thelerner

Thanks for the link. What made Fuller such a modern renaissance man is that he thought deep, and brought his theories into the real world with real products to help mankind. I can study deep physics for 20 or 30 minutes before my head swims. What I need is good solid metaphors to hang the theory on. Better yet a physical structure I can see or at least imagine. If I can't apply something to the real world, I'm not sure I completely understand it.

Reading it I thought of online video protocols. Originally videos were shown picture by picture which took up lots of memory and space and by there nature were sequential. Later mp4 formats would only recreate what moved from print to print. That saves huge amounts of space. Don't know if that has anything to do with anything. The mind of God uses efficient algorithms to plot out time and space??

Cool. Good answer. I was looking at it, too literally.

I agree Michael Lomax is great and accessible. My Aikido sensei was Jonathon Eley is an exceptional teacher and practitioner. While he is awesome, I've done a few seminars with Saotome Sensei and found him to be one of the greats, facing him you're aware of infinite technique and you're confounded before you can do anything. Great wah too.

Quality. And that's why you're a moderator.

Well, you already know what I think about Lao Tzu quotes from the Hau Hu Ching(i.e. Fraud, written hundreds of years after TTC by people who needed to add weight to there own philosophy). Still since you've presented the saying a few weeks ago I've grappled with it. First the relatively ludicrous first glance of everything you see is an illusion. How can you do something as simple as crossing the street with a belief like that? The cars are not real.. they won't hit me. Do you eat anything with that belief?, the food is not real, I don't really need it. How about bowel movements, another illusion?! To me if you don't know what's real or not, you're going to get life mixed up with fantasy and hurt yourself. Maybe I'm being too confrontational. Can you give examples of how believing nothing is real helps you in getting through real life experiences. Or, if there are no real life experiences how you perform everyday actions while keeping in mind it's all illusion. Still on a deeper basis, I understand our thoughts, our maps are an illusion, maybe correct, maybe not, they are an imperfect representation of the reality out there. Even realizing I have filters and distortions in my mind, its foolish to disavow everything,. There is a reality out there and our job is to learn it and by learning. Not disavow everything and claim nothing exists. Again such foolishness makes life a farce. Because then you're not reading this, and I'm not writing this, and you're not at a computer. Still glad your having some fun. Fun, Peace Happiness, all good.

Hmnnn, instead of guessing if a Bodhisattva would own a dog for protection, why don't we do some research, get the facts. Here's my proposal: Vmarco, you present yourself as something of an expert on Bodhisattva's; what they do, how they think, what they'd own.. So, your job is to give me a list of a dozen or so living Bodhisattva's (any you personally know would be a plus) and I'll do the research to see if they own guard dogs or would be okay with the concept. Simple.

Gibson's movie The Passion always struck me as wrong, to quote one critic it was "a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie — The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre — that thinks it's an act of faith". Few plays have caused as much blood shed as the passion. In ye olden times in ye olden country bloody pogroms were sometimes set off against Jewish communities after a showing of the play. There are undoubtedly hundreds of deaths caused by the passion set of by the Passion plays which often showed exaggerated mocking views of Jews as well as the accusations of Deicide. (can't believe deicide is in the spell checker). Hung vs. crucifixion? They may be referring to the same thing. To create a pole tall enough and strong enough to hold a person, you have to dig down extremely deep and very narrow. A hard trick without modern tools. Its much easier to shave the lower branches from a tree and nail a cross beam to it. I read the Romans lined some of there roads with just such trees, so travelers would see the guilty tortured. It never made it into medieval art, but thats my guess. Most of the crucified were nailed and thus hung on trimmed trees. Personally I think there was a historical Jesus, probably a wise and mystically bent rabbi whose life became over shadowed by earlier myths. I think it was a bloody, superstitious time. The Jews were under Roman rule and readying to revolt. Many would be messiahs were running around. To be called King of the Jews, by friend or foe, was a death sentence. Herod killed off his own wife and son. The Romans slaughtered hundreds, even thousands with little provocation. As the Christian sect separated from Judiasm Roman participation got white washed, and the Jewish connection got scorned and villified.

Why not? Better to have a dog growl to warn off a potential attackers then get hurt or hurt someone else. The problem I can see is you're balancing that good against feeding the dog other living beings on a regular basis and that might be a karmic no no to a Bodhisattva. I don't think you need a vicious animal for protection. A medium size (or larger) should do. As Jeremiah pointed out, a good dog protects its owner. With proper training there are no vicious breeds (though there are vicious individuals and some breeds require more training then others), our 'dojo' dog was a doberman, very sweet and gentle. If you don't mind its carnivorous nature, a dog can give you protection, love and a lot more.

