thelerner

That pdf are 12 pages of good stuff well presented. I'm in mild agreement with you on semen retention, thinking that at low and medium levels an intelligent discipline is good. At higher levels if your system has transformation of jing to chi then retain. Many chi gong have 100 day gong systems that ask for celibacy.. otherwise, a little discipline in the area, find balance for yourself.

It's getting rare around these parts to find the turkish stuff. That was one of TaoMeow's passions. When its made in an cezve. It's simple but time consuming. It takes a person's full and constant attention to make. I got my hands on some last summer, thick sweet spiced espresso drink. You'd think Starbucks would create some sort of bastardized version, but not yet.

I just had a negative experience at a barbershop. Much younger cutters then they used to have. The young woman cutting my hair talked constantly to her coworkers and even stopped to look at photos on anothers phone. It made for an unpleasant experience. It was the only time I didn't leave a tip for a hair cut. I was hoping it'd send a message that you have to be professional. On the other hand, it was pretty good cut. And it's just a hair cut, no biggie in the scheme of things or even of the day. Sanity is often defined in how fast we can get over the negative stuff. addin lookin back my negative experience while somewhat justified yet was wholly egoic, in a better mood, I might have gone with the flow, joined in even and had a much better time.

I found out, in searching through 23 pages of coffee threads that I write more about coffee then anyone here. A nice trip back.. reading about coffee adventures in Burning Man & great coffee shops I'd visited. & always nice to get Tao Meows thoughts on the dark elixir. Coffee's been good to me man. addon> Actually there was a point here. These posts over the years, the good, bad, insightful, stupid.. they reflect where I was, what I was thinking, high points, low points. My 13 years of posts diary my life.. a bit. And that's invaluable. If this site ever went down I'd lose alot, because I wrote alot. Some traditions preach leaving no trail. While I respect that, its not my way. I like retracing my footsteps, remembering nostalgic echoes of days past.

This took long enough to find.. was on page 23 of search before I wised up and used advanced search, title only. Anyhow I saw a Ted talk about coffee. How the great stuff was freshly roasted, and ground just before making. Otherwise it's stale and a pale reflection of the magical real thing. Imo the Ted author was exaggerating a bit, but it did inspire me to hunt down organic freshly roasted coffee, buy the whole beans and grind it myself. Whole foods sells organic and lists the date of roasting. The closest was 10/23 2 days ago, and I bought 4 oz of Italian Roast (I like my coffee like I like my hair, dark thick and oily), used my moth balled Haribo hand grinder to coarsely grind it. Set the Kettle for 200 degrees, added the grind, put about 2 1/2 tablespoons into my french press then 10 oz of H2O, let it sit 4 minutes, plunged. anyhow damn fine cup of coffee. worth staying up awake for. Maybe this winter I'll keep this up. Buy small batches of freshly roasted beans, grind them up as needed. Keeping it small & real. See if I get the full tonic affect the guy was talking about.

let me 'bump' this up to see if it stays on track and gets brings on any insights as per the OP. <still searching for the coffee thread>

bump.. looking for a coffee thread, came upon this one and thought it might still hold some ink.

I'm generally in the 'you should learn anything useful from him, leave the rest. Except, if you get a bad feeling, from his work, then I'd say find another system. I started with the Healing Tao, took a beginners weekend w/ Master Chia. In my opinion he knows his stuff yet its material that's meant for live training. Learning through a book is learning partially blind folded because mistakes creep in. Too much or too little training, wrong postures and focus.. things a live teacher would immediately see, but book learning leaves ignorant. That's what I got, and the usual advice of if things get too hot or strange- slow down, regain grounding, maybe take a break or find a respected live teacher.

I'd recommend learning to cut your own hair, and perhaps getting into Mettas, ie meditations based on loving kindness and wishing others well.. even the worst of us.. the hair dressers i bet once you capture a strong inner smile and projection of love, the vulnerability will close, or rather you get comfortable being open. Take chances with it, there's a strength and bravery there. Letting them be them and you be you.

seems like it'll be great, simple and visual.

Jax was writing about eyes in a thogal thread. Interesting stuff, he wrote or quoted "The precious cauldron (yu ting) is a cavity in the center of the brain... It's left and right sides are linked with the pupils of the eyes by two channels; and it is also connected with the heart. Hence it is said that essential nature is in the heart which manifests through the two eyes." How do eyes relate to practice? To energetics? In classical Japanese pictures we see enlightenment in terms of cross eyed. In the Golden Flower and a few qi gong systems there is emphasis on staring/focus at the tip of the nose. Yoga, thogal, and 1,000 miles away Maori tribes have postures with 'fierce' eyes, tongue out; the tongue being connected to the heart in Taoism. Where different cultures come up with similar practices and ideas, I can't help but think they're onto to something universal and deep. Yet lost in the West. I was hoping for thoughts on eyes and practices. What do people do and what is the theory behind it?

