zoe

Hi, I'm posting roughly half&half for clarification and guidance in relation to Golden Flower. Kind of apparent from my previous posts, but for context my only interaction with Taoism outside of meandering this forum is mulling over a miscellaneous assortment of TTC translations and reading the Cleary translation of Golden Flower, although I have seen significant improvements in my understanding since I started referring to this commentary that was shared with me when I first joined the forum. I'll split my questions into ones of guidance and clarification: clarification: 1. Are the various energies like Qi/Jing/etc. in Qi Gong etc. relevant (or necessary) to Golden Flower practice? And if the answer isn't exact is there any value to syncreticism between them? I have no familiarity at all with these things. 2. if not entirely irrelevant, is there some reading anyone could recommend to get me up to speed on the above matters? 3. Would you generally recommend just reading the I-Ching itself to get an understanding of its basic concepts (and if so, what translations are prefered)? Golden Flower references it a lot and I'm hoping I might get something out of understanding the context better. guidance: 1. Has anyone had experience with antidepressants and Golden Flower practice? I was recently prescribed Welbutrin for seasonal depression which I take with my relatively low dose of Adderall for ADHD, I have certainly fallen off in my practice and spiritual/mental integrity to a considerable degree since around when I started it, although that (ironically) is also when an ice storm happened to completely ice over the place I live in and totally isolate everyone in their homes. So... who knows. 2. This is a problem I've always had honestly but In meditating I do begin to feel as the sign of verification in Golden Flower 6.2 is described after some time, but inevitably shortly after that point (but often earlier) I'll begin to get random inner monologue noise, dismissing it inevitably pulls my attention and if I fully quiet it it feels like the only thing left to silence is the minuscule amount of attention I have directed at clearing miscellaneous thoughts away, after that's gone I'll find that it stays quiet for a little bit but inevitably something will come up and this usually disorients me badly enough that I just feel like I have to give up for a while. How do I deal with this? Additional note on that second question, just something I think is kind of neat: my problems with inner monologue have led me to start learning this language called Toki Pona (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona), it's a language with only about 150 words that focuses on minimalism and not lending space in the language itself to negative concepts, to the greatest degree possible. I'm hoping that it may be easier to just switch inner monologue to this language which with its far more minimal design could end up being closer to non-lingual thought (and thereby closer to quietude, imo anyways), make inner monologue less prone to rising from angst, and just be easier to silence in general.

I think you're missing the point, but I guess that lines up with you speaking in bad faith. I've made no assumptions, you were speaking of antidepressants in a demonizing manner and I found that reminiscent of my mother's demonization of medicine in general, not that I needed this to make my point, but it felt appropriate since you were speaking in a way that seemed to accuse me of being personally unacquainted with the risks of psychiatric medication. The exact substance of the medical skepticism in your own and her case aren't the same, but they're quite comparable, enough so that it was a valid response. I grow further assured that you are motivated by indignation.

Ty, although unfortunately not. In large part I have overcome it though, although my psy addressed problems aren't too thoroughly intertwined at this point, in terms of healing from those things I've been helped far more by my cultivation practices and from therapy. If anything has been hurting me in recent years it is estrangement from my family, that was initially driven by spite and frustration but I now understand that my mother is a weak and materially obsessed person caught in a web of a million neuroses that turn her against herself and everyone around her. I couldn't say much of anything about what my father feels or thinks but he kinda just does what she tells him to so, not much better I suppose.

I imagine not. But how many more have died because of zealous and ill informed demonization of medicine? I can't give you that number exactly but I don't think that number is small either, personally though if you'd like to know what my stake in this is, I was raised by an emotionally abusive mother with BPD, the kind of woman who thought terminal diseases could be cured with essential oils, and I was denied various medication that I have now which significantly improves my life (not antidepressants though- to be clear) and I came very close to being among those dead children myself. I have a hard time believing that the motivation for your words is closer to sympathy than indignation.

