Pietro

Hi Cat, long time no see. I did not expect anyone of the old guard to be still here after so much time. What's the situation, now? The second link works on me, it goes to a search page of youtube videos. They appear as bubbles, and each bubble is a video. Bubbles on top are videos that have been seen more (in the same time).

In Colombia a new game is being played among kids: it's called "Roulette Sexual", and the kids stand in two concentric circles, girls, boys. At a signal they get undressed from the waist down. And they need to penetrate as many girls as possible "without" ejaculating. Who ejaculates is out. The age of the participants: between 10 and 19. (probably younger kids in this range would do it among them, but I have no idea). As an additional data I will add that the age of consent in Colombia is 14. As you can expect the number of abortion has increased, and in fact it was the fact that a girl got pregnant, and she did not know who the father was alerted the parents (who I suppose alerted the authorities). There is a number of video on this kind of stuff on youtube (in Spanish), and even groups for them to organise on facebook (search term: rouleta sexual), and the age of the participants in those groups is consistent with the info above. So there are a lot of issues over here. There is the whole age factor. As people participating fall into 4 age range: adults, not adult but over the age of consent, before the age of consent but over puberty, and maybe even before puberty. Then there is the whole safety part, both respect to STD, and respect to getting pregnant especially because no protection was involved, nor any HIV test beforehand. And finally, the whole "no ejaculation". I mean, where did they got this from? Now, there are no Healing Love instructors in Colombia in the Universal Tao directory. Do you think they just figured that out by themselves? Personally I would have no problems for something similar among adult, trained taoists, who have done the necessary tests. And I am pretty sure it must have happened in the post in China. What do you think?

Wu wei, non doing, and nothing gets undone. But then for creative people there are plenty of things that you would naturally do. And the result is that you end up lacking focus. We cut the useless branch in a tree to strengthen the ones that will bear fruit. But the Taoist natural farmer Fukuoka would not do so. Any suggestion

Science studies what can be measured. Religion guesses on the rest.

The nearest I can think of is: the Star Trek episode "The Apple" from the Original series. Kirk & C explore a planet where a group of people live controlled by Vaar, a God-like creature. Vaar is actually a computer in a cave. Vaar protects them, keeps them safe, but also forbids any sex, and thus they have no children. The people in the village also do not grow old. Once Kirk and the other "gauge out holes" in the computer, the villagers loose their state. Start to grow old, and will need to have sex again to have children. The episode is available through Torrent. I could not find any satisfactory part of it on YouTube as the message is in the whole episode. And now, please someone illustrates the hexagrams 13 and 14 (as hexagrams come in pairs I am asking for the principle that is behind this couple, or the dynamic between the two, not for one of them).

Taomeow, no one can beat you on yin. But, now please, can you make your request so the game can go on?

Since Desert Eagle did not ask for something I will. But first I will give my interpretation of leading without controlling. In the movie, il Mostro (the monster), Benigni is believed to be a dangerous criminal by the people. At some point he is recognized and the mob wants to kill him. Please look at minute 1:15 to 1:35 how he leads them far away from himself. Now please can someone explain the difference between compressing and collapsing.

Not hard to answer: But now please someone now clarify with a clip the difference between false yin and true yin.

Ok, I'm officially surprised

You can't. Hexagram 4 describes this situation.

(thanks Desert Eagle) So, Anamatva, it is now your round to ask (or dare) for a taoist concept to be explained. Again, the rules are the following: A person asks a taoist concept. The next person must find a scene from a movie which explains, give an example, help to understand, that concept. Extra points if the person finds the youtube video that represents it. Then this second person asks for another Taoist Concept. And so on. Let's not miss the "and so on" part of the description.

Let's make a game: A person asks a taoist concept. The next person must find a scene from a movie which explains, give an example, help to understand, that concept. Extra points if the person finds the youtube video that represents it. Then this second person asks for another Taoist Concept. And so on. What movie would you use to explain (and give an example of) the concept: the yin stimulates the yang Present the movie, the scene in the movie (if possible), maybe add the youtube sequence, and then ask for another taoist concept to be represented.

NOTE: There is no correlation between the two phrases. People who won the lottery and people who lost the use of their legs are also equally happy after 6 months of the event. Our statistical happiness is not very much correlated with the benefits we have.

oh, really, I see and your sources are...

I don't think that all roads leads to Rome. And on this I am in open disagreement not just with most people in this forum but also with many of my teachers, Bruce included. first of all not all tradition have the same concept of salvation. A christian saint, a zen awakened, a taoist immortal are not the same thing. Now you could say that this is because they are not arrived, but this is a logical fallacy. If you say that the zen enlightened after reaching enlightenment needs to continue you are essentially saying that "zen" does not lead to Rome. But that zen+christianity is needed. But some of the premises in Christianity are simply wrong, false, not accepted in Buddhism. SO now the poor guy needs to develop his own version of Christianity. Something which in different times would have led him to be burned at the stake. So this is my first claim: not all tradition lead to the same place, and taking one tradition as a continuation after another is not an acceptable interpretation of the phrase "all roads". Also some traditions are incomplete. Like some martial arts school. They know what they know, the might have lost some. Still what they teach is valid. SO a meditation school might be able to teach you how to reach a sense of fulfillment. Or feeling one with nature. Or releasing past trauma. Expecting each meditation school to be able to teach all, is just an expectations begging to go unfulfilled. So some meditation school will teach some things that others will not. Then we have the issue of side track. While you have a school, that is teaching something that is valid. There are also many wring turns. Things that will make you lose a lot of time. Or just make put you in danger. You can lose your life, health, friends, mental health, and so on. Or just make you addicted to the wrong thing. And this also applies at the school level. Not only some schools teach different things, but they also can be more or less fast, and more or less safe. Usually there is a compromise that needs to be find between safety and speed. Schools that are faster are usually less safe. And schools that are safer might need more time. Hopefully a school that is both unsafe and slow will go extinct, while a school that is both fast and safe will achieve so much that the others would get extinguished. Evolution at the level of meditative traditions. So we have different schools. With different aims. With different arrival points. With different speed and different level of safety. So much for all roads leading to Rome. I think a more serious point of view would be to look historically where did the idea that all traditions were equivalent came from. In the middle ages no one thought so. And if all roads lead to Rome, why would "the Christ" needed to come and "complete the law", if the law was already leading to a road that was leading to Rome. I have been looking back and trying to find out where this idea came from, but could not go very far. Gandhi was a great proponent of it. He said he was a Muslim and an Indu and a Christian. I kind of remember that I could go back to William James, but that's about it. Can someone point out to previous thinkers who suggested it? Btw, I am going to Rome this week end! And, Marblehead, the fact of ROme being such a hub, means that you have roads going radially in all directions. So you will hardly find indications for other places, but indications for one of those roads. Like AURELIA ---------->