thelerner

maybe but unfortunately it catches a whole lot of people into paying for worthless paper. ie a tax/scam on those who who want get rich quick, and don't appreciate the odds. Still, a few bucks a year isn't bad, it allows one the luxury of 'what if' dreaming, but to spend more then that is pretty much using dollars for toilet paper. For example the Massachusetts winners didn't use computers, they took advantage of faulty rules and buying $100,000's of tickets to guarantee a 20% gain. Once it got out it the powers that be changed the rules ofcourse, as do most advantages. Some quicker then others.

While the Tao contains all Google knows all most all. and is more easily searchable. good luck. and here's an old link a member made of Taoist temples

Coming from an Aikido background (and earlier Karate and <sigh> Taekwondo) I always ask newcomers from other martial arts about there arts versions of Quick and Dirty. Most martial arts have them, Aikido too, change of an angle.. this way throws, this way breaks..ie going from Aikido to Jujitsu. Karate is littered with them, illegal for competition but fast and dirty. Taking advantage of natural quick movements. Olde school too, since wrasslin in colonial time had it's share of eye gouging and ear tearing techniques. So for me, depending on circumstances its nice to have tools in my pocket from Aikido (mostly getting the hell out of the way) and Quick & Dirty..

eh, money is just money. To build something so amazing seems to me worth more then 1 in 272 million. Its unique and with priceless value. Impossibly hard work and fulfilling a vision is something people in a modest little house will not have.

Welcome, the Carolinas' seem an unlikely place to find the dao, but somehow it's found some fertile soil there.

I think we love music for its anticipation. We anticipate the beats, it's like the constant satisfaction of solving a puzzle. We're all gifted with a certain genius memory for music, a thousand notes in a tune and we seem to be able to pick them out quickly and unconsciously. And when they're put in place, it's pleasing, slightly off note or tempo and its dissonant. There are irresistible universal tunes, -Shave and a Hair Cut, Two Bits. I imagine Music and Poetry are as old as mankind. Our first passions, myths and knowledge of everything worth recording has been set to music or poetry since the very beginning, and it has shaped us. I contend we are infact, Homo Musicous.

Maybe.. in many traditions there's a point where an experienced practitioner must work though the dark midnight of the soul. A period where you face despair- metaphysical and personal, and have to reconcile with them. Paths leading out are nihilism, enlightenment, craziness.. or going back to normal life. Addon> FWIW this thread inspired me to create a new one on 'The Dark night of the Soul' int he Taoist section.

For me looking at this from a practical view point, I think of what the great green philosopher Shrek pointed out, 'we are like onions'. Our senses distract us from our core. Our thoughts are voluminous and layered, we live in a labyrinth of them. Much of the work, imo, in seeing the light, turning it around.. flipping it off.. is sealing the senses. Getting real quiet, then quieter still. The 4th part of my daily meditation is to get as noiseless as possible. During the day I try to keep a quiet mind. Sometimes using imagery from Rawn Clarks Center of Stillness meditation where the 5 senses plus thought and emotion are separated out as spheres that float outside of you. Or imagery of thoughts as multiple record players where I have the power to lift up the stylus. In truth I don't know what the light is, but I'm keeping a quiet mind on it.

In my book, nothing wrong with defending oneself, family or community, yet the roots and branches of karma are above my pay scale. I'm egoic enough to rationalize fights I'm in as 'justified', but the truth is I have no ideas what dominoes I'm knocking over and what potential havoc I could be responsible for. Fighting is like that, one is lighting a potentially very destructive fuse. You don't know what your leaving in your wake. So imo.. best be careful.. these days, I'll protect myself and take no pleasure in it. Wasn't always that way. I'm no Christian, but as I recall soon after Jesus said 'Let him who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one', he soon stated something like "Those who draw swords will die by swords".. something like that.

I dig what you guys are saying, but there's also a good chance that year for year, hour for hour, MMA is a better, faster rout to effective fighting then Kung Fu. Course I agree that top masters are a world apart and the deeper lessons in such classical arts improve life dozens of ways, versus simply learning to fight. addon> Would be cool to see an older single stylist master wipe the floor of the UFC then walk away.