Exactly my point. Substances of almost any kind are dangerous (with a large dependency on context, in the vast majority of cases) but that doesn't exactly mean they don't work, they're just imperfect tools. Perhaps you did not mean it this way, but your past reply struck me as demonizing chemicals which is a pet peeve of mine as it leads people into not acknowledging the real, physical/mental effects (whether they are for better or for worst) of those substances and distorting their perception of the world to accommodate that.

me too, just can't wait for mid-spring to be here tbh. as I see it, all they do is tweak the way the brain balances chemical transmitters a bit- antidepressants in particular are very long acting taking a relatively long time to start fully working, and taking a relatively long time to wear off. So if a particular antidepressant doesn't nudge the balance of someones brains' chemicals in a direction that helps they're just going to feel perpetually off, imho that is a big part of their negative perception. When one of these makes a person feel worst the way they feel worst tends to be subtle but constantly omnipresent, which makes it easy to see how people that have bad experiences with them see them as strictly bad, with drugs that have shorter action you take them and then they wear off but with something like an antidepressant the days or weeks you have to wait after stopping feel uncanny. Personally, Welbutrin made me feel soulless and dissociated. It felt like my consciousness was so frail that I couldn't exert the mental will to interact with myself internally, at all. I've dealt with much more severe substance induced psychosis though (... you guessed it, largely from things with strong dopaminergic effects, lol) and was able to keep levelheaded as I waited a few days for it to get out of my system. But I can really see how someone who isn't as well acquainted with their own head would take an experience like that as a borderline spiritual encounter with evil. :shrug:

Sorry that I wasn't clear- I meant to imply that I've quit Welbutrin, my psych agreed that it doesn't seem to do me much good. I think the dopaminergic stuff is a bit more complicated though- I also take adderall and it's definitely a significant net positive for me. Similarly- to infer the dopaminergic effects of meditation (which aren't terribly consistent or well understood, no?) and then assume they may negatively impact me because I have some CPTSD is a pretty extreme leap to make, and quite reductionist in that it disregards any outweighing benefits meditation may have. At any rate, my psych is pretty unipinionated on meditation and the Golden Flower meditation I've partook in has been extremely beneficial to me, despite the occasional roadblocks. Pretty alright. I'm doing better with my art stuff across the board (that is to say, considering software dev and the other weird creative-adjacent shit I partake in), somewhat appropriately I can't really convey how this correlates with my cultivation practices in any way that feels especially meaningful but there definitely is something there. Treating the "medicine" of TSoGF as a sort of well for creative energy works, somehow. As I'm sure you've guessed, that's an extreme reduction lol.

quite a late reply but- I actually got off of them fairly quickly, they inflicted me with a really weird dissociation that I haven't had since much worst times. ^ yeah psych said this, she seems to think that's why it probably didn't go well. Coincidentally though the weather has been getting less awful and in addition to cultivation practices it's made me feel alright enough to pass on trying other antidepressants for now. Ty for the meditation techniques, I'll look into them.

I suppose all it really needs to do is just block out headvoice noise. Re-read your earlier post and found it much easier to parse this time, I was very tired yesterday and kind of skimmed it. I feel like this is an experiential explanation that clicks pretty well with my understanding so thank you, I'll try your recommendations. This is a very satisfying progression because awareness as something that can be targeted is something I was never able to intuitively understand until very recently, so I'm grateful to have some concepts for interacting with that.

I could definitely do that, if I could compare it to anything it would be like with a monophonic synth where there's only a single voice and "voice stealing" occurs when another tone is played. Although- generally TSTGF advocates for silence so I question if mantras are valid in the context of Golden Flower meditation but I guess it's worth trying, particularly if it allows for a deeper quietude than without it. Do you have any recommendations for mantras?

That's a fairly pragmatic tip, I think it'll be helpful. honestly a big part of my problem is that I have an extremely active inner monologue and it can't help but jump out and ramble on about even the smallest sensation, it's hard to explain but it's like a voice that exists precursory to thought instead of relying on it though because in quietude it'll just start making a vague kind of mental "noise" that I can't adequately describe, it's not noise like white noise but rather like speaking without actual information or words involved, I can't even imagine how I would get it to stop. What ends up happening during meditation is that I'll experience a moment of quietude before it starts making the "noise", inevitably that brings a very very small amount of attention towards it which constitutes enough "thought" for it to have something to say at which point it will basically start rambling about TSTGF passages and actively describe my mental state, I can try to dismiss the thoughts it is reading out but it'll just keep making noise. It just doesn't go away, if I'm being honest I don't think it's ever been quiet for longer than a few seconds in my life, discounting moments where I was physically speaking or reading/writing something.

damn that sucks but oh well, better to know. I'll consider the charms though, love me some little trinkets.

