Pietro

Read it. I also made a big mindmap of it, but now I can't find it. If I find it, I'll post it. The key of everything are: the pareto principle (20/80) the parkinson law (work expands to fill the time allotted) how much of the info that we digest we really do not need. how to set up an online busines, how to outsource part of your work. Once you have learned those things you pretty much have the thing. Here are also a lot of things on which I do not agree with him. When he says that all there is in life is excitment... well, my son... When he claims that no one can love his work so you better get over it as soon as possible, ... well again. But in any case I apply him in my daily work.

I left this to the end, because it is the most tricky to answer. Mostly because of my pass I always am a bit in trouble in criticizing the host. Yes the website is taking care of itself, those days. And every discussion group will eventually find its balance, or die in the process. Maybe those 5 years left a sign also on him. Technically there are plenty of possible solutions that can be applied. But I will not criticize Sean, in a thread that started with me ranting that there is no gusto anymore in the TB. Some discussion board has some rooms just for the older guys. In the PU there are 4 levels. You need to be signed in from 1 month to start posting, then you go to a first room, then to a second. And you only get access to the third after a few years. In short you are left in quarantine. You can read what the guys say, but you cannot comment. Also there the little level on the left grows according to someone outside. And to the votes that you get. In the GO world you normally need to tell what is your ranking. Nice and objective. In the computer world, well those are hackers, and have time to spare to program really cool discussion board. Stackoverflow, is the equivalent to the TB for programming. ANd here you have brownie points, and you collect them by asking questions to which people reply, answering questions that people vote yes, and so on. You write nonsense, and see your points drop. And with the points what you can do changes. You get the power to rank other people after 50 points. To downrank them after 100 (I think). You can edit other people post at x (x=10000?). In short you only get the power to do stuff by the time you have already learned how to use that power. The problem is that in the west taoism is confused with post modernism. And post modernism always confuses the "everyman is the same" with "everything said by every man is equally valid". In any topic where you have an objective level that procedure is an admitted failure. Here where the objective references are more difficult to find, this procedure is leading to a big confusion. So there are things that could be done technically, but they require serious programming, and I don't think we could have asked Sean to do it in the old days. Now? Even less. But maybe a cheap solution is to have a second room to which the only person who have speaking permission are people with 500 posts and 24 months.

Good! Don't be bothered about us, we are just old farts speaking about the good ol' days. It's a problem of return on investment. How much do you get back for the time you spend. We might have hit the point of limited return. When what you get out does not pay you back what you put in. A problem is also that if those things are hidden it takes ages to discover them. In the old HT the structure was a tree, and you could immediately see if the people u are keeping an eye to have written something. Now you get the person who have started the thread, and the last person who wrote. Two names that I ignore, and I move forward. Hi Hagar, hope the little viking is growing up strong I don't know what I would give for a retourn of RJ. I am starting to agree with Plato& RJ coprophila approach to the problem of noobs I am not sure, my sensation is that there are still great cultivators. Every now and then you see them, in the mix of the new people. But often they leave. I wonder why.

good point!

Uh, Juan is now Master? So we are going to use the title Master in the West. I thought Michael have tried to stop that from happening (not related with Juan, just in general). Juan was wonderful. Now I kind of understand... I participated, much to my own surprise, to the HT family gathering in Paris. And I heard the spanish people lament that they needed help or everybody will go with Juan. It seemed to me very very weird. Here there were some cool instructors who should have been really really happy to have a person like Juan in their ranks, and instead saw him as a competitor. What was going on? Now I see what was going on. If I need to bet I might put my money that Juan school might end up being the best of the ofspring of the HT.

Those are the times where I miss Father Paul:

just another creation of the mind. Recognise how it was created by your particular upbringing, and thus how it is useless to cling to it, because it is not part of your essential nature. Dissolve it.

I do, but I am only 10-8 kyu. There are many relations between Go and Taoism. Starting from the fact that the empty places around a group are called Qi (breath), and when a group has no more QI is dead. Also I see various style of play being representatives of various energies. Where the Cosmic style would really relate with the Wu Ji. Also you can quite easily take the 4 basic energies of Tai Ji, and use them to develop various style of games. Depending if you are pushing or squeezing toward the border, or squeezing toward your territory (think when you take away the base to a group, and they need to run... toward your territory harharhar >;-P ). You have the concept of grounding, and the need to have a base before growing. Really there are very interesting relations between the concepts in Go and Taoists concepts. Said that I could not find any authenthic Taoist meditation-Go source. It seems Go has become a technical game. And few people are really interested in the philosphical base of it. But if you think that historically, when in Japan, the best go players were celibate Buddhist monks, you see the ground is there. If a tree has grown in those thousands of years when Go was in China with Taoism, they are still keeping it well hidden. Maybe like Internal Martial Arts some 50 years ago.

