thelerner

Cool free stuff. The Center of Stillness Meditation(CSM) and Archaeous series, free at Bardoncompanion.com. Great meditation series inspired by Franz Bardon. Check out many of the podcasts at the Itunes store. I auto download from the Infinitesmile.com, Zen inspired talks of Michael McAllistair. There are a few others I'll record on case by case basis. There other many gems you can find on podcasts. Heck type in harmonica, you may be pleasantly surprised. The library is an awesome source to feed the Pod. Not just 1,000+ CD's. Hundreds of stories and lesson CD's. I've heard people have a way to record off of Pandora.com. That would be an ideal way to fill an Ipod with song styles you like. I'm not sure how to do it though. Enjoy,

Sometimes what makes a person great is not that they are right, but that they asked the right questions. As a pioneer in the West for Chi Gung and esoteric meditation, Chia deserves his due. New videos would be an ideal place to answer the criticisms posted here. I could see a 3 part set. Mind, Body and Spirit. Mind being mental aspects, also how mind effects body and spirit. The Body video would be easy since he already has so much work in this area. Chi Gung routines, Tao Yin, as well as how the body effects the mind and spirit. Finally a Spirit Video. Keeping each high quality, which may mean having another more fluent english speaker sharing a larger role. Michael

Problem is few places will allow you to test in ear head phones. A Bose store will and if you can get there attention, Apple stores will let you test the Shures. I was able to try some of the others, but there noise isolation made them less comfortable then the Bose. Ultimately I may have picked comfort over sound. But its a big difference from the pairs I've been using. With new head phones has come new music . Now I've running out of room on my 4 gig Ipod. Michael

Mercury was famous and sought after by Western Alchemists. It certainly has unique principles being a liquid metal and heavy as gold. Burning it can result in highs and lows(death, its very toxic). In the search for the philosophers stone many formulas included mercury. Many died ingesting immortality pills laced with it. The fall of the Roman empire has been blamed on lead. The ruling class had dishes and cups made of lead. Symptoms of lead poisoning are lower IQ and madness. In the 20th century we weren't much smarter. For decades we put lead it in our gasoline. In my grade school the science teacher would let us play with mercury. Roll it around in our hands. Glob it around on our desks. He'd be canned for such a dangerous act these days. Michael.

I'll eventually get a Wii. We have a gamecube now its downwardly compatible and I bet games will be cheaper, more kid oriented and the remote motion detecting joysticks rock. I think great graphics can be a trap. Designers spend too much time on looks not enough on fun play. Michael

Only Rush I won't admit to is Limbaugh. Rush rules. Just right for the New World Men Michael

I thought this was fantastically funny and as wise any thing I've read. Michael

I would like to see a little more action in them. There's no real plot to hold the viewers interest. Perhaps some gratuitous nudity. Even a love interest. Some conflict wouldn't hurt. Perhaps a fight could break out. A good car chase never hurt a video at the box office either, I'm sure Mr. Chia can drive. Better actors. The people in What the Bleep Do We Know, were able to teleport, move through time, etc. He needs actors of that caliber. If he can incorporate my suggestions into his next video, the sales will skyrocket and his critics will left breathless. Michael

Is Grace the word we're ultimately looking for. The point of surrender where 'we' stop and let the universe start? Unless one is born under a special star I think its still a long climb before we coast down the path of Grace. Or is that cultural conditioning speaking. Michael

I paged through a book about mountain monks and hermits. It was written by a man who made the long hikes to find them and stay long enough to know them without romanticizing them. They lived very subsistance lives. Some were long time practitioners some were not. On the whole they were not the Shangri La mystics that you might think. Michael

That brings up an interesting point. Can you teach people to do what you do. I saw healer extraordinaire Dirk Oeilidarkt at work. The 'patient' spasms and rocks as he touches and probes. It was amazing to watch and the people remarked how much better they felt afterwards. He runs a school of 4rth dimensional healing modality but I wonder how many students 'get it'. How much prerequisite is natural talent? How much long training. I suspect you can become very talented through training, but there is an extra level that takes an inborn skill. Michael

