goldisheavy

This is very revealing of your character. I neither respect nor disrespect others. In other words, I do not take any fixed attitude toward beings. Instead I do have some relatively fixed attitudes toward certain ideas, and actions that emanate when those ideas are put into practice. Upon the final analysis, nothing of mine is fixed though. I gave you a story from one of the founders of Daoism. And you dismiss it as mere fancy talk. You are a troll Marblehead. You don't believe in any Daoism or anything at all. It is only obvious. Why are you here? At least, if you're a troll, you should enjoy being insulted.

Can being offended also be a strength? When is it a weakness and when is it a strength? Maybe being offended over silly things is a weakness, but being offended over things that honestly matter is a strength? Something worth considering, especially when you realize that the possibility of never feeling offended is practically zero. If you're going to be offended anyway at some point, let it be worth it. Be offended over something that actually matters.

Marblehead, what's up with your fetish for decorum? Don't you care about anything beyond appearances? So if things look good, they are good, eh? So we could be pouring poison in each other's cups, but if we smile and are polite while doing it, that's GREAT! That's the gentleman's way! I am to say. The division between concepts and non-conceptual is just another concept that Goldstein is railing against. Therefore Goldstein is a moron, or a hypocrite, to be more precise.

Have you thought why though? Could it be I am correct because there is no such thing as objective reality? Hm.... Something to consider. Impossible. Do you know how preferences work? Suppose I value cogent reasoning. Due to such preference, any time I encounter a barrage of irrelevant or incoherent statement as "an argument", I will view it as an insult, even if you work "hard" to maintain superficial decorum. What offends me is the essence of what you are doing and not the superficial aspects of it. I don't mind the quality of the decorum, I mind the meaning of what you're saying. It's the overall meaning I find offensive. Why? It's simply because of my preference! So my choice is to: 1. Change my preference (this needs a damn good reason). 2. Remain insulted by you and say so to you, and if I perceive that you're not here to communicate, just insult you right back, since we're not really having a true discussion anyway, there is no loss (unless you count the loss of decorum as a significant loss, which I do not). 3. Remain insulted, but pretend I am fine, and say nothing, or even worse, lie about peace and love and all that fuzzy New Age stuff. Seems option 2 is the best one in my value system. You don't realize this, but you constantly insult me Marblehead. I know you work hard to appear pleasant at a superficial level, this is what I call "decorum", but I just don't value that as much as the deeper meaning of your actions. And the deeper meaning is that you don't give a rats ass about any opinion other than your own. That's what your non-engagement on the forum conveys crystal clear to me. So I feel free to respond in kind. Well, you don't value my opinion?? Fine. I don't value yours either. No skin off my back.

This is what I call "naive anti-conceptualism." It's a stupid trend in American Zen. This guy would be right at home with some Christian anti-intellectuals. That's not a complement, btw.

I wouldn't say "always." So, if all those people had objective reality, this really would be an enormous task, wouldn't it? Just think of all the incredible inertia I would have to overcome. One against billions. Even if I was an idiot who believed such things, the task would be possible to accomplish. Haven't you heard the Taoist story about the crazy fool who wanted to remove the mountain? Obviously not, or you wouldn't open your mouth here in the manner that you do. So let me tell you. Once upon a time there was a poor farmer who lived on the side of the mountain. He always had to go around the mountain to get to the farming fields, and one day he decided that enough is enough, and that now he will remove the mountain. So the old farmer got a shovel and started digging. There was a local "wise" man who saw the old farmer digging, and asked, "What are you doing?" "I am moving this mountain out of the way. It's obstructing the path from my house to the fields." "Fool, don't you understand how big this mountain is? You'll never move it! Hahahah!" "No, the fool here is you. I am going to dig until the end of my days. After that, my sons will dig. Then my sons' sons. Then my sons' sons' sons. And so on, until the mountain is moved." Now the spirit that lived in the mountain heard this, and begin to tremble in fear, because upon hearing this, he realized that the farmer's resolve was unshakable. So the spirit made a trip to the Jade Emperor's palace and complained to the Jade Emperor, "You know, there is a farmer there that is disturbing my mountain. He has resolved himself to move the mountain!" And the Jade Emperor replied, "No kidding?? Is there a human who can muster such diamond-like resolve? I don't believe it! Let me take a look-see." So the Jade Emperor looked inside the heart of the man, and indeed, the resolve was diamond-like. The Jade Emperor was so pleased and amused, that he said, "Normally we don't do this, but this man is so outstanding in his resolve, I am going to send two Titans to move the mountain tomorrow morning." And lo, the mountain was summarily moved right the next day, much to the mountain spirit's chagrin. Nice, eh? There is a really deep and profound point in that story. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this story is from Liezi (Lieh Tzu). Of course not. What gives me that right is the fact that you simply make statements without actually engaging in any real discussion. So we could be make arguments here that objective reality is not real, and what you will do is come in, ignore what we are saying, and simply declare, "Yo guys, objective reality exists, and is real." That's it. Then you start ranting about some irrelevant story and flood the forum with useless and irrelevant-to-the-argument junk. It's your manner of engaging, or rather non-engaging, that elicits my comments to you.

Your experiences are not necessarily applicable to me. They are applicable to you. It's not that I want it either. I just weigh two alternatives: pretense vs. insults, and I would rather take an odd insult or two than be pretentious. If you want to send me PMs, I welcome them. However I don't agree to sending you any PMs unless I want to PM you for some reason. Don't contradict yourself.

