Taoist Texts
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But I am curious.
TT, could you summarize what Charles Luk has to say about the experience?
Sure thing.
Alchemy is defined as a union of xing and ming (whatever those are). For them to join they have to be at their fullest state. Further, one has to make xing full first. The first visual light experience is an indication of xing being full. The OP reports the light being "jittery left-hand semi-circle, flashing about 7 times per second in rainbow colors. " This means that xing is not quite mature yet.
It first happened to me when after a couple of weeks of dedicated training i walked into a dark room and before i could flip the lights on, i saw a block of white light right before my eyes, i had to shake my head to convince myself in my normalcy;). There were no smartphones back then but if you wanna see the closest thing to this light u may wanna download a flash light app on your smartphone and turn it on in in dark room.
The fullness of ming is indicated by a golden light, but this time it is not a visual experience.
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The Hero of Cologne: How a 7ft tall hotel doorman and ex-kickboxing champ saved two women from the New Year's sex mobAs futuredaze said, a perplexing shift to the right is observable on many forums now, including this one. It doesn't take very much to make even supposedly "conscious" people either show their true face,
- Hotel doorman Ivan Jurcevic, 44, is being hailed as the 'hero of Cologne'
- He took on 'sex mob' of men responsible for the New Year's Eve attacks
- The seven foot tall, 130kg kick boxer has won five world championships
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
He shifted to the right.
Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Jurcevic said: 'There were four of them, young men in their 20s, speaking Arabic. They told me not to interfere, that the girls were "theirs".
'The girls looked like they worked in a bank, they were wearing jeans and coats, nothing provocative, they were really frightened. I told them to stand behind me.'
'Then the loudest member of the gang came at me with a bottle so I kicked him in the chest and sent him flying. Another came at me so I slapped him across the face and he went over as well.
'The leader drew his finger across his throat and told me he would be back to kill me. I stood my ground and they went on their way.'
Thats just appalling. How dared he!
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Just keep doing what you are doing. Don't get attached to the phenomenon but it is a familiar one to quite a few here and is one of the tourist attractions
Absolutely. If you are a tourist;). Otherwise its a guiding light.
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I am currently in a prolonged stretch of cultivation practice, celibacy, stillness meditation and breathing techniques -- which is why I am wondering whether or not this might be an important (?) stage or significant moment (?) of the cultivation progression.
It is. For details you can read this
Taoist Yoga: Alchemy & Immortality Paperback – January 1, 1999
by Lu K'uan Yu (Charles Luk) (Author)
or ask him
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So, you agree with him, but you don't think the argument is strong enough ?
No i dont. The minimum wage is effectively a tax on the rich and the middle class, to transfer some of their cash to the working poor. The bet is that by stimulating consumption by the poor it will lift all boats. I think it will work.
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Why do you think he is a 'fuzzy thinker'.
A number of reasons:
First, he starts with uncertainty and jumps to certainty:
I would say that most employers would view hiring such a worker as a losing economic proposition, but they might hire him at $5 an hour. Thus, one effect of the minimum wage law is that of discrimination against the employment of low-skilled workers.
Might=is=fuzzy
Second, he is concerned with disadvantages to the blacks at the exclusion of considerations for the society as a whole
The petition ends with this: “In short, raising the federal minimum to $15 an hour by 2020 will be an effective means of improving living standards for low-wage workers and their families and will help stabilize the economy. The costs to other groups in society will be modest and readily absorbed.”
He does not attempt to refute this argument.
Third, if the absence of minimum rate will improve the employment of blacks, then it will lead to the replacement of whites with blacks. Would not that be racist towards the whites? He leaves that consideration out.
Fourth, his examples of racism by minimum wage are inapplicable:
Rep. John Cochran, D-Mo., said he had “received numerous complaints in recent months about Southern contractors employing low-paid colored mechanics getting work and bringing the employees from the South.”
If cheap labor is brought into a US state from another US state, the former state has a right to protect its citizens. Although the said labor happens to be black, there is nothing racist about that.
And finally he concludes with this epitome of fuzziness:
It is incompetence or dishonesty for my fellow economists to deny these two effects of minimum wages: discrimination against employment of low-skilled labor and the lowering of the cost of racial discrimination.
"discrimination against employment of low-skilled labor "? What is that? Is it a bad thing?
" effects of minimum wages: .... lowering of the cost of racial discrimination." Minimum wages lower the cost of racial discrimination? What's a 'cost of racial discrimination'? Is it a good thing?
In one word: fuzzy.
