Apech

Hi Radix, I think the translation of ngondro as 'preliminary' is a bit misleading even if it is technically accurate. I am studying Mahamudra and doing the Kagyu ngondro (incredibly slowly ). It is not the case that you have to complete the ngondro before doing mahamudra meditation. It is more that the ngondro create a kind of environment in which the practice can prosper, grow and bear fruit. It may be that you never finish - although obviously you should aim to - but the whole thing - ordinary preliminaries, extraordinary prelims, guru yoga, mahamudra are a kind of seamless vehicle which carries you forward and not a kind of series of tests or badges. I accept that you don't want all the trappings of Tibetan etiquette and culture - and I don't blame you, I'm not a big fan myself, but I kind of accept it as being there - but I think its important to say that there are a number of teachers around (depending on where you live of course) and what you should look for is someone (a teacher) with whom you feel a connection - to do that you really need to drop any preconditions about what you like and what you don't like - you can't change the dharma to what you want or accept if you see what I mean.

Hi Daren, If you search this forum you'll find plenty of discussion on this and related topics. Until you know exactly what you are doing I would strongly suggest you avoid this type of exercise - and when you do know what you are doing you will probably still not want to do it. If you can find a good teacher that is helpful - otherwise focus on healthy living and gentle meditation or qi gong.

Hmmm good , thanks.

Merci beaucoup - is your house full of amethyst geodes?

That about Prince Charles does not surprise me one bit. The British Royal family have perhaps the most well documented history of bloodthirsty violence, greed, lust, deceit and appropriation - and somehow the Queen comes out of that to represent all that is steadfast, dutiful, loyal and good. They have repeatedly sunk to the depths of genuine unpopularity only to rise phoenix like to be embraced by the hearts of the British people and be feted round the world. There is something reptilian about that for sure and not entirely human. Meanwhile in their private lives there is an icy blast where otherwise emotions would dwell. I say all this as a loyal Englishman That's a very interesting quote ... although is it literally possible to destroy the tao?

Indeed Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew et al scrape the suface of something very dark and disturbing. I can think of some answers but I would go all Buddhist on you and you wouldn't like that But then why the Dao or nature distributes so much wealth to so few is a genuinely ineresting question.

It's 'foie gras' old chap - though perhaps when times are tough you have to put up with the faux version Actually for me inequalities only matter when you don't have enough - if you have a enough who cares if your neighbour has a Farrari? The problem is if you want to equalise things by say, taking someone's stuff then you can only really do that by repealing property law and with guns to enforce. At which point you have to ask who decides who should and shouldn't have things? And whoever it is becomes de facto, your dictator. If Sean and others want anarchy to create dictatorships that's their choice (to want it) but be careful what you wish for. And also I would observe that every single Trot, Anarchist, Marxist-Leninist I have ever known (which is quite a few) end up in financial services, real estate , hard-headed business or becoming a professional gob shite in a university somewhere.

I'll let Stephen Fry speak for me:

Count me in to the soft lefty camp. Can't people just be nice to each other without taking their stuff

he's got a good sole standing firm he's no slipper laced and booted too.

(pa-ra-dox-ick-ly) - that's how I say it maybe cos I'm English.

after several tries I did the impossible Paradoxically.

so much rain outside.... I turned my coat inside out just to let some in.

Yes I am watching from the sidelines also - from a remote place. Yes it is truly odd that DBs has begat 2 and I wonder how sustainable that is in any case. Trump it seems was sent to upset the old applecart and the old convention of honoring the victor and the result seem to have gone by the wayside. From an alchemical point of view if one begets 2 then there will be a three - but I cannot see as yet what that three might be. The world economy in my view is suffering from a strange problem which is over supply. The old engine of capitalism is profit - but increasingly and certainly when AI and robotics really kick in we will be able to feed everyone for practically nothing - this might be the first time that 'plenty' collapsed a system - what happens to the human soul when it no longer has to labor for bread?

I would characterise our politics as unstable, polarised, too emotional and ungrounded/unearthed. Although I do not foresee an imminent world war there is no doubt that what we are seeing is the karmic results of a very violent 20th century. It makes the environment in which we operate unstable and unruly. The left drift more left and the right become a sinister core - the consenus middle has almost vanished. So two discrete substances which are polarised apart have been distilled. It is unearthed because the media (mainstream and internet) create false shells of truth - and simply by repeating them bring about an ideational abstraction. We have been sold the lie that emotional truth is spiritual truth - so it is suggested that how we feel about an issue is important - for instance if something offends me , then that thing should be banned - since my offence is a real substance - when it clearly is not. We will have to ride the storm for some time. now - but sooner or later purification and distillation will occur - many may suffer aat this time I fear -but it cnnot be another way

Pretending they're free But when you read the contract It's five bucks an hour.

Tires going nowhere As while the road passes by, They go round and round.

Are we musketeers? Or are we just perfumed cats, Marking out our land.

Nothing to a sage, Is everything to mankind, All in all is all.

from Wiki. I think that Christian values of love your neighbour, sermon on the mount, feed my sheep - led directly to the development of socialism or at least socialist values. May be different in the US but I think this is because conservatives manipulated Christianity to produce a very right-wing view point especially during the Cold War. So we have to be careful about Christianity = right-wing.

People have less children when they get richer, when material threats reduce families are smaller and replacement rates are not exceeded. I'm not confused - its a different point to the one you are making.

I agree - it was Chang who called me an 'effortlessly annoying cat' - a title which I took as a badge of honour.

He was anti-authoritarian and pro free speech - which is what 1984 is about - he was a real socialist unlike a many who wear the badge.

Good points. And I am fairly sure that 23Andme and Ancestry.com are a bit of a con. However geneticists have been able to map Europe and there is some correlation between geographic area and genetic heritage but not as you point out political entities or nations as such. All European based people are of course hybrids with Neanderthals and most Asian people with Denisovians - so who any of us were 'originally' is an obscure question.

Before that the Neolithic agricultural revolution - then much later the Industrial Revolution. Almost no part of 'nature' as we know it is untouched by human hand - even the Amazon rain forest is partly the result of cultivated trees. Also you could see the history of the natural world as a series of catastrophic collapses brought on by different causes - like for instance the death of the dinosaurs or the megafauna at the end of the last Ice Age.