth (or mouth and nose together). When we breathe out, the xiaofu and the outside of the xiaofu relax. Step 5. Breathe In Breathe in, lift anus, pull up on genitals, and contract xiaofu. Contract as tightly as we can. Hold Breath Do not breath. Hold it. Forcefully expand the xiaofu inner cavity. Again hold it. Breathe Out Slowly exhale through our mouth (or mouth and nose together). Step 6. Breathe In Breathe in, lift anus, pull up on genitals, and contract xiaofu. Increase yinian, yishi, and shenyi, contract as tightly as we can. Hold Breath Do not breath. Hold it. Forcefully expand our xiaofu. Make the xiaofu inner cavity, xiaofu, and outside of xiaofu expand. Expand until we cannot expand anymore. Again, hold it. Think of a way to expand the xiaofu cavity to a point where the whole body gets hot, this will fill out the couli of the body with jing-qi. Breathe Out Slowly exhale through our mouth (or mouth and nose together). The six steps above are done together as one set of practice. If our body still has strength we can repeat the whole set again, or even a third time. Things to Pay Attention To The upper and lower burner must be practiced one after the other. When we work on one area the shenyi will be in that area, if other parts of the body move ignore them. When working the upper burner, eyes look straight ahead and then move down slightly to look within the chest cavity. When we start working the lower burner, eyes look down. Use yinian to quickly move the eyes from chest cavity to the abdominal cavity. All the practices related to the yi jing bian qi method must be used with the Hold Breath and Cease Breath segments, otherwise nothing will change! In order to make it convenient for casual practitioners, and to avoid confusion, we have omitted the segment for Cease Breath. After doing this set of practices the body will be very hot. The body becoming hot is a manifestation of qi changing, this is the point of the practice. According to how tired we are after the practice, we can also Bathe and Cleanse (do silent sitting). Let the whole body relax. Let the hands hang at our sides and stand or sit quietly. Wait for the body’s internal energy system to change. No random thoughts. Do not think about anything. Just think about our body. When our random thoughts start up again, finish off practice by rubbing hands and face. The main point with regulating the upper and lower burner is to strengthen our defensive qi, and replenish our internal organs. This practice will definitely heat up the chest cavity and abdominal cavity, and even the whole body. This is an indicator that the defensive qi is full. The body’s couli is inflated by the defensive qi, and using yi jing bian qi is a great way to get it activated. Defensive qi goes from inner to outer to protect our physical body’s skin and body pores. When our couli is filled out then bad qi cannot come into our body. Therefore, if you are stuck at home with nothing to do, I suggest giving it a try.

Hard Light guru Mark Griffin took mahasamadhi October 24th, 2018. i don't know who hangs out around here these days, but i didn't see that anyone had posted the news, so i thought i might do so. Mark was a Godsend to me. here's a copy of something i shared on Facebook a week and a half ago: the first time i ever experienced true, deep spiritual intoxication was with this man. it was my first meditation intensive with him. i was late because of all the road blocks in San Francisco, and that made me frustrated. that wasn't the energy i wanted to walk in with, but i was already late. Lee Schwing was the lady sitting at the registration table (bless her!), and she just gave me a smile, checked my registration, and welcomed me in. my mind was scrambled. i HATED being one of the only black people there and having to be the late guy. i also hated feeling so agitated; it made me feel as if i had failed before i even arrived. so i walked into the room and the first meditation session had already begun. as i quietly made my way to where i was going to sit, Mark looked up at me, made brief eye-contact with me, smiled, then went right back into meditation. that was it. that was all he did. i had never met this man before, but with that small gesture, all of the tension left my body. all the agitated chatter in my mind just stopped. my shoulders relaxed and dropped, and feelings of love gently poured into me until i genuinely felt as if i was falling in love with this man. and the thing is, i was! it wasn't some romantic or sexual thing, but my experience of Mark was literally love at first sight. that day i reached a meditative depth i had never experienced before. a day or two later i was still processing what had occurred at the day-long intensive. confusion and doubt came flooding back in, wondering if some hypnotic trick had been played on me, trying to dispute that what had occurred that day was even possible. i was already familiar with subtle energy and healing transmission through the hands and whatnot, but the magnitude of what i had experienced, and the context (with it all beginning with a brief smile) was just on another level. so i just kept looking for reasons to doubt & dismiss it. that's when it happened. suddenly, like an eruption, i was overcome with with this incredible, intoxicating, energizing love-bliss. it was better than any mushrooms i had experimented with in my 20's. it was pure, no distortion or nausea, just heat radiating through my back, and electricity buzzing through my teeth. this lasted for about 3 days, rising and falling in waves, but present the entire time. the truly mystical events that occurred during all of this i will save for myself and my students. FB is not an appropriate place for my complete truth. i became a sincere student of Mark. i grew so quickly. so many spiritual teachings and beliefs that i thought were nonsense proved themselves to be legit. and that has been my approach: to believe only what i can experience or discern for myself to be true, reading through scriptures more for confirmation rather than information. checking my direct experiences with the writings of those who came before me. it has been an amazing journey! and it all really began with this man. thank you SO MUCH, Mark Griffin. i'll see you soon, Big Brother. Om Namah Shivaya.

NOTE: This is not going to be a debate topic. I stopped debating right-wing dipshits many years ago for literally the same reason I don't argue with small children. Don't post right-wing bullshit in this topic. I'm in a mood and you've been warned. I'm curious if there are any actual leftists on this forum? To be clear, I don't mean neoliberal or "progressive" Democrats. I mean bonafide anti-fascists, left-anarchists, left-libertarians, Marxists, socialists or communists. I haven't been active on here in years. (Short story: I fell in love, crisscrossed the country twice, leveled-up my engineering career, got married, bought a house in a new town, adopted an enormous dog.) It's been incredibly disheartening to see that many of the loudest, most active voices here are right-wing reactionaries and conspiracy theory bros. Frankly, it makes the entire forum feel juvenile and toxic to me. I can barely imagine wanting to share anything in this environment, let alone intimate, personal details of my spiritual practice. Is this just what happens to online communities post-Trump now? The vulnerable aliveness slinks away slowly from the boorish spectacle, slipping quietly out the back door? Trying times y'all. I remember often hearing this trope when I was young that I would eventually "grow out of" being a lefty. At 43 now it appears the prophecies were mistaken. I've only grown from Chomsky to Kropotkin to Marx. (With a cringe laissez-faire libertarian phase in there somewhere.) Hi, my name is Sean. I'm a leftist. 👋 I read a ton but also (hopefully) avoid retreating into purely theoretical astronautics. "If it's not accessible to the poor, then it's neither revolutionary nor is it radical." My perspective continually evolves, but "anarcho-communist" is a shoe that fits well enough. I'm active in community politics and not ideologically opposed to involvement in electoral politics. I vote for the least garbage candidates both nationally and locally. I don't shame people who conscientiously abstain from voting. I think pressuring the generally shitty, center-right led Democratic party leftward is worthwhile even if only as an exercise in shifting the Overton window and organizing solidarity. On a national scale, I believe universal healthcare is a medium-term fight worth focusing on given its populist support and massive capacity to reduce human suffering and death. So, that's a bit about my politics. Any other leftist comrades hiding out here? I'd love to hear from you. Also, feel free to PM me if you're not yet ready to come out as a commie infidel. 😆 Sean

I've spent the better part of 3 years upholding and enforcing the egalitarian principles of this forum and defending the thing you, @sean set into motion years ago. I left the day you chose to show how little respect you have for the team who kept this place afloat by closing reports and refusing to answer questions. I've come back here to inform you that I believed in what you had going here. I loved that it was a diverse community awash with different view, people and practices. Sad you've chosen this path and shat on those who had real faith in you and TDB as a whole. It's really sad... See ya bums.

