thelerner

Slightly tangental. I just had my kids wisdom teeth somewhat expensively removed. I had mine taken out in my late teens. I blame the damn Neanderthals. Really. Our mouths/skulls aren't big enough for the extra teeth. I imagine at one time along our evolutionary trip they were. I suspect it has to do with the Neanderthal side of the family, once removed but not forgotten.

I find myself agreeing with everyone. Curious since there are opposing views. If you'll be with the group long term, try it both ways. Like most of life, experimentation is the only way to really know.

I've got family responsibilities, but whoever takes Ya Mu up on his exceptionally kind offer is damn lucky. Training with a master of a rare healing gi gong style. Learning both esoteric and very down to earth techniques. Kinda like a winning lottery ticket being offered.

Don't know if I fully agree with this, I find listening to a Tolle very mellowing, but I'm glad it was said. course I find word-play and escapist fantasy relaxing too.

We don't wear shoes in the house. I've found if I take my shoes off at a local beach they've always been there when I return. I've heard onyx is very grounding. I've always thought that mental consideration of grounding is equal to the physical.

I was kinda hoping there'd be hookers involved and a punch line. If serious, I'd have the Sage close the bathroom door and put a towel to block underneath it. Might want to search the rest of the room for spiders too. If none, sleep peacefully. When leaving, leave the doors to bathroom and hall open so spider/s have a chance to leave. If he's not willing to carry them outside himself there fate is up to Karma. also Feels like we're missing something here. Some important element of the story.

Your art is humorists gold mine. There's a dozen jokes I'd to make. But I won't. I'm sure its a worthwhile and serious gong fu. I did some golden bell qi gong years ago and there's a lot to be said for techniques that strengthen and energize the internal organs.

Welcome to the board and thanks for the kind offer. While we're usually easy going, for some reason Mo Pai discussions tend to get heated. Thus requiring a thicker skin and willingness to ignore the ignorant. I'm glad we have someone on board who practiced with Jim and has first hand experience.

Two things I've found. The teacher is more important then the art. So look at all internal arts in your area, don't prejudice yourself against any. Talk to the teacher, see if you can attend a class for free. Talk to the students, how level headed are they, do they seem mature and evolved? Mundane thing like location is important too. A good teacher 4 blocks away can be way better then a great one 40 miles away or a master in the next state. Visiting greats in seminars is good, but a steady teacher who gives feed back is going to give you strong fundamentals. And fundamentals ultimately mean everything.

Some OP's start with a message like 'This is meant to be a serious discussion. Please no hijacking, off subject or humorous comments Please.' This may be a good device for certain people. I'd hate to see it everywhere or over used. Any other suggestion for better wording? If its not abused and there's a fair amount of respectful buy in, this may solve some problems. Good example from the Turtle Shell: "This thread is solely about helping people gain an understanding of the terminology in the book Taoist Yoga, by Charles Luk. Please do not take the thread off topic, with debate."

Really, where'd you go? I can ask that because there is no starting Keep this on track message on my Keep things on track thread. Thus it can hijacked by those who don't know better.

Look at some of Daniel Reids works, though they may be more informative then practice oriented. The Tao of Health, Sex & Longevity and The Complete Book of Chinese Health and Healing: Guarding the Three Treasures. For chi gung practice routines I like Michael Winns Fundamental II video dvd and his Gods play in the Cauldron which had the PanGu form. Note he may have changed the names of since I bought them.

Whoops, my bad. I didn't mean to imply you reported anyone. I used it as an example of a polite, well worded OP add on to keep the thread on subject. this could be an example of <editing> gone wrong. Instead of adding a 2nd message saying 'Here's a good example, I added it to my first. So it looks like Bagua's message referred my last sentence instead of globally. I'm doing the same thing now. Somebody stop me before I edit again !

I've found value in the maxim, the opposite of a great truth is another great truth. When it comes to human life truth is paradoxical. Take a close look at the concept of no self. Obviously there's someone typing and looking etc., yet at our best, there is no self. 2 bits

I take it, even with this intellectual understanding. One still needs to move up the scale 1 then 2 then 3.. in order to graduate into naturalness.?

I tend to think most of 'us' are Mutts, particularly when viewed in terms of the 200,000ish years Homo's have been Sapien. Good thing too, over long periods isolated groups tend to create inborn genetic diseases.