I feel like I found a pot of gold: We should install and use http://uservoice.com/ It is a suggestion forum where people can suggest what they want from a site, and vote on others suggestions. It is extremely easy to use, and simple to install. I reckon for the needs of our site the free offer should be enough. Cheers, Pietro

why waiting? Kiss during chi kung. In this way you can feel the energy leave, mix with her, and come back re-envigorated. And honestly you haven't really mastered a chi gung practice unless you can do it while having sex. I met few people who can honestly say they mastered the long form of Tai Chi. Honestly, who told you not to have sex within an hour after doing practices. Was it from Yoga? I never heard this from any form of Taoist Chi Gung. There are celibacy practices, but that is another story. But no kissing? never heard of that. Maybe someone was together with a little vamp, and then generalised a problem which was just theirs.

If you are new here: When people arrive here, eventually they get really passionate about this place. This place has a strong uprooting energy. Soon they forget your center, their roots, their ground and their feet. And then we offend each other in the dialectic passion. Some blushing often is the end result. It is so common that is nearly an initiation. Somehow going through it makes a real Tao Bum. Just be relaxed with the whole process.

Agreed. When people arrive here, eventually they get really passionate about it. This place has a strong uprooting energy. Soon you forget your center, your roots, your ground and your feet. And then we offend each other in the dialectic passion. Some blushing often is the end result. It is so common that is nearly an initiation. Somehow going through it makes a real Tao Bum.

Could you clarify what and why that article is interesting? Maybe quoting it here. Thanks.

"Apepch7", (I wish you were signing with your real name -unless you are a borg and Apepch7 is your real name -, it would make it easier for me to address you. Thanks for your message. Yes, I do agree we are in a mess, and I do agree that Islam is in a particular moment of its development. If I suggested that the slow of islamic culture helped the popularity of the philosopher, believe me, it was beyond my words. The two things are obviously correlated, and the sources who seem to study those problems seem to agree that he caused it. Although I do have some problems in thinking a single person being that powerful. But then again, we do have other cases in history of single human being who changed a whole culture with their writings. I find it interetsing that people compare Islam to Communism. I don't find it that way at all, but then again, my internal idea of communism has nothing to do with RUssia, or Marx, and a lot with growing up in Italy in the 70's and 80's where the cool people, the intellectual, the smart ones where all left and communists. I wish we avoided making comparisons with concepts that are interpreted in a such a diverse way, depending on one's culture... especially in such an international and worldwide club like TB. I am saying this not just to you, but also to whoelse brought up communism. hmm, not sure. I think the real threat comes from what the majority of Muslim do believe (regarding Apostasy & Sharia) in an historical context of population explosion, so that is the orthodoxy. Additional threats? Not sure, none worth mentioning. Hmm, so why would the stars have arabic names? Who discovers/invents something decided its name. They might have taken astronomy from somwhere else, but surely it was their scientists that used it to discover so many stars. But it might be true that the expansion was somewhoe fueled by continuous expansions. Like many American things/trends in the second half of last century are not american at all, but just became popular in the US. The question what makes a culture stop blooming is a really interesting one. I think I shall look into it, but I expect a 5 year quest . The philosopher before was just one of the possible causes. You suggest a slowing down of the military expansion. I am curious about other possible causes. I am interetsed because we are living in such a period right now. What happened to Alexandria? To ROme? To Greece? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (thinking time) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I totally agree with you. Let's look at them together. I am sure it will help both of us. Arab culture had a great moment of richness between 800 and 1100. At the time Baghdad was the center of the cultural world, books were translated, people would go there to study. It was a great period, and we all human beings are in great depth to the research that happened in this period. I read that 2/3 of the names of the stars are arab, and were given in that period, as they were discovered by Arab astronomers. What a great moment. And what about maths, and Al-gebra, and Al-gorithm. Believe it or not but my job is to write al-gorithm, to study biology using al-gebra. How could I forget where my field come from. It would be like forgetting your own ancestors. But then it ended. Why it ended? What has happened? Well, for what I know this scholar was somehow responsible: Ḥāmid Al-Ghazali. His incredible epistemological responsability was to put God between every cause and every effect. Thus emptying of any content scientific investigation. Let me quote a couple of section from wikipedia. I am not teaching to you, I am studying them with you: In the next century, Averroes drafted a lengthy rebuttal of Ghazali's Incoherence entitled The Incoherence of the Incoherence; however, the epistemological course of Islamic thought had already been set. Also his influence in the islamic world is quite incredible: Wether he really froze or not froze islamic thinking is IMHO quite irrelevant. It seem to me quite clear that islamic thought has drammatically slowed down, from about that time. Maybe we, oops they, can get it back on track. But is not going to be smooth, fast nor painless. So, I would say, yes we are heavily indepted with Muslim science... of the time. But modern Islam is different. The number of books that are translated right now into Arab are only a fraction of the books that are translated from arab. Or to other languages. You need to take decisions based on the situation now, not based on the situation 1000 years ago. It is not strange. It is just dangerous when summed with the other elements of Islam, inability to accept that people can leave their religion, and higher birth rate. The sum of all those has an effect in society which is greater than the effect of their parts. But as I said, I am against most Islam, as I am against those Christians that want to live in a non democratic country (see Jesus camp for an exampe of this). It is just that those Christians are a much smaller minority of Christians. I am not sure about the percentages, but I think that we can agree Catholics is one of the biggest groups in Christianity. Now Catholic follow the lead of the pope who have swore to lead accoding to the Concilio Vaticano II (The fact that he does not do it, we leave it for now aside, most Catholics are more advanced than B12). Now in the concilio Vaticano II it is the "DECLARATION ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DIGNITATIS HUMANAE ON THE RIGHT OF THE PERSON AND OF COMMUNITIES TO SOCIAL AND CIVIL FREEDOM IN MATTERS RELIGIOUS . Here it is explained how there can be a salvation outside of the church. This is the official position of the church. Now the official position of Islam, for as much as we can find an official position, is that apostasy is heavily condamned, if not even punished by death. First of all I do not condone people with similar ideas of other religions, so I am not islamophobic, but religions-who-want-to-govern-and-condamn-apostasy-phobic. Most of Islam just happen to fit the bill, but many others do. They are generally smaller and radical. It is first of all a matter of percentages, how many Muslim that condemn apostasy are there, and that also want Sharia, versus how many Christians that do the same. Then you have to look at the education of women in muslim societies, and with that the fertility rate, versus the same thing in Christians society. Jews in all this are the best, they just do not have many kids, and it is really hard to become a Jew (while it is easy to become a Christian, easy to leave, and easy to be readmitted, and it is easy to become a Muslim -I think, you just need to declare yourself as such-, and hard to leave). regarding the example: the difference is that my friend kids will probably grow in the Islamic religion, will learn that there should be no division between church and state, and apostasy should be punished. While the son of the hard line Christian will grow to be Christians, but will also learn that there should be a division between church and state, and (as they confront themselves with the major christian groups), that apostasy is possible.

