Taoist Texts

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Posts posted by Taoist Texts

  1. Posted

    34 minutes ago, 心神 ~ said:

    I would like to know what one should do to develop personal discipline to become a good student worthy of a good teacher

    one should learn to think in full sentences. a student of what? a teacher of what? if it really does not matter of what exactly, then  discipline will be   like digging when in a hole.

    • Like 2

  2. Posted

    1 hour ago, Nintendao said:

    Zhengyi “Orthodox Unity” 正一道

    Rituals of protection and consecration for the people

    not for the people

    Quote

    the primary activity of Zhengyi Taoists was to sell protective talismans. Local cults developed around the sale of these talismans,

    just in business for themselves.  not cool.

    Quote

    After the death of the 64th Celestial Master Zhang Yuanxian in 2008, controversy arose over the legitimate succession, with different descendants claiming to be the rightful 65th Celestial Master, including Zhang Jintao and three other claimants in China mainland; and Zhang Yijiang and Zhang Meiliang in Taiwan. Another Taiwanese master, Zhang Daochen, claims to be the legitimate 64th Celestial Master, as, according to him, Zhang Yuanxian wasn't.

    not cool at all

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    so What is the dan in neidan and dan tian? 丹

    There is a true lineage super secret parable about what this exact dan 丹 actually is. Goes like this: once upon a time there were seven blind gropers getting together to grope an elephant with a view to find out what the elephant looks like. But since they were blind they walked past the elephant, bumped into each other, made a huddle and got to groping each other all the while believing  they are groping the elephant. The end.

    • Downvote 1

  4. Posted

    On 9/22/2024 at 12:10 AM, Thrice Daily said:

    @Taoist Texts I have one daughter and I’m half way to becoming a saint me thinks.

    may the heavens bless you both

    On 9/22/2024 at 12:10 AM, Thrice Daily said:

     

    Can I ask , I realise you are busy. 

    not anymore ;) 

    On 9/22/2024 at 12:10 AM, Thrice Daily said:

    Do you know of any patriarchs of Yiguandao that have been involved with Neidan practices to any notable levels. I believe there where 18 patriarchs altogether over the years. Do you know if any were proficient in Neidan?

    And perhaps have any writings?

    not to my knowledge. All its predecessors such as Xiantiandao were neidan. But YGD changed the tack for the imminent salvation by Maitreya which makes ND useless, since the deserving ones will be saved anyway, while the evil ones will not be regardless.

  6. Posted

    1 hour ago, Thrice Daily said:

    What’s your take on Kua numbers Taoist Text? 
     

    Do you think they are useful as a calculation (for 4 auspicious 4 inauspicious directions generally).

    the directions per se are indifferent. it is what you do in that direction either clashes with it or does not. I personally dont find any geomancy useful but to everyone his own.

    1 hour ago, Thrice Daily said:

    Also do you know of good nine flying star resource?

    not really since i dont do any fengshui, i just know how it works. but this seems to be ok https://imperialharvest.com/blog/9-flying-stars/

    • Like 1

  7. Posted · Edited by Taoist Texts

    15 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

    You are very amusing, I'm glad that you are here

    yeah me 2! this is the forum for the incredible stories!

    16 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

    I raised my right palm followed the fly

    catching-fly-using-chopstick-miyagi.gif

     

    7 hours ago, Paradoxal said:

    getting flung about 9 feet (For reference, I was about 200 pounds at the time, and was wearing about 75 pounds of gear). Sifu was reclining

    wwow! thats so amazing! who is he?! does he have a video of flinging heavily armored heavyweights?!!!

    • Haha 1

  8. Posted

    5 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

    They can't kill them all. :D

    they can't kill even one. e.g

    On 9/16/2024 at 1:11 AM, ChiDragon said:

    Wing chun(詠春) @ 2:37 practice Fajin also.

    this is physical force plus cooperation from students who fall down on cue. not FJ

    On 9/16/2024 at 12:31 AM, ChiDragon said:

    XinyiQuan 心意拳 Practice at moderate fast speed.

    here the old master is good at jumping but still hits the student muscularly, putting his foot behind the student's who of course is not resisting. nice trick but not FJ

     

    22 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

    Does anyone know was there any Taiji practitioner died of cancer?

    the one i posted reportedly did

    • Like 1
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  14. Posted

    3 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

    It was said that I  had gone but returned. It was said that I had lost it but regained it.

    these two sentences have a completely identical grammar and subject matter (it=ND), yet you transl them differently. Cleary also messed them up but in a differently naive way: with same grammar but but he mistook the subject for self instead of ND.

