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Content count
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Days Won
238
Everything posted by Apech
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Pero, who is Jax???
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don't mind the toe grit there will be no extra charge for the seasoning.
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Thanks for the reply Taomeow, I think we are more in agreement than I thought. I don't claim anything like the level of strength your Taiji teacher has attained. I would say more that I use my meditative awareness as a kind of diagnostic. If I feel something is wrong I will try to adjust it and this may sometimes be environmental conditions. I realise many people are more sensitive than me but I see it as a balance between getting on with life and protecting your being from harm. BTW you have destroyed my mental image of you in a cave surrounded by butter lamps! Shame
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Taomeow and everyone, I think I can see that forms of artificial light may have health risks and some are better than others but the problem I have is this. For the last three days I have been been involved with a group buying a new computer system and we have been listening to presentations from the various software firms. The new system will IMO be a good thing for people like me (who live in this area) cos it will help them provide services better and in a more sensitive way - for instance for people with disabilities and so on. So I support the idea but find that to do so I had to sit for many hours in an office lit by flourescent light. This morning I am going to teach English to some women from Sri Lanka and Iraq who have come to live in England. This again is in a room lit by artificail strip lighting. So if I want to do these things I have no choice. I have always taken the view that the more meditation/cultivation I do the more adaptive and stronger I will become. This means I will be less affected by adverse environmental conditions. Less subject to the objective world. If I want to live in the modern urban environment then my spiritual work will help me do this. I can't and I'm not even sure if I want to just surround myself with butter lamps or whatever. Want to live quietly within society and not in an alternative. What you seem to be saying runs counter to this. I say this with the greatest of respect and would be interested in your views. Thanks.
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Would they like my toes? Cos I'm sick of counting them, its ten every time.
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Well we were all lost years ago then! Most of the threats to individual liberty in the UK arise either from the EU, e.g. light bulb issue ... "The report also says the switch will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 12 million tonnes a year, and save energy equivalent to the consumption of 11 million European households. Mr Piebalgs said that the phasing out had to be gradual so that "production facilities could adapt to the new lighting" and the quality of illumination could be ensured. "European homes will keep the same quality of lighting, while saving energy, CO2 and money," he said. Several nations including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Philippines have already announced they will phase out or restrict sales of traditional bulbs." source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7772412.stm or the Prevention of Terrorism Act which was passed because of the Bush/Blair loony 'war on terror' idea. Actually the UK lived for years and years under the threat of terror from the IRA who placed bombs in mainland city centres and pubs and so on (funded partly by Noraid from US). The current paranoia comes from being influenced by the US reaction to 9/11 and so on and Blair being naive enough to join in the Iraq invasion (depleted uranium shells being more environmentally harmful than light bulbs I would guess). It doesn't suck to live in the UK - far from perfect I agree and far too easily influenced by US and EU. All technology has risks and I worked for years in offices lit by traditional flourescent tubes. I believe that meditation and cultivation makes the human organism more adaptive and thus more able to deal with environmental factors. And I still welcome the reduction in energy consumption, less CO2 emission and good news for polar bears etc.
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My passport does have a chip in it - not sure what its for though. I agree about the lightbulbs - whats wrong with cutting down on on electricity use? I don't like the 'nanny state' but lets not get carried away. Its the age of IT and we will just have to live with all this - its inevitable and not all sinister. The UK is still a place where individual liberty is valued as much if not more than most places. I refuse to vote Tory anyway. I live in the UK. Its OK!
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higher boy! oh it broke my vow of cultivation one hundred days spent.
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Our dog had to be put to sleep a couple of years ago, I know what it feels like. Best wishes and prayers to you and Candy.
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Tie It to a string Which may make you ask : how long is the piece of string? eh?
