LCH

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Everything posted by LCH

  1. [HHC Study] Hua Hu Ching Chapter 12

    still enjoying... :-)
  2. [HHC Study] Hua Hu Ching Chapter 12

    I have much enjoyed the back and forth of this conversation :-) Thank you both for sharing.
  3. [HHC Study] Hua Hu Ching Chapter 12

    Ahhh yes :-) I lived north of Pittsburgh my teens. The easy answer is that every action is some form of "energy work", to me at least. Every thought and intention being the expressive/manifested aspect of "qi". You are correct in the specific practice of "energy work" in that if the cause of the imbalances are not addressed, the results will be short-lived. I have had a wonderful opportunity to to qi-gong "healing" on other people. Call it whatever you want though. It mostly has consisted of grounding the person, and getting them in touch with their own "spark" of infinity. Nothing special, as I feel we can all do this, but I will say these experiences have allowed me to connect with people on the closest of levels. Such an honor to have the opportunity. This is the energy work with a purpose, since there is a desire to understand the imbalance, instead of just fixing it. I don't perceive attainment of the "Tao" as being some sort of destination, though it can be seen as such in a life based in linear time. It can be a consistent intended goal to align oneself, but it seems to me to be a bit more like remembering what is "primordial" and forgetting what has been learned. Is it possible to be a functional human in the fast-paced world and still fall into alignment? I feel it is, but as you said, it is not easy sometimes. The illusion of separation is very real to me. I am reminded of HHC #80 saying that "enlightenment is not the end, but the means". The question my mind always asks is "how will we know we are ever there?" haha :-) Thank you for sharing your thoughts and giving me an opportunity to share mine.
  4. [HHC Study] Hua Hu Ching Chapter 12

    I was reading through the HHC today and noted I would be curious to pose the question to the "Bums" about this.... Any thoughts on the "8 energy rays"? When I read 8 I think the 7 chakras and the first closest to the head. In a sense, as with the grains of sand observation, this seems to be "fracturing" the "One". Energy work sets to balance energies, but simply in aligning with the feeling of the "Tao" it seems the energies align themselves. Any thoughts/feelings about that part. I did enjoy reading your back and forth on the matter. Thank you.
  5. Calling Out All Taoists

    How can anyone know who is "diving in" or not? An online forum is inherently intellectual in its means of expression. I know what you are saying, and I have asked the same question, but becoming fixated on an answer to that question tends to limit the "diving in" potential to me. Just from my own experience. Most of my genuine "Taoist" responses to posts on the forum, are never expressed :-)
  6. Outside linear time, the concept of re-incarnating doesn't completely jive as things can be perceived as happening simultaneously in "parallel" existences, until perhaps one aspect of "shen" pulls enough experience together in a single life time to move beyond a karmic condition, perhaps thus freeing all other aspects of the karmic condition as well. Perhaps some of these parallel existences are not even of the Earthly system. Robert Monroe speaks of this in his accounts. It is all pure speculation for me, so I won't spend much more energy thinking about it. :-)
  7. The MCO is Taoist fundamentalism

