thelerner

There have times I've gotten too head heavy.. too much reading not enough practice. Other times too much sitting (& standing facing the sun) and I got too energized/burnt. So as in all things balance an that includes seeking out wisdom, listening to dharma talks and insights from experienced people helps.

Sitting can be a bit ethereal. There's a time to sit and a time to walk/connect with the earth. Maybe your body is telling you its time to walk Get grounded before doing much more long meditation.. maybe.

Haven't put anything up here in awhile. I was discussing metta last week- meditations on spreading love. Lots of those around. Much harder to find things on Chod, the Tibetan practice of uh.. self sacrifice. If metta is spreading love, Chod is giving up the self, literally offering yourself to a demon.. Perhaps in Tibetans terms the ultimate in metta. It's strangely satisfying and purifying. Maybe not the best thing to do if you're not too balanced though. I found it interesting, here's a guided meditation on it. Chod Meditation 2.mp3

1. Because power can be corruptive. 2. We're working on it, understanding on all levels is a work in progress. 3. Work on the basics, diet, exercise, getting to bed on time. Try not taking naps. Look up some good meditative guided hypnotic routines on youtube and make them into mp3's to listen to. Like Sleeping pill or Evening Inventory or ZZzzz. Take a lukewarm shower before bed. Cool yourself off. Here's a weird one. Try a thorny mat, like the Snook and its imitators. For some reason resting on 1,000's of short spikes brings on a relaxation response. Course as a fellow insomniac, nothing works for long or consistently, so the ultimately, after hating, denial and bargaining one eventually accepts wakefulness. When singing the blues, try something new. Here's a link to some interesting guided meditations. Many on Happiness, learning to quiet the mind, some are trippy.. some are deep. Maybe one or two will connect with you. Here's a link and You know, when life gives you lemons, take out the seeds and plant them. Tend to it, Lemon trees are cool.. much of life is, especially when you're creating stuff, like lemon trees.

I was watching Portlandia. Very funny.. except when it's real. PC run amuck.

I consider you a fountain of experience & wisdom. The heart seems.. abstract to me. More then anything it bothers me, as I hear it thumping away on long sleepless nights. Do you see the heart as the 'innocent' original mind? Or no, the heart is the heart.. What pointers do you have for purifying and simplifying it? Sincere Thanks Michael <addon I suppose the answer to my question on purifying and simplifying are in an old post you made> Dao Zhen Those who wish to embody the Tao should embrace all things. To embrace all things means one holds no anger or resistance toward any idea or thing, living or dead, formed or formless. Acceptance is the very essence of the Tao. To embrace all things means one rids oneself of any concepts of separation: male and female, self and others, life and death. Division is contrary to the nature of the Tao. Foregoing antagonism and separation, one enters into the harmonious oneness of all things... me> seems very simple and very hard.

One of my favorite places would have seasoned chicken breast, thick slab of onion, tomato, repeat all the way up the spit. Slow roasted like a gyros so a nice thick crust forms. Really good. Very much like shawarma, but served on thin tortillas.

Yup, that's how I was taught,

hmmn, that's the second mention of him in a few days. Maybe I can make up a best of Dao Zhen thread.. Wish he'd come back, the man knew a straight line from a curve.

Usually people are thinking of European style Socialism, not old style Russian/Chinese Communism/Socialism True, but that's what the social net does anyway, through subsidized housing, food stamps, medicare. The U.S social net could use some intelligent updating. The question is, could it be done cheaper as monetary expenditure, knocking out the above benefits, and could it be done with built in incentives to find work and get off it. <I assume no, but might be worth studying. I don't think they'll be political will to give people $20 or 30,000 a year for doing nothing. Yet I hear many homeless run up multiple times that in emergency room care per year. Sometimes looking at the whole picture, the whole system, leads to unlikely solutions. I prefer a more, teach a man to fish, kinda thing. Like partially free 'counter college', ie where 17 to 24 year olds could do a work/study program to gain skills in jobs the country needs, building (roads, infrastructure), automotive, plumbing, programming etc., dorm style rooms, cafeteria food.. etc., A kind of a 'merchant marines' for getting people skills and good jobs in the U.S. Perhaps some of the costs defrayed by a percentage of income being taken out for 10 years, ie 3 or 5%. I could see diverting(or converting) some percentage of the military budget into this. Because for a nation, true prosperity and protection is having a happy productive citizens. and by converting, I mean that the military has expertise in teaching and cheap disciplined living. Use that expertise, as a resource.

