Mal

On the occasion of one such gathering, a wise disciple who was the prince of the country rose among the group and humbly saluted the master, saying, "Venerable master of the world, one who is virtuous without discrimination takes care of those who practice virtue and selflessness. One who is virtuous without discrimination also guides those who do not practice virtue and selflessness. Please instruct us. How should men and women who are motivated to attain awareness of their true nature calm their minds? What path should they follow in order to attune their minds harmoniously to all aspects of life?"

The old master said, "One of virtue and wholeness takes care of those who practice virtue and selflessness. One of virtue and wholeness also guides those who do not practice virtue and selflessness, as you said.

"Please listen well. Any good person who is motivated to attain awareness of the whole truth should follow the Universal Integral Way to clam the mind and harmonize it with all aspects of life."

The prince said gladly, "Most Venerable Master, we are ready to receive your precious guidance with great joy."

 

Ni's HHC 2

There once was a great white-bearded master who appeared at the boundary of the Central Territory on his journey west. Followers came from everywhere to sit at his feet, for he was a model of universal harmony. His teaching was simple, yet profound. His instruction was neither ordinary religion nor worldly wisdom, yet it revealed the truth of every aspect of the universe. All of his friends and followers lived virtuously and performed whatever work came to them joyfully. They maintained a peaceful, righteous way of life and enjoyed the abundance of their being. After their daily word was completed, they cleansed themselves carefully and fed themselves properly. Then they went to the garden where the old master stayed and awaited his precious instruction.

 

Ni's HHC 1

24 hrs, that's as long as I could last ...

Waiting for a response from Sean could take a few minutes or many months, that's just how he is from my experience.

and BTW the forum DOESN'T have rules ... outside of no insults. While think I understand what you want with "the forum rules for a discussion thread aren't enforced" there is actually nothing to "enforce"

Did some biblomancy and got 64 in Ni's TTC (only the last verse as the start's on another page ... and I was actualy hoping to hit a HHC quote )

Lightly made promises inspire little confidence.

Making light of things at the beginning,

one will meet with failure at the end.

Being prepared for hardship,

one will not be overcome by it.

In handling their affairs, people often ruin them

just as they are on the verge of success.

With heedfulness at the beginning,

and all the way through to the end,

nothing is ruined.

Whatever you decide to do ... I appreciate your effort.

well it's 6666 posts, truly the evil "mal" .... until I run my mouth off yet again

PS : did Scotty disappear from this forum, i cannot find his posts?!!

He has renamed himself (yet again ROFL sorry Scotty ) look for turtle shell

There is a lack of incentive for people to self moderate, which is what drew me toward the idea of being able to up and down vote posts. Right now, if someone aggressively topic slide trolls threads it leaves the moderators in the position of having to review a potentially large amount of data to look for a trend and then issue a warning and deal with suspensions, and when the person comes back they may mind their Ps and Qs a bit more, but for all intents and purposes they are back at the same point as everyone else.

 

People can have nasty attitudes and deride the practices of others more or less without penalty if they are careful how they word their insults. There is basically the threat of ban for something sufficiently detrimental to the community, but no reward for those who really put in the time and effort to contribute something helpful to the other members. The likes are great for posts that are beneficial but don't necessarily require or benefit from a response. Adding the ability to up or down vote things gives a more balanced view though, because not everything that is not beneficial is neutral, a lot of stuff is destructive, and without engaging in arguments with the posters there is not a method for members to indicate feelings in that direction about a post at this time.

Great points, voting up and down was available when that feature was first turned on, and "Down" was disabled soon after As a forum open to anyone, with just the rule of "try not to insult each other" there is such a wide variety of what people want and like.

And while there is a lack of "incentive tokins" for people to self moderate, over time you do get pretty good idea of who you can have a discussion with, who you can't .... although that's a bit more dificult now with ease of name and avatar changes, I'm often looking up display name history to work out who I'm talking to

 

Back on Mal's question in the original subject: I repeat I may not be the best fit for being a mod but thank you for asking.

No worries .... I never looked for best fit, constant contribution over time means more

So back to pins and subs, most forums have a pile of pins taking up space (they always multiply over time) and it's tricky and time consuming to re-edit and merge/move threads but it can be done.

