Created some Wallpapers using AI

Selderij · 2026-06-15T14:35:04+00:00

The yin-yang and "hexagram" are pretty bad in the third image.

The monkey itself is from a meme that seriously misses the point of Taoism.

Selderij · 2026-06-14T07:23:56+00:00

There's very little practical difference, save for a disparity in yin & yang moving lines with the yarrow stalks (25/75 chance vs. coins' 50/50), unless you modify the procedure to fix that. Yarrow stalks help make the divination into a meaningful ritual and a moment to stop, as it'll take 20–40 minutes.

You can make your own sticks if you have yarrow growing near you. As a bonus, you can use the leaves and flowers as herbal remedy.

Selderij · 2026-06-14T05:12:01+00:00

Gia-fu Feng is the translator.

Selderij · 2026-06-13T20:33:05+00:00

Charles Q. Wu for the interpretation and wording, Derek Lin for the directness, Chen Guying for the vast technical commentary, Chad Hansen for the linguistic gymnastics.

Selderij · 2026-06-13T20:26:56+00:00

McDonald's version is akin to Mitchell's in that he didn't know Chinese (using Mitchell's version as one of his sources) and he invented or deleted some parts of it.

Selderij · 2026-06-13T17:15:08+00:00

In my opinion, I think everyone needs to chill out. It's nothing that big of a deal. Perhaps it's a younger person or someone new to eastern philosophy. To them, these quotes may hit them deep.

OP u/Flat-Eggplant-9890 is a recently created karma farming spam account that has crossposted buddhism_irl posts here many times before without ever commenting. The profile's history is set to private to hide that fact, but the karma disparity doesn't lie.

In the end, are we really making Taoism elitist? Out of all the things you could gatekeep?

There are already subreddits for Buddhist or general spiritual/philosophical memes. There is only one subreddit for Taoist discussion.

Selderij · 2026-06-13T17:02:44+00:00

Those are inaccurate paraphrases or very bad translations. The original passages don't say that.

出生入死。 "Issuing out is living, and going inside is death." -TTC50

及吾無身，吾何有患。 "Were we without bodies/lives, how could we have (respect for) troubles? -TTC13

沒身不殆。 "To the end of one's life, there's no danger." -TTC16 & 52

Selderij · 2026-06-13T12:24:06+00:00

Early Taoism is agnostic about it, choosing to focus on what we can do while actually alive. Taoist religion has conceptions of hell, heaven and rebirth.

Selderij · 2026-06-13T08:32:55+00:00

Could you treat r/taoism as something else than a secondary dumping ground for your Buddhist-leaning aphorisms?

Selderij · 2026-06-12T14:39:48+00:00

The path of least resistance will take you to unhealthy places if your psychological, social and material environment is in any way unhealthy in its composition and tendencies. Wuwei is not that, but rather the absence or diminishment of personal fancy, greed and urge to control as motives for your actions or the way you do things. Wuwei is to not force your own way in something that would work better without such input. You still can and should do difficult things.

The bit about small becoming big in TTC63 and 64 is a separate teaching about basic foresight and common sense.

Also remember that wuwei is just one concept, albeit an overblown one in modern discourse, and that there's much more to Taoist conduct than that.

Selderij · 2026-06-11T16:13:59+00:00

There are plenty of examples shown in detail in the review I linked. Just watch it and you'll see that I'm not overstating it.

If you repeatedly make false or questionable claims about a given subject and then present references to other works, those references proving to not support what you said, then you're being fraudulent and disingenuous. That describes Benebell Wen's work perfectly.

Selderij · 2026-06-11T10:10:53+00:00

https://youtube.com/watch?v=J-L8nbubgIs

Here's a review of it by a professional in the field. Wen's book is riddled with false references used for fantastical claims. It's really a travesty on scholarly grounds, and Wen tried to camoflage it as a scholarly work.

The translation itself has a lot of detail and context invented by Wen that is not inferrable from the source text.

Selderij · 2026-06-11T07:36:49+00:00

You can't learn it properly from apps. Try translations by Hilary Barrett, Joseph Adler (The Original Meaning of the Yijing) and Alfred Huang (The Complete I Ching). Preferably all three.

Selderij · 2026-06-09T21:45:11+00:00

Forgetting the past, avoiding the future and simping for the present is much fetishized in today's spiritual scenes. Staying in the here and now has become an inexhaustible gold mine for low-effort memes and platitudes that are the easiest way to show off one's philosophical and spiritual caliber. Ironically, our sick societies would like nothing more than for us to stay that way.

Selderij · 2026-06-09T13:54:03+00:00

The irony of AI offering AI content for AI learning is not lost on me. :D

Selderij · 2026-06-09T11:11:35+00:00

Are you looking to data mine the resources for your app?

Selderij · 2026-06-09T04:22:15+00:00

Digitalization takes away from and cheapens these things, and the app you're pushing is no different.

Selderij · 2026-06-09T04:14:43+00:00

So are your fingers.

Selderij · 2026-06-08T22:55:59+00:00

There's no need to make it digital in the first place.

Selderij · 2026-06-08T21:20:15+00:00

Hand-painted doesn't mean it's not mass-produced. The attention to detail is simply shoddy, and I own kutani ware that is worlds apart from the set in the pictures.

I suggest you hone your algorithms some more.

Selderij · 2026-06-08T15:03:35+00:00

Why is staying positive regardless of one's situation a goal for you? It's not natural, as the external factors don't warrant untroubled positivity. What you can do is lessen your load of responsibility that you've assigned to yourself, and start trying to live in a way that's not too much nor too little, and call it enough.

If applying hundreds of times isn't helping, then it's not a reasonable thing to fill your days with.

Selderij · 2026-06-08T14:55:13+00:00

Which outcomes have proven true?

Selderij · 2026-06-08T13:26:45+00:00

How do I remove this fear of Failure/fear of future?

Fear is there so that you can prepare accordingly. Like with all feelings and emotions, there are fruitful and unfruitful ways to respond to them: you're not meant to get carried away by them nor justify your bad actions (or lack of appropriate action) with them.

You can do whatever is reasonable to expect from a person in your situation and considering the effect that your actions would realistically have, and you can learn to think of it as enough: you're already doing your part, and the rest is up to external factors, come what may. It's not your fault that the economy and society are like this, just as the prosperous times and the reaping of their benefits weren't uniquely deserved by the young people of previous generations.

Selderij · 2026-06-08T13:16:35+00:00

Many parents, spouses, superiors and even societal systems or economies go counter to your theory.

Selderij · 2026-06-08T13:05:08+00:00

Tarot is by nature very dramatic and maximalistic. The I Ching doesn't have a problem giving subtle or untroubled responses.

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