Birch
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Content count
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Everything posted by Birch
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Experience, Realization, View, Practice and Fruition
Birch replied to xabir2005's topic in Buddhist Discussion
I noticed it's changed from "dependent origination" to "interdependent origination". That's interesting. -
Imagine the outrage if people found out that slaves were picking the crops in some western countries? It's IMO hard enough to face corruption in one's own city or industry right here where we live. Yes, it's weird. How/why does it happen?
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Qi Gong, lots of people are using it to deceive
Birch replied to Lao Tzu's topic in Daoist Discussion
Can I throw in 2cts about "authoritative proof"? Those 2 are different things. I think? I suppose in some cases they agree and in others they don't. I think there might be a delay between something being proven and its adoption as "being the case". -
The epidemic of obese six month olds: fructose is a poison, 1 in 3 U.S. obese
Birch replied to voidisyinyang's topic in General Discussion
"It was ironic since my environmental nonprofit was also an amici to the case that my dad's buddy was ruling on...so I don't know if my dinner with him violated some conflict of interest rule...." Hehe you're admitting to a possible conspiracy Mr FL! I'm sure such things happen across the board, including between activists and their corporate 'enemies'. But I wonder if all of that isn't just wasting our mutual time and effort? I mean, is it really that less money will be made by adopting less extreme 'business' practices? -
Neat! I've never lived under either a Taoist nor an anarchist state of affairs so I don't know enough about what it might be like. I think what screws things up is taking people living under one extreme model and transitioning them too fast into something else they haven't been conditioned for. IMO until we can heal the previous system's wounding of people then the same sh$t may just continue whatever "system" is newly appointed and then people may say the new system doesn't work either. And that would IMO be unfortunate. I'd like to suggest getting "democracy" right before attempting larger feats. You know, like in meditation, laying the foundation.
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The epidemic of obese six month olds: fructose is a poison, 1 in 3 U.S. obese
Birch replied to voidisyinyang's topic in General Discussion
Corn syrup. It depends on where you live whether it ends up in things or not, apparently. So why would the " same " product require different ingredients? Is it always about economy? So if one US state legislates against corn syrup overuse then would that lead to the product being pulled from that state? Would the manufacturer just adapt the product to include less (or 0) corn syrup? -
I'm happy either way
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Qi Gong, lots of people are using it to deceive
Birch replied to Lao Tzu's topic in Daoist Discussion
I think if things like qi gong work then that puts a real strain on many existing concepts I hold about reality. I'm not always happy when that happens. Sometimes I am though and it's just wonderful to see people getting relief and healing and such from it. Amazing. I agree it's annoying when people get taken in by things. I think that happens to me several times a day (just got back from the store where I had real trouble figuring out what was in stuff i was buying, even with the "organic" label on). Still, in other cases I'll allow myself to be taken in. Can't watch a movie and enjoy it if not, I don't think. So the point would be to find ways of knowing when you're taking yourself in and when other people are attempting it. -
Ah, so much then for my willingness to see many things as simultaneously true. Error. I understood a koan as a teaching technique. There one is, rambling to oneself internally all day and taking it all to be the way things are and then one is given a koan to ramble on internally all day and failing to understand it is also how things are, internally at least. Like it wasn't obvious I was rambling? I don't think this would be necessary if a person is not rambling all day in self-perpetuating ideas about the way things are. But that's what seems to happen. How it happens is another thing. As far as I can tell so far Taoism is the antidote - the way of understanding how we get to this point and where it goes from there as well as the way back from there. A koan implies that following it you will find your own way. I think.
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Afraid I'm going to have to call BS on this one. Life is not "fair". The story you're telling is a thinly veiled justification for amoral human injustice. Mostly social. That the myths live on in video games is not proof. Just another medium for the latest expression of what you're supposed to believe. Now, this being said, I do think there is something "non material" in the mechanisms of "descent". I include "resolution" of past deeds by ancestors in future generations, but there has to be direct lineage. None of this "I decided to fly off and choose a body to reincarnate into" that's "possession" and it's what some practitioners are attempting to do...but that's a) my opinion and doesn't line up with some other stuff I've been thinking about or some other research into when exactly things like DNA get "fixed" (it doesn't, the old DNA as blueprint idea is out - DNA as mobile crystalline structure is in:-))
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Right. So all the really advanced people are getting shat on by the kindergarteners? And they're letting themselves get shat on?
