goldisheavy

You might be right about the cliques, but I don't detect any ominous vibes emanating from any cliques. Unless you criticize the leader of the clique, people just speak for themselves in my experience. If you dare criticize the leader, then yes, be ready for a chorus reply. But it comes with the territory. Straight talk is actually very effective and piercing through all kinds of bullshit. It's especially effective when it comes down like a bolt of lightning, relaxes, comes down again, relaxes again, and just keeps coming, not too often, but never stopping. Since you are allowed to take naps and breaks, you can continue to speak for justice and peace for a long time. Why would you expect yourself to finish the job in one or two days? You can say something one day, then take a break. Then come back and continue where you have left off. When you get tired, leave, recharge and come back. The mindset for this, if you want to succeed, is not that of a sprint, it's a marathon. I'm not trying to say you have to say something or avoid saying something. I trust you know what you want to do. I am just saying if you do want to fight for peace, you don't have to discount yourself. You can do it. You can be the Joan of Arc if you like. It just takes patience, a steady and constant heart, and lots and lots of naps. I am not exactly hiding. If I am absent, it's because I got caught up in some other stuff. It's not because I am avoiding Taobums on purpose. Oh, and I got to have my naps... I love me my naps. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzz

It's worse than that. Not only have individual genes not been found to correlate with any mental conditions so far, but even complicated gene pattern candidates have all been ruled out as well. Certainly there remain some geneticists who will still want to try to link genes to mental conditions, but I think the article is correct in that most of them have changed their minds and have basically given up the idea, and moved onto bigger and brighter things that will be a lot more likely to get you published than looking for this needle in a hay stack if it even exists.

People tend to take many negative and scary experiences seriously. Perhaps you can dismiss an alien abduction as a bad trip, but few people can dismiss the bill collector as a bad trip. So within the realm of the seriously taken experiences, people tend to have desires. When those desires are not met, they get upset. When they are not met repeatedly over and over, and when a resulting impression forms that perhaps one's desire is truly difficult to meet, depression sets in. I don't know many people who are depressed because of their dreams or hallucinations. However, I think even though it's harder, it's still possible to be depressed from certain types of experiences that are considered unreal. For example a person might have a recurring nightmare. The person might know it's not real, but might still be upset over it. If the person feels nothing can be done to change the nightmare, depression might set in. Just some ideas. What do you think causes unhappiness?

You're really pushing it, buster. Congrats. This turned out very easy for you, eh?

I agree. Pharmacology can still be a useful crutch, but at least we now know it's only a crutch and not a permanent solution. It's like when you break your arm and you have to wear a cast, you don't wear the cast forever. You have to take it off at some point. I think people should be counseled in such a way that they either don't need any drugs, or if they use them, there is a plan to get off them in a set period of time.

You just contradicted a well researched article that cites more than one recent scientific study. Ignorance is bliss. Say hi to Glenn Beck for me.

A thousand times "yes" to this. We have more than a few bogus psychological conditions and we also have the cure for them: adderall. Nice. The big pharma boys have got it all figured out.

Yes. OK then. So you've investigated various perceptions such as a perception of yourself, a perception of thoughts, and then a perception of stillness and finally a perception of finding nothing. And yet the word "perception" implies passivity. What if perception is not passive but is creative instead? And what if perception is neither passive nor creative? What happens to echoes and deserving then? At the time you initiate the sound, you're conventionally thought to be creative. When you receive back the echo you're conventionally thought to be passive. What if the convention is wrong in more ways than one? Yes, but how many people can you kiss at once? If there are 30 people in a room, the best you can do is taste a mix of your and someone else's mouth. It's impossible to taste purely someone else's mouth for one, and two, have you tried kissing 5 people at once? How about 30? Not one after another, but at once, instantly? That's how you are more present to yourself than to others. While you are busy kissing one, there may be 30 others you can't taste. Who knows. I think it's a way for people to classify experiences into the ones they will take seriously and the ones they won't take seriously. Real experience we tend to take seriously. Dreams, hallucinations and all manner of other experiences we consider unreal are the ones we don't take seriously. So on one hand, it seems like a distinction that makes sense and it seems kind of true and useful, but on the other hand, when you realize it all comes down to your level of seriousness, it all seems to be a big joke.

This is a good one because it looks like he's failing and she's telling him to shut up and is trying to ignore him. And it looks like that almost all the way to the end. Heheh... "girls drop signs" my ass. There is nothing reliable about girls. They aren't machines you can just figure out like a good little mechanic.

