Taoist Texts

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Posts posted by Taoist Texts


  1. Can you fix the link... not getting anything.

    Sorry no, it seems they removed it

     

     

    but same info from other source

     

    Shamanism and Priest Rulers During ancient times, the people of Korea practiced various forms of shamanism. These practices continue to this day. Although the word shaman is used in a number of cultural contexts, it is closely connected with northeast Asian and sub-Arctic cultures. Rather than a religion organized around founders, texts, dogmas, or hierarchies of priests, shamanism revolves around individuals (usually female shamans, Korean mudang) who make contact with the spirit world by falling into a trance, by dancing or performing (kut). During the trance, the shaman is possessed by a spirit, or can converse with spirits for the purposes of soothsaying, exorcism, healing, including assisting souls of the deceased on their journey after life, or to address restless souls who might be causing trouble. Shamanism is recorded a number of times throughout

     

    Korean history, and it seems to have mingled with elements of Buddhism and Daoism. There is some suggestion that references to “heavenly priests” in ancient times indicate that early kings were also shamans. It is more likely that early kings took on a symbolic role as chief priest, since at the time, there was not the same division of secular and sacred authority that developed later as religious institutions became more formalized. Early kings were often clan heads or patriarchs of a particular descent line. The lineage referred back to a primogenitor, who in ancient times might have been linked to animal powers. The evocation of animal powers is a common feature of shamanistic societies. The presence of symbols such as the tree, antler, and claw on gold crowns found in Silla tombs are linked to the headdresses of Siberian shamans. Crowns Complete gold crowns have been discovered from Silla tombs. The first gold crown was uncovered in 1921. Other tombs were also found to contain gold crowns. The burial mounds consisted of a wooden chamber tomb covered by layers of stone and earth. In addition to gold crowns, the occupants were buried with gold necklaces, girdles, silver ornaments, as well as pottery and glass vessels. The gold crowns are made of sheets of gold, formed into a head band. Rising from the band are uprights in the shape of stylized trees, antlers and/or wings. Embryonic, comma-shaped jades resembling bear or tiger claws are often attached with gold

     

    http://education.asianart.org/sites/asianart.org/files/resource-downloads/Temple%20Palace%20Workshop.pdf

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowns_of_Silla

     

    20085917281459366.jpg

    • Like 1

  2. Are there additional/ more in-depth texts regarding pine sap and it's physical and meta properties?

    tons of it

     

    Succinum (Amber): Use in Chinese Medicine
    www.itmonline.org/arts/amber.htm
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    •  
    Succinum originates from the resin of ancient and long-extinct trees, including conifers (e.g., pine trees) as well Fabaceae and other genera. To become amber  ...
    Succinum (Amber, Hu Po) - Chinese Herbs Healing
    www.chineseherbshealing.com/succinum-amber/
    •  
    •  
    As a matter of fact, it is kind of fossilized resin of prehistoricpine trees and has ... been used in Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and homeopathic remedy.
    Early Daoist Dietary Practices: Examining Ways to Health ...
    Shawn Arthur - 2013 - ‎Religion
    The text says, “Pine sap tastes bitter and is moist. ... Whereas the Bencao jing focuses on pine sap, later Chinesepharmacopoeia describe the benefits of the ... Modernpharmacological research has examined many parts of the pine and has  ...
    Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Medicines - Molecular ...
    Jiaju Zhou, ‎Guirong Xie, ‎Xinjian Yan - 2011 - ‎Medical
    ... Northern Catalpa Northern Dutchmanspipe Northern Dutchmanspipe Root Northern Monkshood* Northern Pitch PineNorthern Wolfberry Root-bark* Northsea  ...
    Medieval Chinese Medicine: The Dunhuang Medical Manuscripts
    Christopher Cullen, ‎Vivienne Lo - 2004 - ‎Health & Fitness
    ... 30 pharmacological illustrations 301, 304–5, 417pharmacology 12–13, 322, ... 39, 56, 86; ingesting 278 'pills of black gold' 39 pine resin pills 408 pine-soot  ...

