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I hate to bring up a potentially sensitive subject...
Hi Carl,
There are two sides to every coin.
I understand your perspective in instances when one person can be biased towards one teacher and is ignorant of the teachings of life or other teachers.
I have many teachers in my life from my daily discipline of Martial Arts, Tai Chi (Wun Yuen and Liu He Ba Fa Quan), daily yoga, forest walking, daily meditation, reading, to my weekly Salsa dancing classes and more...
There are two sides to every coin.
I understand your perspective in instances when one person can be biased towards one teacher and is ignorant of the teachings of life or other teachers.
I have many teachers in my life from my daily discipline of Martial Arts, Tai Chi (Wun Yuen and Liu He Ba Fa Quan), daily yoga, forest walking, daily meditation, reading, to my weekly Salsa dancing classes and more...
Comments
The subject: Sexuality.
To me love and sexuality are a beautiful and precious thing, and a natural thing... regardless of gender. I've never had any problems with homosexuality, even though growing up in a Christian school taught me otherwise. It was this subject, in fact, that made me first question my following of the Christian faith, one of the first things that (though I was young and wasn't sure about a lot of things) I thought my teachers were wrong about... the "sin" of homosexuality.
I've made a hobby of studying many cultures and religions since high school... that is how I discovered the teachings of Taoism. They all seem to have many sects and denominations that have varying views on homosexuality. I have never been able to find a set Taoist view on the subject... if there even is one.
My natural understanding of the concepts presented by Taoist thought leads me to the conclusion that it (sexuality) doesn't matter. That is my personal belief. It's probably not anything I need to be worrying about anyway, but I do have gay friends who have been painfully persecuted before... and it's just my natural insticnt to defend them. BUT, I did read somewhere that some old-school Taoists do condemn homosexuals... But this just seems opposite of what I think Taoism seems to say.
It's all kind of confusing. And this could be one of those there-is-no-right-or-wrong type of things... which many things in life seem to be. I always say "Who are you to say what kind of sexuality is wrong and what kind is right?" But then who am I to do the same? And on that note, why would I condemn someone who wants to make love to a goat or a tree? How do I know I'm not wrong? And of course "right" and "wrong" change with time and society... hmmmmmmm...
Anyway, like I said, I'm just curious about what you all think. Thanks![/i]
Some people like making rules for other people, but making rules for other people is not finding harmony with the Tao.
Sex is like eating. Once is enough until the next time.
All that aside, it is just an animal thing we do. There can be an emmotional component to it but there doesn't have to be. It can be strickly biological.
Perhaps and I don't think we really know the truth about that. It may seem like it is a beautiful thing or it may seem like it is just an animal thing we do. Emotional? Biological? Intellectual?
I still think that what we say about it has more to do with how we feel about it than what it actually is. If you say it is a beautiful thing then to you it occurs that way sometimes even in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I say that only because no matter what you say about it, there is evidence to the contrary. I know that without even knowing what you might say about it because it is always that way.
You ask me, "How are you today?" I can say "great" or I can say "miserable". I have overwhelming evidence to support both statements and I have overwhelming evidence to the contrary for both statements. So, how do I answer you when you ask me "How are you today?" That is pretty much up to me. Which statement am I willing to "go out on a limb" for? They are both sound statements. They are both ludicrous.
I am "great". That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
So, the juices flowing again. Due to the changing of the seasons no doubt?
B-b-b-but, “how we feel” is rooted in our biology. We evolved with an ability to perceive our environment and to interpret those perceptions in such a way as to promote survival. The distinction lies in 'my' evolutionary axiom: Nature didn’t need us to evolve a capability to know what “actually is”, rather, it only needed us to evolve strategies that enhanced survival fitness. Although, that doesn’t prove we can’t know “what it actually is”. It should put a shadow of serious doubt on what we [chref=72]think that we know[/chref].
For example, a fly’s eye sees a multitude of images from all angels which help it evade the fly swatter. If a fly had a brain it would think the external world was actually a mosaic collage of multiple duplicated images. It’s opinion would feel ‘true’ from its point of view. Our opinions feel ‘true’ from our point of view. And that point of view is rooted in biology [chref=1]mystery upon mystery[/chref].
No you’re not. You’re just as miserable as the rest of us…
1.The Hua Hu Ching talks about how sex can be draining if it is superficial and focuses on the sex organs. The two paths of sexuality are a)abstaining from sex (like what a monk or priest is supposed to do) or b) dual cultivation. This means slow sex with a focus on the spirit and the other's inner being, such that there is a spiritual fusion of Yin and Yang. This is aligned with modern sex advice about slow sex and the general idea of Indian sex mantras. Of course, dual cultivation is very vague. It could mean bisexual sex, or homosexual sex where partners switch active/passive roles, or heterosexual sex where partners switch roles.
2.Two of the famous "Seven Taoist Masters" are gay. There is this hilarious bit somewhere about the wife secretly watching the two men frolic in the room and how they did it for the WHOLE DAY. She was impressed by their power.
3. Out of the famous Taoist "Eight Immortals", Lan Caihe is often portrayed as a hermaphrodite.
The simple mantra that I worked for me was
"If there is non-being and being, fire and water, yin and yang, then there must be straight men and non-straight men" since the Way always works to produce opposites. Gender expectations are very tough in every society and we should expect a handful to go all the way to the opposite side.
how about this, I don't mind you liking and doing what you do because it's who you are.
I don't need logic, I don't need humanity, I don't need anything. You are who you are there is nothing I can't do to understand what and who you are.
If I sound like Mom, you are probably right.
If I have to put a word to discribe you, I've already lost the meaning behind understanding. Thus I won't. If have to think to catagorize you, I would end up just the same. So I won't. I can however accept what is it that you want to do in this present then move on, this I can do. And I don't have to ask Why.
This I can do, Kudos and Happy New Year!
The natural opposite to male is female and visa versa. The argument over gay and straight is whether gay is natural or contrived. I mean the idea of a straight man is useless without a gay man. But does gay occur in nature?
I have considered that humans are simply sexual creatures deciding what to hump. Biology has a lot to do with that but there is a lot more to it than just hormones.
For me, the law of opposites is that everything has an opposite and they never occur independantly. The latter is the piece that many people neglect. Therefore, every straight man is also gay and every gay man is also straight. What determines which one is expressed?
I think it is when a boy decides that he is either gay or straight. Maybe he had a thought or a feeling, maybe something happened, or maybe someone said something. Maybe all those things were influence or controlled by biology, including tribal instinct.
I am neither gay nor straight. I am free from any of the self-imposed, society-imposed expectations and restrictions of either. What naturally arises is the attraction to my natural opposite.
I can get misty at a tear-jerker movie and not worry because I am not trying to hide my feminine side. If Brutus tried to make an issue of it, I'd ignore him because his opinion doesn't matter to me. If he punched me in the face, I'd do my best to clobber him without even thinking about it. I am free to be. What arises is natural.
Where ever I am hiding or forcing something, I am not free to be. I could have sex with a man and not make it mean that I am gay. I could have sex with a woman and not make it mean that I am straight. I am free to be. What arises is natural.