SifuPhil

Rainbow - congratulations on the beginning of your journey!

As you might guess from the wide range of answers here, there ARE no answers as such. Rather, it's an individual path that you follow in taoism, guided only occasionally by those who have tread the Way previously.

You need to be clear on at least one point, in my opinion - are you following taoism as a religion or as a philosophy? The two, although sharing many elements, are also divergent enough to cause mega-headaches.

Read, read and re-read the classics - adapt them to YOUR lifestyle - don't let anyone tell you what you should be aiming for, because only YOU know that. Listen to opinions, but see them as merely that - opinions. Seek knowledge but don't bow down to it. Question it. Fight it. See if it stands up to the crucible of real life.

And perhaps something that has deeply affected my life - realize that everything is constantly changing...

Good luck!

... Got me thinking... do any of us observe any taboos for any reasons? Taoism has many... does anyone pay attention?

One of the advantages of being a philosophical Taoist, as opposed to a religious one, is that there are FAR less taboos.

How does one get this wholesale hookup?

Well, I was a student of Sifu Yang for a while, so I have a little bit of an "in", but if you can prove you're a school (usually, here in the states, a business license / tax ID #), you get the wholesale prices. I end up paying about $30 for both jacket and pants.

Great explanation - thank you!

Well, SifuPhil, according to my TCM knowledge pork is said to create dampness in the body...

 

Harry

Oh, ok, thank you. Sorry - I thought you were approaching it from a religious / philosophical point of view. Don't quite know WHY I thought that - must be the weekend.

So you could then prescribe a diet heavier in fish to remove that dampness, correct?

Welcome to the club.

Though there seem to be a reggresion, with the more time you spend here, from tao master to tao bum. I hope that doesn`t relate to real life.

LOL!

Already, I feel myself becoming dirty and undesireable...

Thank you, TaoBums!

Shifu Jianye Jiang has whole silk uniforms for 75. Thats better price than yang's.

Not when you pay wholesale it isn't.

And if, like me, someone likes the raw brushed silk instead of the shiny stuff, there aren't too many other options except for a typical "kung-fu" outfit.

Anyone know where to order those big tao pants or shoes or silk shirt and pants? I need to record a video with myself doing some form for college credit, and want to look like a taiji pimp master flash.

LOL!

Sounds like a MySpace thing - "Pimp out your ChiSpace!"

YMAA (Yang Martial Arts Association) has plain but beautiful raw silk uniforms that I always use. They're not flashy, but comfortable as all get-out. Your choice of a rainbow of colors...as long as it's either black or white.

If you want a satin pimp outfit (hat not included), try AWMA - they have some flashy colored uniforms.

My title says "TAO MASTER", so it MUST be true!!!

Yay! I'm great! I'm wonderful! Let the drums beat and the trumpets play! I'm omnipotent! I'm impotent! I'm unimportant! I'm incompetent! I'm...errr....

...i'm.....ummm.....i,uh.......

*sigh*

...never mind.

Dear Stratocumulus Hermit :

But thats a thing that seems to smack of simple human laziness to me.

As perhaps is the idea that any outside source can give you enlightenment...

The thing that Im ranting about on this thread is a bit more "subtle".Im pondering the topic of how the Teacher-Student relationship...

aka Wikipedia / "researcher" relationship...

...a thing often born (initially) of a genuine passion for truth & transcendence of ego...

"I GOTTA' get this paper done tonight - I'll fail the course if I don't!"...

...turns into a mutual betrayal of some very basic day-to-day truths...

Wikipedia expects to be a source of knowledge, but fails among those who realize what true sources are; the "seeker" of that knowledge is betrayed in that they read not the words of a learned body, but a consensus of jackals.

...and a creation of ego-positions NARROWER than those started off with.

Wikipedia thought to be great - they are less than that.

"Seekers" thought to become knowledgeable - they gained falsehood.

There - now that I've expelled my vitriol against the great god Wiki...LOL...

What makes a pseudoguru as well!Why the need to collect disciples & kill off their critical faculties,the critical faculties of otherwise sincere & dedicated people,people really willing to commit to a worthwhile cause,the type of people who could really take you somwhere in mutual collaboration if you could only resist the temptation to subtly manipulate & exploit them!

The human creature is a tragically flawed piece of meat...their sub-animal instincts, bred into them and refined over thousands of years, have brought most of them to the point where, if you dangle a promise of power in front of their eyes; if you grant them a few thousand willing "slaves" to hang on their every word and gesture; If you say you will give them a title - they will run roughshod over their own mothers to grasp that brass ring, and damned be those who try to stand in their way!

