Apech

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Posts posted by Apech

  4. Posted

    I think sometimes our values make us think we shouldn't want or need money or material wealth or property. Actually it is healthier to think that as a cultivator the universe would benefit by allowing you enough money so that you have the time and energy to devote to practice. I'm not saying that money will fall into your lap if yu change your mind set - but it is a beginning. There are creative visualization practices for gaining the money you need. I'm not recommending them I'm just saying they are out there if you look for them.

  5. Posted

    Just for the sake of joining in the discussion here is Richard John Lynn's translation:

     

    The Dao that can be described in language is not the constant Dao; the name that can be given is not its constant name.

    Nameless, it is the origin of the myriad things; named, it is the mother of the myriad things.

    Therefore, always be without desire so as to see their subtlety.

    And always have desire so as to see their ends.

    These two emerge together but have different names. Together, we refer to them as mystery: the mystery upon mystery and gateway of all subtleties.

     

    I particularly like TianShi's challenge to say what this book is for. This is a really good point and I think the idea of a survival manual for rulers is about right (if I have understood what is being said). I think there is a tendency to kind of fall in love with the mystery in this text and forget that it is a very practical text. It is practical because it cuts straight to the heart of things by saying 'ok, what exactly are we talking about'. But even if this was written for rulers on an individual level we can say that we are all rulers of our own worlds and so the advice applies as much to us as to a king in ancient China.

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  8. Posted

    Agree. Maybe a Buddhist subforum, then? :rolleyes: I read the enlightenment guaranteed thread but got only a headache instead. To each their own; I travel a simple path and to me nothing is simpler than tao and it's as natural as breathing.

     

    Maybe the TTC chapter discussions could start out here - and then if it gets too cluttersome those posts can be moved into a new sub-forum? Having the TTC chapter in the post title (unlike Marblebrain's numbering system) would make them easier to spot, reply to, or move later if need be.

     

    I was just thinking .... on the old version of the board this appeared on the title page:

     

    This is an informal community created to discuss Tao (Dao), particularly as is expressed in key philosophical texts such as the well known Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu, health and cultivation practices such as Tai Chi and Qigong (Chi Kung), nonconceptual meditation approaches such as Zuowang (sitting and forgetting), and also the historical developments of Taoism as the bona fide Chinese religion of Taoist priests and shamans. Don't let this intro scare you though. Most of us are syncretic at heart. Discussion is encouraged to wander eclectically across a wide range of spiritual thought and practice, whether Buddhist, Yogic, Tantric, Judaic, Advaitic, Christian, Islamic, Shamanic, Occult, "New Age", Integral... As long as you are up for a good time, you're welcome to discuss your path. Though we can get rowdy at times, we all do our best to keep it civil. We are, almost as a rule, rather strange, but we have good hearts and even better senses of humor.

     

    I think its a great definition of this place.

     

    Anyway - maybe not a Buddhist sub-forum but I would love to go through TTC one section at a time together - probably spend 5- 20 years on Ch. 1. :):):)

  9. Posted

    Apech, I agree with your thinking on this. That said - if Twinner has in mind what he's done elsewhere and given how fast topics sink off the front list page - well, it might be a good idea to give the TTC it's own corner. Especially if debates over which translation is better start up here... Then again, if the philosophy folks mostly hang in the TTC corner, all you'll be left with out here is rest of ya to keep the e-sanghaites company! :lol:

     

    hey. wasn't that helpful. LOL

     

    We've had threads before where we've discussed sections/chapters - it was good I thought and its nice to focus just on Taoism without Buddhist views creeping in.

  11. Posted

    Personally I like the idea of a sub-forum but I have got one question/reservation.

     

    When we discuss Taoist philosophy on the main discussion board its kind of part of the main debate and you can get a good range of comments from all sorts of angle. If we separate it off into a sub-forum will we lose something - will it seem exclusive somehow??? Why not just post thread topics on this?

     

    Just a question what do you think?

  13. Posted

    Hello Apech,

     

    I think the important thing to keep in mind is that Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Ching talks about war and never sheds a good light on it. I think if one applies those passages they can see that Lao Tzu was not talking about conflict, or defending one's self from conflict in a martial sense, but rather noting that there was a natural way for things to occur.

     

    This doesn't mean that one can't apply the ideas of the Tao Teh Ching to martial arts, I'm just making the point that it wasn't Lao Tzu's intent that it be used as such, and rather, that those people who started to apply it to those principles were more or less using it as a way to justify it and make the practice more palatable.

     

    Aaron

     

    Well I don't disagree with you .... of course if you ask most soldiers they won't say much that's good about war and fighting either ... I wasn't suggesting that Lao Tzu was advocating a martial outlook rather a way of being which has been informed to some degree by the experience of war and conflict (which in some historical periods was a more or less day to day thing).

  15. Posted

    If you take the broad term warrior which denotes a certain attitude or approach to life then I think Ch 15 is a good summation. Careful, alert, courteous and so on could be taken as the definition of a warrior way. Obviously this does not mean that they actually practiced martial arts but at the time they lived there was a lot of fighting and a lot of people who lived by the sword. Much of what human's know about themselves comes from the experience of warfare and so it is natural for anyone interested in cultivation is also interested in the wisdom that the martial arts can bring.

  19. Posted

    Well its summertime in this part of the world. Almost 40 degrees (celcius) today ,might go for a dip down the beach or go for a walk, no fall here & tropical weather all year round.

     

    Cheers :)

     

    I am green with jealousy its bloody freezing here with snow on the way tonight.

  22. Posted

    Because 2 came in within minutes of one another,

    I hope it's ok if I kind of combined them?

     

     

     

    Time to change your briefs,

    Polka-Dotted pink paisley,

    Spiraling upward.

     

    Yep that's what we usually do - or create a middle bridging haiku.

     

    Spiraling upward

    The lark sings in the wide air

    small voice in heaven.