wandelaar

I'm not personally into esoteric Taoism but I found this a very interesting topic as to what happens when things go wrong in cultisch movements. Thanks to those who took the trouble to tell us about it.

What is this "O at a D" business? Is this something that was en vogue here when I was away at Original Dao?

Just now, ChiDragon said:

Steve's user name here was 'starjumper'. Perhaps some of you may look up his old posts on the site!

That could be done but will not tell us much about what he's currently doing. It seems that he has become somewhat of a celebrity in the meantime.

Interesting figure, a lot more tolerant and open minded than Steve too. Is that the reason for the break between those two men?

35 minutes ago, Straybird said:

I think it died out mostly because the site owner didn't have the time, money or energy to devote to maintaining it.

Seems we are running in circles. There was hardly any activity left on the public part of the forum before it closed down. So even if the site owner had had the time, money or energy to continue than that would only have kept an inactive forum online. 

35 minutes ago, Straybird said:

A lot of people have made it known they don't like reddit, we are considering moving to a forum like forum motion or proboards.

Apparently you have some information that I'm missing... For now I will see what happens, good luck.

10 minutes ago, dino said:

that is me,haha. now i do it a lot slower,i like it that way.

Perhaps you could inform us if Steve is still teaching and has students? And how are you doing with your own practice?

@Straybird

I think you have a point here. But in practice it doesn't work out that way. After all Original Dao slowly died for lack of interest, and your new attempt on Reddit is largely ignored. Those like you and me who would prefer a Taoist site where the whole political spectrum can feel at home appear to only form a small minority, and too small to make for a vibrant community. Furthermore those on the extremes are much more motivated to put their political statements wherever they can and so internet sites eventually tend to lean one way or the other. Unless of course politics is banned, or relegated to a separate (and sometimes hidden) subforum. You might not personally like Discord but those on the Right seem to be happy with it. So at the moment I don't see your attempt to start a neutral Taoist discussion site as viable.

Is that the same guy as in the video?

32 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

Of course, if you insist, you can say the combination of both is doing all the work. However, I have given my reason to prove my point.

No - you haven't proven your point. The software on it's own can't do anything and you know it. In the same way feeding sense date to an empty brain (whether human or animal) wil have no effect at all. Both animals and humans start with a basic interpretative scheme at birth to effectively deal with the incoming sense data. Calling this interpretative scheme instinct only changes the words used but not the facts. Furthermore the brain does change as a result of cognition, experiences, etc. So you are wrong on multiple counts but unwilling to see it. Enough - goodbye.

26 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

So, this raises a question. Is the brain doing all the thinking or the mind is doing all the thinking? Can you said that you have a strong  brain but a weak mind. Am I separating the brain and the mind here? 

It might be so that thinking is done on the brain, in a similar way that software can run on the hardware of a computer. It's senseless to ask if its really the hardware or the software that's doing the processing, because it's the combination of both that makes it happen.

26 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

In order to have a strong intelligent mind, the mind has to be cultivated. No? To cultivate the mind is to acquire knowledge from external source. No?

Yes partly so - but that doesn't prove your point. Besides formal types of knowledge like mathematics can also be developed internally without external input.

26 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

To appreciate the value of a spiritual way of life, one has to go through the learning of spiritual way of life. Otherwise, how would you know what the spiritual way of life is?

What exactly are you trying to prove here?

2 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

My logic tells me that we have to start from zero. It is because we knew nothing when we were first born. The inborn interpretative scheme to make sense of the incoming sense-data has to come from something that we had learned from zero. Otherwise, we have nothing to compare to the incoming sense-data.

One cannot interpret without an interpretative scheme, however primitive. Sense data on itself are meaningless. If we really knew nothing when we were first born than we wouldn't know how to eat or drink or what to do to get it. Even animals have a very basic understanding of the world when they are first born as shown in their behavior.

It's not necessary to believe in the independence of the mind from the brain (for which there is hardly any proof anyhow) to appreciate the value of a spiritual way of life. Only look at the original Epicureans who were hard-core materialists but who's doctrine largely agreed with Lao tzu on living a simple life. Not believing in an afterlife makes this life here on earth all the more precious and not to be wasted.

