Zhongyongdaoist

The problem with this thread is that the various translations is that they non-contextual, and thus are little more than English word salads made from Chinese greens, in other words people choose their meanings for the characters based on their "sense of taste", what they think the characters should mean based on their own preestablished thinking. Compare the negative ones here to A. C. Muller's translation here: 3. If you do not adulate the worthy... This is much less foreboding than any proposed here, yet quite within acceptably meanings for the characters in the text. What I mean by a contextual translation and discussion is illustrated here in a discussion of Chapter Five's problematic translations such as "The Sage is ruthless", or "the Sage is not humane". In it I reference other chapters with in the Dao De Jing to contextualize the text: and Chapter 34: The similarity of Heaven and Earth and the Sage implied by the structure of Chapter 5 can also be supported by further citations from the text. So let's look at some other chapters and see what else they tell us about Heaven and Earth and the Sage and see why not only are they not benevolent it would be bad if they were, to start let's take a quick look at Chapter 18: That this is a process of degeneration in which each succeeding term is worse then its predecessor can be represented in the following way allowing this “>” to represent “better than”: Great Way>benevolence and righteousness>wisdom and shrewdness>great hypocrisy. Apparently this degeneration can only happen among people, but if it could affect Heaven and Earth, the Ten thousand things would also suffer. For the purposes of this discussion I am going to invoke Chapter 38 in which benevolence and righteousness are separated and dealt with in two different lines and amend to above to: Great Way>benevolence>righteousness>wisdom and shrewdness>great hypocrisy. And it may even be said that “wisdom” is better than “shredness”, but I don't wish to push further comparisons that far. All we need is the first section, but the rest kind of adds emphasis. It can be assumed that Heaven and Earth have not degenerated in this way, but still embody the Dao. Only humanity can manifest benevolence and righteousness, so when the Dao was lost among humans, benevolence and righteousness appeared, and after that even worse things happened, this means that benevolence and righteousness are a degeneration from Dao. So it can be assumed that Heaven and Earth embody the Dao and that the sage having returned to the source also embodies the Dao. If this is granted then neither can, or should either be benevolent because they are better then benevolent and since benevolence is a degeneration from the Dao, it would be worse both for the the 10,000 things and for the people, if Heaven and Earth or the sage was benevolent. Thus no matter how odd the image of treating things like straw dogs may strike us, it is better than a benevolent Heaven and Earth or sage treating things or people like precious puppies. On a purely speculative note, I suspect that straw dogs was used for its humor and shock value and should be seen as part of the the Dao De Jing's tendency to employ paradox and the inversion of “common sense”. In regard to rulership we can compare this to Chapter 17 where: Where following our early convention: Hidden Ruler>loved and praised ruler>feared ruler>despised ruler and create the following equivalences: Dao = Hidden Ruler Benevlolence = loved and praised ruler Righteousness = feared ruler etc. I won't pursue exact details because of differences between Chapter 18's and Chapter 38's description of the degeneration process. The Dao and the sage are both like the first Hidden Ruler and the benevolent like the second whom the people loved and praised. The one they feared may have been the righteous ruler and on down the line. So you see, call them what you want straw dogs or whatever, both people and the 10,000 things are better off not being in a benevolent world, or with a benevolent ruler, as long as both truly embody Dao. It should be noted that they could be worse off then then being ruled by a benevolent ruler, as rulership styles go, it is not the bottom of the heap. Q.E.D. I'm sorry that the whole post is so long, but I wanted people to be sure of what I mean by a contextualized discussion, the whole proof above only cites other chapters of the Dao De Jing, but demonstrates quite clearly that context can clarify meaning in useful ways. I am working on such a contextualized discussion for Chapter three, it may be ready in a few days, but depending on how busy I am could take longer. ZYD