Oh wow! We're back in my birth year (I was born in the year of the golden dragon, I am not familiar with the distinction between the different types though) ngl I'm psyched. I wouldn't call it inaccurate to say that my progress with Golden Flower has become exponentially greater since the start of the new year but overall I've improved a lot in the last couple of months honestly. (I should really emphasize that I have 0 familiarity with the zodiac, is it at all beneficial for a person to be in the year of the animal they were born in?)

Honestly this does parse pretty well for me, and I'll admit that is exactly what the state I often find myself is conducive to, and the fact that that's the case is a large part of why I consider cultivation to be conducive to my artistic goals, I agree that the creativity I'm pursuing lies in a deeper place than base desire, instead in the "center" described by the TTG/Golden Flower. I can't say I even distinguish those things too heavily. With the Golden Flower materials I was recently recommended I have found that my creativity has become a lot clearer to me than before but I still find it practically difficult to get closer to the state where my creativity is present, a specific observation I've made is that early in the morning I'm overcome with oblivion as described by Golden Flower, (despite its recommendation to spend the mornings in meditation) which makes it very difficult to meditate or do anything very mechanical, it often feels like it limits the length of my thoughts to the point that they're only an "image" of themselves with no actual content and I don't get over it until early in the evening in many cases, at which point I'm tired enough that I easily get higher and more harmful and false expressions of creativity mixed up and fall into a state of anxiety and frustration. I appreciate the rationale, though. It's good to hear such a thoroughly reasoned perspective similar to my own that lines up with the insights I've recently been making.

Very sorry if I'm repeating myself with what I was saying in my literature recommendation requesting thread but- I've become a bit confused on how Taoism can even address the topic of art- more specifically, artistic motivation. I've found myself in a fairly extreme lapse of creative motivation in general since the start of seasonal depression (first winter in a place that actually experiences winter) and in trying to turn to Daoism for assistance in this I can't help but realize that I pursue artistry because I have a desire to create art. In retrospect- for a very long time that desire had been to have art of my own creation, as opposed to the distinct act of creation which does not reason as a perspective well aligned with the Tao. I don't really see that as my main motive right now but who am I to say? Regardless, I feel affected by that having been my motive for some time at the very least, and maybe my lack of that desire now means there's just nothing and is why things are like this. tl;dr though, if desire is poisonous then what besides desire should I rely on to drive me to create things? If not desire then what else is there? To create at all it feels as though it can only be reasoned that it was done because of desire, I presume that a large part of the problem with my creative work is that I am having trouble conceiving any reason to pursue it other than things which I could describe as desire. As something that seems like such a core tenant of Daoism, it admittedly seems like the shunning of desire is something I have a really poor understanding of, so I'd appreciate any clarification.

That's true. I guess more generally in terms of introspection I have a default perspective of a directional relationship between two mental phenomenon X -> Y as being one of Y's dependency and subservience to X. Which is stupid lol, but I guess I do think that way.

That reasons pretty well, although I don't feel like I'd previously intuited things that way. I appreciate the insight. I had a pretty bad period where I think I'd become nihilistic enough to decide things like duty, compassion, etc. could only be a result of desire and self-interest.

I'll try to give that some focus, I'll reply again if it seems to make a difference. Although atm the waters are a bit muddied, the resources on Golden Flower I was recently linked have made it many times easier for me to parse and following its prescriptions in this short time has done a lot for me in a lot of ways. So, might be a little while. That's plausible. I don't think that my ideal of art is something that can really exist, but even then what else is there for will to respond to but desire? I don't think there's necessarily not anything else but it's kinda hard to think about, if there's a line to be drawn I'm not sure where it is.

I've contemplated that, yeah. Admittedly I don't entirely understand the shunning of desire and it has made me question how it even leaves space for simple things like continuing to breathe, or posting this, lol. I guess my present lack of understanding has led me to frequently reduce the ideal to entirely eliminating desire but I'm assuming it's something along the lines of controlling desire rather than eliminating it, something about that at least in my limited context though just doesn't parse for me. Regarding the stuff about art itself, I'm not opposed to that view but I would say the problem I have is that in attempting to open that flow nothing comes forward, as I said, I don't really know what I want to make anymore and feel a bit directionless. Like, I've found character art really appealing for instance and I spent much of the last few years practicing art on character art related things, I won't deny that the constant repetitive sketching of heads and torsos and the like had some creative value but in that necessity of developing technical skill it turned art into a highly technical thing for me because my self hatred in much of that time made me feel unworthy to pursue art in a creative manner, so I almost never did. I've gotten a lot better in that regard and am more gung-ho as of late about free expression but all that time engaging art in such a repetitive and technical manner just sucked the creative element out of art for me, and I've found no way to recover it. In my study of The Golden Flower I've gathered that in its context this would mean that art is entirely yin for me now, (to a degree) devoid of creativity. Which is a kind of problem that it seemingly dedicates a lot of space to to resolution of, which is a large part of why I posted here tbh.

oh shit thanks. I really have made more progress reading it in the last few days than I had in weeks getting bleary eyed over just the Cleary translation of it I was previously reading, tysm!