     

    Pine Herbal Monograph - Natural Herbal Living Magazine
    https://naturalherballiving.com/pine-herbal-monograph/
     
    also
     
    Asceticism in Early Taoist Religion - Stephen Eskildsen ...
    books.google.com › History › Asia › General
    Asceticism in Early Taoist Religion demonstrates that although Taoist ascetics ... Eskildsen traces how this problem may have emerged, and how it was viewed ...
    • Like 4

  3. Then re-read 3 or 4 times... 

    i promise;)

     

     

    Narrater Long ago, there was a dealer who was in hurry going up to Kinokuni-hill in Akasaka Tokyo.

    Dealer "This is not cool. I'll be late. But if I'm late this time, I'll get fired !" "Oh"

    Narrater As you see, there is a person crying alone at the end of the hill. It seems to be a lady.

    Lady "Boo-hoo..."

    Dealer "Why are you crying that much ? What's wrong with you ? Come on, please stop crying and tell me what's wrong. I can help you"

    Lady "Boo-hoo..."

    Dealer "Please, lady. Please listen to me."

    The lady turns around and shows her face

     

    220px-Ryoi_Nopperabo.jpg

     

     

     

    Dealer "Aaaaaah!!"

    The dealer runs off and into the audience. The lady exits the stage.

    Narrater The dealer ran through the hill, frantically. He kept running. After a while he found a light on the other side of hill. It was a noodle-stall, in which he found the light.

    Dealer "Aaahh...Aaahh...Aaahh.."

    Noodle vendor "Look here(?). What's wrong with you ?"

    Customer "Have you been attacked by a robber or something ?"

    Dealer "I..I saw...a lady..on the other side of here.... It was night. She was crying ....I spoke to her, being worried about her. Then....she showed her..."

    Noodle vendor "...Okay ?...So she showed her...what ?"

    Dealer "Yeah...you asked what she showed ? I can't say !"

    Noodle vendor "Well.....is the thing she showed was...."

    Noodle vendor and customer "...something like this ?"

     

    tumblr_nwo69d93r21qgckmbo5_r1_500.gif

     

     

     

    Dealer "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh"

     

     

    Narrater Also, as for you ladies and gentlemen, please be careful when going up a hill. Otherwise... We'll show ourselves in front of you.


  4. To be fair in context, Daeluin talked about the "process of reversal" and seems to me to want to suggest the focused practice issues.

     

    Is  your bakers dozen among that?

    You know Daeliun's essays are pleasant to read but hard to follow. Usually i have to reread them 3-4 times just to get the general idea.

    My point is... let's not be so quick to criticism another issue going on here.... but stay with the quotes we respond to :)

    You are pretty cryptic too at times btw;)


  5. Maybe this type of questioning helps illuminate why teachers are hard to find.

    What do you mean hard to find? There are like a bakers dozen of them on this forum alone, and zillions of them on the web. Now, may be you mean the recent photographs of their rapidly aging faces are hard to find... :D


  6.  Other info is confidential or irrelevant (my age).

    A youngish guy selling rejuvenation. Not much hands on experience there))

    But "young looking old alchemist" is a hint that something is right.

    is a non existent hint a sign that something is wrong?

     

    Sorry, no pictures 

    Even if these rejuvenation salesmen retouch the photographs of their twenty-something faces, the creeping up signs of the old age will be obvious. The  jowls that begin to sag, the receding hairline, the weakened eyes can not be hid.

     

    Thats why there is no pictures. How long before those naive enough to go for a personal meeting will be taken aback by their sight muttering 'But dude..you  look old'. I am figuring 3-4 years.