What kind of inner poverty produces a pseudoguru!

As I said above, I believe it is breeding and genetics.

What are the points of vulnerability in the spiritual process,can they be identified & anticipated.

For me, it appears that it is the desire to buy into the cult life; the "need" to "receive knowledge" from a father/mother/god figure; the basically weak position of any supplicant; and the everlasting idea that enlightenment comes from without, not within.

A favorite movie of mine - "Circle of Iron" - featured a man on a quest to gain all the world's enlightenment from a legendary Book of Knowledge. In the end, after multiple fights and horrific encounters, he discovered the book's pages were made of mirrors. As he looked upon them, first in astonishment and then in amusement, the Guardian of the Book intoned,

"The Seekers fight to come here, year after year, at great cost to themselves and their loved ones...and when they finally fling the Book open in blazing expectation of finding the answers to all their questions...

What do they find?....themselves.

There IS no "Book"...no enlightenment, outside yourself"

...

the subtle seeds of it are in every human ego,EVERY HUMAN EGO,in less apparent forms.

Of course! But unless you pick and choose your battles very carefully, you'll find yourself fatigued before your time. Not saying this isn't a worthy battle - I think it is. So, discovering WHAT it is that drives them to the false gurus seems a very logical place to start...

This is stuff we should be able to spot a mile away!We shouldnt have to repeat it all the frigging time!

A peculiar trait amongst the human species - they rarely learn their history, so are doomed to repeat it...

Here is a copy of my file:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /store/

User-agent: sna-0.0.1

Disallow: /

The user-agent is usually a signature of a bot.

Type in google robots.txt and they explain more how to use it.

Robots.txt is good as far as it goes, but I understand some engines totally disregard them, and will only read a robot file that is placed in the root directory. Depending on the hosting arrangement, you might not always be able to place your file there, so you'd need to go solely with the robots.txt approach.

It's still better than nothing, certainly. It just seems like the old cops-and-robbers game - we put up a new safeguard; they find a way around it.

Cloud, I think you win the kewpie doll!

Morals are a man-made construct - not a natural occurrence. Therefore, most taoists wouldn't subscribe to the popular notion of them.

"Selfishness" is great - without some degree of selfishness, we wouldn't care for ourselves physically or mentally. It's only when terms like "self", "selfish" and "selfless" become attached to radical swings of behaviour do they earn their bad reputation.

The Chinese, like Russia of old, most feared the West because of their unpredictability. We were those crazy people whom you could never be sure just what we'd do in a given situation. That makes for discomfort, and discomfort leads to political / quasi-religious actions.

And if "The Useless Tree" didn't mention THIS little fact - Taoist thought is clear on the point of governance - less is better; allow the people to believe it is THEIR actions that are governing them, not yours; move only with considered thought for the governed, not for the greater glory of government or self.

... things like pork-meat should be avoided as well...

Sunshine, could you please explain this one?

Thankee, sire!

Grrr...now I have to figure out what line of code I messed up that makes my entire site shift off the right-hand side of the page! I KNEW I should have just worn a sandwich-board...

Doh, I thought I had that turned on. I just turned it on. But I've been reading a lot of posts on the IPB support forums lately about this wave of Russian spammers. They are hitting everyone. And the bots can crack most of the captchas including the default IPBs.

 

The intro post does help a lot! 99.9% of the time it's completely obvious in this first post what a person's intention here is. And plus I think it encourages people to say hi which we all love.

Wow- didn't know the spammers had that much of a leg up on things - goes to show what a specialty field spam prevention is, I suppose.

And yes, I like the intro idea - even though I'm usually an intro type, I know a lot of folks aren't, and maybe it would help bring them out of the virtual closet, so to speak. And if it helps stop spammers - all that much better.

Thankee, sire!

My Taiji study is really different, as our focus is really on the martial side of things. I know the whole 108 Yang long form now. Yay! And my teacher and fellow students are a really stelar bunch that keep me enthusiastic encourage everyone to work hard and consistently.

Welcome. lotusbud, as one newbie to another.

It's nice to see another martial-oriented taiji player here! And, as I always tell my students, don't sweat the TCM stuff - it'll come in time, along with the philosophy and the meditation and the spirituality and the...

