Rocky Lionmouth

This much i have gathered. Sasos book references a lot of the texts being in need of the oral transmissions to be comprehensible, besides holding high skill in classical chinese and context and terminology. Wishing my teenage self had stood his ground and taken mandarin or cantonese as special language ed. Alas, he bowed to his parents will and took german. Go figure.

Jade is considered to be many things and it is said to emboy many virtues of a true person. Jade can have different effects on your body and energy and also be beneficial to your mind. All in all it is a purifying stone as well as it helps you accumulate. It can be used for healing and also for protection. Afaik jade is closely related to the water element, but every stones effect varies from piece to piece and they also create a bond with the bearer over time. If one has a piece of jade that has been used for esoterical exercises by someone else its not wise to use it for such purposes oneself. Idk if it can be cleansed or reset for someone new to use but in times of old jade that was worn in contact with the skin eiter followed its owner to the grave or it was kept as a memento of that person. I have some experience of working with jade but i’m not at liberty to discuss it in detail, especially since the stones need to be right for the person, not mistreated and a bunch of other stuff. It’s not like you can go to the jewelers or a geomancers store and just pick up any piece, you need someone who knows jade well to help you either find a piece or tell you what to look for. Jade is personal, folks who flash their greens do so to show their monetary power, its ostentation. Someone of right character keeps their jade to themselves. Jade should, because of its properties and relation to the water phase, never be worn with chain or rings of metal, especially not gold. If you see a piece mounted on a gold something that stones energy is corrupted and waning. Powerful pieces should not be kept together so they touch or are in eachothers vicinity for extended periods of time, their energies will be affected and who’s to say what happens then. Exactly why it’s so precious is hard to say. I do know that it is not proper to speak of the price of jade since it is priceless. A deal between to people for passing ownership is different but the jade itself is invaluable. There are many different classes of jade, some are less valuable and some more. Some type is thought to be the fosilized sperm of male dragons which is very potent, Dragon Jade. White jade, gold jade, green jade. Kingfisher Jade is another type of particular green hues thats held in high regard. The colour or combination of colours in one stone and how its cut is also a huge deal. A three color stone, say milky white, pale orange and pale green is considered a very lucky and happyness bringing piece because it symbolizes the three blessings. A piece of kingfisher jade can have striations and variations, i’ve seen pieces that have three distinct tones of green that can have importance for energetic aspects. How its sculpted matters also, symbolism is important. Medicine gourds, bats, winds, cranes, trees, flowers, pots, dragons etc etc. A good artist uses the stones properties to enchance the artwork and the artwork should embellish and agument the stones qualities. It’s hard to talk about jade without discussing a specific piece. It has relation to the heart for protection and healing, it has uses for neigong and all sorts of stuff. Thats all i can say atm.

Not all thieves, only the dedicated ones. It takes hard work to develop clever and smart methods, even more hard work to master them. It is said that lazyness is the mother of all clever ideas, but clever ideas and solutions are the mother of the most painstaking and dedicated worki believe. Just grabbing something isnt clever or streetwise, thats just plain old opportunism of basest form. It takes balls to do what your shampoo-moocher did because it could just as well end with getting punched. But a clever person would have waited for you to come back and ask to borrow some with a smile. I think that where hardship is great and resourcs are fewer i think people learn to share and defend theirs faster, but also accepting the conditions in order to survive is a prerequisite. You see pain and suffering, war and thievery. Good, you are not blind. You recognize the multifaceted aspects of benefit, compassion and cruelty and you can place yourself in this context and see your own faults and merits. Good, you have awareness and empathy in measures that are rare. I’m not trying to be condescending or dismissive, what the OP describes is very much a reality. There is more than enough reason to look upon the world and cry for it. But the same could be said for looking and smiling. Neither are of higher virtue or merit than the other and both are good for ourselves and everybody else in the long run. There is a lot of everything everywhere, peace and harmony are sometimes harder to percieve when compared to cruelty, famine and suffering. What was it that Zen person quipped... Something like ”Pain is mandatory, suffering is optional.” maybe? Words to consider when the forest seems dark and you have to rest because the terrain is treacherous.