The earliest taoist meditations were concerned with establishing connections between the Inner Gods and the outer energies of the world, chiefly stars and constellations and their progenitors and derivatives, and were actually, in most cases, much more involved than later simplifications, bastardizations, and fusions with other systems. They were derived from pretty arcane shamanic/magical (wu 巫) practices whose roots are lost in prehistory and whose documented status as the direct source of early taoism dates back 3,000 years. One of the earliest taoist meditations known to date, e.g., is the Sacred Dance of Yu, which is incorporated into some of the internal MA to this day, forms the foundation of classical feng shui (as well as other taoist sciences concerned with patterns of movement of qi in the universe) and is based on the dynamics of the Big Dipper (including its two invisible stars that were still visible at the time of Yu the Great). It is an example of a rather typical taoist-proper meditation, which is always twofold, internal and external (yin and yang), although in some cases the continuous interchange of movement and stillness involving the whole body happens simultaneously (like with the Sacred Dance or high level taij neigong and neijia) while sometimes the practice itself is twofold, with sitting-immobile parts and moving parts, and further, the sitting part may be twofold, wuwei-type and alchemical-type practices interchanging, and the moving part may likewise be twofold... to give you a rough sketch. The type of meditation favored depends on the school, but if you move farther back in history to before schools and sects, that's what you will find: shamanic/magical practices of an idiosyncratic "scientifically slanted," systematized kind, with a unifying cosmology and a strong immortalist focus. Simply put, if it does not concern itself with the Big Dipper, the North Pole Star, and immortality, it's not taoist-proper.

Over the years here at Daobums, I've interacted with a lot of people. All good people (even those who have argued with me most vehemently, and I with them). I've had what many would call an "awakening", but it is really a non-event really as there's no separate entity who wakes up. It is just a shift of perspective. This doesn't really make me a "special" individual, rather it makes it clear to me that I am nobody...nothing. The "I" that lived in the material world just dropped it's hold on my attention. And then I realized that I was never not that which supposedly was "realized" in this so-called "Waking up". It was an apparent waking up, like one wakes up from a dream into waking state. Similarly, we seemingly wake up from a waking state into an "awakened" state. But really, all these states are that "awakened" state, just as all the masters and texts state. It is just that the states of "dream and waking" lose their hold...suddenly things fall into "perspective" -- that all the things that we apparently experience are just happenings and have no hold on us, the root of our consciousness is free, empty (of objective nature), non-spatial and atemporal (i.e. space and time don't have any meaning for it). Call it "Atma jnana", Self-realization or realizing the Emptiness of the Self. There are many many insights that arise from this, for the mind-body complex to navigate the complex and suffering-ridden world. Wisdom (Jnana) that arises by just staying with the presence, that is the root of our consciousness. In the Advaita Vedanta tradition, we say that "the knowledge of the Self or Atma Jnana" and the realization of Oneness (Atman is Brahman or Brahma Jnana) are two distinct phases. There is the non-realization of emptiness of mind-body (staying in the ever-present now) and there is the expansion of the Self to everything-ness. We are taught that the "oneness" is a matter of grace, and eventually we get there, when the time is right. @Jeff and I started interacting a while back (a few years maybe) and our perspectives didn't match wrt. what the "end-game" is. I couldn't understand how what he terms "residing in non-local mind" and "expansion of mind beyond non-local" was any different from just the mind just seeing more objects. What I failed to understand that time is that the expansion that Jeff was referring to, is outside the domain of the local mind. Do I know that now? Yes. How do I know? By taking the plunge (sic. dive) and actually trusting the process and the individuals (all kind, loving and wonderful people). I will try to explain how the non-local mind expansion differs from the local-mind experience. The Local mind is very powerful. But it's primary function is to bind a series of stimuli from the sensory apparatus into a "story"...one that the individual seemingly experiences. The story is the story of our lives, that we are "born into" -- with a body, an ego, a sense of individuality and one that experiences pains and pleasures, emotions, thoughts, is inspired to create wonderful things, is driven to do things - good or bad. In a single word, "samsara". Towards this, I'm going to construct sentences that will imply some sort of "special" doing, but as I have explained before, it is not really "doing" in the sense that the local-mind/body is "doing" something. So, kindly bear with me as I elaborate... When we get to the root of consciousness (the ever-present Nowness aka pure Awareness), we realize that all the happenings of samsara (life as we normally refer to it) happens on its own. It has no bearing on any kind of "doing". Until we get to the root of consciousness, there is doing and there is causality (karma). But after, it is just happenings. Like a few here have expressed before, the old habits and patterns start to lose steam and eventually just stop. If you come from a Hindu (or Buddhist) background like myself, you might have encountered a colorful multi-verse that we pass off as mythology (Westerners seem to study this sort of thing with mild amusement in the form of Greek Mythology). In this mythology are references to gods (devas) and goddesses (devis) aka deities, their realms, different realms (lokas), different rules for different worlds, etc. Most of us modern people scoff at these as over-active imaginations of our relatively primitive superstititous ancestors. I am happy to inform you that, such an idea is abjectly untrue. These beings, realms indeed do exist, and there exist "higher" planes. These are accessible when consciousness expands beyond the "local mind" level. There are many things to learn from these planes and our work in these planes inform us in the local-mind state. It is not the emptiness of Self, but an expansion that starts to encompass many things, including things beyond this mundane samsaric existence of the local mind-body. This is the expansion of the mind from local-mind to Universal mind, to get to the "all is one" knowing. How do I know that these states are beyond the "local-mind"? It is because as the mind/consciousness expands, each of these "planes" are accessible simultaneously, while being rooted in the ever-present now. I will halt my post here. I welcome your thoughts and comments. P.S. -- I'm not the person Jeff was referring to in the post about levels of conscious mind residing BTW.

Notice to the membership - The DaoBums has a new group of moderators, some new to the position and some coming back for an encore. The team includes Apech, Bindi, ilumairen, liminal_luke, steve, thelerner, and zerostao. Our intention is to provide an atmosphere conducive to open and civil discussion. We intend to abide by the guidelines previously set forth in the Rules and Use section and respect Sean's wishes regarding extreme right-wing politics. In these times of unprecedented stress and uncertainty, we have a wonderful opportunity to use this space to support each other as a caring community committed to personal and collective growth. We humbly ask for everyone's support and pledge to do our best to be fair and unbiased.

The last few years have seen this site go increasingly more political, and further moving away from spiritual topics. Discussions around things pro or anti trump have dominated the site, and to see this change has saddened me with the increasing polarity of the membership. I have not participated in those topics as I dont care, and there is no point as no one ever really changes their views. But, such an exclusion statement, just makes the matter worse and further locks this site into a political format, and mostly forgoing the possibility of free and open Taoist/spiritual discourse. The simple fix rather than banning or asking members to leave would have been to simply eliminate all political trump like discussions. There are endless number of sites to vote pro or con trump, but very few for free and open spiritual discussion. Now it seems that one more such site has been dropped from the world, leaving us with nothing but more increasing political polarity. Spiritual traditions are about moving beyond such dualistic views into greater clarity or oneness. Telling half the world to pack up and leave does not make the world a better place, it simple increases the framework of hostility and war.

Although his is not conventional Daoist usage of the term Zhenren (真人), there's much I like in these thoughts on authenticity from Scott Bradley...... Zhenren: The Authentic Person Zhenren, a term apparently coined by Zhuangzi himself, signifies the fully realized human being. It is variously translated as "True Man", "Genuine Man", or "Real Man". Roger Ames prefers "Authentic Person" (Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi; Introduction). Among his reasons, is his belief that it more faithfully conveys the root meaning of zhen which implies authorship and transformation. In other words, the Authentic Person is someone in the continual process of creative self-disclosure (ziran) in relation to the ever-transforming world. "That is", he writes, "whatever the exemplar might be, he or she is one who is able to express personal integrity and uniqueness in the context of a transforming world." If there were more than one Authentic Person in the world, they would be very different expressions of the same authenticity. This is because such a person would not have realized some pre-existent, fixed and ideal 'original nature' common to all, but the unique expression of her own particularity. And not only this, her expression would also be a consequence of her transforming along with her particular and unique environmental context. Human authenticity is not static, but ever-dynamic. It is not conformity to some ideal norm, but the creation of an absolutely unique, entirely self-specific norm. Nor is it accomplished in a self-contained vacuum, but in relation to the world of personal experience. We are called upon to emulate and aspire to Authentic Personhood. To do so is not to imagine being like someone else, but to apprehend the dynamic — creative and relational — that facilitates that transformation. The test of authenticity is integrity with respect to one's own particular expression of personhood. The Authentic Person, moreover, has not "arrived", but is ever-evolving. Authenticity is ever-dynamic; if we can speak of possession, then this person is in possession of this dynamic, not of some imagined, fixed 'state of being'. Yes, there are common, normative precipitants that manifest from this authenticity. Chief among these is freedom from the egoic identity, a presumption of a static, insular, and fixed self which must be protected from the transforming world at large. And this manifests as freedom from the fear of loss, there being nothing to lose, and freedom from the acquisitive desire for merit and name (thinking oneself and being thought to be someone special), there being no aspect of self requiring support. These are the signs of authenticity because they are also what make it possible. Authenticity is always possible just as and where we are. No ideal is required. To be honestly engaged with the mess that we are, to be sincerely at work in the process of self-cultivation, is itself authenticity. Being human is authenticity, where that humanity realizes itself as self-creative and dynamic. (from http://ramblingtaoist.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/zhenren-authentic-person.html )