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Take away the negotiating rights of a black youth and it puts them at a serious disadvantage to their white counterparts. An employer is more likely to take a punt on a young black guy if the price is right. This is only one issue of minimum wages. The rest I have mentioned previously.
hehe)
i see you are quoting Wiliams.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/01/walter-e-williams/bunch-liars-minimum-wage/
i am actually a fan of his, but he is a fuzzy thinker on this one.
The Senate Budget Committee’s blog says, “Top Economists Are Backing Sen. Bernie Sanders on Establishing a $15 an Hour Minimum Wage.” It lists the names of 210 economists who call for increasing the federal minimum wage. The petition starts off, “We, the undersigned professional economists, favor an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour as of 2020.” The petition ends with this: “In short, raising the federal minimum to $15 an hour by 2020 will be an effective means of improving living standards for low-wage workers and their families and will help stabilize the economy. The costs to other groups in society will be modest and readily absorbed.”
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A lot of what has happened down there doesn't make sense.
I donno. To me its obvious that demographics is the key. 2 or 3 centuries of prosperous white rule have distorted the demographics: the prosperity made whites to stop procreating while th same prosperity created a black urban boom. As an inevitable consequence he former were overran by the latter. Simple.
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The employer isn't. They can choose a white man over a black man. If they value the White man more then that's who will get the job.
Then the minimum wage has nothing to do with the employer's choice.
As it stands, a minimum wage is a protectionist policy for white males/ females as it stops blacks/youths/low skilled undercutting them. Black, low skilled and youth are synonymous with each other which puts them at a distinct disadvantage. It could be said that minimum wage is actually racist.
/Black, low skilled and youth / has nothing to do with minimum wage. An employer who does not like such employees would not hire them at any wage. Sorry, Karl. Does not compute.
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The method would be to fix a minimum rate for an occupation or craft so high that no Native would be likely to be employed.”
A minimum rate is color-blind. This does not make sense.
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@karl - they really are on the rise
so are the Tornados
Bundeswehr: "Tornado"-Jets starten Einsatz über Syrien und dem Irak -
I suspect the ghosts of 8th century Iberians would encourage learning from history.
¡Santiago y cierra, España!
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I think that open-carry is more logical than concealed-carry. We do not have open-carry in Florida but some folks are trying to get it legalized.
Texans remember the Alamo. You guys gotta remember the Luisiana Purchase or something.
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You can't go attacking the Government officers, they are the guardians of the government narrative, they also have killing weapons as opposed to the innocent public gunned down in nightclubs, restaurants, offices and beach holidays.
Well things change. The public is gonna lose their innocence soon enough.
Texas Businesses Adapt To Open Carry Law : NPRwww.npr.org/2016/01/02/.../texas-businesses-adapt-to-open-carry-lawNPR5 days ago - The celebrations for the new year also marked a new open-carry gun law taking effect in Texas.
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The truth is whatever they decide .... The West has become so convinced of its omnipotentence by narrative control that it is blind to external aggression. The West pretends flag waving, political consensus and tough talk is effective action. It's deluded and weak. Reality will run us down before we wake up from this self imposed dream state.
weak? gee i donno about that.
This is just in
Un homme a été tué par les policiers ce matin devant un commissariat du 18e arrondissement de Paris, alors qu'il tentait de pénétrer dans le bâtiment.
Selon une source policière, plusieurs témoins l'ont entendu crier «Allah akbar»
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The problem is very nasty.
Do you propose a nice lovely solution?
Will 2017 see 10 millions then?
You see Shanlong while your anger is understandable, it is also a bit misplaced. First of all, people in charge of censorship everywhere hate Europe. Second of all, the population of Europe is 740 mln, even if the parasitic immigration reaches 100 mln in 5 years, it will only make the dole run out faster. Imagine, no job, no skills, no mate to procreate, no dole for the offspring, no dole at all and most importantly outnumbered 1 to 7 by the very angry aborigines. In historical terms it will be over sooner than you can say allahu akbar.
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Was there anything the Mao-shan sorcerers were proven or reputed to do?
reputed yes, proven no.
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Any sorcerers, shamans, wizards, giving the party a hard time?
You see they cut a deal. Mao Tse-tong commies rule by day , Mao-shan sorcerers rule by night. Scary!
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What are the Chinese characters for his name? Can't watch this video on this side of the firewall, but maybe there's a copy on Baidu...
Chen Yiren/ Chan Yik Yan/ 陳亦人
The Lokhupbafa paradox is that while according to legend, it predates each of the internal arts of Tai Chi, BaGua and XingYi , it contains elements of all three.
