soaring crane

~~~ moderator message ~~~ Now it's official. Please try to practice some restraint here. Anyone who wants to discuss John Chang and the rest of it, feel free to go start a thread in another forum. ~~~ out ~~~

It won't. A small, preemptive message to all interested parties. Remember that this is an introductory thread, so please do try to restrict your posts to that vein. Feel free to respond to the OP, but avoid arguments among yourselves. Ok? Thx. Note to ParisTheo -- the Magus of Java has been discussed at length in the forums. I would urge you to search out one of those threads instead of taking up the subject here.

OIC ... I thought it was "not telling" and that was the topic here

right, that's why you elect not to disclose it and in the context of the website, it's undisclosed. "Uknown" sounds like a term used in a police investigation, and it has an aura of Donald Rumsfeld to it "Private" would be a good option, imo. Covers a lot of bases.

"Unknown" doesn't make sense, imo. Somebody knows, after all.

Empty beer mugs ... evening drawing to a close ...

Our village held its Summer Solstice celebration last night. It's a regional thing, not everyone in Germany is aware of these things. Ok, basically it boils down to yet another reason to drink beer and eat bratwurst, but when the weather is good, these bonfire nights are really something special. I took this photo with my phone. Fire Dog: thumbnail :-) And this is from a different "Johannisfeuer" (St John's Fire) on Wednesday: thumbnail

I think humor provides insight, and can be a great teacher. (edit to point out that that "joke" is pretty profound)

Hello ParisTheo, and welcome to the forums! Glad you found your way to us :-) Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, SC and the TDB team

Hello unknownroad, and welcome to the forums! Glad you found your way to us :-) Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, SC and the TDB team

Just got home from a summer solstice bonfire (St. John's fire). Was enchanting to say the least :-)

Hello Morgan, and welcome to the forums! Glad you found your way to us. We dont ask for any specific personal information of that sort. We just ask for a little something about your experiences. But even that is strictly voluntary. You can edit your post if you like. Or leave it as is :-) Regardless, please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, SC and the TDB team

28 with zero mistakes on the first go, and I saw the 29th just as the time ran out = falcon My wife got 33 and gave me a big neener neener, then I looked and saw that she had 9 mistakes! But she was still a robot?

Alright, well, thank you for the honest answer.

There's actually no such thing as "off topic" in the open forums at the TDB. So, whatever the OP inspires in us, we're free to share it, as long as we do it respectfully :-) My approach to tree (and, yes, the natural world as a whole) meditation has more to do with nurturing a kind of symbiosis. This is how I first learned to go about it, many, many years ago, and I've benefitted immensely from it. I like to think that my tree friends get something out of it, too :-)

Hello TCA, and welcome to the forums! Glad you found your way to us, sounds like you're off to a good start :-) Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, SC and the TDB team

non local: Why are you here?

Perhaps it's time to clean the cat box? The toxoplasma gondi parasite aka "the cat litter parasite" has been definitively linked to phases in people's lives where they take up dangerous activities, start extreme sports, things like that. The effect of the microbial world on our behavior, our intellect, our desires, intuition and beliefs, on everything that goes into being human, everything that goes into life in any form on this planet, is a running theme with me and this post is not meant facetiously: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/253802.php

Awesome guacamole and spelt/rye bread from a local organic baker to scoop it out of the bowl with, plus a great fruit salad. Basically, same thing I bring to all my seminars, haven't had a complaint yet :-) Oh, and a selection of teas.

I've heard, but don't quote me on this, that it can cause dyslexia :-)

no, completely different concept. For one thing, the microorganisms on Earth are real.

awesome, I love it :-) So long as it doen't happen at the wrong moment, like when you're driving. It's very similar to my experiences with tree meditation/communication. The rooting and the internal flow are the two larger aspects of my connections with trees. Plus, that shift to a different time plane, yes. One thing (which might not come over too well here, so I apologise in advance) that never occurs to me is any form of anthromoporphism, quite the opposite in fact. Where some meditators will "feel the tree's pain" when a limb breaks, the message I consistently get from trees is more akin to, "don't be a pussy", and, "limbs grow back", and, "what counts is what's below the surface", and "time is cyclical". (I'm fully aware that this could be my own form of anthromoporphism, but these things come to me when I'm empty, and they're counter-intuitive. What's the term for trees projecting their traits onto humans? lol) I've also felt other trees caring for the trunks of stumps of their neighbors that had been felled. They do it though the roots.

Doesn't mean the authorities aren't interested in going after the banksters. The banksters are simply smart and powerful enough to have regulations changed to make their activities either legal or at least very difficult to identify as specifically illegal. And then it becomes a question of cost/benefit. If they were to put in the "same" effort, as you say, they would be throwing resources out the window.

Perhaps look into Qingshan Liu. He's based in Munich and has excellent German-language materials. I believe he's one of the earliest masters of the Shibashi, perhaps the one who introduced the exercises to the West? Or Europe, anyway.

I feel that the "self" appears at the beginning of the video. The 90% that isn't "human". This gets glossed over all the time. Those microbes rule everything, and have been the only real lifeform on this planet for billions of years. Human form is simply the most effecient vehicle they've developed to date to get them where they feel compelled to go. But they evolve and adapt and drop less efficient models over time, like little engineers in the auto industry, always finding ways of getting more performance out of the basic design. The video doesn't mention that every cell with a nucleus can store about 30Mb of data. Every cell. Thirty megabytes. Every living cell on this planet. It's one unbroken stream of information, and history. Everything that's ever happened on this planet is stored in there, organically. It's such an awesome realisation that I just don't have the vocabulary to describe it.