Yeah cause we were discussing the Pythagorean theorem and I was afraid you'd go into wild tangents, which ofcourse you did. Maybe I'm looking for useful things ie, if you want to build something you turn to geometry ie more real world stuff. The theorem is like magic, with a right triangle plug in 2 sides, you get the proper size of the side opposite the right angle. It works beautifully and you can draw up some right triangles and see that it works with small and large. It's nice when things work. P.S like Pi it goes on, but the square root of 2 is 1.41421356237.. you can get more accurate if that's needed depending on the size of the project and that's rational enough for me. I've never needed that particular square root, maybe one day I will and by that time I'll have forgotten it but will remember this conversation thus linking it forever to irrationality.

This isn't about smartness, entropy, randomness, chi gung masters, black holes, or quantum anything. This is about a simple theorem that is easily provable with a ruler. It's got the name Pythagoras in it and maybe that turns you a little manic but it shouldn't. No need to bring black holes, harmonics or genocide into it. The theorem works, modern math works. You can argue that 2 + 2 = 4 is wrong if the equation is moving past the event horizon of a black hole. Or it doesn't work we're talking chickens and one is old and about to die thus the equation is thrown off by entropy and KFC, but to argue too much against 2 + 2 = 4 really means you have too much time on your hands. There may be ways of proving to me that the theorem is incorrect but those ways would have to actually show me the theorem, break it down, with numbers show a logical inconsistency. Your arguments are one logical fallacy after another. Seemingly having nothing to do with the theorem itself. Repeatedly expressing everyone who disagrees with you is brain washed seems childish. Written more to justify things to yourself then an actual argument to others. You want to prove to me the theorem isn't real. Break it down and explain the problem with it. Don't go off on tangents. personally I don't think you can do it.

Generally there's no problem in the world that can't be solved with a big enough broom. Archimedes once said ""Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." and his wife replied "Yeah, right big shot, with a big enough broom I could brush your lever and fulcrum away. Now go take a bath."

hate to wade into this thread again but the Pythagoream theorem works, ie the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. It's self deducted.. QED, it works well, both mathematically and in the real word. Possibly if your traveling close to the speed of light or incredibly teeny or galactically large it'd break down, but here on earth its an theorem that works and is a good example of a classic easily provable, um proof. Same with Newtonian principles. It work real well for 99.9% of the (surface) stuff here on Earth but its a big universe and its nice to have tools to deal with and understand the phenomena happening over vast and tiny distances. Where space bends and basic physics behave differently, ie quantum.

Glad to see you back in the digital. I was just looking up one of your posts on dealing skillfully with pain to show to another member.

Welcome to the board, I look forward to your conversations. I think its important to give some slack to those with different (from our pov wrong views) as opposed to those who are lying. Maybe I'm naive but I think there's many more of the former then latter. Both can be annoying but that's the net and what makes it interesting. Sexually I'm more interested in rhythms then positions these days.

Hey.. lets keep this site PG-13 actually that's not too bad, but see a full exhibition of her work and you can't help noticing the strong intimate feminine expressions.

I like my donuts like I like my universe.. torus shaped.

Is that quip justification for not believing experts in a field, ones who've deeply studied the subject and instead rely on your gut instinct and prejudgements? Statements that use the word Always are often suspect, imo. When dealing with complex issues it takes more then surface judgements, you need to study data, available science and gain perspective instead of trying to rationalize ones position.