    Thank you for your elaboration. Which MCO are you speaking of? There are multiple. I think your concerns are valid, and I am interested to see others who have consistently practiced the MCO to chime in about their own personal experiences with it. I will add if someone isn't very grounded, and generally is carrying around a lot of unprocessed emotional energy, this sort of stuff CAN be dangerous. Qi deviation syndrome is a very legitimate "ailment" in my experience. I practice the bringing up in the back and letting it fall in the front. I find that this feels very natural to me and it by no means forced. There are others I have learned, but I do not feel compelled to pursue them at this point as they tend to run against my normal qi flow.
  8. Are you of the opinion that it will make an appearance into the collective reality? I hesitate to put a time frame on it.
  9. Ahh yes, Nibiru... I have spent enough time slogging through many a rabbit hole to get to the point where I probably won't poop myself if it ever makes an appearance in our skies. Though there are many different interpretations of it. Care to share yours, SOTG?
  10. As a former "intellectual predator" I can attest to vampiring qi in order to literally feel better. Only when I discovered my own ability to create enough energetics to be happy and functional did the desire to intellectually intimidate and dominate others go away.
  11. I agree, and perhaps Huxley was aware of it, though he definitely takes the position of an esteemed "intellectual" in this passage. I feel he is lamenting his abundance of knowledge which has not been transformed into a means of "living the way". Whether he got it or not, is immaterial to me as he is writing about something that often plagues the human mind. Nature/nurture, predisposition etc...
  12. Becomethepath mentioned a Huxley quote above. Huxley was an interesting character, who, I feel had a bit more of an agenda. I have included an excerpt from his book "Point Counterpoint" (1928). He describes rather eloquently the pitfalls of becoming too intellectual about life and not being able to integrate into society. I can relate to this excerpt because I have a penchant for intellectualism, and I used it to withdraw from society. I added the bold to parts I found a particular connection to. [...] The chief difference between us, alas, is that his opinions are lived and mine, in the main, only thought. Like him, I mistrust intellectualism, but intellectually, I disbelieve in the adequacy of any scientific or philosophical theory, any abstract moral principal, but on the scientific, philosophical, and abstract-moral grounds. The problem for me is to transform a detached intellectual scepticism into a way of harmonious all-around living. The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchinly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred. [...] Many intellectuals, of course, donā€™t get far enough to reach the obvious again. They remain stuck in a pathetic belief in rationalism and the absolute supremacy of mental values and the entirely conscious will. Youā€™ve got to go further than the Nineteenth Century fellows, for example; as far at least as Protagoras and Pyrrho, before you get back to the obvious in which the non-intellectuals have always remained. And one must hasten to make it clear that these non-intellectuals arenā€™t the modern canaille who read the picture papers and listen-in and jazz and are preocupied with making money and having the awful modern ā€œgood timeā€. No, no; one isnā€™t paying a compliment to the hard-headed business man or the low-brow. For, in spite of their stupidity and tastelessness and vulgarity and infantility (or rather because of all these defects), they arenā€™t the non-intellectuals Iā€™m talking about. They take the main intellectualist axiom for granted-that thereā€™s an intrinsic superiority in mental, conscious, voluntary life over physical, intuitive, instinctive, emotional life. The whole of modern civilization is based on the idea that the specialized function which gives a man his place in society is more important than the whole man, or rather is the whole man, all the rest being irrelevant or even (since the physical, intuitive, instinctive and emotional part of man doesnā€™t contribute appreciably to making money or getting on in an industrialized world) positively harmful and detestable. The low-brow of our modern industrialized society has all the defects of the intellectual and none of his redeeming qualities. The non-intellectuals Iā€™m thinking of are very different beings. One might still find a few of them in Italy (though Fascism has probably turned them all into bad imitations of Americans and Prussians by this time); a few perhaps in Spain, in Greece, in Provence. Not elsewhere in modern Europe. There were probably quite a lot of them three thousand years ago. But the combined efforts of Plato and Aristotle, Jesus, Newton, and big business have turned their descendants into the modern bourgeoisie and proletariat. The obvious that the intellectual gets back to, if he goes far enough, isnā€™t, of course, the same as the obvious of the non-intellectuals. For their obvious is life itself and his recovered obvious is only the idea of that life. Not many can put flesh and blood on the idea and turn it into reality. [...] I perceive now that the real charm of the intellectual life ā€“ the life devoted to erudition, to scientific research, to philosophy, to aesthetics, to criticism ā€“ is its easiness. ItĀ“s the substitution of simple intellectual schemata for the complexities of reality; of still and formal death for the bewildering movements of life. Itā€™s incomparably easier to know a lot, say, about the history of art and to have profound ideas about metaphysics and sociology than to know personally and intuitively a lot about oneā€™s fellows and to have satisfactory relations with oneā€™s friends and lovers, oneā€™s wife and children. Livingā€™s much more difficult than Sanskrit or chemistry or economics. The intellectual life is childā€™s play; which is why intellectuals tend to become children ā€“ and then imbeciles and finally, as the political and industrial history of the last few centuries clearly demonstrates, homicidal lunatics and wild beasts. The repressed functions donā€™t die; they deteriorate, they fester, they revert to primitiveness. But meanwhile itā€™s much easier to be an intellectual child or lunatic or beast than a harmonious adult man. Thatā€™s why (among other reasons) thereā€™s such a demand for higher education. The rush to books and universities is like the rush to the public house. People want to drown their realization of the difficulties of living properly in this grotesque contemporary world, they want to forget their own deplorable inefficiency as artists in life. Some drown their sorrows in alcohol, but still more drown them in books and artistic dilettantism; some try to forget themselves in fornication, dancing, movies, listening-in, others in lectures and scientific hobbies. The books and lectures are better sorrow-drowners than drink and fornication; they leave no headache, none of that despairing post coitum triste feeling. Till quite recently, I must confess, I too took learning and philosophy and science ā€“ all the activities that are magniloquently lumped under the title of ā€œThe Search for Truthā€ ā€“ very seriously. I regarded the Search for Truth as the highest of human tasks and the Searchers as the noblest of men. But in the last year or so I have begun to see that this famous Search for Truth is just an amusement, a distraction like any other, a rather refined and elaborate substitute for genuine living; and that Truth-Searchers become just as silly, infantile, and corrupt in their way as the boozers, the pure aesthetes, the business men, the Good-Timers in theirs. I also perceived that the pursuit of Truth is just a polite name for the intellectualā€™s favourite pastime of substituting simple and therefore false abstractions for the living complexities of reality. But seeking Truth is much easier than learning the art of integral living (in which, of course, Truth-Seeking will take its due and proportionate place along with the other amusements, like skittles and mountain climbing). Which explains, though it doesnā€™t justify, my continued and excessive indulgence in the vices of informative reading and abstract generalization. Shall I ever have the strength of mind to break myself of these indolent habits of intellectualism and devote my energies to the more serious and difficult task of living integrally? And even if I did try to break these habits, shouldnā€™t I find that heredity was at the bottom of them and that I was congenitally incapable of living wholly and harmoniously?
  13. There seems to be times for solitude in the sense of being physically alone, and times to learn from interaction with other humans. Personally, the "Tao" is easy to see on a hilltop in autumn when no other human souls are around, but can that recognition and feeling be taken into the mall on a Friday night? Oh, how I have bemoaned the existence and lives of others who just didn't "get it". Of course, it was I who had yet to "get it" as I had yet to fully realize, remember and embody my primordial "beginning". There are still times where I do not embody this awareness, and the disharmony is instantaneous. Not acting on it has become my challenge.
  14. "Karma" is one of those words often utilized in the spiritual vernacular... I am curious to hear the various interpretations of "Karma" and how you apply this understanding in your life. If you wish to share, that is... Thank you.
  15. Beginnings

