thelerner

Interesting. I'd like to see a bit more proof then a single youtube. Assange going missing/kidnapped has been an ongoing meme for a year or two. It's possible, but I'd wait for a bit more confirmation before buying into it. ie the Embassy has to say something soon. addon> That such an event has been so widely predicted for years, makes it less likely in my eyes or rather its just as likely since (to my understanding) he's not under any kind of arrest, he's flown the coop, and needs to keep an understandably very low profile.

I accept. Payment at the end of January okay?

Yeah, I think so. Part of my perfect (perfect is a bad word) is change. At 52 I live a few miles from where I was born. I like travel, meeting new people, seeing new things. Siddhartha is fine staring 24/7 at a river. I am not. I like my life now, its very good. I like where I live, but its such a big world. Places to go, people to meet, experiences to have, adventures to seek out. Yeah, there is is clinging and desire to that, but that's okay. It's not so much wanting more, as to see and explore the world I was born into. A repressed wanderlust. And right now, its pointed at Kauai Island in Hawaii. Don't know how and when I'll get there, but I will somehow, some when. Stay awhile, walk the beaches, get intimate with the many waterfalls. Eat the fruit and fish of the land and never have to walk too far, or wait too long for sunrise or sunset.

?? Hoping for civil collapse. Never. I get the feeling thats the gnawing hope of so many conspiracy site, true believers. Constantly trying to convince people of the coming collapse, over and over, month after month, year after year. Financial collapse and the government coming to round them up. I'm pretty middle ground. The idea of Utopia is kind of far fetched, still we can do better. Nothing earth shaking, just finding simple better ways. Brian, you agree with Welles, that Civil War, Internment and martial law is coming this winter because of a recount? That makes sense to you? Its a major worry that you're preparing for?

I noticed when I meditated with Michael Winn, top Healing Tao teacher, that he'd have many burp like happenings during meditation, not loud just expelling air quite a bit. Why? I don't know but in some advanced people it happens. My generic thoughts are when things get strange and unpleasant in meditation (especially esoteric), back off a bit. More grounding, walking, keeping it simple. Give your body and mind some time to rest, equalize. Sometimes pushing through strangeness can get you to the other side, but often it leaves you in worse shape.

So, Welles you aren't like me, you are 'more' smart and farsighted. Yet also a bit paranoid?? And I'm pretty sure you'll be wrong on ringing the warning bell on the soon to come Civil War and internment camps. Your so smart you trust an anonymous writer who says they're from Anonymous. We will see.

What I've learned is, trends swing like a pendulum. In times of war and paranoia, rights are taken away. We, society are as much to blame as the government. In US history, we do have a strong independent streak, against invasion of privacy. Inevitably we turn back the regulations. In my 50 years I've seen the pendulum swing back and forth 2 or 3 times. Its probably wrong to be stuck in permanent paranoia mode. Because you won't protect civil rights when they are threatened because you assume we never had them in the first place.

You can't discount it but are you taking it at all seriously? Making any needed changes to keep from being rounded up by the black helicopters? Contingency plans for a bug out when society collapses due to Civil war breaking out in a month? I bet you and Welles won't, though if you truly believed, that would be the rational response. But on some level you may recognize this comes several times a year from conspiracy sites, This time its coming from an anonymous member of Anonymous? Not the most reliable news source, imo.

You believe this? Obama declaring martial law? (he's been surprisingly welcoming to the president elect in 'real life') You think this will happens? Its not a just a repeat word for word from last year's made up Jade Helm scare, where conspiracy theorists went extra nuts, claiming Civil war was about to be unleashed, guns taken, FEMA camps set up (under Walmarts?) .. Please please please put money on this. I'll give you great odds. Say $20 and I'll pay you $500 if it happens. Let's do this thing. Your word is good enough for me. I guarantee you $500 if martial law is declared and the FEMA camps are opened and you pay me $20 by January 15th if they're not.

The amazing secret power was incredible dedication, patience, ingenuity, imagination, grit and a little showmanship.

As I understand it, many of the provisions of the 'Patriot' act have expired and weren't renewed (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/31/patriot-act-expires-senate-stalemate/28260905/). Some still exist. I don't think they were ever quite as wide spread or draconian as the UK bill. From what I read there still needs to be a final approval for it (royal??), so there's a chance it might not pass, or that a general shout of no from the public can derail it. I hope. At the heart of this (hopefully) is stopping terrorists using the social networks to recruit and communicate. Seems better to smart 'bomb' those targets heavily then record the other 99.999% of all internet traffic.