    None of the immortals will chase you with documents dated 1765 to get your attention  ;)

    One reason for that is their death certificate is  dated  1834.;))


  7. Rather than make some kind of statement with this, for now I'll just wait and see what anyone might have to say.

    Illegal immigrant is arrested over murder of American nanny in Austria after she took him in to stop him being deported - and is revealed to have raped underage girl
    • Lauren Mann, 25, was found half-naked, face-down on a mattress at her apartment in Austrian capital last month
    • Autopsy found high-flying student from Grand Junction, Colorado, was suffocated and prosecutors confirmed today she was murdered
    • Gambian failed asylum-seeker, 24, who Mann had apparently taken in to help him avoid deportation was arrested on Thursday
    • He is named only as Abdou I. and was found at an asylum center in Bern, Switzerland, suggesting he was trying to claim a right to stay there
    • Illegal immigrant was already known to police in Germany where he had raped an underage girl, Austrian newspaper reports

     

     

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3433995/Illegal-immigrant-arrested-murder-American-nanny-Austria-took-stop-deported-revealed-raped-underage-girl.html#ixzz3zkiokl4H 

    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook


  8.   I have not yet made the elixir but I now understand most of the procedure. I had no one to help, no teacher but that is the path of the alchemist, all these western alchemical text say they had to go through the same lonely journey with only a few old books to help them.

    Finally! An honest alchemist! You are the man. Respect and sincere wishes for you to succeed.


  9. And what about ethic ? There is also a big difference between willing to live long and healthy for one's own benefits of having a good and full life and wanting to go beyond mortality in order to fulfill a cosmic role.

     What cosmic role?

    If you learn Dao from a school, where the masters are sick, look old and die, then you waste time, and it cannot be named Neidan or Dao  

    That is why there are no pictures of the masters who allegedly are not subject to these things. Because they are. (wink wink) ;)


  10. "All those who want to live a long life, but do not obtain the Divine Elixirs (shendan) and the Golden Liquor (jinye), merely bring suffering upon themselves.

     

    Practising breathing and daoyin, exhaling the old and inhaling the new breath, and ingesting medicines of herbs and plants can extend the length of one's life, but does not allow one to escape death."

    Huangdi jiuding shendan jingjue

     

    Above we are told that breathing exercises, qigong, daoyin etc and the ingestion of herbs eg ginseng may extend life but does not allow one to escape death.

     

    I would say the English translation is probably not exact because nobody can escape death totally 

     

    黄帝受还丹至道于玄女。玄女者,天女也。黄帝合而服之,遂以登仙。玄女告黄帝日:凡欲长生,而不得神丹金液,徒自苦耳。虽呼吸导引,吐故纳新,及服草木之药,可得延年,不兔于死也

     

     

    No, it is exact. 可得延年,can extend years 不兔于死也 will not escape death


  11. common sense tells us that improving health and living longer are worthwhile pursuits, whereas doing obscure things in order to live forever is not.

     

     

     

    Perhaps alchemy should be considered a spiritual matter, rather than an extreme-longevity matter. Why confuse the subjects of being healthy and long-lived, with the subject of becoming a xian?

    Because people pay more for the neidan promises of the health+rejuvenation+longevity+xianhood combo. Without getting anything eventually, of course.

    • Like 2

  12. Dao De Jing is the main source.  

    Yes especially the bit about the horse manure. That just have to be about neidan, what else?

     

    天下有道,卻走馬以糞。天下無道,戎馬生於郊。禍莫大於不知足;咎莫大於欲得。故知足之足,常足矣。

     

    When the Dao prevails in the world, they send back their swift horses to (draw) the dung- carts


  13. Like opendao said, finding a good teacher has always been hard, even in China. And I don't think that will change here in the West either. But neidan is also not meant for everybody, especially the higher levels. When people aren't ready for it they won't find it. And that is okay. 

    Nathan could you please clarify. Does neidan involve attaining rejuvenation and/ or physical immortality?


  14. The practice of external Alchemy (waidan) is oldest. The waidan practitioner takes the ingredients seals them in a crucible, fires it and when the process is complete he crapes the elixir off the lid. Taking this powder he makes pills with it.

     

     

     

    Early neidan practitioners were the same

     

    is that why they are a called a different name?


  15. I seem to percieve an increase of Neidan in the west recently, more courses are being held, and more people seem to be practicing it than before. Has anyone else noticed it?

    Of course. At the end of times the false teachings proliferate. Its in the scriptures.

     

    This otherwise rather less well known practice seems to have gained more widespread recognition, which I think is rather good in itself. 

     

    This practice promises rejuvenation and physical immortality. Do you believe these things are possible?