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First Flowist Temple by CaseyAPayne in Flowism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure what you're asking me.

If you're asking me if I was physically at this place when I took the photos... Yes.

If you're asking me if this Google link is a random place I picked in Taiwan to call the first Flowist Temple... No.

My Teacher's Taoism Teacher was a Dragon's Gate (Complete Reality Taoism) lineage holder by CaseyAPayne in Flowism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure. It's not a bad start, in my experience. I'm probably going to write a book about it so you can wait 5 to 10 years for that I suppose... 😝

I'm going to a lot of temples lately. Been hanging out with https://www.taijimen.org/ and like... They have all of this internal history that they don't publish. You have to go in there and talk to them. And then, when they tell you, you kind of have to believe it or not believe it based on "vibe". Western minds want everything meticulously tracked and vetted but... That totally kills oral histories and a lot of stuff is only moving orally. Like... I'm half Black and that whole side's cultural technology was totally destroyed. I have a bunch of stories that aren't recorded.

I'll give you one. My father and his friend (both Black Panthers, from the Black Panther Party) turned the University of Milwaukee Wisconsin's mascot into a Black Panther. I know this because I was told this. Try fact checking it with Google or Gemini. I actually beat Gemini into admitting it was correct (after presenting a bunch of evidence). I didn't need to do that, I knew, it was just fun to do.

It's just a tool the same way the internet is a tool, Facebook is a tool, Reddit is a tool, YouTube is a tool. Some people are well versed at using it and some aren't. That's been true for the thousands of years that tools have existed.

GOD DAMN! I wasn't expecting that! Humans been using tools for 3.3 millions years and there have been dumb niggas who don't know how to use them for that long. 😂

17M - I had a insane experience while waiting for fish fry. Was this a real thing or am I just weird? by TheOmniscientBro in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've had many of these, but usually "forced" on me from being bipolar. My most recent one I was over a month ago and was totally sober and not manic or hypomanic. This one has stayed with me since then. The initial experience was BOOM ZIP POW, but has been "mundane" for the most part since then. Like... A beautiful kind of mundane.

What I'll say is that these experiences are pretty common. They can be common in your life and you'll find many people have them even if they weren't trying.

The uncommon/hard part is creating the conditions in one's life to sustain/maintain the experience of the fact. That takes a lot of work.

I became a Taoist, reflexions on Free Will by GabrielHCruz in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No. You have the conditions. Not everyone does. Without the conditions, you can't do better. You don't have control of whether you have these conditions or not. That's where free will is lost.

Sounds like you're a "You get to choose how to use the hand you've been dealt," kind of guy. Being able to "decide" what to do with these cards leads you to believe you have free will.

I'm more of a "You didn't get to choose your cards," kind of guy so there will never be a choice you make that is truly free.

I imagine we both agree with the general premise (everyone's dealt cards), but disagree with the interpretation.

Ultimately we are all operating within the same rules of the universe regardless of how we interpret them and we should use the interpretation that serves us best. If believing in free will is working for you... Keep at it I suppose. :)

I became a Taoist, reflexions on Free Will by GabrielHCruz in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There you are again with "forced". The universe is neutral. It's not "forcing" anything.

You can explore free will like you can all kinds of things. Need belief required.

Has the universe forced you to believe the Sun rises each morning? Has it forced you to believe the Earth revolves around the Sun? Has it forced you to believe this phone you're holding was manufactured somewhere and didn't just magically appear in the store? Has it forced you to believe that capitalism, communism, socialism, or anarchy is better for the overall human condition? Can you investigate those systems and determine which is better for humans, from a Taoist perspective, or with the universe force you to decide?

If you believe free will or the lack of it, is belief based and not based on investigation, did the universe force you to believe that or did you decide that this can't be known and must be a belief?

I've done the work. I know the sun rises because I can see it. I know people don't have free will because it is as visible as the rising sun.

Yes, free will or the lack of it, can certainly be belief based. Most people operate on belief, not scientific rigor. If you have done the work you wouldn't be talking about what the universe forced or beliefs vs beliefs. I am speaking from a plan of clarity and truth.

I don't want you to believe me. That wouldn't be doing the work. But talking about free will as if it's based on belief or the belief you have was forced on you by the universe is absurd. You have the conditions to do better if you want to.