I hear what you're saying and you've got a good point. Wong's stuff comes off harsh and unapologetic. Still in the young adult/get a job segment of life, that hits the majority of people, the first article here, is important. We may be setting up students as lambs going out to the slaughter, after years of being somewhat coddled at home and in school, being in the real job world, where results are expected and sympathy is rare; it states- what can you do for me? And demands- skills worthy of payment. From that perspective its an important read. Still, if you need to earn a living, you need skills. There is more to life then earning a living, but its not inconsequential. Having earnable skills can make or break ones future. You can have them and be a good person too. Its not mutually exclusive. As a father, its important to me that my kids have balance. And in our culture, part of that balance is skills that will allow them to earn a living. Living in a forest setting it'd be hunting and gathering and a touch shamanic healing. In either case being a loving caring wise individual is also needed. addon> So its sorta like 'a' wisdom to have in a pocket, but not ultimate wisdom, to wear on your Tshirt.

I've got a theory. The ultimate in cool is if you can get away with something that's traditionally considered wimpy. So bald used to be considered - old, irrelevant, but if you get away with it; wear it with confidence you become like Yul Brinner, Telly Savalas, Samuel Jackson, Michael Jordan, Vin Diesel.. the definition of cool.

That's okay. I misquote him all the time. Just yesterday I was telling my kid 'Lao-Tzu said its best to throw out the garbage before school.' did he really say that? I don't know. Probably. If he had kids.

I wonder if its deeper wisdom to discuss the problem with the person with no agenda. To understand there point of view, there motivations. Not through manipulating, but discussing what is involved, what's likely to happen, consequences and unintended consequences. Maybe the problem is we jump to 'No' too fast. Lock horns, put up shields. When wisdom isn't doing nothing, not telling the other person what to do or that they are wrong, but discussing it. Understand first. Maybe in a good true discussion they can see their course of action in a new light. Maybe. In the book Siddhartha, in the end he's enlightened, but he's an awful father. He does nothing, instead of listening to his son. They don't talk, thus they're aliens to each other. Not good. Be friends, be able to talk. To share without recrimination, then its less likely to be you vs them, instead its both of you, figuring out what is best. Not always possible, but maybe that's what we should strive for.

My problem is.. I don't know divine guidance from my minds whispers. Actually that would make a good thread.

