thelerner

Personally I find all religious doctrines have some amount of crap in them. The best we can do is ignore the crazy and learn from the good. For fundamentalists its trickier, they can't ignore it, so they build rules around it. (ie not in our dimension ) I don't think Gauss or the majority of FG practitioners are racists (homophobic, maybe, but then aren't most of your old time religions). How do I condone it? I understand, sympathize and if I don't see the practitioners actively teaching discrimination I give them a pass. Gauss is right, FG practitioners can marry out of race (I think). Thankfully religions evolve and reform. Its better to judge them by there actions then by taking little pieces of stricture or historic stories. Being Jewish there is a particularly nasty part of the bible thats the weekly portion. Truly horrible stuff, but the teachers, scholars, wise men ignore or explain it away with layers of stories. And what they concentrate on is the good stuff, morality, justice. Yeah its picking and choosing, but thats life.

Gary's site is very 'hype-y'. I'm sure the man has talents, but .. to charge big money (which I have no problem with) and show the students videos!? That I have a problem with. He does a lot of advertisement and seems to stress himself, his abilities, sudden cures. IMO thats not what the path is about. Course I've never taken a class or seminar. They are undoubtedly moving for many but I prefer teachers who have long term paths laid out and are a little more mellow. 2 1/2 cents. Michael

I think we're best off having a choice. We should be conscious of trade offs, what we gain and what we lose w/ each gadget.

I'd also back Gauss on this. If you read him clearly, he said according to FG mixed races are fine, I quote: Falun Dafa practitioners may marry people of other races, many FD practitioners are married to people of other races. Hence FD is not against people mixing races. FG has unique views on stuff, but from what I've read they're not rascists. Michael

So, how are our gardens growing? My square foot garden is doing well. Though I've needed to water it daily due to current hot dry weather in the Midwest. I'm letting the rest of my lawn go dormant in the drought. Leaf lettuce came up early and doing great. Tomatoes doing well, I have a trio on my front lawn, the usual sweet 100, yellow hybrid, and I found black grape tomato(or so they said). They should begin ripening this week, then its a dozen fresh tomatoes daily. I picked my first cucumber today. Its small, hopefully it will be tasty. I'd wanted to see if I could create some statue/trellis but its just too hot to do much outside these days.

Don't know much about it, but they use photoshop to there advantage in the lower pictures. Hopefully it only fools the newbies.

I think most of us don't give them anything. Not even a thought, they're generally ignored. If they were in our face we'd (I'd) probably do something negative. I think only one person on the bums really cares anything about them.

This may be the 'lighter' side of death practices, sometimes I'll start my meditations with a series of negations. Its made death easier to contemplate. I am not my body, I'm that which inhabits it. I am not my thoughts, they flow through, like clouds in the sky. I am not my emotions, I acknowledge them and let them pass like ripples in a pond. I am not my past, that is old patterns I can choose to follow or not. I am not my future, that is only projections that may or may not happen. I am not family. I am not my possessions. I am breath and awareness.

Haven't listened to her yet, but reading the brief biography tells me she's quite a special lady: Lama Christie McNally Lama Christie McNally trained in Tibetan monasteries in India and Nepal, and received extensive instruction in all the texts required for a Geshe degree, which is traditionally a 20-year course of study. From there, she immersed herself in the secret teachings of Buddhism. She is one of the first Western women to be recognized as a Lama. Through her efforts, she has begun to change the face of Buddhism that has historically been predominantly male. She is a translator of ancient Tibetan and Sanskrit, and a professor of religious studies. She has also co-authored The Essential Yoga Sutra, How Yoga Works, and The Eastern Path to Heaven. Lama Christie is the co-founder of Diamond Mountain University, a revolutionary effort to provide without charge a classical monastic education to westerners of all walks of life, to be used within the modern world. For the Diamond Mountain curriculum she is the author of the Bok Jinpa Series (15 Courses in Advanced Meditation) and Co-author of the Advanced Buddhist Series (18 Courses on the Diamond Way). From 2000 to 2003, Lama Christie completed a traditional Great Retreat of 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days of silence and meditation, in the wilderness of the southern Arizona desert, and is currently doing a second Great Retreat.

I don't think they're spam, but I'm not sure they're articles either. What they are is poetry, which can often be the most elegant way of expressing an idea. Maybe a sub heading under articles could be created for Poetry. my 2 cents Michael

Yes its disrespectful and exceedingly cruel, verging on evil in my opinion. Imagine if your son, daughter or parent were killed and they came to the funeral with signs celebrating. I've looked at some Utubes of there services and IMO (not so humble) they seem to be bad people. There are passive beliefs and active ones. Sometimes you don't like people for there actions; and actions to me speak louder then words. You could be a rascist, and if you don't make waves, shout it, or express it, I'm all for being civil, polite and finding middle grounds with you. But if a person or group is actively sowing hate, thats another level & I will not be polite or civil. I really don't think they're asking people for love. I don't think they want it nor do I think giving it would change them a whit. I wouldn't waste my time on them, unless it was reverse psychology to piss them off. Give'em a great big hug cause that would give them the Willies. Again that would be Me being Cruel(& having fun), not out misplaced compassion. my 2 cents I am rarely mistaken for a saint (though it has happened..)