That is correct, 'thousands of years' is just a marketing ploy ND is defined as the jing-qi-shen model. It started around 9th century and ended its evolution fully formed in 17th I'm sorry Taoist Texts, but both Wikipedia and I disagree with you. Here is introductory paragraph of the article on the Neiyeh: It is actually a pretty good article, it is long and amounts to a good overview of the text. Among other things the section Basic concepts has a good discussion of jing, qi, and shen. There are interesting quotes like this one: There is a numinous [mind] naturally residing within [有神自在身]; One moment it goes, the next it comes, And no one is able to conceive of it. If you lose it you are inevitably disordered; If you attain it you are inevitably well ordered. Diligently clean out its lodging place [敬除其舍] And its vital essence will naturally arrive [精將自來]. Where both the characters for shen, 神, and jing, 精, appear, and believe it or not, qi can be found throughout the text. Oh, I almost forgot, the fellow who wrote the material in this site: Nei-yeh (Chinese Self-Cultivation Manual) disagrees with you also. I haven't read all of this site, but it seems to be a very good study guide for someone interested in the Neiyeh. ZYD

As for this: Yes, really. The position is called occasionalism and terry has affirmed it in two posts: Nor is this some idiocentric position, but an established doctrine: I first came across this position some time ago when while surveying the post Cartesian ruins of real Western Philosophy I came across Malabranche whose doctrine of Occasionalism Wikipedia summarizes this way: Its relatively early and long term influence on Islam can be found in the Wikipedia article here: Islamic theological schools Its roots in a "dualistic" mind/matter dichotomy that most Dao Bums want to avoid are also developed in the same article: Dualism I hope this helpful in understanding terry's post. ZYD

Hello Zork, thank you for your contributions: They are good topics for general discussion, but I do have time right now to engage in general discussion and must put my time where I believe it will have the most benefit. ZYD P.S. For anyone who may be interested I finished editing an incomplete post that I had post yesterday a few posts above this one.

In its modern form the "New Age" burst on the world stage, quite literally, in the late Sixties: https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-Age-movement Wow, I never thought I could be so disgusted with the Encyclopedia Britannica, but this is a completer oversimplification and the meme "New Age" was in relatively common usage by 1970, when I first encountered it in a New Thought context. David Spangler only became will known because there was already a large audience for his ideas. Focusing on Theosophy is also a considerable oversimplification, there are many other influences that contribute to it especially New Thought and Ernest Holmes in particular, though it context as a "New Age" is provided by speculations from Esoteric Astrology that were a rising trend of the Nineteenth Century. The New Age was the "Age of Aquarius", popularized by a song from the 1967 musical "Hair", which was in turn popularized by the group The 5th Dimension as a medley "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In". Here are the lyrics to Aquarius: There is your "New Age" in a nutshell including crystals and superficial astrology. I could write a lot about this, because I both witnessed it as it was unfolding and was a critical observer of what was going on. I also am familiar with almost all of the strands that contributed to it. It's basically treacly junk food for for the "soul", you're better off with good old fashioned Chicken Soup. On a lighter and "Chinese" note,I am reminded of this: I guess I really can't put that in without letting the Fifth Dimension speak for themselves: ZYD For its more complex background the Widipedia article is very informative. This is very off topic and if you wish to discuss it further, please open your own topic for the -discussion. ZYD

