thelerner

Thank you Chris d, great site. Guess I got another 20 or 30 miles of dharma talking & walking to listen to. Beyond all the great audio dharma talks, there's a free download of a book made in honor of his 60th birthday that looks really good. I'm downloading it now and its headed for my Kindle app. a small excerpt from the book: Peace of mind is not found by searching for a deep cave, in a perfect monastery, in a wonderful place high in the Himalayan Mountains. If you’re looking for peace that way, you are looking for what Ajahn Chah called a tortoise with a moustache. People look for the impossible and of course they can’t find it. There is no such thing as a tortoise with a moustache. You find real peace of mind by accepting your life as you have it now, even in the midst of great tragedy. What a wonderful thing that is. How do you find this peace? Let go of all the past and all guilt, by forgiving; don’t worry about the future, and learn to appreciate the moment. Do your duty and put fun into whatever you have to do. Peace of mind is as free as the air. Drink it, enjoy it, and take it with you. It’s always there if you only look in the right place

Its live chat or watch the 2010 Sherlock Holmes BBC on Netflix. Going Live Chat ..now.

Saturday we had a nice group going for a while. Be sure to check on the bottom of the screen every now and then if a Live Chat is going on. If you want to start a live chat its often best to create a new post that states your the time and your intention.

Maybe a bit,but at their best, my thoughts surf a wave I call The Now. Sometimes they over shoot and I tumble off the board.

I think the world will end on Dec 22, 2012 and the ONLY thing that will SURVIVE IS THIS FRICKIN THREAD 33 35 pages and going strong.

I agree with you agreeing with him. I think the West benefits from its general lack of historical knowledge and particularly history based passions. Take England, not only did we fight a war of independence with them they actually burnt down our Capital on August 24, 1814. Probably 99 out of 100 Americans are blissfully unaware of it. Despite the fury of WWII, enemies rather quickly became allies. There is a poison to hanging on to the past so passionately it brings on new wars and discord.

I think you'd see your own..just before the increased mass of the mirror created a black hole that sucked you in. it happened to my Uncle Rapidowski, but he was very fast runner.

I forgot about the Group Meditation section in Personal Practice. I think most people have. Maybe it can be pinned to the top? After all it is a unique subsection and pinning would get it greater notice and participation. my 2 cents Michael

Not personally, but watching pharmaceutical commercials on TV its amazing the number that include suicidal thoughts among the side affects. I saw one yesterday, a pill for clearer skin. One of the listed side affects, suicidal thoughts!? What the freakin shit ass moron kind of pill is that?? Possibly better skin, possible shorter life? I defend modern medicine, but these are things that shake my confidence; in western medicine and common sense.

This is great and gets to the heart of the matter.

Thanks for reviving this thread taodancing, and thanks to Sean for taking the time to get such an indepth interview done. FWIW here is my Question and his Answer: "Ok, last question! Could you tell us 3 simple things we could do every day to enhance our lives and our harmony with Tao, no matter what system or path we are following? Three things, three simple things. BF: The first one is: learn how to breathe, learn how to breathe, learn how to breathe better. If you’re going to know anything about chi, you should learn how to breathe really well with your entire body. The Taoist breathing system is unique and powerful. The second is the process of recognizing what is going on and separating what is really happening inside you from the infinite series of distortions that can happen at any level; physical, mental, emotional, psychic, or karmic. The third thing is simply that if you want to approach the Tao and live your lives in harmony, start really looking at whether your life is in balance and do whatever is possible for you to put your life in balance. This usually means looking at what’s really important in your life. We can get filled up with so many things that don’t mean much but in terms of what our life is like from the inside, if you’re going to be in balance, it’s a useful thing to start looking at what’s important and what doesn’t matter. This comes down to two very simple words that run through every Taoist and Chinese culture. One is wu suo hui which means it doesn’t matter if it happens. The other is you suo wei, it matters. So as an example: “Should I go to the beach or should I go skiing on my vacation?” Well, that’s really a wu suo hui thing, whereas, “Should I let a dog chew my foot off or not chew my foot off?” That’s a you suo wei thing because it’s really hard to move about without a foot. So what is irrelevant? What is relevant? That’s going to require going into that and that’s going to be quite a journey. Taking what is inside of you and being able to work that out is a good place to start. Thanks to all the Tao Bums readers and to Sean for keeping this forum alive. I wish you the best on your path. Bruce Frantzis

Seems like everyone lies about sex. Even olive oil

I've always thought another word for Tao is Yes. And those with the most soul express Yes most loudly. When they wake up, throughout the day, even as they fall into sleep. yes. Yes to the good Yes to the bad Yes to the pebble Yes to the sky

Welcome, its great to have people on board who have learned authentic practices from China. I must admit I'm unfamiliar with yiinjing, or at least that spelling of it. Tell us about it online.

Welcome Zarkers. You'll fit in here nicely. Its great that you organize meditation sessions. At times there's a synergy to group meditation that can be pretty powerful. We have a couple of Australians here. One who doesn't post much these days but may be near you is Stuart Shaw, he's also on facebook. (a.k.a. Stigweard) Age: 38 Residence: Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia Occupation: Taijiquan Teacher Taijiquan Bio 1994 - present: Student of Chen Man Ch'ing Tajiquan through Sifu Lindsay Smith, student of Teo Ah Keng, student of Master Sia Mok Tie, student of Master Huang Sheng Shyan, student of Grandmaster Chen Man Ch'ing. Very nice talented guy.

Non, (if you ever read this) best wishes for the Holidays. May it be a time of optimism and growth.