The subs are a product of the board software as everything is like a tree. So to have eg Hermetic and Occult Discussion underneath General discussion just like a file systems the board then shows the folders (sub forums) first and then the files (actual discussing threads in that parent folder) as you navigate down the tree.

So to "remove them" you need parent directorys to hold the folders that don't actually have discussions in them (currently that's like The Tao Bums and The Tao Lounge)

eg the general discussions folder holds

1. Buddhist Discussion,
2. Vedanta Discussion,
3. Hermetic and Occult Discussion,
4. Book Club,
5. Healing Circle,
6. Lending Library,
7. Film/Media resources

Plus the threads themselves

so you would need to add another folder "General discussion" and move the actual discussion threads into that folder.

Other thing that can be done, the number of threads shown per "page" is (was?) globably selectable and also selectable for each folder. You use to be able to set eg General discussion to show 100 threads per page. BUT you then have to load all of those in your browser to view the page and that slows page load times which is why the board has that "view more threads option" at the bottom.

^ Bums being able to ask the teacher of a system questions, and getting them answered, in a long thread that's {I think still} relatively insult and off topic free

Isn' t that a good thing for TTB? Yes it's subtle advertising but try google searching " Flying Phoenix Qigong" ... wonder where you might try going to discuss it, if you were interested.

I always appreciate teachers trying out TTB, I get to hear about a lot of stuff and other bums opinions of it.

I also use to type and then delete posts like thelerner Found it carthatic.

cat I will try but I'm reluctant to get drawn back into TTB too much (I've been online a bit more than I'd wish recently) TTB's a bit too addictive (eg I'm actually at work at the moment) but here is just a simple example in the FAQ

http://thetaobums.com/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules

Uhhh, Where Should I Post? In the Taoist Discussion section maintain a sincere intention to keep your posts relevant to cultivation and to stay on topic if you are replying in a thread. The Personal Practice Discussion subsection is where you can start your own topic detailing your daily cultivation work for discussion with the community. The Contributed Articles section is for complete, member contributed articles. Feel free to post in there. Your article will appear when approved by a Moderator.

(my bolds) I think moderator approval for contributed articles was even before my time, I don't know where you would find that to edit it in the ACP, and it's really not that big a deal... unless you were new and went to read the faq

it's pretty rare for a real person to actually get the status "banned" "suspended from posting" is much more commonly used.

So I'd be guessing there are some 'bots that are now programmed to like posts. Was no fun at all few years back when 'bots worked out how to post an introduction then spam the main forum with adverts.

I see they are even passing "Turning tests" now http://singularityhub.com/2012/10/08/turing-test-prize-has-two-winners/ I'd hope to see true AI in my lifetime, which would be really cool.

(While I never actually got to use them I was taught to program using punch cards at Uni !)

BTT

Do you have the other one Swaim translated? - from 2008

The 2 that I constantly read are:-

Yang Chengfu “The Essence and Applications of Taijiquan”

Fu Zhongwen “Mastering yang style Taijiquan”

Both trans. Louis Swaim. If you do Yang style, buy these book, they are indispensable. This is the form that my Sifu taught me, except for a slight difference in sweep lotus with leg.

http://thetaobums.com/topic/4571-what-is-your-favorite-taijiquan-book/?p=49308

I think it's important to have a teacher to learn Tai Chi, while I really like where Meredith is going in his book, I wouldn't need to read it if my teacher was still in town and back in '08 I'm not sure how receptive I would have been (right message at the right time etc)

That error number is from trying to access a member who is banned, only admin or mods would be able to access it, not general users... hence the "no permissions"

I think it's a good point M, BTW Have you ever felt like moderating?

I have never been a fan of "pins" And once taoist discussion was split into general discussion there was really no way to stop the birth of the "myriad things" (i.e. subforums) :-(

But back to"pins" Eg Stig's pinned faq, where he recently posted he was suprised it's still pinned and that it needed housekeeping iirc. I actually once thought of unpining it, but the guy put a stack of time and effort into it and it would be a waste to lose it down page.

Apech asking about the articles section, which again is something we attempted to tidy up when it was getting flooded with poems, but couldn't find a way to do it fairly and without wasting the effort people were putting into the posts.