Note: I had intended to post these two last Monday (9/12), but other matters came up. A few days ago I had edited this post some, but when I came back my edits were gone and these bare bones were all that was left. Right now the "New Age" is being discussed and I have a good post on it from several years ago which I wish to put in, so I am posting these two as they stand and will edit them in place shortly. What I principally wanted to make clear was the basis of my response here: and with all due respect to the poster, who does claim that this is their experience, is not an approach that i would use, or did use in what I did. It has all all the appearance of a "New Age" approach to the matter, and I am not a new age practitioner, as any one who has read my posts on magic on Dao Bums for the past thirteen years or so will surely know. If the above poster has had success with the above approach, good for them, but in terms of my own opinion, is more inline with these posts: I can think of several ways that what the poster first quoted above could be accomplished and if they would care to clarify their position they are welcome to do so. ZYD The Consciousness of ordinary people who are bound by three dimensional sensory experience is largely useless, however the emotions that they can generate are not, because these emotions are manifestations of personal qi, which can be directed and used, groups can form large energy fields under the right circumstances and this energy can be harnessed for various purposes, such a rain making, by someone who knows how to do it. There are ways that individuals can harness their emotions for different purposes and that is a study in itself, and also ways that they can learn to control their consciousness, such as I talk about in the following quote which examines a little more about my model of Human Potential and its possible grounding in a scientific worldview. This is important to me because, as i have noted elsewhere I was a Science/Magic nerd as a kid and creating non reductionist models, models meant to explain not explain away the possibility of mystical and magical experiences has been a very real part of my research over the years. I hope that the following is interesting and thought provoking: Space/time is our ordinary awareness in which there is one dimension of time and three of space, however no coherent model of matter and motion can be created within space/time, but it requires the introduction of the notion of at least four dimensional space, to even begin to make sense of the world. Also, as the quote says, this was originally developed for Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism and then applied to special relativity, indicated that the matter energy equivalence usually attributed to Einstein and Special Relativity was already implicit in Maxwell's equations (Einstein's two 1905 papers that deal with this were basically papers dealing with electrodynamics, so this is no surprise.). In my interpretation of this I view space/time as broken symmetry of four dimensional spacetime which results in space/time, matter/energy, and more importantly for us here, body/mind, in which a fundamental four dimensional unity is experienced as a body with consciousness in it, and that meditation states are those in which awareness is regained of this four dimensional "being", which is what we truly are, in Daoist terms, experiencing "sitting and forgetting" our Body/mind to experience our real nature in wuji. Someone who is experiencing "wuji" would be experience the "causal" level of the elemental level, much like the akasha training which Franz Bardon gives in his book Initiation into Hermetics. A book and author that were very influential on me in the late Sixties, though I moved on to the greener pastures of the Golden Dawn magical system starting in the Seventies. I had originally made more changes to this that, as I said got lost, but I just want to get this posted rather than having it hang over my head and these were the most important things to note. ZYD

Did some reading of that and gotta say, you wrote some interesting stuff here So can understand why Nungali is insisting we see what you have to say about the experiments. I am glad that you found my posts interesting. Thank your for letting me know. Thank you Nungali for coming to my defense, it was a noble act. ZYD

I will be perfectly happy to help fill in gaps in your knowledge, here is a link to the search results for my posts which mention "magic": ZYD's posts which mention magic, all twelve pages of them You will note that I do not use Crowley's "k", that is in part because of this: I may reply to more specific matters which you raise as time permits. ZYD

Thank you, for your gracious understanding. ZYD

Since any effects on weather than may or may not be created by HAARP would be the effects of scientific procedures and not magical ones, they are not relevant to this Topic. Whether and in what way such effects would be different from those that occur "naturally" and might require a different magical approach to dealing with, is not something that I have investigated. I don't do a huge amount of weather magic, though I think for reasons which I pointed out in my first post, that will change. I may post more about the matter in my PPD, but not publicly. I do not wish this Topic to be clogged with speculation about conspiracies, and I ask everyone to respect that. If that is not respected I will shut this topic down. ZYD

Just to add some clarity, the notion that: "weather can be quickly changed by changing the consciousness of the local population", was introduced here: and with all due respect to the poster, who does claim that this is their experience, is not an approach that i would use, or did use in what I did. It has all all the appearance of a "New Age" approach to the matter, and I am not a new age practitioner, as any one who has read my posts on magic on Dao Bums for the past thirteen years or so will surely know. If the above poster has had success with the above approach, good for them, but in terms of my own opinion, is more inline with these posts: I can think of several ways that what the poster first quoted above could be accomplished and if they would care to clarify their position they are welcome to do so. ZYD

