Walker

Gendao, You are ridiculous.

@MegaMind I was just thinking about how you suffer in a way that's really similar to me and my teammates, the other Chicago Bulls. It's tough. And it's not fair. But there are diamonds in any rough, silver linings in any cloud, and still-edible, undigested, wholesome kernels of corn in any piece of poop (so I'm told). To me, the bright side of these dark Mo Pai wars is that I met somebody I can relate to. I met you. Since we're practically like blood brothers, I have decided that, using the powers vested in me by several PDFs, still-functional VHS tapes of the Three-Peat Repeat games, and a well worn copy of Bad As I Wanna Be, I AM GOING TO PERSONALLY INDUCT YOU INTO MY TEAM, THE CHICAGO BULLS!!!!!!!!!!!! Yah! Welcome! Just to prove that I am what I say I am, here is my jersey: Most importantly, using this snazzy official website, I have decided to bless you with your very own jersey. You will have to pay for it yourself (I don't accept donations, sorry), but that will give you a chance to make sure there aren't any typos or anything. However, I figured that since you and I are soooooo alike that it's practically like we're bunkmates, I was hoping we could share the same number. It would mean a lot to me. It looks kinda like a taiji diagram, doesn't it? One yin, one yang, fit snuggly and squishily and perfectly together. So here's your jersey, hope you like it! I'm so happy to have found people I can finally relate to! I never thought that I would be accepted into a secret, ancient, oriental kung-fu brother's heart the way you have accepted me. But I guess that's what they say about friendship, it can start anywhere! Toodles!

That's exactly how we Chicago Bulls feel! Well, imagine how we feel... Every year we have to compete with alllll the fucking other teams in the NBA, allll over again. Gets boring! Dude, if we Chicago Bulls had billions of dollars instead of millions, we would buy the NBA, cancel all future competitions, and just turn all stadiums into giant shrines to MJ #23 (the greatest!), just as God and, presumably, John Chang would want! So, I totally understand your frustration, brother. I totally agree. Sometimes I envy those people who aren't actually in the Bulls like I am. They are spared from so much unnecessary suffering.

I like the sound of that! And I love free stuff! Ok, wait, wait... Wait! O M G @MegaMind You mean you're trying to entice me into leaving the Chicago Bulls, And joining the 墨派?? Is that an official invitation, @MegaMind?? 'Cause if it is, I'm flattered! I Am Flattered!

Well, hmm, it seems like a simple, straightforward, yes or no question to me, @MegaMind. Why does it seem loaded to you? Could you please elaborate for us? Are you sure (and I hate saying this cause I don't wanna be overly presumptuous) they you're not, y'know, maybe projecting a little bit of something onto my question from your end? I mean, could ya would ya explain, just what do you think my question is loaded with that makes it so dannnngerous and difffficult to answer? Once you explain that, I can try and unload the question, make it a bit simpler. But it does already seem pretty simple to be, dear official member of an ancient lineage with a mega mind, @MegaMind. Can't you just simply tell me if you (speaking to the collective "you's" of the Mo Pai here, not just you--I wanna hear what "we" think of this) acknowledge my status as a, member of the Chicago Bulls? Or no? It's not that complicated, dude! Why would you even say something like that? I haven't wanted to talk about Kim and Jostas, I haven't wanted to watch foot videos, I certainly don't want to pry into your relationship with your wife. Since you brought it up, @MegaMind, well, obviously domestic violence is criminal and morally wrong, and I wish you would not ever do that. But--and call me callous for taking the spot light off of your family issues and back into little old me--the thing we're talking about is whether or not I'm a Chicago Bull... Or, if you can't answer that one, we can talk about why you refuse to deal with the simple question. I have lots and lots of Chicago Bulls books and videos. And secret notes my friends took. And even some of Coach Jackson's training memos to the team that we got on eBay. Therefore I am a Chicago Bull, you mean to say, right? Please confirm. (You just gave me a loaded roundabout answer. If what you have makes you an official member of the Mo pai, then what we have makes us official Chicago Bulls, right??? Can I interpret your loaded answer in this way, @MegaMind???) I just wanna be like Mike. I'm pursuing basketball. I don't wanna switch sports, not even to play for the White Sox B-team, but thanks! By the way, please don't forget to answer my simple question this time, @MegaMind! You can doooo it! You really can!