I like Liminals answer. I think there is a middle ground, of stating your truth, even your feelings, in a way thats more philosophical and less attacking and leaving it at that. Ie, state your truth and walk away, or rather stay, knowing you've expressed yourself. The real problem is often not the situation but 'back thoughts'.. reliving and re-analyzing an old situation over & over, instead of moving on. For that, the difficult work of learning to quiet the mind and limit 'tail chasing' thoughts is needed. I like the work of Barry Long for that. He's got Youtubes. I'd recommend you practice disagreeing cheerfully with people next month. Try it, see how it feels, disagreeing in a way that's kinda pleasant, ie 'I see where your coming from, its got some valid points.. but.. . Even better if you have no dog in the race, that way you can be more relaxed and build work up to disagreeing about larger issues. In a couple weeks we'll have you fist fighting with annoying strangers. Karma be damned.. kidding.

1, go for it, buy a ticket or two, consult the various oracles.. hope & dreams are fun. 2, (somewhat wet blanketish) Odds of setting up tiny hermitage somewhere- 95% (requires half acre of land, and shed) Odds of winning powerball lottery, 1 in 292 million. (requires 1 in 292 million type of luck) *note odds of getting struck by lightning- 1 in 700,000) So, imo to put feet under dreams of a monastery, one might look around for a cheap plot of land and start building a tiny hermitage and see what grows from there.

Found this hiding in my Best of Bums thread- Dao Zhen: Those who wish to embody the Tao should embrace all things. To embrace all things means one holds no anger or resistance toward any idea or thing, living or dead, formed or formless. Acceptance is the very essence of the Tao. To embrace all things means one rids oneself of any concepts of separation: male and female, self and others, life and death. Division is contrary to the nature of the Tao. Foregoing antagonism and separation, one enters into the harmonious oneness of all things...

Looking good. Just finished the book myself. Great insights into the religious aspect of Taoism. Lots there I never knew.

Congratulations on the yoga and volunteering. That's great and will bear fruits. Maybe save up for a yoga vacation.. places like the Sivananda Ashram on Paradise Island can be relatively inexpensive except for getting there. Even if it takes years of little savings the expectation is also worth something. And the secret of life is the small savings, or investments like the yoga classes and volunteering. Little things done consistently make a difference. One we often overlook. The goal is getting better we used to be. Sleep, Food, exercise.. are the platform of health. Sleep is hard cause worrying about it hurts. I'm a lifelong insomniac and mostly no longer worry about it. I'll try new things every now and then, but mostly at peace with it. The best thing I can do is get out of bed, meditate or do something vaguely positive but not too stimulating. Some things help for awhile. Certainly long slow exercise helps, spray of lavender, no electronics an hour before hand.. stuff in every how to sleep article. Eating well and exercise can be easier, and done in small steps. When lacking motivation, join a group. It can help. Just showing up is most of the battle.

Looking up Taoist temple nearby didn't work well, but Taiji Bum had a great listing.. course its a few years old.

I find the Traditional 5 element theory to be an excellent tool for decision making. Which element is the most active variable and how do I harmonize, fight or contain it, as the situation calls for. It depersonalizes and helps create strategies for problems of all shapes and sizes. Addon> I gave it away awhile ago, but the book The Web that Has No Weaver, was a good primer on how the 5 elements work in decision making, particularly medicine.

