Taomeow

My late mother-in-law would hate this thread. Can you telepathically guess what her name was?

I just came back from hanging out with a friend and her dog, who is an Australian shepherd (the dog, not the friend). We were walking around the neighborhood and from behind someone's fence another dog started barking enthusiastic greetings at the Australian. My friend introduced the neighbor's dog to me: "That's Bella." It was around the time you posted the above. Next thread about/around the subject of telepathy ought to be about synchronicities.

Fortune is a bitch, a friend's Australian shepherd. Off to a dog date.

Maybe he had shamanic abilities (provided he existed), but he also had twelve disciples and preached stuff and asserted (e.g. in his Sermon on the Mount) that what's happening to people on earth is not important as they will find all the good things in heaven once they die (provided they use him, Jesus, as a go-between to secure god's graces.) This behavior doesn't seem shaman-like to me at all, nor this ideology. But then, some shamans were quirky, so who knows.

The word "cat" was also invented by Westerners. I guess it proves that cats are a a belief in the "popular culture of the new era." Thanks, I'll make sure to cancel my "Pretty Litter" subscription and stop buying cat food. Whatever meows its protest in my house in response will be informed that it's called a Western word and therefore is merely a belief of mine proving my "mental level has not improved." I'll tell you more. Not only has it not improved -- it got worse! My previous cat was called a Chinese name, Haomao 好貓 . My current cat, however, has two names, both of them Western invented! Her English name is Monkey, and her similarly sounding Russian name is Man'ka (an informal diminutive of "Maria"), chosen so she can be addressed in either language by her bilingual humans. But both words are Western, which proves she's not real, just a pop culture inspired belief of mine. I'm surprised my phone camera can also fall for it. Of course a picture of a cat taken by a Western invented piece of technology proves nothing. A picture of a cat is not a cat anymore than the word "cat" is. But think about it for a minute... how does it prove that the cat itself is invalidated by having a Western name to be called?..

The word shaman -- Evenki to Russian to international -- comes from the verb ša, "to know," but interestingly enough, sounds pretty close to Chinese 沙門 -- shāmén, "Buddhist monk.” Basically it's an umbrella term for the way "to know" and to do things with this knowledge that used to be universal. I've studied shamanism of many traditions (Siberian -- Chuckchi, Tungus, Evenki, Buryat, Kalmyk, etc., Manchu, Mongolian, Native American, South American, Japanese, Korean, African, Bön, and of course Chinese), some in some depth. Even within one tradition there were typically a plethora of shamans "specializing" in different things, and wu 巫 most certainly had their own specializations. They are not a distinct and separate category from their brethren/sistren except when such distinctions arise from terminological disagreements. All shamans do both -- they obey some spirits, they command other spirits. They are stronger than some spirits, weaker than some other spirits. A strong shaman in any tradition bosses spirits around, and occasionally goes to battle with them to bring them to heel. What they all had in common was service to community, often enough against their will -- that's where the spirits had the upper hand, typically they chose the shaman and it was an offer no one chosen could refuse without dire consequences. I don't think it was different with wu.

Jeanne Caulment, the longest living human documented by Western records (which ignore documented evidence from non-Western countries but that's a different conversation) ate 1 kg of chocolate per week for most of her 122 years of life. I guess those daily limits weren't set yet.

To speak another language is to possess another soul. -- Charlemagne

Pallas' is in a class of its own. Those human eyes in a cat face woven into a ball of fur!

The Younger Dryas comet catastrophe hypothesis, for those who accept it, actually speculates that it wiped out some Ice Age societies. "Controversial" authors like Graham Hancock do go so far as to assert it destroyed an Ice Age civilization in North America. While that's not impossible, I would really like to know what vegetarians may have eaten during an Ice Age which, for better or for worse, lasted for most of the last 400 000 years before the recent (indeed about 12 000 years young) warming. So most of the last 400 000 years of our species' history (minus the most recent and evolutionally insignificant % of that time) were spent under conditions similar to, or more severe than, what the remaining reindeer herders in the tundra still live under today. I suggest you inquire into what they eat. (Hint: not bananas.)

Last year I had to spend some time in the hospital and had lots of interactions with nurses. Nurses are perhaps representatives of one of the least spontaneous professions -- in many situations it's probably for the better, but subjectively, the nearly robotic, programmed in strict accordance with instructions and regulations behavior of some of them was a bit much. Anyway, to the anecdote: one of the nurses was a Chinese male, and he somehow exuded compassion but a cheerful kind, always trying to make me laugh, occasionally succeeding. I felt safe to complain to him -- about everything -- because I quickly learned that he won't respond with meaningless platitudes or impersonal "professional" indifference, he'll come up with something better. So, at one point I complained, among other things, about the hospital socks, the only thing one was allowed to wear on one's feet. "Such lousy cheap material, so uncomfortable and above all so ugly, look at this color! What have I done to deserve these gloomy, drab, unimaginative socks?.." I was kidding of course, those socks were the least of my problems. But after the nurse left the room, some ten minutes later he came back beaming with joy. "I had to go to another floor to look for them, on ours we don't have this kind, but I was sure I saw them somewhere at some point, and I was right! Here you go!" And he handed me two pairs of neon yellow socks, bright as the sun. Made my day. So, when in doubt, go with the kind of spontaneity that has a chance to make someone's day.

