Apech

ride the waves to shore as white foam flecks out the surge depths pull in beneath.

Do you want the grass-fed piedmont burger meal, or just the burger? the meal comes with onion rings or chicken nuggets on the side.

"In Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain describes how his love of food was kindled in France, when he tried his first oyster on an oyster fisherman's boat as a youth, while on a family vacation." ... after which he rushed back to the states for a burger and fries washed down with Sprite. yep.

Coke, Big Mac ... yep quality products no doubt you should be proud (*irony which you won't understand as a yank*)

Why do you use non-Taoist terms for four of your five factors?

Feeling chill thnx

Yep Great Britain runs the world together with the Bavarians ... buy a bowler hat and some leather shorts and you too can rule.

Good point ... yes I think so. In 'human' systems we also see the wisdom aspect i.e. Thoth, Mercury, Hermes, Christ ...and so on taking the main stage and not the power oriented ones ... although they are still present ... in a way you could see Buddha as one of these.

"The bigger the lie the more they believe"

It all depends what you mean by valid and what the aims are. I am sure you are right that some people would have said that human sacrifice was done to 'please the gods' but had you been able to ask the seers and priests of that religion they would have said it was a valid form of practice because it worked. Even though it is unacceptable to us in a lot of ways, the only reason that this would have been done was to gather (or steal) energy in some way or another .... with the goal being advanced powers. Even in less blood thirsty ancient cultures the primary goal was effective power and freedom. The kind of ethical grounds that we build in now, such as compassion, love and kindness were not accentuated and at times completely absent. It should be said that this approach was warped and that it warped the practitioners. It made them strange and inhuman in some ways and also ultimately powerless. Because they misunderstood the nature of energy/chi or whichever term you want to use. So I think you are right that you can reject certain 'ways' but not on the grounds that they didn't work. In the rest of your article you go on to define what you understand to be the goal(s) of cultivation. For instance 'clinging to the body' which you reject. I would suggest that you have overlaid a particular Buddhist slant which tends to denigrate the body .... whilst others see it as the vehicle of our development and that chi also is not like gas that you can pump into your tank but something more subtle and profound than that.

You've started liking your own posts again ...

growing "chi belly" I'm just a jelly baby, yo swelling's gonna grow.

crunch, crunch; cools me down munch, munch, now that heats me up! lunch, lunch till I drop.

@thetaoiseasy - thank you for that story.

Would you care to purchase a copy of the magazine entitled 'the Big Issue'? Many Thanks and have a nice day, God Bless.

that is the question but the answer lies hidden in a secret code.

better gas mileage but then my yak has to stop to eat, drink and shit.

Silas seems to prefer restating the same thing endlessly without reading or thinking about any of the replies he has already had. If this is deliberate then it is trolling ... if it is not then I would be forced to think that he has no will or capacity to answer the questions he asks. End of this one for me I think.

Not necessarily 'stuck' but just with a strong connection to this style of practice.

buffalo nation country of big wooly beasts hearth rugs on the move.

a) Buddha activity is nothing to do with 'wanting' ... perhaps a way of thinking about it is pure spontaneity like rain falling which allows plants to grow ... b ) we are being drawn into speculating about how a Buddha would act in a hypothetical situation (with the homeless person) ... a Buddha sees things as they really are ... we just see reflections of our own ignorance ... so we cannot determine how a Buddha would act in a given situation ... so we can only think about how we may act ... which is aspire to compassion, generosity and so on ... the moral choice in any given situation is not the issue on which to base anything really as it is likely that since we are all in ignorance then we will get it wrong anyway ... but no blame if we do our best and try to be better.

It means ... get out of bed its nearly lunchtime.

Well its a way of speaking I think. Ego vs. Buddha nature sort of thing. they are not-two really. ...I've lost the track ... what are we taling about?

Well, I would agree ... in that when we look with our ordinary minds its not possible to escape the murk because our ordinary minds are of the murk ... while Baphomet or Jesus or Avalokitesvara are from beyond the murk entirely ... or at least I can answer for Avalokiteshvara ... at least.

Ah well.