Some guided meditations are challenging, requiring vast constructs of the imagination. Michael Winn has a paqua based one in his Fusion series which has you imaging twirling diamondlike structions with the tai chi symbols at there ends, paired up and spinning counter to each other along energy meridians. Quite Challenging. Giles Marin Spends 30 minutes slowly lighting up your bone structure in his Bone Dreaming Meditation. Ed Fleischman stretches you from newborn to 140 years old, leaving in you sitting in a pine forest. Interesting stuff. The challenging meditation I link to today is from a favored source of esoteric practices. Rawn Clark who is from the Hermetic tradition influenced by Franz Bardon. The meditation is called the Center of Stillness Meditation (CSM). CSM, is partly a 'sealing the senses' kind of experience. You take the 5 senses (7 including thought & emotion), separate them out of yourself, imagining them as colored sphere's around your body. You see the web of life, float around.. challenging. Not easy to get and I'm sure everyone experiences it in a different way and depth. here it is: http://abardoncompanion.com/csm/contents.html download by clicking the smaller black letters (click here to download the Audio Recording). It'll come out as .zip file. Unzipped you have an 11 minute intro talking about the CSM, and the actual 27 minute practice itself CSM - Practice. If you download it, let me know what you think. It's not an easy one, but most of the previous one are. I also recommend his Aracheous (ie personal elemental series) & his YHVH chant series.

Very common. In the beginning we often need more 'noise' to drown out our thoughts. To some extent even listening to a piece of entrancing music is a kind of meditation.. or light trance at least, but its giving a quieter mind. Chanting is an age old way of quieting the mind and drowning out thoughts. You could look up a Hindu classic like Om mani padme ommn, or something from your own religious background (most religions have them) or even 'In Peace, Ouut Quiet..' kind of thing. For me the easiest taste of meditation is guided meditations and yoga nidras. They relax the mind and body and putting it into a trance that's very similar to meditation. The goal is to be able to just sit with a quiet mind, and the ultimately live there, with imo, thoughts as a tool, instead of our whole identity construct. We all start out slow but learning to quiet the mind is worthwhile for the calm and perspective it brings.

Perhaps concentration type exercises could help with ADHD. In meditation there are many methods that use counting breaths. The most common being 1-10, repeat. It's strangely difficult, so much that many beginners, will count the in and out breaths separately so it's really only 5 breaths. Once a person can do that comfortably, they can try Doc Morris's difficult mind cleanser version where if any thought intrudes, you go back to 1. For most, getting to 10 can take awhile. At times I'll count my breaths to 100 (or 200), that takes a while (15 to 30 minutes) and a good amount of concentration. For me it helps to have a system where I use my fingers for counting, ie pinkies are 1, so 11 is feeling my pinkie twice, 55 is feeling my left thumb twice.. people develop there own method, as needed.

I've been reading a book The Taoist Manual by Brock Silvers. Unlike most such books it delves deeply into the Taoist religion.. what it means to be a Taoist. The absolute (to him) importance of Initiation, the deeper tomes of taoist classics, the pantheon and how to venerate it. <written in the sense he's like a Catholic Priest around hippies and shaking his head about there understanding of Christianity> I assume he'd say to find a Taoist sage, look up the nearest Taoist temple, one with a real lineage, go there and ask around. You should find one. And and as others pointed out a 'famous' Taoist sage, might be an oxymoron. Good ones don't seek fame, though sometimes it happens.

You've got a couple long quotes on my best of the Tao bums thread, you'd have more if I kept it active. Cause you are real deep. Ornnery and real real deep. Meeting you is definitely on my bucket list.

A. Welcome to the Dao Bums B. That's a pretty interesting group of questions. I think I'll steal it and make it into a thread, for greater discussion. see how it works. thread started in the Daoist Discussion area.

It's a time of year of shifting energies. Makes it easier to take offense and nurse embers into flames. People- groups, families fight. It happens. Its good to discuss, but sometimes a long walk, some time apart is helpful. And making long term decisions when angry is bad. Probably even writing too much in an angry mood is bad. (but then how would we write at all). In any case, I treasure Taomeow's presence on the board and the mods often uncomfortable work.

< I am weak&foolish.. must post again.. arrgghh> they keep pulling me in. No. Not a video link, and the discussion about culling still exists. The 'murder the children who won't renounce there parents' post was erased but I have a quote from it, and discussion I had with a mod over it. Totally agree and sent you a PM with what I have on the matter. FWIW it was banksters not the f I'm willing to let it rest.ed.