ernobe

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Everything posted by ernobe

  1. Couple of questions

    Yep. Thanks.
  2. First question is, I opted to receive email notifications when new content appears in content I follow. It's not happening. Second question is, I recently noticed my status change from "Junior Bum" to a "Dao Bum". How many points do I need to be a "Senior Bum"?
  3. Couple of questions

    I'm now getting emails per post when it is posted, at least for the recent posts to https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/44988-nietzsche-quotes ! I've changed the options for this thread to "a notification and an email when new content is posted" to see if it works for this thread as well.
  4. Nietzsche Quotes

    Some interesting facts there I didn't know. Thanks for sharing. Reminds me of going to a Catholic theological seminary here in Costa Rica, before going off on my own into the woods. I expected to be reading some of the outstanding Christian theologians down the centuries, but instead, a priest would preach and then have us write an essay for homework. At university I had studied St. Anselm in the philosophy class, but here they had someone sent in from the local public university for a regular philosophy class on the moderns. I suspect Nietzsche got some of the same rap.
  5. Nietzsche Quotes

    It's kind of hard to imagine what sort of a bubble these people have been living in for more than a thousand years to imagine that Christiians and what passes for Christian morality has been unimpeachable. Especially in the realm of politics. Nietzsche was not only critical of the herd like Christian morality¸ but also of the general state of European aristocratic civilization. Seeing that both criticisms have a well meaning and reasonable basis in fact, it is not hard to assume that putting both together actually serve to point a way forward for the Christian faith, to undo its wrongs and head in the right direction. Regardless of what is normally said of his philosophy being irreligious.
  6. Question on wuxing trigrams

    According to Thomas Cleary in page 437 of "The Taoist Classics, Volume 4", the River Diagrams' four outer points correspond to the qualities of fire or spirit, water or vitality, metal or sense, and wood, nature or essence. The center is earth or energy. Then on page 443 he says that Liu I-Ming relates these to the trigrams as follows: Heaven stands for the movement of sense, Lake for the stillness of sense; Fire stands for the movement of spirit, Earth for the stillness of spirit; Thunder stands for the movement of nature, Wind for the stillness of nature; and Water stands for the movement of vitality, Mountain for the stillness of vitality.
  7. Question on wuxing trigrams

    The usual history tells us that sometime during the Han dynasty the five element theory became combined with the I-Ching. If one accepts the attribution of the Latter Heaven trigram arrangement to King Wen, the author of the I-Ching, it is not too difficult to combine it with the trigram element correlations in the Shuo-gua appendix and the traditional five element correlations of the yearly cycle (and the center) to arrive at the proper correlations of the three trigram elements not mentioned in the Shuo-gua. What is missing, as far as I can tell from the existing literature in English, is a reference to or translation from an actual text in which this is exposed. Is there such a text?
  8. Nietzsche Quotes

    If a woman has manly virtues, one feels like running away; and if she has no manly virtues, she herself runs away.
  9. Practical alchemy apology

    A few days ago I posted a link to this thread at Rubaphilos' Yahoo group, offering to relay any message he may have. So, we may be certain that not all the intelligences, but at least those concerned have been contacted. One aspect of Rubas' video presentations that seems to be absent is that pertaining to magic, considering how fundamental magic is to his hermetic world view. For him magic and alchemy are like the two opposite poles, or yin-yang of Hermetism.
  10. Practical alchemy apology

    @FraterUFA If I remember correctly, Heredom was a group created by Rubaphilos based on what he calls a third generation Rosicrucian model, both of which however are nowadays equally defunct.
  11. Practical alchemy apology

    By "saying" I meant "thinking". By "become aware" I also meant "think".
  12. Practical alchemy apology

    His motives may have been hidden from you at the beginning, but he has no excuse saying that they were unknown to him and that he was unconscious and not aware of them. Did he become aware of them because you did? I don't think so. Likewise with regard to so-called esoteric training: the student doesn't just magically become aware of things about himself because the teacher pointed them out to him. They were his all along.
  13. Practical alchemy apology

