thelerner

I'm close to a bright city, but I'll go have a look see.

He had a funny SNL skit with the character interviewing Michael Jordan; telling him he was 'good enough'. He made a movie with the character that was actually pretty good. One of the better SNL to movie formats. I liked the Conehead movie too, but that might have simply been nostalgia.

I think only a sadist would make an angel sit on a pin. It could also be my attention span. By the time he's on the 4rth 'no-thing' and 6th 'cause', my head is spinning.

got some flax today, organic cold pressed $11.99 for I believe 12 oz. I'll try it in mini blender and see how it tastes tonight. Probably put in some cinnamon, maybe a little milk if its not blending up. Later experiment w/ half a banana and some blue berries.

What if I offered it to you at 75% off? I can't get into these pure philosophy questions. In my mind they're mostly 'how many angels can sit on the head of a pin', style questions. I suppose if they're pondered like a koan it can be fruitful, but intellectually what does a question like this affect?

I'm afraid it'll scare the moose'ss. And be very very expensive.

Think Zhan zhang's easy? All I can say is try his position for 10 minutes, unmoving. I think you'll be in for a surprise. Squats and weight lifting build up testosterone.

Trunk, could you provide a sample recipe from the book? Or what the basic ratio of flax oil to cottage cheese is? edit> Here's what I dug up. From http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/budwig-diet-flaxoil-quark-mix.html (as always seeker beware, this is apparently viewed as controversial by some, though I can't see what harm it could do. Especially viewed as complimentary nutrition, not instead of convention treatment) "As mentioned, the basis of Dr. Budwig’s diet or protocol is the ingestion of a special oil-protein mixture in the form of organic cold-pressed flaxseed oil plus cottage cheese or quark*. In fact, the Budwig diet is often mistakenly believed to be just about “flaxseed oil and cottage cheese”, likely a major reason why many may feel hesitant to more deeply research it due to its sounding simplistic and hence unbelievable. The fact is that Dr. Budwig was a brillant scientist whose ground-breaking discoveries in the field of human health still await proper recognition. See Who Was Dr. Johanna Budwig?. * Quark is a dairy product readily available in German-speaking countries made from various types of milk and roughly similar to cottage cheese. Dr. Budwig used quark because quark is a traditional food item in Germany, inexpensively sold at every corner and used in a wide variety of dishes, sweet, salty, in baking etc. Cottage cheese (Hüttenkäse) is a relatively recent import (I would estimate it was introduced in the late 60s) and isn't even remotely as popular as quark. Preparation of the Budwig diet flaxseed oil plus cottage cheese/quark mix This is how the Budwig diet mix is prepared: for each tablespoon of flaxseed oil, add 2 tablespoons of low-fat cottage cheese (or quark). The flaxoil/cottage cheese (quark) mixture should be fully blended until no traces of oil remain visible, proving that the highly unsaturated fatty acids have become water soluble (a hand-held mixer or a blender works well when you add some milk as suggested by Dr. Budwig). For those who like to go into even more detail: using a measuring tablespoons of 15 ml, the flaxseed oil/cottage cheese (or quark) ratio is about 1:2 by volume (going by weight, the flaxseed oil/cottage cheese [or quark] ratio is about 1:2.4). It seems preferable to rather use a bit more cottage cheese (or quark) than too little. Dr. Budwig used 42 g flaxseed oil (3 tblsp) mixed with 100 g quark in her breakfast muesli, a central part of her diet. Low-fat yoghurt and yoghurt quark Since organic cottage cheese may be hard to find, and if available, may possibly be cost-prohibitive for many, you also have the (less optimal) option of using yogurt. If yogurt is used, 3 times as much yogurt as cottage cheese is required (i.e. for each tablespoon of flaxseed oil, add 6 tablespoons of yogurt) and even then it may not be as effective as cottage cheese/quark because it lacks the protein density of cottage cheese and may not fully mix with flaxseed oil." I make various colorful shakes. Green-avocado/spinach, orange-whole clementine/banana, brown.. I wonder how I could incorporate this into a shake? Shouldn't be too hard to play around with. Maybe add milk, banana, cinammon and sweetener to it and wallah done.

In 1914 (and next 40 years) it wasn't wholly uncommon to marry someone wealthy then move to have them committed for life in an insane asylum. That was a nasty form of pseudo legal life imprisonment. All you needed was to pay off the right doctors and lawyers.

I hope you're doing better by the time you read this. When things seem crazy, GreytoWhite's advice holds much wisdom Often thats the only thing we can do. Good luck, God bless.