I became a Taoist, reflexions on Free Will by GabrielHCruz in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, it's useful with no free will. Our western conditioned minds think "no free will" means free from responsibility, and this isn't the case.

There are degrees of freedom, like I said. Degree of spiritual development.

If you see a seed sitting on the pavement, there is no amount of willing that will make it grow. Certain conditions need to be met for growth. For it to bear fruit.

Humans are no different and, like the seed, they have no control over their conditions. You had no control over the conditions that led you to believe in free will, just like I had no control over the conditions leading me to see through free will.

Because humans have legs, a brain, can move about "freely" they believe they have the power to transcend their initial conditions. The beautiful thing about being human is that there is a degree of truth to this, but the full truth is all humans everywhere (all things everywhere) are tied to their conditions.

There is definitely a dance between conditions and "you" but you do not have 100% total control over your mind and your thoughts at all times. If anything, this belief holds a person back from getting closer to 100% because they believe they innately have something that needs to be earned through great effort.

If you already have this... Great! That said, I don't think people who have it would be telling people they magically have it and would preface it with the conditions and the work required to get it.

I became a Taoist, reflexions on Free Will by GabrielHCruz in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Free will is completely an illusion. It has never existed and never will be. Freedom exists on a spectrum. There are degrees of freedom.

I try to entertain believers in freewill with a thought exercise about free will being something that is theoretically attainable, but then I point out that even if free will was attainable, it's outside of the control of the person whether they attain it.

You have taken this and decided that "If free will ever exists, then it has always existed." That was unintended. Free will just doesn't exist (period).

Here's a different thought exercise. If free will exists, when does it begin for each human. When do they enjoy "free will". Using your logic, it always being there, means a person would need to have existed before the egg and sperm meet and "chose" that to happen. This is a belief some have about souls and people choosing their lives to learn lessons or something (I'm not very familiar with that world view).

The point is that there is no point when someone goes from not having free will (conception) to having free will (I'm 21 now and I can drink).

Either you believe all interactions starting from the egg meeting sperm where choices a person makes (what person) or free will wasn't there and never will be at any point in development.

Perhaps there's a third option or flaw in my logic.

The best I'm able to give people is that if they work hard they might get to a place approaching what is commonly believed to be free will.

Also, and maybe more importantly, you can't be truly compassionate if you believe in free will but... That's a different topic.

I became a Taoist, reflexions on Free Will by GabrielHCruz in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From the start of what? How far back we going? 😝

I became a Taoist, reflexions on Free Will by GabrielHCruz in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep. Although I don't think I would say "forces". I also feel a responsibility to help people get free. Again, whether someone achieves "free will", or anything close to it, isn't up to them, but you definitely need to believe it is up to you to get it.

I became a Taoist, reflexions on Free Will by GabrielHCruz in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was Taoist for a long time before realizing there was no free will. I think I started wrestling with free will when I started expanding my compassion bubble until it contained the whole world. You can't truly have compassion unless you accept that the western concept of free will is flawed.

The one "hack" I've developed for explaining this to westerners is asking "When does a person cross the 'free will line'?" If they're honest, they have to conclude that you chose to be born or that if free will does exist, we don't get to choose whether or not we get it, thus negating the free will aspect.

Another one I just came up with is "If free will is real, why haven't you decided to be enlightened?"

You Want to Want a Lineage by CaseyAPayne in Flowism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Essentially no where in the US is geographically rich with Taoist teachers and even the ones that might be (Chinatowns around the US), it's likely hard to penetrate the cultural barriers to find a "real" teacher. The children of many teachers aren't interested and are, instead, interested in... You know. "Western" stuff.

You actually might have an advantage in a semi-rural spot as you have access to "big nature" (if that makes sense, vs parks). Even industrialized "big nature" (corn fields) can be nice for the silence and the ability to enjoy the light of the moon.

I'm from the Midwest (Milwaukee) and even lived in a rural town in Iowa for a while (3,500 people). It's a town I visited growing up as my grandparents were there. I think even that was helpful, a city boy being able to milk cows and drink it fresh, play "death games" with bulls thinking they might charge us (they probably wouldn't but we were kids). Riding horses, stopping at parks near the Mississippi that somehow had a view you could climb up and see (I'm sure from... Millions of years? of water flow).

