Birch

Not today Lindi. Happiness gets days off.

Clay. Will post the ones I feel good about :-) All this talk of emptiness has lead me to 'make tangible'. Things I can feel a thumb fit into. Something heavy in my hands:-)

Er, not to be, er. But women have fingers. Just thought I'd put that (out) there. No pun intended:-)

I don't reckon I see it as a preference Stosh. Although I do figure if you can rely on intuition rather than prior experience (both require consciousness) you might have what I would see as an 'advantage' (as in you don't have to make the same mistakes and suffer from them over and over and over and over (getting this;-)?) again until you 'get it') I'm aware there are at present at least a couple of diverging 'schools of thought' on intuition. Books are being written (I always ask myself 'why are we writing about this now?') One is of the idea that you can't have intuition as such because it's actually 'just' based on experience. The other one doesn't require experience as a prerequisite at all. There's also 'other stuff' to discuss related to all this stuff but I'll leave it aside for now because of the experience problem.

Apech, that's a great post. As I understand it, you're a 'lone' practitioner, as in 'not affiliated' with any specific group of people doing practices. Do you reckon that makes a difference?

Somewhat related. I bought a 'farmers almanac' for where I live (very cheap) and was pretty impressed with all the weather forecasting. Seems to me we have on the one hand, the dudes (and dudettes) sitting with their satellite stuff (which is just really like being able to see a bit further away than everyone else) and then there's the 'traditional' dudes (and dudettes) with their book of semi-poetic descriptions of 'if this tree does this this day then weather is this' on very specific days. I would like someone to put the predictions of the almanac and the satellite people side-by-side on some website and do scientific comparisons.

And that would be misunderstanding bhuddism? I suppose it would be classed as such. I'm (surprisingly:-)) not against some aspects of bhuddist ideas. The idea that you can look at yourself, the world, people in ways other than anything (or everything) you've learned till point P (this one) is an excellent one. The idea that certain ideas have specific consequences that one may not see otherwise, that sort of thing. The idea of emptying yourself of everything until this point received. I (think:-)) that's all great stuff. Is that still bhuddism? Aren't they all (the religions) supposed to be rafts? And when you're done with them, you're done. And bhuddists are super sharp debaters. That's very cool training.

Yeah yeah, ok. I was in the post to Mr MH referring to what I'd prefer to call 'linear' logic (the kind of stuff taught in philosophy classes, or maybe computer programming). And then giving an example of what I reckon is, if it can be called logic at all, is one of a pretty different type.

Seth. I found descriptions of myself all over your post. Yer saying it's not possible to be materialist-junkie-bit-open-bit-scared (and some of the other things)? And where does that lead a person?

Something I'm happier not being worried about 'how'.

I doubt anyone can approximate how Vaj felt - especially with that nick:-) Right, so if I say 'I hate my life, it's shit, I'm suffering, I get treated badly by everyone, I treat others badly (although the latter is maybe not apparent at a first reading) and therefore it is pointless to continue life' that = 'annihilist'? Or I'm not getting it? I did make a distinction between a 'shit life' and 'life' (I think I did:-))

"You are not alone, welcome to the XXI century and the human realm." G is right on that one:-) I ought to mention a lot of it is due to our environment, diet and working situations. I would suggest: - get a good acupuncturist - some kind of (gentle) 5E-balancing exercise (or just exercise if you aren't doing any at all) - acupressure you can do yourself (you can ask your acupuncturist to show you which points and which to avoid). - checking out dietary options for your situation - full 'western' checkup to rule out anything that side (I feel obliged to suggest it). I just dug this up: http://www.itmonline.org/5organs/spleen.htm On the book question. I do have the Deadman acupuncture manual but for me it's like reading a textbook for doctors, which I am not. You'll work it out :-)

""According to the Buddha's teaching, it is as wrong to hold the opinion 'I have no self' (which is the annihilationist theory) as to hold the opinion 'I have a self' (the eternalist theory), because both are fetters, both arising out of the false idea 'I AM'. The correct position with regard to the question of Anatta is not to take hold of any opinion or views, but to try to see things objectively as they are without mental projections, to see that what we call 'I', or 'being', is only a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together interdependently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect, and that there is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging and eternal in the whole of existence." (Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, 2nd ed., 1974, p. 66)" Thanks for this Apech. Could you explain how the fetter of what is cited as 'annihilationist theory' arises out of 'the false idea 'I am'? I get the other one (I reckon).