Well look at it this way. He can charge an exorbitant amount which insures the number of people studying is limited and motivated. Or he can charge very little say $25 a class and knock out 99.999% of all applicants cause he only likes to teach 20 or so (?my guess) at a time. Either way, if he only wants to teach limited classes and raise up a cadre of talented long time students, he's not going to be easy to study with. Going the Healing Tao way is fine, but it opens the door to a whole mess of problems. His solution may not please you, but it may be the best. Charge high, but keep hold of the great students.

Exactly the same measurement for the light bulb? Seems like the picture of the 'bulb' was longer then the 4 men in the glyph. Doesn't seem like its following Occams razor. You can just as easily say the peoples' heads are the light bulbs and produce those with modern technology, vacuum and all. I will add that there is evidence (convincing to me) of early batteries in ancient Egypt and Greece, ie jars w/ metal rods that when filled w/ vinegar would give a small amount of electricity. Light bulbs..I don't see the proofs yet and the Utube doesn't cut it for me. The show I saw on ancient batteries reproduced them w/ materials from the proper era. Not very powerful, but you could shock someone, and if you were clever enough, and linked enough together you could electro plate things. A potentially highly lucrative way of appearing to change lead to gold. You're dead once people find it its phoney though.

Unfortunately that happens a lot. For best results wait til you see some friendly names active in the bums, then create a new topic, ie I'm waiting in Chat @ TT:TT, then go there and wait for a bit. Or you can open the Bums up in another Window. Or you can Private Message people you are going to Chat.

TB has a built in chat function. I've found the only way to get others chatting at the same time is to create a new post saying "Its XX o'clock and I'm heading to chat, come join me". On my Mac, the TB chat works when I use Safari, but not Firefox. If you have trouble with it, try a different browser. Let me throw this out: We could try for a set time each night for people to log into chat. That could work. Particularly if we had a teacher leading the chat. Or a particular subject.

Hmnnn Water or idea? Its clear to me..or..is the most powerful thing. Without the or we'd just be bags of water filled with ideas

Hmnn, like martial arts I feel the best has more to do with the teacher (or preacher) then the art. A great religious leader will teach and exemplify the best in humanity. A bad one will show superstition, artifice and smallness. There are so many differences between congregations of the same faith that its often unwise to prejudge them and there flocks.

Certainly the way of the saint, or saintly.

Actually there's much weaker arguments then that. Most Western religions tend to have been historically sexist, certainly the Abrahamic ones. But then through most, but not all, of history societies have tended to be sexist too. Hard to say which led to which. If evolution were true then the implication is woman are inferior?? I don't follow that, I don't think its part of evolutionary theory. but I'd also say it has zip to do w/ evolution. Whether or not human evolution is true, the idea of cave people and the mighty hunter is independent of it. People lived in caves and hunted.

Your next homework assignment would be to label them in English!! It would be very valuable, these concepts are so deep and complex a picture really can be worth a 1,000 words (or pages). Yours Michael

Probably not as grandiose as you might imagine. I think monasteries (pick your religious flavor) might be closest. I.E. like minded people who don't have as many of the modern pressures and temptations acting on them. Maybe Ashrams would be close too. Again the reality often doesn't match preconceptions. Fighting, petty jealousies go on everywhere there are people. I've read expose's on places like the Shaolin temple. Even with its high precepts and early training it has its share of brutality, egoism and sadism. The top people escape it, or rise above, but its still present.

Immortal, you've used some weak arguments in the past. This is amongst the weakest. Not only are you setting up a straw dog argument, as others point out, your treading on one of religions weakest points, ie woman as 2nd class citizens.

Here's what comes to me. Its more a simulation then a game. It could only be 'played' on computer. I see a 3 dimensional grid. A box in the middle surrounded on all sides by other boxes. In the middle is the core. The sides of the core are body, mind, spirit, environment. Each of those might be a conglomerate of 10 or 20 boxes. Those subdivided. Environment, early, later, now. A box with friends. For example you'd fill the Friend box with names, pictures, emotions and stories. You decorate free form. What would be in the God Box? Childhood box. They'd spring up like mind maps, but very freeflowing with pictures and links. There's no winning, there's only knowing and self discovery.