Encephalon

No apologies necessary. I wasn't referring to your comments; I failed to quote properly.

Yes, I would have to say that this thread has unraveled in customary TTB fashion. Forgive me if the points I intoduced in the first thread were not clear enough. First of all, I defined the project as a small scale community. I'm not out to redesign the educational wheel for an entire nation or culture. I was imagining a not too distant future where resource flows are subject to a dramatic constriction, where people will have to downsize and adopt some measure of communitarian ethos. (This is another subject that we can argue elsewhere.) I was attempting to cast a traditional "Yellow River Valley" Taoist community in a post-oil, post-consumer economy scenario. There are legitimate models in effect at this time. Perhaps it would be best to affirm an understanding of each other's ideas before we start accusing each other of silliness and naivete.

The Great Books series is a must have. Great point about the homework. "On education, practical skills should be taught on a rotating schedule (medical school clinical rounds comes to mind). All students train with an accomplished farmer, weaver, mechanic, etc; then older students choose to specialize and apprentice in their favorite field. Basically, every adult in the community should be a part-time teacher. And this should be in addition to formal studies of the Great Books (great idea), history, math, music, science, exercise, etc." Great idea. Keep 'em circulating. Ideally, you would want each of them to have some familiarity with each of the facility's functions; AG, energy, animal husbandry, crafts, etc. "Let's be practical, in what country is all this happening? In most countries education is by now a legal requirement, so the suggestions, to be realistic, and have a chance to be adopted, should take into consideration this." My dream countries would either be Canada (BC) or New Zealand, but there are a lot of intentional communities that are functioning in a similar manner throughout the world - www.ic.org I love Durkhrod's curriculum design. I imagine conventional academics - the Three Rs -playing a slightly larger role than formal Taoist subject matter, at least for children. Permaculture will necessitate a lot of learning too, if all available man-hours are not used up in the process of food production. Thanks for your input. My ego was hoping for a livelier exchange, but I value all of your inputs!

Cultivating compassion begins by waking up to the unconscious elements that often trigger the lack of compassion in what we say and do. It is a vast subject, filled with innumerable exercises and meditations, but a contentious relationship with the world and its inhabitants becomes impossible when we wake up to the connectedness and interdependency that characterize life on earth. "World as Lover, World as Self" by Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy is a great piece on the subject. When dualistic, "us vs them" thinking and the delusion of a false and independent self is revealed, our compassion grows because we no longer recognize arbitrary distinctions between self and other. A blow to the world becomes a blow to ourselves. Of course, in the absence of such an awakening, or before this occurs, good old moral development and the practice of good manners goes a long way. It is oftentimes for me simply a matter of keeping my mouth shut.

This is the reason liberals invented the science of ecology; to make people look bad, to shame them and try to pull off a feat of social engineering by making people feel guilty about our right to buy stuff. This is the real beef I have with Asian thought in general. It focuses way too much on organic connectedness, on some idealized notion that we are all part of some sort of life-generating matrix. They have all these lofty notions about how we all owe our existence to some kind of earth mother nonsense, that somehow we all are equally deserving of the fruits of nature. The world is an infinite resource. Liberals want everyone to think that the world is finite, that oil and water and natural resources are somehow limited. This is communism disguised as "taking care of the planet," getting us to kill our economy by not consuming so much. The world is not running out of resources. If we use up our oil, scientists will create new sources of energy. The only reason they don't now is because it's still cheaper to get it from the Middle east. Either that, or Jesus will come back and fill up the oil wells. My guess is that he'll replace the glaciers, take the excessive CO2 out of the atmosphere and the oceans (if there really is any), replace the topsoil and stem the loss of biodiversity (as if non-human life had some sort of inherent value, another communist idea). I swear, if people just kept their mouths shut and did what they were told, we wouldn't have all these problems. Thank God we have Glenn Beck and Anne Coulter to explain it. We need stuff!

Aaarghhh! You stole my thunder. Exactly the scenario I had imagined - kids being rotated throughout the entire facility, becoming familiar with all the dimensions of sustainability practice. I imagine all kinds of physical science and mathematics lessons unfolding jsut from the construction of the place - rammed earth construction, gray water systems, permaculture, small scale electricity generation, appropriate technology. I inserted the pre-1850 technology clause not for nostalgia but from a hunch that we will be powering down considerably after peak oil hits the scene. How would Taoists teach children how to hunt? What would they say about shooting deer? Something akin to Native American sentiment, I presume.

The honorable thing for me to do at this point is to concede my ignorance of VJs lineage and training. I still hafta argue about the importance clear speech, but having no direct experience with his training I cannot declare that what he has accomplished is not legitimate. I should also concede the uncharity of my words. I probably wouldn't take back much of my sentiment, but I haven't acquired the ability to commune in here without getting my ego involved. I have a long way to go. Having just finished an academic project on connectedness and interdependency, I am all the more the hypocrite because I have written forcefully that kindness and generosity are essential qualities if one is to realize ones connectedness and participate consciously in an ecological, interdependent reality. I would like to believe that an ecological education can go a long way toward a philosophical experience of connectedness, and that Taoist internal energy work can deepen that experience into a truly visceral and somatic experience. So far, my energy work has been exploding, and some bad is coming out with the good. Sorry. I'm working on it.