@MegaMind, are you allergic to Yes or No questions? All I want to know is if you agree with my assessment from the scenario I described that I am a member of the Chicago bulls, an NBA team. You keep telling me about Jim and Kostas, and now somehow you're trying to show me a video of a man rubbing his stick with his feet or something (like I said, not interested in that stuff, sorry!). Well, I tell ya, @MegaMind, alls I wants to know is if you think I'm on the Chicago Bulls basketball team, yes, or no? Which is it? 囗 Y 囗 N Thanks!

I have no idea what you're talking about and foot fetishes aren't really my thing, so forgive me for not opening the video. I'm worried it might be NSFW or something. You really beat around the bush, huh? Try as I might, @MegaMind, I really just can't figure it out. Is what you're saying with all those words up there is that you agree that I am a Chicago Bull?

But there are people in our forum who played H.O.R.S.E. with Reggie Miller. And our secretary once sat next to Chauncey Billups at an Arby's. So technically...

Well, I just wanna know if he would say I'm a Chicago Bull or not. Call me a Self-centered Sally, but I kinda thought everybody would wanna know. I kinda figured maybe we could even agree that there's no real need for this thread to go forward till he answers the question. I was kinda hoping everybody could help me get to the bottom of this. I mean, I just wanna know, @MegaMind, am I a Chicago Bull? Please tell me.

Actually I've got more faith in @MegaMind than that. He's strayed from the script even right here in this thread, for instance when he shared that spiffy video of a policeman singing a Taylor Swift song with me. So he's actually quite flexible. But I wonder why he won't answer my question about the Chicago Bulls? In case @MegaMind forgot the scenario I'll paste it again, and fill in some important info I forgot to add before in bold. In the 1990s a friend of mine took part in a basketball camp run by the Chicago Bulls. They got to learn b-ball with the pros, big names like Jordan and Pippen, firsthand! Coach Phil Jackson was there and did most of the teaching. My friend noted that Jackson constantly emphasized to the attendees "I'm teaching you all exactly the same stuff I say to Mike and Scottie every single day, so listen up!" different friend of mine was so lucky that his mom even knew Jordan, and Jordan personally instructed him on the court whenever his family visited MJ's mansion. MJ always said "I'm giving you the exact same tips I give the guys on the team." Both of my friends took voluminous notes on everything they learned from these NBA stars (I'm saying--they lovehoops!), most of which they typed up and keep secret in PDF files they don't show to just anybody. Well, the first friend obviously hasn't been to a basketball camp for teenagers in over two decades, and the other guy's mom and MJ lost contact over the years, so he hasn't seen Jordan since like '01 or '02. Nevertheless, my two friends started a members only forum for discussing basketball training tips and strategies to use on the court in competition that they learned straight from the greats. The forum even attracted some other guys who went to Bulls camps in the 90s who share their experiences and ideas. On top of that, we have tons of video showing how the Bulls played in the 90s, which proves that they were fucking awesome (the best!) and which inspires us all deeply. So, I'm a member of that members-only online basketball club, founded by guys who actually trained directly under Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman in their heydey. Therefore, I am a member of the Chicago Bulls. Therefore, if you join our internet forum, you too will be a member of the Chicago Bulls. @MegaMind, what do you think of the final two statements. I'm not asking about Kostas or Jim or John or anybody else. Am I a Chicago Bull?

@MegaMind, why are you willing to address questions about your sexuality but not answer my question about the Chicago Bulls? The question is not going away.

I didn't say anything about Jim and Kostas in the segment you quoted, @MegaMind. How about you address the question, @MegaMind? Given the scenario I described: Do you think I am a member of the Chicago Bulls? Do you think I can induct other people into the Chicago Bulls?