In Shotokan karate (from highschool days) my instructor told us "If someone comes to fight you, tell them 'Hold on, go get some friends, because you are not enough'". In later years Aikido classes included situational awareness and tactics such as giving away the wallet and saying 'have a nice day', as well as running like hell in a safe direction. Both had fighting techniques but my Aikido sensei's approach made more sense to me. <edit matter of fact the Aikido approach echoes a story told by the founder of modern Karate, the great Funakoshi, who told a story in his autobiography of being robbed on the way to Karate class. He thought he'd be shamed by the teacher instead he got a compliment from the old master who'd never said anything positive to him before.

To get back to the OP's intent. How can we Tao Bummify the TTC, first verse? The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao The name that can be named is not the eternal name The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth The named is the mother of myriad things I picked the translation above at random. here's what i got. The post written is not an eternal truth The topic named is not the point of discussion Rather the writings are reflections of our temporary inner state Ramblings that point inward to our scattered thought

TCM runs so deep it can be intimidating. I haven't studied it, but I use and contemplate Chinese 5 element theory. When making decisions try to see which element is at play and whether I want to add, negate or evolve it.

You can get so theoretical you overlook the particulars in a situation. Why does society want to lock the person up for life? What infractions do you think causes that reaction? It may well be that you also want people who do that kind of thing locked up.

Me too, its probably my favorite winter time tea. Not just naturally sweet, but also robustly filling (for a tea). Cheap too. I get an embarrassingly large bag at a local Japanese grocery for $4 or $5 and its very good (mine might not be organic).

I always found it interesting the concept of people running 'hot' or 'cold' chi through the orbit. I'm referring to Doctor Glenn Morris's book. He seemed to imply most people (men almost always) tended to run hot energy, and as you learned and evolved you could run 'cooler' energy through the orbit. Is this the same phenomena of yin and yan chi? Or is it different.

Haven't read the book, but on a similar vein, I've found doing kettlebell swings strengthen the area, core and coordinated power.

Door by door? If one was totally open minded, go to services/see them in action. Start w/ what's close, keep notes and move further, see what deeply connects to you. No preconceptions, just listening to the service and feeling the wah/spirit of the place. I wonder if religion, like politics, is all local. Its the place and person in charge that makes or breaks the spirituality of it.

What?? You're not training daily now? And you don't plan to til you're in your 40's? That's hardcore man. That kind of 2 days a week dedication will really impress the higher ups. Trust me, when an experienced teachers hears about about you; a disciple so dedicated they'll train twice in the same week, they'll be beside themselves. In 20+ years from now you intend to train daily. Again, that will impress them. While that puts you above fellow hardcore's like MPG who doesn't train at all in Mo Pai (according to his site) these days, you might want to consider daily training. Its generally recommended for anything you want to get good at.

Good character traits.. open doors. Without them, you may run around in circles. Being good gives strength because it allows you to share other peoples strength and wisdom. also Where have you gotten your ideas of the afterlife? What religion is informing it and do you actively practicing it? When people infatuate on a foreign philosophy they miss big and small nuances, because they miss the hundreds of hours of teachings that accompany them. (in some way, do you consider kosta's books as your bible and john chang as your prophet?) lastly Are you here to learn or lecture? Does it effect you when someone gives a John Chang quote (from Kosta book) saying all people end with God. Or does it just bounce off, impossible ,because it doesn't fit your preconception and you're not here to learn. Only to repeat a few lines over and over?

Powers my boy, powers. Lifting cars in the air, destroying villages with my mind, that kind of thing. kidding (or am I?) Doing some chi gung in a park once and a person once asked me what I was doing, I told him. He asked 'Why'. I thought for a moment and told him 'The birds seem to like it'. I wasn't being facetious, that's what popped into my mind and by golly, maybe its a trick of consciousness but it seems like the birds do like it. More to the point- It's hard to know how crazy and annoying I'd be if I didn't meditate. A slow breath rate.. but really the biggest fruit is some wisdom, knowing when enough is enough, in some cases. Perhaps more then most I created the life I wanted. Good wife, good family, good friends. Retired early at 40, living comfortably. I think meditation and bits of the dharma (&luck) I picked up along the way helped me with this. And its very good.