Imho TTB really could benefit from a good tidy up (a lot of stuff is out of date and needs to be retyped) but practically I really don't see how you could gain "agreement" on what to "change" from TTB ... I see debating the unfairness of moderating is still popular.

p.s. On the mobile the 1st page just scrolls down for a long as you want to try scrolling (like Facebook) but I agree anything past page 3 is pretty much gone, I use to like finding posts with no replies on page 10 and bumping them ;-)

all this "religious" stuff gets in the way just abide in non-dual and understand that all is just all.

 

Thoughts?

nice to hear from you mewtwo

 

I found the one by Master Jing Kong to be very down to earth and clear.

 

:-)

Thanks for the pdf Sati andLin for the recommendation. I had read the lessons before but this commentary really clears up ..... Well basically the "fixed" "variable" bits about destiny, that we seen to be discussing, in the 1st 100 pages :-)

IIRC he was trying to show that it's not like a "push" by using someone bigger/heavier than he could push. But I'm not much for videos, I really need to touch

(and yes some people feel so disconnected and unbalanced they basically fall over by themselves - and I'm definitely nothing special either)

I've learned that -

people will forget what you said,

people will forget what you did,

but people will never forget

how you made them feel

- Maya Angelou

The book is entertaining and informative. As he says having a good taiji form is required to practice as the book outlines.

Thanks for the replies, the key for me is what's required to practice what the book outlines. A Tai chi form, check. An energetics practice, check.

But are there additional practices and time required ?

Or is it more of a refocus on what you are already doing with your existing form practice?

The last real instruction Sifu gave the three of us before he left town regarding tai chi was "Feel the chi" I'd be reluctant to deviate much from what he taught, but then I'm also looking for more instruction and not having any success locally.

His blog looks good basically if you think his book improved you... that's probably all I can hope for :-)

The idea that if you simply do good deeds, the universe will reward you for it, seems almost infantile. Real life experiences disprove it as a general rule.

My life experience proves it, as a general rule.

Obviously YMMV

Anyone else reading Juice: Radical Taiji Energetics ??

http://www.amazon.com/Juice-Radical-Energetics-Scott-Meredith/dp/1478260696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353868796&sr=1-1&keywords=juice%2C+taiji

(couldn't seem to move these quotes from Resources into this thread correctly)

I am finding this book to be very usefull and wonderful for tai chi practice.

http://thetaobums.com/topic/54-resources-books-links-articles-movies-etc/?p=376170

thank you very much for this recommendation! Meredith's descriptions of energetic development in Juice: Radical Taiji Energetics, are the first I've read that actually describe what has been happening in my practice over the last few years! This book is a huge help in watching and moving the energy, finally offering a(n unusual!) framework that fits the way my practice has already been developing. I'm psyched! Anybody else fascinated with Chuang Tzu's statement that "The Ancient Ones breathed from their heels", check this one out.

TTB gave me something I, at the time, referred to as "The one." It turned out to be an experience so much more about me... and so much less about TTB Wasn't always fun but I'm grateful _/\_

p.s. this will be meaningless to all but a few good friends <3

the master continued, "one who practices virtue and selflessness should not hold any particular idea in his mind about how to fulfill his virtue, for virtue is the very nature of one's being. One should always be willing to assist others selflessly and unconditionally by offering one's skills and achievements to serve them. One should be willing to give away the things one cherishes most and even offer one's life to assist others.

"One should not restrict one's service by making distinctions based on colour, nationality, family or social relationships, sensory perceptions or any other relative conditions. To restrict the ways in which one would render service to others in order to suite one's personal preferences is potentially harmful.

"Kind prince, if one relates to others and serves them according to his own design, it is as if he had entered darkness and was blind. He might help some people by chance and he might also injure some, but if one does not limit oneself by imposing special terms on his service, then he is like a person with good vision who sees clearly and whose influence is purely positive.

"Following the Universal Way of life means practising selflessness and extending virtue to the world unconditionally.In this way one not only eliminates the heavy contamination accumulated throughout many lifetimes, but may also bring about the possibility of resorting one's original divine nature and becoming an integral being of the multi-universe.This is the only way to dissolve the self-created agony, misery and tragedy that are experienced in one's daily life.

"Every expression of life is the reality of life.One's every movement and activity evoke a response from the subtle energy of the universe. When one does not limit himself by imposing conditions on rendering service to others, the blessings evoked will also be limitless."

 

Ni's HHC 4