thelerner

Don't know. He did alot more then just gaze at light though. He was a holy man; far as I can see selfless, vegetarian, very progressive, mystic, radical folk Hindu.. Being a holy man means an immense amount of internal and external cleansing, something beyond intellectual and not easily replicated without treading the path of the mystic oneself. In truth, often to our eyes the holy man is a little or a lotta crazy. It goes with the territory. I'm not sure we can say it was the butter, lamp, staring or time. Since was over 120 years ago, we can't even leave out the possible that someone clubbed him, took his body away and his devoted followers assumed he's disappeared up to heaven. Not that its more likely but its still in the realm of possibility unless you have other long term butter lamp witnesses attaining rainbow body. Unless we want to credit the purely ascetic rout, ie find yourself in a cave or something close for x amount of years, say 9, find an object of worthy sacred contemplation and maybe you'll get it. Maybe that works, in a time period from 40 days to a decade. Yet that's a lotta human life to be giving up, for something that may not happen.

We still want pictures. Keep'em PG13 though.

sounds good. Yet.. I can go into a Buddhist temple right here in Chicago and see Buddhists doing buddhist things. Learn such holy cows as meditation, equanimity, dharma stuff- how to live and think better. I can't go to a Thogal place and see or speak to anyone completely enlightened or with rainbow body. Is there anyplace on Earth one can go to see such? If not.. then it may not be the 'simple technique and stand-alone practice that universally works for everybody'. I wish it was.

Certain places have wah; a feeling that pervades them. You find it in nature. There are individuals that give off certain wahs, of peace and equanimity or go in the other direction. I'm not Christian but many churches have some sacred geometry built into them. Tall spiral ceilings, old woods, light and sound carefully choreographed, perhaps most of all a place where tens of thousands over decades have sat quietly, openly, focused on an aspect of the divine. Sometimes you can tune in to that sacred wah. Best to carry it within but thats not always possible. So finding places where one can recharge is nice.

Rip-off has such negative connotations. Cross-pollination is probably a better word. Its nice to have lineage and history but often its more legendary (& hype) then fact. P.R. is not recent invention and every one needs to claim there system is old and the best. It doesn't help when texts pop up in hidden/secret books " Vimalamitra reportedly concealed four Nyingtik texts in the caves of Samye Chimpu" filled with words reportedly and supposedly etc., Not that it matters if the practice works. Beyond my teacher's teacher, veracity gets a thread worn. We can still learn from it, but separating true history from legend and myth gets harder. Particularly when the stories get more fantastic and further from everyday experience.

Kinda pointless to argue with someone who continually falls back on 'anyone who disagrees with me is asleep and ignorant' but that tends to be included in most of your arguments. I could just reprint older criticisms of your writing/thinking style but since a few months gone by I'll write it up fresh. Seems to me you live in a black and white world filled with absolutes. Somewhat Orwellian too. That you'd print something like Tolerance is evasion, shows you can't distinguish degrees. For you it has to be all or nothing. Ultimately that mindset is the most limiting of all. Ofcourse you see people as asleep because you see the world through a egotistic filter that if people don't believe the same way you do, they're asleep. And your view sadly considers virtues like tolerance to be.. evasion. Until you learn to see the world in its color and graduations you'll live in a world of black and white and wonder why everyone acts the way they do.

While generally optimistic, I don't see lines in human history as much as curves... Pendulum swings. Prosperity plants the seeds of future recession. Long enough peace devolves into potential for war. Those who profess the highest level of reason can forget basic humanity. Ideas, morals and tolerance swing from side to side. Humanity may be getting more tolerant but our technology is getting more destructive.

Glad to have you onboard. It'd be great to have your input on tonic herbalism. I'd love to see an indepth thread on seasonal tonics, ie what to make now that'll be for ready and handy for the fall kinds of things. and that reminds me. I've got some Pine Pollen tincture I've been ignoring lately.. two dropperfuls under the tongue.

Let us know if there's anything specific we can do to help and thank you, all the mods and Sean for doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes, while mainly we bitch

hmnn, I've seen some cats that seem to hold that opinion.. With big brains come measurements and we measure mostly in relationship to ourselves and what we know. Maybe we need some of that 'we are unique and special' feelings to counteract a world that so often tells us we're not. ie, I think a little of it is healthy. In one pocket keep the world was made for me, in the other keep I am only dust; using either truths when the time is proper.

