liminal_luke

Ah, OK. I wouldn´t be too quick to blame the translation. I suspect part of my misreading comes from unfamiliarity with the cultural mores of Lermontov´s time and place. For better or worse, it rarely occurs to me to feel grateful as "an antidote to lamenting and complaining."

I don´t think Bennett and Merwin would see eye to eye on the subject of gratitude. Despite some surface similarities between their poems, Bennett treats the topic with more tongue-in-cheek humor. It occurs to me that I could start a companion thread to this one entitled The Spiritual Force of Refusing to Deny the Suckiness of Sucky Things. And I do believe that´s a spiritual force too, every bit as powerful as gratitude, although, alas, there´s no special holiday trumpeting it´s virtue.

Thanks. Although your words aren´t the easiest for me to hear, I sense the sincerity with which they are given. It takes courage to write the thing that everybody knows but few will say, but I suppose I don´t have to tell you that.

I´m not opposed to an abrahamic subforum, but I do think we´ve got a good Taoist thing going here and should safegaurd our slightly countercultural vibe. Would I be here if the forum was called Bums in Christ? Probably not.

Continuing with the poetic theme of giving thanks for occasions of dubious merit, here´s one by W.S. Merwin. Thanks BY W. S. MERWIN Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it standing by the windows looking out in our directions back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you over telephones we are saying thank you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators remembering wars and the police at the door and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you in the banks we are saying thank you in the faces of the officials and the rich and of all who will never change we go on saying thank you thank you with the animals dying around us taking our feelings we are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes of our lives we are saying thank you with the words going out like cells of a brain with the cities growing over us we are saying thank you faster and faster with nobody listening we are saying thank you thank you we are saying and waving dark though it is

Lets not get carried away. ( I´ve never been punished by a bird and would rather not start now.)

This feels important to me and I´m wondering if you could say something more about it. What exactly is an offering and how do you make it? I guess if it was a living person one felt gratitude for one could give a small gift. But how would you make an offering to, say, the dead lineage of teachers who practiced a particular qigong form? Perhaps with incense? Sometimes I´ve started a practice with an expression of gratitude to the practitioners who have come before me. I like doing this and have thought about making it a regular part of my routine.

There were so many ways I could of responded to your last post -- wow, thanks, or "hahaha" all seemed equally appropriate so in the end I settled for a simple like. This first example, however, is definitely worthy of a wow. If I turn this thread into an essay about the "culture war" surrounding transexuality nobody will be grateful to me. So I´ll confine myself to noting that, for some men, the above expression of thankfulness doesn´t trip off the tongue.

No offense intended, @kakapo. Would you like me to edit out the objectionable post?

Thanks, S:C. I do think gratitude is a spiritual force, or can be when it´s genuine. Perhaps not, as Taomeow points out, when it´s "canned" or "stale." I think gratitude is a laser that cuts through emotional armor -- our own and others -- cleaner than most anything else.

Happy Thanksgiving to you too, @Taomeow! A Thanksgiving story. One time a friend invited me to a big Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of his friends, basically four couples and single me. We were all seated and ready to eat but the host wanted us to go around the table and each say what we were grateful for. I was slotted to share last. To a person, everybody said they were grateful for their partner. As you might imagine, by the time they got around to me I wasn´t in a particularly grateful mood. (Now that I´ve been partnered for a long while I know just what I could of said. That I was grateful to be single, to do what I want, when I want and answer to nobody. I didn´t have the perspective at the time.)

@Daniel I half-regret my cake post because it feels a little bit oppositional and ornery to me now -- qualities that my better self prefers not show up in my postings. I guess I´m just wondering what your stake is in this subject, not that it´s really any of my business, I guess. But if you´d care to share a little more about why this topic means something to you, I´d appreciate it. Is it just that you enjoy the debate as an intellectual exercise? Or do you see something pernicious, even evil, in Buddhism and other forms of spirituality that you feel called to root out? There are many things that I don´t agree with but I mostly let them lie. For instance, Christianity as it´s commonly practiced feels icky to me but I don´t bother to engage with prostelitizers. Is there something that´s motivating your avid participation in these threads about non-dualism? Or perhaps you´re just having fun? You don´t owe me or anybody an answer to these kinds of questions, obviously, but if you´d care to share I am curious. LL

It´s Nutella!

It´s as if someone set out to prove chocolate doesn´t exist. This person´s logic was impeccable, their will to debate seemingly endless. In the end, the chocolate believers were forced to give up in the face of the superior intellect of the chocolate skeptic. Powering down their computers, they wiped their mouths with dirty brown napkins and sliced up more delicious cake. So good!

Perhaps my dream of becoming a lead singer isn´t as unrealistic as I thought.

A cat sauntered over, pulled out a small writing pad and pen, and gave the raucous group a weary smile. The white russian asked for a custom drink with vodka and cream, the Dutch dude asked for separate checks, the Mexican mumbled something in Spanish, and the American kicked off her heels revealing gorgeously stockinged feet.. She said stillettos were hell to walk in. It was going to be a long night.

...

If ya fancy a larger Bums meetup, look for me in the next booth over, chowing down with the old, fat, bald cigar-smoking Russian.

Congratulations, Maddie! There´s a technical Buddhist term for the spiritual level characterized by refusal to debate on the internet -- stream entry.

I think some people are turned off from Buddhism, at least as it´s often presented, because they delight in the particularity of things. There´s a kind of spirituality that seeks to honor and respect the unique essence - the separate self, if you will - of each living thing. Any philosophy or doctrine which appears to smush things together into an undifferentiated sameness is, from this point of view, a little bit evil. I live in Mexico and enjoy how different it is from the United States where I was born. In many ways, the world is getting smaller and one place is getting to be more like another. But I hope that Mexico doesn´t lose it´s special character in a global nondual soup.

Have you spent much time with Buddhists? In my experience, they are some of the most caring people around. I am sure it happens but its hard to imagine any of the Western sangha members of my acquintance kicking a cat.

Years ago, inspired by my dark meditating taoist teacher, I crawled deep inside a cavern crawlspace in Washingtons famed Ape Caves, sat crosslegged, and proceeded to do my thing. I thought I would be alone but soon two spelunkers came along and shined their flashlight directly on me. First guy: I think thats a person up in there. Second guy: No, thats just a bunch of garbage.

Thanks, exorcist_1699. To me, your post has the ring of truth, particularly the paragraph about no-mind. We do, however, have different ideas about the beginning of old age.

Thanks, Maddie. For better or worse, the forum occasionally attracts people with, shall we say, issues. Appreciate your willingness to share what you know. LL

I have a question, if you dont mind. What is the relationship, if any, between the health of a physical organ and the quality of chi in the meridian of the same name? I know, for instance, that the kidney in western medicine is not the same thing as the kidney system in TCM. But if a person had imbalanced kidney chi, would that be a sign that there was something wrong with their physical kidneys? If a person, tonified his kidney chi would he be improving the health of his physical kidneys? Or is one really nothing to do with the other? Thanks! @Maddie