The Cloudwalking Owl

Why are you so sure that "you know it can actually be done"? I've been doing taijiquan and Daoist stuff for about 25 years. I have experienced things that seem to be genuinely miraculous, but nothing like the stuff on these videos (i.e. pushing people around without actually touching them.) When I have seen "masters of qi" putting on demos, what they did ended up looking to me to be a question of prestidigitation like any Western magician. (These included things like breaking bricks, etc.) It strikes me that the best attitude is to be skeptical until you personally experience something that looks like the "real deal". And, I would add that it is also important to really poke and prod at your personal experience to see if it can be explained in a more prosaic manner than by resorting to some sort of "cosmic" influence. Until then, I think a genuine Daoist would simply say "I don't know"---after all, we are simply frogs in a well.

We know - from the words of the Masters, unless from our own experience - that 'Awakening' is accompanied by the immediate, if not simultaneous, abolition of all phenomenal 'problems'. It is like knocking out the bottom of a barrel, by which all the confused, and so 'impure', contents of our phenomenal mind (phenomenal aspect or reflection of Mind) vanish. Instead of solving problems one by one, like striking off the heads of a Hydra, which grow again, all disappear simultaneously and forever (as an effect), like stabbing the Hydra herself in the heart.[ (page 5, 2nd paragraph from the bottom) I had a hard time understanding what was being said, but I think I understand. (I have a Master's in philosophy, God help anyone who doesn't have the training, the language is very technical!) But I stopped reading at the point I have quoted above. (I think that this is simply too long a section to discuss usefully.) I think that Wei Wu Wei is factually wrong about the nature of enlightenment in the above passage. I have had conversations with a Zen master on this subject and she maintained that "enlightenment" is "just the beginning" and can be lost if one doesn't continue with your practice. I have read many other sources say the same thing. My personal experience would seem to also support this. Westerners have a tendency to read "enlightenment" in the same terms that Protestants think of "salvation". That is, they see it as a binary process---you either are or are not. But if you read the literature of Zen, you find that people have enlightenments all the time. Moreover, people who are recognized "Masters" often make very serious mistakes in their lives that would show that whatever it is that makes them "enlightened" would seem not sufficient in itself to be able to navigate problems that make up life. While it is true that when one does a lot of meditating one often has psychic experiences that are very interesting, these are peripheral to what we want. (I know a women, for example, who spontaneously started having very strong satori experiences. They were caused by epilepsy and stopped when she started taking treatment for this problem.) In actual fact, I would suggest that the enlightenment process is much more prosaic. It involves the "ah ha!" feeling that we get when we suddenly understand something in our bones. We tend to overlook this, but our creative impulses are the very core of our being. I think that this is why teachers will sometimes say things like "you are enlightened already---you just don't know it" or "the practice itself is enlightenment". So while I think much of what Wei Wu Wei makes sense, I find it very dry and hard to read. Moreover, I think he is starting with a misconception about the tradition says about enlightenment. This is understandable, as I understand that he was a totally self-taught person.

I bow to fellow travellors on the Way: So much discussion! Where is a new member to start? First of all, I think that people posting on this list seem to all be coming from a very specific definition of "Daoism". I don't have a problem with that, as long as it is a conscious choice to limit yourself instead of a misunderstanding of how broad the cultural/religious tradition really is. I might also point out that it has occurred to me that people here might be confusing some key elements of Chinese society that would have inevitably crept into Daoist literature with Daoism itself. If I might use an example from Biblical scholarship to make an analogy. (I like to use examples from other traditions because they tend to carry less emotional baggage.) Some fundamentalists seem to believe that belief in the message of Christ also implies that one needs to assume that demon possession exists---because the New Testament clearly describes demon possession. Another way of looking at this issue would be to think that the author of the New Testament took demon possession for granted and then used it as a plot device for explaining Jesus Christ. In this case modern believers can discard belief in demon possession and still be Christian. In a same way, it might be argued that Yin-Yang, jing-qi-shen, etc, are cultural artifacts from a specific time in China. Some Daoist writers would simply have assumed their existence and used them when writing their texts. With regard to the issue of whether Daoism is scientific or not, I think that at least one of you was getting close to the concept of "state specific science" as described by the psychologist Richard Ornstein. His point was that if one chooses to study the properties of a specific psychological state one must find subjects who are able to create these states at will (e.g. that small fraction of the population who can perform lucid dreaming at will.) And since, depending on the state being studied, only a small number of individuals are capable of entering these states, it is not "objective" in the sense of being reproducible by any member of the scientific community, so it needs to be consigned to a specific category of science---hence the term "state specific". I would suggest that just about any form of mystical practice conforms to this definition (unless it is a form of social conditioning.) Ultimately, Daoism's "difference" is going to boil down to what particular type of Daoism one is referring to. My specific form is much more influenced by religious practice and categories of thought than most of you. I can see a great deal of similarity with other religions/philosophies---if I choose the right ones. Similarly, I can see huge differences if I choose some others. You pays your money, you gets your choices---. I bow to fellow travellors on the Way.

My understanding is that that was one of the original reasons for retention. Modern science seems to validate this theory, as the argument is that if you have sex too often the percentage of sperm decreases. I also understand that there is a synergistic element to breaking down the barriers of the human egg (that is only one sperm is need to fertilize the egg, but many sperm are needed to break the barrier and allow that one individual to get through.) As I recall, the problem was that the Emperor had so many concubines that he was having sex so often that his sperm count had dropped to the point where he couldn't produce an heir. (Having sex often was considered a way of living a long life at one time. This seems to be validated by modern science---men who have sex a lot tend to have more testoterone, which makes them more vital, and, they have a lower chance of getting prostate cancer.) Is your friend sure she wants to get pregnant? Maybe the universe is saying to her that it is not her path.