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Qi Gong, lots of people are using it to deceive
Birch replied to Lao Tzu's topic in Daoist Discussion
There are quite a few on here that really rock and get results. Still, if you want to learn it, you still have to do it yourself. ----opinion alert--- -
whoops!
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What's with the throwing people in lakes/seas to teach them to swim? I heard a lot of people's parents (tends to be fathers) did that. I don't know how well it works. There was a craze a while back (circa Nirvana Nevermind) with putting very young babies into swimming pools so they would swim 'naturally'. No idea whether that worked either or not. Anyway, I digress as usual but I'm a water person, can't help it (apparently).
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Tree pattern + you pattern? Different from concrete pavement pattern + you pattern. Cheating or not, it should be easy enough to figure out, at least theoretically, whether there's anything to practice with trees. Then you can test it. Currently, people are discussing 'nature deficit disorder' or the downside of lack of exposure to nature/greenery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_deficit_disorder How close does something have to be to you to have an actual effect? Do you have to be concentrating on the thing? I'll bet if I threw you into a lake you'd have no problem explaining how it works. I'm not going to throw you into a lake:-)
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I don't hate you one bit. But I know it doesn't help with what you're talking about. Pretend to be your friend who doesn't hate you for a while and see how it goes?
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That would be it!
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Ur, thanks :-) Very flattering. Ok, now read my mind. Seriously. I'm not kidding. ---send----
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It seems they consult 'occult sciences' because, well, 'whatever works' right? If you have foreknowledge, or a way of finding it, well, need I explain? The ones one ought to watch out for IMO are those with long term goals, who are willing to sacrifice personal interest and gain (including that of their loved-ones)to fulfill something 'greater than themselves'. The ones that intend to return to finish things. I don't know if they do though. It's like the other ones who have divine guidance behind them. I think there are more of those than I'd like to think.
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I don't know what this means as I suspect many children were not considered 'like a child' in the first place. There is a book about raising children in different cultures that you may like http://www.anthropologyofchildhood.usu.edu/ I haven't read it. But I heard a show about it that discussed different ways of 'raising' kids. 'Green' seemed to be a way that considered that children weren't really supposed to do anything before a certain age. And the other way (which I can't recall but which is 'ours') considers/ed that kids had to be cultivated (for want of a better word) from the very beginning. Lots of in-between room between them. I was in a waiting room earlier today and one kid in there was singing and dancing and kissing her parents, who didn't tell her to stop really. It was pretty annoying. Cute, but annoying:-)
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Clue you in about 'rationality' some ;-p?
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A strange psychic (I think so) I once met explained about choosing Tarot. You basically have to feel drawn to a particular deck in her opinion. I think that's ok in theory but I suspect differing decks have had their symbols more or less translated/understood/interpreted over time. I suppose it would be like switching some lines in the hexagrams or twiddling with some meaning-correspondances. As far as I can tell, the 'Tarot' is heavily rooted in Western alchemy and so that would mean learning all of that field's related symbols. Massive undertaking IMO The (very) few tarot-readers I've met were either heavily psychic and just using the cards between us to spark conversation and insight or they were 'by the book' manipulators who had gotten used to telling pretty similar 'whatever the client wants/needs to hear' stories.
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I hate that I spill my guts and share my innermost thoughts on an internet forum with people I don't know and that I don't want to do it with people I do. I dislike that I appease rather than confront when confronting is obviously required I hate being unsatisfied with whatever I am and have to go digging for 'the unconscious' and the unseen and the unknown on a pretty regular basis. Ok, it's like watching TV. Got to have a hobby:-) I hate that I have to be stronger than other people, because I'm not. I hate that I hate(d) all these things about me. Now, not so much. These days it's more facepalm. I disagree that hating terrible things in others means I am those things too. That would mean I have the potential to kill you but I just don't want to/don't have the guts do it. Both are correct. Feelings rule me. I haven't worked out if I hate that or not. I don't think it's a very good idea.
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As far as I can tell there is a bodily transformation that goes with. So you are both at once form/formless with (to what level I dunno) control over both. So it's like being a fish in the sea that knows it's also the sea. Continuous but retaining knowledge as a fish with the ability to effect changes on the ocean (by knowing what sand to blow on). I think a difference might be that buddhists are content to hang out as this, Taoists like to do stuff with it. My 2 cts
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Perhaps. I hope such eyes are also ethical. I've mentioned this before.
