liminal_luke

Me neither. What´s going on between the US and Iran seems like such a big thing, part of me wants to go there. But then I think about the mini-war that could create right here and it doesn´t seem worth it.

I agree: nuts and seeds are healthful foods. Like many other healthful foods, however, there´s reason not to overdo. Here´s a good rundown on the benefits and potential drawbacks of various nuts... https://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-definitive-guide-to-nuts/

Yikes!

' a silver lining to every cloud

Fortunately, he´s not alone.

Well said. I believe we are all on a journey towards "realization of our inherent complete nature." It can be a solo journey but most people´s evolution is furthered by partnership. Marriage is in service of exactly this realization and this is why marriage is so notoriously difficult.

One obvious benefit of male orgasm -- though certainly not the only benefit and arguably not the best -- is conception. As much as I hate to admit it, the process of people-making through heterosexual sex is high alchemy and quite majestic. My understanding is that Taoists follow nature and nature is abundantly and uninhibitedly sexual. Orgasm gets a bad name these days, especially among men, because more than a few of us stay up all night staring at a screen full of disembodied body parts, chat online with the alledged, and often rageful, owners of said body parts, use such technological pseudo-intimacy to avoid real intimacy with both ourselves and others. In my view, such activity is neither natural nor, truth be told, pleasurable. It´s not so different from food. Bad things will happen if we eat only Twinkies but starvation is not the best, or only, alternative.

It´s absolutely possible to have too much money. There are even psychologists who specialize in the problems of the excessively moneyed. How much is too much depends very much on the person -- as does how much is too little. Some people are gifted (saddled?) with destinies that require riches. There are philanthropists who receive great personal satisfaction, and do much good, putting money to work preserving the Amazon, funding cancer research, fighting hunger. Other well-to-do folks spend on themselves in a way that gives them pleasure and I, for one, don´t begrudge them their wealth -- those Picassos aren´t gonna buy themselves. Many people have more money than is good for them. Money can isolate people from the world and make people lonely. It can enable sloth and all manner of vice and addiction. Money is interpersonally tricky. I often think I could do with more money, but the truth is that I probably have just the right amount.

Question for any of our resident jing experts who care to reply, @dwai @freeform @Taomeow. Suppose a Bum has modest aims (health and happiness) and wants to relate to their jing in an optimum way -- what advice would you give?

This bit belongs in your Best-of-the-Bums anthology.

Add daily to my word collection of favorite words. Recognize that feelings are just feelings. They won´t kill me and no feeling necessitates the eating of a chocolate chip cookie. Stop glomming onto my partner energetically. (I´ll know I´ve succeeded when I can feel happy when he´s sad.)

a fantasy story A woman intuits that something went terribly wrong with humanity thousands of years ago and she wants to set things right. So she makes herself powerful and expansive and gathers together alchemical energies from the far corners of the universe and far back in time. The energetics involved are impossibly huge but somehow she manages to condense them on her person in such a way that nobody notices the transformation. Perhaps the energies go into an amulet in her purse or into a piece of jewelry she wears. Perhaps they are integrated into her body but in a hidden way. She is disguised. Walking around living a perfectly normal life while carrying around the seeds of worldly transformation. Nobody knows. That part is important, the hiddenness. Perhaps she has conjured up a retrodactyl to help in an aspect of this process. Perhaps she has herself become, in some sense, a retrodactyl. She continues to live out her ordinary life waiting for the right moment to put the energetic elements she has gathered to some beneficial use.

OK, I´ll take another flying leap backwards and just throw out some associations. My sense of you, Taomeow, is that you are someone who is deeply concerned with all things retro. And I don´t mean retro as in the sixties. I mean retro as in pre-civilization. Retro as in dinosaur days. Witness your Sumeria thread, for instance. You are someone who is unusually in touch with the energetic echo of humanity as it existed before the dubious benefits of "civiliation." Perhaps you are homesick for that precivilized world, a world where retrodactyls roamed the planet. So I´m wondering if the retro in retrodactyl has anything to do with the idea of returning or recapturing what was pristine and uncorrupted about that time.

Forgive me if I´m treading into an area where you don´t want to go salaam123, but I have an observation. Often it´s the people who self-identify as addicted to porn or sex who are most sex-negative. Who would think that the people who use porn the most are also the people who are most judgmental of porn use and masturbation? Strange but true. I think it´s possible that to really come to terms with your use of porn you´ll need to reexamine how you feel about sexuality in general.

I´ll take a stab. Just this morning I got a chuckle over your post in the What Made You Laugh Today thread about reading "Fuck Off" backwards. Could retrodactyl refer to a poem which has dactyl meter when read backwards?

Who makes dessert in Burger King´s family? Dairy Queen

You can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others. -Katherine Whitehorn

Me too. Is this a good sign?

Hugs are OK, though I prefer the conventional in-person variety. I´ll take a pass on the holiday greetings but gladly accept offers of eggnog. This constellation of preferences doubtless reveals something about my personality and spiritual level. If you´re a highly involved being with special insights into my process, no offense, but please don´t tell me: I´m heaven-bound but taking the scenic route.

I´ve been finding the 5 rhythms of Gabriel Roth quite therapeutic.

Silent Thunder, Holy Rain All is calm, life´s alright. He walks barefoot in the early morn. He won´t judge you even if you watch porn. So...sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent Thunder, Holy Rain Reading him, never a pain. He lives in the now, says connection is king. Not afraid to die or let go of anything. So...sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.

Interesting distinction between practices that build the self and those that destroy the self. At first blush, these would seem to be diametrically opposed goals but I see them as complementary. You´ve got to make the batter before ya can grill up the pancakes. Actually, this isn´t quite right. It´s not such a linear process, not one thing happening after another. It´s more like breathing in and breathing out, complementary activities that support each other. A healthy sense of self makes dissolution possible and vice versa. Or at least this is what I think.

Mixing practices and looking for advice? Earl Grey tells it like it is, he doesn´t care about nice. Chia says be celibate, get your immortal peach. Freeform says be careful, you´ll become perverted leech. Taomeow knows her yin and yang, she´s a genius cat But if you try to fight her, she´ll swat you like a knat. Guys come here to get power, attract all the girls It´s a real Taobum bummer, why aren´t you casting pearls?