This is exactly how everything works. Qi works like that. Vodoo. Objectivity. Meditation. Ignorance. Enlightenment. It all has this same exact nature as demonstrated in the video. Darren is not showing that it's fake. The power is real. But what's real about it is higher-level than what we think it is. In other words, it's not Qi, it's the belief in Qi. It's not objectivity, it's the belief in objectivity. Etc. It's the beliefs and investment into them (arguably if you don't invest yourself into a belief, it's not something you believe in) that makes appearances credible. I've discovered this long time ago. This is why I don't follow Qi or Prana or Chakras or any such thing. But at the same time, I also don't follow objective reality, or physicalism and other such beliefs. It's all the same crap, just that some crap is more popular and more in-style than other crap.

I prefer that you insult me. This gives me a chance to be honest and open. If being honest means I have to take some insults from you, that's the price I am willing to pay. Bring it on!

First of all, while I respect Buddhist teachings up to a point, I am not a Buddhist. Never have been. Never will be. I reserve the right to free thinking, which absolutely precludes me from becoming a Buddhist. Secondly, I think the idea of objective reality has been doing a lot of harm in my life. Thus I have decided to uproot it (and this means I will be uprooting it together with anything that is foolish enough to attach itself to that idea too). Why should such burden be mine? I must be open-minded so that you can have the luxury of being a moron? No sir. That will not do. The fixated one is you, don't you agree? How are you not fixated in your preferences? Are you high? Take an honest look at yourself and your preferences. Stop lying. Now, if you want to discuss my preferences, please do. So far, you've been discussing my feelings more than my preferences though. You don't want me to feel anything, that's what I gather from you. You don't care what I think, as long as I have no feelings, is that right?

Different does not mean better. You've been insulting me too. Personally I don't have a problem with your insults.

The only ass here is the one in your mind.

I suggest you speak for yourself and only for yourself. Feelings arise from having preferences. As long as my preferences are not unreasonable, neither are my feelings unreasonable.

Like a toy made by the Chinese wage-slaves breaking in my hands, and infecting my brain with an abnormally high lead concentration, while at the same time, hurting and dehumanizing thousands of workers in the course of its production.

Alas, I am a living proof that objective reality does not exist.

I hate it when you speak of yourself in plural form.

I am not surprised.

That's just great. You can't even think coherently. Act first, think later. You truly live that slogan.

Thanks for that bit of pop-Daoism. Sure as heck made it simple and easy.

I've been getting this feeling many many times, especially when I was younger. My 25 year old self would find something my 20 year old self wrote, and I would be in awe. I would be thinking, "This guy is enlightened. Certainly it cannot be me." But it was and it is. My problem was that I had an enormously low self-esteem. I just took it as an axiomatic assumption that I know nothing and I am not worth much in the grand scheme of things. This assumption is as bad as thinking that one knows everything and has nothing to learn. This is why I don't do the false modesty routine as a rule. A few times I had done it, I always regretted it later. Why bow to someone whom I do not consider superior? On the other hand, if someone impresses me such that I actually think that person is superior, by all means I have no problem with bowing or even prostrating myself. It just needs to be honest, and most of the times, it is not honest.

Thinking, speaking, typing, and all other word-producing and word-publishing activities are indeed actions. So saying first action then words makes no sense. Words are actions. Moreover, the mindset is what presages action. The mind is the great charioteer of action. Where mind goes, actions follow. Take care of your mind and actions will follow naturally, without effort. And words are some of the tools available to us to take care of our minds. They are good tools and it's retarded to put them down like this. Stop doing things. Here are some proverbs for you, to counteract your idiocy: Measure twice, cut once. or how about this one Head before feet. Same meaning.

Sloppy Zhang, I agree with everything you're saying. It makes good sense to me. So, with the fact that I am agreeing in mind, I want to say this: while testing things for genuineness of claims is a good idea, an interesting thing there is the selection process for the testing candidates. In other words, if I don't make spiritual statements or strong claims, I am probably not going to be selected by those guys to be tested/investigated. However, even if all my claims are ordinary, I might still be a crappy teacher who teaches crap that doesn't work. So if those guys want to improve the quality of martial arts, they are pretty biased in whom and how they select for investigations. That's not to say that what they do is worthless, but, to my mind, it has a touch of intellectual dishonesty.

Those guys seem to be the "James Randi" of martial arts. Or wannabes at least. To them nothing spiritual exists, and they are out to discredit anyone and anything that can challenge the doctrine of physicalism. Since Vajrasattva made some statements which do not fit into physicalism, they are aroused. This is why they talk about "alarm bells" going off. But why would someone who doesn't believe in anything spiritual be on tbums, that's the question.

I get tired of copypasta myself. It is especially annoying when a person feels free to cut-n-paste entire pagefuls of bland copypasta. It feels like you're not having a real discussion, but instead, you're getting a book tossed at your face. Personally, I always type from myself. I only quote sources when I talk to very orthodox and/or stubborn people who simply won't accept anything else. When I deal with an intelligent person, we can discuss things without any external references.

That's an absurd statement to my mind. I guess I have a very different idea of spirituality. My idea doesn't involve chakras or crystals. It involves challenging our assumptions about the perceived reality. And the 3 Taoist Sages are great for that.