Persistence, preferably aimed at a worthy target.

Death, the end. In Tarot the 13th Trump is traditionally Death. Possibly scary but in truth it means change. Change is change, could be good, could be bad, could be what we make it. Upright it can mean endings, profound change, letting go of attachments. Reversed it can mean living unaware, resistance to change, delaying a needed ending. Death and change are good to consider but a poor thing to obsess on. Life is change, and most of our effort should be towards living well.

The fact of life is, a nation has to treasure and keep alive the traditions of its past, while staying up to date with modern technologies, politics and arms. Otherwise, Lao Tzu or not, it will inevitably be at the mercy of its technological betters. I don't like it, but that tends to be the way of the world. <I hope the Jarawan's find advocates and protectors>

I don't think its a competition. Not yet anyway. By taking on many aspects of 'western capitalism' China has taken 100's of millions of there people away from abject poverty. A good thing, but with it comes the problems of industrialization. They're going to have to deal with it; find ways to keep production and curb pollution. Keep the prosperity while holding onto tradition and family values. Quite a challenge and hopefully they're up to it. Personally I'd rather see the U.S do more work on.. Happiness quotient, ie education, free time, social net, better infrastructure.. then military and highest GDP. If some other country wants to play world police, more power to them.. but I'd rather see a time of consolidation and improvement here in the U.S. Improvement being better infrastructure, schools, hospitals.. a refocus on well being of the family. Moving up the ranks of world education, health, and general measure of happiness. No sense in becoming world top dog, whilst the majority of citizens are unhappy.

Hole in the walls, can be great finds. I find the best are near pawn shops for some reason. Also if there's a cop car infront it's usually a plus, in that cops know good cheap eats. Lately my favorites are those that keep it simple, where the meat shines, the shell is glistening with oil and the addons, cilantro.. onions, pickled stuff are sparse. Don't know if its authentic, I'm seeing some good hole in the walls that are doing there meat on a gyros style spit. That can be awfully good.

I thought this was well written.. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4185300-happy-birthday-america-asset-allocation-daily "..Finally, how independent is America? The U.S. succeeded in gaining "independence" from Britain formally via the Treaty of Paris of 1783, but trade between the two countries resumed immediately, albeit with an enormous trade imbalance in Britain's favor. The so-called "special relationship" between the two countries was already well underway, on a de facto basis, before the 18th Century ended, and the U.S. gained heavily through the protection of the British Fleet, just as so much of the world can thank the U.S. military for its security today. In short, the U.S. was never fully independent because no country is or ever has been not dependent on other countries. The U.S. has been sovereign for nearly a quarter of a millennium but it does nothing without taking other countries into account. In short, the U.S. achieved its lofty status through unity, shared principles and cooperation with its former No. 1 enemy as well as others. While the U.S. remains the world's most powerful country, it has weakened in each of these three areas. By the way, I could have written this same mini-essay word-for-word under previous administrations - so let's please desist with needless vituperation against the "other side," whoever that might be. To the contrary, the Fourth of July is a time to remember that "we… all hang together or… we all hang separately"; that the blessings of liberty are the basis of prosperity for the American people and their posterity; and that America has extended liberty and prosperity to much of the entire world through an unprecedented degree of international cooperation. Happy Birthday America!" , now lets grab fireworks, celebrate and blow up some small part of it.