STAFF CHANGES Thelerner is done with his second tour of duty and his presence and contributions were much appreciated by the staff. Rene is joining staff

There are two alchemical traditions that I am aware of, the western one and the Daoist one. The word alchemy itself is usually thought to be derived for the Arabic al-chemy, which means 'of Egypt' since the old name for Egypt was Kham or Khemet, meaning the Black Land. There are alternative derivations including a Chinese one, but it is certainly true that western Alchemy began with Arabic scholars studying an interpreting Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and so on. The Daoist term is Dan which means ‘pill or elixir’ - and there were two forms Wei Dan (External Alchemy) and Nei Dan (Internal Alchemy) - the latter using the terminology of the external alchemy to apply to inner energy processes (jung, qi and shen and so on). Because of the language used it was natural for western scholars to assign the term alchemy to Wei Dan and Nei Dan especially as the goal of making the ‘pill or elixir’ was very suggestive of the ‘philosophers stone and elixir of immortality’ used in western alchemical schools. This transfer of terms from outer alchemy to internal alchemy is the traditional historical narrative - but I would suggest that this is a misreading. I think in more ancient times, in both Ancient China and Ancient Egypt the distinction between outer substances and spiritual energies and so on, didn’t exist. But at some time people began to make these distinctions which led to the idea that there was outer alchemy and inner alchemy - rather than just alchemy itself. So is alchemy a generic term for ‘energy stuff’? - well good choice of words (i.e. stuff) but I think no. There is a certain view of the the world and of the human being (especially the body) needed for alchemy. Nei Dan is a well defined process - although there are different schools of course - takes a particular view about the human makeup, how energy works and what to do with it (i.e. making the pill and so on) if you are not doing that then I don’t see how you could say you are doing Nei Dan (which is what most of us mean by alchemy). Of course you might work with the Dan Tiens, feel qi and so on - so if you are going to be very, very broad about what Nei Dan is then at a pinch you might claim to be doing it I suppose - but you would be doing no more than laying the foundations i.e. the stage before stage 1 . Western Alchemy is similarly specific and is one branch of Hermetic Science (the others being Astrology and Theurgy) - it relies on a world view based on elements, planetary forces and the combination, distillation, sublimation and transformation of substances in a psycho/spiritual process. Again you might say, well I’ve done some energy work with elementals and so on … but unless you have embarked on the ‘Great Work’ then you can hardly say you are an alchemist. But you could say that you have an alchemical approach perhaps. I don’t want to be prescriptive - cos this is DaoBums - but I do think to claim this word some certain basics have to be in place. I see the word ‘tantra’ has been tossed into the frame also - that also definitely does not mean ‘energy stuff’ - but perhaps it's going to get very confusing to address both at once. Anyway my thoughts.

That was me too. I initially repatriated to the US for university and work after living in Hong Kong and Manila for some years. By the time I got through the first year of grad school, I got fed up with North America and moved to Indonesia, which in turn led me to a host of countries from Cambodia to Timor-Leste to Sri Lanka and Thailand, and now back in Manila. What I enjoy the most is actually what I like about The Dao Bums that I find sorely lacking elsewhere: a sense of community. It is a totally different thing to emigrate to a Third World Country than it is to go to London, New York, Singapore, or Hong Kong. The expats I meet in cities like those I have mentioned are part of one rat race or another. The expats and other denizens I meet in Manila, Siem Reap, Jakarta, and Dili are those who enjoy a new pace, and there's a wonderful kind of connection that starts off with one thing in common: we are all here for a reason and aren't here to be part of the rat race. Even if they aren't doing NGO or other types of development work, there's a lot more humility, openness, grit, and empathy. Someone hears my voice and they're another denizen who either went to international school or worked in a few countries here and there and suddenly, we're hanging out a few days later and training, getting drinks, playing board and video games, and meeting each other's friends while exploring new ideas and possible collaborations. We're exchanging books in our libraries and taking a bus to another province so that we can explore together. I can't get that when I visit my friends in North America or Singapore, especially in Los Angeles or San Francisco. It's a lot of "Hey cool, I was a voluntourist in Thailand for spring break" which is actually false equivalence. It's a lot of pissing about who saw more sites and took more buses instead of flying or working in the same place for a long time and developing a connection to the community. My time in Sri Lanka was up north where civilians weren't allowed anywhere near, so I don't think of beaches or temples and tourist debauchery, and the friends I made were a range of people from Lithuanian youth pastors in a Christian church to middle-aged Australian professionals who speak Sinhalese and Tamil fluently and have a vinyl collection as well as a stack of 1970s paperbacks that they were happy to share with me and a range of different nationalities and generations over Sunday brunch and a little cricket (which I still don't know how to play). During the Snowden affair in 2013, while living in Siem Reap, Cambodia, at the Russian restaurant while watching the news, the French, American, English, Australian, and Russian patrons all looked and said, "I guess we all hate each other again" and laughed because we no longer had any special love or attachment to our passport countries nor did we discriminate based on nationality anymore. If anything, we took jabs at each other for national stereotypes in jolly good fun, but our animosity was reserved for tourists who had no respect for this land, which was their Hangover Trip like Las Vegas, but to us? It was our home.

Master Wang Liping took a group of his Chinese students to the Antarctic in December 2019 -- January 2020 for some empirical research into the practice under extreme conditions.

Hmm... Perhaps we might want to compare this sad state of affairs "today" with "way back when" of taoism. E.g., let's take a closer look at the Eight Immortals, who did achieve something... if immortality and god-like powers count as "something." He Xiangu was, by today's standards, anorexic -- in her teens she started eating only powdered mica and became like a wraith. Cao Guojiu had family trouble that brought shame and persecution, that's why he became a recluse. Li Tieguai was irritable and bad-tempered, a disheveled beggar, lame and walking with the aid of an iron crutch. Lan Caihe never made it clear whether they were a boy or a girl, and it's couldn't have been all that easy "way back when" for someone sexually ambiguous (and still isn't). They alternatively dressed as either male or female and were carried to heaven by a crane while in the state of drunken stupor. Lü Dongbin, scholar and poet, was also a womanizer and a drunk prone to bouts of anger. Han Xiangzi didn't have any flaws of character, but unlike in the case of others, there's no evidence he ever existed as a mortal. Zhang Guolao preferred drinking wine to nearly everything else, and could go for many days on that alone. Zhongli Quan was a general and led his army against Tibet. He was beaten in battle by the Tibetans, escaped into the mountains and traded in his damaged military career for taoist studies. So, it's not impossible to have less-than-stellar health, troubled or failed social life, and all kinds of character flaws and still accomplish "something."