I think that your attitude is fine in the near term. However, long term you will need to face your demons. You can't just keep running away forever. At the ultimate level of insight the demonic appearance of a stalker is a product of your own mind, and being afraid of stalkers is like being afraid of yourself, like being afraid of your own mind's functioning. This is a hard pill to swallow, but those who do swallow it, find great freedom, peace of mind, and confidence. Imagine you have a favorite color and a color that you hate. What if you make your eye no longer able to see the color you hate? What if you make your eye see all the other colors as the hues of the one color you like the most? Do you know what I call that? I don't call it an improvement. I call it blindness. Healthy senses can perceive the entire array of perception. Cutting pieces out of that array due to preferences leads to blindness and weakness. A skin that cannot sense pain is a numb skin. If you sometimes feel uncomfortable, that's only a sign that you're healthy and there is no need to immediately squash the discomfort or move away. And weakness developers because ultimately the mind is invincible and the array of perception cannot be curtailed, so the intent to curtail it results in failure along with a lot of heat and friction, which leads to weakness. There is a way to manage perceptions and to avoid the worst sensations most of the time. But that way doesn't involve running at the first hint of negativity. That way involves developing tolerance and wisdom.

This is exactly why you can't see the forest for the trees. Apparently you experience so much peace and ease of being, that you can't even understand why other people might be interested in it. Since you abide in it regularly, you can't see how it could be a big deal. So if you are a walking pool of peace and ease, of course everyone wants to get near. I am sure men would be chatting you up as well if it was socially acceptable. Since it's acceptable for women to flirt with men, they do. Personally I don't think this kind of thing is sexual per se. It's just that most any sane and untrained person wants to be in this kind of psychic environment that you carry with you everywhere you go. That's funny. I typed my previous paragraphs before I even read this one. I am right on the money as I tend to be. I think that energy is a useful descriptor which you can apply to your situation, but it's not the only correct one and nor is it the most enlightening one. Talking about energy too much tends to dummify the situation. It kind of makes the whole situation look like some wiring or some plumbing. Life is much more than just plumbing. Life cannot be captured by the energy paradigm. For example, we experience intentionality. Energy by definition has no intentionality. Energy is impersonal. Your being is not impersonal. So taking the energy paradigm too far is a mistake. I wouldn't say you're completely wrong. Yes, you can think of what's happening in terms of energy. But if energy is all you can see, it's like you're blind. Why don't you see the interplay of intention? How about seeing that all human beings you encounter share a common subconscious mind with you? These viewpoints, I think, are much more enlightening. Eh? I don't think you understand me at all if this is what you're saying to me. Of course people sense vibes. That's what I said in my first reply to you. The subconscious mind picks up the minutest changes in your person, not just how you look statically, but the dynamic, the movement of your person. I also believe there is a magical quality to it in the sense that your mind and the minds of others are not truly walled off. You don't live in a container. When you light a stick of incense in your room, people can smell it in the hallway. Catch my drift? You can call it energy if you like, but there is more to it than just dead, dumb and predictable energy. I was talking about most normal people. You are not normal. You have some training such that you have stamina to endure the negativity of someone else, plus you have compassion. When you have enough fearlessness you can sometimes stop worrying about your own survival and think about the feelings and thoughts of others. That doesn't happen often without training. It happens to people who undergo spiritual training. It's even better than that. The subconscious mind can sense the idea or the thought of chi, never mind actual chi. If you see that the minds of people are not walled off, this is a natural consequence. It's just normal. The subconscious mind is also creative though. It's hard to be sure what is being passively sensed and what is being actively created, and ultimately there may be no actual difference between passive sensing and active creation. If this kind of things interests you, fine, I guess. Personally, I like to keep things simple. So I don't think like that. I don't try to figure out the plumbing. If I want a model, I tend to go with science, plus my own psychic models which are relatively simple and highly abstract. I don't think in terms of very specific and concrete energy manifestations such as lower dan tien, energy meridians, different types of energy like chi, jing, shen. I don't find such distinctions useful. I do use the idea of energy, but my idea of it is a lot more abstract and a lot less specific. My energy doesn't flow in meridians. It flows everywhere. I don't store my energy in dan tian. Instead the entire universe is an effortless storehouse of my energy. If my body drops dead, to me, it's like taking 5 dollars from one pocket and putting it into another. There is no gain and no loss. I don't think of death as an energetic exhaustion like many alchemically minded Taoists do. You think that energy is more. I think that energy is less. I think that there are far greater ideas than the idea of energy. So I agree that there is more to it, but you and I have a different idea of what is a richer language. I believe the language of energy while useful, when used alone, is an impoverished language. I don't think you're hurting anyone either. It sounds like fun. It would be cool if you investigated it further and posted more observations and thoughts. Why don't you try some experiments? Do a little bit of the subjective yogic science.

