Colorado Sage

Gonna be a bit of a challenge to learn to be accepting of others and see their purity while you're being trained to kill them without prejudice. Just don't allow the mob mentality in the heat of battle make you do stupid things.

I've seen mention in other places about the art of writing Taoist talismans. I've searched around here but haven't seen any mentions. Does anyone have any experience with this and/or know where I could learn more about this?

You'll have to post in the tech support forum and wait a bit but change will come.

Yay! Another musician! Playing music, to me, is very spiritual. As a recording engineer for decades I have been moved to tears countless times by a strong performance. My skin gets goose bumps from a nice chord progression ! Welcome aboard!

Go your way alone,

be it for weeks or for years.

The path is all yours.

 

and it isn't really music but i also like to chill out to soft-spoken ASMR videos with people scratching textured surfaces. good fun that is

Pardon my ignorance but what is ASMR?

It appears as status updates in their profile, so when looking at statuses in the mobile app you see them all at once. I don't think you can flag them from the mobile app. I'd have to find their profile and flag them there.

Hello, Coffeecup!

(coffee is my only vice)

I'm new so I don't have any insight as to threads about awareness for you yet. I can tell you that being lazy can cause you to sleep too much. Get out. Do something. Get some fresh air!

Neat story. I honestly can't remember the exact moment I decided to really dig in. I remember my best friend telling me he was getting in to it and he had read the Tao of Pooh. He never really got beyond that book and I kind of dove right in. It hit me as soon as I read the first paragraph of the Tao Te Ching and I've been hooked ever since.

Well the Twitter comment obviously came from someone who needs to feel better by belittling others.

Working with kids is great for reminding us what it was once like to be a child. Everything is fun and exiting when you're a kid. My girlfriend has an 8 year old son who is also autistic, so I experience the joys of having children around but I also experience something else I can't quite put into words. I have tremendous insight into the way the mind works watching him interact with people and play games. Living with someone with a spectrum disorder helps me to see that all of us have some degree of spectrum weirdness. We all have quirks and flaws and we need to be more accepting of everyone else's, including our own.

I've always wanted to make balloon animals, too. What a fun gig!

I'd be curious to hear the responses. I have never practiced anything physical in my journey so far. My last few days here have introduced so many practices its a bit overwhelming. I'm curious about qigong and baguazhang so far.

I'm a big music fanatic and work in the music business. I cherish world music and have been listening to it since the mid 80's. I'd like to start a music thread - find out what others listen to to relax or meditate.

I use Spotify to listen to music nowadays - I pay the $10 so that I can take my playlists with me on my phone and iPad. It's free if you just want it on your PC.

Here's a link to an album on Spotify that is fantastic:

Joseph Tawadros – The Prophet (Music Inspired By the Poetry of Kahlil Gibran)

Hello, Meridian. You seem to share a similar background to me - feeling outcast by family for not participating in their religion.

Taoism is wonderful and very simple. The healthiest thing you can do for yourself is start your path inward - continue to discover yourself and accept you for who you are. Everything becomes much easier after that.

What really changed my life was realizing that everyone and everything is born pure. Fear, shame, self-consciousness, anxiety - that's all taught to us by our parents and peers. It's not who we are. Taoism to me is about going back to that infant stage of purity, where you do things because they make you happy and not because you think others expect you to. You don't watch certain shows, or listen to certain bands, or wear certain clothes in hopes of being accepted by others. You don't refrain from doing something because you think someone will ridicule you. You do not allow the past to control your future nor do you allow the "what if" question to keep you from making decisions. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow never comes, now is all that matters.

I've only just begun my journey as well. I came here last week to chat with the like minded. Welcome aboard and happy travels.

You're close - book in my pocket and drum sticks in my holster.

What's with some members touting porn and affiliate shopping in their profile status updates? I was shocked to see a link to 80's porn in the list when I woke up this morning. Can moderators bump these clowns out of here?

These members are an example: Sundance_78, beatsbydre, federers, jignSheveKind

[edit - added user names]

Oddly enough the lyrics are practically invisible to me. The vocal melody is important but the lyrics go in one ear and out the other. I just get wrapped up in the sonic textures.

Maybe you want to have music in your meditation initially.

Hydrogen:

Funny you should mention that. I've been a musician for over 30 years. One of the reasons I was drawn to music was because of the way it affects me. I don't have any kind of synesthesia but I can without a doubt say that music has a neurological affect on me greater than the average person. I can completely get lost in it when listening and even moreso when playing. My attention deficit issues disappear when I play music, almost as if it quantizes my brain functionality. Listening to music almost immediately shuts down external thoughts for me and allows me to concentrate. I already use music to help clear my head when I soak in the shower.

When I first read the TTC, it was from beginning to end. It's almost impossible (if you're paying attention) to keep from stopping and reflecting for a bit on each chapter but I think you have to read it all first. Then go back and reread the chapters that speak most to you. I've found over the years that different chapters speak to me more at different times in my life depending on what I'm going through at the moment,

Now I often open it up to a random page and read just to get a quick boost of momentum, like while I'm waiting for the shower to heat up over 2 minutes, or waiting for the coffee to brew.

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mention Thomas Cleary. I'm a newb but his writings and translations are what got me to pay more attention. Often I have read translations in the past that came across to me like fortune cookies and his were the first to speak to me in a modern way that woke me up very quickly.

Hey there. I'm shutting the Tobraham account to make room for this new [Colorado Sage] one. Thanks.

Hey, gang. It's me again. Quicker to just create a new profile and delete the old one to get the name change. Thanks to TheLerner for the idea.

- Tobraham, now forever known as the Colorado Sage.

'Good' is relative, is it not? We all have the potential for a happy existence -it's all about the choices we make, including how we choose to let obstacles and hardships affect our minds and lives.

Pretty darn rural. My poor Scion xB almost didn't make it.

Here is the cabin mentioned above:

And here is the canoe at the lake: