z00se

Hahaha, not the typical taoist view, or the view of most on here, but equally true non the less, to the common 'We are inherently good' view people often speak of on here. I can't claim this view as something i made up myself, i heard it listening to christian radio since my aerial in my car is terrible and it was the only station i could get clearly. Sounded strange at the start, but the way the speaker explained it, it made good sense. Speakers like this give me respect for Christianity, there are indeed some clever Christians who honestly do understand god / tao. It got me thinking and i would like to share his ideas with some of my own. His argument was that we are all sinners, the idea of the original sin was Christian and it was a great contribution to society. The fact is we all do things against what we think we should do, or that perfection that most of us believe we should be. We all have bad thoughts that are against our religious, cultural or moral beliefs. I'm sure even a Buddhist may want to kill that damn mosquito that keeps buzzing near his ear and biting him all over when he's trying to sleep in bed. Bad thoughts creep into our minds, we have selfish desires where we look out for ourselves ahead of others, OUR family members over OTHER'S family members. Thinking of ourselves as autonomous or separate is what he defined as being sin. Being whole and at one with everything, that is heavenly. So the fact is that EVERYBODY has these thoughts, from the moment they are born (babys are indeed incredibly autonomus). So this sinning, or evilness is a part of us, it is always there. We don't need to try to be good, or try to follow what we believe is tao, god, or any of that, because all those sins and good acts we do are all a part of tao or god. There is no need to feel defensive, or despair about 'dirty', or 'evil' thoughts that enter our mind. When somebody tells us we are no good, have poor technique, little qigong knowledge, no real understanding, etc, etc, we shouldn't try to reject it, we should accept it, listen to it, make realizations from it, grow from it. It's better to accept these bad things about us, and the bad things others say about us, and rather listen to them so that we can understand ourselves better, or at the very least other people's opinions of us. We can try to weed out these thoughts, and try to make ourselves 'good', or heavenly, but it is a constant battle until we are on our death bed. We ARE evil, constantly striving to be 'good' or heavenly, but when we realize this, we don't need to worry about our sins, we all are sinners and we all do wrong. If you were inherently good, then why do you all have these evil 'bad' thoughts? Why do you sin every day, and do thing that are evil or against your beliefs? Why do you keep hurting yourself and others, and on a daily basis wreak your diamond body for some fleeting selfish desires? YES YOU!!! WHY??? hahaha Do you see my point? Isn't it more uplifting and easier to accept if you look at yourself as inherently evil? Easier to realize who and what you are and accept all of who and what you are? A simple shift in perspective makes something much easier to accept, something that has no right or wrong way of being looked at, so long as the acceptance and realization occurs? Forget texts, forget the web pages, forget Lao Tzu what do you think?

But Tao includes hell. Further, just as hell would consume its self on its own, so would heaven in the opposite way. The two poles need each other.

I get that sometimes force is necessary, that if you play with fire you shouldn't complain if you get burnt. I suspect you are talking about something else entirely, but can you please try to explain it in terms of this topic? Are you talking about cultural conditioning in relation to definitions of good and evil? Or genetic prepositioning changing or twisting the relativity of perception or actions of good and evil? This is something i haven't considered, but i don't understand how solo practice of Christianity would be any worse than solo practice of any other practice.

Good is rooted in the unchangeable heavens, evil is rooted unchangeably in nature in the earth. Both have equally strong roots. Life is a mixture of heavenly life force and earthly physical manifestation and so as people we have both roots within us. Collectively both roots and life is Tao.

From a extreemly close looking chicken relative

Good, Evil, the 5 forces, and further splits, etc, are always there, they're always in the roots depending on how you percieve it. The one can exist without the 5 forces, and the 5 forces can exist without the one. Depending on where you begin, it's always going from 10 thousand back give or take a few million, to one... of from one back to the 10 thousand or so. Which came first the chicken or the egg, either is just as likely as being the root of the cycle of chickenism.

Mmm little doggys like that get put down in my country. Ill leave it at that for the off topic chatter

....think of the topic as more of a newspaper headline designed to stimulate conversation. Don't let yourself get reeled in by it.

Haha That's not the way i took the speach, as a request for more followers, or that i needed to be saved by christ. Rather just another opinion that i hadn't considered before that would be helpful within my own cultivation and understanding. Thats why i decided to share it here. You never seem to like my posts, when you post replies it seems as if i've made you angry somehow. Perhaps i'm wrong but thats how it comes accross. I like reading you're replies, and i know it takes time to write them. I didn't mean to include everyone in my perversions, that wasn't my intent at all. I didn't even intend to include myself in that

I think animals view themselves as something larger, as part of god. They eat and are eaten. They are doing gods will by eating and killing other animals. We are probably doing gods will by eating processed garbage to give ourselves cancer, so we reduce the number of the most overpopulated species. It's all just perspective. There are clever animals like monkeys, dolphins and some birds. They can plan and plot too. Sometimes i don't think we're as clever as we think we are, or maybe clever in some ways but not in others. Perhaps animals look at us and think we are stupid. Lack of understanding, just like we think animals do silly things, but it's only because we don't understand why. I think other animals can transcend too, perhaps even easier than us. This is exactly the point i was trying to make with my original post. Sorry for the several small posts, i am on a windows pc and i keep loosing the stuff i type. You honestly can't go past ubuntu.

First let me say that i actually believe it is easier for me to believe that i am inherently good and i only need to let go of my bad traits to show my true self. Letting go to me is easier than working hard to be good. However i saw merit in what the Christian speaker said. I did intionally leave out a part of his speach where he said "i don't mean doing terrible things in society like rape, etc" although how could one exclude such possibilities, he didn't attempt to make any rational explanation as to why these things would be excluded from an individuals acceptance of their inherit evilness. I did also think there was a wide acceptance of his speel to those who were present by the cheering, and i did think to myself this could be dangerous whereby the leader could manipulate the followers into doing something immoral and leading them to believe that they would be free from any remorse or be held accountable for that sin by others, which we all know is not true or they would never have divised the 10 commandments. You, Me, the differences you see and denial of your acceptance of the speach could be the very unholiness or fall from our unity that the speaker is talking about. Perhaps you are right, yet the speaker is very clever in the fact that he has a valid argument for convincing the crowd that people like you are wrong, after all he backed up his view, very cleverly i might add, by using some examples from the bible that i didn't type out. It illustrates to me the power of knowledge of, and ability of selecting excripts from the bible to validate your own intentions. As soon as accepted holy words have been committed to paper, even the i ching, they become a tool that can be used to gradually manipulate believers into doing anothers bidding. But they are god.... God is EVERYTHING. We need these people. People who think they are evil can help to balance the good people out. There could be such a thing as too much good, although it is impossible in reality where things always tend to balance out.

Probably know too much for the type of person i am. Obviously there is way too much to know to even claim anyone person would even know 0.0001%. I have rather concentrated on learning general things, rather than specifics, and i learnt this way from TCM. But now i am sick of learning, more time should be spent doing.

But the fool cares not for the gain or even the loss. Often the fool is more enlightened than the magician. As for the original post, important for what? IQ is important if you want to be a astrophysicist, but not if you want to be a labourer. The fool cares not that he is a fool, any more than the intelligent one cares that he is intelligent. Sometimes i think i know too much and that is a source of unhappiness. Thats not to say i think i know alot, for it's all relative anyhow. You've only got to watch The Simpsons and see the simple pleasures that Homer enjoys

I think i may take more note, and be more present while eating, and so taste things more. I don't find it's just one or two foods though. I do taste chi, and smell it too. Especially easy is yin earth energy bought up from the ground. I can taste cosmic energy too. Taste it in my mouth and taste it in my body. Taste it in my body? yeah i know it's weird

I think i see spirits, ghosts deamons in the form or energy, or souls housed in the organs as defined in TCM. That's how it is taught in healing tao, not called spirits. They have the same traits as the energy of the organs and you can physically harness, diffuse or harness them by feeding power or diffusing it from the root within the organ housing the energy. The tao is all one after all and it has many different interpretations, its just which way you have learnt, or the way you find easiest to understand and work with.

What do you learn from deamons? Learn about yourself or the outer world? I saw a couple of those sort of things appearing and took a break. While in the trip i just tried changing my attention all the time and trying to run away from it, even though it came lurking again around a different corner. I didn't like it so i stopped.

I guess its the same with qigong, always searching for more, its only when i give up i become liberated, the search is ended and i get what I've been seeking. Then i get bored and go searching again

Baguakicksass, fill us in on your experience if ya go ahead. Would be cool to hear a tale again

Yeah well my mate didn't leave them out in the sun. I still wouldn't go near them, its like you wouldn't do gutter drugs like sniffing glue (not that i ever got that stupid) if you have access to weed. Blue meanies and gold caps are good around here. I wouldn't eat something judging from a photo though, its much more dangerous than doing qigong without a teacher haha. You need to be able to positively identify plants as medicines or drugs because there are lots of things that are similar. Just look at dandylions for instance.

Flolfolil, later after travelling i realized how many years of life i wasted doing the same things over and over. The memories are of the best times, not the normal times. Travelling opened my eyes up to that. Making friends with someone in china who could only speak a little English, inviting me on a 10hr train ride to go back to her parents house for Chinese new year, having a huge awesome meal with them, skulling scotch by the glass to keep up with their style of drinking, going out and lighting fireworks with the little tackers, getten driven round to other family members houses and drunken party's from house to house, they even bought me a slab for the trip... Walking up the stairs to their apartment, being the other side of the world with people i could never have known otherwise.... This was one of many realizations Feeling like a rockstar because of the attention of being the only white guy in a town, giving 100s of kids their English name, sleeping in the subway with the bums in Shanghai because i forgot my passport, diving Surin island with sharks, turtles and fish and coral so dense it was like an aquarium, learning pulse diagnosis and tai chi from real masters, party party party in pattaya and biggest of all having my son. I could go on and on (I still have copies of emails i wrote of my adventures overseas if you want inspiration) Drugs can be awesome but later i think seeing hieroglyphics and the walls move just isn't special any more. Travelling is a trip outside your head, its awesome and there is no substitute. Full time work however i refuse to get used to. I am aiming for semi retirement at 35, that will be only 7 years full time work, more than enough for anyone though! I like my job but i like freedom more.

Hmmm... Plus you need good parents. You need to have good memories of doing fun things and enjoying yourself, pre-alcohol or pre-whatever else. Life shouldn't be all about study and work. I was a A grade student, but there are more important things that matter later on than study. University for me was a total waste of time, i learnt 80% of what was useful in my field of study outside of my course. All you need are good text books, and knowing how to learn. That is the real gem of high school. Learning how to learn, and good English to be able to express yourself. That is power in the modern world.