How do I know when I am warm? How do I know when I am hot? For one thing, I am never looking at the top of my head. Secondly, I can taste what's in my mouth, but I can't taste what's in the mouths of others. I can't leave myself. Even if I let go myself, I am still there in my not-me form. I am never truly gone. The same way space allows objects to pass through it. Naturally. It all depends on what you want to consider real. What is the requirement for a thing, or an event, a situation to be considered real? Is there the requirement? Or even is there any set of requirements which determine that a thing or a situation is real? Think about this. If I am an echo, whose echo am I? Echoes have no meaning without the source of sound. If you try to identify whose echo are you, you'll have trouble, but don't take my word for it. Try it. I have no source.

I know I am not a reflection though. I am present to myself in a way other people aren't present to me. I am with myself all the time. Others come and go. If any person is real and if any people are echos, I am real and all others are echoes. Besides... Suppose I am merely an echo. In that case, obviously I don't "get what I deserve." If I am merely an echo, my actions have no moral content at all, and all talk of deserving and/or not deserving is wasted.

Don't lose the forest for the trees. It's very simple here. Girls like you. Meditating in your manner makes you more approachable and it also makes others want to share in your being. That's all there is to it. If you have a very pleasant being that people want to share, but you seem lofty and remote, or perhaps you've been doing wrathful meditations for the last month, people won't be hitting on you as much. Another example of someone not approachable is someone who is ready and prepared to be very judgmental and critical without any sense of measure. People can sense that too. They call it "uptight." If you are open and approachable, and yet your inner being is turbulent or depressed, people will naturally not want to bask in your being. Don't you see this? It's not something like chi or jing. Your face betrays you. It's how you comport yourself. It's how you sit and how you walk. People may not consciously notice anything special, but their subconscious mind will notice everything. I'm not saying anything about chi or jing here. I am just saying you really don't need to resort to any overly exotic explanations. Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe you are actually unapproachable and turbulent and yet despite all this all the chicks still want to talk to you just because your chi drives them crazy, even though talking to you hurts their being and feels bad, they just can't resist your chi. Do let me know.