    @Nungali If you watch more than few minutes you will get to Rubaphilos speaking. As for the subject or intent, if you want it in the form of a question for discussion, it could be the following: Why does Rubaphilos first affirm the validity of a physical process of alchemy, and then say that the alchemists' belief in or rejection of transmutation depends on his own personal motives in making such a claim?
  14. Couple of questions

    Daily email digests are working: just got my Dao Bums digest for yesterday this morning. Today, in "Account Settings" I'm now opting for "A notification when new content is posted". The setting for this topic remains daily emails. So I'll see if I get notifications for this topic, and if I get this post in the digest tomorrow.
  15. Couple of questions

    I received a "Dao Bums digest" with my previous post to this topic after opting to receive daily emails. But now I no longer receive notifications at the site. Can I not receive emails and notifications?
  16. Couple of questions

    I'll try receiving email once a day instead of when it is posted.
  17. Five-element theory and Lao & Chuang

    It just means that it is the nature of wood to be overcome by metal, and the resultant element is metal. It is also its nature to resist being overcome by metal, so it stands and the metal is "injured". Which one remains depends on which is stronger. So much for the cycle of destruction. For generation something similar happens: water produces wood and the result is wood, or wood exhausts water and the result is water, because what we mean by "exhaust" is that it was "exhausting" it, not using it all up to its limit. In this case which one remains depends on which we had a more unlimited (or inexhaustable) supply of.
  18. Couple of questions

    Yes Kar3n, where it says "Change how the notification is sent" I chose email, and my problem is that the email is not sent, despite it then saying "An email when new content is posted" (instead of "A notification when new content is posted").
  19. Couple of questions

    The only automatic settings I could find were "Automatically follow new content I post" and "Automatically follow content I reply to". I switched both of them off, and still got no emails. I have currently switched them back on, and have live notifications (at the site) turned off and only email turned on. In "Manage Followed Content" I can see that I'm set to receive email only as soon as it happens (not daily or weekly). We'll see what happens.
  20. So Many Qigong Traditions : How To Approach ?

    What is Qi anyway? Sounds like some watered down version of Tao. Best to just read your Tao Te Ching and shut up.
  21. Wrong?

    That's the view Jing Fang, according to http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Han/personsjingfang.html :
  22. New to the Dao

    Abel, what makes you think that you haven't been practicing internal alchemy? Is the practice of internal alchemy synonymous with formal instruction in a school? Making ones' finger tingle at will doesn't mean one can make someone else feel their fingers tingle.
  23. Thoughts on past "supernatural" experience?

    If it was bright enough to colour everything around, how could you tell that it was a sphere?
  24. Several questions about practicing taoism

    I suppose Cleary would say that his translation includes the commentary from the Ten Wings (which he calls the image), which helps clarify the meaning. The complete text he gives for 14.1 is: "Do not get involved with what is harmful, and you will be blameless. You will be blameless if you struggle. Image. Great possession is positive at first; there is no involvement with what is harmful." One gets the idea that great possessions can get one involved with difficulties, which can be avoided at the beginning if one takes precautions. Wilhelm also translates the commentary from the Ten Wings, which I find to be very bizarre in this case: "If the nine at the beginning in POSSESSION IN GREAT MEASURE has no relationships, this is harmful." It seems to be saying the opposite of what his own commentary on the line says.
  25. Several questions about practicing taoism

    Yes, if it is Clearys' own translation of the I Ching, it can be very difficult to understand unless you compare with a translation like Richters' and the Taoist and Buddhist versions. For example 14.1 in Clearys' translation reads: "Do not get involved with what is harmful, and you will be blameless. You will be blameless if you struggle." In Clearys' "The Buddhist I Ching" the same line is: "As long as there is none of the harm that comes from association, this is not blameworthy. If one struggles, there will be no blame." In Richters' translation it reads: "NO MUTUAL INJURY or HARM. DIFFICULTIES, BUT NO HARM." As we can see, there is a steady progression from meaningless drivel to the bright clarity of truth in Richters' version.