Apech

He's just murdered a stranger in cold blood in a savage and nasty way ... how does that add up to a good mind?

I am from UK but I don't live there now. I'm not a secular atheist ... not exactly ... I am a Buddhist ... but even that title is full of misconceptions ... I was brought up atheist/agnostic though ... looked at a few religions but basically I work with a pragmatic approach and not belief.

It says 5% are Muslim and 50% consider themselves Christian. Then it plays around with figures for active worshippers and passive believers. Quite honestly the UK is a secular country and most people have little interest in religion. I would predict that in a generation a lot of young muslims will also feel this way. So the more interesting story would be about what a secular Brtiain with no established church would be like.

You did say peonies didn't you.

Death is not easeful (not in my opinion anyway). I know its a cheap trick resorting to Shakespeare but there you go. BTW I don't see yin like that.

Could you expend this a bit ... I don't get the standing on floorboards ... do you mean the low point below which you cannot go?

Good analogy ... which I can relate to ... its very hard to thaw out the old negative contraction ... which is self justifying and thus perpetuating. Some times you have to wrk hard when you are 'up' and just ride out the times when you are down. Its all about available energy.

It's what I'm good at.

So are we LOL.

African just means you were born in, live in or your family come from Africa and the population of that continent is diverse ... from Egyptian arabs to Ethiopians to the Boors. All African. What is happening in Europe is an increasingly diverse population .... built on what has been a diverse population since history was first recorded. There is no European race ... no such thing. There is no ethnic cleansing in Germany or UK because no one is trying to exterminate or drive out people different to them for reasons of racial purity. Stop listening to extremists and study some facts.

Europeans are not a unique people anyway. The New World is populated mostly by 'europeans'. Maybe you should all come back????

My Tai Chi teacher is from Taiwan ... she was in UK for many years teaching in schools and local halls ... her father died and she went home for his funeral ... then they wouldn't let her back in. I used to teach ESOL to asylum seekers ... the way they are treated is not humane ... there are layers of red tape and so on ... and then the police turn up at 6 am and force them to go to the airport ... even if they have kids. the whole thing is a mess.

EU policy allows free movement within the European Union and this is coupled with links to Commonwealth. It was not particularly anything to do with Tony Blair as it was Thatcher and Major who signed up for these agreement and immigration has been going on for decades.

This is what ethnic cleansing means: ... what is happening in Europe is an increase in the diversity of the populations of countries like UK and Germany. This has happened as a result of colonial history and international trade in the 19/20th Centuries. The migration is mostly economic migration of people willing to move to work in rich countries for low wages and then settling there. There are social problems as a result due to pressure on local services, health care and education because governments have allowed this to happen in the haphazard and unplanned way. Using the term ethnic cleansing for this process is incorrect.

Some of the ants look like uncles from up here.

She hasn't had cancer it is a preventative measure because she has a gene which makes it likely that she will develop cancer.

Is this the same as cosmetic surgery? I'm not sure.

This post nails it.

Its probably not very helpful to say this but looking for one to one correspondence between systems is fraught with difficulty and a lot of the time pointless. Each system is complete in itself and uniquely expresses its own insights ... just because the Wuxing are translated as 'elements' does not mean you can line them up against the western elements because the significance is subtly different. Better to understand each in the contest of the whole system in which they operate and then if you wish make comparisons. Its a bit like the cakra/dantien comparisons which never exactly match.

Well, according to the link posted by Cat his ideas have been used by some in a racist way.

It means in the very least that they haven't examined what the term 'race' actually means in a human context. It actually means very little apart from a way of grouping people on the basis of very superficial similarities of appearance. Then it is mixed with cultural traits which makes it even more vague and confusing as a term. So if they use race as a way categorising people in terms of spiritual development or their value (however defined) then it shows that they make superficial value judgements about individuals which will not stand proper examination. So the question is do they do this in other areas of thought? And really are they as wise as they make out? I think the answer is that they may have other valuable things to say .... but it must be at least tinged with a suspicion that they are limited in their true understanding. BTW Blavatsky and others used the term race for something quite different and with no connection to ethnicity.

Saw a woodpecker in the neighbours walnut tree the other day. Lots of birds here ... no idea what they are though LOL. We do have storks that nest on the top of telephone posts and make a strange rattling sound with their beaks. Also lovely white birds a bit like an ibis but with straight beaks which feed off the insects round the goats and sheep. Swallows also.

Makes perfect sense. I took Phosphor. a few years ago in an emotionally draining/demanding situation and it helped.

Have you looked at your energy when the girls are chatting. How do you feel in those moments and what do you do yourself that allows energy to get drained?

Man follows Earth. Earth follows heaven. Heaven follows the Tao. Tao follows what is natural. (or its own nature). So the way 'man' (meaning mankind) behaves follows earth and so on. Or put it another way all levels of interaction (cosmic/human etc.) follow the way ... by understanding nature we can understand ourselves ... even to point of the conversation in MacDonalds ...