thelerner

millions of times a day. huhh.. that seems much. Unless you're some kind of autobot with a list of strict rules that your running constantly. I don't see millions of people, I only interact with a dozen or two a day. I don't need to judge all of them, I don't want a rule that says people who dress this way must think this, or people with hair like that must believe that. I.. intuit, maybe that's judging, but even then, shut the damn thing off until I need it, or it pokes through consciousness. Will atrocities happen if I don't judge millions of people each day. Probably not. Will I become a murderer, a thief, a brigand if I don't judge all I see?? No. addon> Plus I made my mind long ago on murder, rape, theft non-gratuitous nudity, I'm against it. In most cases I don't waste mind time judging if its suddenly okay, and in the few cases I might, I find I have absolutely no power. This is a zen site, dao bums.. zen bums.. whaterver. For me Zen is a reminder, I can drop the cultural conditioning, return to a natural state, live with te, strive for harmony and drop the judging mind. Karl, try it. Drop your judging mind, especially if its working a million times a day. Go a week without judging people. Maybe you'll find yourself lighter and happier. No atrocities done or created because of it. addon> As I've gotten older and dropped prejudices, I find I'm happy with 'I don't know'. See guy with tattoo riding a Harley, is that good.. bad.. I don't know. Young woman in low cut dress, should I be morally indignant and judge her a harlot? I don't know.. not my place. ISIS kills 30 people? That's a no brainer, against. Person gets in my face or expresses hate language, that bugs me. Maybe it shouldn't but then I tend to push back.

eh, it kind of tiring judging and judging and judging. Unless someone gets in your face, it's cool.

my favorite version

Congratulations but careful with what you wish for. If there is any position he has that you like, you can be sure he been on both sides of it. Trump has been cozy with the Clintons for years, sharing weddings and birthdays, giving money to Hillary's campaign, even $100,000 to the Clinton foundation. He's recently said his 'locker room talks' with Bill were even worse then what was recorded. Fiscally he has called himself the King of debt. His plan is Reaganesque, in that it lowers taxes (the 1% should save a million+ a year) and dramatically raises military spending. Reagan left office with the debt 186% higher then when he started. Independent economic think tanks show Trumps plan will raise the debt hugely, much more then Hillary's since she incorporated a tax raise. His plan to pay for this huge increase in debt is depending on 4% GDP growth which is very unlikely. Taking into account trade wars with south America and China, achieving even the modest status quo may not be possible. As a businessman he commonly uses practices that would be considered corrupt (pay for play, bribes in hotels, golf courses) in the government world. He throws in a habit under paying finished services by 20% and stating thats all he'll pay, if they want the agreed on price, they'll have to face his team of lawyers for years. People who watch his reality show may have a good view of him. The rest of the world does not. He is a highly disliked, even hated figure to the Muslim world, for his proposed (but changing) ban of Muslims in the U.S. Likewise the South Americans, especially Mexicans have a similar hate/dislike. He is considered a would be tin tyrant by most of Europe. Internationally Russia is his biggest fan. On the other hand. He will be an enema to the system. He might work to clear away the clutter and over regulation and that will help. Ofcourse without a deft hand and understanding of unintended consequences slicing the fat easily becomes slicing an artery. Still no one knows the future. He might be a very hands off president. On the campaign trail he said he'd leave foreign and domestic policy to his vice president, which doesn't leave much else. Conservative Pence might infact hold the real power. With the right advisers and keeping his impulse control in check he might yet be a good leader. We will see.

I'm looking forward to tonight and watching the results. Should be interesting either way. I wonder if there's a good bar to watch where there will be good conversation. Without the bitter nasty edge thats taking place here.

May I recommend focusing on the spirit of motherhood then. The feelings and visuals of a mother holding, consoling and caring for her child. Look for it, remember it, hold the image dear in real life. That feeling/imagery/state is probably the closest sensation of being close to God.

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It's good to have a sense of humor, and a sense of history. When Reagan was elected there were end of the world parties throughout Europe. A little tongue in cheek, but he was considered a wreckless short sighted 'cowboy' who'd wreak havoc on the world stage. Things have been similar (unfortunately true w/ Bush II) with most other modern presidents. Dire predictions of disaster turn out, for the most part, empty. The worst hype about the 'other' candidate is untrue. Also the ship of state moves and turns slowly. Policies take years to be shaped and voted on, even longer to take affect. The US government is still a system of checks and balances. And odds are it will continue to be a 'mixed' government with Republicans having 1 or both houses of congress and (probably) a Democrat in the White House.