Things went well with the rain which started early on Friday morning and was light and came in periods of rain and then no rain, which was good and what you want when you are dealing with overly dry earth, it has to get moist before it can really absorb much water along the Coastal and inland areas the rain was light as I said, but in the mountains to the east of us, we had around five inches of rain by midnight or so. The magical system that I set in order is designed to slowly increase rainfall and duration in a way that will maximize benefit. I will post more when and as necessary. ZYD

This morning we had rain showers all across Southern California, a day before the Weather services predicted. I have "broken" two droughts before, the first in 1991, the second in 2014. What I mean by that is that If it hasn't rained in three or four years and I do some magic to end drought and it rains within a week max, and then regular rain patterns continue thereafter for some time (years), then there is certainly correlation, and a strong possibility of causation. The one in 2014 was less than 48 hours from operation to precipitation, the one in 1991, was "several" days, but not more than a week. I started this one last Saturday night. I called this "experiments" in Weather Magic because my interest at this time is whether weather magic can be used to address the issue of climate change, which is why climate change is one of the tags of this topic. ZYD

as I said , its a long tradition that winds through good and bad ... you didnt even mention Sir Francis Dashwood and 'The Good Nuns and Knights of 'St Francis ' Rabelais yes, Rabelais ... and others , in ONE focus .... and right back to whatever religions influenced early Zoroastrianism . By the way ..... who gives a 13 yo that as Christmas present ! My earliest was around 16 when a copy of The Book of Lies fell out the library shelf into my hands when I was rummaging through other books near it - try starting with that ! (Emphaisis mine, ZYD) I was looking up some past posts of mine when I came across this: By the way ..... who gives a 13 yo that as Christmas present ! My earliest was around 16 when a copy of The Book of Lies fell out the library shelf into my hands when I was rummaging through other books near it - try starting with that ! Why Santa Claus, who else? In this case, it was really Mrs. Claus, AKA, Mom. She was a very loving mother who would do almost anything for her genius son. As it was she worked in a book store and since I could not find some of the books that I was interested in, in the bookstore which I mentioned, I started looking up book titles in Books in Print and she was very happy to comply, I was also probably the only thirteen year old who got the Greater Key of Solomon, and the first book of the Lesser Key, AKA Goetia, Dion Fortune's Psychic Self Defense, maybe some other books by Fortune and probably some books by W. E. Butler. At this late date I can't remember all of the details. I had wanted The Equinox of the Gods , hoping that it would be the Equinox to which Crowley was always referring in Magick in Theory and Practice. Needless to say I was very disappointed. I stopped buying books in early '64 because I didn't see much that I could do with them at thirteen. I will leave out interim details, but I do remember buying the Book of Lies and Liber Aleph at another bookstore probably sometime in late '66 or early '67. I really liked the The Book of Lies, though I am rather embarrassed to admit that it took me a second reading to understand the meaning of the "Gnostic Sigil" in Mandarin-Meals. I should add that no one in my family had any interest in magic or such matters, the closest that anyone came to occultism was my dear Scottish Grandmother's interest in Astrology. I could elaborate on all of the above, but I have other, better, things to do, but I hope that this long delayed reply is helpful. ZYD

Thanks for posting this. You're Welcome. Thank you both for you posts. This weekend and through midweek will be very busy for me and i will not be able to give much serious thought to the issues raised much less organize a response until later in the week or next weekend. I have managed to squeeze in Izutxu's preface, which clarified the background of the book in a very useful way. ZYD