I've been getting a LOT of this lately and as the board gets bigger am going to need to find a better solution to preventing it. I've been having to delete 10-40 fake new users a week. A lot of it seems connected to this lonely Russian girl without a credit card scam. Some people must be making halfway decent money with it. I am guessing they try to flirt you into signing the both of you up for a dating service account (via their affiliate link of course) under the pretense that she will upload photos of herself, etc. I dunno.

Sean, if it's a bot or spider and not a real person, you could always opt for the - I believe they call it a "captcha" - you have to enter the letters/numbers in order to sign in? I believe they even have a version with a picture and a multiple-choice answer - "This picture shows a..."

If it's a human...hmmm...not sure about that. You already have the good idea of requiring an intro post first...another board I'm on right now has a sudden flood of the "joke" spams. The sender tells a stupid joke, and at the bottom, their sig consists of a small ad for Xanax / Viagra / what-have-you. I suppose they think it's a cute way to market, but it's still spam to most viewers, and it's just another "user" that won't be posting after their initial post.

One other possible solution comes to mind - ask for a volunteer for spam patrol - limited mod abilities - only function is to wipe out spam posts.

http://www.with.org/english.htm

 

This the Tao center u speaking of?

 

Bruce

That's it! I think they've changed their name, though, unless I'm greatly mistaken.

Where are all the Taoist monasteries in America? There seems to be none.

 

I predict, that if it was done correctly, that would be an amazing venture. Envisioning it and finding investing wouldnt even be a problem but smooth sailing. What do you think?

There is at least one that I personally know of, although I'm not sure if it exists anymore without doing a net search - it's in South El Monte, CA (east LA). I know of this one because I lived down the street from it for a year.

Not what you might consider a temple in China, but a temple nonetheless. Lot of good ju-ju there.

Investing? How un-Tao!

I actually had thoughts at one time of creating something along the lines of a combination temple/school/retreat/clinic here in Pennsylvania, but something told me to wait...or move...

pfft. I remember when I explored falun gong, and they said that I would have to stop all other spiritual practice If I were to try falun gong.

I've always thought that falun gong was a weird duck - one of the few mind/body techniques with such strong personal ties to politics and such. The movements themselves are great (although a collection of what was already in existence elsewhere), but some of the philosophy - ehh, isn't my cup of tea. Perhaps if I was born and raised in China, I might feel differently.

... If this instructor is an ass like that, simply lie to him and tell him you're not doing it anymore. This way, you can learn CFQ, maintain your standing practice, and further enrich your spiritual practice.

I'm not sure that lying will aid your spiritual advancement, but I think I understand your point.

Well, this is just me talking, and I can't speak for Ian's practice since I don't know the gentleman...

But it's been my experience that any mind/body or martial art teacher that requests you discontinue your present practice in order to learn theirs is slightly suspect. I'm not saying that CFQ isn't the real thing - I'm sure they have their share of success stories - it's just that your comment set off the warning bells in my little bald head.

That being said - it's also just possible that they see the need for you to "empty your cup" before they can fill it.

I'd look at it this way - if your present practice is giving you benefits, why stop it? If you wish to supplement it, why? Have you fully explored all possible paths through "The Way of Energy"? I take it you're referring to the video/DVD version of that qigong - and I'm sure you also realize that, no matter how diligently practiced, you still can't reach the highest pinnacle of achievement from a tape - you need that "direct transmission" of a teacher's hands on yours, the wisdom gained from a lifetime of experience, and the tricks of the trade that aren't usually found in books and tapes.

Or is that why you're checking out CFQ?

*end of me talking*

Hey man, welcome to TTB. That's a nice site you've got. I'm poking around on there now. Really diggin the gallery.

Thanks, Sean!

Alas - I have too many irons in the fire - my site seems to be mostly form and not much content at this point, but I'm working on it

Do you folks mind if I stick a link for TTB on the site?

...We've been sharing information here for some years now, so it has come up before. Cyber-discussion has been pretty progressive that way. The website that I maintain, AlchemicalTaoism.com, is a community collection of some of our 'greatest hits'. Pilates has been in the "Establishing the Abdomen" section for some time.

...guess I really should get out into the world a little more, eh?

Thank you!

Haven't you heard? There IS no such thing as a "difficult student" - only "too-easy teachers"!

Extremely well-considered replies to my questions - thank you, Trunk.

By the way - you mentioned a sort of synthesis of techinques / modalities in your quest - that brings to mind that I once had a ladyfriend who was a Pilates teacher, and the work on the core was amazingly apt for taoist practices - really worked the lower abdominal / spinal regions. So yes, it seems to be true - you can find knowledge wherever you look - it just depends upon how you look.

Thanks again!