SirPalomides

This conversation started out with speculation that the virus was some sort of government bioweapon. We can pretty much talk about whatever the hell we want after that. One day Trump will be gone and the world does not revolve around him.

It might be interesting to talk about what "Deep State" means. The term originated from Turkish, originally describing the Kemalist network that drove Turkish state policy behind the scenes and occasionally staged coups when elected officials got out of line. Erdogan seems to have broken much of this Deep State and appeased other parts. In any case the idea got translated into English at some point and predictably a lot more was read into it. In essence though I don't think anyone actually disputes the existence of a deep state, understanding "deep state" to mean a range of powerful, entrenched, and unelected interests in the government. It's not really a conspiracy since so much of this operates in the open- in the US the deep state is seen in the State Department, the Pentagon, the intelligence services, the "defense" industry. Then you've got the think tanks, e.g. Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, etc., who publicly present the views of this "deep state." Again, it's no secret who pulls the strings- these organizations publicly disclose their sources of funding, and there you'll see, along with big banks, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, oil companies, etc. a lot of money coming from foreign governments. Most prominent being Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Israel, and a few others- some think tanks are more beholden to some of these governments than others. A predominately Qatar-backed think tank will likely have somewhat different views than a Saudi-backed one. A lot of these influence operations also have strong presence on American universities. They don't have the same interests in all areas and it would be wrong to see this "deep state" as having a unitary will in all matters. How much threat does this deep state really present to Trump, or vice versa? Not much. They might not like a lot of the things he says but in practice he pretty much keeps the machine moving. The oil execs, Saudis, and Israelis seem pleased with him. Whenever Trump has threatened to do something really out of line re: Korea, NATO, Iraq, Afghanistan- he blinks. Whether he sincerely planned on changing course and got strongarmed, or was just putting on a show for his base, who knows? But there isn't any dark mystery here- any president who wants to go against the grain has to contend with powerful, wealthy people, not just within the government but around the world. I believe a president who actually had principles and a coherent vision could actually take them on, though it would be very difficult and dangerous.

I’m glad they laughed because it was meant as a joke. Sorry about the Hep-C though, but are you sure that’s got nothing to do with your grand tour of Quito’s brothels?

As others have pointed out, God as understood in classic theist traditions doesn’t really have a place in Buddhism. That is, God being understood as the ultimate ground of being and not just the most powerful being among other beings. But if we do take the dubious path of trying to find a correspondence then the closest thing in Buddhism to God would be sunyata itself.

Wow, really? Explain how you determined “find your self” was his message and what this actually means.

IOW “I got caught talking bullshit again so now I’ll try to make this personal”

Mistaking sunyata for nihilism is the most basic mistake and has been refuted pretty much since the doctrine was first elaborated. There is no excuse for anyone to misrepresent sunyata as a nihilist view.

Sean set down a few rules, yes, and one day Sean may return like a lightning flash in the sky and execute awesome judgment upon the crackpots. In the meantime... vaccines gave me autism.

*unless we're US media talking about Putin in which case everything from Black Lives Matter to the sun rising in the east is a Kremlin plot. In all seriousness, I don't put credence in any One World Government theories because I do not think "the bad guys" are or have ever been a cohesive enough force to dominate the world. The more stuff you try to control, the more different interests you have to bring on board with you; the more different interests you bring on board, the more faultlines for bickering and stepping on toes. Coalitions are hard to hold together even over limited areas. The reason why the US hated Qassem Soleimani so much is because of all the different factions he was able to get into the same room talking to each other in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, who normally would be clawing each other's eyes out. But even he could only do so much. And a lot of powerful people are not nearly as smart as they'd like us to think.

I am hardly someone with faith in the US or any other government but I'd definitely need to see some solid evidence before believing this particular theory. A series of bare assertions, even plausible ones, doesn't mean anything. I agree that "conspiracy theory" is often used to pre-emptively dismiss criticism of the powers that be. History has shown plenty of conspiracies that have come to light so the idea that powerful people would suddenly stop meeting in dark corners to do evil stuff is pretty silly. In postwar Italy, during the "Years of Lead," there were a lot of crazy theories about plots involving the CIA, NATO, the Red Brigades, the Mafia, the KGB, the Vatican, neo-fascists, and/or bankers... finally in the 90's documents started getting declassified proving a few of these theories true. Of course it also proved that the conspirators were not necessarily competent. On the other hand there is a lot of junk and lazy thinking crowding the field (e.g. Pizzagate, Russiagate, anti-Vaxxers, 9/11 truthers), which makes it hard for cases that have merit to rise above the noise. The US of course is not above employing biological warfare (e.g. Cuba, Korea) and bioweapons being released- deliberately or by mishap- into the public is not unprecedented. As a recent example, people have been talking for years about the evidence that the proliferation of lyme disease in the northeastern US can be traced to a bioweapons lab on Plum Island and the work of Willy Burgdorfer. There are still others calling this a conspiracy theory, but their arguments ignore the recent confession of Burgdorfer and related research.