Because competition is so central to our culture, because acquisition is so deeply rewarded, because this cultural urge to acquire is insatiable, and because this acquisition is inevitably based on the exploitation of others, there can be no limit to how thoroughly our culture will exploit others, both human and nonhuman. And because increasing competition leads so easily and obviously, when our lives are at stake, to increasing hatred of our competitors (as well as hatred of those who resist our exploitation), there can be no limit as to the depth and breadth of our culturally induced hatred, both of our direct peers and of those from whom we wish to steal. -- Derrick Jensen

Mongolia seems fine. They have "The Hu," who do sing better than "The Who."

Taoist-proper mantras aren't a borrowing from another system. They originated from 巫教 wū jiào, Chinese proto-taoist shamanism. According to some sources (e.g. I came across their description in The Book of Changes and Traditional Chinese Medicine by professor Yang Li), they used to be the main (and sometimes only) tool of healing, transformation and manipulation of elements.

Something about peace: they used to smoke a peace pipe and then -- "no smoking."

Definitely. But, ideally, without basing personal choices on lies, brainwashing, propaganda, misconceptions, ulterior motives and the like. I don't just mean dietary choices.

It's not just insects that die from monoculture farming -- or rather die out, by thousands of species, not just individual bugs (the only insect folks seem to sort of theoretically care about is the bee because, well, bees are directly exploitable, they are the ones "serving" us and in more ways than most people understand -- ecobiologists assert that if bees disappeared, humans would follow suit in a few years, the food chain disruption bereft of bee pollination would be this catastrophic). It's the whole ecosystems that die, with all their wild plants and fungi and animals dependent on biodiversity that sustains the balance -- birds, frogs, toads, lizards, snakes -- and fish and wild mammals great and small, displaced and poisoned and starved and "eradicated" out of existence. Most importantly, the soil itself, with billions of soil-based organisms, dies, which is the root of catastrophic environmental developments (including climate deterioration). Modern agricultural practices are diabolical regardless of whether the end result is a sourdough loaf or a lettuce or a steak. The real cost of each lettuce leaf is millions of lives. Please get over the vegetarian myth of it being ethically superior. And if you want to truly live an ethical life, try being reborn into a time before sedentary agriculture. Seriously though. A must read IMO -- for anyone contemplating (or misconstruing) the issue. The author, incidentally, was a vegetarian for 20 years. And then researched in depth.

Not sure wriggly little legs would inspire you. I've seen scorpion kabobs being sold in Huguosi Hutong Snack Street in Beijing, and yes, the way to eat them is while the legs are still wriggling -- I guess it guarantees freshness. Now I must admit I've been an adventurous eater for most of my adulthood, and anywhere I ever traveled, I tried eating anything and everything the locals eat, dried jellyfish and sea urchins and cow brains and swallow's nest and plants most people would see as goat feed and moonshine made of, in all likelihood, spare kitchen stools. But those scorpions... thanks but no thanks.

Our beloved overlords aren't kidding. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/why-we-need-to-give-insects-the-role-they-deserve-in-our-food-systems/

I beg to differ. Years ago I was given a rather lengthy taoist mantra by one of my Chinese teachers-on-the-side, from the Emei tradition. It probably depends on the school, and on a particular mantra's specific purpose. In my case, it was meant to correct a deficient wuxing phase in the bazi, and accordingly to be recited for 72 days of the corresponding season.

,

Clarity tastes good?.. Breatharians, I am a material girl.

Clouded leopard

"Knowing the mind" may be the stated goal, but "silencing the mind" is the most widespread method. It's not a "misconception" that it's the most widespread method, it's a fact. Not saying it's a good method or a bad method, just that it's the most widespread method. Raja yoga I was talking about uses totally different methods. To wit, "training the mind to do what it couldn't do without such training." The methods for training the mind in that tradition involve body-inclusive senses-engaging visualizations -- e.g. you grow infinite stuff out of your big toes and keep infinitely expanding it, in a fractal pattern, all the while not losing awareness of your big toes which keep multiplying, together with the stuff growing out of them that includes more big toes with stuff growing out of them, etc.. Or you play with your brain hemispheres -- on the left you have a sunny summer day and a freezing cold winter day on the right, complete with all the sounds, smells, sensations -- simultaneously. Or you have a dog barking in your left hemisphere and a monk chanting a mantra in your right one, simultaneously. And so on. This is not "the most widespread method" -- which is the only thing I asserted.