Right now across top of page is: "No more right-wing bullshit." which looks very "political". Are all other kind of "bullshit" okay? And does "right wing" mean the exact same thing in every country and area seeing this forum? I never did read any of the politics type of posts here. I joined to participate "explicitly in the context of Taoism and/or spirituality." But I can participate in this new discussion by stating that I am sorry people got into contention about political things here and maybe hurt each other or confused each other with that. Are people now being ask to take up a specific political stance drawn from American Politics situations in order to discuss Taoism here? Is it still okay to "just" or "merely" discuss Taoism here? Or must we discuss Taoism from, for example, a Maoist or Leninist dialectic or political bias? Or should the discussion of Taoism merely be anti "Trump"? I have never had any political views, but I did study much about Taoism and am in many other groups online which also discussing this and related topics. I have not joined any forums of political discussions and have little experience or knowledge of them. I know that I am not important here and also will never get any political stuff right as people believe in or want to or not, etc. So I will just do as always and watch the flow of discussion and try to go by whatever rules or restrictions (or now, politics?) are necessary to discuss Taoism here. I have no wish to offend anyone. Please advise. -VonKrankenhaus

I woke up yesterday to two unpleasant things, my computer display making reading and posting difficult, and reading Kar3n's post. I finally got my computer stabilized, but Kar3n's contribution to the smooth running of staff was so great that it will take a while to recover, and we will probably never have someone as dedicated as she has been. Unfortunately, you would have to be a mod to know all that she has done behind the scenes while keeping order on the front lines, but her dedication to the duties of her position was a powerful testimony to the truth of what she says about loving us poor Bums. Thanks Kar3n. ZYD

Well said mate. Like was just posted in the great quotes thread, this very potent quote seems apropo. "if you really want it, you'll find a way, if not, you'll settle for an excuse." I was drawn to Master Zhou and to practice what he taught me diligently because I was crippled and absolutely had to find a way to be able to walk again normally. To be able to run and jump and play with my son, who was five at the time. Two surgeries saved my left foot from having to be amputated, but the trauma from the reconstructed the bone and the surrounding soft tissues left me hobbling with a cane on good days, and stuck in a chair on the not good days. I lived in pain for years before the procedures and for years afterwards. One healing session with Master Zhou had me able to start practicing daily with discomfort, but stable enough to really engage in the process. Daily practice, even for a short time each day at the same time, gathered inertia to the very subtle energetic matrix of the practice. Within months, I was walking normally again. Another few months and I noticed not just my ankle had healed, but all of my old nagging injuries from a lifetime of hard martial arts, rock climbing and construction work had vanished. Several more months and my desire for most social media was intolerable and I dropped broadcast tv and radio from my home life. My diet naturally changed, my blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure all stabilized. My emotions became more stable and now, six years later, approaching 50. I work 60+ hour weeks in construction with no pain, an even disposition and much humor and joy. I wake up with no discomfort in the morning. In the core of my being I absolutely had to find a way to heal and I knew it was possible, even though the dozens of doctors I went to for the years leading up to my surgeries all told me it was pointless. When my cousin mentioned Master Zhou was in California teaching Qi Gong and offering healings, it clicked in my core and I knew in that moment, I had found my way. That simple practice and one 45 minute transmission and healing session, opened a door within me to manifest healing in my own life. As Zhou told me... "You are not my patient. I don't have patients. I have students. I'm not healing you. I'm teaching you so you may manifest natural healing." Tears of gratitude even now as I consider what his wisdom and dedicated practice allowed me to experience through him. *deep bow* I sense great passion and desire from the Mo Pai group. But what I hear from them, is excuses. About why they can't listen to anyone. Why they can't trust anyone. Why everyone else is following some bullshit path of uselessness. But the only one in your way is you. And that's fine. It affects those of us with experience and a path, not a whit. Because we are living our practice. It is not just a practice, it is our very lifestyle. It's resonant in my bones and flesh in every action of my day now. It's shifted my thinking, my emotional triggers and respones and is reflected in the resonance of my relationships and my outlook on all of life. My entire life is transformed... again. And this is not the last transformation. Just another shift in the process. The ever fluid, flowing process of my life and my path. I'm reminded of the great quote by Calvin Coolidge 30th president of the US. "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." There was nothing wrong with my path when I couldn't walk, on the grand scale. But for me personally, on the relative scale it was torture and intolerably unacceptable. I simply had to manifest a way to be able to play with my son. So no excuse would stop me. And it didn't. Take a moment to connect with your breath. Release all the bullshit. Release every thought you have ever assumed to be true if you can and simply allow a few moments of emptiness to connect to your breath and your core. It's never separate from you. The one seeming impossible thing to me is for me, or any of us, to ever be separated from Source/Tao by even a hair's width for one moment... ever. This is why I now find it true that Taoist pursuits are not about adding stuff to my tool box, they're about losing things. Stripping away all the assumptions and energetic matrices built up by non real thought matrices over time. Thoughts of others that I was compelled to agree to, thoughts that come from my own illusions. Some of them from my very perceptual experiences, born of believing thoughts that aren't real, true or even important. It's not about knowing the path. I don't know my path. I am the path. I am the way. So try it... empty the self, be the breath and in that core. What is authentic cannot fall away... so release everything and be open to what remains and in my case, that which remains is unfailingly my core essence. This led me to Masters Zhou, Wang Li Ping. My wife of 28 years. My life's passions and my own innate natural power. And no argument or statement from anyone else can shake it, because I know their words are just reflections of their thoughts and this next point has been crystallized for me as vajra. A flash of insight that is unignorable which illuminates a truth as hard as diamond. Thoughts aren't real. They're just thoughts. We have 90,000 a day. Nothing about them is real, true or even important. I don't know my path. But I walk it. I am it. Simple being. most of my practice now has fallen away from forms, but has expanded into every step and moment of my life. Master Zhou shared this with me. Kind Heart Quiet Heart Sincere Heart. With these, all of life becomes practice. Without them, we're just waving our hands in the air. What do you Love? I guarantee your path is linked to that. and it's never even a hair's width away from you... ever.