True! I know those lines get thrown around by a lot of people who don't bother to actually read Blake, but I am a longtime admirer of him. I credit Blake for curing me of a materialistic worldview. I don't know- I think at that level such distinctions don't really matter. Daoist theology personifies the One as Yuanshi Tianzun, "Heavenly Worthy of the Primal Beginning"- sometimes this seems metaphorical, sometimes less so. I've often seen the Dao characterized as impersonal, but I think it is better to be circumspect about this, when talking about something that surely transcends any idea we have of personality or impersonality.

I think of the One a bit like the Christian Logos- begotten but not created, that is, not something that has a beginning or end, but an emanation of the Dao's eternity. Even if at the end of one cycle its is reabsorbed it will emanate again just as it is now, an invariable principle. And in the One is contained the pattern of everything that is, so everything- however trivial and fleeting- is in there. Hence Blake's world in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour.

Me too. I guess you have to have received the special invitation that everyone got.

Is that in your book somewhere?

Oh, I'm in the club.

A lot of people smarter than me have said similar things. Not my thing, but okay.

I believe the One is referring to the same thing as verse 21 where it says "within it there is an image." I believe this is also equivalent to li as discussed by the Cheng-Zhu school of Confucians, translated as "pattern" or "principle". Going further afield, there is the Buddhist understanding of interpenetration of phenomena, as revealed in the metaphor of Indra's net, where phenomenon reflects and contains every other. Going very far afield, the Byzantine theologian St Maximus the Confessor says that all created phenomena operate on the basis of logoi, the pre-eternal thought-purposes of God which guide everything emanating from him and eventually lead them back to him. The Russian theologian Sergius Bulgakov built on this with his Sophiology, positing "Sophia," the Wisdom of God, as the pattern of creation contained within God's very nature, which also lays the groundwork for God to become man, and for man to become God.

He loves making priests, aristocrats, judges, etc. the most depraved, villainous of his... heroes. As I recall there are a few less blue-blooded "heroes" but one could definitely read it as a kind of class warfare (Pasolini of course does just this with his film Salo)

What I guess is refreshing about Sade is that he doesn't cover it up with any pretensions of moralism; even Rand, in her stupid way, tries to frame her philosophy as something that would really benefit society. Sade's philosophy is pure predation- torture, rape, murder are all fine as long as you get away with it. I suspect many of our elites have the same outlook but they cover it up with vacuous ideological obfuscation or some eat-pray-love nonsense.

These are cosmological concepts and practices, not myths. Myths are narratives with some important communal understanding embedded in them- the stories of Pan Gu, Nu Wa, Fu Xi, Yi the archer, etc.

This is the closing spell to the Fox Immortal Scripture I was talking about earlier. Here's the text: 狐仙放生咒 人世知音能有幾。天地萬物是良朋。 今日歌頌仙狐訣。施放眾生盡解脫。 逢山過山到深山。逢水過水進池潭。 雲霧山頭乘風去。東西南北逍遙游。 深山百鳥千聲叫。河海深處好修煉。 山神土地來相助。路上逢人半里難。 My amateur translation: How many intimates can be had in this world? Heaven, earth, and the ten thousand beings are good friends. Today give the fox immortals farewell praise, releasing all beings, utterly untied, on, around, or within the mountains, on, above, or in the depths of the waters. On cloudy mountaintops the wind goes by, roaming carefree, east, west, north, and south. In the mountains a hundred birds make their thousand calls; The depths of rivers and seas practice well. Gods of mountain and earth assist each other. It is hard to meet people half a mile on the road. There are a number of iffy moments for me here, but the part I'm having the most trouble with is the closing line- I can't make sense of it. Does it mean something like, "It's hard to meet people along the way"? Maybe "It's hard to attain a human birth"? How does it relate to what came before? Thanks

I've consulted with a number of translations of related passages, by scholars trained in classical Chinese and Confucian philosophy specifically, and my rendering of "square" and "straight" is supported by them. I don't believe you have the competence to help me here, but thanks for trying.

This is a commentary on the passage in the Yijing, Kun, Six in the Second place: "The junzi straightens the inside with reverence, and squares the outside with righteousness." Yang Shi's comment comes after a few others (by Cheng Yi) explaining what "straight" 直 and "square" 方 mean in the Yijing passage. Cheng Yi connects "straight" to inner sincerity (敬)and "square" to outer righteousness (义).