Monks

There are many ways to devote own’s life
to Daoist spiritual practice that does not
involve explicitly joining a Daoist temple.

Let me list a few to give you an idea of
different options.

1. Develop a daily home-study of Daoist
practices (such as the Healing Tao material
on this website). Your level of devotion
to practice vs. worldly interests is completely
up-to-you. You can spend as little or as
much per day as you wish.

2. For those that wish to have a more
devoted concentrated time, one can go into
hermit retreat (renting a hermitage) and
devote your solo solitude time toward doing
these practices. I do this myself for about
one month out of the year in December.

Through a combination of #1 and #2, you
could spend much of your waking life
devoted to Daoist practices, and not move
into a monastery.

3. If you are completely self-guided,
and would like to study on your own in a
hermit retreat indefinitely, many hermit
communities are often willing to exchange
room & board for a certain amount of daily work,
instead of paying rent. The rest of your free
time you can devote to your own practice.

Option #3 here is for those who want to
“give up” more of their life to retreat
into the seclusion of practices, but
ultimately wish to be self-guided.

4. If you are more interested in the practices
of temple Daoism, you can study to become
a Daoist priest, right here in the US, from
American Daoist priest Michael Rinaldini.
See http://www.dragongateqigong.com/daoist-training
It is non-residential, but it is Daoist temple training.

Combining Options #1 and #4, could give you an
experience of temple life, created on your own,
in a non-residential setting.

5. If you were looking for a Daoist RESIDENTIAL
facility–where you are a resident and the residents
do daily spiritual Daoist practices–you could
check out Genesee Valley Daoist Hermitage.
Genesee Valley Daoist Hermitage is a
residential facility in Idaho. I’ve attached
a video about the place:

All of these I think are viable options that don’t
require one to travel to China and find a Daoist temple.
If your primary interest is spiritual devotion and/or
enlightenment, I think that this is certainly possible
through these means without needing to take the step
to become an actual monk.

However, having said that, there are indeed Daoist
monastic temples still active today in China. If this is
a path you want to pursue, I’m betting that if you
were to contact Michael Rinaldini (above), he could
probably point you in the right direction.

Hope this helps,
Steven

Hi Kongming,

I have been in the study and practice of Taoism and Buddhism since the early 1980’s; been through the traditional training through Religious Taoism & Buddhism.. there are many pro’s and cons. It will take much dedication and resolve to see it through. There’s alot of stages of proving yourself, Asian hazing to prove your worth to whatever community you would gain access to. Beware of Taoist Masters that over charge for their wisdom; it is actually against their tradition in the religious context. But in America everything is different its a different culture here.

We all change as time goes on and things evolve and we gain much insight on life,stay flexible and focus on the usefulness on how whatever you focus on, following the teachings of Lao Tzu & Chuang Tzu, Baolin Wu in California is a excellent Lineage Master, knows how to teach lineage Taoism in America, a honest Master, but priced accordingly to California lifestyle.

I think the Healing Tao practices will give anyone a good solid root to build from personally and you can add & integrate from there. The practices are excellent, but require time to digest and experience go SLOWLY if you use this as a gateway. Follow the sequence, develop the practice.

Mantak Chia has said over the years you can go to the source (Tao) right here and now below is a link from a video that states that and his belief.

Sounds like you are on a personal spiritual quest; good for you, be glad you know what you want.

Snowlion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OpAIqHTfHfM

How soon is it that you are going to China?

Master Zhongxian Wu is another Daoist living (mostly)
here in the US, and he plays the guqin. I’m
not sure if he teaches it, but he plays it
and you can buy his CDs. He also teaches a
full spectrum of Daoist arts, namely Qigong,
authentic Chinese calligraphy, meditation,
Yijing Divination, tea ceremony, and more.
See http://www.masterwu.net

Given the other things I mentioned, including
of course most importantly Master Chia and
the Healing Tao, there are really plenty of
opportunities here. Lots to learn, and in
some ways it is even more accessible here than
in China (due to our culture). In a lot of
ways, if you are interested in learning Daoist
arts, it is easier to do it here.

And where in China are going?
(saying you are going to China is a lot like
saying you are going to Europe . . . China is huge!)

Anyhow, to your question:

Internal martial arts are rooted in Daoism;
they are deeply connected. This is the whole
backbone of Tai Chi, Bagua, Xingyi . . .
Often such teachers will know meditation
as well, but it will also typically be
more of “an add-on” to the martial arts
practice. However, martial arts and
meditation are just really different ways
to develop deeper awareness . . . they both work
toward the same goal ultimately.

Internal alchemy has only relatively recently
started to become more accessible. Before
Master Chia came to the west and started
teaching the stuff that he had learned,
you could wander China for decades and not
get access to this kind of stuff.

Master Chia does all kinds of stuff:
internal alchemy, qi healing, Tai Chi, etc.
There are not many that do what he does.
I would recommend the Healing Tao practices,
as there is plenty to explore just here.