This? I don't do Mo Pai. Years of experience I started meditation in high school. Nothing special just sitting. I was always happy to have martial arts that included meditation and breathing exercises. I did 13 years of Shin shin toitsu Ki Aikido which included weekly ki classes from sitting, walking properly to meditation, and ki-atsu a healing modality. Got involved in Healing Tao, went to some of there retreats, up to Fusion 2. Upper levels there, Kan & Li, include melding the 5 souls in order to survive past death as oneself. Does it work, don't know, not my area of expertise. I've taken advantage of various Tao Bum offerings. I took Kap, got some nice moves out of it. I did a S-M retreat that changed the way I've been sitting for past 2 decades as well as a simple charging hand placement. I worked with Templetao for a few months, his elemental system was one of the most difficult of any system; imagine doing a 21 second, 3 part breath cycle while in horse stance, while mentally repeating a mantra and holding mudras. But I'd worked a little with Max's 5 element standing so it wasn't bad. And I'll go through Rawn Clark's Archeaous system while standing so its doable. In the mornings I'll do a guided meditation and luxuriate in what might be considered deep trance, others might consider sloppy day dreaming. In the shower I'll do Rawn Clark's YHVH practice, a kabalic chant where you also visualize various hebrew letters on your body, then a couple kind of matrix visualizations. Cool stuff. Sit a bit in emptiness. Do it again at night. When i can't sleep I do Max's Kunlun while sitting on the toilet. The spontaneous knee movements burning off excess energy. I'm rambling. Mostly I dabble, but I've been meditating about 33 years. Last year I hit the Sivananda ashram (I don't do yoga, but enjoy the 2 daily meditation classes) and had a chance to talk to Hindu priests, scholars; people who said they had intimate relations with the living Hindu gods. Did they? I don't know, maybe, fascinating people though. At 33 years of pratice I place myself in the low intermediate category. Lots of people here who are way beyond me and have some interesting specialties. I've made myself available to learn from many such as Taomeow, Steve, couple other old timers here who are certainly my seniors in cultivation.

On one of the first pages of my Tao Te Bum I'd certainly have this, a very worthy desiderata: Essence of Taoism Story From NonTien (*I'm just quoting this gem tl) There is an old story that once Confucius, Shakyamuni Buddha and Lao-tzu were drinking some peach wine together. Buddha opined that it was bitter, Confucius that it was sour – but Lao-tzu, smiling, found it to be sweet. The wine, of course, represents human life. Taoism is not a philosophy or religion of salvation or of escape, but of appropriately enjoying and dealing with the real life which we have. Taoism finds perfection in imperfection, and taking the eternal and universal viewpoint of the Tao, realizes that the good is not to be finally judged by personal or human preference. Taoism suggests that happiness is found in accepting our situation. There is no reason not to do anything reasonable to better ourselves, of course, but resentment, denial or a negative outlook on life do nothing towards increasing our happiness. Cheerfulness, humor and a freedom from fussing are the attitudes that will stead us best in life. This is not to say, however, that Taoism is any kind of forced and strained "positive thinking". It is fine to be sad or melancholic from time to time. This is a perfect occasion to read or write sad poems, listen to sad music and complain to our friends, and (in moderation) can add to the overall enjoyment of life. Taoism is also unconcerned with ideas of "advancement" and "success" through some special mode of thinking. A Taoist is only willing to struggle to survive up to a point, after which he is content not to survive, death being a natural commitment of life. Lesser considerations such as career, popularity, fame and wealth are then obviously highly trivial, and not such as to cause serious unhappiness. The Taoist takes his positive pleasures from the enjoyment of love (in all wholesome forms), learning (of interesting and worthwhile things), productive labor (of a kind actually beneficial to human beings), contemplation (whether of the taste of tea, the beauties of art or the moods of Nature), and Taoist practice (of meditation, t'ai-chi ch'üan etc.). Above all, he or she endeavors to preserve the basic human integrity and innocence with which we are all endowed at birth, and not to be subverted by the concerns of worldliness. The Taoist strives not to want and get, but to enjoy what is already present with gratitude and grace.

Careful what you ask for. Teaching is actually pretty hard. I taught martial arts and wonderful lesson plans and ideas often had to be thrown out the window due to kid craziness. Quite often the little suckers just don't want to learn. My kids certainly equate school with prison. My 14 year old constantly rants that there's nothing else for him to learn. Interestingly, my wife has visits from the common anxiety dream of being in school and either late or unprepared for a test. Since I was in that case so often in real life, I'm pretty much immune.

Skydog's got a point. We need to keep an eye on juggernaut that is the prison-industrial complex (here in the US). The last 20 years its become a For Profit evil that's come up with some nasty ways to feed itself. Jail and prison are unfortunate necessities, but there's much evidence the 'system' has played a role to get increased and harsher sentences passed, feeding and bloating itself. Thankfully the pendulum is beginning to swing away from paranoid unthinking sentences. Society seems to realize we can't spend 100's of thousands or millions of dollars locking up petty nonviolent criminals. The drug war has shattered many futures and fed drug cartels that fuel mass murder. Things are shifting away. I hope it continues. No more 3 strikes its out, toning down the drug war, decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana. Less criminals in prison and more support or supervision for ex-cons to go straight.