No, I wouldn't be surprised that they were looking into a billion dollar charity or looking into Trumps 'charity'. That's par for the course. Nor is it surprising that they'd look hard into a private email account in the age of Hackers. That's not crazy conspiracy theory. Bax44.. did you see the video I was writing about? The one Sionnach posted with the dead body covered in blood in the bath tub and accusations of bloody pedophilia? That is a little different. Thats in my opinion moving into bat shit crazy. 'Blacks killing cops' is not daily news because it doesn't happen daily, thank God. North Korea threatening the world is barely news, because they do it all the time. It's probably weekly and is in half Kim Jung's speeches.. its what he does. I read the news, probably too much and there's tons on the election.. from many different angles. Definitely most news is antiTrump, but that's because he's a lousy unvetted candidate who tends to lie and reverse his positions frequently. Not saying Hillary is much better, but she's been attacked by newspapers for decades. I have a dozen news sources on my computers front page and nothing about Kittens being killed instead there's stories about the elections, on Raqqa, FactCheck.org reviewing Final Push by Trump & Clinton. I like sites like FactCheck, non partisan that looks at what they said and well.. fact checks. It does hurt Trump more then Clinton, but Trump says more foolish things. <addon Bax the 'slow grind into collapse'.. is that really happening? The recession was bad, 2007-2009 the US was losing 800,000 jobs a month, the stock market was halved, the Financial and Auto industry was on the brink of utter collapse. That was 8 years ago. The recovery has been slow, largely jobless especially the first few years, but it has been real. If things hadn't improved, we'd be in deep deep depression. We're not. We owe more, but our solvency situation is much better because we're collecting much much more in taxes and interest rates are low. Not ideal, but better then 8 years ago and its been steadily improving. That's not to say another recession won't come along, but boom and bust are the ways of Capitalism. (interesting article and historic perspective on the debt- https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296)

Really?? Those other 'main stream' media aren't preaching the coming nuclear war or the round up of Americans by the Military that should have taken place last year, with internment camps under Walmarts etc., They're 'acceptable' cause they may be wrong but they're not crazy. Undoubtedly they make fun of Trump, but unlike Alex Jones they're not saying he's literally a demon as Jones does. There is a difference. If I'm misinformed it in a way that allows me to predict the future relatively well (at least in terms of probability), whereas, seems like wacko sites are stuck replaying 'coming apocalypse' and 'they're all satanists and demons'.. over and over. I believe in watching a wide variety of news sources and I'll catch the Jones show every now (confess I can't watch a whole one) and then, read some Icke to find out how the Space Lizards on the hollow moon, are making out lately, but most of the time, they're repeating - impending doom, satanists working against us. Since this is the Hillary and Trump thread, I think the crazed hyperbole like Alex Jones, doesn't hurt Hillary much. Only True Believers will see it, and they're unlikely democratic voters. I consider myself an independent I sincerely believe 4 or 5 of the Republicans running in the primary could beat Clinton. (I might well have voted for moderate John Kasich) Not by saying she's a hag or demon or drinks childrens blood, rather with straight policy talk. This stuff reads to main stream America in the same vein as a wacko site saying Trump is a real vampire and showing Jone's style pictures of him flying as a bat. Maybe the most gullible will buy into it, but in the real world, it won't sell. Not well. Rather adult discussion and normal politics would be enough. Not Jail (or hang) Hillary, rather talk about Obama care rate hikes or immigration policy.. They never need crazy blood soaked images in a bath tub to win. Matter of fact it probably marks them as a little crazy to the average American. If Hillary wins and its pretty likely (not assured) all the True Believers are going to expecting doom, even more then delivered under 8 years of devil Obama. And they'll miss opportunities.. It's probably no fun expecting collapse every other month and living under the sword of Damocles all the time.

Do people really believe things on Infowars? Consider them a 'reputable' source of information? I'd expect they'd be basket cases, <ie world ending, Black helicopter roundup, financial collapse every 2 months> very very gullible or both. He repeats this shtick every 4 years, laying it on even thicker then the quarterly calls for the coming end. If you're really worried just watch from 4 years ago, or 8 years or 12 and you'll see the same thing.. in some cases word for word.. I think they were even longer winded back then, an hour or two. I'm not telling you to vote Hillary, but Infowars is moronic on so many levels.

