sean

This breaks the Terms of Service of Google Adsense. Advertisers have to pay for those clicks and so if they are only motivated by a desire to support me it can screw them. At some member's request I'm going to include other donation options lower than $25. For Google ads though, the best thing everyone can do is be 100% honest and only click on ads when they are drawn to further investigate a product. Thanks for thinking of me though Michael.

Finally got to reading this Ian, thanks for posting! Good stuff.

Have you guys tried using "View New Posts" yet? I have a feeling it will change your whole life. Try it out. Third link from the far right up the top, under the search bar.

Hope you had a good one big-P! For some reason I am picturing you with a big plate of raw meat and cheese and a glass of raw milk and a jar of raw honey and a huge stein filled with some kind of homemade ale just loving life.

You mean with "View New Posts"?

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Welcome Paul, I've been enjoying your poetry. If hope you are moved to publish a collection sometime.

Welcome Rin! Finally motivated me to install my Asian language font pack on my new system, I was trying to figure out why you put so many question marks in your post at first. doh!

Welcome to the board, footpad. Being into the Kabbalah, you might dig this Chinese diagram, quite possibly the precursor to Jewish Kabbalah.

Dude, did you see the video? Who's to say he couldn't pulse deadly qi through the phone line, huh?

Welcome to the board, Fajin!

Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust. -- T. S. Eliot

FYI, I split the martial arts discussion off so it can have it's own thread here: IMA vs. MMA

Manifestation is a song sung mysteriously by no one. I would say, something like meditation frequently arises prior to what is called an enlightenment experience. But correlation is not causation. Who is to say that meditation is not a symptom of an inconceivably deeper process? My sense is that it's through something like Grace that real spiritual "progress" occurs. The Tao playfully moves, and on the surface of the lake we see and feel what appears to be a self, "our" self even, engaged in the oh-so very serious discipline of meditation and waking up. Of believing that enlightenment is a result. That enlightenment is causal. That enlightenment is the successful completion of a linear formula or process. But this is just another part of the dream and is also no separate from Tao. Make a person meditate and enlightenment will not follow. There is a great mystery to what brings a person to the cushion and has them return again and again. Surrender for a moment to the possibility that "you" are a fiction and have nothing to do with controlling what arises in awareness. Experiences without an experiencer. Just my two cents and my humble opinion.

TEN minutes of full contact, hard-as-he-can punches from Mike Tyson though? What does John Chang have a bionic qi field? It just doesn't make any sense. And what did Mike Tyson do afterwards? "Oh well, one direct, ungloved punch to the face from me would crush and possibly critically injure most human beings and I just punched someone as hard as I could for TEN FULL MINUTES with no reaction. It was the most insane thing I have ever witnessed in my entire life, I have no idea which way is up or down anymore or what to believe in. Then, he touched me and I passed out. My mind is completely blown. I think I will just go home and forget all about this though. Also, I will not tell a single person this happened to me ever. I'll just let it be a rumor amongst John's students." You are obviously a bright, articulate man Sean, and the things that you are reporting to have experienced directly have a mysterious, mystical air about them ... sweet water, dark fluids being removed from arteries, electric tingles ... but these experiences of yours, perhaps combined with your teacher's charisma, seem to have established some powerful rapport for you to then believe some of these wilder second hand tales. Have you ever personally seen anything even remotely like what you are reporting you believe that John Chang has done? Isn't it difficult enough to discern trickery when one is present? Why not stick with more objective reports of events you've witnessed directly? Sean

Not to sound disrespectful or overly curt, but I don't think there is a technique for enlightenment. IMO Buddha would have abandoned "Buddhism" prior to awakening as well, if such a thing had existed.

I tried the recipe on this page recently and really liked it.. I used that brand too. And I smeared it on my face just like that girl there while I was preparing it.

Ok, but if he calls me at 3am yelling at me I'm telling him it's your fault.

I am willing to put $100 on this story being complete and utter bullshit. Hey, should we split this MA stuff to a new thread?

Do you have permission to post this man's phone number on an open forum?

Just my two cents here, I've heard it said that the only real fundamental difference between Hindu / Yogic philosophy and Buddhism is the Buddha's teaching of dependent origination. Sean

Via Wudang Taoist - "Preparatory work" Someone may be tittering when I begin to talk about the money, because they think I have been preaching religious doctrine. In reality the majority of people have the conventional ideas that money meaning more or less vicious. Here the moneys in question take another meaning---to assist you in your pursuit of Tao. There are two reasons: one is that you need some food and clothes and residence when you begin your silent exercise, because in reality your corporeality hasn't been thoroughly purged of. The other lies in that without money you can apprentice yourself to none. So a saying is popular with the practitioners that the elixir pellet is bought with gold. With more knowledge concerning the experiences of Bai Shi Shan and Zhong Huang, you certainly will perceive more about the meaning of money. At beginning the two comrades were poor and could not afford the necessities, so they feed herds of sheep, and many flocks of oxen in ten years, during that period they economized and hoarded up savings; at last they fulfilled their aspirations. (Read more)