I need to preface this post by saying that I am a very busy person and can't see spending the time needed to make long contributions to this topic at this time. I have spent sometime since its appearance thinking about it, reviewing some aspects of previous research and wondering how I might be able to contribute to it. Here is the first thing that I wanted to add: Since this is the "classic" in the field, then this link to a downloadable PdF would seem to be in order: Toshihiko Izutsu Sufism And Taoism I have not had time to read all of this, though i do have some ideas about its proper use and potential abuse, but i will have to do more reading to see if my first impressions are accurate. As for this: I am in complete disagreement with the notion that "Daoism is a religion". As far as I am concerned as a practitioner of what is usually referred to as "Relitigous Daoism", that it is a complete misnomer to call it such foisted on it by Western scholars of "religions", that it would be more properly referred to as "Ritual Daoism" and its structure would be better modeled by something like Freemasonry. Basically Ritual Daosim was developed by Fangshi for Fangshi, as a combination of professional guild and teaching hall and has nothing to do with the "worship" of gods in the sense of a grovelling submission to such beings motivated by threats of punishment and promises of rewards for such behavior. It's all about learning and practicing magic, which involves a great deal of time and study as anyone who has read and studied the works of Professor Jerry Alan Johnson can amply justify. This is all I have time for today, and all that I can say is that I will try to respond to any comments in a timely fashion, but I cannot guarantee that what I consider to be a timely fashion will be the same as yours. As for what I might like to see here, these would be of interest to me: Zhonyongdaoist usually ZYD for short

In the topic Animal Morality Brian posted this: I replied with this: That moral-like behavior would evolve among social animals is more or less taken for granted at this time. None of this involves outside "supernatural" intervention or planning, it just turns out that cooperative behavior has survival value, which is perfectly in line with Darwinian theory. My own worldview provides a larger context for this, but it is not necessary to the notion that "morality" evolves from successful cooperative behavior and would within a completely reductive materialist view of reality. ZYD

Do you mean posting a map like this: or something else? ZYD

The problem with the posts here is that they search far afield for a source for the teaching of Jesus when nearer sources are available and not considered at all. As I noted here: I hope people will consider this possibility with an open mind, there are a lot of links in this which should be followed in order to get the full force of the post. ZYD

This is available in pill form from several sources online, just search for GAN MA! DA ZAO WAN. For the sake of your privacy I have sent you a private message with the information from Jake Fratkin's Chinese Hebal Patent Medicines, which is basically the Chinese Herbal Medicine equivalent of the Phycian's Desk Reference. This particular discussion is of Plum Flower Brands version, which is a very well respected brand. Taking it in pill form is the simplest and easiest way to benefit from these herbs. ZYD

Well, its a long tradition that winds its way through many manifestations and NOT original to Crowley . But going back to the topic at hand , ie, the concept ( forgetting Crowley for a moment .... if that is possible for a moment ) what do you think about my comparisons to the concept of Khvarenah ? (Emphasis mine, ZYD) I had already looked up your posts on Khvarenah and read some when you asked this, but I have been to busy to squeeze in a reply. In general I find them an interesting and potentially useful addition to the discourse on the subject. If I can make more time, I may reply in more detail. ZYD

with because, in marked contrast to Augustine, Crowley stated that love is secondary to will. It's not my mistake to conflate them, it is your mistake to think that I intended to do so. All I did was provide the originating context, about which Crowley, being raised in the fundamentalist Christian sect, the Plymouth Brethren, probably knew nothing, however, he was quite familiar with Rabelais from whom he, oh sorry, I forgot, Aiwass, "borrowed" quite a bit, including the very term thelema. I am quite familiar with Crowley and his writings, as I made clear nine years ago here: When and at what age did you buy your copy of Magick in Theory and Practice, oh all wise one? I have read, about, studied and practiced magic for decades, and I don't care to waste further time with you, so as far as I am concerned we are done here. As far as Crowley goes, there is not much reason, except possibly historical, to pay attention to him. I have posted about him and my reasons for thinking so in various places on Dao Bums over the years and anyone who wishes can find them with a search or two. It should be noted that part of my criticism of Crowley is also a criticism of what I call neo-magic, magic as practiced based on the Nineteenth Century revival of magic. My posts in Eliphas Levi, whom Crowley loved to consider his previous incarnation, dealt with the magical revival and my criticism of it to a certain extent. As a final note just in case someone makes the mistake of thinking that because I emphasis Magick in Theory and Practice above, that it is is all that I read of Crosley's work, which it was not, however, during the early Sixties it was practically all that was readily available. I did read a great deal more of Crowley as it appeared through the later Sixties and early Seventies. Humorously, among other things, I was probably the only thirteen year old in the U.S. to get a copy of The Equinox of the Gods for Christmas in 1963, but that is another story, and I don't have time for that now. ZYD