@MegaMind Please wouldja assess the following statement for me? In the 1990s a friend of mine took part in a basketball camp run by the Chicago Bulls. They got to learn b-ball with the pros, big names like Jordan and Pippen, firsthand! A different friend of mine was so lucky that his mom even knew Jordan, and Jordan personally instructed him on the court whenever his family visited MJ's mansion. Both of my friends took voluminous notes on everything they learned from these NBA stars (I'm saying--they love hoops!), most of which they typed up and keep secret in PDF files they don't show to just anybody. Well, the first friend obviously hasn't been to a basketball camp for teenagers in over two decades, and the other guy's mom and MJ lost contact over the years, so he hasn't seen Jordan since like '01 or '02. Nevertheless, my two friends started a members only forum for discussing basketball training tips and strategies to use on the court in competition that they learned straight from the greats. The forum even attracted some other guys who went to Bulls camps in the 90s who share their experiences and ideas. On top of that, we have tons of video showing how the Bulls played in the 90s, which proves that they were fucking awesome (the best!) and which inspires us all deeply. So, I'm a member of that members-only online basketball club, founded by guys who actually trained directly under Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman in their heydey. Therefore, I am a member of the Chicago Bulls. Therefore, if you join our internet forum, you too will be a member of the Chicago Bulls. Please let me know what you think of the above, MegaMind. Thank you!

Wait, so we still get to fight about the other 20%, right? Very interesting way of putting things! What you say about the mingmen in taijiquan is also very interesting, but barring the chance to talk to you about it in person and see/feel demonstration (as well as see how it lines up with what I've learned), all I can say is that I agree that too much know-how about the mingmen has been kept secret and as a result a lot of instruction has suffered. And yes, arguments about "what shifu said" on this topic tend to be almost as bad as Mopai threads, so thank Laozi we're not gonna have to have one!

Unfortunately this is not the case. To their great detriment and harm, a great many people do "fake" the full lotus. This is because it is possible to "cheat" to cross the legs into the full-lotus position, and the part of the body that is "cheating" is totally out of one's sight while one does this. One is easily fooled, however, because looking down the legs seem to be folded up nicely. The place where the cheating I am talking about takes place is in the lumbar region. When a person's mingmen (and associated regions, including the kua) is not open in such a way that truly allows the legs to be folded into full-lotus, one can pop the lower back out, creating the illusion of increased flexibility on the front of the body. When a person does this, it is unlikely he or she will even realize what he or she has done to "compensate." The practitioner may, therefore, proceed to try to partake in lengthy seated meditation sessions (or sit in "fake" full-lotus while watching TV, playing on the internet, what have you), thereby causing damage to the lumbar disks, jin tissues around the lumbar, the organs (which get squished in poor posture), and overall spinal posture. This will then cause the area at the base of the skull to become blocked because rounding out the lumbar forces the neck and chin forwards, which means that the entire "jade pillow" region and the points around 風池/fengchi and 風府/fengfu get slammed shut. What I am trying to describe is discussed in lucid detail and brilliantly illustrated in Ester Gokhale's Eight Steps to a Pain-free Back. I recommend this book to anybody who is interested in the full-lotus posture as well as the common (but far from universal) Chinese martial arts teaching to round out the lumbar. I will paste a small number of samples from Gokhale's book below. Hopefully they are enough to show why this book is worth buying/getting from a library. In Figure 3-18 above, the two women are not seated in full-lotus, but they are "cheating" in a way that is exceedingly common among seated meditation practitioners. I cannot tell what leg position the woman in Figure 3-19 is using, but she displays the kind of back that one should have in order to qualify as doing "proper" full-lotus. One can easily tell is one is cheating or not simply by running one's hand along one's lower back while standing in good posture, and then seeing if the back feels structurally different while seated for meditation. In proper standing posture you should feel your erector spinae muscles that surround both sides of your lumbar spine sticking out further than your spine itself. In other words, the two long muscles on either side of the spine should feel a bit like two rounded hills surrounding the valley where the spine is. This arrangement occurs because the lumbar spine has a natural, forward-facing curve ("lordosis"), as pictured below: If you're "cheating" in full-lotus by rounding the lower spine, you become hypolordotic. When that happens, when you rub your hand along your lower back the erector spinae musecles will be nowhere to be found, and instead you'll feel your spine poking outwards like a bony ridge. Should you continue to sit like that for long periods of time, you will end up with chronic bad posture, high chance of herniated lumbar disks (not fun), and all of the health problems I listed above. Having read the above, it should be very obvious which picture below illustrates what I'm talking about (in addition to looking at the woman's lumbar region, pay attention to everything that happens elsewhere in her body, too): The long term damage to the spine and, as a result, qi of the body that can occur due to improper seated meditation is even said to lead to certain types of delusion and madness. Make of that what you will--it is enough to say that there are a variety of serious warning out there about improper seated posture and it is indeed very easy to sit in full-lotus the "fake" way without even knowing it!