Hi, I'm zoe, posting from the pacific northwest. I got my first introduction to Daoism about 5 years ago when I was graduating from high school, I was incredibly spiritually and mentally distraught at the time and engaged with a lot of circles tangential to 4Chan's /x/ due to a string of extremely unfortunate circumstances. Around a year after that I started MTF medical transition, due myriad circumstances at that time this kind of brought me up to a limit where I didn't feel like I could proceed with any form of spiritual cultivation, although I feel like I'm back from that now. Most of my experience with the Dao was through The Secret of The Golden Flower, although I never was able to progress too far with it it definitely provided instruction on meditation and spirituality that I've had more success with than anything prior. That being said, I paused at multiple points while reading it in finding myself unable to get past the earlier steps to cultivation in the book and stalled out with it. I've returned to it many times over the years but continually had little success, I might return to it eventually, but for now I think I just want to move onto something else, as this feels like beating a dead horse at this point. So, I'm mostly looking for literature recommendations.

Well that is what they're for, generally speaking. I think.

Yeah I've kinda ignored Zhuangzi, guess it's about time I read it then. might be specific to you but sounds interesting enough that I'll give it a try! Admittedly journaling does sometimes help a bit with these things but it's not too consistent... I'll try your advice though, admittedly I rarely read through my journals or my sketches which at least slightly defeats the whole point, but hey sometimes a reasoning of why you should do something from someone else helps. - Also I guess I forgot to mention earlier but- I also do ASCII art I suppose, as you can see in my profile picture. I can do pixel art too but I'm inefficient enough at it that I rarely do it, I've tried doing digital art before but the learning curve of using a drawing tablet has kinda kept me away lol.

I'd say the desire I originally went in with was less to be great, but just for the concepts I had to have some kind of tangible manifestation for my own satisfaction. I use pencil (I've a preference for 0.5mm 2b), fountain pens (I'm running 2 lamy safaris and a TWSBI Eco with a bunch of different inks, I'm a sucker for sheen inks though), and alcohol markers. I mostly just draw in Rhodia notebooks and the like. Admittedly the favoritism for notebooks is indicative of my problem, because a lot of what I'm doing is just repetitive technical practice. I was less seriously engaged with visual arts back in highschool and really started pushing myself after that, at which point the active development of technical skill made any attempt at working creatively incredibly disappointing and rage-inducing, so a lot of the last few years where I've been developing technical skills have had little actual creative work. Basically, I have no idea what I want to even draw anymore because I spent too long steeped in technical practice without engaging the creative side of it nearly enough. I guess you could say that artistic pursuit is something that is now completely devoid of yang for me, and I have no idea how to even start coming back from that.

that's undoubtedly a component of it yeah. ADHD hyperfocus is a big part of it though- I'll frequently start working on a software project for instance meaning to work on one component of it but then very quickly realizing I can't progress without working on another component of it that the former depends on, and then hitting roadblock that requires me to read some very poor documentation for a few hours and repeatedly slam my head at a wall trying to reverse engineer how some function in a library I'm using for said project works because it wasn't clearly documented. The point is that all the latter stuff is very much not what I sat down to be doing (even if it was necessary) and once I get caught on something frustrating that really winds up the hyperfocus I'm unable to pull myself away and frequently become stuck doing something I don't particularly want to do. To be clear even in situations like this where there's dependency I never have to solely focus on some tricky and unpleasant problem where I have to reverse engineer something, it'd be much better to switch between that and other parts of the project with less roadblocks. In terms of art this usually translates to wanting to draw something in a more creative manner, not liking the anatomy, and then just doing mindless anatomy practice out of frustration for a while. thread-relevant sidenote- @Nintendao tysm for the https://thesecretofthegoldenflower.com/ link in my welcome thread, the annotations make it much easier to read.