In the Indic spiritual traditions, there are many different paths to the proverbial spiritual "summit". But generally they are broken down into two main categories - Direct Method - This is the method of Jnana Yoga, direct inquiry into Self (Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism) Indirect Method (various Yogas - Tantra, Kundalini, etc) In the direct method, one directly inquires into the nature of one's Self, realizing that each of the identities we associate ourselves with, are not our Self (social labels, name, body, mind, intellect, etc) till we get to that which cannot become an object of inquiry (and is therefore called the True Self, the true Beingness, the true knowingness, etc). I have been lucky to have travelled both paths myself. Direct Method purists would probably consider me a "spiritual mutt", and I'm glad I became one. There are so many treasures buried in various spiritual traditions in terms of both wisdom as well as practical methods, that the journey of this lifetime became richer for me as a result of these, thereof. My friend (who has recently embarked down the Direct Method) and I were discussing this. He knows I've been a taiji/Daoist practitioner for many years (getting close to two decades now), and also have undertaken studies of Siddhar Yoga, Hatha Yoga and vipasana style meditation as well. My Paternal Grandfather had taught me a lot of basics about pranayama when I was a young teenager and my Karate training later on helped with some of the meditation/breath-work. However, a lot of my early practice was really instinctive. I didn't have any teacher per se, but I had many teachers visit me and teach me during dream time. At that time, seated meditation was hard for me to do, still I was able to meditate after doing specific breath work (bhastrika, kapalabhati, bhramari pranayama). At the same time, I had started practicing Yang style 24-form taijiquan. Overtly unnknown to me, I was going through these transformations, the Qi sensitivity was developing, the Lower Dan Tien was formed, my 3rd eye was activating. At this time I was also doing a lot of dream yoga (lucid dreaming specifically) and perhaps that is why I remember Swamis and Daoist masters visiting me during dream state and providing me with instructions. Eventually I found Temple style taiji and my first teacher, Master George Bolger and I dived head-on into Taiji and Daoist cultivation. When I think back to the early days, I think a lot of stuff was "revealed" to me without my knowing much in terms of concepts that I know now (wrt. spirituality). I was given a specific mantra in a dream, by a Swami, when I was going through an excessively terrible time mentally and also financially (without a job for several months). That Mantra had become a mainstay of my practice until recently and helped me go through a lot of ups and downs in my journey since then (for almost 17 years). In course of my taiji practice, eventually I got a point where my witness self emerged quite distinctively. As "I" observed my mind-stream, first by starting to meditate in the gap between the thought (both during form practice as well as in seated meditation), I started to get alarmed and judgmental about patterns I observed in my mind. It took me many more years of silent anguish and finally my current teacher Master Jose Perez' "shaktipat", until I was able to come to a full realization that I was not my mind. The mind-stream is just a stream of objects that arise in consciousness. The underlying "me", i.e., the Pure Conscious Being is unaffected by the mind. My friend does not understand Energy, he doesn't understand all these "indirect methods" as he doesn't have a feel for energetics at all. One day, recently while discussing jnana yoga with him, when i was giving him analogies of how one can get to the same state of clear mind/no mind with energetic work and how any repetitive action can result in meditation, it seems I ran into a brick wall (For him, the direct method works best). Taijiquan and qigong are excellent practices to take what we get in seated meditation/contemplative practices and extend them into moving state. He was struggling to figure out how he can get on the "same page as me" wrt. energetics and cultivation and I think finally gave up. Thinking back about myself, for me the direct method was very hard initially. God knows I tried ... When I first read about Ramana Maharshi's "Who Am I?" type method, I was nonplussed as I had no "bearing" so to speak. I was deeply immersed in Samsara and my mind had not developed the clarity (not the same as intelligence) or the stillness to know where to even begin. Only after the constant witness had emerged (and after torturing the limited self over it) did Jnana path start to work. Don't get me wrong...I had the theory part sort of worked out. I had read my upanishads, yoga sutras, madhyamaka, among other texts, many times. I 'got it' intellectually, but it was not a experiential reality for me at that point. Right here on TDB, I've participated in many discussions (and some battles) over Buddhism, Vedanta, etc etc. At that time, I knew somethings "intuitively" and far less, experientially. Now when I see people torturing themselves like I have in the past, about effort vs no-effort, I mostly don't feel like sharing my thoughts. It is easy to talk about the simplicity of the "truth", after it has "clicked". Otherwise one has no way to gauge how simple it all really is. When Master Jose told me the first time I met him, "you will be surprised at how simple it all is", I knew instinctively, but really did not know. It is really simple, and yet almost all of us struggle over a "seeking", "a doing", in order to "achieve or attain some state or another". Yet in reality, it is something that is never apart from us. It cannot be found outside. Yeah, we've all heard the instructions of how we have to turn inward rather than outward, happiness/peace/God/Realization/Enlightenment/<Your favorite term here> can never be found in external objects. And yet, as part of our respective journeys, we seek objectively something that is the most intimate, most subjective of all experiences. It is always with us, never apart from us (Haha, and i also know how this type of platitude is bound to drive people angry, frustrated, plain bonkers with annoyance). Even in the inward turning, we try to turn the "within" into the "outside". As an object (or objects). This chakra, that nAdi, this Dan Tien, and so on. Until one day it becomes apparent...all of these are still objects to be experienced, but they do help point out the experiencer more definitely. Yes, Energy is nothing but consciousness. Everything rises out of consciousness, and sinks back into consciousness. The purpose of my writing this long post is to share my thoughts and also seek to hear about your journey, my TDB friends. And to say, that its okay to be a spiritual mutt. Sometimes the mutts are the most resilient, and eventually we have to realize that a raft is only a raft, no matter how beautiful and awesome it is. We need to use it for our travels, and that's all there is to it. Love and gratitude, Dwai

My wife and I had been hiking along a rising bluff of cliffs overlooking the Pacific ocean far below, in Big Sur when we were met on the path by a man veritably glowing with energy and joy walking the other way. The man gazed at us with a wide smile, almost as if recognizing us, then said unprompted "when you get to the fork up ahead... go left! ... it's magical! unbelievable!" Then he continued on downhill behind us walking as if dazed, and was gone. We smiled and chuckled a bit, me wondering if he was lit up on entheogens of some sort. I logged his prompt and wished him well, then we continued our hike. When we got to the fork, we flowed left and then eventually came to rest from the uphill climb in a grove of Trees. It was a perfect morning for me. Cloudy and cool with a light breeze. The unforgiving California Sun masked by a marine layer. We wordlessly agreed to come to a rest after the long uphill trek and sat down. After settling in place and after soaking in the enormous view of the Pacific Ocean, I looked up and was struck by several dozen Monarchs flitting about between the branches of the trees we rested beneath. The Sun had begun peaking through the thinning haze, and the flutterby's were enjoying the warmth of the emerging sunshine. And as my eyes rested on the space between the trees it really struck me, I'd never seen that many Monarchs flying in one small spot. We normally remain silent on our walks so I pointed up and smiled and my gal smiled seeing so many flitterers about us. And then it happened. Eyes seeing but not yet perceiving what they saw shifted, and as realization settled in awareness my mouth gaped open, I gasped audibly, stood up as my heart cascaded upward and outward with the realization... that there weren't just a few dozen monarchs flitting in the emerging sunshine. The trees we sat under, were Eucalyptus... this is California I realized and we had come to rest in a grove where the Monarchs return to hibernate, lay eggs and then pass on. This is what the man had been reacting to and urging us toward. There were so many Monarchs resting in the trees that only the trunks were visible. What I had assumed to be heavily leafed branches were the bodies of millions upon millions of resting Monarchs... so thick they dragged the branches down with their weight and utterly obfuscated the tree upon which they slept. My spirit expanded, samadhi enveloped awareness in the entire hilltop, the cliffs, the trees and the settling gut sense that this same pulsing of Monarchs, Sun, Eucalyptus Grove, Wind, Cliffs and Ocean had breathed this action countless times throughout the history of this plane... and here I was, rising in spirit among it, fully aware and wholly saturated in effortless gratitude that such a possibility as this arises in nature and I am part of it. I don't know how long we rested in silence in this grove. Eventually we came back to our bodies, and headed down to our campsite. The next day we hiked a different path, without even bringing it up, there was an unspoken realization that to do so, would run counter to the gift we'd been offered to be a part of... but that meeting has never left me. As is my wont... I began researching Monarchs and that's when I came to learn about this relative immortality that they seem to express as a species. In one year, four to five generations of Monarchs are born, travel and then lay eggs. Eggs hatch in about 4 days. The larva feed I forget how long before forming the Chrysallis that houses their transformation. Then once the Chrysallis is complete, a sack within their body releases enzymes that dissolve and liquify the caterpillar body... and the alchemy of transformation begins is earnest. 10 or so days later, the Monarch pushes its way out of the shell and emerges to continue the course. Monarchs live an average of six-eight weeks, before laying more eggs and perishing. But an astounding thing happens each fourth or fifth (i forget exaclty) generation. The Monarchs of this generation exhibit an immortality of sorts as they outlive all the previous generations combined and make the entire return flight to the ancestral nesting grounds in California or Mexico. They live four or five times longer than their predecessors! And return unerringly to a place they've never been... to where their great great grandsires left generations ago. In perspective, if a human lives 80 years. That would be like me, living 320 years and traveling back to my ancestor's farm in Trondelag Norway coming home to where my great great grandmother was born. Riveting to mull the mechanics behind it... do they eat a different food? Do they have a significantly different physiology? Metabolic rates, even basic perception... I've long had the suspicion that what science calls 'Instinct' is the ability to recall Ancestral Memory. To be able to recall Great Grandma's memories as if one's own, allowing simple expression of the seemingly mystical process. I have no interest in immortality myself and would turn it down if tacitly offered. To contantly witness the passing of any who share a connection would be a seemingly unbearable burden I'd not wish on anyone. But this Monarch longevity certainly seems significant, as it relates to 'relative immortality' and Alchemy and all the myriad Taoist practices and philosophies I've studied and followed. Long, healthy, vibrant life. What are the ramifications and implications to other species? i wonder while i wander. The alchemy of dissolving one's body entirely! (Or in my case, my mind processes). Literally liquifying and then reforming from a walker to a flyer itself seems the peak of alchemy and a great link to Taoist notions of inner alchemy and longevity. What must it be like, to experience the liquification of one's own physical body? Is it as painful as my experience with mind has been? Or is it blissful, like the emanating waves of ecstacy that regularly roll out of my abdomen and cascade out across my physical and subtle form? For the past five years, my internal and external life have been in complete challenge, disarray, upheaval, chaotic flow and incredibly painful loss and hardship. Yet they have also been the most liberating, expanding and rewarding, internally. Dozens of those closest to me have died... and my own process of inner inquiry has led to a now unstoppable process of dissolution and as yet... unkown destination. For some time I described the process as the feeling of constantly unfolding. Like a lotus, ever opening... old petals peeling off effortlessly while a ceaseless unfolding of new ones occured. It seemed to fit the feeling, but was unsatisfying. And then one day when researching the Monarchs Alchemy I realized why... I was misperceiving the process. In reading how the caterpillar releases a sack from within itself that literally digests the body into liquid... I had a piercing and revealing insight that I had been mis-describing my experience as unfolding. My new self was not unfolding... my old manners of perception, my old mind was dissolving! This subtle shift opened up magnitudes of blocked and sealed energetic flows in an instant of realization and abject familiarity and intimacy. vajra! In a flash I understood why the experience of the butterflies and my mind and body's reaction to them would not let go of it. There was a clue within! A clue to my very human, modern process, revealed in the ancient interplay of Monarchs. I have not been experiencing an unfolding, that is to come. I'm approaching it now, the reforming as what is to come... but the process has been one of dissolving of my former way of interacting with life. Total dissolution. Loss of all connection. Complete withdrawal. Loss of inertia or gravity for all former pursuits. Unpleasant in the best of it... painful and disorienting in the extreme in the worst. I now see why some of my teachers tried to shoo me away from the process. It's far from pleasant, yet I wouldn't put the toothpaste back in the tube now, even were that feasible. All of life is Alchemy to me. I started this incarnation as a sperm and egg. My Mum ate food that became a human. I eat food that becomes human... yet no where inside my human form, is a human element. My form is made of the same elements as Monarchs, only the arrangements differ. Like the sacred tones of the solfeggio scales, arrange in myriad, uncountable melodies and harmonic patterns. Alchemy playing out right now, while I type this... remnants of last night's meal transforming into blood cells, bone cells, hormone secretions... all without a thought from me. Alchemy as I inhale what was exhaled by countless beings, plants and clouds before me. Alchemy as the skin I used to consider the defining edge of my simple self, transforms into the very intimate connection, bridging me to all that is from this chair, to the center of every galaxy. Such simplicity is overwhelming and intoxicating... and in the face of all this interplaying Alchemy the one thing that keeps resurfacing is... allow release simply be Such a trust is growing out of this simple observation. A radical trust that I can eat 10,000 fish and never turn into a fish. I am what I am and am intrinsically woven into and through all else of form and non-form. This is it. I am this. It is natural.