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Depends on your perspective - if you are a Buddhist then even if you make the chair it is still not 'real' in the sense of independently existent. It is made of parts, temporary (subject to decay) and dependent on other things. Chair also is a functional descriptor. If you make a coffee table but decide to use it for sitting on - then is it a chair or a table? If you say it depends on intent - then the chair is in the mind. So the chair is real as soon as you imagine it so to speak and the actual chair you might construct is just a temporary physical reflection of the chair-form. Indeed your capacity to conceive of chair (as a being in the time-process) depends on there being an eternal chair concept which transcends your specific time bound imagination. Indeed the chair as a universal-eternal could be said to be more real than an individual person. In which case you only exist so that the chair can have a chance to incarnate. You are the servant of the Chair-god. You should know your place and sit down!
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I imagine that it must have some kind of Seedling Development Plan supported by a number of leaf and branch project groups. Acorn production must of course be optimized.
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The youngest 'major' religion is Sikhism I think. The oldest must be Neolithic mother goddess worship (which was presumably preceded by earlier versions).
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IMO Being human is a function of the power that made us. Our nature is that power. If we realize this then everything we do becomes spontaneously 'good', in the sense of good for something - but not in the sense of the duality of good and evil.
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Where are we going to start?
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smooth bum now sexy smooth tum six pack ecstasy smooth tongue slippery.
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Math not very good Reading, writing even worse School? I never went.
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Congrats ... will be a fortunate child to have a parent who cultivates.
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oneness with no-thing or oddness with another one, not two, even. (or not-two either).
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"Most of us are syncretic at heart. Discussion is encouraged to wander eclectically across a wide range of spiritual thought and practice, whether Buddhist, Yogic, Tantric, Judaic, Advaitic, Christian, Islamic, Shamanic, Occult, "New Age", Integral... As long as you are up for a good time, you're welcome to discuss your path." This the quote from the opening page of this site. I think this is what Tao Bums is all about. If it was a narrow traditional Taoist site them it would not be the same or as interesting. All traditions that have existed in history have evolved with time to reflect the changing social and cultural climate. Taoism and Buddhism and the various schools within them e.g. Zen emerged at a particular historical point as a result of the reinterpretation of ancient wisdom (which is essentially consistent through time). When Buddhism went from India to Tibet it changed in expression. The Tao Bums IMO is part of a melting pot of the assimilation of eastern ideas and practices into western culture. It may take several generations and some inspired teachers to formulate new schools of practice. Mak's post remind us of a strand in Taoism which has a particular form and to that degree I find them helpful (even though there are a lot of them). But they don't really seem to enter into any debate and assert dogma as fact. If it was enough to use Talismans for every eventuality without any understanding, questioning and so on then everyone would do that - because it would be easy. I prefer to be brave, individualistic and empirical.
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All prickly and rough Parched, deserted and sun dried, Life as a cactus.
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Drink tea, wear perfume.. Quote Oscar Wilde at parties Camp it up darling!
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Zen is a citta mattra (mind only) / yogacara school of Buddhism which denies the essential reality of anything other than the mind (or experience). Thoughts as well as all experiences and indeed external objective reality is fleeting and transient and lacks independent and autonomous existence. There is only mind (citta) which has mental events within it. The essential nature of mind is empty (void) and it is necessary to still the mind to realize this. Mental events, thoughts, feelings and appetival drives arising in the mind do not have independent existence and are also empty, in the sense that they have no real self-hood. So ultimately the realization of the nature of the mind is not different to the realization of the nature of thought. As we are in a confused state where we no longer recognise the nature of our minds and are caught up in our self centered view of reality we need to learn to settle the mind and to stop clinging to our thoughts and feelings and so on. But a blank thoughtless mind is not the goal as this would be to fall into a false duality. By stilling the mind and letting go our awareness becomes sharper and more 'discriminating' (in the sense of telling truth from b/s). Intellectual understanding and active thought processes are helpful in arriving at a clear understanding of what we are doing but should not be held on to.
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All the best to everyone in 2009. Let it be a year of great success in all your spiritual work (no matter what the world throws in our direction). "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else shall be added unto thee." Life, health and strength. Apepch7.
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Pawing at the earth! Also howling at the moon Half man and half wolf.