So, what is fun to you? How do you have it? Is it worthwhile or just a distraction from the serious job of being enlightened? To me, fun happens when I take myself lightly. Just fool around, drinks or games with friends. The improv like atmosphere in my writing group. You talk about the senses and when I meditate, I ignore them. but otherwise, they often give me great enjoyment. The sky and clouds thrill my eyes, the sunshine warms my skin and lifts my spirit. The ice tea (4 bags early grey, 2 red zinger, sprinkle sea salt, little vanilla) soothes my taste buds and is deeply satisfying, sex ain't bad either. My senses are my intimate friends, as long as I balance long term consequences with short term satisfactions, I'm good. Is the ultimate to be hit by a car and paralyzed from the neck down? No longer bothered by those pesky senses? Is it nirvana as long as the I.V. and catheter keep working? I say no. There is a time for all things. And a time to go deep into silence and meditation, but to be truly thankful for the gift of life you have to come out of the meditation again, be it weeks, months or years, and go back to the entangle of life; enjoy and give back something to someone.

Not to the person who's life you destroy. also 'complete perpetual annihilation' has a lot of syllables in it. So many its easy to hide meaning in them. Let's call murder something like BANG, you're dead, heart and brain have stopped working. That's something simple and real. There's a breed of nasties who've justified murder through the dogma of Rebirth. Don't break things you can't fix, Beware setting in motion scenarios you can't control. Seek peace, do what you can with your own hands. On the other hand. If I was all powerful and for some bizarre reason gave you and only you the power to destroy and remake the world. How would you remake it? Start with Kim Sue who lives in a small town in Taiwan, with two girls, one boy, and works for the water reclamation facility up town. Then work your way up.

Warm welcome. Its great to see students in China onboard. Be sure to check out our Chinese Language forum. I look forward to your thoughts. Michael

IMO happiness flees from over intellectualization. Pondering Can I Be Happy.. Does 'Can' imply causality or run in the face of free will? What is 'I' really? Do 'I' exist? Does the universe? Am 'I' typing right now? What is 'Be', or not to be? Why aren't I participating in the transitory illusion of happiness? Let me consult the scriptures to find and argue there dogmas. Too much. Learn, then forget and be. I can't help but think in the fullness of life the great teachings are meant to be found, chewed over, integrated, then shit out. Forget them, return to a wise foolish child. Don't intellectualize, do something fun. What's fun? It differs, watching children play might give some ideas.

I wrote this a while back: Ode to money; the lubricant of barter, the measuring stick of perceived value. We create it, name it & play with it. A useful idea, worthy servant and poor master. It Is because we think it Is. And if you don't, I have a nice P.O Box in Brooklyn for you to send it to. Even Einstein had problems with money. In 1904 working as a patent clerk he met my great great uncle, Manny the accountant who explained it to him. Using language Einstein would understand Manny wrote this: M = E C^2. Which translates into Money equals Energy times Consumption Now and Future. You see how energy is at the heart of money? And what is energy? The potential for work. In humans terms Energy makes our lives better and more enjoyable. Flip the equation and we see E= M/C^2. Present and future consumption divides our M and cuts our Energy. Equations must be balanced and choices made. Still one can break out of the zero sum game through leverage. Creativity, creating new resources or combining old ones in new ways allow more work done with the same effort. This is how the wise tap the source of money.

I don't think you can use such a generality. There's many versions and sects of Western,Christian, Islamic, even Egyptian kabbalah. It has a long history of splits and divergents. Still there's a very long tradition of Jewish Kabbalah, where being an orthodox Jew is a prerequisite. One thats been watered down in some circles as its been popularized. Still like all religious mystic practices it sits on the sidelines of the main stream, but is still a potent well of insight and direct experience that main stream draws from in order to stay fresh. The greats being the ones with a foot in both worlds.

I may have to kill you all later, but I'll let you in on a big time travelers secret. There were no dinosaurs. They're just a cover to keep people from traveling back in time.

Yeah, this certainly isn't aimed at you or even saying this isn't a valid thread. Just saying in the past Immortal would post several of these topics each week and in my opinion (which does come off as judgmental, I'm not the topic police here), that was too many on very similar subject. and for what its worth, I thought your post was well written and made good points about the Essenes.

This is your 3rd Post on Early Christians in 3 weeks. Nothing wrong with that but in the past you've snow balled them into 3 or 4 a week, until we have 20 or 30 on the board at the same time. Nothing wrong with a few, but you might want to keep them as a single thread or two so as not to 'pollute' the board with one persons singular interest. If individuals over post on specialized topics other conversations get pushed down and forgotten while the 'front' page ends up with 6 or 7 of virtually the same topic. It hurts the flow and readability of the board. Thats my usual rant, to be followed by your usual answer. my 2 cents Michael

One problem with the question is the assumption of the second part. If you can build a new better world, maybe you should roll up your sleeves and work on this one. If you can't make this one better, no sense throwing a temper tantrum and killing everyone on this planet and all the others. Thats raises a point too, instead of saying destroy, why not use the word murder? If you would murder everyone you know face to face on this earth, then go on to murder face to face all the people you don't know. Just kill'em off one by one, there lives are worth less then nothing to you. If you can do that, do you really have the soul and compassion to create a better world? Doubtful, very doubtful. Maybe the real use of question is a litmus test.

