Taomeow

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. -- Matsuo Basho

4 hours ago, S:C said:

Marvellous, how everyone has their own constant unique direct and unfailing and perception of ‘true reality‘ and ‘objectivity’! I do admire those who have it, life must be a lot easier….

Or a lot harder. 

Good friday to you.  Who's the artist?  This is the first painting I'm seeing of Christ before Pilate where Pilate's dog is present.  That dog, named Banga, is a protagonist in "The Master and Margarita" novel, but I am not aware of any other sources mentioning its existence, except maybe Pearl Jam's lyrics -- "like Pilate, I have a dog" -- but they may have read the novel and got the dog from there (just like Mick Jagger got "Sympathy for the Devil" out of it.)

9 hours ago, moment said:

Soon I will be soaked

I'm coming unglued in mist

it must be the beer

It must be the beer...

An off-key voice in the night: 

"It must have been love!"  

27 minutes ago, S:C said:

What’s the appropriate cat food?

Cats are obligatory carnivores.  Aside from this being a much-ignored axiom, there was this study with cat diets done by Francis Pottenger, MD, in 1932-1942.  Of the thousands of cats divided into groups they fed different diets, the only diet they found adequate (resulting in perfectly healthy cats with perfectly healthy posterity) consisted of 2/3 raw meat, 1/3 raw milk, supplemented with cod liver oil.  All cats that received versions of different diets (with cooked meat, pasteurized milk, or some combo of raw and cooked/pasteurized) fared much worse.  And that was the era before commercial cat food, so those cats didn't eat what today's cats eat: corn, wheat, soy, artificial preservatives, artificial colors and flavors, carbohydrate fillers (aka cellulose, which deer and goats can digest but cats can't), sweeteners, vegetable oils, and something the labels call "animal digest" which is cattle manure.   

A long time ago, I did an internship working with patents, and saw many that were for chemicals designed to make what cats wouldn't normally eat attractive to them.  Complex neuroscience behind each of those!  Best scientific minds working on fooling cats, compromising their health and shortening their lives.  

The cat thread is in the Rabbit Hole. 

 It was originally conceived of as dedicated to what its name says -- Wild cats, but other kinds of cats show up from time to time too.

Commercial cat food is a sad topic...  "Research" experiments on cats is a sadder one.  I try not to go there.  

17 hours ago, Apech said:

@Taomeow your last post brought to mind that growing up in England in the 1950's (yes I really am that old) the fruit and vegetables we could buy were all seasonal.  You could only get strawberries, cherries, bananas and so on at certain times.  Also the vegetables were very varied and mostly locally produced.  They varied in size, shape and quality.  There was still some rationing from the war and even oranges were a rarity (we had bottles of condensed orange juice).  But it was quite natural and unaffected by sprays of chemicals and wotnot.  We always hated having salad for school dinners because the lettuce invariably had bugs in it - and we got the large outer leaves which tasted bitter.  This was all made worse by the fact that I had spent some of my childhood in the USA (North Carolina and Cali.) and could remember all the tomatoes and oranges.  Anyway later, particularly in the 80's and 90's they invented large supermarket chains (replacing the green grocers and grocers I was used to) and they increasingly supplied carrots, tomatoes, apples and so on which were uniform and identical.  I don't think taste was the priority just appearance.  In fact I think they prioritised blandness  When I started to visit Portugal about 20 years ago it was a revelation because all the food was locally sourced - and I experienced again the strange sight of oddly shaped carrots and turnips.  But the taste was wonderful.  I rediscovered peaches and plums which had actual taste - in the case of ripe peaches and melons so strong and juicy it was beyond imagination.

 

I think the Dao likes variety as per the 10,000 things - if I may be so bold as to attribute like and dislike to the way.  I think that although we were once more the same as you say - the layers of difference we have accumulated over the years - the actions, interactions, combinations and permutations might actually be the point of it all.  So when we bite the apple we don't know if it is going to be joy or disappointment.  We can then rejoice in the changes.

"(Qi) blowing differently on 10,000 things so each can be itself." -- Zhuangzi

The artificially achieved commercial uniformity of fruits and the natural variety within a particular kind are as different as a uniformed and identically disciplined army is different from a group of friends brought together by similarities of interests, experiences and abilities.  Tao likes variety, it's true, but it also likes boundaries -- the devil is in the details.  Natural biological boundaries make sense on every level -- if you plant cabbages, you don't want to be surprised by harvesting cacti.  If a couple decides to have kids, they expect (and are likely to prefer) human kids, not baby elephants, not even kittens, cute as they may be. 

Changes and differences within sensible boundaries are part of normal on the Way.  Neither excessive erratic changes nor arbitrarily imposed boundaries are.  Yes, even erratic changes are part of it, but there's a boundary for the extent and amount of those as well, and if this boundary is violated and erratic unnatural changes become the "new normal," this is a sign of a departure from the Way.  Ditto the excessive imposition of unnatural boundaries.

