Apech

I heard that the goddess Tiramisu is giving Siva his just desserts. But then its a mere trifle after all.

Yeah but apart from that what's wrong with her?

I see May as brittle and without the kind of charm a natural leader needs. I wouldn't say she is unintelligent. However her judgement seems flawed as she time and time again relies on obstinacy, digging her feet in, where perhaps she could give a little.

This kind of thing is not without precedent: “bravery and determination of the British forces had won Hitler’s respect, though he would make fun of the peculiarities of the British army. He claimed, ironically, that the British were in the habit of stopping their artillery barrages at tea time, so that he, a messenger, could run his errands safely at that hour”

I think I've already recognised that in actuality there is no deal as such. It is simply the arrangements for leaving. After leaving things like trade negotiations start - this is how the EU insisted it should be. So what May presented to Parliament was just a list of agreed (or not agreed in this case) arrangements concerning how we leave. To be honest apart from the payment of 39 billion most of it seems of little consequence - especially the back-stop. All it does is allow a kind of orderly withdrawal under controlled conditions - which as I have said before I favour.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/17/portugal-plans-special-lanes-for-britons-in-its-airports-after-brexit Given the enlightened self interest of Portugal - I wonder if the UK could do the same. In other words exit without a deal as such but immediately pass their own legislation which for instance: 1. guarantees rights of legal migrants to continue living and working in uk 2. No tariffs for EU goods - and so no border checks in Ireland 3. that the uk will honour all commitments to areas such as research grants, security and so on. and challenge the EU to reciprocate.

Not sure what you mean by ascension - and each to his own of course - but I would fill up quickly at the gas pump and drive on

Buddhism and Daoism come from different traditions but they have historically mixed symbiotically especially in China - so there exist what you might call hybrid systems - although I don't really buy that term I'll use it anyway - like Ch'an/Zen for instance which is Daoist influenced Buddhism. Obviously Buddhism originated in ancient India from the sramana tradition - sramanas being wandering mystics for whom the sage-king was the ideal - other traditions emerged from here also such as Jainism (which has some similarities to Buddhism). The Buddha's main stress and indeed starting point was the individual's experience of life and how the cyclical world (samasara) was a projection arising through ignorance and desire. So the remedy lay in taming the mind by removing ignorance and cutting through our grasping at things. Mind here is usually 'citta' as in 'bodhicitta' = awakened mind and does not mean our thoughts as such but the basis of awareness - or indeed the 'substance' in which awareness/perception arises. Closer perhaps to the word consciousness as mentioned above - although there are technical difficulties with this also I think. It is hard to say exactly when Daoism arose - as although Lao Tzu's Daodejing was written about 500 BC it is not necessarily a foundational text and older classics such as the Yijing contain at least proto-Daoist ideas. What most people in the West focus on is the Daoist techniques of energy working such as qigong and inner alchemy (neidan). These arose out of Chinese medicine and martial arts. As Daoism is in a sense realist as the dao itself, heaven and earth, yin/yang and so forth as considered 'real' and not mental projections it does not have the same basis as Buddhism. However as I said above there has been so much cross cultural influence historically that some schools a can sound almost indistinguishable. It is also more or less certain that Neidan influenced the development of Buddhist tantra - even though tantra itself is an Indian approach developed from secret clan and kaula tantras in both 'Hindu' and Buddhist sects. The goal of Buddhism is to become a Buddha (or Arhat) and thus awakened in the sense that Buddha meant it. The goal of Daoist neidan is immortality (which may be understood as physical or spiritual) - and unlike Buddhism there is always a sense of harmony with something beyond ourselves, rather than mind awakening. You should follow whatever system you have a strong connection to - which is what you have to decide I guess

i meant this one:

Say what you like about Blair he had leadership skills. I have a feeling that something is going to come from the outside and bang their heads together - I'm not sure what - but otherwise they are sleepwalking into this, while bitching at each other. Desperate and sad. Maybe the Queen will dissolve Parliament (God bless her).

makes me long for Tony Blair and that is saying something

Jeremy Corbyn is giving a speech about why he won't talk with May. Honestly - twat - there I said it

Welcome to Greater Norway.

I don't think I am particularly blinkered. I'm pragmatic I think. I voted Remain but it was not because I love the EU and its 'shadowy figures'. It was purely thoughts of the economic impact of leaving the single market coupled with self interest (cos I live sur le continent and I don't want any of the conditions on my residency to change). I have come to accept that the referendum should be honoured - I can't see any other option. But I want some security on a slow transition with minimum turbulence which I felt the deal for all its faults gave us. I do not loose sleep over the back-stop and these other issues which I consider a red herring anyway. I think that Corbyn has put party political interests over those of the country - in fact he is so bumbling and incoherent that he is making May look positively statesman like. I thought she was actually quite good in the House yesterday and while I consider her to have been quite incompetent and sometimes poisonous as Home Sec. for instance, I can see that the situation is now more or less unmanageable. It seems to me that this is analogous to war time and there should be a some sense of national unity to get the best deal we can in the face of the EU who are at the end of the day our future competitors. God save the Queen.

The way I saw it was that of the roughly 600 MPs a third (200) voted for May, a third were hard line Brexiteers (the ERG and so forth) and a third were MPs who want a Peoples Vote. In fact if Corbyn wasn't obsessed with a General Election to bring down the 'Tory scum' and had allowed a free vote then some of the Remainers might have supported the deal making it more like a 50/50 split. She might even have won. I don't think Corbyn will win the no confidence vote and thus where will that leave us? There's no majority for No Deal in the Commons and a government this weak cannot force it through. So most likely thing will be a delay in Art. 50. ... then we will end up with something that looks very like May's deal. If Corbyn gets his election and wins - he wants to remain in the Customs Union and the Single Market - which is more or less no Brexit at all.

So much happened today - and yet in the end nothing happened

Hi, Good systems are internally consistent and use terminology and some more subtle ways of communicating in a way that adds up to whatever the goal of that system is. If you mix systems you can get confused by overt and subtle differences which might impede progress. Having said that if you yourself are clear about what you are doing it is perfectly possible to study different systems and learn from them all. It all depends on whether you want to do the work and have clear enough understanding to do this. For many its not a great idea 'cos you can end up with a mush which doesn't really work. I don't think its about dogma as such but more consistency and application. Of course you must make your own mind up about this.

I don't have a problem with business per se. After all we need to create wealth and the engine is capitalism. What is wrong with the present system is the way in which corporate business is tied to ideological goals - globalism, no borders, intersectional politics and so on. Corporate power in the service of ideology is pretty much the standard definition of fascism. I am guessing that behind Brexit - as it is and not necessarily what people voted for, is a tug-of-war between European collectivism and Anglosaxon individualism - sometimes they may look the same on the surface but they are not the same.

Thanks for this thread - very interesting read. It made me think of this: So even Jesus who was not exactly the most popular with the priesthood - fulfilled the law - which I take to mean he fulfilled the lineage. In other words he correctly understood and embodied what the lineage teachings were talking about - while the priests had fallen into ritual observance (they may of course understood some of it but not all of it or indeed the central purpose). I would also add that although it is true that realisation or awakening can be understood as living in the present moment in awareness of the true nature of reality - here and now - it is also true to say that we each carry a long history. A personal lineage if you like in our bodies or perhaps in our beings. So there is a sense of fulfilment of an ancient purpose in our work.

Plan B: we're f**ked.

Start from where you are