Seems like her position is irrational, in that you're not taking anything away from her. I'd stick to my guns and let her know its simply one of your eccentricities. She has a couple of those too, but you can live with it. And speaking of positions, as a compromise, perhaps there's some other sex act you could perform, or work on together.

True of philosophical Taoism, but religious Taoism with its pantheon of gods, rules, hells and superstitions seems to me every bit as controlling as any in the west.

Wonder if we can find out a pattern if we have one thread about when the bug hits and which system. I'm suggesting people use this thread to log (after the fact ofcourse) when the system was down and what computer and software they use. ie. sample- Got bad Database message twice yesterday, 6/5 6pm & 7pm central time, then gave up. My system is mac mini running Firefox. If we get enough data in one place, maybe we could start finding solutions. Maybe get a handle on what is causing it. No chit chatter on this thread, just a log of when the board has gone down and the computer system used logging in.

I don't know. I'd probably vote no, though. Not unless you were supporting celibacy with some specific meditative arts. And there's a chance if you did the arts and not the celibacy you'd still feel better after 9 years of training. And there's a chance you'd have problems and/or find the life style too limiting a way to spend your 20's. Celibacy is not a magic wand; more a tricky practice with potential problems and benefits.

as per others, yesterday 6/10 down all morning. I'd cleared my caches a few days earlier. Clearing them again didn't bring the site back. Firefox and Safari on Mac. P.S. My Firefox was acting funny (not sending me to error pages) on the Amazon site a few days ago.

mostly.. more so now that I'm older. Sadly I do know anger, its heat and passion. That seeing red is not a metaphor. It is.. seductive.. natural.. to be stayed away from. My wise sensei told us though, in a fight- if you're angry be angry but don't feed it and don't pretend to be something else. Course the founder of our style Koichi Tohei was known for his combat smile.

hmmnn, that's what stick and stones, fists and bones are for. To make sure the other person hurts like we do.

(IMO) The key word here is saint. I get the feelin becoming a holy man is not easy. No tricks, steps or formula for it, just surrendering your life to .. idk, something that'll flip you inside out and wash away many human distractions and foibles.

To forgive, Yeah, its good but you can't force or fool yourself into it. Sometimes, often.. it takes time. Like grief, there are stages. At times anger is red hot, leave it alone, don't feed it, don't even try mental games other then distraction and working out. Red hot anger spreads to every piece of you. Do not make decisions, promises, threats or plans when anger has a hold of you. Things done in anger are often things poisoned. When its not red hot, it can be tinder; dry and waiting. Waiting for a match, which can be the smallest emotion, thought or trigger. If you don't want it to flare up, keep away from the area, if you can. We can attach to anger, using it like a self cutter uses a knife. It makes us feel powerful while it burns us up, makes us stupid, violent and short sighted. Moves us away from wisdom. Hides choices from us. With some time, distance and care you can build a fire wall. Examine the situation dispassionately. Create plans and strategy for dealing with the person or situation when it happens again. Sometimes that helps. With more time, the tinder breaks up, blows away. As long as we keep gathering it back together. Though its always good to remember what burned us and what we did that contributed to it.

Didn't seem to do any harm. Haven't had any board crashes lately, but its early to tell.

Thanks. It took me a few steps and many clicks to clear my browser. If this works universally it'll be a great time saver.

Wow, giving kids the chance to be the last on there block to split the atom. I'll give'em credit for one thing though. They dreamed big in those days. We've lost some of that.. to a thousand distractions.

Just cleared both of my Firefox caches. Hope I haven't erased anything important. The offline cache was pretty large.

Glad to have you on board. I admire that you're not just discussing what you want, but the work, such as learning Chinese that goes along with it.

I agree. Also with the notion that these days, the last century or two hell has been given more lip service then full on belief. I think even the pope was downgrading hell into a more purgatoryish place. Even heaven ain't what it (theologically) used to be, less floaty in clouds more existential connecting the spirit with God/Oneness. On the other hand, I don't think going full on atheist would proved to be a huge boon for mankind. I think communism has taught us a sharing equal society can be just as blood thirsty as the worst religious, see Pol Pot, Stalin.. Mao.. Kim Jung Ils..