While I agree with what you're saying, you have to remember that different people have different communication styles. There are some people who naturally swear a lot and who are at the same time quite refined intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Some people think that swearing is really not that big of a deal. I am one of those people. I also like to swear from time to time. Sometimes I go months without swearing. Other times I swear every day for weeks on end. I don't blame myself for this and I don't strive to "get better" because I don't think what I do is wrong. It's just how I talk. The reason I talk this way is that I feel sometimes I must swear to really correctly and truthfully convey how I feel and not just how I think. I feel like at times self-censoring in that manner is just meaningless and superficial sugar-coating. And of all the sins, I hate superficiality the worst. I know a lot of people who have polite mouths but rude hearts. I have a polite heart but a rude mouth and that suits me fine. So be careful CowTow what you ask for. I have respect you over the years on this forum, and I believe you've at least respect some of the things I said as well. So know this -- your kind of talk has the potential to alienate you from people like me. I detest those who demand perfect decorum at all times. I'll go further. I detest those who prize decorum as a big value in general. I do value decorum, but on the list of values, it is nowhere near the top. It would be lucky to even reach the middle of my list. I think decorum actively interferes in discussion more often than it helps. I also think people are naturally reasonable with their choice of words most of the times, and the few times they do curse, they've had a reason to, and it's best to just listen up. While you are preaching on the morality of talking, you should preach on the morality of listening too. It's a flawed and immoral listener who only wants to hear the sweet sounds. Real listeners hear the curses, the growls, the gnashing of teeth, they hear it all. They don't filter and they don't demand the world to begin filtering itself for their benefit. It sure as fuck helps to use the words to come to your mind at times. The fact that we can't tolerate things like this is a flaw in us. When it comes to cursing I make the following distinctions, and I hope this will be helpful to you: 1. Does the person curse all the time? If yes, did they grow up in an environment where this was normal? If yes, they probably don't mean anything bad by it. Advise the person not to eliminate cursing, but to limit cursing to only those occasions that really warrant it, to keep it meaningful. If you curse all the time, curses lose their meaning, as they aren't supposed to be entirely ordinary (and yet they are in many people's dialects). So notice how soft is the advice here? It's not a harsh "stop it, you evil being." It's a soft, "save it for when it really matters" or "I don't mind the cursing, but it's hard to discern the meaning of what you're saying when you interrupt yourself that much." So you're saying you don't mind the cursing, but it's just a matter of convenience and understanding. You'd like to understand your conversational partner, and just knowing that is flattering, so the person is a lot more likely to moderate their cursing in that case. But if you ask for a flat out abortion of cursing, you're likely to get a "fuck you" response. And you'll deserve it too. 2. Does the person go a long time without cursing and uses curses tastefully and meaningfully when the context is appropriate? If yes, just leave this person be. Don't change a thing. 3. Does the person curse in ways that make no sense, seemingly randomly? This is a problem. Talk to the person to try to find why they are doing that. Obviously you have to use leniency and good judgment. Curses are acknowledged as words of value in the Western and even some Eastern literary worlds. There are lots of literary books all around the world that have curses in them. Don't be so stuck up about the acceptability of words like "fuck" or "cocksucker." Don't get on your moral high horse over such trivialities. When people do something bad, even if they do it politely -- that's a problem. When people do nothing but are verbally noisy, it is a nuisance at most -- practice your Buddhist tolerance here. I agree with this 100%. Ah... this is a tricky one. Any kind of stuckness, or commitment is passion. Being stuck in neutral all the time is also passion. One would think someone of your refined understanding would know this. There are two levels of dispassion. One is dispassion with regard to outer phenomena. This is what you're talking about. It's when someone curses you out, and yet you maintain calm. It's when things go wrong, but you aren't moved off your lotus seat. It's when the whole world crumbles and yet your mind is undisturbed and remains immovable. That's dispassion with regard to outer phenomena. Dispassion with regard to inner phenomena means that when you get angry, you don't try to regulate it. When you do find yourself regulating your anger, you don't try to stop regulating it. When you think about some topic obsessively, you don't correct that. But when you decide to correct yourself and stop the obsessive thinking, you don't correct that correction either. This is something mystical. It means you have enough flexibility to be a little crazy, spontaneous, honest, and uncensored. And it means you have enough wisdom to not turn wildness into a commitment -- this would lead to inner stuckness. So this means sometimes you restrain yourself. Sometimes you don't. And you know both. It means you know that it's OK to care about some things. It's OK to be passionate. But you know when and how to cool down too. Most people don't really understand that they can attain dispassion to inner phenomena as well as the outer. But your dispassion is completely off-track if you're dispassionate toward outer phenomena while you keep your inner world in a rigid fist and have no idea how to let yourself go and be, even if 'to be' means you would actually care about some things and be passionate at times about some things. Middle way between extremes. Don't let dispassion become an extreme. Don't let dispassion become a rigid dogma or the medicine will become the poison. ---------------- As for what goonis said, I agree with her about moderations and dangers thereof. Most forums turn to shit because of overmoderation. Everyone keeps swearing how not moderating will result in a destruction of the forum, and yet I know forums that were destroyed by overmoderation and I know of *no* forums that were destroyed by lack of moderation. I am talking about people who claim to be sincere participants. There is one exception -- I do know many forums that failed due to spammers taking control of them. I think spammers are a separate issue. Spammers are not rude. Spammers are not politically incorrect. Spammers just want to sell their crap. So when I am talking about not knowing any forums that were ruined by undermoderation, I am talking about sincere participants, even if they are angry, rude, curse a lot, what have you.

This is a very interesting article. Thanks for posting.