Mr MH! I agree with much of your above post - except the 'logic' part. I would like to suggest (conscious- sort of goes without saying) awareness instead of 'logic'. Are we talking about the same 'logic'? I just thought of that. Maybe we aren't. I will give you an example which I discussed with someone else today. Let's say that I've been through 2 or 3 or 4 situations with different people where the 'dynamic' is pretty much the same if you look at it a bit more with a bit more awareness. In every single situation, prior to choosing it and while in the thick of it it has appeared that everyone's actions and choices were based on some kind of logic that belonged to each person. Results very similar in each case. I don't find that very logical.

Weelll, isn't the 'end-goal' of Bhuddism 'ego-death'?

So many traditions rely on some kind of astrology (not the newspaper kind).

I think so too!

It's funny, I thought of that exact movie (Dead Poets' Society) when reading your post. If I remember, it didn't turn out so well for several of the characters in the movie, including the teacher. The other thing that came to mind was more of a question about why you might think (or not think) you need or want to do anything to change these kids' ideas. Maybe you're the right person in the wrong role? I thought Practitioner's post was very insightful.

I really appreciate a teacher asking themselves this question. I wonder how many do? I agree with much of what you've said. My take is that there are pieces of paper needed to get other pieces of paper that open doors in specific areas. The teacher helps the students go the shortest route to get these pieces of paper. More like a 'coach' if you like. I guess I'd be worried that anything I said along the lines of 'question your ideas' might get the kids thrown off track for the paper. Hopefully there are other people in their lives (or authors, artists, businesspeople, engineers, doctors, musicians, taoists;-)) who can get them into 'critical thinking'. I did notice that once I'd made it to university, the 'question the question' trick pretty consistently got me higher scores than if I'd just answered the question so I used it as a staple a bit automatically. But these A-level tests are standardized, with scoring guidelines that may or may not score well on that so I have no idea if that's a dumb suggestion to make or not.

I'm under the impression I do and say and share weird and childish things all the time on here:-). I do link it to being 'anonymous' (I care quite some that if my weird and childish got 'out there' I wouldn't be able to make a living.) Or that by admitting to weird and childish I may not otherwise be taken seriously when it comes to other things.

I don't mind but I don't know how useful you'd find any of them:-) What I'd say would be 'more personal' would be other stuff, like my experiences with my family or work or something. Could any of my 'stranger' 'experiences' be related to or be undermined by those other experiences? I'd say 'possible' and that'd be the main issue in sharing them.

This is a forum dude:-)

If that's what it is then I have some ways to work towards it Fü Yue.

I want to answer! With opinions derived from some experiences but also contemplation (which is troublesome for several reasons) - Chi is not a 'does/doesn't exist' proposition. It's like 'does electricity exist'? If you've never experienced it, you'd say no. If you have, you'd say 'yes'. - Spirits are a tricky subject. I don't think I've met any so far, except the ones inhabiting people and animals. I don't really want to meet any, except the ones inhabiting people and animals. - I'm (attempting to) practice the undoing of belief (so maybe I'm not very helpful) in favor of the known - I practice 'emptiness meditation', 'mindfulness', some amount of twicking around with thoughts, yoga, pilates, a bit of 'chi-play' when I feel like it (usually when scared or something or I have a bad feeling about something - which could point to it being something else, perhaps a way of 'self-calming' as those psychologists would say. A game of 'pretend' - I'm using methods I found in that big pink chi-gong book) - I've written quite often about experiences on TTB's but I'm often reluctant to share because it sounds stupid, nuts, too weird, childish (pick one).

Showing age and culture of origin Mr Apech;-)?