Rara

Perhaps I should explain... I work as a booking agent (office) but am also a performer and marketing guy. The latter are very physical and require me to shoot out of the office and run for lots of trains and busses. E.G of my day: Wake up, eat...do bookings behind computer for 2 hours...rush out of house to get bus, do 4 hour job on feet with high energy...come home...hit the office for another hour...rush out and travel to evening performance job...come home late at night (more travel) eat dinner...be too tired to do anything to head straight to bed on full stomach and watch an hour of telly. Then repeat. However, at quiet times, I can regulate myself like a normal person I can have a very nicely paced meditative time, so this is fine. I'm just dealing with such issues right now as so many opportunities have all come at once!

Yes, that's what my doc said...weak core and all. Hence the yoga exercises he recommended. But I feel that I'm a shirt that gets crease daily and the yoga is my iron. So I iron myself out daily only to crease myself up more the next day. The issue being, I only run the iron over, rather than doing a thorough job due to time constraints!

I feel inclined to agree. I took up meditation practice to help me with my tense life. My career has devastating effects on my body and meditation for 15-45 minutes a day now only provides some temporary stretch to an already screwed up area of my body. But I do feel I've caught this early and can rid myself of it before it becomes a lifelong problem. But it's like you say, maybe I need to leave the office stuff to the bear minimum! Half-lotus...full was tugging on my knee haha. Man, I'm a wreck!

I want to learn these forms!!

Hahaha! @9th This is why I stopped Science as soon as I could in school! Still, will try and understand this

Here I come with my usual "I will attend some lectures" approach haha. I find this statement really interesting...something that I have been thinking about recently. When I picked up TTC for the first time, it was over 3 years ago. My interpretation was all rebellion and detachment from the norm (I was 22 and I think this is probably normal for people coming out of university and not having a real clue about anything in the "real world") Now as I get older, I notice myself becoming more wise and mature. I wonder whether TTC is partly responsible, or whether life would have made me this way anyway. I used to look at older people and think of a lot as limited. Only to then go out and chase my desires that I so mistook Taoism for, and now here I am saying "sorry folks, you were right. You have the life experience" Have a lot of these older people read the TTC? Probably not. But some of their wisdom is highly noticeable. So I advocate the first line in this chapter/book. I just don't know how much impact this book really does have on me, when the words do not do justice to simply "knowing". It's that whole thing when someone tries to tell you about that funny thing in their.day, and you pretend to laugh but really you know you had to.be there to understand.

Woah! Well, I better just get on with this book then, I guess!

Here we go And now we move on to Stosh's other point on Eudaimonia (think I spelled this right) The point of living...and what is happiness. Generally the main conflict I find on this forum, plus Stosh and I have already been talking about this in DMs. Time and time again, now, I.will keep referring to stuff "being the same as" (which I.already did today on this thread) as I'm beginning to find that a lot of my questions are leading to the same place. But this is just it. We'll all be divided on this opinion because I am me, and you are you etc...even if we try and find as many similarities as we can in each other, if examined under a microscope, we will find that we're still quite different. How can we share the same perceptions at all? It is quite impossible. So anyway, I've been exploring happiness for a while and have gone down many routes. Some have involved flogging myself, others have involved accepting minimalism and denying atachment to materialism. But then again, I find myself going back to my Xbox. Or my friend's LCD TV. It provides a laugh, so how is this bad? For me, I keep finding myself exploring, only to find myself back where I started haha. As for the ego, I can see why you think this. Sure, I become more modest with age and wisdom, but if I go too far in that direction, I won't do anything in life. Ego and competition boosts achievement...which makes me feel good. Nothing wrong with a reward for hard work...and if that ego led to victory, so be it!

I challenge you to a duel. Haha, no, you know what, I always said that it was gone...and now I realised I have ego about "losing the ego".

Woah. Ok, firstly, when I said I procrastinate, ai meant this in a bad way. I also was not being sarcastic...I took some basic advice and it was of great benefit, and I am thankful. There is no beef whatsoever! Nor was there any derailment of any kind....if anything, progress has been made as I have broken down that ego barrier that you mentioned. Finally yes, plenty of reading and this is in progress. I just haven't reached an ultimate decision, hence the lack of response in that department. And to add...this just sounds exactly like our "filling the belly" convo...I never did intend to digress so much but hey, we're here now. But yes, the need to fulfil a satisfaction depends on what forms that particular desire. The main thing for me is knowing the difference between what is actually important and worth fulfilling, and what is merely just doing unnecessarily or over-indulging.