maybe not, how do you think it might be different?

idk, good for PTSD, good for glaucoma, good for people in pain, for those who want to mellow out, but bad for teens and younger who have developing brains, bad for those who get emotionally addicted. Those who use it as a crutch and demotivator. For those who don't know when to say when, it can cripple there lives. I'm still for legalization but better to keep our eyes wide open to the good and bad, so hopefully we can mitigate some of the worst, through intelligent public education.

only the bad and slow ones. Hoping to get up to Stratford to brush up my Shakespeare. See the Tempest and Rocky Horror Picture show. https://www.stratfordfestival.ca/

Love this country, but in my view, if we'd lost the war of independence, we'd be.. Canada.. which forgive me, doesn't sound so bad. Actually, more likely we'd be a whole mess of things.. French, Spanish.. perhaps even Russian on the West Coast.. but mostly English.. History is fluid, often a compilation of unlikely events.

I couldn't find a good thread for this so I created one. Our view of fights are heavily influenced by Hollywood and professionals. The truth is the amateur game is much different. Here's an article written by a guy who seriously analyzed 150+ fights on youtube. Analyzing what was done, and what were the results. https://www.martialjournal.com/i-watched-over-100-fights-on-youtube-heres-what-i-learned/ bits and pieces ".. Sometimes long-standing theories everyone just assumed were true, weren’t. To my frustration, when confronted with hard data that refuted their claims, many people just ignored them. Or worse, they would try and find holes in our data. Despite that, the research findings of our small, but vocal, team started to slowly influence policy decisions on campus. Ultimately, we had the truth on our side. The cold, hard numbers. For the people who never wanted anything to change, no amount of evidence would convince them. But for the people who understood that all organizations have to move forward, they listened... .. 1) Fights often have no clear winner Some readers will cringe at my use of the word “winner.” Of course on a deeper level, no one really wins in a fight. But I have to define it somehow. When your standing over your unconscious opponent, you’ve “won.” The most surprising outcome in fighting seems to be no outcome at all. 48.4% of the fights ended indecisively. In most cases, people simply got tired and stopped of their own accord. Bystanders tend to allow fights to play out, but would often step in when there was a lull in the action. In fact, it seems that fights that drag past just a handful of seconds are unlikely to end in a clear way. Most people seem to have the energy for one, explosive onslaught of punches. If that fails to end the fight, a second onslaught just won’t have the same power. Turns out, fighting really doesn’t solve much... .. 5) Almost all fights will go to the ground and stay there It’s an old cliche that “all fights go to the ground”. And basically, it’s true. Participants engaged in ground fighting 73% percent of the time. When you take out those ten-second knockouts that make up so many early finishes, the number jumps up to 83%. What’s more, only 41% of grounded fighters were able to return to a standing position. Of those that did, more than half of them returned to the ground (57%). In terms of outcomes, ground fighting has a major silver lining: violent knockouts drop dramatically on the ground, nearly by half. Only 29% of grounded fighters were knocked out or incapacitated by strikes. For standing fighters, that number jumped to 56% The last thing worth mentioning is that 57% of the fights that went to the ground happened intentionally, meaning a participant made some sort of attempt at a takedown that worked. The rest was simply a result of people falling down..." I found it interesting.

I think I'll keep those.. how about some of our South?.. tell ya what, I'll throw in Florida, thats East coast.

There's a couple states we could give back, not sure you'd want'em though.

That one seems easy to me. Yes. In learning and growing some unpleasantness is involved. In stretching ones limits, growing stronger.. putting yourself out there, making new friends, going new places.. can be necessary suffering. Fulfilling ones responsibilities can be suffering. Course resisting such things probably makes them feel worse. I'd also say yes to unnecessary suffering. Seems to be too much of it the world. No lessons learned, no betterment, bettered. Just alot of pain, often caused by ignorance, greed and plain bad luck.

Uh, sure. Me and the others, Us. Everyone who doesn't opt out.