I don't know. One is asking the business to do what it normally does, ie bake a wedding cake. With the orthodox Jew its making them change there hours of normal operation. Course you just have to change it a little, to make it relevant to the same point, ie An Orthodox Jew (or any baker) being asked to bake a cake for neo-nazi's. That'd be closer. It's not an easy decision. It feels easy when you have strong sympathy or antipathy for the 'wronged' party. <doing research> This sums up what happened in the actual case nicely- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/04/supreme-court-rules-against-gay-wedding-exemptions/1052989001/ "A divided Supreme Court on Monday absolved a Colorado baker of discrimination for refusing to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple, ruling that the state exhibited "religious hostility" against him. The 7-2 verdict criticized the state's treatment of Jack Phillips' religious objections to gay marriage in 2012, several years before the practice was legalized nationwide. The justices ruled that a state civil rights commission was hostile to him while allowing other bakers to refuse to create cakes that demeaned gays and same-sex marriages. As a result, the long-awaited decision did not resolve whether other opponents of same-sex marriage, including bakers, florists, photographers and videographers, can refuse commercial wedding services to gay couples. In fact, the court on Monday scheduled a similar case involving a Washington State florist for consideration at their private conference Thursday. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the court's decision against the same-sex couple, Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins, departing from his long history of opinions in favor of gay rights dating back a generation. Included among them was the court's 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide.." There are no villains here, I thought this article shows the Baker to be a pretty solid guy who defended his argument well. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/baker-who-refused-make-cake-gay-wedding-i-don-t-n880061 In some class 30 years ago I remember a professor saying 'Hard cases make for bad laws' meaning that certain cases force decisions and precedents that are not necessarily good. This is a hard case. Being a pragmatist, when a hard case comes up, I'd like both sides to have a chance to explain there positions. It may well be I'd go with the Baker in this case, especially if there was other bakeries who'd be happy making the cake (see his argument above) yet in the case of Joe Baker vs. Neo Nazi wedding, then I'd probably go with the bakery. Preferring such 'passion' cases go to court then impose a one size fits all solution. Maybe that's not satisfying, but when people of passion get into conflict, the niceties matter. The basis of there belief, what they're defending matter, to me at least. The original bakery case is hard, listening to both sides, I give a little more sway to the baker (it helps that he'd bake cakes for gay/lesbians just not wedding cakes) though the gay couple have my sympathies, but there remedy is relatively easy. Nazi's/neoNazis strike me as the antithesis of America. They'd do well not to wind up in my court. Decent odds I'd find them in contempt of court for something, chewing gum, misuse of pronouns.. Sadly, life isn't fair and neither am i.

Seems silly to gamble with your life when some bets are sure things. Like if you're bleeding badly from an accident going to an emergency room where they help 10's of millions a year. Or take an anti-biotic that has saved 100's of millions of people and see if you can avoid getting an infection. If you only focus on one side of the equation, then you lose perspective. You have no idea how many people are saved. If you don't want to go into hospital long term that's fine, but for many ailment Western medicine is excellent. You throw out the baby with the bath water and risk death for no reason. This gets back to the General Theory question. If a person spent years studying and had a thoughtful argument that could convince others of an error, then it'd be listened to. In modern times, with no knowledge of a subject people dismiss experts and use the internet to search out minority opinions that back up there impressions. You'd rather die, then be treated at a hospital or emergency even for a procedure thats very safe because you found a fact and misinterpret it. Its not that the fact is wrong, but you interpret it as a trip to a medical facility means death, when the great majority will be helped, indeed without it, die quickly. addon> You have a point, but imo, don't have perspective. By there very nature hospitals house dozens of very sick people with doctors, nurses and visitors who are going in and out. They increasingly realize the importance of cleanliness but to get business done, there is that in and out. So, if you can avoid long term stay, that's a good thing. There are indeed diseases you can catch there and most there have much lowered immunity. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't go there after an accident, ie bleeding, or if you have infection, antibiotics are indeed a wonder drug. They will save your life and indeed, modern medicine is responsible for our current longevity, course antibiotics and better infant care mean quite alot. That there are bogus writings in medical journals doesn't show that 100 years of proof and examination by 4 generations of scientists that General of Theory is wrong. It may well be supplanted, hopefully it will be, but when it is, it'll be supplanted by a better theory that creates better models. In that case we'd still owe much to Einstein because he asked the right questions, ones that moved science forward. And this isn't just theory, its having the math, and it gets monstrously complicated E=MC2 is an unusual simplistic anomaly, most of this stuff takes up pages and pages. The math has to work out, and that's hard, genius level hard.

Few answers can match the eloquence of Kar3n's picture. For me, work on myself, slowly, with patience. Little steps. For the world, similarly, do little acts of kindnesses where there's opportunity. Perhaps pick one or two charities and be lifelong supporter. We can't change the world, its too big, we're too small but good acts spread, bring a little light.

So you found an article about Medical Journals and thus throwing out modern science? That article means you no longer have to believe experts, even there safety warning? For things like General Theory or shape of the earth it doesn't matter, other then your kids will undoubtedly never go for higher degrees in anything cause all higher learning is a lie, cause that article you found. For some safety things like germ theory, vaccines you do put yourself and your neighbors at risk. How far do you take the All science is lie paradigm. What fields don't you trust now? Definitely not medicine I take it. Your hit by a car or get a bad virus, you definitely wouldn't go to those quacks.. better to bleed and not rely on anti-biotics, surgery, clean instruments..

There's been many tests that General Theory of Relativity has passed. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity Einstein came up with the idea to understand and predict observations that had been going on for 100's of years, again see above article. Is it we no longer trust physicists, people who've studied the universe for the decades and are making new contributions? Seems this distrust of science is a sad fact of our age. A new paranoia, where established facts are pooed pooed because people without science degrees and serious studies don't understand them. It's not that science shouldn't be questioned. That is the basis of science, how it moves forward. Rather at times science is hard, and people who've spent decades studying it should probably be listened to. Until a better theory comes along, its math makes sense and it predictions pan out more accurately.