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Time has another opinion. Any claims can be checked practically, so I can wait until yours become something more solid then just pessimistic complain on everything.
Oh yes, would not it be nice if we could keep doing what we doing, till something better comes along?
Unfortunately the world does not work that way. You can wait for the time, but the time will not wait for you.
When you are in a hole, the first thing to do is not to watch others, to see if they can get out. The first thing to do is to stop digging.
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Parts (3) and (4)
(3)and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others). This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.'
同其塵，There is no such set phrase, and塵(dust) is almost never used metaphorically so 塵 must be a scribal error. However there is a technical phrase与天下同其利《汉书 - Han Shu》 ‘to have the same purpose with the Underheaven’, which is the most likely reading here.
There is also a weak similarity to an analogy in The Book of Songs:
《诗经 - Book of Poetry》[Western Zhou (1046 BC - 771 BC)]
无将大车、祇自尘兮。
无思百忧、祇自疧兮。
Wu Jiang Da Che:
Do not push forward a wagon; -
You will only raise the dust about yourself.
Do not think of all your anxieties; -
You will only make yourself ill.
无将大车:
无将大车、维尘冥冥。
无思百忧、不出于熲。
Wu Jiang Da Che:
Do not push forward a wagon; -
The dust will only blind you.
Do not think of all your anxieties; -
You will not emerge from imperfect views.
无将大车:
无将大车、维尘雝兮。
无思百忧、祇自重兮。
Wu Jiang Da Che:
Do not push forward a wagon; -
The dust will only becloud you.
Do not think of all your anxieties; -
You will only weigh yourself down.
But the issue remains moot.
是謂玄同。 ‘'the Mysterious Agreement' remains unexplained in DDJ but is explained in 《文子 - Wenzi》as 万物玄同 ‘a dark unity with all things’ i.e. with own people and the affairs of the state, also as something to do with self-cultivation 《下德》.
The part (4) is straightforward:
(4)(Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; beyond all consideration of nobility or meanness: - he is the noblest man under heaven.
故不可得而親，不可得而踈；不可得而利，不可得而害；不可得而貴，不可得而賤。故為天下貴。
The king who follows the instructions in DDJ56, and conducts internal cultivation accordingly will survive. What about the king who does not?
《韩诗外传 - Han Shi Wai Zhuan》《卷七》
[Western Han] 180 BC-120 BC卫懿公之时、有臣曰弘演者、受命而使，未反，而狄人攻卫，于是懿公欲兴师迎之，其民皆曰：“君之所贵而有禄位者、鹤也，所爱者、宫人也，亦使鹤与宫人战，余安能战？”遂溃而皆去。
狄人至，攻懿公于荧泽，杀之，尽食其肉，独舍其肝。
弘演至，报使于肝，辞毕，呼天而号，哀止，曰：“若臣者、独死可耳。”
于是，遂自刳出腹实，内懿公之肝，乃死。
桓公闻之，曰：“卫之亡也，以无道，今有臣若此，不可不存。”
于是复立卫于楚丘。如弘演、可谓忠士矣，杀身以捷其君，非徒捷其君，又令卫之宗庙复立，祭祀不绝，可谓有大功矣。《诗》曰：“四方有羡，我独居忧，民莫不榖，我独不敢休。”
In Wei, during king Yi-gong’s rule, there was a minister named Hong-yan, who was sent on a mission and have not come back yet, when the Di barbarians attacked the kingdom of Wei.
When Yi-gong wanted to mobilize his army to counterattack them, all his people said: ‘Whom king valued were his nobility and the pet cranes in his park. Whom he loved were his court dames. Well, let the dames and the cranes fight for him, why should the rest of us fight?’ And they all run away accordingly.
The barbarians came, engaged the king Yi-gong by the lake Ying, killed him, and ate all his flesh, only throwing away his liver.
When the minister Hong returned, he went there, reported to the liver, and, handing back his mandate, cried to Heavens and wailed.
Then finishing his mourning he said: ‘Once a minister is left behind - he can die’.
Upon that he cut up his belly, put the king’s liver inside, and died.
Huan-gong, hearing about this said: ‘The kingdom of Wei was lost because there was no Dao, but now, with such a minister, it can not but survive’.
Accordingly, Wei was reinstated at Chuqiu.
Thus, the minister Hong could be called a loyal gentleman. Not only his killing self brought victory to his king, but also led to reestablishment of Wei’s ancestral temple, where the sacrifice continued uninterruptedly. Truly a great deed.《小雅 - Minor odes of the kingdom》say:
Distant far is my village,
And my dissatisfaction is great.