Agreed. I have a friend who came from a middle eastern country (I don't remember which, shame on me -that is, I don't remember which nation, I do remember which friend - ). I met him in London, we were poor student flatmate for some time. As he came to the UK his spirituality opened up, and when I met him he had become neopagan. He was going through a search period, definitly a good thing. Then he went back home, and all this brought a lot of stress to his family. His parents could not accept that their son was going to go to the deepest hell. I think he eventually claimed that he came back to Islam to make them feel ok. But I think he has also frozen his spiritual search for the time being. What a shame. I also suggested him that he could move to Sufi, and he explained to me that in the country/tradition/family (boh?) where he comes from Sufi are not regarded as an acceptable Muslim tradition. Apparently the fact that they themselves consider themselves Muslim, does not mean other groups accpet them as well. It is obviously a very complicated matter. The closes that I can think of are the way eretics were being treated by Christians, but I might be totally off. Speaking about people who are coinsidered part of a religion, when in their heart they are not, I think the Cattholic Church of Rome still consider me among its sheeps, and goes to the Italian state with the number of their believers, asking for part of the taxes I pay in Italy. Speak about people who know how to count well in their favour P.S. English is not my first language, but I think this: intentions toward apostates are not, completely not acceptable. means that they are acceptable. As in English, like Latin (and unlike Italian) two negations eliminate each other. I think you should add a second comma: intentions toward apostates are not, completely not, acceptable. But I would love to have this further clarified