In the "old country" they painted the bottom part of the fruit trees with lime -- instead of doing nothing about the bugs or using pesticides.  This imposed a sensible nonlethal boundary on many kinds of critters that would otherwise damage the crop and surprise you with a worm inside an apple.  Not that it never happened, but normally you wouldn't get a worm in more than one apple out of a dozen, and it was easy to spot -- you just examined the surface for the hole and if you saw one, you cut the apple open and kicked the squatter out.

We were supposed to be equal.  I remember a taoist source (but forget which) that asserted "people of old" were much more similar to each other than they are today.  (Keep in mind that the source's "today" was taking place some 2000 years earlier than our "today.")  The analogy was given -- if you plant some seeds (forget which, let's say cabbage), under normal conditions all of them will have the same soil to germinate in, the same amount of it to spread out in, access to equal amounts of sunlight, water, and care.  After a while, they will all sprout on the same day, grow at the same rate, have the same level of health and resilience, look pretty much the same, mature at the same time, flower and bear fruit together (unless harvested, in which case they will all taste the same), and so on.  But if different parts of your plot are uneven in quality, you will find that you plant some of the same seeds in fertile black soil, some on rocky terrain, some on a sandy patch in full sun, some on a muddy one in the shade of large trees, and so on.  Try planting some seeds so close to each other that they have to compete for space.  Then try watering some but not others, overwatering still others, pulling weeds around some but not others, and so on.  You will soon see vastly different plants that do not germinate or grow simultaneously, don't mature in unison, some will shoot up and others will wilt, some will be healthy and some, sickly, the development of some will be stunted while their peers will thrive, and so on.  

The source asserted humans are only very different from each other for exactly the same reasons.  I'd add, thousands of reasons, thousands of factors.  Sometimes it's blatant -- you can tell how someone came to be the way they came to be -- but more often it's impossible to know.  Which nutrients were missing from that particular patch of the soil?  Which poisons present?  Who knows...  

Solitude embraced.

A tea rose in a bottle

from Asahi beer.

Like everybody else, Muslims are very different from other Muslims.  

Yesterday's terrorist act at a concert in Moscow was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) militant group.  133 people were killed.  About the same number of people were saved by a 15-year old Kyrgyz boy named Islam who worked as an usher at the concert hall where the attack took place.  He had the key to a back door located somewhere away from the public premises, and amidst the automatic weapons shooting and grenades thrown, he started yelling to the panicking people to follow him and led them to safety.  He exited last, making sure every single person in the crowd of over 100 who followed him was out of that door, only then getting out himself.  Comments to the interview he gave today: "That boy is a Muslim, and the terrorists are shaitans (devils, evil spirits.)"  

Alas, it's not as simple as that.  Humans can be easily turned into shaitans -- and the "level of satisfaction" of shaitans doing evil and happily expecting paradise promised them as reward for murder may be as high as anyone else's -- or even higher.

The real horseback riding stance

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1570590947143131

3 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Despite Portugal's reputation its not legal here.  

 

Not even medicinal?  In CA, before they legalized it, for a while it was legal for MDs to prescribe it for chemo patients and for glaucoma.  It did have a dubious status at the time because of the discrepancies between the state law and the federal law -- so the state allowed dispensaries for medical weed available with prescription, while the feds raided them and confiscated the goodies on a fairly regular basis.  So not every doctor was willing to prescribe it, but it was possible to find one who would.  

3 hours ago, Apech said:

 

What do you think of Gingko?

 

 

It' supposed to improve brain health and, in particular, blood flow to the brain, but when I tried it, it gave me a headache.  I'm not prone to headaches (knock on wood) so I'm fairly sure it wasn't a coincidence.  Might give it another try, it was a long time ago.  If it helps with intraocular pressure, this may be part of the overall effects, but I haven't seen or heard anything on the subject (doesn't mean anything of course, I wasn't looking closely.)

I think herbs that are in general reputed to improve eye health might be useful -- bilberry, eyebright, goji berries, Chinese chrysanthemum.  Fat soluble vitamins.  Fish oil.    

I read this book, by two Yale researchers if I remember correctly, when it first came out in 1997.  I remember one of its main conclusions: there's nothing that works better to lower intraocular pressure than marijuana.  And for severe glaucoma, it's been presented as sometimes the only salvation. 

The most prescribed glaucoma drops, pilocarpine, constitute an alkaloid obtained from a jungle medicine herb, pilocarpa, native to South America.  I don't know how the natives used the plant itself and how they fared, but the pharmaceutical version is highly toxic and many people find it hard to tolerate.  MJ, on the other hand, is well tolerated by many, but I don't know what its legal status and/or availability are in your parts.  If that's not a problem, try to make sure you steer clear of the GM strains.  

24 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

If truly hierarchical it should have been Cats, gods, etc etc

Then and there, cats were gods.

Here and now, however, gods are cats.  

These are sculptures of the deity Tlaloc from the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.  To the natives, he was "the god who came from the sky," god of thunderstorms and destruction. However, some of Tlaloc's depictions do not look god-like or menacing. For example, here he looks more like a rather depressed pilot from a crushed plane.