As Dao is reversal/cyclic... so is TBDums... Apech, on his third tour, will go back to what he loves: posting boring buddhist posts. Karen will come back for a second tour of punishment. We would like to hear from volunteers whether they can be considered for staff. All in all, we benefit from folks participating as staff. Send me a PM for consideration. Thanks all... and keep posting away

I would love to hear any discussion from those who have experienced the death of a spouse, a long-term relationship. I just lost Joe maybe 6 weeks ago to an ischemic stroke from a brain bleed between operations. I am devastated. I am wanting to know more about this grief process from those who have experienced it. The first couple weeks, I was numb. I saw the death from a cerebral perspective; a few tears, but nothing devastating. I think I was still operating on adrenaline from all the trips to the hospital, cremation arrangements, a final ceremony to help him cross over. It wasn't until about the third week that I became devastated, crying at the drop of a hat. Anything at all reminds me of him. I know that it is myself that I am crying for, the loss of half of me, half of me that had been filled by Joe for 35 years. I am still projecting Joe into inanimate things; I keep a teddy bear on his side of the bed, pretend that it is him, and talk to it. I hug it. I cry from the depths of my soul. I awaken with my eyes red and swollen. I am crying as I write this. still I can smell his smell, feel his silky skin, look into his kind eyes. I see his eyes in the teddy bear. What is helpful is to remove myself from myself, and speak to myself from the Observer perspective. I did this just this morning. Laying in bed sobbing, I said "She is crying". That seemed to help. I am capable of slipping in and out of myself from the Ego to the Observer, but remembering to do so when I am in this state is rare. If anybody cares to respond to this from their own experience (Rene, I can't thank you enough for sticking with me as much as you have; I hate to burden you further) I would greatly appreciate it. I seem to be going through a 'stage' of suicide ideation. This morning, before slipping into the Observer state and saying 'She is crying', I was thinking that it would be preferable to slit my wrists along the length of the arteries rather than across. Please, no platitudes. No pity, please. Just help me get through this and let me know what to expect.

In context of self-inquiry and self-realization, when one starts down this path, one is ignorant of their self-nature (this ignorance is called avidya). The ignorance is because one identifies as their "Self", the body and mind, and the various things that the body-mind allegedly possesses and does (profession, possessions, passions, talents, skills, so on and so forth). So one might say, they are blissfully unaware of the "reality" and live mired in drama of samsara. As one starts the journey of self-inquiry, eventually they will encounter the fact that all that they had previously thought of as being their "self" is not actually that at all. Not everyone gets there quickly. Some suffer and struggle as a result of the inherent lack of knowledge of the fact that, IT, that which observes the body, mind and the countless objects of the universe ebb and flow, is the Self. But this Self has no properties that can be really observed, as it is the very subject that is the source of all experience, and all objects. In the period between embarking on this path and realizing what one truly is, is a painful period (at least was for me). It is rife with suffering of a special kind (some call it the "dark night of the soul"). It really is a "trial by fire", a "rite of passage" and paying debts with "blood"...but I wouldn't have it any other way, in retrospect. However, what drives me to write about this, is the news of that poor kid who committed suicide after going to a vipasana retreat for a week. That was really tragic. But we know that karma has a role to play here. As I reflect upon my "suffering" during the period when I was clearly in witness state and yet did not know my real identity (or a lack thereof, in the common sense), it was a struggle. I was unable to stand crowded places, unable to look people in the eye as the contents of my mind would rise forth as I was having a conversation with them and "negative" thoughts involving them would fleet through my brain. I truly thought I was a bad person, as a result of the contents of my mind (and habits that were driven by the stuff I was living on - social, nutritional, etc). As a result of this (for almost 6 years), I struggled every day. I would still stubbornly do my taiji forms, my standing meditations, my yoga asanas, pranayama, etc. As much as I knew that if I stopped these things, I would probably over time go back to being blissfully more ignorant, or oblivious; still, I could not stop. Eventually, I entered a phase, where I grew numb and oblivious to the world around me. It didn't matter whether I had a job or not. Whether I was with my family or not. Even whether I did my practice or not. During this period, I would intermittently stop practice and then start again, when I felt like it. Maybe, I was comfortably numb. In retrospect, becoming numb actually helped me handle the energies and process the goings on. But then my first teacher moved (it was his guidance and twice a week of contact (for several years) that kept me sane during this period and kept me going), and introduced me to Master Jose. Even before meeting Master, I had met him in dreams and he worked on me (for stuff I had asked him to help me with). When I finally met him in person, and he transferred his consciousness to me with a touch of his index finger to my 3rd eye, he literally kicked my butt across the line and I spent about 15 days subsequent to that in a state of ecstasy/bliss. After that, for almost another year and a half, I stayed in a split state of being completely Self-aware and in the local-mind/ego state (Master calls it the Spiritual Mind and the local mind). During this period, for the most part, the Ego was unable to flex its muscles - it stayed a humble servant to the spiritual mind. And around 6 months after meeting master, my friend who had seemed like a died-in-wool materialist started practicing self-inquiry too, in the classical advaita vedanta mode. As he and I started discussing this, I started to try and articulate what was happening to me, to explain in words my "experiences". This started a process of categorization and rationalization, which resulted in my "dropping out of the split-state" eventually. There was a decay going on, as the old habits and grooves started to re-appear. I was rather depressed as I realized that, thinking "huh! I knew that it was too good to be true...". So I asked Master, to which he said "two things are happening. Your body is getting used to the energy and emptiness and old habits are re-appearing. But this is the opportunity for you to work through them and get back to the blissful state". And true to his word, the return to bliss is working, steadily and surely. The old "cold and indifferent" state (Stone Buddha?) has been replaced by awareness of the awareness of being, which is so completely ordinary, that I would have never even imagined that it is that way. We read so many glorified and idealized descriptions of this becoming "Self-aware" that it is almost anti-climactic when the realization occurs. And along with that realization the other thing that happens is the realization that there is no moment that one is not that (Self). Old habits and samskaras that used to bother me quite intensely, have become amusing. The "blissful" state is really a non-state. It is always there. It is just that before the mind-body identification had so total a hold on me, that it was constantly masked (except for those fleeting moments when the mind would stop). I won't even say that the mind stops completely. Just that, by being aware of the etherealness of the mind and not identifying with the body, the background looms large and it's ever-present nature is apparent. This too is a stage, I know now. The dive is going to keep getting deeper...

