TheSongsofDistantEarth

Here's a few tips, Leon. Almost anything can be soul killing or soul grinding. Even, or especially taking care of people in the healthcare system. One possible way that may not yet be tainted is to become an acupuncturist, oriental medicine doctor or naturopath. Even so, one needs business skills to flourish, so your studies will help there, maybe look at whatever you're doing now as training for excellence in another field. Excel in the retail world, conquer it, and you'll have skills and experience to propel you to your next adventure. As for writing...I once had a wonderful teacher of rhetoric who had us doing a valuable exercise all semester long: find writers you admire, and copy their best works. Literally copy: keep a notebook and write out in longhand each chapter or essay you admire. It's best to focus on one writer at a time. By using this tedious process, you begin to internalize another's style. It goes into your brain cells and sets patterns that you then begin to weave into your own style. Find some really good writers start with, like Joan Didion or Truman Capote, and begin copying their stuff out as your exercise. Try it, it will really influence your writing for the better--not just style, but ideas and thought processes as well, if you do it enough! Also, I recommend a book buy a very successful author, Stephen Pressfield, called The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle. It will inspire you mightily and give you an idea of the kind of effort and determination you will require to become a successful writer or a successful anything, for that matter. Good Luck. And whatever it is that you settle on to do, make sure you love it. It will make all the difference in the world to your success! Your Pal, Mr Songs

So that's YOU!??

I hope it was Chips Ahoy. Ganesha really likes those.

I hope it was Chips Ahoy. Ganesha really likes those.

Relax, dude. You're cool here.

I just read this article: Warming's Impacts Worsened Since Kyoto Now, without getting super-technical and showing sophisticated graphs and computer climate models, please answer, JoeBlast and Smile, whether the things talked about are actually happening, like: Are or are not the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melting, losing "trillions of tons" of ice? Should be easy to say yea or nay. Mountain glaciers shrinking faster than ever before in every continent of the world? Have the world's oceans actually risen an inch and a half, or is it a hoax? Should be easy to check this... Temps over the past 12 years .4 degrees warmer than the previous 12? Is permafrost rapidly thawing or not? Or is that wiley snake, Al Gore now rolling in the millions of dollars with his cronies from carbon credits, hehehhe. Or not? How are we to make sense of this information, given that you guys are convinced the whole thing is a phony conspiracy? Am I to believe that none of this is happening?? Enlighten me, please

Mr Cow, I'm speaking to one Buddhist 'fundamentalist' in particular who used to post here excessively with the attitude that his way was superior to all others, and that his 'beliefs' were actually "apprehensions of the truth" (that's a direct quote) and posited that he and his Buddhist guru were in possession of the Ultimate Truth of the Nature of Reality because xyz sutra said this is the way things are. I have nothing against Buddhism or Buddhists, just the crusaders who derailed this forum to preach their way for a while. I want to point out that anybody who says that their path is the True and Correct one is misguided. It's too bad that you don't understand my position that all these schools of thought can't all be right, or that they are all equally right: the truth of reality is much like the story of the blind man and the elephant. There is no bank I'm standing on spitting at the other side. I don't understand how my view is fundamentalist. Where is the scripture that I'm rigid and fundamental in adhering to? Your Pal, Mr Songs

All the people here and elsewhere, with the varying beliefs as to The Way Things Really Are, basically no two of them can be right, or perhaps all of them are right. It reminds me of a terrific book I read, ""How to Believe in Nothing and Set Yourself Free". All these Beliefs, how can you really believe in anything? The overwhelming odds are that your belief system is all relative, no one can know what is the truth of Ultimate Reality, despite what Lao Tzu said, the Buddha said, Muhammed said, Jesus said, or what you have "realized" in your meditations...so ultimately, it's like what the Marblehead says, just try and enjoy your time here and live in the present. Realize that whatever you believe is not the absolute truth. Reality is likely much more astounding than the human mind can conceive of, and would probably blow your mind...for example: xmdIbp87KLg Eternal Student, these questions you pose show a greater realization than many show here, like for example, the Buddhist fundamentalists... While we're doing Beatles or Lennon lyrics, how's this from 'The End" on Abbey Road: And in the end The love you take Is equal to the love you make.

"Four Phases of the Forearm"?? What is that? I've never heard of it.

I don't know if the phenomenon is real or not. The first video of him on stage with orbs moving by in every direction, even quickly upwards does not appear to be the phenomenon you describe. The second video with the still pictures may be what you describe, but also may not. Just because that is a possible explanation does not mean that it is the explanation. Do you have similar pictures that would help you discount the phenomenon?

The draft is bad only if they actually send you to war. You could try and beat the draft of course, by enlisting in the National Guard and getting a cushy stateside assignment like George W. Bush did...haarrrr... .

That's an odd comeback. I don't think it makes any sense to correlate the two, TaoCow.

Nah, go 'way. Lots of tiger hunters here.

Sure, bring it on!...wait, let me put on my sunglasses first...

May be up to you to grab the bull by the horns yank that haiku chain!

Let's hope that it would be much different face to face, but for some who post here, I doubt it. yeah, what he said...

So by this logic, we must not interfere with the suffering of another being, lest we interfere with their "karma being brought back to balance"....Right.

4tfi5gr45qc it works...!

I once watched one of the beheading videos on the internet a few years ago, and I fully realize how sick, cruel and nightmarish the world can be. I do not need to keep revisiting that same reality, lest despair at the inhumanity of our condition overwhelm the positive things I wish to have and accomplish in my life be blotted out by these images that seep into my conscious and unconscious reality. Sure, it can be spiritual practice to witness this, but it is easy to get too much of it very very quickly, and once implanted, these images are difficult if not impossible to avoid affecting my reality. Again, I don't need that stuff in my consciousness. One can make it a spiritual practice, but then one must move on. The greater risk for most people is that there is a prurient fascination, like watching the aftermath of a horrible car wreck, rather than true equanimity. I agree with Marblehead.

Oh, jeez. Santi's a great guy and teacher, but please oh please, let's not start having to wade through a bunch of birthday wish threads...how tiresome this forum shall very quickly become...send a PM, whydoncha...

How qi training makes you tougher... Y2qdsRF4kUE or this... 0LZl_QW7Nds&feature=related

Don't need to put that image in my consciousness, thanks...

I was going to read your book, but I just broke my computer screen smashing a little bug that got on it...

Darin, exactly who is this message intended for? It's like a 1:38 PSA against drugs, but its not very convincing. Drugs are NOT the way, but the can give a taste and a glimpse, and the wise user then sets out on the hero's journey. You message is just very simplistic and unimpressive. I can't see anyone actually watching this and being convinced. Nice sentiment, but it's not well thought out.