In truth the country is relatively evenly divided between Dems and Repubs <1>. Trump could have won the election with a strong anti-illegal immigrant message, but he went further. Repeatedly calling 11 million illegal Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers <and maybe some good>. He repeatedly went on stage highlighting murders and rapes done by Mexican immigrants. His surprise trip to Mexico read like a poorly written Shakespearean tragedy especially considering his US speech afterwards. He could have stated a strong policy without such demagoguery. By going overboard, personifying it, he awakened a sleeping giant. The largest ethnic majority in the US, Latinos and set them against him. There's a very good chance he will lose Florida (and endangered the usually solid Texas) because of a large number of new enraged Latino voters. <1> according to Pews http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/the-parties-on-the-eve-of-the-2016-election-two-coalitions-moving-further-apart/ "This year, 48% of registered voters identify as Democrats or say they lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with 44% who identify as Republican or lean toward the Republican Party. That is identical to the balance of leaned party identification in 2012. ( Explore detailed tables for 2016 here.)" me> Thus Republicans have a slightly uphill battle to begin with. Course there is also the reality that both houses of congress are Republican as well as the majority Governor seats (not surprising since Democrats are generally more 'Urbanly' located with many low population 'Rural' states being majority Republican). So beyond such self identification there is quite a bit of variation. A good candidate persuades the middle and independents. The above Pews article is well worth reading because Demographics may be more meaningful and decisive then any political argument or story. The growth of Latinos, the 'rapid aging' of the Republican party members, these factors are immense. The candidates and there policies may be second fiddle to these shifts in population. addon> musings.. I'm reminded of the OJ Simpson trial. He won the trial 3 weeks before it started. They picked a jury member who after the trial admitted she'd never vote a black man guilty. Thus his 'million dollar dream team' actually kept him in prison months longer then needed by drawing out a long trial. Similarly Trump may have lost the election day one, hour one, with the '..Mexicans are rapists..' line that he continued to go with. Because that theme was bound to not only cost him the Latino vote but (we will see) enlarge and empower an ethnicity that historically was not filled with passionate voters.

I find Barry Long's lectures to have a good quality on letting go. Drop habitual thinking and the emotional worries drop away. He's got some good youtubes out there. Eckhardt Tolle points to him as a major influence, so its that kind of 'drop the mind' but more direct and I find easier to access.

Nothing is easier then guided meditations. There are deeply relaxing, trippy, spiritual, revitalizing, taoist, shamanic ones. They don't take up much time because they can be listened when you first wake up or before bed. They're accessible to anyone with ears. If you can't do yoga, you can do yoga nidra, an ancient style of guided meditation. <caveat they're a wonderful tool but ultimately not a substitute for silent meditation> You can find 100's of them on youtube, look up 'guided meditation' or 'self hypnosis'. If you get an add on that allows you to turn youtubes into mp3's you can put them onto anything that plays mp3's like ipods or even many modern CD players. Or just google the terms to find sites that have a number of free ones. Here's are some resources: http://www.diydharma.org/media-type/guided-meditation http://www.yoganidranetwork.org/downloads https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwRp13WDIrMNywoE9Nd6BIJqDT_dPJrJq

If I may ask, what are your favorite plant medicines? for the past two years I've been finding Pine Pollen tincture to be a wonderful adaptogen and tonic.

Mary Oliver poet:- “Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” ― Mary Oliver “When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” ― Mary Oliver “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” ― Mary Oliver “I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.” ― Mary Oliver “You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.” ― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese “I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.” Mary Oliver

some see an ice flow, others see a swimming dinosaur, some see a chance to harp on there favorite obsession.