     

  15. Posted

    4 hours ago, forestofclarity said:

    Why is it called reversion and restoration? Reversion means the self comes back after it has gone; restoration means the self is regained after it has been lost. 

    Cleary got this line wrong while Pregadio omits the line altogether. Should be:

    如何谓之返还？返者，我已去而复来之说，还者，我已失而又得之谓。

    Reversion means I let go of something and now I bring it back; restoration means I lost something  and now I get it again. 

    (a big diff in meaning obviously? may be not ;)  )

  17. Posted · Edited by Taoist Texts

    3 hours ago, Giles said:

    m posting this link* to an interview with Professor Guolong's translator's

    thanks;) listened to it. it went about how i expected it to be (new-age) but i was cleaning the house and loading the dishwasher so not a complete waste of time. A facepalm: 'in taoism there are no books of commandments'. In fact the most public part of taoist lit are the numerous books of precepts. He ended by ranting on Bezos and Musk so i tuned out.

     

    3 hours ago, Giles said:

    futility of arguing

    yeah arguing is always useless

  18. Posted

    3 hours ago, forestofclarity said:

    A lot of people talk about neidan and dan tian but it is not clear to me by what people mean by dan, 丹. 

    Well actually ppl do not talk about it at all for a good reason, they dont have it: in western neidan dan is replaced by 'opening the mco'. Yet Dan is a new energy in the body something never experienced before. The practicers who never obtained the dan think that it is the usual mind-induced qi with its feelings of energetic movement, expansion, vibration, heat, etc, i.e the usual qigong qi,  - but is not. And those who have obtained it will not describe it publicly, one reason why not because per se it is a useless piece of info, like explaining what does the torque feels on a ferrari to a man without one.

    Thats why the misconceptions abound. For example the screen shot above claims ZBD says 'the dan elixir is like the moon' 1. He does not. 2 per se the elixir is nothing like the moon;) , instead ZBD's moon  refers to the state of mind produced by the dan. 月者喻元性

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    • Downvote 2

  24. Posted

    2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

    scholar/academic and a rigorous practitioner ?

     

    I gather from the above Ge Guolong is one for HYJ.

    he is a chinese  scholar which in china means a bureaucrat, a state functionary. as to how rigorous his personal practice is any, there is no data.

    2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

    Another scholar and practitioner which seems to be of high standards is Fabrizio Pregadio. I believe the site you linked is his. Which branch does he practice?

    he does not.

    2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

    But a lot of teachers look rather snakeoil-y to me and verifying their transmission always seemed to be a complex task.

    all of them are that. in modern ND there is no transmission, let alone verified one, peeps read new-agey books, hook up with a self-taught chinese OR invent one, set up a website, declare themselves teachers, smooth talk the nincompoops into forking over the zoom fees, thats it.

    2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

    Livia Kohn also looks very interesting.  Are there others like them?

    not many because the ND grant pasture is not large. https://cas-e.de/teammembers/mozias-ilia/ this one is another larper.

  25. Posted

    1 hour ago, Giles said:

    Picked up a copy already and started reading it last night. 😊

     

    So far, so good. 👍🏻❤️

    let us know if this review is correct

    Quote

    I bought this hoping to get some practice ideas. I knew it wasn’t a how to book but I expected at least something helpful on meditation or other alchemical practice. The author (commentator) and translator make clear they will not reveal any detailed instruction. To make things worse this book is tedious to read with endless repetition and patronisingly simple metaphors and illustrative tales littered throughout. Each chapter starts with Huang Yuanji’s original writing followed by the commentator explaining that text at some length but usually not in a way that adds anything already made fairly clear in the original. To be fair the commentator occasionally offers some basic advice and insight but not of any significance to me. So I didn’t enjoy this as an academic or artistic work and it certainly is useless to me as a practice resource. I am guessing that Huang Yuanji's original writings (of which only a fraction are in this book) would be of use to a more advanced practitioner but probably not the commentator’s contributions

     

    11 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

    Thanks TT, How do branches differ, I gather they have a different textual basis, perhaps with some overlap

    yes branches grow around the writings and personal students of several founders

    https://www.goldenelixir.com/jindan/jindan_intro_3.html

    17 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

    but are their end goals similar?

    Eg is a GF practitioner aiming at the same goals as a Huang Yuan-ji practitioner, just using different techniques and methods?

    correct. same goals: bliss now, immortality later. GF and HYJ differ technically, the former is more 'turn the light around' and Buddhism ; the latter is more MCO and DDJ.

    • Like 1