And indeed matter according to the current theories of physics is just as mysterious as the spiritual realm, so even if matter were the ultimate stuff of the world than nothing of the wonder of existence would be lost.

It's logically impossible to only look outside and still see something meaningful. There has to be an inborn interpretative scheme to make sense of the incoming sense-data. One cannot start from zero. As one grows up the interpretative scheme can gradually be modified to accommodate new experiences. Furthermore the TTC clearly bears the marks of the historical times in which it was written. Some parts are simply obsolete now.

9 minutes ago, Pak_Satrio said:

I agree. He seems to be a loose cannon as well. Last year he accepted a lot of students and they had a pretty active group on social media, then suddenly out of nowhere he falls out with his top student and calls him a fraud then deletes his class's facebook group and stopped teaching them as far as I know. 

Can that info still be found somewhere on the internet? I didn't know that.

Probably some people will say they are healing, others that they are neither good nor bad, and still others that they are dangerous. Personally I would only trust the results of a string of carefully done scientific studies with appropriate research. The possibilities for self-deception based on anecdotal evidence in this kind of exercises are endless. I don't know if such research has already been done, if you find any let me know.

1 hour ago, steve said:

As an aside, I recently learned more about a cousin of mine that I'd never known who was a theoretical physicist that specialized in nuclear theory and particle physics. He was especially interested in the asymmetry between matter and antimatter and the physics of ''time reversal." I've tried reading some of his books and papers but they're way over my head.

Try Paul Davies who writes quite understandable popular science books.

Happily the days when a topic would be completely destroyed by a barrage of pages-long post by voidisyinyang citing his own bizarre theories as soon as he noticed one or two keyword like non-commutative, music theory, Pythagoras or Quantum Mechanics seem to be over. It has become possible again on the The Dao Bums to orderly discuss a topic within the topic devoted to the topic. Lets hope this will stay so...

I don't know much about NeiGong, NeiDan, etc. That's not my kind of thing. But I know Steve from his time here, and later at OriginalDao. I think he can be rude at times but he is serious about what he is doing, and he wants to keep his particular lineage alive. As to whether what he teaches works and whether it is healthy I have no idea. But that goes for all things NeiGong or NeiDan related.

https://www.youtube.com/@TienShanTaoistInternalArts

Take a look there.

He has written two book now (of which I have one) so for some background look there. There are also some video's with him talking and demonstrating exercises. I don't think he has many students, as he frequently complained that it was very difficult to find serious students to whom he could teach the ins and out of his system. I don't know whether his system works as I didn't try it.

Furthermore in ordinary circumstances the small things that make live valuable are already available here and now. Looking for satisfaction elsewhere is the real problem.

Within reason, or also on topic? The reason I left the Discord version is that there anyone can say what they want in any topic. The result is that fanatics who cannot help themselves will spoil the whole place with their unhinged rantings. That's why complete freedom for an internet forum doesn't work. What would you do when someone on your new forum continually posted extremist political content all over the place that had nothing to do with the Taoist and spiritual topics discussed?

My impression is that you are avoiding to consider the crucial thing that is at stake here: how to allow "talking politics" on a forum devoted to Taoism (and spirituality) without disrupting the discussion of Taoism (and spirituality) itself. Original Dao had a hidden part of the forum for the discussion of controversial subjects, but the Discord version (as far as I know) has refused to do so with the predictable result that it's being misused as a mouthpiece by political extremists. You will have take a solid stand in this matter or history will repeat itself.

@Straybird

I just took another look at the Discord successor of Original Dao, and apparently it's still alive and kicking. So if you like to see your discussions on Taoism larded with Joe Blast's lunatic conspiracy theories, then that's the place to be. On Original Dao that kind of bullshit was at least abandoned to a hidden part of the forum so that normal people could talk about Taoism and spirituality without having to wade through right wing extremist propaganda. I think that that's the real reason why there is hardly any activity on or interest for Original Tao - not that it's on Reddit but that people who like the right wing extremist kind of stuff already have a place to go. Or is your aim to rather create a place where old-fashioned conservatives (and thus not the Trumpian variety) would feel at home?

Homework done:

Source: https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing