smallsteps

Hi idquest,

You are right, nothing beats personal experience.

But doesn't Green Tea itself contain caffeine?

Green tea contains caffeine (2/3 less than coffee) but it seems that it comes from tea tannins not from chlorogenic acid. Tea has amino acid L-Theanine which regulates the liberation of caffeine within the blood. Hence, no ups and down.

At least this what I understood.

A predator can tell a difference between an edible and an inedible animal. It does not mean he has any mind.

Actually a predator cannot 'tell' the difference, because telling is an act of language which is human. Only the actions of the predator manifests that there is a difference for him.

But more than that, I am not sure that we should surely say that animals have no mind at all. There are a lot of different species with different capacities. Scientists regularly discover some powers in animals we first thought to be for human beings only- in terms of memory, discriminative powers etc.

Also, spending time with animals has convinced me that they surely have a sort of mind. I have no proof, of course.

Saying that animals has no mind would require a quite restrictive definition of it- perhaps too restrictive.

Two different ways of looking at this.

 

First, as pertains to this universe, "Three gave birth to the Ten Thousand Things."  Prior to Three giving birth there were no things.

 

However, more directly to the paragraph, it is a progression in complexity.  "Before things existed ..." we could say that is was primal "useful/not useful".  Then man started naming things, defining things, analyzing things, disassembling things, etc, to gain a better understanding of the things.

 

This process has led away from the concept of "Oneness".  It has also made life more confusing and more difficult to understand.  We have moved from the simple to the complex and Taoism teaches us to return to the simple.

Thank you for your detailed explanation

What bothers me is that the concept of oneness is still a concept, and a concept can only be defined within a system of concepts, it draws upon the discriminative mind. The knowledge the ancients had seems to be an intuitive knowledge ('they realized there was a stage before there were things'). On the other hand, knowing by intuition doesn't necessarily mean that they had no mind anymore unless returning to the Dao means becoming simple animals. No?

I am just asking questions loudly, it helps me chewing the text..Thanks

One question I have reading this text is: what does it mean exactly and in a practical sense to realize that there is a stage before things exist?

We can't do without the analytical mind: the ancients would certainly find a difference between a horse and a dog when it comes to give them food. So their knowledge certainly didn't mean that they simply destroyed their analytical mind.

edit: can->can't (line 3)

I will try the suggestions. I have been trying to do a nutritarian diet. Almost all veggies and fruits with beans and nuts. I do eat fish though.

Me too, that's a great diet. I am on it for a year or so. It took me some time to find the right diet for me. I stopped drinking coffee and put myself on green tea. No more ups and down, stable energy during the whole day.

Hey, that's an introduction! Welcome here!

Hello Muu,

I am also new here. Welcome!

Hi yinqi,

I am really sorry to hear about the loss of your husband.

You may send an email to the address given on this page to ask if there is any Lam Kam Chuen disciple in India who teaches zhan zhuang. Who knows?

Best qi

Hi Siddharthashoka,

I read again your opening post for this thread. I am not sure to be able to help you finding the purpose of living. Not because I think that there isn't any. But because I think this is more something to be realized/experienced. It can't be an idea that can turn into an intellectual toy soon to be broken and abandoned. So even if someone could jump in here and tell you: 'the ultimate answer you are after is: so and so', it wouldn't help you IMHO.

But, since we are stuck into this form of web communication, with only words on a blue light emitting screen, I'll give you my take on it: Life doesn't make any sense at all without Love- Love is the ultimate Good

Light, powers, high states of consciousness, yadayadayada..lead nowhere, it is like pouring water in leaky vessels, you will never be satisfied with them. Sartre was probably a great intellectual, but what else?

That's my view. It is just words in a post and it probably means nothing for most people who will laugh or despise such an answer but it means everything to me. I tell you this because you were kind enough to add me as your friend.

To me, the ultimate is Love (the Good). Love is not an emotion nor an average human feeling, it is not a graffiti on a railway station toilet wall, it is the core of our being (and interbeing with others, and even tiny insects), and this core needs to be uncovered, nourished, developed. And this is a hard, tough task because we have to renounce to any evil deed etc. everything you know already.

I should leave the thread now, I have said too much about myself.

My two cents. Take what's useful, if any.

Take good care of yourself my friend

Regained faith in "God" afterwards when I was 18.

How/Why?

Has this faith helped you? To what extent?

You're welcome

 I wonder why his book doesn't give us the names.

I guess that's an editor thing. Also, the book was written with a westerner, disciple of Lam Kam Chuen, and they perhaps decided that it was not very useful to give the chinese names. It is generally the same for Taijiquan. 

Hi yinqi,

I can't catch what Lam Kam Chuen says for Wuji posture and I don't think he says anything in Chinese for posture n°3.

Here is what I found from other sources. For postures 2, 4 and 5; it seems confirmed by what Lam Kam Chuen actually says in the youtube vids.

 

1. Wuji Ti Cha zhuang

2. Embrace the Tree/Holding the Balloon Cheng Bao zhuang

3. Holding your Belly Tuo Bao zhuang

4. Standing in the Stream Fu'an zhuang

5. Holding the Balloon in front of your Face Tui Tuo zhuang

 

You have officially progressed from babysteps to smallsteps...   I look forward to the next steps 

 

This affects your login in too

Thank you :D !

Should I convert to Taoism?

 

Some Christian monks have traveled and some of them embraced Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism etc. without abandoning Christianity. Michael Saso is/was (?) a catholic Priest and a Taoist Priest and a Buddhist..

As a Christian, Christ's Love is your Law, and I can't see any good reason why you should stop living by this rule while learning all that other traditions can offer.

The folks on this forum who really impress are those who practice.

This is it!

Hello,

I would like to change my current name into 'smallsteps'. While browsing the internet for an avatar, I found that 'babysteps' was the title of a manga..Besides, smallsteps seems more appropriate.

Thank you

Good start.  That's step one.  We will set aside the concept of "right and wrong" for the moment.

 

And very true what you said in that we don't know if we are making progress if we have no idea where we are going.

 

So I suppose that the second step would be to define what spirituality means to you.  No concern about what it means to others.

 

For me, my signature block pretty much says it all:  Peace & Contentment.  That means being at peace with my inner self as well as my external environment as well as being content with these conditions.  (This doesn't mean that I am always at peace with either myself or my external environment or that I am always content with all conditions in life.  Life is dynamic; constantly changing.  Oftentimes it changes to conditions that disturb us.  In these cases we have work to do.)

 

But my definition is not good enough for many people.  Most need more than that in their life.

 

And that one word from your thread title:  TRUTH

 

We can lie to others and it doesn't matter all that much.  But if we lie to our self we will never find that feeling of Oneness with Tao (Spirituality).

I am also finding that without truth there is no spirituality, and I would also add that truth needs reality as a reference point. I mean being truthful with our internal reality and also with external reality (the course of events). We could say then that when we are subjectively denying the external objective reality , we create emotional disturbances within ourselves, and lose peace. Since it is not a very pleasurable experience, we may be tempted to also deny our emotions, thoughts etc. and create a vicious circle.

My view of what spirituality is in a nutshell: be one with reality (it includes others). I may be wrong but I find that Taoism states this in a most clear way.

Thank you, Marblehead.

Actually it is not that much that babysteps smallsteps are safer, it is more that I can't do normal steps anyway, me being a slow learner

Hello,

I am from France. I have come to realized* that Taoism is the most practical path I can follow to find some peace. My screenname says it all, though: I am making babysteps small steps in this bumpy ride.

This community seems a good place to be for sharing experiences and learn from others.

Merci!

Edit:  realized->realize