Actually its a pretty long list, I just wanted to get to 'i am not my possessions'. It does include 'I am not my emotions, I acknowledge them and let them settle like waves from a droplet'. I am not my past... I am not my future...I am not my name... I am not my family etc., I don't include '..not my desires', maybe I should. I consider it wrapped up in the future; the collection of fears, greed and desire over thinking the future brings. Again I think by downgrading desires to preferences, which to me means, good if I get it, okay if I don't, we can have the best of both worlds. Strive for things, but be at peace with any result. Maybe its being a little bit pregnant, but happiness is an energy and I don't think we were made to be vulcans. Spock seems okay, but the others seem a little too stiff.

Speaking of things and desires reminds me of the wording I sometimes run through before I meditate. A vispasana exercise. I am not my body, I am that which inhabits it. I am not my thoughts, they are temporary, like clouds floating across the sky. I am not my past.. I am not my future.. I am not my possessions I am not my.. We get way to wrapped up in possessions. Its easy to forget they're just things. Nothing wrong with having them, but its healthiest (imo) to downgrade it from desire to preference. Desires are sticky things, preferences come and go, and don't need to hung on to. Course my latest preference is a sweet full bodied massage chair for $2700. Haven't bought it yet. Maybe I'm waiting to see if I can justify such an expensive luxury to myself. It does arms and legs; squeezes the whole body. I could spend every night in its cold mechanical zero gravity mode embrace. It would be My Precious. keep the kidlings and wife away from it, mine only for me. My precious (we did begin with schizophrenia didn't we )

Crazy wisdom. Every few years my Aikido sensei would let us in on a secret. 'Everything he told us was a lie!', but a necessary one. As we progress we go from big lies to smaller and smaller ones, until we arrive at simplicity. Unfortunately if you start at simplicity people walk away or simply can't get it. Simple can be very hard. Crazy wisdom is great, nothing gets peoples attention like it. Silent wisdom is also good. Words are often carelessly said and less carefully heard. Communicating silently with gestures and facial expression creates focus. Its a great thing to do with kids.

For me the respective myths are beside the point. Within most traditions there is gold, often not in the 'main' book, but in the millennia of writings since. Good solid wisdom on how to conduct oneself honorably and live a good life. Pick and choose correctly, maybe read it upside down and strain heavily and you can find good lessons there. Sadly those who read it literally can easily have there prejudices reinforced. I'm Jewish, take a thing like the Sabbath. Do I keep it because God rested on the 7th day? No, that whole sentence is a land mine of conjectures. Yet the idea of creating a sacred family time, a holyday within each week where we can't work, we have to relax and spend time together; no work, no tech. Its bonding. Sure we've shrunk it from a day to a few hours, but its made us a better family. We light candles and say prayers of special recognition for our food and the sabbath. There are codes of honor and conduct, there are deep spiritual insights that I can learn from. It's certainly not a Jewish thing, I believe its held within the best of all religions. Belonging to a temple is a good outlet for doing much charity work. Its not only taught my kids about out religion, but they've visited a Mosque, Bahai' temple, Cathedral (not to mention food pantries & shelters) in the past year through the temple, to learn about other faiths. They learn good stuff there; charity, prayer, study; respect for there traditions as well as others. Hopefully they've learned not to be militant or dogmatic. Because whether its a religious, atheistic, political, its the militants bring down everyone. my two bits.

Methinks there is unintended consequences to giving out money by the hundred grand and saying no interest, pay it back in the next 20, 30 years or so. Lets see, a third of America takes advantage of it immediately, like the example they take out $200,000 loans. Week one the government pays out.. wait my calculator doesn't go that high..oh its week one 20 Trillion dollars. Week two you need a wheel barrel of money (made up of $100 bills) to buy a loaf of bread. Week 3 it gets worse. Would dumping trillions suddenly into the economy do that? Yup. Would everyone and there imaginary friend borrow all they could, if there were little or no consequences. I think so. If all your neighbors were boring $200,000, would you? I think you'd better because prices would be about to go way way up. Problems. In many ways our recent (present) recession is the result of cheap easy money. Government 'do good' regulation to make cheap loans available easier with less money down and credit checks. That result was- cheap money made housing prices skyrocket into a bubble, bubble burst, housing market crash led to long recession. Make borrowing money free and (In my opinion) it'd make the Great depression look like the Nirvana. You'd have to look to Germany in the 30's to get an idea of the hell such hyper inflation would bring.