Is anybody else getting tired of wanting to be right? I`m in the process of reevaluating my participation in Daobums, and one of the things I`m looking at is this desire to be right. Both my own desire and that of other people. It comes up everywhere but especially in Political threads. Who is right? There are people for Trump or those against him. Those who want the Boy Scouts to have nothing to do with girls, and those who welcome girls programs within the umbrella of the organization. Those who want to limit the sale of guns and those who feel proud of their personal armory. It`s all a bit much. A bum recently used a word I`d never heard before: pussification. He meant it, as you might imagine, in a negative way. It seems liberals are trying to pussify Western culture, a trend he found objectionable. Although he wasn`t talking to me, I can`t help but feel like one of the most flagrant pussifiers on the board. It`s not a good feeling. People will tell me that if I`m too sensitive I should stay out of political threads, and of course they have a point. But this wanting-to-be-right disease has infected more than just Off-Grid. It`s everywhere. At it`s best, I believe the Daobums is about helping each other. There`s a spirit of cooperation and sharing. Not so much virtual head shaking about how terrible other people are. Don`t get me wrong -- I like a good battle as much as anybody else. Still, I`m coming to the conclusion that internet squabbling isn`t good for me. I come to the Daobums for spiritual inspiration, to find resources and information that will help me come into alignment with my best self. Often enough, that`s just what I find. All to often though, I`ll sink into the quicksand of wanting-to-be-right.

Mid-Autumn Festival, aka the Moon Festival, the second most prominent Chinese holiday after the New Year, fell on October 4th this time around, which was yesterday. The moon, as always on this day, was spectacular. The most beautiful moon of the year, as usual. I bowed to Lady Chang-O and her rabbit, as usual. I believe I never told the story of the rabbit on the moon here although I did tell the story of Lady Chang-O. So here goes: Once upon a time, many moons ago, three taoist immortals were walking through the woods, pretending to be beggars, asking animals to give them some food so as to test their moral character. A wolf and a bear gladly gave them what they had. The rabbit, however, had nothing to offer them. He didn't want to come across as greedy, useless, or otherwise to lose face, so he exclaimed, "Well, since I have nothing else to offer, venerable sages, I offer myself!" -- and jumped into the fire to get roasted! (Yup, taoist immortals are not vegetarians.) The three sages, moved by his self-sacrifice, decided it would not be nice to eat such a selfless creature, so they made the rabbit immortal, conferred alchemical skills, and sent him to the moon to serve Lady Chang-O in and around her cinnamon palace. You can clearly see him grind herbs in a large mortar when the moon is particularly bright.

The earth rotates on an axis, or pole that runs from goes from North to South, this is why the Sun and stars seem to rise and set in the East and West, thus the ends of the "Pole" were seen as unchanging and the East and West as change and transformation. Since these ideas developed in the Northern Hemisphere the part of the pole that is visible is the North Pole and at the time these ideas were being developed the North Star was almost exactly North and everything seemed to rotate around it as the "Center of Heaven", with the stars of the Dipper, or Bushel as the Chines call it permanently pointing in that direction. Later when the Chinese developed the Loshu, the magic square of nine, this became formalized with the number one in the North as the Origin, thus the North Star became the star of the Heavenly Center, the One and the origin, and was associated with the trigram Kan, water, the original element from which the others arose, as taught in the Taiyi Shenshui, the Great One gave birth to Water. Everything in traditional Chinese cosmology, not just Daoist cosmology, was built around these ideas.

Just to be clear, these are part of the fundamental rules of the Dao Bums: and are the reasons why there will not be a "Grand Inquisitor" to "pontificate" on real or fake practices on Dao Bums staff, as far as the owner and staff are concerned, you all have to make up your own minds. I have been on The Dao Bums long enough to see several groups of people try to monopolize the Dao Bums, so far none have succeeded, and I personally hope that neither they nor anyone else ever does. ZYD

I try to practice no-practice, but it ends up being practice. So then I stop practicing, and once I realize it's no-practice, I automatically start practicing and thus defeats the purpose. One day I'll give up all practices and achieve the elusive no-practice practice. But it takes practice...

I practice no-practice. And that isn't as easy as it sounds.

Mixing practices and looking for advice? Earl Grey tells it like it is, he doesn´t care about nice. Chia says be celibate, get your immortal peach. Freeform says be careful, you´ll become perverted leech. Taomeow knows her yin and yang, she´s a genius cat But if you try to fight her, she´ll swat you like a knat. Guys come here to get power, attract all the girls It´s a real Taobum bummer, why aren´t you casting pearls?

I guess everyone will recommend an approach based on their own rodeo. Some, on their not-my-first rodeo. So my suggestions will be based on mine. Start with mastering one taoist practice. One. But master it. That's the only way to find out if you have what it takes to have more than one, or even need more than one. You can have three or four or ten thousand. It doesn't matter, they're all connected, but if you're master of none, it doesn't matter how many you have dabbled in. I know ten thousand things, and personally engage in three. A moving practice, a sitting practice, and theory explorations. None of these three are at odds with the other two, none contradict, overrule, take in an altogether different direction, or invalidate each other. All of them complement each other and serve each other. Which one is stronger at any given point depends on which one begs strengthening. It's a moving equilibrium, where overemphasizing one may take away from the other two, and then I try to self-adjust. But I started with just one, expanded to "ten thousand," then shrunk it back, scaled it down, identified three venues to explore and took the rest from there. I like this approach because it is capable of providing a "second" and "third" opinion on any one of my practices from the other two. Oh, I also had and have teachers and, despite being naturally all the things that would seemingly make following a teacher to a T impossible -- rebellious, creative, eclectic and familiar with many different cultural traditions (including empirically), I chose to learn without challenging and see what happens. What happened is, the more I learned, the less I felt like challenging or rethinking or "creatively approaching" much of what I learned, while at the same time highlighting all the places where I do feel qualified to question, modify, use a different approach. The difference being, now it can be done not to humor some inherent personality traits causing a beginner or a spiritual business person to seek opportunities to establish "my very own" "bigger-better" but because of some gradually acquired competence that increased my trust in my own judgment. Trusting one's own judgment on faith alone is usually a trap. Weaponize your curiosity, sharpen it, polish it, give it an edge capable of penetrating any mystery like a butter knife penetrates a stick of butter. Use it in a battle for your best judgment. Don't treat your curiosity as a junk drawer to throw half the world's arsenal into, every spear's handle broken, every arrowhead dull and rusty, every pistol jammed, every pouch of gunpowder wet. You don't need a drawerful of junk. You don't even need an open carry permit. You just need, to allude to a popular culture item now drawing some attention due to the ongoing BBC TV series, a subtle knife. Also sprach Taomeow.