    Just from my own observations... Most any genuine pursuit of "spirituality" is a pursuit of forgotten simplicity and source. With this in mind, the "complex" becomes simple. If you are starting out as a conscious pursuer of "The Tao", keeping it simple is a very good first step, and one to never forget. I try to remind myself of this often as I have a tendency to be pretty cerebral about things. There are plenty around here that can offer guidance and insight, but it will all come back to you and how you embody your realizations. If you have confusion about something, seeking the council of others who have been "Walking the path" so-to-speak is a valuable activity. Ultimately, I have realized that most of the progression "forward" in the experience comes from the act of remembering and forgetting. This is very non-brute force, the usual default approach to getting things done in our material world, so often one has to learn how to do things without doing them. Enough of all that. All the best to you, J
  16. Become Taoist Priest?

    Then why even have a screename or come to an online forum where people use words and labels to describe "nothingness"? :-) It does take the practice of becoming "something" to realize one is ultimately "nothing". Thus is the paradox of life, to me at least. BTW Ren and Stimpy are awesome.
  17. Become Taoist Priest?

    For what it is worth, I am beginning a two year class tomorrow with an ordained Taoist Priest. Dr. Ted Cibik You can google him if you wish and get a general idea of who he is. I am not seeking Taoist priesthood at this point, but he does offer that from my understanding.
  18. Become Taoist Priest?

