Meditation is not a good way for practising

[Taomeow]

你瞧，连中国人对中文都会有不少误解，更别提外国人了。

所以，误解"道"的人占绝大多数。

 

Translate:

 

You see, Ancient Chinese sentences can be misunderstood, even though you are a native speaker. So it is more likely to be misunderstood for foreigners.

 

In fact, majority of the "taoists" are misundertanding the Way(Dao).

 

I'm still waiting for you to name at least ONE of those Ancient Chinese Books that you keep mentioning.

 

To explain how at least some of the foreigners operate so as to avoid misunderstandings brought about by our linguistic limitations:

 

the most ancient Chinese book on record, the primary one (recognized by ALL taoist sects and schools, unlike hundreds of other taoist books which some sects revere while others disdain, and vice versa), and the first one to have been included in the Taoist Canon, is the I Ching. I have the Eranos (Riksema/Sabbadini) translation which includes ALL meanings of ALL Chinese words used in the original text, not just modern but historic, obsolete, ancient, and thoroughly unfamiliar to ALL modern Chinese speakers except for scholars who are both linguists, historians, and taoists. So that's the version I use for divination. Since, you know, that's what the ancient Chinese primary use of this ancient Chinese book has been for thousands of years: not for reading, but for hands-on applications as an oracle, and then studying the meaning of the hexagrams, the lines, the images, the symbols formed by particular configurations, the commentaries (including the Ta Chuan, the Great Treatise, another most excellent ancient Chinese book which is not misunderstood by someone who has a bit of math and a bit of training in sacred geometry, feng shui, and Chinese astrology, which I do). And so on. This is PART of what taoists do. I do other things too. Pretty much all taoist arts, sciences and practices I can lay my hands on. Including, of course, but not limited to, of course, taoist meditation.

 

So, you want to teach folks what is and isn't the good old taoist way? WALK it, pal. Just being able to read Chinese does not quite get one there -- wasn't Mao Zedong pretty good at that? -- and by the same token, being a foreigner does not quite stop one from getting there. Word.

[steve]

 

So, you want to teach folks what is and isn't the good old taoist way? WALK it, pal. Just being able to read Chinese does not quite get one there -- wasn't Mao Zedong pretty good at that? -- and by the same token, being a foreigner does not quite stop one from getting there. Word.

Word

 

Like my teacher says - there are those who do and then there are those who read and talk a lot...

 

:yawn:

[Protector]

Wow, such a perfect translation of the books and people still get sidetracked

I wonder if it's just not explainable in words after all

[Lao Tzu]

I'm still waiting for you to name at least ONE of those Ancient Chinese Books that you keep mentioning.

I have post one here on #100:

金丹四百字（张紫阳）:

 

不可执以无为，不可行于有作，不可泥于存想，不可着于持守，不可枯坐灰心，不可盲修瞎炼。

 

Four hundred words about NeiDan(Zhang Ziyang):

 

Can not run to inaction, is not feasible to have to make, not like mud in the deposit, not forward to hold on, not just sit and lose heart, not silly religious refining.

[konchog uma]

Four hundred words about NeiDan(Zhang Ziyang):

 

surely zhang ziyang recommends an alternative to meditation

 

how is the inner alchemy practiced? while we are doing dishes, or maybe reading the daily paper? I can not grasp how inner alchemy can be seperated from meditation.

[ChiDragon]

Wow, such a perfect translation of the books and people still get sidetracked

I wonder if it's just not explainable in words after all

 

Thanks...!!! I thought somebody was really linguistic proof...

Edited December 24, 2011 by ChiDragon

[ChiDragon]

What is meditation....??? Can somebody tell me in words...???

[Marblehead]

What is meditation....??? Can somebody tell me in words...???

 

Too many definitions. Too many practices. But I will add that as long as the individual feels it is helping them live a better life then meditation is good, whatever the practice.

[Lao Tzu]

surely zhang ziyang recommends an alternative to meditation

 

how is the inner alchemy practiced? while we are doing dishes, or maybe reading the daily paper? I can not grasp how inner alchemy can be seperated from meditation.

