Apech

Samantha's eggs, bacon, toast, beans ... nice breakfast.

It's a bird called Samantha Madell.

Dao-t.

Physics has shown that matter is constituted of four basic forces which determine the structure of the whole universe. They are weak chocolate, strong chocolate, letrickle force and heavy stuff. All other chemical states are formed from combinations of these for instance coffee = strong chocolate + letrickle ; beer = heavy x letrickle cubed and so on. The only substance which brings these four into perfect balance is the potato.

Cultivation is not just energy work or meditation. Although you could take an all inclusive view of energy work by which everything you do is form of it. From my experience - what has worked for me is that first you have to address worldly values - you have to decide for yourself that your main purpose is spiritual development for the benefit of yourself and others. I don't mean that you can't have money, fame, success, a happy relationship and so on - I mean that you do not understand these things to be what you are aiming for. In fact they arise incidentally to your spiritual work. Second you have to address your own conduct - you have to understand that its not ok to be selfish, sloppy and self indulgent - you need an ethical base - or even (that most unfashionable word) morality - even if you express that very simply like accordance with the Dao of things - or maybe harmlessness. Thirdly you need to balance up the push/pull of attraction and aversion ... things and people you love or hate ... you need a way to balance this so you are not subject to disturbing emotions, a way of adjusting your feelings so that you remain whole and balanced. Then you need to refine your understanding by study and thinking through ideas. You need to test every idea that arises to see if it stands up to rigorous challenge. Then start to form a self-consistent body of ideas based in whatever cultural tradition you relate to (or more than one). Then you have to learn to meditate directly on energy/mind to disclose it's actual nature to yourself. I don't mean these sequentially by the way that's just the way I have written them out. But if you go straight to intensive meditation or other energy exercise without addressing the rest then you just end up charging up your own disharmony and potentially sending yourself crazy.

Time is money.

Facebums ... easy to say but hard to do.

After the desert is emptiness and after emptiness glory. (I think that's a quote but I have no idea where from).

It's difficult to find the right words but I will think on it and try.

I can relate strongly to this. And I think it is (in a sense) a necessary and important feeling. Or that is my experience.

You should be on Consciousness TV.

It sounds a like a hypnagogic state - it's related to lucid dreaming. I would suggest you do some research on this as there's plenty of info on the internet. the feeling a violation goes along with this state so do not feel that you are alone.

Facebook is awful ... BUT ... I was persuaded to use it to keep in touch with some people I know and a Buddhist group - and it does work for that. I keep expect it to be superceded as myspace and others were - but it seems to have a stranglehold.

Wot!!! Well I suppose it depends what you mean by yoga. They didn't pose in spandex leotards - well not very often

Well, just to bring things back on to the topic - which I am hoping is still 'is the earth round or flat'. I have spent a few valuable minutes watching some of the flat earth vids posted. the ones I watched at least had the following three propositions. 1. the earth is flat and disk shaped surrounded by an ice wall. 2. the sun is not 93 million miles away but just 31 miles away - it is travelling across the sky but as there is no horizon as such it only appears to set because of perspective - just as parallel lines like railway tracks appear to come together in the far distance. 3. there is no gravity but what appears to be gravity is caused by the movement of the disk earth through space i.e. its inertia. I think the last one is added because if there were gravity then either the disk would crush itself and fall towards the centre and/or as you approached the 'edge' you would be standing at a strange angle to stay upright. So in reverse order. 3. ) if the force of gravity were due to motion then it would have to be acceleration - because force = mass X acceleration and in the case of the measured value of gravitational force the disk earth would have to be moving through space accelerating at 32 feet/second squared (9.81 m/s/s). I'm not sure how old they think the earth is but using any reasonable length of time accelerating at that rate it would now be going well in excess of the speed of light. Also for it to accelerate there would have to be some force or effect provided the push - what would that be? A constant velocity does not work as the inertial effect on objects on the surface would be zero. So that's a big problem which they have to answer. 2. ) If the sun is moving overhead in a straight trajectory and moving towards a distant vanishing point through perspective then the sun's disk would, like all objects, grow smaller as it moved away. What we would witness through the afternoon would be a slowly shrinking sun until it became a dot int he far distance. Ok you could argue that it gets obscured by the atmosphere or something before becoming a point of light - but it would still get noticeably smaller while in vision - and it doesn't. Actually because of the way our eyes and brain process images it appears slightly larger on the horizon even though it actually isn't. 1. ) if we stand on the earth in Europe or America for instance, at night, and look at the star background we can see a difference between the stars in the south and the north. That is those stars in the north sky, like the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) do not rise and set but just circulate around a point (astronomical north). The southern constellations rise and set east to west - for instance Orion and Sirius. This difference is easily explained if the earth is a sphere, because it is tilted slightly and pointing towards the north direction and thus it is the spin of the earth that makes the Big Dipper rotate. Not only that but very slowly but measurably this point moves over time because the spin of the earth has a wobble. Even the early Africans in 6000BC at Nabta Playa by observing the rising and setting of these constellation measured this variation. So the flat earthers have to explain how these effects could be replicated by a disk moving through space - why would the sky look different north to south?

Gerbil Wayne : The hell you will!

Oh come on, you are just listing conspiracy theories now - what do you expect em to think other than you should investigate them first.

You certainly do.

No idea who that is - but the quote does not sound Buddhist to me.

@Nikolai - where is that quote from?

Oh yes of course they are:

Well I could answer that but I don't want to derail this thread.

So the thoughts and feelings which caused you write that don't exist?

Since you mention it I am collecting urine over the winter for fertilizer.