@Nungali Strange indeed.  But dream-weavers are liars.  In the 8th grade, I had a dream about America.  In the morning, when I came to school, a boy in my class told me he had a dream about me in America, and apparently some relative I had there left me an inheritance of $76 million.  I still remember that number, and am still waiting...  

5 hours ago, thelerner said:

This is probably a naive question.  

Do people end up eating the fruit and food they put out on a shrine?  

 

Definitely.  But if you're offering them alcohol (for some gods and immortals, it's a must), you discard it afterwards.  A bit of a different approach is used with Zhurong, the God of Fire, who is is present in the cooking fire in your kitchen.  Since you're into cooking, here's a tip: offer him some hard liquor from time to time, you just need to sprinkle a little on the burning fire, e.g. by dipping your fingers in your drink and shaking the drops off while inviting Zhurong to partake and giving him thanks for cooking your food.  This is supposed to improve its taste and bioavailability, and prevent mishaps like under- or overcooking, burning, oversalting, etc..  

1 hour ago, steve said:

 

I once read of a koan in which the master demanded the pupil pull the Eiffel Tower [sic] out of their pocket! The pupil was enlightened on the spot.

Thanks for the tip.  I'll put that Paris scarf in my pocket, pull it out, see what happens.  Please stay tuned.    

11 minutes ago, Nungali said:

Anyway , back to the kundalini .

 

Its not a metaphor at all , we all actually have a big snake curled up inside us  . It masquerades  as part of the large intestine so as to hide during x-rays .

 

The correct yogic procedure to activate it is to calmly sit in lotus , while holding a live rat with your teeth .

 

Now .... come on !   Who is gonna say I have no experience and read that one in a book ?

This makes total sense.  If you don't hold a live rat in your teeth, the kundalini snake will have no good reason to rush upward.  (That's why most practitioners fail to awaken it.  Masters who know this secret guard it closely.)  And if you don 't sit in lotus, you won't have a legit reason to claim spiritual practice.  But in reality, the snake will rush upward to get the rat even if you sit in any other upright position for a while.  

42 minutes ago, steve said:

A potentially unpopular opinion - 

There has never been, nor will there ever be, any separation in any sense between wuji, taiji, and their limitless manifestations.

All such distinctions are inaccurate yet useful for purposes of analysis and discussion.

 

I own a vintage scarf with the map of Paris printed on it.

If there was no difference between the map and the territory, the Eiffel Tower would be poking me in the neck. 

1 minute ago, S:C said:

Do we ever go back ? 

All the time.

From the taoist perspective, the central channel can be found or placed anywhere where there's yin-yang interplay and transformation.  It's the "mysterious border" between yin and yang, and it's not anatomical nor material and not even "spiritual."  What it is is in a certain sense virtual -- a virtual field of potential manifestations.  If you look at the taijitu, it's that S-shaped demarcation line between yin and yang which both divides and unites them and sort of doesn't exist -- it's the interplay and co-creation of yin and yang that make it appear.  No such interplay takes place in wuji where there's no duality.  The reason there's no duality is that nothing happens there.  Once something happens -- anything at all -- bye wuji, bye nonduality, hello manifestations.   

So, the central channel can be this division-unification between, e.g., the left side of the body and the right side, the left brain and the right, but also the upper and the lower body, or the back and the front, or the outer and the inner, and so on.  Moreover, it can be the border between the body and the mind, between jing and qi, qi and shen, between life and death, between gods and mortals, and so on.  If you place your unwavering awareness on any of those division-unification borders, that's where your central channel will be.

3 hours ago, Unota said:

This has always driven me craaazy! I always  thought, isn't alchemy literally an attempt to go against nature? I like going with the flow. And I like daoism. But not particularly interested in the alchemy part. Which sounds pretty silly, because that's a pretty big part.

"Against the flow" examples from nature:

Salmons live for 2-3 years and die immediately after spawning.  All salmons are powerfully drawn to spawning, but if you put obstacles in the way of it happening, they will live for 14 years.  That's going against the flow -- for longevity.

Mice like to eat.  If food is plentiful, they will always eat their fill.  If you restrict their food at an early age, their lifespan increases greatly -- sometimes fivefold, which in human years would correspond to getting to be 160 years old.  They grow up smaller than average mice but their health is stellar.  That's going against the flow -- for longevity.

Neidan practitioners try to go against the flow because they want to be healthy (in body, mind, and spirit) and live longer than what their "natural" lifespan dictates.  What is it anyway, this "natural" lifespan?  Maybe an individual practitioner won't be able to pull off a dramatic increase -- because of compromised genetics, environmental adversities, stressful events, traumatic experiences -- there's no guarantee that he or she will live a longer and healthier life than some lucky individual who just goes with the flow and still beats them at this game due to stellar genetics, environmental blessings, low stress life, happy avoidance of traumatizing occurrences or routines, and so on.  But the idea is to improve one's chances despite adversities. 

In other words, it's natural to go with the flow, and paradoxically enough (taoism is nothing if not full of paradoxes), it can also be natural to go against the flow.  It all depends on what kind of flow and where one is headed going against it and how they go about it.