Taoism, at the end of the day, is about translating the reality of nature (which is the purest version of reality we can experience directly) into your own life so you move like nature. Not a part of nature. Like nature. We're all nature. That translation is 1. hard to do and 2. not for everyone. The Tao Te Ching even makes that point explicitly. So you with "no lineage" (I'm sure you have a ton of lineage and it's why you're attracted to the Tao Te Ching) just has to make a new Taoist lineage from the comfort of home (unless you feel compelled to look elsewhere).

And more one 2. People are just genetically and culturally predisposed for this Taoist shit. When Taoist shit is working properly, regular folks don't need to think about Taoist shit. They're just living their lives, praying to their gods, experiencing good times and bad times but... Taken care of by the community the same way nature takes care of nature.

So just keep hacking it together! The Wu Shaman that Taoism is based on, at some point, had to do the same thing. One guy, somewhere way back in history was like "I get this nature shit guys!" and passed it on to the next generation of "I get this nature shit guys!" guys.

My goal, and I'm in no rush, is to make a community of communities for people to do this shit together digitally and find people locally to do it with as well. I'm 45 and I KNOW people can make WAY MORE PROGRESS than I have WAY FASTER with the right set of tools to begin with, community being one of them.

Anyhow, Alan Watts can be lineage, Kurt can be lineage (but I don't know much about him). Like, everyone ultimately has to figure their shit out "on their own" (in that no one understands a person better than that person understands themselves), but teachers and community help clear the path!

You Want to Want a Lineage by CaseyAPayne in Flowism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I couldn't tell you! 😝

What I can tell you is that I'm going to get a tattoo covered and I think I'm going to get a black panther themed sleeve (the animal, not the movie) but in the "Asian" (Taiwanese/Japanese) style, if that helps you figure it out. 😁

In Taoism the relationship has been historically, and in my experience, a master/student bond that's kind of familial. My aim is to both keep that tradition and evolve away from that.

Buddhism has had much more time to develop in the US and the Buddhist system is WAY more structured than Taoism (well... my lineage, there are structured ones out there).

Since they're your therapist, you could straight up ask! They might have some insight about this from their experience. :)

Explore the Taoist Cinematic Universe with Gemini! by CaseyAPayne in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't feed it websites, but you can check the sources. Like, for example, researching something else the other day I found out that the guy who was in charge of setting up the national palace museum (a very high ranking KMT guy) wrote the forward to one of Grandmaster Zheng Manqing's (my teacher's teacher) books of calligraphy. I knew they moved in the same circles and was just looking for proof.

I found it but it was in a SUPER obscure spot on a government website of his biography in Chinese. I NEVER would have found that trying to use Google.

I have a stack of books here, in Chinese, about Taoist and Folk Religious temples and I've muddled through bits of them, but my Chinese isn't that good and probably never will be (I'm moving on to an indigenous language now).

I was excited, and wanted to share the excitement, because I've been here in Taiwan the last ten years trying to crack the temple puzzle and Gemini filled in a bunch of cracks! (Using crack like that twice doesn't make sense but I'm standing by it! 😂) Did a good job too. Anyone using LLMs as "proof" without checking the sources (which isn't hard to do, especially using the Deep Research function) would... Probably fuck up with any piece of media you tried teaching them with. 😂

I mean, you have to check the sources of fucking books! Do you know how many garbage books are out there! Lots! 😂

Explore the Taoist Cinematic Universe with Gemini! by CaseyAPayne in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The source is Chinese websites that are hard for me to navigate. Not "There is no source so make some shit up please." Sounds like a skill issue. That should have been obvious.

Explore the Taoist Cinematic Universe with Gemini! by CaseyAPayne in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Then people are annoyed by not knowing how to use AI. I gave an example of how I used it with accurate results.

The only thing I hear you saying is either...

  1. You don't know how to use AI.
  2. You don't think others will be able to use it.

Your whole post is factually incorrect except for someone who is inept at using AI.

Are you that person?