I still remember the first branching of "daoist" off the "general" and the reason it happened. It happened because taoists (it was still TTB then) and taoist sympathizers were vastly outnumbered and incessantly outshouted in the general area by members of far more densely populated denominations, chiefly buddhists and new agers. Some of the latter, encouraged by their strength in numbers, derailed every single taoist-proper thread by pointing out that it's not real dharma, it's samsara, it's maya, it's against the Law of One, against the Law of Attraction, and not what Jesus would have done. The embattled taoists, ganged up on and cornered and bruised, used up all their qi on hissing and meowing back in response to all these allegations, in a cloud of cat fur torn out by mala-twirling, khorlo-spinning hands of the hordes of pious sages, occasionally swinging back a paw and tearing a claw mark into a priestly robe. Well, one or two of them may have done it, not saying all taoists fight back, but when it was proposed to give taoists a place for taoist-proper exchanges, all taoists and sympathizers rejoiced if memory serves. Considering this past experience, I propose a choice of two possible solutions: 1. still keep a daoist proper area alongside general, and maybe put daoist textual studies there as well; or 2. extend some minority protections to daoist-proper discussions. I don't know what shape or form those might take, but I anticipate the need for them. And a far more important proposal: reinstate mod rotation and stipulate that this rule can never be suspended again. I believe this particular rule is needed more than all other innovations combined. Just imagine this on the news tomorrow: the president has decided to abolish all rotations in the oval office. No more presidents coming and going, end of story, whoever is in the office is forever. Regardless of anyone's subjective feelings about this or that past mod, objectively, we were stuck with a Putin-like and possibly a Kim Jong Un-like deal, though even Putin and Kim Jong Un were at least pretend elected. The unelected mods who come and never go away are perhaps wonderful people when they start out -- then complete lack of accountability coupled with this realization at the back of their minds -- I do whatever I want so suck it up because I'm here to stay -- forever -- changes even the best (yes it can, and yes it does) into, sometimes, screwy mods, sometimes triumphant abusive bullies, and sometimes just into burned-out whateverists. Please let's not risk it happening again.

My brother's wife is Mexican. She and their children are of a rich, brown complexion and she retains a distinct Mexican accent. Since Trump's rise in 2016, she and her children have had to endure endless questioning from strangers about their heritage and legality, threats, demands to see ID, admonishments that they "go back to where they came from," and so forth. This happens at work, at school, in the community, anywhere! My beautiful nephews, children, having to face ugly white faces demanding they justify their existence. Why? All because Trump felt it expedient to scapegoat refugees and our poorest and most desperate neighbors, created largely through US foreign policy, in order to boost his political appeal. It was deeply offensive to see that same alt-right insanity invade our quirky little spiritual community here. The alt-right is a cancer. Cancer needs to be treated with urgent, loving, dispassionate, and radical excision. Trumpian and GOP politics are inconsistent with spiritual growth and have no place here, particularly not in the way they've been on display by bullies and bigots. Thank you again Sean. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

I am dead serious about this. Maybe some others will be at the same place I am. Or if you're not yet, you probably will be. My 92 year old mom has full blown Alzheimers, she's in a really good facility. She doesn't remember me or my brother, her grandkids, nothing. (Although she does remember all old music and lyrics from the '40s, which is how I bond with her now) I fear that I am developing the same problem. I have very little short term memory any more. I don't look much to the future any more. I'm in a strange hovering place that really requires that you focus on the Now. It's very much the same as being in Consciousness, in the place of I Am, but less blissful. When I remember to be In Consciousness, which I do to different degrees throughout the days, I feel great. But this seems to be a push-pull between the two: Consciousness vs. Dementia. The way I have learned to protect myself from making ridiculous mistakes, or missing appointments (which I do a lot) is to focus on the Now as much as I can. That way, I can still bring a little organization into my daily routine, but it's difficult. My mind is sort of blank now, much of the time. But the short-term memory loss is getting horrible, and this is getting serious. I woke up the other morning, couldn't find a particular bra, and found it in the refrigerator 20 minutes later. That's the sort of things I'm talking about. If you lived with someone like this, you'd worry too. But I am finding that staying In Consciousness (out of necessity, in this case!) brings an end to the confusion. Things do truly fall into place. But I step out of it for a few hours unintentionally? Everything turns to doo-doo. So I thought I'd just pass on the 'live in the now' information to anyone getting up there, or living with or caring for old folks.

Qi Gong practiced properly is everything Indian Yoga is (as opposed to Western "Yoga"). The quality of the teacher and the practice is not nearly as important as the approach to it. If it is for personal power and health - the quality of the teacher and the practice are minor items - personal power and health are relatively easy things to come forward with in even the most mundane of these practices. If you think reading and studying will take you far - they will - they will at some point take you to the understanding that you need to put the books on the shelf and begin practice. In practice you will find that you misunderstood everything you read - but you will begin to see a glint of the real teaching. Hopefully you will not forget that you misunderstood a great deal initially - and begin to see that holding on to ones "understanding" is not helpful - it is willfulness. Initially it is difficult to fathom "years of practice" and hard to see an extra 2-4 hours to be found in ones day. Yet when you have tasted the way - time will lose its way with you. "years" are a projection There is no miraculous recounting of what is possible that is remotely capable of transmitting what IS - all the books on earth are simply a door mat that says Welcome.

The purpose of this thread is really just to highlight the accomplishment (or reality) of what one of our members has done for an extended period. What people often call consciousness has a zero level, then many levels/layers of relative form and astral stuff, and then beyond that are the various formless realms. While this member is now back to residing more at the higher end of form layers (super guru stuff), the member spent over a year residing at what can only be described astronomically high (or fine) levels of formless realms. It is hard to describe, but this is way beyond what some traditions call “god realms”. And if you think of your favorite guru of maybe residing in comparison of a mountain top in height, this is like living on the moon in comparison. Just thought you might be interested.

I am feeling the only thing I have no power over. The death of my spouse of 35 years. He has been gone for a month, and just yesterday I found myself hollering in the forest 'BUT I DON'T WANT YOU TO GO!!'. There is absolutely nothing I can do to bring him back. I cry from my soul daily, I wake up with red and swollen eyes. Every other thing in life that I think I have felt powerless about, I was not powerless. I always had a choice, even if I couldn't see it at the moment. Usually lack of courage was the problem. I see that so clearly from this position today. To feel powerless at the death of someone you have spent half your life with, every single day, is to feel like you are laying on the ground, flat, with absolutely no power. I have no options but to accept this. Which apparently I haven't done yet. Total surrender is my answer, and yet I fight it still. I don't want to believe he's gone. I feel like half of me has been amputated. Yes, I know there are Buddhist answers. and yet I still wallow in the pain of loss.

Sorry no, actually it doesn't. The Chinese is: 知其雄，守其雌，為天下谿。 and 其, qí, is a possessive meaning his / her / its / their 雄 xióng, male / grand / imposing / powerful / mighty / person or state having great power and influence 雌 cí, female (yes, just female, or also Taiwan, but that doesn't seem relevant) So as close to "literally" as possible means: knowing, or being aware of (知) his or her, maleness (male aspect), “guarding” (守) his or her femaleness (female aspect). . . Where “guarding” can also mean: to keep watch / to abide by the law / to observe. The possessive, 其, means that the male and female are qualities of a person that are “active”, yang, and “passive, receptive”, yin, and are within the individual and related to conduct, not with whom you do, or do not have sex, or with what sex you identify while doing so. There is a complex Chinese cosmological and social background to this, which would require to much time to elucidate. The meanings and Chinese characters come from https://www.mdbg.net The text from http://ctext.org, Dao De Jing Chapter 28 These are good resources for every Dao Bum who, like most of us, is not that fluent in Chinese.

In my experience (and I have not read the threat mentioned in the OP), the facing of inner demons has to be the most challenging part of my practice. As stillness grows, the contents of the mind (conscious as well as subconscious rising upward) tend to do a serious number on most people. A few years into serious practice it happened to me, so much so that I wanted to stop practice and give up on meditation and taiji altogether. But I am grateful that I stuck with it. When I was not judging and feeling guilty about the contents of my mind, the stillness and emptiness (and the falling into deeper and deeper levels of it) was absolutely the antidote for the suffering. We all have to go through the process (maybe some don't and if so, congrats :)), and come to the conclusion that who we are is independent of the mind and the body. We have always been the Te wrapped in a personality. The personality is artificial. The Te (Shen) is real. Dissolve the personality and uncover the Te. Slowly. The transformations we undergo are also artificial, just the dropping away of the personality...