All three of those posts have really helped with the reading! PS, I enjoyed some fried chicken on Saturday

That's fine, it's all relative and will certainly help! And yes, very in tune with you on how we share such similar mind processes at times. Now I like to tell myself how unimportant getting dishes washed is. So why do I end up doing them daily anyway?! My main issues is cooking. Because I have always had self-pride in doing the "Taoist" thing of eating cheap and healthy, it IS becoming a chore. Therefore leading to dissatisfaction. Time to get takeout pizza?

@silent thunder Yeah that's the thing. Never had any injury to noticeably do this to my back but yeah, the yoga stuff did help at the time so maybe I should start doing this again. @Bearded Dragon This is what confuses me because yes, I do lots of Wing Chun. The only explanation must be slouching when at my laptop and on my sofa and possibly trouble dealing with stress and I do tense up a lot. I still struggle with the whole keeping relaxed and alert at the same time concept.

Hello! One question that's been on my mind recently... What is the significance of the number 9 in Taoism? I have heard it referenced so much in texts and in meditation tutorials, breath cycles appear to go around in 9s (rather than 10s that I've been familiar with in other traditions i.e Zen)

Wow thanks guys! In fact, I seem to remember something like this being explained to me years ago - but only as a Taoist math-trick to learn the 9x table. Evidentally, that is just the foundation. Or maybe completion is or oneness could be just it? Ever see a TV show called "Touch" with Kiefer Sutherland? Was about an autistic kid that would give the answers to the universe by studying all the numbers/digits around him in everyday life. The show wasn't great but had some good moments!

See how I hesitate? See how I procrastinate? Still overcoming myself.

I will indeed. And yes, no one promised a rose garden...but that's not to say that we can't get the rose garden if that's what we want... Then again, this is desire... ...but if we want, then we want. If we're hungry, we eat... Maybe this is for another thread. hmmmmm

Ok lol...I will check that out. Do you not find that we are Taoists living in a Confucianist world?

Will check the editions as I'm going off an app on my phone until my birthday (when I get someone to buy me a good version haha) Thanks for that extra context. I think very soon I'm gonna be caving into full anarchy myself . I keep trying to work with the system but it's all total bs to me lol

When I was younger and going through my emotional, angry, upset teenage phase...whenever I was at an all time low, the only one that would come to me and understand was my dog. We were communicating through our eyes...he could feel my pain. I'll never forget.

An African friend of mine tells me that there are still places over there that live this way. No currency, just a mutual exchange system that keeps people together as a community. That being said, I wouldn't say that's anything to be desired. We can still have our own equivalent. I may work for "the man", but however I go about it, I encourage a sense of community both in a professional setting, and when back home. We can do what we can in our given birthplaces and still achieve the same harmony as those living in what is perceived to us as harmonious small villages Somebody on the forum referred to themselves as a "suburban monk" ... I forget who it was. But they meant the same thing. Yes, we happen to be alive in the technology era. A privilege to some, and some people would probably be quite strict about not using much technology and abandoning it to go and live a life closer to nature. But why? It's amazing that we can all gather here like the philosophers of 2500 years ago, who would have to all be local to each other due to lack of choice! For me, the Tao in 2013 is like this - there is a computer in front of me, and us as people communicate through it. And phones. So accept and do! PS I love your signature. So flexible and honest, is the best way of putting it.

Thanks MH. I ended up finding a good Youtube discussion that pretty much said this and given enough time, I probably would have realised this without posting this thread haha. I like how it is almost like a religious text in this respect, with its parables and messages etc. so different to TTC yet as far as style goes yet still very close to Lao Tzu's summaries. Cooooool!

Holy crap! I gotta get me some of that!!

Aaaaaand I'm back! Yes, can't compare sage of 2500 years ago to average Joe...but what about the sage of today? The more we practice, the more we understand....the closer we come to becoming a sage? (Or invert all I just said to create the same meaning haha) Surely the nature of the sage is timeless...

Maybe you'll end up enlightened that way