That is not alternatives, because he said "NO" to others.

 

Yes,while you are doing dishes, or maybe reading the daily paper, you can live in Dao.

 

Living in Dao means every minute, every second.

[Protector]

Mu

[ChiDragon]

Too many definitions. Too many practices. But I will add that as long as the individual feels it is helping them live a better life then meditation is good, whatever the practice.

Yes, based on the consensus of this forum, it's better to talk to all the GOOD teachers there are. Then get down to the right definition that fits your need and start practicing. You will get lots of recommendation of books for you to read but do don't do it. If you do just don't tell anyone what you had learned. Otherwise, your definition is incorrect if it does meet the opinions of the majority.

[ChiDragon]

surely zhang ziyang recommends an alternative to meditation

 

how is the inner alchemy practiced? while we are doing dishes, or maybe reading the daily paper? I can not grasp how inner alchemy can be seperated from meditation.

 

How about ask "what" first before asking "how".....???

[Thunder_Gooch]

What is meditation....??? Can somebody tell me in words...???

 

 

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/21954-meditation-is-not-a-good-way-for-practising/page__view__findpost__p__312000

[Taomeow]

What is meditation....??? Can somebody tell me in words...???

 

Absolutely.

 

Meditation is a deliberate choice of where to place your awareness. Compare, e.g., to watching a movie: your awareness follows what your eyes are looking at and what your ears are hearing, it runs along a pre-selected rut set by someone else for your awareness to follow. Compare to reading a book: your awareness follows the narrative, words, sentences, thoughts of someone else. Compare to playing tennis: your awareness follows the ball hit by someone else's racket. Compare to having a headache, the flu, a broken rib: your awareness follows the pain, you didn't choose to follow the pain with your awareness, the pain has chosen for you where your awareness will dwell. Compare to having a conversation... to getting drunk... to spacing out... to sleeping... to eating on the run while thinking of something unrelated... to hundreds and thousands of things people do every day without unifying their mind with their body, their body with their spirit, their body-mind-spirit with the Great Beyond. One function of meditation is unification -- of your body with your mind, your mind with your spirit, your feelings with your life, your life with the life of the universe. As the immortal Sun Bu-er put it, "rest your mind on your breathing and your breathing on your mind." Why? Because when your mind is in one place and your breathing in another, without one paying any attention to what the other is doing, it's like applying the gas pedal and the brakes simultaneously -- all your life. Neither one can ever rest properly. Your body, mind, spirit, emotions, feelings constantly struggle with each other. Meditation offers them a truce.

 

Another, more advanced function of meditation is what in the shamanic tradition and in some taoist ones alike is called "the horse" -- the means of transportation. You use it to transport your awareness to realms and dimensions beyond this one. Now if you follow a path of a lineage that went to these realms before you, the road might be charted. That's alchemical meditation, leading your awareness to other realms and dimensions and transformational events that can only take place there along a charted path. Then there's uncharted meditations, for the adventurous. In most cases, they don't take you too far, or to the right place, but they are useful to the same extent as aimless random "seeking" is useful in everyday reality for an adolescent who doesn't know yet who or what he or she is really after and is trying to "find oneself." They are beginners' stuff, in other words. Advanced meditations can be very demanding. You put your awareness through a boot camp -- and it becomes strong, disciplined, and spontaneously creative. Without such training, most modern people's awareness is at the mercy of whatever is thrown its way, whatever sticks. It is, in a typical case, a god-awful mess.

[Protector]

Is anything missing?

[konchog uma]

That is not alternatives, because he said "NO" to others.

 

Yes,while you are doing dishes, or maybe reading the daily paper, you can live in Dao.

 

Living in Dao means every minute, every second.

 

then whats wrong with meditation? i can live in dao and meditate just fine.

[Lao Tzu]

then whats wrong with meditation? i can live in dao and meditate just fine.

Meditation is not the real Dao, because it is "doing something with your mind", and it is not natural. In other words, meditation is conflict with Dao.

[Enishi]

Meditation is not the real Dao, because it is "doing something with your mind", and it is not natural. In other words, meditation is conflict with Dao.