What are you talking about? I don't understand why you're bringing North Korea into this. Do you think we're about to attack them? Though I guess you're right we're not talking about new aid packages to N. Korea and won't until there solid negotiations on them giving up nuclear weapons. We're not friendly with that country, quite the opposite and won't be helping them. Still this thread is about Syria, not N. Korea. <late night edit, always a bad idea> N. Korea, didn't Pythagorian talk about N. Korea in an earlier post? I recall he said it was America's fault that N. Korea was doing so badly. Interesting, I'd blame it on 3 generations of paranoid dictators who present themselves as god and care more about there military then feeding there starving people. It can't be brutal communist dictator at fault, it has to be America <sarcasm. Thats because Conspiracy Theorists feed themselves a steady diet of crazy paranoid crap. They'll get there information and believe sources like foaming at the mouth- Infowars. Problem is, you stare into the void long enough, nothing stares back; but you fall in. You live in the dark. You grow ever more paranoid and lose perspective. Every year is the last. Every accident signals Armageddon. Cops are as bad as terrorists. Kim Jung Il is a poor put on ruler where democratically elected presidents are villains. The end is always around the corner. Explanations are simplified, but would require crazy Rube Goldberg complexity. Information is given by Some Unknown Guy backed up by unnamed expert , and the plotters on top are Powerful, near omnipotent but also mentally retarded.

What?? You either didn't read or can't comprehend what I wrote. Did you think I meant we should attack Syria? Have you read anything I've written here? Apparently not. Did others misunderstand? My point is our attack would make things worse. I thought it'd be clear to any one who'd been reading here. To illustrate here's an article from CNN: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/04/syrian-wars-got-religion-and-that-aint-good/?iid=article_sidebar The problem is its not as clear cut as good guys vs bad guys. You have the Christian population thats pro Assad to protect them against Islamists. You have Alawites and many Sunni who against Assad and as foreign fighters came in went back to him. Let me quote a little of the article above: "..If we come and and give one group a total win, we may be setting up an ethnic cleansing," Landis said. The situation is Syria is fairly fluid, with lots of conflicting reports and shifting alliances, but here is our breakdown of the religious groups at war and a bit of background on their beliefs. Alawites This small, secretive sect makes up just 12% of the Syrian population, but members have held prominent seats of power since the 1970s. Why? Because the ruling Assad family is Alawi. Alawites consider themselves Muslims, but most mainstream Muslims call them heretics. Among the reasons: They believe that Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, is divine. They've been ostracized almost since their 9th-century founding, so they keep many of their core beliefs secret. During the Ottoman Empire, they were not allowed to testify in court, Landis said. "It was assumed they would lie, because the God they professed was man-made," he said. In the 1970s, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, built a brutal security force with fellow Alawites. They were the fingers of his iron fist. Despite that, many Alawites initially joined the uprising against Bashar al-Assad, calling for greater freedom and government transparency. As the conflict progressed, however, Sunni rebels targeted Alawite communities, pushing them back into Assad's arms. To give you some sense of how some Syrian Sunnis feel about Alawites, here's what Adnan Anour, a cleric who fled to Saudi Arabia, has said: "As for those Alawites who violate what is sacred, when the Muslims rule and are the majority of 85%, we will chop you up and feed you to the dogs." Shiites In May it appeared the rebels had the momentum and Assad's fall was just days away. Then Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group, announced that it was joining the fray, and backing Assad. Within weeks, this fierce group, led by Hassan Nasrallah, had managed to wrestle key cities from rebel control, turning the war's tide. There aren't many Shiites in Syria, but the Assads courted them from neighboring Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, allowing them to build major shrines to the faith's founders in Syrian cities. The strategy seems to have worked. When Sunni rebels attacked those shrines, Shiites rushed in to defend them. Not that Sunnis and Shiites need many excuses to fight. They've been battling since the earliest days of Islam and continue to clash in Iraq and other countries. Nasrallah harkened back to those early clashes when Hezbollah entered the fray, calling the Syrian Sunni rebels "murderers of Hussein." Hussein ibn Ali was the Prophet Muhammad's grandson who refused to pledge allegiance to the ruling Muslim caliph in the 7th century. Shiites believe that he and his family were the rightful rulers of the Muslim community. Sunnis Sunni Muslims are by far the biggest Muslim sect, in the world and in Syria. It's estimated that Sunnis make up 75% of Syria's population of 22 million. But they've long been sidelined by the Assads. It's little surprise, then, that most of the Free Syrian Army, the largest rebel group, is Sunni. Within the Sunni coalition, there are remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were brutally suppressed by the Assads; Salafists, who believe in a purified Islam based on its earliest days; and more secular-minded Sunnis. In recent months they've been joined - sometimes to their consternation - by fighters from al Qaeda-linked groups. Always eager to fight Shiites and sow discord, these jihadists are every bit as fierce and battle-tested as Hezbollah, their sworn enemy. It's unclear, however, how al Qaeda itself is involved in Syria. The Iraqi-branch commander reportedly overstepped his authority in June by announcing a merger with Syria's al-Nusra Front, earning a smackdown from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's global leader. At the same time, some Syrian fighters say they pretend to be al-Qaeda just to annoy the Assad regime. Still, prominent Sunni Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi has called on all Sunnis to join the fight against the Shiites and Hezbollah, calling them Hizb al-Shaytan, the “Party of the Devil” Saudi Arabia and Qatar are backing that call with their wallets, according to international reports, hoping to prevent Shiites from gaining a stronghold in the region. Christians Christians, who form about 10 percent of the Syrian population, are essentially middle men in this civil war, caught between Assad's army and the Sunni rebels. Under Assad, Christians had more rights than in many Middle Eastern countries, with the freedom to worship and run schools and churches. Their rights were limited however. The Syrian constitution says the president must be Muslim, for example. According to UN reports, rebel fighters have targeted Christian communities, shooting up factories and detonating car bombs in Christian neighborhoods. In addition, many Christians - in Syria and in the United States - fear the fate of Christians should Sunni fundamentalists take power in Syria. They, like the Alawites, have been pushed back into Assad's arms. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, perhaps with an eye towards a presidential run in 2016, is among the latest to express concern for Syria's Christians. "I think the Islamic rebels winning is a bad idea for the Christians," Paul said on NBC's "Meet the Press," on Sunday. "All of a sudden we'll have another Islamic state where Christians are persecuted."