Let's Briefly Stop to Notice Things Aren't Terrible by David Wong http://www.cracked.com/blog/lets-briefly-stop-to-notice-things-that-arent-terrible/ #5. We Tend To Misunderstand The Awfulness Of ThingsMark Makela/Getty Images/Getty Images News Humans are violent, selfish, and stupid. I'm writing this in 2016 -- I don't even have to justify that statement, right? Even without the election, it's been wall-to-wall mass shootings, war, racism, and tragic celebrity deaths. The violent, selfish, and stupid nature of people is why things are always getting worse -- the more of us you cram onto the planet, the more our spiritual toxins pollute the stew. It's simple chemistry. Haven't they done experiments where if you just isolate a bunch of strangers in a room for a while, they'll eventually turn on each other like animals? Well, they actually did a much larger version of that, in which a million and a half of these violent, selfish, and stupid primates were piled onto a cramped, filthy island ... George Schlegel lithographers ... and based on what we know about people, shouldn't it only be a matter of time until that whole place is a charred, smoking ruin? Or a big pile of garbage and toppled buildings, like Idiocracy? Yet, if we revisit those shit-flinging animals 150 years later, we find their island looking like this: Sterilgutassistentin/Wiki Commons This image is also the average apartment size. Full of marvels of engineering and technology that would have absolutely looked like magic to those stinking, toothless dock workers in the first picture. But ... how? How in the hell can the violent, selfish, and stupid impulses of 1.5 million assholes result in a gleaming metropolis that not only has ten times the population, but a population so clean and healthy that they literally live twice as long and have so much food piled up that their most common health problem is fatness? If the average person in America is such a greedy, petty, misguided dipshit, who is producing all the cool stuff that makes the "Amount Of Cool Stuff Produced Per Year" graph over that same timespan looks like this? Visualizing Economics Summation: Pretty good century. If all governments are corrupt, if all corporations are just gangs of thieves, if all religions are just fearmongering cults, if most people don't give a shit about their jobs, if everyone is a secret racist, why aren't those buildings falling over, due to rampant defects? Why haven't feral savages torn them down for the scrap? Why hasn't tribal infighting reduced it all to rubble? When a model of cell phone starts spontaneously catching fire, why is that a shocking headline rather than the accepted norm? How is it that any of this actually works? #4. Problems Are Loud And Terrifying, Solutions Are BoringScott Olson/Getty Images/Getty Images NewsI grew up in the 1980s, when crime was running rampant in the cities (if you think it's still running rampant, let's put it this way -- there was 300 percent more violent crime back then). Blood gushed from every headline -- we heard of rape and recreational executions and flamboyant gangs cutting children to pieces. Our solutions, we assumed, would be even more spectacular -- give cops bigger guns and fewer rules, arm citizens to take back their streets with sheer firepower. We were absolutely obsessed with this idea, it was a staple in Hollywood for years. Go get 'em, guys!Paramount Pictures Warner Bros. Orion Pictures For those born after the 80's, those are the four characters who would one day combine to form Liam Neeson. Then, as I've mentioned before, the crime rate just started quietly dropping in the mid-90s. And I do want to emphasize that it happened quietly. Gallup Apparently headlines like "Post 9/11 World Kicks Everloving Shit Out Of 'Good Old Days'" didn't scan well. There was no final battle, nobody stormed the fortress of the evil King of Crime and took him out. They didn't invent a RoboCop or fill the streets with gun-wielding vigilantes, much to my teenage disappointment. So what happened? Nobody knows. It appears it was a combination of small measures and random social factors out of our control. Sure, tougher sentencing laws kept some criminals behind bars longer, but also the internet and video games got super popular and people just started spending more of their spare time at home. Crack cocaine got less popular (thanks to meth!) and there was less market share to fight over. The economy improved for a while, the population got a little bit older due to dropping birthrates ... there's even a theory that taking the lead out of gasoline made a big difference (lead causes brain problems). We got better at treating mental illness, policing techniques changed ... And already you've zoned out -- the problem was entertaining, the solution was boring as shit. Nobody was going to make a Charles Bronson movie about the wider availability of psychiatric medication among at-risk males. Paramount Pictures There's a reason Death Wish 6: Municipal Violence Reduction Initiative & Community Outreach never got green-lit. As usual, the crisis was an ear-shattering blast, the improvement a dull, easily-ignored hum. This is a problem. #3. You Are Programmed To Filter Everything But The Bad StuffDesiree Navarro/Getty Images/Getty Images News Any of your caveman predecessors who stopped to appreciate a pretty flower while being pursued by a tiger didn't live long enough to reproduce. Your brain has thus evolved to notice problems and disregard the rest, because of course it has. Problems need your attention, the other shit doesn't. You have limited time, energy, and brain power -- you don't waste it sitting around contemplating all of the animals on earth that aren't chasing you. It's supposed to have a focusing effect. But today, it does the opposite. The existence of mass media means you get to hear about the whole world's problems -- that part of your brain designed to say, "Focus on this, it's dangerous" is just stuck in the On position, all the time. That creates this exhausting, debilitating impression that the world is a string of successive disasters, the whole thing continuously flying apart at the seams. That impression you're getting is objectively impossible, though. If society was just an endless string of mounting problems with no solutions, we wouldn't have advanced from grass huts to space stations. It would have been one step forward, ten thousand back. In reality, the ratio is closer to the opposite. This basic flaw in how we perceive the world makes us take progress for granted, as if ever-advancing technology and longer lifespans are invisible forces like gravity, something that can be safely assumed. I mean, in some sense