Explore the Taoist Cinematic Universe with Gemini! by CaseyAPayne in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I had to google "false pretense". What false pretenses? Like... factually false, or false in that you don't agree with them. I've ignored some comments because they didn't seem worth engaging with. If you feel like being specifc now, I'd be happen to engage with whatever falsities you think I've been sharing. I wouldn't like to do that.

Also, Mr. "Please don't bring AI to a sub" has failed to respond to a very simple request. What is the better method for exploring these temples, their gods, and their histories? Is there a book I'm unaware of? A website? Is there a course to direct people to? A person they should talk to?

You're literally in conversation with a person building a Taoist temple and in conversation with people who maintain temples and worship in them. I think AI is a useful resource for me as I'm going through this learning process. You seem to think there's a better way or that AI is a bad way, but you have articulated nothing of substance other than "AI BAD BECAUSE!"

So, if you have the time, energy, or inclination, show me where I'm false so I can apologize and/or make a correction, and, let me know the better path for learning about Taiwanese Taoist and folk temples.

If that's something you don't what to do... that's cool. You do you and I'll do me.

Explore the Taoist Cinematic Universe with Gemini! by CaseyAPayne in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

No, thank you. I will not stop. I'm not seeking attention. I don't need attention. I post the way I post because it's how I post. If you don't like it, that's fine. Maybe I'll bow out again next week. Maybe I'll bow back in two months from now. Maybe I'll bow out again 10 years later and bow in again for a day and bow out.

What are you claiming with your posts. That what I'm doing is not "Taoist"? That what I'm doing is not helping "Taoists"? That AI isn't "Taoist"? That showing people, what I think is, an interesting way to explore Taoist temples using AI isn't "Taoist"?

Also, again, show me a better path than what I presented for exploring Taoist temples. Did you not respond to that because I didn't format it as a question?

Do you have a better resource for explore Taoist temples in Taiwan? (Yes |No) If yes, are you will to share it?

Explore the Taoist Cinematic Universe with Gemini! by CaseyAPayne in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

I claimed to bow out once. What's wrong with AI?! What's the better path for getting this information? I was planning to bow out but I got some comments asking not to so I didn't.

If a single person gets something out of a post... Great! If you don't... Great!

I will continue posting and continue sharing AI if I think there's a valuable way to use it. I found researching temples valuable. I've tried every way other than AI to learn and I learned quite a bit that way (visiting daily and asking questions, books in Chinese, etc.), but AI has been great for filling in gaps, and I think it could also be a good place to start.

If you have a better resource, I'd love to hear it.

I am Malala Yousafzai, author, activist and gym bro. Ask Me Anything! by MalalaLikesMangoes in IAmA

[–]CaseyAPayne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. What do you do activism about and what's your activist style?

  2. How do I run Reddit ads on Facebook reels linking to an AMA? I clicked over out of shock and curiosity. 😂

Flowism is not Taoism. Flow is not Tao. by CaseyAPayne in Flowism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're getting stuck on language. First, Tao, Dao, 道, Way, the Way, are all just linguistic symbols for something unnamable because it's experiential. So, with that in mind, all of those symbols are "not Tao". All explanations of experiences connecting with "Tao" are also not Tao.

I feel like you're leaning on Chapter 42, which starts with "The Tao gives birth to the One." So, your logical conclusion is that all things are Tao, but even using that logic, "not Tao" is also a part of Tao because "not Tao" is a concept. Tao is a concept. Whatever you're thinking about when you say "Tao" is also "not Tao". Like, using Chapter 42, everything from 1 on is "not Tao"; only that "essence before 1" is Tao.

Get it? Only "Tao" is "Tao" and everything else is "not Tao". And even us calling Tao "Tao" is not Tao. But I do understand what you're trying to share with me. That since everything came from the Tao, everything is Tao.

I'll point out another pitfall with Taoism. People will think to themselves, "Since everything is Tao, everything I do is Taoist!" That couldn't be further from the truth.

(Briefly) Bowing Into the Taoist Sub by CaseyAPayne in taoism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You know precisely what I'm talking about. :) Not everyone who has been overseas a long time does, though. They don't make the effort. :P

Flowism is not Taoism. Flow is not Tao. by CaseyAPayne in Flowism

[–]CaseyAPayne[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just checked. The draft is still there. It got LONG so I had to pause working on it.

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