I suspected as much and i too have quarrels with certain schools and ideas of european origin where order and causality are problematic, to say the least. A lot of european ontology, metaphysics and theory of science (especially the popularized kind that is seldom more than watered down theoretic examples backed by emotive and dominant rethoric) makes me cringe a lot mor than terms like western and primitive. The context that birthed taoist philosophy was the one that also birthed what i consider the earliest methods of sound scientific research and reasoning, it was pre-literate and has thrived in literacy as well. Thinkers considered great in european antiquity for a barley scratched the surface would have likely been considered by contemporary Taoists as potificating geezers with their head lodged in their own rectal cavity. I see what you mean and i do belive our ideas arent all that far apart in the end, but the devil is in the details of course. Cheers mate

That sounds like one of the 36 Stratagems: ”Reverse host and guest.” Not a bad play in a job interview sitch where the interviewer usually ensures they seem like an looming authority doling out pearls in the form of breadcrumbs and aloof skepticism... If you found a way to get the upper hand with HR that is good. Opportunity can be there or not. If you see it and have the chance, skill and timing to seize it, is it a bad thing? If you see possibility and means somewhere it sounds like a good place to set up shop. Successful peeps have succeeded, not all of them are predators though afaik. There’s plenty successful individuals who appear to have just enough to lead a frugal but rich life without consuming their environment like fire. A lot of the dynamics in the world of 10k things are some sort of conflict in a way. Survival is one example, even the trees in the forest are at ”war” with eachother when they stand close or grow big enough, fighting for as much sunlight as they can. Trees know no measure but their actions together ensue they either get enough or die trying, thereby they are regulated. So another daoist perspective on the matter would be that the universe treats everything like straw dogs. It could be virtuous to take enough and do enough for a given purpose, especially as many of us as humans are capable of determining what enough is and how to put it to good, nay excellent use. I’m aiming at that quote from DDJ where the Sage retires when the work is completed, hoping i’ll end up hitting some branch of a bush or sapling here Idk if it helps?

I know right?! We must be getting old or something! Hey, remember when Nei Gong was all the rage, before this Dan guy became the new it-man? Those were the days, when the answer to ”What is the sound of thrown pie slapping?” was More Pie. Nowadays it’s all about Dan. Nei Dan this and Nei Dan that. Who is he?

@AugustGreig please do not stop asking those questions and disregard any poets and conflicting info for the moment! To me you sound knowledgeable and on a strong path from the OP and onwards, plus this thread is imho one of the most refreshing ones on the subject. You’re not only parttaking as a person asking for advice, your observations contribute concise info to the community and i do think folks will benefit from this thread. @liminal_luke thank you for hitting the nail on the head! @Marblehead it’s not like you’re sounding mushy but you AGREED earlier on in a thread, on here, like explicitly. Who are you and where have you stashed Marbs? The game is up, drop the act, you’re surrounded and you will surrender, wether peacefully or not is up to you.

Sorry but i cant refrain from a TDB inside joke here: do you mean a Classic Nei Dan thread or a classic Nei Dan thread meaning 37 page odyssey where the first three pages promise a lot of good that the following 12 dont deliver, then it seems to turn around for a page or two and then it’s just a slow descent into madness until someone gets the banhammer? Btw i find this translation error business very interesting, sorry for the disruption.

Hopefully ”yes” for readers and mr JAJ himself.

Yah, same here. I noticed the memoirs are free as part of a program that enables free reading of a lot of different stuff, but its still a solid 10 bucks monthly, i’ll pass on that. Those workbooks do promise a lot of juicy content though... but +200 monies a pop is pretty steep for a swing and a miss kind of shopping <:/

Fat likes for the availability but i guess i have the sucker-version of kindle because they are most definetly not free on my account