I like to meditate inside. Though if you consider long unfocused walks meditative they're a neccessity to me. I prefer to do Chi Gung routines outside. There's a nice little preserve close to me. You can find shade and places off the beaten track. (I just do some of Winns simpler movements and his Pan Gu meditation) At Lincoln Park zoo there is wild life area that has a large round rock pedestal. Its cool to practice on a big defined natural space. Animals are welcome to watch and I find birds return quickly and fearlessly when you're doing routines. I don't like it when people watch, they distract me. Michael

I agree with Wayfarers thinking. You have woman at extremely high levels of attainment now and in the past. That against an incredible prejudice where you have many cultures treating them as property. I think many ascetic traditions saw woman as the ultimate decadence and tempters, pulling a practitioner into the world(oh no). So ofcourse there tend to be strong warnings against them. But you can also find in most traditions a counter view, sometimes the less popular of the wisdom and power of the feminine. I think without accepting that a person will never reach completeness. Michael In Christianity its embodied in Mother Mary and the myriad female saints, in Judiasm theres the Shakina(feminine side of God) and female judges and prophets. Taoism has its female immortals. How does it manifest in Buddism?

Here's some information - http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~vincent/4500.6-001...lRelativity.htm but there was a great folk song that also had it, let me do a quick google. Found it The Insignicance Song and it was on above site Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour. That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned, a sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me, and all the stars we see Are moving at a million miles a day In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour, of the galaxy we call the Milky Way. Our Galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars It's 100,000 light-years side to side, It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light-years thick, But out by us it's just 3,000 light-years wide. We're 30,000 light-years from galactic central point we go 'round every 200 million years and our galaxy is only one of millions and billions In this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps expanding and expanding in all directions it can whizz as fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know, 12 million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember when you are feeling small and insecure how amazingly unlikely is your birth and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, because there's bugger all down here on Earth. Michael

Many years ago in the dog days of summer I went to teach a kids aikido class. It was at a somewhat run down community center, that gave us special rates. I set up the mat but no kids showed up. From the washroom there was a nasty stench. The bathroom hadn't been cleaned in weeks. One stall had been loosely taped shut. The smell was coming from it. The toilet was clogged, several people(kids?) had tried to use it any way. There had been creative use of rags for toilet paper. There was no airconditioning and it must have been in the 90's in there. For some reason I took it upon myself to rub and scrub and clean. It was such a horrible place and such an unlikely act for me. that it forced an enlightening experience. Squatting down in the heat amongst other people crap you either accepted or stayed in hell. Michael

Two monks were on a boat. Both were old and accomplished. One was taoist , the other buddhist. They talked about there monasteries and practices. "Watch This" said the taoist. He waved his hands and a rainbow appeared. "Watch this" and the Buddist unzipped his pants and let go a yellow stream. I forget the moral Michael

Nice piece. It should be put into the articles section where it won't be 'sent down' so quickly and will be easier to find. Michael

I'm also sorry for my part in heating this up but (gets out stick), SeanD your main method of communication is dissection and criticism, your other is lecture. The last thing we want is mindless agreement or political correctness but its a discussion site. There's a two way process here. Its not that D & C are always wrong, but it comes as combative, angry and stuffy. In your dissections your telling some wise people (I'm not included here) they don't know what the hell they're saying. Its not going to make you a good teacher. Even Smiles 'Slap in the Face' is historically a good enlightening technique. But you need to connect with people for it to be anything other then assault. The really Great Ones are master listeners. Its a byproduct of their total being here now. My exposure to Buddhism in the Midwest, through books, temples, festivals and newsletters has shown me that its pragmatic, loving and simple. Thats how its presented here. I love Rev. Kubose, listen to the Zen inspired talks of Michael McAllistair etc. I think my exposure is worlds away from SeanD's. It may be wrong, don't care, its pragmatic loving and simple. I'm follow the house holder path, which I believe is of equal nobility to the ascetics. If enlightenment is something like all powerful, then I'm not going to make. Odds are you won't and if your master is at 2% then you'll be seeing him around next life. But I think the study and the effort can make us better people right now. Michael and I Know that Smiles get it, 'the Buddha is Jewish' comment was sarcasm, said after SeanD's who should I listen to a Nice Jew or Buddha. (I think we know the answer to that (me) )

About 8:15 I'll have to put the kids down. Live chat now? Michael Not a bad idea to make a sound when you're there in case people aren't looking at the screen.