Fingering tofu, Now that's hot. I hear there's a powerful technique of holding off ejaculation by mentally visualizing B.K Francis. . apologies in advance sometime i can't help myself. On a more productive note. I forget where I read it but here is one definition of Taoist 'first base. The sexual rhythm used by the man is 8 short strokes, 1 deep. You link each completed 'set' to a finger. Going through each of the 10 fingers gets you 90 strokes. You keep going til you've reached 8,100 strokes.

Couple more articles on tech that could help save/clean the world. http://www.globalwaterforum.org/2012/05/28/seawater-greenhouse-a-new-approach-to-restorative-agriculture/ Sample: Seawater Greenhouse Just as with desalination, the last few decades have seen tremendous growth in conventional greenhouses around the world. There are now some 200,000 hectares of greenhouses around the Mediterranean, and over 1 million in China, where 30 years ago, there were almost none. This is because yields that are achieved in greenhouses can be 10 to 100 times greater than yields achieved outside. They also enable high value crops to be grown ‘out of season’. Figure 2. Evaporative cooling properties of air at 30ºC The Seawater Greenhouse enables year-round crop production in some of the world’s hottest and driest regions. It does this using seawater and sunlight. The technology imitates natural processes, helping to restore the environment while significantly reducing the operating costs of greenhouse horticulture. In addition to not having to discharge concentrated brine, it also benefits from the fact that high salinity water has a powerful biocidal or sterilising effect on the air that passes through it. This reduces or eliminates airborne pests. The most important benefit of the Seawater Greenhouse is that it cools and humidifies large volumes of air at very low cost, and to do this, it must evaporate large volumes of seawater, thereby dealing with the discharge from desalination. One hectare of Seawater Greenhouse near the coast will typically evaporate 50 tons of water/day, but this will increase 2-3 fold in regions of low humidity. The effect is illustrated in Figure 2. Figure 3. Seawater Greenhouse, Tenerife. With reduced humidity, lower temperatures (the wet bulb temperature) are achieved and larger volumes of water are evaporated. For example, if we pass air at a temperature of 30ºC and a relative humidity of 70% into a nominal 500m2 Seawater Greenhouse, the air will be cooled down to 26ºC and two tonnes of water will be evaporated in 24 hours. If the incoming air has a relative humidity of 20%, the air will be cooled down to 17ºC and nearly three times as much water is evaporated. The most significant benefit of the process is that the combination of lower temperature and higher humidity reduces plant transpiration up to 10-fold and enables delicate crops such as lettuce and French beans to grow in a hot, arid location. Seawater Greenhouse, Oman. Further, the beneficial effect of the humid exhaust air creates a zone of locally higher humidity which encourages vegetation. The photographs in Figure 4 were taken two years apart in Oman. Relative humidity almost invariably falls with increasing distance from the coast. Lower humidity means that lower temperatures are achieved and more water is evaporated. The map below illustrates typical daytime humidity across the UAE, with relative humidity at the coast above 70% yet falling to 15% further inland. <its a much large article but this gives a taste of it> Growing Food in the Desert the article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/24/growing-food-in-the-desert-crisis a video on the design:

Welcome back but still on the dog dogma? We had over 30 pages of discussion on it, 2 or 3 different topics that you started. You wrote dozens of posts about your problem with them. It was done to death. You can't still be obsessing on them.

Granted. Shenlung farts loud and long at inappropriate time despite only one bean breakfast burrito. I wish for a Verizon 4g Mac Mini Ipad w/ 64 gig memory.

Seems more Tron then Matrix, and it downgrades God into computer nerd. While I disagree with the premise because its based more on a movie themes then factual data, I'm willing to go with it. So..what are the benefits of being an AI character in an AI world?

Probably chemical, always observe the evidence and be aware of anything moved out of view for a fraction of time; whose quarter, whose glass, who touched it last and was there any possibilities of switching or coating? Answer lots. The thing is, all good magician's tricks should be out of the ordinary and hard to explain. A popular axiom in professional magic is one man's magic is another mans engineering. Few understand how many hours, weeks, even months go into practicing a one thirty second trick. Like the legendary Ninja a good magician is athlete, engineer, chemist, psychiatrist and consummate liar performer with a talent toward distraction. on the third hand, you can probably make more $$ as a fake magician with real powers then as a guy who can heat a quarter real hot or has powers that can be duplicated with 5 cent match. That being said, unless you're at the top of the ladder, being a magician is very hard work with very little pay.

Do you base that concept on anything other then you liked the movies? Its always struck me as funny, people using the Matrix as a model since in the movie people were living in rags eating crappy food and were relatively powerless. To be in the Matrix was to live unaware or want to escape the real world which was admittedly grungy in Neo's time period. Crap I'm gettiing off course into movie mythos. To me Tech is a distraction not a solution. I'm all for updating spiritual paradigms but not by substituting pop science fiction trilogies. Interestingly enough, Hydrogen is describing a movie I saw last week on Netflix called Cafe, it revolves around the characters in a coffee shop, God walks in and tells the geek programmer he and the world are an AI project. It's very good, you should watch it, but its a movie. Regardless of ones basic paradigm there may be cracks in realities mirror. Dream work- lucid dreaming and hard science if possible in astral travel. The third eye runs across many cultures. I'd love to see serious work that scrapped the dogma and got serious data on what can be seen. In both cases serious long term training programs.

So many people, so many directions . Yet it begins with a practice of sitting quietly..letting thoughts come and go with no attachment. I'll throw in the my favorite book du year, 'Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond-A Meditators Handbook' by Ajahn Brahm. You can find about two dozen lectures/dharma talks of his on DIYDharma.org. Its actually loaded with great lectures from reknown teachers. A real treasure chest site, listen to a few and see what and who connects.

Hmmnn, the teaching and perhaps empowerment of a master. I'd venture you also have to leave civilization. A hermitage where you concentrate and refine 24/7 for a long period.