Apech

The Dao Bums
  • Content count

    17,538
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    235

7 Followers

About Apech

  • Rank
    Luminous blob

Recent Profile Visitors

46,141 profile views
  1. Vipassana meditation

    I walk a lonely road The only one that I have ever known Don't know where it goes But it's home to me, and I walk alone I walk this empty street On the boulevard of broken dreams Where the city sleeps And I'm the only one, and I walk alone I walk alone, I walk alone
  2. What made YOU laugh today/tonight ?

    M said she wanted to get her nails done. So I drove her at top speed to the doctors. ’what are we doing here’ she asked. ’man he cure’
  3. Downvote challenge

    There’s a nugget of truth in that.
  4. Downvote challenge

    If I win bigly!
  5. Downvote challenge

    The thwarting downvote always wins.
  6. Downvote challenge

    You guys are just not trying hard enough.
  7. Lama Jampa Thaye

    This is a rather self effacing life account by this English Lama - he makes light of his own achievements but is actually a great scholar and meditator. It struck me that he could easily be a DaoBum with his background. If you are in England or Europe or Cali then I would recommend seeking him out if you are interested in Tibetan Buddhism. www.dechen.org
  8. Transgender Q&A

    Nungas have I ever told you how I feel about you …. ?
  9. AMA: Ask me anything

    Define toast Define jam
  10. Caduceus - staff of Hermes

    @Mark Foote Hi, Yes those are interesting pics. They are from so-called 'Mythological Papyri' which were produced in 21st Dynasty Thebes as short/condensed versions of the Book of the Dead with very little text being mostly in picture form. They are very helpful for getting at the underlying patterns of meaning in Egyptian beliefs. The shape with the writing on it on the left and the object being offered to the snake are the heart symbol 'ab'. The heart was the seat of consciousness which was weighed against truth in the famous judgement scene. The text on the heart symbol on the left is Chapter 30b from the Book of the Dead - which begins 'My heart, my mother, my heart, my mother, ka in my body ...' - so the heart was a part of your being which allowed you life and 'ka' which is something like an energy body had a close relation to the heart. They were not so much talking about the physical heart but more perhaps like the heart-centre or chakra (?) which was the location for the creation of a being (hence your mother). Chapter 30b was usually carved on a stone scarab beetle symbol - the link being the scarab beetle god Khepera 'stood' on his own heart in order to create the cosmos. So there is a strong link between th eheart and Khepera (whose name is derived from the verb khpr = to be, to become.) The serpent's name Neheb-kau means 'uniter of kas' or 'joiner of kas'. This god had a strong relation to the inundation of the Nile - so bringing fertility - and also with the seven neck vertebrae. There is a sense here of that which connects the expressions of energy together - like a field or continuum - hence the many coiled serpent imagery sometimes used. The beard is interesting perhaps because if you imagine having a plaited beard like this - if you arched your neck it would touch you sternum - in front of the heart centre. The Bennu bird is the Egyptian phoenix and is about life emerging from the pre-creational void. The ma'at figure represent 'order' in the universe. This picture would be part of a longer sequence which would place it in the context of a series of events or transformations undergone in the afterlife (or in this life when doing certain practices).
  11. Caduceus - staff of Hermes

    What bells does it ring for you?
  12. Caduceus - staff of Hermes

    Mark's picture is of the sun disk being lifted up by 'life' = ankh from the eastern horizon (or sometimes confusingly 'out of the west'). The two goddesses are Isis and Nepthys who represent various things including the two mountains who form the horizon, the two towers of the temple gateway (which also represents the horizon) - the cycling of energy (up into the light with Isis and down into the dark with Nepthys) - which is a kind of gestation of the new sun. The apes, sacred to Thoth, adore the rising sun ... which suggests the intellect adoring the 'real' if you like. Or you could say the joy of the mind awakened by the rising sun.
  13. IMHO

    Mine was a joke also.
  14. IMHO

    Y?
  15. IMHO

    IDK