Apech

Surely the point is that India is a vast and diverse country which incorporates a variety of cultural and religious expression. If you make generalisations based on one or two facts or observations then they are bound to be wrong. This would include attitudes towards women. The same is true of America as well. So you cannot say because this occurs somewhere this is true of 'India'. The problem I find with western academics who study these things is that unless they are very, very good objective thinkers then their own cultural heritage somehow imposes itself on the subject matter. This is the point I made above somewhere about the Oxford group who study Buddhism .... it is as if Anglican theology has swallowed up Buddhism and turned it into a reflection of their own cultural attitudes ... hence the 'secular' and 'atheist' Buddhism of Peacock and Batchelor. As if the last 2500 years of practitioners and commentators can be washed away as non-Buddhist because they accept karma, rebirth and so on, or developed Buddhist philosophy in ways that the academics deem unacceptable. For me Buddhism differs from all other religious views because it starts in a different place. Not with the issue of creation or ontology but with the experience of existing in a confused state, what this means and how to deal with it, and most importantly the key idea that seeing things as they really are brings liberation. Because of this perspective it is very adaptive to whatever cultural environment it fonds itself in ... hence to different forms of Buddhism ... without losing its key values and principles. Perhaps of the non-Buddhist systems I think Taoism is perhaps the most sublime and also looks to the heart of the nature of things in a very direct way. I think this is why Buddhism and Taoism can be symbiotic and not one versus the other so much. I know many Taoist masters quote Buddhist ideas without contradiction and we have the development of Zen and so forth historically.

No ... but it is in the realm of energy transfer ... so .... similar I think.

Hi, It's an honour to be confused with Cat by the way. I think the analogy works in that the ageing King uses the energy from young woman to prolong life ... what is that but a form of vampirism? albeit possibly overt and agreed to. Kings 1 1-4 is the verses I think.

A word in support of alwayson ... there is a particular cognitive problem with western scholars of eastern religion in that no matter how they try ... unless they are practitioners they turn the subject into a form of Christianity ... for instance the so called secular Buddhists of Oxford University, John Peacock et al.

Loving kindness for a vampire is not necessarily feeding their habit. Kindness can mean treat them as they are and not as something they are not. So it would be kind to a vampire to help them not to perpetuate the habitual tendency to steal energy for instance. All sentient beings have the potential to liberate themselves from conflicting emotions, habits and karmic effects and it is kindness to wish them true happiness, that is to give up the craving for energy from others. Or put it another way they think they need your energy and are trapped by this thought. BTW here is an example of conscious vampirism by an old man of a young woman ... from de Holy Bible no less!!!

I usually start with normal abdominal breathing to establish a rhythm (it feels more natural and relaxed) then switch to reverse ... sometimes this happens without me doing anything ... just of itself ... get good energy movements.

He did I think. I was listening to some tapes by John Peacock of Oxford Uni. who said that if you study the etymology of Avidya (Ignorance) then there is a sense of both 'not knowing' and 'not wanting to know' ... so our confusion is in some way deliberate .... which is interesting I think

Firm, but gentle; Calm. or raging like a mad thing all the same to me. PS. world is one syllable to me ... but I do speak funny.

Super intelligents? ...Duh, I dunno.

Nicely said.

Well... In this context, is a deep hole in the ground healthy, better, though.

after cell phone died. I buried my thoughts inside. never made that call.

in earnest this hem the edge of my Taoist cloak is now in tatters.

Something of a jaundiced attitude.

5 post probably a way of stopping spam bots getting through to the main board. You can just say Hi five times ... which would be a high five I suppose hah ah

It is a quck (sic) question which opens up a whole field of philosophical debate ... shoes, skin colour, drugs (safety or not) ... and how as Taoists we should approach these problems. Shoes will allow us to walk 'the way', changing our skin colour may be an expression of the inherent change in the universe, the ephemeral nature of things. And the use of drugs ... is this a legitimate way to access the profundity of the Tao? A quick question or even a quack question ... a life time to answer.

I use Adblock and Ghostery extensions to my browser so I don't see any adverts and tracking cookies are blocked.

Self consuming shade. Yes, my shadow ate itself, so .... indigestion.

Nice bit of googling. You can be a trade unionist by simply working in a particular industry and joining ... you might be a conservative, a liberal, an anarcho-sindicalist ... etc. etc. so the term is broad. You can be a socialist without being a communist, so the first term is broader than the second. so in the original quote it means first a smaller group is targeted, then a bigger one and so on ... until no collective voice is left to defend the individual. The idea that they may be kind of the same thing is the sort of thinking used by the oppressors to justify an attack on the broader group.

Need to study politics.

I thought it was a very honest film which showed Norbu to be human and as someone said sometimes depressed and kind of frustrated by things but kept on going. His son is a bit angry and becomes a business man first before getting involved in teaching. I thought it was refreshing to break out of the usual guru worship nonsense. The point being these masters are not gods .. they are human. For instance it shows queues of people lining up to ask the lama questions about their life and practice and sheds light on how inane this situation is. As if some one can solve all your problems for you in a couple of minutes. Also impressive is how Norbu cures himself of serious illness through practice. Overall a nice film.

nothing is wasted all the stuff I throw away is just recycled.

To be honest and no disrespect to anyone but I'm not sure I could put enough distance between me and this corporate commercial enterprise to make me feel comfortable. I'm sure they'll make a lot of money.

Please do it would be interesting to hear from you.

An outline of what you think would be helpful ... I'm thinking it coincides with something I read recently.