By what criteria? He'd be laughed out of any lower-division philosophy class in the country if he behaved there the way he does in here, not for the integrity of his views, but for his inability to express them coherently. This skill may not be the only sign of authentic wisdom but it is one hell of a good indicator, and if this skill evades you, consistently, you're probably not in charge of your material. Blaming your unintelligibility on the inferior thinking of other intelligent and educated people is another sign that your command of info just ain't up to speed. I hate to sound so frigging uncharitable about someone who is evidently sincere in his spiritual path but generating a constant stream of impenetrable and esoteric language is not to be confused with spiritual maturity. In fact, this ploy is as old as the hills.

Buddha lived. He accidently ate poisonous mushrooms, and he died, along with Jesus, Julius Caesar, Ghandi, and Timothy McVeigh. We all die. That's it. VJ continues to argue that if you don't wish to be bogged down with silly notions about earth-bound physical realities, you simply ignore them, and Voila! you are free to engage in all the metaphysical trappings that a non-educated person could possibly indulge in. VJ has made the practice of metaphysical arguments an art form. At some point, should he ever wish to be taken seriously by people other than online forum junkies, he will acquire the ability to test the veracity of his thoughts in an environment more challenging than an online forum, such as, a classroom... with students... and professors... Sorry, kiddo, but you really are losing it.

"The whole concept of God is a concection derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a concept quite unworthy of free men." Lecture: Why I am not a Christian. March 6, 1927. The orient also means "the east" and it did so in 1927. I'll try to improve my citation practice.

http://www.hsusa.net/product_info.php?products_id=218 I started this stuff on Saturday and my chi kung - induced heat syndrome has all but disappeared. Thanks for all the good advice I got regarding this issue. I really would have burned myself up and dropped dead of a scorched heart had I not clipped this one in the bud quickly.

Nashenas - Please forgive my earlier post. I regularly castigate others for uncharitable sarcasm and then go ahead and indulge in it myself. But yeah... dump the pizza. It would seem that the jury is out regarding masturbation. "Do it everyday!" "Don't do it at all!" I have to say that after my first complete MCO my chi flow was strong and I was having unusual experiences, most notably the absence of soreness one typically experiences after working out. Then I reached down below one day and played to discharge some energy that simply had to come out. The chi flow dropped about 40% for two days and my instincts tell me that is autosex-related. Being awfully new to esoteric Taoist practices, I'm not up to speed on the strictures regarding climax but there does seem to be a correlation. Please correct me, folks, but do the Taoists not recommend sex unless it is with a partner? Our culture is so sexualized, the messages so pernicious, that we all seem to exist in a state of hyper-arousal. I think this is draining over the long run. Are there times when you really should abstain from everything? Beats me.

I think your best bet is to have your penis removed. Total penilectomy. I know a taxidermist that can have it stuffed for you. Or you can simply remove your penis from the center of your universe and stop eating like a six year old.

Thanks for this valuable contribution. Well done. My mother had to have one of her kidneys removed years ago. She's no fitness junkie but she seemed to weather it well and she's 71 and going strong.

I should rephrase the question. I wasn't really asking about the ethical considerations of organ doning or selling, but more along the lines of what Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) would say, given the prominence of the kidneys in tcm. Any high-paid tcm-types care to chime in? Oh, Et. Student - you beat me to it. Thanks.

The headaches are a very common symptom of caffeine withdrawal, due to its vasodilator effect on the brain. For some reason that I don't recall it acts like a vasoconstrictor on the other body's vessels. Every health-conscious person should be drinking green tea for reasons that seem to grow in number the more it is studied. It has 6 - 15 mgs of caffeine per cup, and since the recommended daily consumption is four to six cups a day, you will only get a mild dose of caffeine, but spread out over the day. Afternoon caffeine crashes become a thing of the past, and you get all the health benefits, including just s smidgen of the perky properties. If you're doing any chi kung, coffee will increase your heat. Green tea clears heat. It is the second most consumed fluid in the world, behind water. Go for it. Congrats on your stoic acceptance of headaches. I refused to endure it.

The Governor vessel points 16-24, from the base of the cranium up over the head and down to the nose, appear to be external, but I feel them as if they are directly beneath the skull, as if they are pressed against the skull from the inside by centrifugal force. And when it comes down to the bridge of the nose, I feel like a sneeze is coming on. I have heard that it can be downright dangerous to fool around with circulating energy inside your head. I am going with the sneeze-like sensation and allowing my upper lip to tingle for as long as necessary, however. I also let my throat pulsate as long as it wants, because it did seem as if it was presenting a blockage that kept energy from descending. Anyway, this MO is right up there with quitting drinking and getting a college education. There's hope for schmucks like me.

This is precisely the advice that was suggested to me by Trunk @ http://www.precisiondocs.com/~altaoism/ (click on Little Orbit). My readings indicated that when it was turbine-like enough, it would naturally spill through the next pass on its own accord. This was my experience. But your advice seems very sound. What do you mean by "Nobody wants to show up to the gates of heaven with stains on your soul!"? The point completely resonates with me, as I have had, since early childhood, great schisms between body and mind, heart and mind, body and soul, and have tried diligently to reconcile these tremendous divergences (something to do with my mother's husbands, I suspect). At this point in my life I could readily assume a three year monastic lifestyle. This is all I want, and I've just spent the last 12 years in college preparing for an occupation that may never again exist. Get me out of LA, off the grid, latitude 50*.