Hmm, i see your point of description but i dont agree in the statement that Qi is the movement between polarities, it doesnt fit with what i find necessary to take account for with the broad spectrum of definition of Qi. You might have a way to make it fit, i’m not there atm. I do agree that the Taijitu describes a simultaneous dynamic, but i do believe we see it slightly differently. I wasn’t implying a necessary linear progression or anything ”western” and if possible for you, please refrain from assuming my mindframe to be stuck in western or colonial ways, i find it condescending and if you didnt know better about me Kranky, now you do. Of course anything HAS yin and yang, that is obvious. But, nothing afaik exists independently so while havin both yin and yang that thing that appears has them in relation to everything else. Interdependence and relational observation is key in for my view. I do understand your point, but i still find it limiting for my thinking, i cant absorb it and discard mine because i need it to work on a broad spectrum as well as in a smaller context. A certain thing can also be said to acquire more of one or the other, this is basic. Growth is not part of my idea but i dont see myself banning the word in describing something with yin and yang as starting point. Humanity has Male and Female, not all humans fall into this dichotomy without struggle and it is not absolute. Male changes into Female and vice versa also, socially and even physically nowadays, seeing your background in medical work i’m sure this is not news to you... We do not see something unburn no, not spontaneously and not immediately, but i think you can infer the logical ramifications if you take that example a bit further by thought experiment yes? Exempli gratia: that which was once burned is today not burned in its current aggregate. The energy was never burnt in the first place either, it shifted form but it was neither created nor destroyed. We are waste products of a few supernovas after all, at our building block level at least. Historically we could argue that Male and Female has been acquired, both from social and jurisprudential perspectives but also from an evolutionary standpoint. Our manifest form as a group as percievable by us today is not an absolute, nor is it wise to assume that it will always be, in our existance as a group. I do not understand if you mean that what you paraphrase me to claim is a mistake, seeing it from a materialist view or if you mean my view is materialist and it leads me to make a mistake in understanding. Would you care to elucidate? I do use materialist examples and perspectives at times when describing or reasoning but my view is not materialist per se, i am unconvinced when it comes to which of many perspectives to adhere to because there are many that give valid examples and formulations but no single one or combination of more has overwhelmed me as correct in all instances, if this is wrong or right is not a concern of mine, i value the personal utility of thinking higher than being correct or free of contraddiction. With that said i do lean towards pragmatism as a general school of thought. (Rant warning) Concerning the descriptive term ”western”: I’ve noticed a rise in the use of it lately on TDB and often in use as a negative connotation towards a certain formulation or thinking. All in all i find it pretty colonial in itself to consider western thinking [a pretty wide gouping of internally very discordant practices if i may say so] opposed to other compass directions of thinking because it is both a gross generalization (something that SOME eurocentric schools of reasoning are wont to do and therefore sometimes lack relevance) and kinda smells of exoticism, as if certain kinds of thinking are dumber because of their claimed geographic location. Its by the same mode of thinking that i’m pretty allergic to the use of ”primitive” while describing a culture or human activity or whatever: it presumes certain factors that makes difference of evolutionary stages within the pretty homogenous group of homo sapiens sapiens that has existed for a pretty huge chunk of time. Some call Mayan culture primitive, some call certain forms of contemporary tribal art that employs a strong stylization and symbolism of subject matter primitive because they assume that since it does not display adherence to standards set by ideals deriving from the Enlightenment-movement it must not be as advanced. It is lax if not outright lazy imo. When someone writes Western medicine, thinking, culture or whatever really it makes my mind cringe from having to infer A LOT of fuzzy thinking and grouped discarded concepts that are, i have to assume, disdained, abhorred or generally deemed of lesser virtue compared to whatever generalized geographical counterpart is preferred by the speaker.

Kranky i take it you’re following up on me so i’ll adress it as such. Ah, yes of sorts, just like a perfect balance of exact 50/50 kills the dynamism eventually. However, in claiming yinyang IS about polarity i’d say you’re erring/restricting on the side of bidimensionality and losing the beauty of yin yang as a model of explanation and analysis. Qi is energy, no qi no life no party and what have you sure but just polarity is not what yin yang is about. Yin and yang expressed in the taijitu for instance exemplify it rather conciesly: dynamism and the movment of complementary forces, their respective impact and interplay and their overpowering of and subsequent transforming into eachother. Not as the things themselves, but in their interplay. It describes the most fundamental rule of the universe at meta-level. The taijitu refers to all those movements lacking only in the fact that its not a gif (except for when it is animated obviously). Humanity exhibits all kinds of polarity without forgetting that the ”grey area” is also exhibited and manifest. Dont get stuck on male and female, i wasnt trying to propagandize on anything. My initial point, pre-quote, was about my drustration in speaking with folks who arent in the process of bypassing the, fairly common notion ime, that externally observable physiocultural does not support an essential or fundamental dichotomy of difference. While such an assumption is sometimes helpful it is not going to be helpful if held at a standard of natural and self evident truth. That, was my point. Now, onward and forward.

