oak

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Posts posted by oak

  2. Posted

    Garlic is a great immune system booster, among other things,  and I try to take at least two cloves every day. My stomach doesn't get along well with garlic supplements. The only drawback may be (for cultivators) increased sexual desire. A few years ago I watch a great BBC documentary about an experiment done with people suffering from erectile dysfunction. The results were great, all of them recovered. Tried to find the documentary on the web but couldn't. Leave you with a link with some information in case you're interested

     

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/healthy/erectiledysfunction.shtml

    • Like 3

  3. Posted

    This is a great question. Also a complicated one. A proper answer to it is predicated on the fundamental difference between the chinese and the western worldviews: there is no free will in the chinese one.

     

    As far as the chinese are concerned everything was fixed at the beginning of times when the first people began to cycle through the wheel of rebirths. For no reason some of them were born good, some of them were born sinful. That was just the way the cookie crumbled. When the mid-life crisis strikes, as it did Dante, the good ones start the work, because they were programmed to do so by the whole previous karma not because they have a free will to make a voluntary choice.

     

    Because starting the work involves disrupting the commonsensical way of life, to the observers, and even to the person himself, the person looks possessed, crazy or just going through the mid-life crisis, all of which are not voluntary reasons.

     

    Much as I thought. Thank you for the confirmation Taoist Texts.

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    Melting self is melting kalpic roots of worldly sensory perception, melting the own nature of personal characteristics, removing completely the learned polluting guest qi. It also an effort to rein in anger and to subdue desires, to vanquish self and to come back to ritual. To rein in anger and to subdue desires, to vanquish self and come back to propriety means that there should not be no thoughts nor worries, no movement and no swaying, the root and trunk should be strong and firm.

     

    Similarly to building a house, for which first a foundation is tamped down, the base ground must be firm, to sustain any load of wood and bricks from which the house will be built. Now, melting self is tamping the foundation down inside, it is not some kind of melting self that takes place on the outside.

     /LYM/

     

    Thank you very much for your answer. If you have the good will and patience please let me know if in Taoist alchemical literature one starts that work voluntarily or on the other hand gets caught in it due to karmic causes as somehow taomeow was suggesting.

     

    Midway upon the journey of our life

    I found myself within a forest dark,

    For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

    Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

    What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

    Which in the very thought renews the fear.

    So bitter is it, death is little more;

    But of the good to treat, which there I found,

    Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

    I cannot well repeat how there I entered,

    So full was I of slumber at the moment

    In which I had abandoned the true way.

    The Inferno - Canto I 

    Dante Alighieri

  6. Posted

    the mystery gate is a fairly contested subject in Daoism, with early schools believing it to be the nose and mouth, and then some schools making the criticism that it actually referred to the lower dantian, third eye, or solar plexus, but the best definition of the mystery gate, and the one I personally use is that of Huang yuanji, which is that the mystery gate is the time when the mind enters into the  "Hun dun" or chaotic state.   This state is when the kun hexagram reverts to the fu hexagram (deepest yin passes and one yang line emerges as the base of the six lines),  The first place I've seen this articulated in terms of neidan was in some poetry from the southern school, but the middle school totalizes it into a theory of how the meditative mind moves from the active (you wei) to the inactive (wu wei) and then action without action (wu bu wei).   In this case, it is when pre heaven jing, qi, and shen all collect together in Chaos and fortify the energy body, as well as giving birth to stronger post heaven Qi.   

    In practical terms, the mystery gate refers to when we forget ourselves.  Huang Yuanji called this "I do not know what my home is."

    It is the big difference between practices which focus on the pre heaven and practices which focus on the post heaven.  post heaven practices will look to build Qi by coaxing it with the intention, while pre heaven schools build Qi by entering into emptiness to the point where the mind disappears for a brief time.  When it comes back, the alchemical process has been started without our even having recognized it happening.    This is totally in keeping with how the Neidan school articulates two different kinds of Qi, one means the qi related to breath, blood and external nutritional elements, the other type of Qi refers to something which is tempered in emptiness.

     

    Thank you, sillybearhappyhoneyeater.

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

     

     

    Neidan is not "safe" and waidan is not "unsafe" by themselves -- it all depends...  A transmission is neither a safe nor an unsafe method.  It is something inherited from the shamanic tradition where the new shaman had to have prepared herself and to have been chosen by the spirit realm to receive it, or else it might even kill her.   On the other hand, someone chosen for the task couldn't safely refuse it either.  

     

    Most true taoist transmissions are, generally, of the same kind. 

     

    Is there in Taoist alchemy an equivalent to the "dark work" of western alchemy, a terrifying and painful purification as the starting point of the process? The question is for anyone who wants to answer it. Thanks.

  13. Posted

    So she goes and kisses a frog, and sees that it's still a frog, despite her father calling her princess. She found a lie.

     

    The only way I would say that truth is beyond logic, is because Logic always gives us a description or analysis of reality - "the map is not the place". Aside from that, Logic is the prerequisite of all truth.

     

     

    Don't think she found a lie. She's in the process of understanding truth expressed in a non linear form.

     

    If logic was the perequisite of all truth there wouldn't be the necessity of symbols and there is such a necessity as we all dreamers know and it's natural. How about paradoxe? Paradoxe is another natural expression of deeper truths (again can be found in dreams), right daoist bro?

  15. Posted

    I would call it knowing by sensitivity like Lord Wenhui's cook. Truly amazing, and it seems like it's something achievable like the young man in the above video demonstrates.

    • Like 1

  19. Posted

    My problem is.. I don't know divine guidance from my minds whispers. 

    Actually that would make a good thread. 

    I think it would make a great thread too  :)

    I don't know either divine guidance from my minds whispers but it's important for me that I sincerely ask for it. My experience tells me that it comes in all shapes and forms, many times in amazing synchronistic ways.

    It came to my mind a wise thought from the TTC that I can't locate right now but it goes something like this _ the wise man let's people reach their conclusions as if they got there by themselves _ please everyone forgive me for somehow daring to misquote Lao-Tzu.

    • Like 2

  20. Posted

     Keep it balanced with good grounding and you'll go far. 

     

    Grounding being walks in nature, seated meditation, physical activity.. keeping centered. 

     

    Asking for Divine guidance is also very important. I'm afraid male baldness comes with the territory, just take a look at the simbology of the "sacred bald man" (buddhist, egyptian etc.)

     

    Best wishes

    • Like 1