we are aware, because we complain when advancements don't come fast enough. We joke that there's no cure for cancer, ignoring the hard work of hundreds of thousands of smart people that dropped the cancer death rate 23 percent in just two decades. Toa55/iStock But at least the futuristic wonder treatments are still pretty unpleasant, so we've got something to fret over. But, see, that wasn't due to some big miracle cure, there were no flashy headlines -- just a bunch of boring shit. Early detection, better screenings, better surgical techniques, wider availability of zzzzzzzz. Likewise, you can thank thousands of small, completely uninteresting tweaks for the fact that your chances of dying in a car accident dropped in half over the last three decades. The chances of dying in a house fire dropped 66 percent in that same span, for reasons too dull to get into here that have to do with building codes and smoke detectors and blah blah blah who cares. #2. Stopping To Appreciate The Good Stuff Helps You Understand How Problems Are Solved Win McNamee/Getty Images/Getty Images News Which brings us back to Thanksgiving, and how every culture and religion seems obsessed with making people stop to "count their blessings." Trust me, they started doing it for a reason. This flaw we have, this filtering for the negative, it can have a fatal side effect of making us eventually say, "Why bother?" We see millions of people driving themselves in cars and think, "look at those poor bastards stuck in traffic." Then we run into a friend too poor to afford a car and decide that surely we must have all died and that this is Hell. Everything is seen through that lens of corruption and decline to the point that when something good is destroyed, we can lose sight of how the good thing came to be in the first place ... ... and of how future good things will be made. Some of you are worried now that progress on, say, gay marriage will be reversed in light of recent events. But for lots of us, our only reaction to the court case that legalized it was an exasperated, "What took so long?" It's easy to be so annoyed that it required a struggle that you forget to celebrate the struggle at all -- the grinding, frustrating, tedious effort by tens of thousands of activists, lawyers, and politicians who had to break that wall down one infuriating brick at a time, by repeatedly smashing their own fucking faces into it. And they won. Those people did not say, "Why bother?" Those people looked back at previous civil rights movements, drew joy and admiration from what they had done, and let it inspire them to get to work. But the first step was looking back without snark or irony and saying, "A wonderful thing happened, our world is actually built atop lots of similar wonderful things, let's do other wonderful things to overcome the current shittiness. If they can do it, so can we." #1. The Danger Of Cynicism Is That It Can Paralyze You And that, kids, is why we dedicate holidays to heroes and build statues of reformers. It's why the ugly sweaters and songs tell us to stop and give thanks and acknowledge the good things in our lives. It's not some hippie bullshit, it's appreciating the fact that (for instance) you're reading this only because thousands of strangers spent sweat and blood digging trenches and laying fiber optic lines and mining ore that could be turned into computers and cell phones. They did that because other people -- geniuses, in fact -- designed and endlessly tweaked a system that would create incentives for them to do it, and other people before them bled and died to make that possible. History remembers the big victories, but ignores the hundred million smaller ones along the way -- an innovation here, a process improvement there, a single mind changed over a cup of coffee. Microscopic yet crucial victories that simply don't occur if those people shake their heads and say, "Why bother?" And, yes, I'm going to have to mention the fucking election now. With a freaking bar graph, no less: David Yanagizawa-Drott That chart is thanks to David Yanagizawa-Drott, who pointed out that Donald Trump got fewer voters than the last two Republicans. All that happened was his opponent saw about ten million of her voters stay home. In an election in which I was told that every voter thought they were thwarting the apocalypse, turnout was its lowest in 20 years. The result: 26 percent Trump 26 percent Clinton 47 percent Why Bother? And about one percent "Fuck both of them, but I still want one of those 'I Voted' stickers." Well, if nothing else, some of you now know why you bother. You bother because you have much to lose and the only way to keep that fixed in your mind is to occasionally stop and appreciate what you have. All of those boring little things that send you reeling if they're missing for just a day, the privileges you avoid acknowledging so much that it actually annoys you when someone brings them up. The freedoms you take as a universal constant, despite the fact that 95 percent of humans have lived without them. (And note, I'm focusing on what you have to lose; I could write a whole separate article on how we fail to consider what other people have to lose, even if we don't). But this isn't just about politics, which is important to remember because this matters just as much in between elections. This is about remembering why you get up in the morning, why you want to always learn new things, to keep taking those tiny boring steps forward that don't seem like much in isolation, in the sense that the Sistine Chapel wouldn't seem like much if you only watched Michelangelo paint Adam's tiny dick. So, yeah, be thankful, because the entire earth is a hive of busy humans working on stuff that will make tomorrow better than today. Stuff like the recent discovery that we may massively cut greenhouse gases just by adding seaweed to animal feed (cows produce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and seaweed breaks it down). The price of solar power is dropping so fast that it doesn't matter what the U.S. government thinks of it -- it's going to win on economics alone. And so on. At some point, every single person who has ever been involved in anything great has suffered at least one gut-punch of a setback, has felt like the sun has fallen out of the sky. Some people feel like that all day, every day. So, every now and then we make you stop and eat a big meal and listen to corny nonsense about things that happened in the past. It's supposed to reorient you, to remind you that we overcame bad shit back then and we'll overcome it this time, too. Then we give the future something to be thankful for and, well, that's how all of this works.