This is where I disagree with Buddha. In Buddha's opinion, it's only a matter of time before your karma matures into karma vipaka. Thus, depending on your intentions, you will get echoes from those intentions sooner or later. I don't believe this the way Buddha explained. Actions do have consequences, but... and this is an important but... these consequences are determined by so many factors, that by the time you get something back to you, your hand in it is quite small if you can even detect it at all. Consider that at least to a great extent (if not to say always) what we observe in the natural world operates by the laws of physics. So if I get hit by a tornado and die, did I deserve it? Absolutely not. It was an act of nature that has all kinds of causes, but not one of these causes is tied to my volition -- at least not when I am operating under the physicalist mindset anyway. The mindset conditions intention. So if my operating mindset is largely a physicalist one, then guess what, the nature patterns I experience are what I "deserve", namely the deterministic (with elements of randomness!) physical patterns, which is to say, I don't deserve any of them. So in a very very ultimate sense, if we can pierce the veil of physicality, we can say I deserve them, but at that level I am pretty much omnipotent, so it's not a very useful level to visit in day to day conversation. In day to day conversation I am just a man, a regular fallible man, and I don't deserve any natural patterns. Of course nature is 99.9% predictable. Most of our problems don't come from nature. They come from people. Do I deserve how people relate to me? This depends on whether or not you believe in free will. If I have a free will, I am free to do something very much undeserved to another being. Obviously this works in reverse too. This is true for positive and negative cases. So I can undeservedly punish others and be undeservedly punished by others. Likewise I can undeservedly reward others and be undeservedly rewarded by others. If other people were only a reflections of my past volition, it would imply that I am the only real person in the universe and all other people are just echoes. I don't subscribe to this mindset. That's what I would call 'solipsism'. So since I do believe in free will, there is a strange situation happening. Obviously other people are not acting completely separate from my actions. At the same time, other people, while influenced by my actions, are not governed by them -- they have their own free wills. So I would say that the most important part of other people's actions toward me is their own responsibility and only a tiny part of other people's actions is a reflection of my own past intention. And the same is true in reverse. I am responsible for how I treat others and only a tiny fraction of my actions toward others can be said to be an 'echo' of other people's intentions. If I didn't believe this, I wouldn't honestly feel responsible for my actions and I couldn't honestly hold others responsible for their actions as well. So numerous sentient beings with free will really throws a huge wrench into the idea of perfect and perfectly deserved fruition of intent. Our intent still matters and it still has effects and some of those effects are lasting, but to say we get what we deserve is really simpleminded, wrong, and it allows people to be cold-hearted to others who are in need of support or in pain. I can't tell you how many libertarians I've known who'd walk past a homeless person on the street being all smug, thinking, "This lazy loser deserves it." That's a wrong attitude. Also the idea that people get what they deserve is what's responsible for the longevity of the hideous and unjust caste system in India. So in some ways we do get what we deserve, but in many important ways we don't and it's damn hard, if not impossible, to tell what's what. It's more compassionate to at least start with the assumption that one doesn't deserve any troubles, learn about the situation, and then if necessary, change your mind. But it's very harmful to enter into new situations already being smugly sure that everyone deserved what they got before you even learned a damn thing about the situation. A person who is tremendously enlightened, who has pierced all the veils and whose operating and not just the ultimate mindset is a non-physicalist one, such person perhaps gets mostly what one deserves. Mostly! Not even then is it perfect. Even then there are elements of surprise and unpredictability. The sphere of influence of an enlightened being is incalculably larger than an ordinary being, but influence never becomes outright control. Influence just get arbitrarily refined, but it never enters into a state of flawless control; not even upon enlightenment. So when we act, when we exercise our intent, we are exercising influence and never control. So we're not helpless, and we have an important amount of influence over our lives, but we don't have outright control, and no one does.

This person seems knowledgeable, but in all honesty, I never liked any commentaries. In almost every single case I found the commentary to not just be useless, but to actually deviate and distort the meaning and the intent of the text they comment on. I prefer to read the original text and see where it takes me. A lot of the problems in our world come from the fact that people rely on the commentaries, interpretations, additions and so on. If you are really a sage, don't comment. Just write the best of your own vision in a way that's as difficult as possible to misinterpret as you can make it. If you limit yourself only to a commentary, it's obvious you don't consider yourself very good, and neither should I.

:lol: Good one!

I'm very sad for your and our loss Santiago. As I read this, I feel like I am in a movie. It's so hard to believe. Is it real? I am in disbelief.

Is it possible that he's just skinny? You know, normal, relatively healthy skinny person like many others? Sometimes being different is not a disease. It all depends on how you feel. christoff, do you feel sick? Did you go to the doctor because you were worried about being skinny? Or did you actually feel ill? This is important. If you feel ill, there may be a serious problem and you need to see a doctor again. I would advise a western doctor in addition to the eastern one, at least for a second opinion. If you don't feel ill, and it's just your weight, exercise! (within reason of course!)

This is idiotic. Wisdom doesn't bring grief.

Is semen really yin though? I suggest you eat a decent diet and exercise. I mean do squats with some weight, do pull ups, etc. Use good heavy resistance. But don't exercise to exhaustion or to the breaking point. When you exercise aim to spend about 50-70% of your strength each set. You will put on weight eventually. It might take some time though. Yang means you're too hyper. This means you need to relax and slow down, especially mentally. When you relax and slow down mentally your body will soon follow.

I agree with you. But when you're chatting, if you think in the back of your mind "maybe I shouldn't be chatting" or if you think "chatting like this ruins the perfect zen calm", that's what I would call "half-assed" or "half-hearted". So when I said to be full-hearted, I meant to avoid these kinds of hesitations. He who hesitates is lost.

At a very deep level maybe you can say we all want the same thing. But if you just say "we all want the same thing" that ignores all the other levels of being where we don't. I wouldn't say that what you're saying is categorically wrong. There is some truth to it. But is it the complete truth? To me, what's more important is not whether or not we want the same thing, but whether or not we can haggle in a half-civilized manner. If we can haggle, then it's OK to want different things.