Whaddya frowning for? Beat a drum! If Ram Dass isn't doing just fine wherever he is now, then we're all just as good as fucked! Be Here Now was one of the first things I read when I started looking for ways to change my life. The other was a copy of Red Pine's Diamond Sutra translation, that I got a friend to steal for me from the bookstore he worked in. I couldn't make heads of tails of the Diamond Sutra, but Be Here Now had cool pictures, was totally unlike anything I'd ever seen before and yet similar in a way to all the comics I grew up on, and it resonated with my then-frequently-extremely inebriated, always stressed-out mind. Shit, reflecting on these old memories, I can feel the temperature of the underheated house I lived in back then, recall the stale smell of the living room, see the poorly lit spaces I occupied as I poured over the book, often late at night after shifts coming down from that manic work high waiting tables in an understaffed fancy restaurant or alone on late mornings in an empty, silent house. I never returned to Be Here Now after I finished it and my path was nothing like Alpert's, but the book changed my life. Moreover, as soon as I was done with it it ended up in the hands of a roommate of mine, a wild-ass felon who stabbed and shot at people and was otherwise totally O.C. for years. To my surprise he read it cover to cover and instead of mocking me for reading such a weird tome, it affected him deeply. I suggested Autobiography of a Yogi to him six months later when he'd skipped town to avoid a beef, and when he was reading it at his security guard job in another state a coworker of his strolled by, noticed the book, and said, "hey, never knew you were into that stuff-why don't you come with me to learn to meditate at the local SRF?" He spent a year or two meditating there and went his own way eventually, but he's been on straight and narrow for years, is a downright jolly and pleasant person to be around nowadays, and is even a mentor to some younger men he coaches in muay thai and Crossfit. I haven't thought about all this in years, but Be Here Now really was what kicked off those changes in my friend. Ram Dass did some wonderful, wonderful things during his not-short not-long time in this world. I am deeply grateful to have received a bit of influence from him, and to have seen that influence touch my friend's life, too. May his passing be a blessed one! May the teachings and students he's left behind continue to touch countless beings! Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

Lol, when I was home two years ago my dad was steady bumping Taylor Swift, tablet computer on his lap and shit watching music videos hooked up to the stereo system, first thing in the morning! This while Joe Scarborough is on TV at the same time in front of him, ranting about Trump while failing to rant about just about anything else that matters. Many times this is the first thing I saw in the morning! I'm like, uh, really dude? His response, barely shifting his eyes from the screen, no trace of irony in his voice: "What? What? She's an amazingly talented musician!" Whatever swells your sausage, old man, was all I could think 😂

Fair enough

I have had this feeling very strongly, especially in the leaking dantian thread.