 

If you try to force things with your surface level thoughts/intellect this is partly true, but that is not the only form of meditating. There is also "letting go" where you step away from the ego-mind and surrender to your deeper awareness, and meditation becomes effortless. It's the kind of the thing that is hard to describe with words though, you "do" the practice yet also don't.

Edited December 25, 2011 by Enishi

[Lao Tzu]

If you try to force things with your surface level thoughts/intellect this is partly true, but that is not the only form of meditating. There is also "letting go" where you step away from the ego-mind and surrender to your deeper awareness, and meditation becomes effortless. It's the kind of the thing that is hard to describe with words though, you "do" the practice yet also don't.

I know what you are talking about.

But it is not natural, because in order to do that,you must keep in a certain status with your mind and body, it is conflict with the spirit of the Dao. You are supposed to experience Dao all the time in all your activities.

[thelerner]

[Lao Tzu]

I'd disagree because, one, its present and respected in almost all traditions.

 

Yes, it is true. The majority of the religous people are misunderstanding their religions' spirits, from long time age to now and to the future.

[Marblehead]

Meditation is not the real Dao, because it is "doing something with your mind", and it is not natural. In other words, meditation is conflict with Dao.

 

And I still disagree with this understanding. The state of wu wei is very similar to 'empty mind' meditation. And if one's mind is capable of such it is a very natural state to be in. What is natural for one person may not be natural for another.

[ChiDragon]

Still Lao Tzu's argument is not unfounded. I'm reminded of a Zen fable of a a man watching monks meditate. So he picks a rock and starts rubbing it. A monk asks him 'Why are you rubbing that rock?"

 

He replies "I'm making it into a mirror"

 

Monk "You cannot make a rock into a mirror by rubbing it"

 

Man "And you cannot become enlightened sitting still"

 

Actually here's a better version then my remembered one:

 

In the Zen literature it is told the following story about Huai-jang when this one initiated the one that would be his successor, Ma-tsu, who then was practicing meditation in a sitting position:

 

—Your Reverence —asked Huai-jang: What's the object of meditating while sitting?

—To convert yourself in a Buddha —answered Ma-tsu.

 

Then Huai-jang took a tile and started to polish it on a rock.

—What do you do, master? —asked Ma-tsu.

—I am polishing it to make it into a mirror —said Huai-jang.

—And how are you going to make a polished tile turn into a mirror?

—And how come that by meditating while sitting you would convert yourself into a Buddha?

 

 

Yet, yet yet, you cannot just meditate and hope to become a Buddha. It takes mastery and surrender, learning and grace. In meditation there is a surrender and grace.

 

The man and Huai-jang do not know what meditation is.

 

Definition from another thread:

2. Zen requires the sitting position as in Zazen. Zen was to be performed by a high ranked monk which goes into deep thoughts about Buddhism philosophy or other unresolved intellectual issues for enlightenment. After the issue has been resolved mentally from Zen, one had discovered a new idea or philosophy. Then, he was considered that he had been enlightened for a particular highest thought.

 

If a high ranked monk became enlightened, then he may be promoted to become a Buddha. It is because he had attain to have the wisdom to qualify himself as a Buddha.

 

 

PS.....

Please don't jump on my case, I am only talking about the Chinese Buddhism philosophy.

Edited December 25, 2011 by ChiDragon

[Wells]

Yes, it is true. The majority of the religous people are misunderstanding their religions' spirits, from long time age to now and to the future.

You truly believe that your data evaluation with your little mind did lead you to the truth and that you succeeded but thousands of other people over centuries with the combined effort of data evaluation with their minds PLUS meditative effort and insight with meditative training have failed???

Now my boy, you are more delusional of grandeur than anyone I'd ever met! Narcissistic megalomania, nothing more!

I pity you for believing to be so near to the light of the truth but in fact you couldn't be more far away from it and deeper in the grasp of delusion!

Edited December 25, 2011 by Dorian Black

[Protector]

When I'm in doubt, I just go to google and look up some chakra pictures

 

 

Wha wha whaaaaaaaaat? There is something above the head! What madness is this?