Happy Thanksgiving. I think every culture that has seasons celebrates the fall harvest, gathers the family for warmth and good cheer. Knowing that winter is coming with possible ice zombies, wildlings, weddings and strife. Hopefully we all have alot to be thankful for. Part of that thankfulness is recognizing the fragility of life. It throws alot at us, it gives and takes away, ofttimes capriciously. Which is why we need to celebrate the good. Appreciate our friends, family.. even those crazy kids. Everyone is doing the best they can, 'cept me, I move along at a slow trot. I learned a new word yesterday, German one I think, Weltschmerzen. It means sadness on thinking about the evils of the world. Synonyms: world-weariness.. I think its time to put that away for a bit. A time to be of good cheer, to be charitable, to make the world shine simply by being nice to others. So, I hope this Thanksgiving people will lift up there glasses and toast to the good things that have happened this year, because gratitude is the sister of happiness.

Hopefully we can all see this as good news. Oil Company Surrenders 15 Land Leases on Sacred Native American Land McKinley Corbley - Nov 19, 2016 http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/oil-company-surrenders-drilling-leases-sacred-native-american-land/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=23-11-2016During a ceremony in Washington, DC this Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Interior announced it was canceling 15 energy exploration leases on land that is sacred to Native Americans. The Badger-Two Medicine area is an expanse of wilderness stretching along the Montana mountain line that is home to the Blackfeet people. For the last 10,000 years, Blackfeet members have found cultural identity in the 130,000 acres of the Badger-Two Medicine land. The tribe has vehemently protested and opposed the land leases since they were signed without their consultation almost thirty years ago. The oil and natural gas company in question, Devon Energy Corp, acquired the land leases after merging with another company. Company president David Hager surrendered the land after acknowledging that the pristine landscape was not theirs to invade. The process of fracking that would have gleaned the natural gas could also have harmed the water supply which is in close proximity to the leased parcel. RELATED: Farmer Returns 700 Acres of California Coast to Native American Tribe There are two land leases left on the holy land that are still owned by other energy companies, but the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell, is determined to prevent them from drilling on the Blackfeet territory. MORE: Clint Eastwood Donates Oceanfront Land to Preserve Open Space for Public “This is the right action to take on behalf of current and future generations,” said Secretary Jewell. “Today’s action honors Badger-Two Medicine’s rich cultural and natural resources and recognizes the irreparable impacts that oil and gas development would have on them.”

for big counts I move my awareness to my fingers. sometimes when my fingers are together once I've reached 10, then it'll pinky pinky being 11 to pinky thumb is 15, pinky other thumb 16. Thus getting to 100, using finger abacus.

I don't have experience with Kundalini, but I'm Buddhist enough to know, you can't chase peak experiences. They come and go, and should be seen as sign posts (good ones) along the road. Not places to stop at or crave. Seems like you're very energy sensitive. Keep it balanced with good grounding and you'll go far. Grounding being walks in nature, seated meditation, physical activity.. keeping centered.

Fake news is like the 'report' that the Hillary camp paid $3,500 to an instigator to disrupt a Trump meeting. It was debunked, the original author came forward saying it was satire but it caught on for the alt-right and was repeated often, even here. A savvy reader should have known $3500 was simply too much. Its not that such things aren't done by both sides. For example, Trump had a talent agency pay people $80 to appear in Trump T-shirts and wave Trump signs at his election notification. News organizations talked to the 'extras' being paid and the talent agency he went through. And for a few hours work, even in New York, $80 is about right. More and more news plants are being done. Worse there does seem to be an industry on spamming message sites. Not that all messages are fake but its not a small amount either. An increasing amount seem to be bots and or paid provocateurs.

No expert, but I bet your #2 describes the human need for a savior, a universal need for a myth of salvation. Modern filtrations from tech terror of the cold war spawning aliens, or our colorful modern expression and need of the superhero genre. Seemingly disparate but coming from the same place, and need. #1, in alchemical taoism, a few traditions use the term 'turn the light around'. 'Turn the light around' and you've gotten to the next level. I waver between this being a metaphor for attention or literal light seen by the inner eye as a mental/psychological practice activates inner/pituitary functions.

That's a modern problem that is quite vexing. Still being egoless doesn't mean we can't use 'Skillful Means'. In this case shifting the car over a bit, sending a message that cars shouldn't move ahead of you. You don't have to do a full block but by shifting over a bit slightly into there lanes, you're sending out a message. That or just realize its part of the game. I used to talk to professional truck drivers who encounter that exact situation and worse every day. Most of them said they relied on the philosophy, It is what it is. Hoping, wishing or getting mad accomplishes exactly nothing. So turn up the radio and realize you'll get there when you get there. Or using skillful means have a CD or MP3 in the car that is so interesting that you don't mind the little delays.

hmnn, the target is important, you are not. the path.. your Way is important, you are not. Be unconcerned with temporary gains and losses.