Want to know what the original context of "Do what you will" was? Here you go: Check it out at: Christianity So much for Aiwass and other nonsense. ZYD

I really don't like it when people start to argue about the meaning of unaccented Pinyin, such as the discussions of "jing" in this thread. If we go to a nice Chinese/English dictionary like: MDBG and enter "jing" we come to this page: Gosh, can "jing" really mean all these things? To which the answer is, yes it can. If we go down far enough we will find this entry: 精 jīng essence / extract / vitality / energy / semen / sperm / mythical goblin spirit / highly perfected / elite / the pick of sth / proficient (refined ability) / extremely (fine) / selected rice (archaic) First of all notice that "jing" should be accented like this jīng in order to differentiate it from all of the other "jings" in the list. Second notice that pretty much all of the "real, true and exclusive" meanings about which people have been arguing here are included in the list above, so that they are all "right", and the sensible thing to do is to stop pointing fingers at each other and see if there is some higher conceptual level which put those possible meanings in a context that will allow us to understand, and hopefully avoid wasting time on arguing. It is useful to think of words like jīng as syllables which make up larger words like "astro" can be used in words like astronomy, astrology, and astronaut. In order to do this use your pointer to hover over the three vertical dots and a sub-menu will open and you will see this, *精*, and if you click on it you will come here: A long page with all of the common words containing "jīng" used like it is a syllable Some of which may help to understand what jīng may mean in a context of esoteric physiology and its relation to medicine and meditation. Among other things you will find this: 精气神 jīng qì shén the three energies of Chinese medicine: 精[jing1], 氣|气[qi4], and 神[shen2] And what are "energies" in this context? Let's not go there now, but also let's not argue either and instead put our heads together and see if we can better understand all of this. Disclaimer: I am not at all fluent in Chinese, but I am good at conceptual analysis and using a dictionary. The above is put forward with the intention of ending arguments and providing material for discussion, for which purpose I hope it is helpful. ZYD

See my post and the discussion here: There was a great deal of activity related to his teacher, Mak Tin Si, and Chi in Nature, when I started on Dao Bums nine years ago. So searching under Mak Tin Si, and Chi in Nature would be the way to research this. I also seem to remember that this fellow, who seems to be in charge of teaching magic now, posted in the past year or so on Dao Bums to invite people to learn Daoist magic with him. I don't think he got much of a response, as really not many here are interested in Daoist magic to begin with, though there are a small number of Dao Bums that are. As a forum, the Dao Bums has no opinion about this group, we only post the opinions and experiences of our members about it. Our members opinions have varied, but if you follow the link in the post of mine that I quoted, you can get an overview, and more of our members may weigh in here about them. I did some research on their site when I first joined here, and as far as I can tell they do not represent a lineal descent from a specific school, but that the founders do represent some authentic aspects of Chinese magical tradition, and that they believe they were authorized in visions by the highest level of the Daoist Pantheon to teach. I would suggest a lot of "due diligence" in regard to any association with them, but that is my personal opinion as a person with a good familiarity with Daoist Ritual and magic, and should not be confused with any official position of the Dao Bums, even though I am a moderator here. As I have said the Dao Bums does not have an official position on this school. I hope other members who remember past interactions with this group will join in with the discussion. ZYD