Or at least have a date when you True Believers can relax. On this site we've had a couple of threads with people trying to push there belief the world was going to end soon. In 2000 or 2012, or in 5 years. The good thing about them was they had a date. Problem is you WWIII is nigh, people don't have a date. Is it possible for you ever to relax? Can you say if we go past 2017 and no war, then my conclusions are wrong? What about 2018. I hate to say it but by 2019 I'll have long forgotten about this thread, but can you guys come up with a date where you'd have to reassess the coming disaster and chill out for a while? See what its what its like to stop the world is ending soon, paranoia. Please, just as a crazy practice, give me a year for when you'd give up your idea or admit the answer is Never. As long as you live and die by the Conspiracy Sites it simply won't end. The time will always be Apocalypse Now. That's kind of its own punishment.

uh, I'm against it.. I tend to edit out complete total nonsense, like 'Fake alien invasion coming soon'. What can you do about it.. I'd say ignore the conspiracy sites that push WWIII, the coming financial collapse, the totalitarian round up scoming soon. Disregard them.. read the sites say 8 years ago, you'll find they were pushing the same thing. Readem 4 years ago, the same impending warnings. Anytime you want to feel insecure and paranoid read them, they always have the same message. If you want to learn what's going on in the world, better to find it elsewhere. What can you do about the impending doom? stop going to garbage sites. Get news from a spectrum of sources, understanding the bias's and perspectives. Judge them by how well they predict things. read good history books by respected historians. That's what I do. Read a wide variety, taking the extremes with a hint of salt. Bad things will and do happen, but if you read constant diet of conspiracy sites, that constantly predict outrageous disaster you won't know the real from the weekly fakes. If your eyes are on an illuminatti, you'll miss the real factors, complex interactions and currents that determine the worlds course. addon> on the other hand, if I believed an apocalypse was coming I'd do my best to move my family out of its course. When danger rears its ugly head, its best to be somewhere else. Someplace temperate and go prepper. That'd be rational, but I don't see end of the world, even if Trump does win. Things ebb and flow.. change and find balance.

This is an interesting article on cutting edge physics that defy sense and science - 6 Scientific Discoveries That Laugh in the Face of Physics - http://www.cracked.com/article_19668_6-scientific-discoveries-that-laugh-in-face-physics_p2.html Here's an excerpt of #5: "..Over the course of a day spent observing some unstable uranium, scientists in Texas noticed something strange. Uranium is unstable and decays over time in a process called radioactive decay. And when they left it alone, unwatched in the petri dish, the uranium did as it was told. But whenever they tried to watch it, the uranium just sat there not really doing anything, like a pot of water mocking an old spinster from a burning stovetop. The second day came and the same thing happened; the uranium that should have been breaking apart like a sandcastle getting pounded by the waves of each passing second just sat there mocking them. The lab reported their findings to other labs, presumably after putting each other through rigorous psychiatric testing. And somehow, against all reason and logic, it turned out the initial experiment wasn't just everything in Texas being crazy like usual. Everyone else saw the same thing. Certain particles will never decay if you're observing them, which means that you can essentially stop time by paying attention to certain particles. The paradox defies the law of entropy, as well as common sense, logic and we're pretty sure the Harry Potter universe. This is the equivalent of taking photos of your child so much that she doesn't age, or staring at last night's turkey dinner so that it won't go bad. We know that certain unstable elements decay. We have evidence of it everywhere in nature. But put them under a microscope and they seize up like a dog who refuses to do the trick you taught him when the neighbor's watching. Except radioactive isotopes aren't supposed to be able to notice stuff like the giant eyeball staring at them behind that plate glass window. So in case you ever feel like we've got the universe figured out, keep in mind that in certain conditions, the universe appears to be actively keeping secrets from us." The other sections are just as interesting.

There was just 27 pages of this crap in the antisemitism thread. In my mind that's enough , for now anyways. At this point it feels like we're giving racists a soapbox and that is not what the Tao Bums is about.

I' kinda thinking it helps prove you focus on baseless fears

I guess we'll see who is better mentally equipped if Assange is not kidnapped. Then spacester you are wrong and my idea of reality gives me a better predictive model then your paranoid one. We will see. I don't think the election needs to be rigged. I assume, could be wrong, that Hillary will win by a decent margin. Trump has created such low margins with blacks, latinos, woman and college educated that I don't think he can over come it. His temperament makes him burn bridges. Thus he's lost the confidence and respect of many of his parties intellects and leaders. <maybe that's crazy talk to you though>

The last one was particularly fascinating. I like how he went back to the source to solve (part of) the problem. Looks like a great series. Thanks

I doubt it, ie the kidnapping. Such an act would be wonderfully dramatic, breaking into an international embassy to steal away one of the most famous people in the world.. I also read about a drone that might be ordered against him. It used to be conspiracy theories happened after an event, to present an unlikely and paranoid solution to them. These days the conspiracy theories fly fully birthed before events. The absence of news spawns them.