I had a friend who was into kick boxing. It really seemed like an art for the young. Win or lose he got the crap beaten out of him almost every crap. He described his teachers outside legs as a mass of calluses from decades of being kicked. I heard the classical approach is hard style while young, then the intricacies of hard/soft, then soft, then stillness. I also liked this saying: Soft beats Hard, hard/soft beats soft, and hard beats hard/soft. My sensei considered karate hard, judo soft, strangely he considered boxing hard/soft as well kung fu (and Aikido). The saying certainly works well in the world of Brazillian Jujitsu versus so many hard styles. But those who developed defenses and a hard/soft style eventually ended the Gracies reign. Its far from gospel, but may give a sense of strategy. Michael

SeanD, I think you'd have me study just long enough until I agreed with you. If I studied a bit more came to a different viewpoint, obviously I'd be like those Buddhists who studied for decades but you say still don't get it. Sorry, not my religion, some good stuff there, but judgement passed. I'm as likely to buy your load as you are to convert and become Hassidic. No problem, big world, Allah loves diversity. Michael

One thing we agreed on is its a game of percentages. I say(out of my butt) my top surgeon saves 4 out of 5, 80%. What percentage of visitors does your super yogi save? 1/10 of one percent? It goes up to 3% for those who disciple with them and go through vigorous ascetism? Rama Das and his ilk may leave people feeling good, giving them a spiritual and emotional life, but will it take you off the wheel? Not if your master has 98% to go. So in my opinion, giving people a few more years on this planet is more important, at least statistically . Plus I don't subscribe to your religion. I have no idea if these people incarnate or not, or what happens to them when they die. I don't think its provable. I do find aspects of childrens remembered past lives fascinating, and have great respect for Buddism. Isn't Tibetan Buddhism based on these guys reincarnating(side track)? I know that the great yogi's die. Dysentary got the Buddha right. I was at a Sivananda ashram when it was visited by its lineage successor. He was a great accomplished Yogi. A lifetime of work and purity. He had a stroke and was carried in. He was paralyzed, drooling, only able to mutter. Worse his eyes seemed sad. My point is not to disparage him. He was enlightened IMHO. Being completely human is feeling the whole spectrum, love, rage, anger, despair. My idea is that complete human feels these things and lets them go completely. Whereas we feel them, and deny, then let in a little, deny, then over react etc. Maybe its terminology problem, like the word God, Loaded with a thousand meanings and emotions. I like the term Complete human, not perfect, but there is a loving humaness in there imperfection, that is better then perfect. Its not the Godlike Enlightenment that seems to be your definition, but its what I mean when I say enlightened. Michael

True, but in Aikido we'd usually get our worst injuries doing free style/full force. I do think its vitally important work to do, but because its risky, it should be a part of the training, not the whole thing. I also think quick and dirty is a vital part of martial arts and those techniques have to be practiced slowly and carefully for good reason. Eye, throat, facial nerves, direct knee attacks.. I like watching UFC fights. But part of me thinks these guys are idiots. There is a delicate brain floating in hard skull. These punches, kicks and worst elbows to the head, are bruising that brain whether or not they go unconscious. They will pay for the head blows receives in fights, and the dozens more they got during practice. It is really very very very stupid of them. They're getting paid a pittance for the alzheimer, parkinsons and dementia they may suffer later. Michael and thats why I decided not to be the first 42 year old Aikidoist in next years UFC.

Don't you need any liquid to help them blend? What combinations might taste better for newbies? Mu Michael

Had a nice conversation with Cam and Yoda. Communicating Live is better, quicker, more intimate. Try it. Check if people are Live chatting and click on. The more the merrier. I've had wonderful wide ranging conversations. What do you people want? Telephone s*^$&x. Slow paced messengering? Please make an effort for Live Chat Michael