wandelaar

On 11/18/2023 at 7:07 PM, Maddie said:

I started off on my path via qigong/Taoism and like many westerners I assumed the two were practically synonymous. Then I discovered Taoism differed drastically depending upon whom you asked. 

     If you asked many westerners Taoism was qigong or internal alchemy. If you asked someone from China or Taiwan the answer tended to differ drastically being that Taoism was doing ceremonies at a Taoist temple. To be honest I didn't like this because it seemed "too religious". 

    To further complicate matters since I first got into all of this when I was a history major in college, I asked my eastern studies professor about what Taoism is and she made it sound like a philosophy of reading and studying the TTC. 

    To this day I still don't really know what Taoism really is or is supposed to be. Honestly it was largely due to this confusion amongst other things that caused me to drift towards Buddhism eventually.

 

 So that being said what is Taoism, and how does one practice it?

You seem to think that there is a true Taoism, a set of practices and doctrines that forms the correct answer to the question "What is Taoism?" But you could as well ask "What is Christianity?" and then go around in different places and countries and ask a lot of people who identify as Christians. The answers you will get are bound to be very diverse. And this is only to be expected given that the religion in question has been around for millennia and has flourished in different cultures. Christianity, Taoism, etc. are only somewhat vague first labels. For more precision you have to specify what form of Taoism you want to study and/or practice. Only then will you get more precise and consistent answers.

1 minute ago, Cobie said:

Then why become one with Tao?

The whole idea that one could be apart from Tao is absurd. As I see it becoming one with Tao simply means realizing that one wasn't separated from Tao in the first place. This has a cognitive and an emotional aspect to it. I have mastered the cognitive realization but am still far from emotionally accepting myself as just another "straw dog".

@Sanity Check

I happen to belong to an atheist society myself and I can assure you that I never met nor read about atheists "who believe order and natural principles of reality do not exist". Atheists are usually very rational people and thus they wouldn't be likely to ignore the order that is shown to exist by physics or even by the phenomena that any normal person is acquainted with such as the patterns of day and night, the phases of the moon and the seasons (and a whole lot of other things besides).

Quite another thing is the question of whether or not the order and natural principles that are present in the world have a purpose related to our human existence. Many atheists think that the very existence of people in this world is an accidental phenomenon that might as well not have happened had the circumstances on our planet been somewhat different. Of course this is hard to swallow, but it is precisely this point that makes (philosophical) Taoism acceptable to me because Taoism is one of the very few religions that doesn't ask me to believe in fairy tales. Tao is not benevolent.

In my opinion OD worked well for quite some time. I don't agree with Cobie about the reason it eventually failed, but that doesn't matter here. The even later "forum" you refer to was on Discord. I have forgotten the name, and I left when it became clear that it was being misused by some members for spreading far right conspiracy theories and kindred bullshit. Fanatics of any color will not stop at simply posting their opinion on this or that but they will spread their propaganda all over the place when given a chance, thereby driving out the more serious members who like to have a civilized discussion. So members should not be allowed to overwhelm the forum by the sheer volume of their posts. And then there are also trolls and other sick minds who like to spoil the friendly atmosphere in a community. Those should be banned. Complete freedom is an illusion, and in practice it would lead to the law of the jungle with even less freedom than under even a stringent form of moderation. I cannot find the "forum" on Discord anymore. It may have disappeared or gone underground.

The supposition that there is no ancient distinction between philosophical and religious Taoism is itself a modern (or rather postmodern) western fiction. Like so much else of postmodernism it's without merit.

Welcome! Years ago we had lots of discussions here about philosophical Taoism and classics like the Tao Te Ching, Chuang tzu and Lieh tzu. Particularly the latter two. Let me know when you start a topic about them.

On 11/16/2023 at 3:51 PM, tao.te.kat said:

I have a blog: https://blogdetao.org

Is there no English version of your blog?

He wrote two books about his life and lineage.

There is already a topic asking for a TTC translation containing pictures (that is: photographs) of the texts as they were found in the tomb:

I would still be interested in having such a book.

Yang chu - one of the more interesting ancient Chinese philosophers! Not for the faint of heart.

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

People seem to have different reactions to Marblehead and Starjumper but I think they've got plenty in common.  They both might deny it but I think Marblehead was a bit of a starjumper and Starjumper a bit of a marblehead.

Marblehead was a skeptical down to earth person and didn't concern himself with esoterical practices. But to Starjumper those things were all important. Also Marblehead was more tolerant of opposing opinions than Starjumper. As to their character traits however I think they had much in common.

Behind the occasional rudeness there was an inquiring mind. If he somehow continues to exist then there will be enough to explore next. If not, than at least he did live with gusto.

Yes - sorry to read that he died.

Who needs science? Much better to collect anecdotes to substantiate your own preconceptions. And when science says the same thing you already thought to be the case anyhow, well then by all means go ahead and quote the scientists. Welcome to the post-truth era.

Is this Steve Gray's successor?:  https://www.taohermitage.com/instructors.html

Yes - but the Guodian TTC isn't complete...

Interesting link, will read it later on.

Thanks steve! Much better to get the topic back on track by providing some useful information, than for me to engage in a developing shouting match with Taomeow. I should have known better. 

Of course men historically didn't have any chores of their own outside of family life, and thus could invest most of their time and chi in their own cultivation.

In the West Epicurus already solved this quandary about desire and happiness with his classification of desires: https://iep.utm.edu/epicur/#SH5c  But his teachings were not taken seriously and heavily distorted later on. As often happens with the wise men and women of old...

Good to see you back! We had a lot of interesting discussions in the old days. Let's just forget about the political upheaval. No need to participate in that part of the forum. Should be possible to get some of the good stuff going again. Such as discussions about the good life, the interpretation of Taoist classics, etc. Are you still studying the I Ching?

I have tried to read the article but as far as I got it was all about Buddhism as an organized religion, and thus as a (historical) social phenomenon. It doesn't surprise me that women were historically discriminated against in Buddhism as an organized religion as that happened a lot in the society at large in the old days, and even today. I don't like joining an organized religion anyway as I'm old enough to make up my own mind on things. In western Buddhism as a philosophy I haven't seen any discrimination against women, but maybe I haven't looked hard enough...

Thanks! I have downloaded the article and will read it later on.

Always nice to see some source for such a claim. Also there are many forms of Buddhism, so what form of Buddhism do you claim considers women as incomplete entities? And if they do what arguments (if any) are given for that?

3 hours ago, helpfuldemon said:

People will do what they will do, regardless of wisdom or experience.

Why do you even call yourself helpfuldemon, when all you do here is posting fallacies and non sequiturs?

If it were so that wisdom or experience doesn't play any role in what people do, than Taoism, spirituality, or even posting here on The Dao Bums would be completely pointless and a waste of time. Unless of course you like trolling and/or debating for the fun of it. But that wouldn't be very helpful, would it? 

As I said before I am not going to argue any more about this. If you don't see a moral problem in huge differences in wages that have no connection to the amount of effort put into the work by those who earn those wages, than that's the end of it. Furthermore you are simply ignoring the societal costs and political dangers of the huge gap between the haves and the have nots. I like to see people treated equally, whenever possible. That also implies that hard working people deserve better wages than those whose with easy jobs. You apparently couldn't care less. But morality cannot be based on facts alone, there will have to be some ultimate intuitions about what's wrong and what's right or else nothing concerning morals can be proven or reasoned about. But if you don't care about equality as a moral principle than naturally my arguments are empty words to you. I cannot disprove your position, and you cannot disprove mine. And that's the end of it.