I would like to add a few sticks to the fire. There are a few things for which I really don't like Islam. And I am not speaking here about Radical Islam, but most moderate too. Part of those things which I don't like are also in some Christianity. Those are the most extreme fringes of Christianity, and I don't like them too. And the same to be said for Judaism, or any religion that has them. I am not speaking about violence. Yes, I don't think it is ok for people to bomb themselves. Especially next to other people. But this is not what worries me. I think there is something in Islam that is not ok. That is a serious threat for our society. Something few people speak about, partially because few people see, and partially because many that see, are tied too much to be able to speak up. What I am speaking about, is less disgusting than clitoridectomia, but much, much more dangerous. I am speaking about: a.) desire to live in a Sharia state. b.) The concept that someone who is Muslim, who decides that Islam is not his religion, will when dead inhabit the worse hell. In christianity we had a similar concept. It went with the Council Vatican II, when it was accepted that also people who were out of the church could go to heaven. -Something on which, for what is worth, my professor of religion, in high school, was absolutely sure, because... "God, at least Him, could do as He pleased!" I see those two principles as the real real REAL danger. Because connected together can really bring down the western world. It is not the terror, that can. It is not the terror that will. Terror can be at most a distraction. Statistically speaking. But in a democratic country, if a group of people becomes numerically strong enough they can overturn any law. Even the laws that makes it a democracy. Democracies are based on balances of power (), and as we are learning in Italy in those years, although they are carefully built to resist, they can be unwrapped. So the fact that Muslim are the number 1 growing religion in many western countries (all?, I am not sure, most? probably), the fact that they do not permit to people to leave their religion, the fact that 65% (according to a recent statistics, the data are available ) of Muslims in Britain would rather live under Sharia, makes it a real danger in my eyes. This is a not much discussed issue (in WH2 banning Sharia, it is only the 300th or so priority), but a well known one, and many decisions are being taken by world leader considering it. Now the number of kids that a family has, strongly correlates with female education. If you want to stop a population from growing you send the girls to school. Muslim around the world are not generally known to have girls education very high in their priority list. And this is the table on which the immigration game is really played. This is also the table on which Israel is playing, as they are trying to have two contraddictory things at the same time. Their own religious state, as well as a democracy. And this is hard enough, without adding a second population, with an exploding population. Muslim who believe that you can leave Islam any time, who do not want to live under Sharia, who do not practice clitoridectomia, and who are not trying to have more than 3 kids, are my friends. Salom to them Pietro

Totally agreed. I too remember when I was with little money, and then I would earn 50.000 lire (about 25 euro, but was worth like 50 euro) doing a massage, all my paranoia, mental problems and similar would disappear. Maybe were the endorphine, but surely financial success does have some healing power. (or better, rephrased, financial unsucces tend to bring with itself healing problems)

There is a book out there, it is called "laughing at the Tao". It was written by the personal advisor of the emperor (don't ask me which emperor), when the emperor showed interest to Taoism, and wanted to make his whole empire (China) Taoist. The book is a book about the inconsistencies in Taoism. It is all written in a ironic umoristic style. It is a series of chapters, each 3 pages long, with first a description, then "I laugh at this and say:..." and then the reasons why this is inconsistent. It is a great lecture, althoug eventually it becomes repetitive and boring. It is agreat lesson. Actually I later learned that this kind of Dialectic debate was common in the middle ages, and the buddhist would practically always win. This because they were often trained in dialectic in their universities/schools. (Something similar to the christian dialectic discussions about the sex of angels and the how many angels on a pin point). And about our book? I kind of remember that the emperor had "all" the copies burned. There was an official answers from the big taoists at the time, some years later. And few copies of the book survived. I think the emperor's advisor was lucky enough to keep his head on the shoulders. Not always a good idea to shatter emperor's dreams. <preach> Generally I think there is a great lesson in this book, as I think the essence of Taoism is totally untouched by those inconsitencies. And the same for all the great religions. ex: If Jesus was not born from a virgin, would this make it an acceptable behaviour to harm other human beings? I think the sooner we give up those mythological ideas, the sooner we grow up as a society. </preach>

Granted, we now have free energy for all. No need to push carbon up the atmosphere. We enjoy the biggest economical boom. To follow the boom we use up every resource that has remained in the world. In 20 years the world has 12 billion people. Mostly that live with less than 1 dollar a day. And forests get cut more and more rapidly. Soon it is clear that we need to defend forests, and a war erupts between the poor people who need to cut forest to have land to survive, and the wealthy whod defends them. Nice try Ok, I'll phrase this precisely: I wish I could go and come back on a separate time space when I wanted, for as long as I wanted, taking with me the books (and ebooks) that I wanted, without getting old or having time passing here, and coming back when I wanted. This space time is a solitary cell monk where I could study, read, meditate, relax. But only alone. And that I was thus able to read, study, and relax for as much as I wanted. I wished this for a loong time, so please do show me its weakness. There was a cartoon when I was a kid on a similar theme ADDENDUM: oops, I am sorry, it looks like I am making a mess . Mak, what does "spont" mean?

Granted, he gets 2 terms, very succesfully. The USA takes back its position of world leader among the Nations. The next president then abuses of that position and thirld world war erupts.

Would you still get gout if you eated your red meat raw?