As far as Tick Tock, you can't trust him. A man with no fingers could never do the 9 tranformations of the immortals... Oh... wait... this is not a buddhist forum... Right!

But does Zen not have its roots in Taoism as well?

9 Transformations? Why are fingers necessary? Are these Buddhist mudras or is it Taoist alchemy?

I have taken 7 years of Tai Chi and found that it is a great defensive martial arts but not good for me to experience the Tao. Meditation is how I touch it. Even then, it is not sustainable as it is not a life which I have gotten myself to.

I have no idea what you studied. It is not what I have studied and taught fro 20 years. But everyone is different.

Rich

It was merely a joke for those privvy to the transformations of the immortals.

What family of Tai Chi do you study/teach?

richrf: I am amazed that Daoism on this forum is considered a religion of some sort.

NS: One common convention is to differentiate: 'Philosophic Taoism' from the shamanistic "religion" of 'Taoism.'

Buddhism came into China around the first century C.E., while Taoism is lost in the depths of time. The merging of Taoism with a meditative branch of Mahayana created 'Chan' (Jap 'Zen').

Everybody has their own understanding of Taoism, and there are almost as many 'Tao te Chung' translations to fit them all. For me Taoism is largely about 'detachment,' and letting nature take its own course, as it inevitably will anyway. To strive and struggle for what you desire, only makes things harder. Far better to sit back and see how the Tao wishes to take things, never arguing with it.

"The succession of growth and decay, of increase and diminution,
goes in a cycle, each end becoming a new beginning. The life of
things passes by like a rushing, galloping horse, changing at every
turn, at every hour. What should one do, or what should one not
do? Let the cycle of changes go on by themselves!" (Chuang tse)

BTW, it is exactly the same flow that is used in all martial arts and sports when practitioners are very relaxed and using the inner imagination/Yi to allow the flow to occur spontaneously and naturally without willpower.

Do you believe that this is something mystical/paranormal, or is it something more like kinetics and correct application of physical properties and principles such as body alignment, mass, torque, leverage, and etc.?

I'm not going to pretend I know anything about physics, but I do know that after many years in the martial arts I can hit substantially harder now with considerably less expenditure of energy than I could five years ago, and I certainly don't feel at all magical.

First of all, it is true that Taoism is not a religion. To infer as much is against what Taoism stands for actually. It is a life philosophy.

NS: "On a boat," but also 'within a navigator.'

I suspect you take this river to be more shallow than it actually runs.

"Acting without action is what is called 'Heaven-like.' Speech coming forth of itself is what is called a mark of the True Virtue." (Chuang tse, 'Genius of the Absurd')

"Immortality" is a constant theme in Taoism. Taoist priests and monks are commonly called "Immortal."

Tantra is not just about sex.

"Acting without action is what is called 'Heaven-like.' Speech coming forth of itself is what is called a mark of the True Virtue." (Chuang tse, 'Genius of the Absurd')

So does that justify the code of silence prevalent among many impoverished people in order that crime lords and oppressors are not brought to justice?

Sounds to me that the heaven this describes might be a peadophilic opium dealers brothel... hmmm?

Any body seen the Chan Wook film 'Old Boy'?

As for the point about dubious Western interpretations of Tantra (ie sex) - I might like to point out that a commonality among many uses of language is the notion of 'consent'. So if the way is one which cannot be named, can one name the forms along the way, or are all these forms part of the way? How can one consent to the way without naming the way? Impossible perhaps but entirely necessary I doubt.

I win, it's all a lie - somebody would appear to have been notoriously abused, perhaps they've had their "guts spilled". Dire whores? Or Inspired flaws? Or maybe Queer Torque.

Taoism is labeled "The Way" by consent. This is well known. What is not known is that which is actually contained in the way. The reason Taoism cannot be named is because it does not need to be named. Taoism does not appeal to the conscious mind, therefore does not need to follow the conventions of such.

"Acting without action is what is called 'Heaven-like.' Speech coming forth of itself is what is called a mark of the True Virtue." (Chuang tse, 'Genius of the Absurd')

>>So does that justify the code of silence prevalent among many impoverished people in order that crime lords and oppressors are not brought to justice?

The quote is discussing true nature.

To educate you:

Taoism is the path to seek true nature. True nature is what we are without our consciousness betraying our own self nature. The statement above is stating that action and words without consciousness come from our true nature and are pure. The idea behind Taoism is that consciousness is a poison unless strictly controlled.

My question for Icon is : "What do you think the "truth" at the end of the "way" is?" I've got a funny feeling it might just be the absence of "consciousness" - that being; if you were to deprive yourself of sleep enough to develop a psychosis (temporary obviously) you might think you'd realized the 'answer' but you'd probably fall asleep seconds later and for all the trying you'd never remember what the 'answer' was that you'd thought of.

Ho hum.

I wrote a nice poem about youth, it begins like this:

Spirited hallucination
You had it in your hands;
Synthetic rainbow
You saw it rising, and
While I wandered out on the moor for days,
You reached for the stars and prayed.

I am of the opinion that all elements of existence portray aspects of consciousness. If a 'pure' element (in your terms, 'one acting without singular intent') were to do exactly that, how can one explain chaos present/developed in any investigation? (Although I do find the grammatical triviality to be rather cute.) Do you infer that nature itself is fundamentally chaotic, thus justifying the absence of structured analysis in a search for the 'truth'?

If so it would make sense that a hyper-consciousness (deluded consciousness / psychosis) is more likely to discover any 'truth' - let me ask you: "Is that why Tao is named Tao?" Or maybe I should say that is more likely to be the justification for abuse/deception/poison.

Secondly, surely it is an impossibility to find any kind of purity in a system of existence so heavily laden by the actions of the 'conscious'. How could we undo? Without submitting to a system that has been defined for the purposes of our imprisonment?
So my argument is :

a) "Tao" is false.
b) Existence is not entirely systemic - in some respects it is false.
c) Existence was chaotic and becomes patterned by consciousness ('obsession with context/sensation/order' - a rough definition of 'consciousness').

I wonder what the conclusion is.

My question for Icon is : "What do you think the "truth" at the end of the "way" is?" I've got a funny feeling it might just be the absence of "consciousness" - that being; if you were to deprive yourself of sleep enough to develop a psychosis (temporary obviously) you might think you'd realized the 'answer' but you'd probably fall asleep seconds later and for all the trying you'd never remember what the 'answer' was that you'd thought of.