I still think the polarizing dichotomies are counterproductive to understanding yin and yang at a fuller level. This cluld also be because of the strongly dichotomized categorizations i’ve had ingeained into me and subsequently unlearned, i often wish to emphasize the need to unlearn polarization from an essentialist perspective (since i meet it daily and it is hard if not impossible to have conversations with folks who arent prepared to sidestep gender as a fundamentally god given characteristic of a binary sort...) Actually rereading the OP i fount that the nonduality of One and Multiciplity was resonating more with me at this point in time. Daweis info is good stuff to me also. Considering wuji as the origin and taiji as three, their respective positions unity and multiciplicity without them being a duality follows pretty neatly, me like. What comes back to me as a question is then: in Sufism, why is femininity known by its dynamic of differentiation? Or better yet: why is differentiation illustrated as feminine? My first thought was that if one considers Masculinity to be the first appearance the Femininity arises as the different when it appears, but i failed to see how come masculinity comes first*? Perhaps One is Allah and as Abrahamitic tradition has come to see it God is referred to in the masculine, maybe thats the thing? But then again, Sufi is a plunging of the depth of Islam right? I do figure, in my limited knowledge, Allah to be beyond genderization for there is a simple truth that Allah is always greater, so the paragraph above seems improbable to me. Second idiosyncratic answer i can manage is that Perhaps it is from the perspective of a masculine observer that Sufism formulates? Then again, being a Lover and being drunk from greatness of the Beloved is a thing also iirc. Maybe masculinity and femininity in Sufism are also a mode of illustration and not necessarily tied to sex or gender? Or else it would be wholly possible to turn the dynamic around if F is the first appearance, then it’d denote unity or wholeness, and from what i understand the logic of Sufis is often impeccable so a loose axiom seems unlikely... My only clarity: i’m confused, plz help? *Caveat: any sex jokes about men having less stamina and therefore come before women come is not an explanation i’m going to consider. Just sayin i’m being serious, despite a bit of humor.

Huh, i dont remember this one but it doesnt necessarily denote a strict dichotomy right? Learning is one thing, the way is another, yet i do believe you can both learn and way in life in parallell. To understand the way you need to unlearn, but that learning isnt lost. Perhaps truth grows in those parts over yonder too?

And here i thought Magi was of persian (farsi?) roots, denoting adherence to Zoroastrianism.

+1, cats make for great companions. Easy to understand, they communicate clearly and are honest about their needs and wants. They also do not make a huge deal about being coherent or free from contraddictions, which is a pretty huge achievement compared to humans.

Devil worshipping! Gayness! Daydreaming! Purposelessness! Sodomy 101 in school! Drinking! Cosmic Horrors!

Hey, you made it dirty Marbs! You did. Nice And yes, i agree. Cheers over a glass of Spirits of the Valley!

Lin is my guy.

Me either. I’ll be right here where Lin Yu Tang suggests human enjoyment is at its best: in bed, relaxing.

Yup, this happens to me too. Fluidity of mind comes from pacing oneself and just practicing becoming aware of it first, later to break the pattern. I find physical movement does wonders for when i get stuck in my head like this.

This is why buddhism advocates awareness and detachment from things. The first would give you the siddhi of memory and the second would mean a severing of your unhealthy bond to that chair. 😁

MCO happens i think. Force it and you will lead yourself astray. Some say its an ongoing process even when you dont do it or even meditate at all. Qigong is energy work, you have to put in energy and see what it does for you and how to use it. Healing is neat also but you need to study healing to heal folks methinks... Wether you do it by laying on of hands, massage, herbs, meds and stuff its healing. Do your qigong and learn about you first, look at changes in you for the tangible results, never mind tinglings here or there or feeling like you ”finally get it”, just forget all that.

I still dont understand why it’d be possible in the first place. Lightness skill ok, just look at people running up walls and that sort of stuff, not the really extreme stuff but Jin Gong is a thing. Levitation seems like a mind over matter thing. I do think there can be connections between people and objects, that there is more than what the eye could percieve to things, but levitation proposes itself as the direct opposite. Are you good at meditating? How can we tell, do you start to spontaneously invert your gravitational relationship to the planet and everything else by just quieting the mind? Yes, exactly, the telltale sign of extreme meditation skills is flying by sheer force of will... nope. I dont buy it.