In other quarters there is ease,
And I dwell here alone and sorrowful.
Every body is going into retirement,
And I alone dare not seek rest.
The ordinances of Heaven are inexplicable,
But I will not dare to follow my friends and leave my post. -
Or consider Zhang Daoling or Wang Chongyang: do you really think people followed them because those Masters needed to survive and read DDJ as a "survival manual"?
Yes.
No sense.
No clue.
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Part (2)
(2)He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness,
塞其兑，閉其門，挫其銳，解其分，和其光，
Note that the diversity of notation in different variants of DDJ means that by the time it was written down, the scribes did not understand the meaning exactly. To compensate for that they concatenated the phrases which they felt mean the same thing, hoping that the point will be somehow preserved by the redundancy.
Also note that 銳=兑. Therefore the first 3 phrases mean the same instruction: close your organs of sense. But how and for what end? DDJ does not explain that because it is a garbled text written down in a short-hand, by which time the meaning was almost forgotten in the milieu this text was circulating. Luckily, the meaning has been preserved by the ruists.
It is explained in Xunzi and a number of other texts. One example will suffice.
《荀子 - Xunzi》[Warring States (475 BC - 221 BC)]
故先王圣人为之不然：知夫为人主上者，不美不饰之不足以一民也，不富不厚之不足以管下也，不威不强之不足以禁暴胜悍也，故必将撞大钟，击鸣鼓，吹笙竽，弹琴瑟，以塞其耳；必将錭琢刻镂，黼黻文章，以塞其目；必将刍豢稻粱，五味芬芳，以塞其口。然后众人徒，备官职，渐庆赏，严刑罚，以戒其心.
The former kings and sages: by knowing they become the highest of men, so they never embellished themselves but were one with their people. That is why, they closed their ears to the sound of music instruments; blocked their eyes to decorations; blocked their mouths to rich foods and aromas. Therefore the multitudes followed them…
This is the gist of the 56: the kings had to be moderate, they had to engage in inner work (meditation) by blocking off the temptations, so their people follow them. Why do they kings needed to be followed and be one with their people? To survive physically. This is what the DDJ is all about, ultimately it is a manual on king’s personal survival.
Moving on to the last 2 phrases of part (2)…
解其分， means ‘to untie the fetters’ here 分 (紛) =縛. The metaphorical sense of it was preserved in ZZ:
解其桎梏 Lao Dan said, 'Why did you not simply lead him to see the unity of life and death, and that the admissible and inadmissible belong to one category, so freeing him from his fetters?
While the literal format of解其縛 was preserved in Han Shu and elsewhere.
Finally,
和其光，here 光 does not mean some kind of inner light shining in meditation (which does not preclude it from being germane to the latter). It is a technical term meaning the glory of a king. Of course in archaic time the kings did literally radiate light in the eyes of their people. Preserved meaning:
為之而行，動之而光者，其德乎？或曰：「知德者鮮，何其光？」Those who handle affairs capably and display honor through their actions—do they not have de? The other said: Confucius said, "Those who recognize de are few." What about honor?
《孝至卷第十三 - The Priority of Filial Devotion》
堯、舜之道皇兮，夏、殷、周之道將兮，而以延其光兮。The dao of Yao and Shun was august!
The instruction to the king here is to dial down the glory he radiates. Naturally some introspection (inner work/meditation) was required for that on his part.
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
So much for the part (2) of 56. Of course here I am stating the obvious, the simplest things other folks figured out long ago. They just kept mum about it. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.
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seriously? the only one in the western academic community who knows about thousands of comments to Laozi, contemporary texts and use them in the translation / explanation? I don't think it's true. Many people do that, as far as I know. What they publish is another story.
Of course many people do that, they just keep vewy vewy quiet about it for some reason. May be the reason is that they do not exist?
Right, though it's obvious from DDJ itself.
You see it is so very obvious that i am the only one who put this into writing. To all the others it was so obvious that they never did that. They just winked at each other and moved on. Or may be they did not have a clue.
And next step of any serious research is to find such people and ask them how did they achieved Dao.
Find for a fee. Ask for a fee. Then realize that if these ppl need fees - they achieved nothing. Or may be realize it before, not after being ripped off. Or may be not realize that at all. To every one his own.
Whatever happened in Cologne never never happened
in The Rabbit Hole
Posted
Or maybe an enslavement tool wielded by the hostile elite?