Yay! Interesting. So in the 1960s some scientists were able to film John Chang and confirm that there is lightning in his balls? Smashing. That must have been quite early in his spiritual career, but then again at that age he would have been a veritable pillar of androgen, so it makes sense. Cameras were different back then. I wonder if they used 8mm or 16mm? Maybe a whopping 35mm? I guess it all depends on how clearly they needed to see the bolts of raw power leaping between John Chang's pubes. It must have been a sight to behold. Can you provide a YouTube link btw? Anyway, I agree that the notion of testicular electricity does seem a bit like "woo," but thanks for reminding me that Yale scientists what with their tenure and peer review proved it on camera. Today I also joined the Mo Pai (some of the people I argue with online knew people who knew Kostas and Jim, who knew John, who knew Todd, who knew Larry, and Bob's you're uncle, so I'm practically in the 423rd generation myself, don't we all agree?) (Yes, we do agree, yesssss, yesssssss, look into the ruby eyes of my golden cobra scepter, yessss, weeee, weeee, weeeeeee) and I figured it was time to cultivate some ball lightning, or as I like to call it TesteBoltz®©™, which you can send me $20 for my free e-book to learn. I realized that it's quite simple. Two balls, OBVIOUSLY one ying and one yang, this creates a differential and differentials create power! If you say the word "quantum" ten times fast it sounds like a Tesla coil humming with 9 million volts, but it only works if you clench your butt muscles as hard as you can while you do that. Anyway, So I laid one of my love nuggets on an ice cube in a little petri dish on the edge of the table (petri dishes=science) and then I held a Bunsen burner (=science * 5000) on low at a safe distance underneath my other mooschki. First of all, let me tell you, it felt great. No wonder Bali is famous for its friendly people, they must be in a great mood all the time if they've mastered this! Sooner than you can say "lickety split" an amazing tingle began to throb between my wünderwassėns and a jolt of blue light from the future leapt from my måhnsatchel into the prostates of all of the scientists, weirdos, aspiring immortals, and seekers of El Dorado who had gathered at the Executive Conference Room in the Days Inn off of I-90 to witness history in the making. As an aside, it was kind of a sausage fest. Why don't girls show up for these events? I guess it just proves what the ancients always said: women are soooo much further away from enlightenment than men. Sometimes I'm glad celibacy chose me and not the other way around, y'know? Keeps me from getting distracted by whatever dumb shit it is I'm sure women do while the men are busy making a science, you know what I mean? ((We know exactly what you mean.)) Anyway, as soon as my ball lightning had leapt into everybody's unsuspecting prostates and various O-faces could be seen at D's of 10 feet away or more, we all collapsed on the ground, SPENT, I say! Immediately I began searching for a cork, rubber stopper (scientific version of a cork), or spare sock that I could use to plug up my Daniel Tian, but to no avail, as all the scientists and fellow travelers were using their socks to clean their laps. Fuck! Within moments my mind began racing and I realized: I probably have prostate cancer, both as a result of practice this Level 2D arcane art, and also simply from reading this thread. In fact it's probably enough just to read this thread just to get prostate cancer, but if anybody wants to go further I am selling a lightly used Bunsen burner and one cracked petri dish on eBay, please support the cause. I'll wipe em down real good before they go in the post. Conclusion: I'm pretty sure nothing would have gone wrong if the girl at Arby's didn't make eye contact with me that morning when I bought my sandwich and asked for extra American cheesefood on the side. She totally fucked everything up. Perv! Anyway, I've got video of the whole event, anybody wanna see the evidence?

So what firsthand observations do you, MegaMind, have to share?

Nah, meijin is US dollar, so is meiyuan. Yuan or kuai are only counting words, only used after numbers. The expat habit of saying RMB is widespread and well established, not something the vlogger invented.

That's a very common way for expats in China to talk about the money in English, but it doesn't reflect Mandarin. It would sound hilariously foreign to say that in Chinese, but few expats, even fresh off the boat, would make that mistake... You get chances to practice talking about money every day! Typically Chinese people would say "one 元/yuán" or, in informal situations, "one 塊/kuài (块 in dumbed-down commie characters)." In a very formal setting where the currency needs to be clarified a person would say "one yuan renminbi" or "one yuan meijin (美金=greenbacks)." There are other slight variations but, well, my pedantry, though extreme, does have limits, so fuck it, if you wanna learn, move to China, you will find plenty of people there who'd love to talk to you about your money and ways to spend it 😁

Was the guy speaking Mandarin or English in his vlog?

You're welcome... And yeah, 50 cent is more accurate in terms of fractions, 5 cents perhaps a little closer in terms of purchasing power.