Its not about saving a stranger instead of your brother. Its about killing a stranger because someone was cruel to another stranger. We can kill 5, 10, 20,000 people to avenge that boy's castration. We can do it in a day, even an hour. Our missiles or our soldiers on the ground are not going to work magic; they'll kill Syrians, lots of them. Sadly we'll end up killing far more civilians then soldiers, maybe 10 to 1. Its the perversity of modern intra city warfare compounded by unintended consequences. Civil wars are ugly. People deserve freedom. Assad is a brutal dictator. What we all want is clear. But the path there, that's real hard.

Damn, you mean I've wasting my time with Stormy trying to birth a Centaur? rats.

Purty Strange. When it become straight line?

Yeah, putting it into Congress's hands was the same as sticking it into quick sand. Yet good things might come out of a hanging sword of Damocles. One we're not shooting off cruise missiles that would kill people, destroy stuff and probably not improve the situation. Two, its gotten some motion in the works on diplomatic angles. As far as I see it, the best outcome would be Assad declaring he'd step aside in 4 or 5 months, and free (& relatively honest) general elections would be held. Course even money, that leads to Hezbollah or Brotherhood election, they'd immediately go draconian and spark civil war number 2. So what the hell do I know. Still It might be best to have one side win decisively and have a modicum of peace breaking out then have the bloody civil war drag on year after year, losing 50,000 lives annually.

Still looks like random paint droppings to me. When a Foolish man hears the Tao he laughs out loud. When an Average man hears the Tao He half believes it, half doubts it. When a Superior man hears the Tao he immediately embodies it. When Superman hears the Tao he flies around the earth and reverses time.

We have people who on both ends of the healing spectrum here. I wouldn't deny qi gong healing as real, but when they pull red liquid out of the body I get suspicious. On that aspect what do people with experience think?

At the highest level I've heard the real goal is deep dreamless (yet conscious) rejuvenating sleep. Yet I assume we're pretty far from highest level. Sleep work can help us, figure out inner thoughts, demons and desires. There is the goal of lucidity and beyond that astral travel and connecting to some deep forces all the way to the nature of death. Seems worthwhile to me and step number one is remembering your dream. Personally dream work tends to make my insomnia worse so usually after a few weeks I tend to give it up so I can sleep better. I've found and some research has backed me up that the last 90 minute REM cycle tends to be the most vivid. Waking up 90 or 100 minutes early, walk a bit, go to washroom, set your mind to remember your next dream and have a goal, tends to work best. For me commands and hypnotic instructions done earlier don't have nearly the same power. I also had a method I called retell to remember. Before opening my eyes instead of trying to remember the dream, I'd 'retell' it mentally to myself, as if I was telling a story to a third person. My theory being this downloads the dream from precarious short term memory into long term. Then write out the dream on a nearby pad of paper, tittle first. <edit> lots and lots of 'serial' dreams last night. Serial meaning after waking up you return to the same dream. As someone said, just talking about dreams, general awareness of them, brings them out with greater intensity.