    What do you mean by this?
  19. A very great share, thank you for doing so. Look forward to more posting of the interview.
  20. Psychological Suicide

    I agree, Deci. #20 Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles. Is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense! Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox. In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace, But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am. Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile, I am alone, without a place to go. Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing. I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused. Others are clear and bright, But I alone am dim and weak. Others are sharp and clever, But I alone am dull and stupid. Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea, Without direction, like the restless wind. Everyone else is busy, But I alone am aimless and depressed. I am different. I am nourished by the great mother. This to me is a lamentation regarding the process of saying good bye to one's learned personality as well as the possible responses from other people towards someone walking a different path than the collective. (Translation from Gia Fu-Feng and Jane English)
  21. Psychological Suicide

    Deci brought up "The Mysterious Female" in another thread... Tao Te Ching #20 is a good description of what you speak of, to me at least. I treat this synonymously with "Great Mother", Deci can correct me if she has a different perception. To Basher, I tend to recognize "time" as being infinite snapshots of the "Tao" manifesting reality, like a strobe light. In this view, the slate is seemingly always clean, yet our memories seem to not allow that to be so. It is just a factor of remembering such "beginnings", which to a conscious and capable ego can appear to be psychological suicide. Maintaining that memory within a temporal setting is the "challenge". Just what I have come to realize, fwiw.
  22. Just from personal experience... There is benefit to external interaction. It can serve as a great catalyst for personal cultivation through the observation of human interactions and the "stealing" of potential. Not every friendship is based on a fear of being alone. "Real" ones can give you that feeling of recognizing the entire universe/omniverse/all-that-is in the head of a needle. "Real" ones are void of co-dependency and exist over any period of "time". Having said that, the goal in my practice is to live that time/space illusion in every interaction I have with people. In our modern world, this can be difficult since most every collective expression is branded with an energy to the contrary. People always rushing from here to there, wanting to buy this or that. Who am I to judge them? In fact, observing this behavior allows me to fall more comfortably into my own path. Often called the path of the fool... Yes, as one self-actualizes more and more, the need for many friends diminishes because those needy aspects are being satisfied on a personal level. Ultimately, "need" is no longer recognized. The dynamics of the collectively held belief about inter-personal romantic relationships do not resonate well with someone who is working on attaining "wholeness" within themselves. I can attest to this, and it is one of my longest held programs. One that I have finally gotten under control. but... As one becomes more "whole" why not share such a gift with the world? I ask myself this on a daily basis. Sharing without demands or expectations. Through this process, others on a similar path will make themselves known, even if they know nothing of "spirituality" or self-cultivation. It takes tremendous courage to swim in the opposite direction, and I commend you, BTP. Perhaps you will realize that you can swim against the currents while flowing with the current. Thus, to me at least, is the paradox of the Tao. Thanks for the opportunity to delve into this in my own experience.
  23. Bias against New Age

    I want to thank everyone who participated in this discussion.
  24. Hello all, I have hit an inflection point in my path. I currently work within the corporate world and the pressure to pursue a different life vocation is palpable. Taoism reflects my self-realized desire for service to humanity. All signs point to learning various "healing" modalities. I have seemingly brought an inherent ability for this with me to this life (as many do) and have finally decided to recognize the charge I feel when I am asked to work on someone or to simply sit and listen and offer perspective to someone in their own life such that they can empower themselves. To those who work in the "healing" world, can anyone offer their own path to the point of where they have gotten? By this I mean classes taken, time frames, experiences etc... or anything else worth sharing. I feel that learning massage would be the initial base line with acupuncture and perhaps Qi Gong healing after that. To anyone who responds, I am open to hearing questions about why I am making this decision if you feel a need to ask them. I am a 3rd generation participant in a family business, so the karma involved is dense. I have done a lot of work in terms of understanding that I am not obligated to the business and that I have pulled my weight in the matter, but it does help to hear other perspectives, from "outside" my own mind. Thank you.