Steven

Caryapada 11
Poet: Kanhupada, Raga Patamanjuri
The strength of the artery is firmly held in bed.
Spontaneous drums rise in heroic volume.
Kanhu, the kapali, is engaged in yonic joining
through the city of the body.
Knowledge and wisdom are tied to his feet
Like ankle bells of the hour.
Day and night are turned into ornaments of pleasure.
Wearing ashes from burnt-out anger-hatred-and illusion
be adorns a necklace with salvation pearls.
By killing his mother-in-law, sister-in-law and his mother,
Kanhu thus became a kapali.
-http://vajrayana.faithweb.com/rich_text_3.html

Songs of realization, or “Songs of Experience'” (Tibetan: ཉམས་མགུར, Wylie: nyams mgur; Devanāgarī: दोहा; Romanized Sanskrit: Dohā; Oriya: ପଦ) are sung poetry forms characteristic of the tantric movement in both Hinduism and in Vajrayana Buddhism. Doha is also a specific poetic form. Various forms of these songs exist, including caryagiti (Sanskrit: caryāgīti), or ‘performance songs’ and vajragiti (Sanskrit: vajragīti, Tibetan: rDo-rje gan-sung ), or ‘diamond songs’, sometimes translated as vajra songs and doha (Sanskrit:dohā), also called doha songs, distinguishing them from the unsung Indian poetry form of the doha. According to Roger Jackson, caryagiti and vajragiti “differ generically from dohās because of their different context and function”, the doha being primarily spiritual aphorisms expressed in the form of rhyming couplets whilst caryagiti are stand-alone performance songs and vajragiti are songs that can only be understood in the context of a ganachakra or tantric feast. Many collections of songs of realization are preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon, however many of these texts have yet to be translated from the Tibetan language.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_realization

For example this particular group in China might be interesting from the point of understanding the situation:

Taoism & Taoist Study

http://www.taoiststudy.com/

They have also some westerners working for them.

But what comes to these various systems of formulas, one probably cannot really learn more just going to China.

HOWDY

Rāja yoga (“royal yoga”, “royal union”, also known as Classical yoga and aṣṭānga yoga) is one of the six schools of orthodox (astika) Hindu philosophy. Its principal text is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Raja Yoga is concerned principally with the cultivation of the viewer’s (ṛṣih) mind using a succession of steps, such as meditation (dhyāna, dhyana) and contemplation (samādhi, samadhi). Its object is to further one’s acquaintance with reality (viveka), achieve awakening (moksha) and eventually enlightenment, kaivalya.
Rāja yoga was first described as an eightfold or eight-limbed (aṣṭānga, ashtanga) path in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, and is part of the Samkhya tradition.
In the context of Hindu philosophy Rāja Yoga is known simply as yoga and forms an integral part of the spiritual practices of many Hindu traditions. The term Rāja Yoga is a retronym, introduced in the 15th-century Hatha Yoga Pradipika to distinguish the school based on the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjalis from the more current school of hatha yoga expounded by yogi Swatmarama.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C4%81ja_yoga

Sorry, but I personally see some problems studying hazy poetry and aphorisms which Lao Tzu & Chuang Tzu immediately represent.

More beneficial would be to be familiar for example with Patanjali’s yoga sutras which are some healthy way analytic, not in linguistic sense, but as a way describing the process. There are not present any of those tantric excessives, which could make somebody bit crazy.

For example I. K. Taimni, Swami Satyananda Saraswati and T.K.V. Desikachar (son of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya) have excellent commentaries, and again B. K. S. Iyengar is less interesting, IMHO.

The Imperial Guide to Feng Shui & Chinese Astrology: The Only Authentic Translation from the Original Chinese is good inroduction to ancient Chinese world view. Also has good collection of special characters.
(http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Guide-Feng-Chinese-Astrology/dp/B0091XM5GE)

Also it seems to be problematic what is really Daoist, because for example that Magus of Java, don’t even regard his tradition Daoist, but something totally else.

Sorry for my broken English.

HOWDY

Memory palaces don’t necessarily have to be palatial-or even buildings. They can be routes through town-as they were for S-or station stops along a railway, or signs of the Zodiac, or even mythical creatures. They can be big or small, indoors or outdoors, real or imaginary, so long there’s some semblance of order that links one locus to the next, and so long they are intimately familiar. The four-time USA memory champion Scott Hagwood uses luxury homes featured in Architectural Digest to store his memories. Dr. Yip Swee Chooi, the effervescent Malaysian memory champ, used his own body parts as loci to help him memorize the entire 56,000-word, 1,774-page Oxford Chinese-English dictionary. One might have dozens, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of memory palaces, each built to hold a different set of memories.
-JOSHUA FOER, Moonwalking with Einstein

Regarding Master Chia, I do own his book “Healing Light of of the Tao” that has been useful for me to start initial practices on my own. My Taoist collection currently includes that book, The Tao Te Ching, Zhuangzi, Wen-Tzu, Lieh-Tzu, Secret of the Golden Flower, Jade Writing/Yellow Court Classic, and “Taoist Yoga: Alchemy & Immortality.” The practical writings have been useful, but it is also overwhelming as to understand where to start, when to progress, how to organize the practice, and so forth. Hence my desire for a teacher.
-http://forum.healingdao.com/general/message/23233/

I’m aware that Michael Winn don’t like Yang, Jwing-Ming, but one could study some of his qigong-in-depth books because there are nice selections from various ancient or even quite recent qigong or neidan texts in original Chinese (characters) with translation and further explanations. There are not as many practices taught as one can learn from material available here, but these have usable material in their own way.

So good enough titles include Qigong-Secret of Youth, Embryonic Breathing and Small Circulation.

Good for learning Chinese and qigong in lesser doses in original language.

HOWDY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC5lKrndvoU (harlequin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQgFxDSqft4 (damienw)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDcVKtyryPw (spatial memory)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq71mqLSE74 (brotherhood)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC7jTMLkIxw (army)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqW6mKn_x28 (altar)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI-hJrpb-JY (hagwood)