I don't see how it could be less potent when they were fresh? What psycho actives could be added through the drying process? I think most vegetables / fruits lose some of their nutrition after they age? Dunno, can't be sure, never tried dried ones. I had a mate who was right into it and took some of them mario brothers mushys, the red ones with the white spots, supposedly taken by vikings as a test haha. He ended up in ER saying they took the wrong ones haha. Just waiting in there for ages with his other friend who had them too and ended up just leaving because they were in there forever. That guy really did push things to the limit, i've never seen somebody throw up that hard or that many times, then keep going back to the thing that made him chuck up, and before he even had more he'd go back out and chuck again for another 5 mins. Repeated it several times. A great bloke, took it all in his stride, was a good and caring friend but just liked pushing the limits too much. Unfortunately he died, was only like 23 or something, but he died travelling the world and came and saw me in China not long before he went. Definately always loved life and was always up for a festival or event. Was here for a short yet action packed time. The notes, well they were pretty basic, down in my garage somewhere, it was not necessarily the notes, more the deep understanding and experience behind those notes. If a picture is 1000 words, an experience is like a million pictures. It's not like these are working outs of your mind, or readings from books, it's like they're right there in front of you and you've seen the events unfold. Three of the biggest things i remember were: Everyone is equal, still a person. Like monks, Hitler, the pope, neurosurgeons, etc. The pedistool, or lower level we put them on is only in our own minds, really everyone is on a level playing field, all just.... people. And seeing more with my eyes closed that i could with them open. That was the massive one. Just knowing and understanding everything. As to if i really did or not, well i can't know but i felt i did. I remember asking my mate, ask me a question, ask me a question. I answered a few, and i think they were all right, but perhaps not in the direct way, perhaps more like that roundabout tai chi way, if you know what i mean. That way that is inbuned in Chinese bones, where sneakiness and indirect is natural. I could see with my eyes and with my brain at the same time, like two different worlds. I would get pulled into the other one, but i could keep my concentration here. Was a bit like live 'here', but go there to search for answers. Yet you could be doing both at the same time. And understanding relativity, (not really Einstein's theory) how i understood it. Best way to describe it was 'how long is a piece of string'. I was only 20 or so at the time, had done some meditation but nothing like the energy stuff i know these days. Was more like self hypnosis or just relaxing with breathing. Again, these things perhaps don't sound like much. A bit like patting a tiger... you think yeah that would be cool. But when you really pat a tiger its like woaw, that thing could kill me any second with one swipe. It's different to reading, it is being there and understanding how it came to be, and all that is with it. That's in the experience. For several days, almost a week after a particular time i felt different. Like i knew something really profound, but i couldn't put my finger on it. It was just an awe filled sense of knowing. Mind you i still felt a bit out of it. Like i said, quick in, quick out, i think that was the best. A couple of hours to get in there of solid (i don't know what to call it) and then get out again. It's tiring. Things that linger on for ages and you can't sleep, thats exhausting. And how can you not remember? Well there have been plenty of nights i've binge drank and haven't remembered big sections. Your body is dealing with the poison, it doesn't have time or energy to record the events Apart from that there is too much going on... perhaps you can know everything, but that doesn't mean you can remember everything! I was super fit back then too, i trained gym 5 days a week and ran 5kms 3-4 days a week, plus did walking too. So it is easier to handle poisons when you're fit. But sometimes those things, one in particular is like smashing you're health with a sledge hammer. It's not necessary, i now know other ways to get the same results and findings. That being said, i would never go back and change those days. I loved them. Perhaps one of the hardest things for me has been to move on. Not from the stopping of poisons, just the closeness and love felt with close friends. We were friends for a long time before then, a big group of us and have things and special memories we still talk about to this day. However after being in China for a few years, when i came back everybody had moved on and, now i'm lucky if i get a few boys nights out a year. It's all family now. Mmmm shared housing really is good fun when you're young. I would encourage other youngsters to go out and leave home at 18 too. Drinking, or more importantly having those close relationships with friends is good for young people. There is no time, and you're body can't handle it when you're older. Live for today. There are only two things that really destroy lives, and thats ice (it's like the plague here in Australia), probably like crack in US, and opiates. Those things can really take you're life away from you. Other things, well if you let it take you're life away from you, thats you're own fault / choice, but when you decide you want to stop, you're life is always waiting for you when you decide to battle out of it and come back. That is the choice people can make as adults. Those two evil nasties... they destroy you're body and you're mind, especially ice. People never recover from extended daily use of that, even years later. So then you have a choice, shitty life with, or shitty life without. Involvement with those things should carry the death penalty. It can bring a country and communities to their knees. Australian law is far too soft on drugs. I've had friends who were happy and physically strong turn to shaking skinny nothings who struggle to hold a conversation. Pretty much the only one who 10 years later after daily use is still sane never used his brain much to begin with, so i guess he never misses it now.

I have never really taken light doses, I've always had 6-7 decent sized mushys picked fresh from the forest. I think picking them is half the fun, would be good to pick and eat, while finding more, so long as you've got gps to get back to the car! And don't listen to that Cheshire cat. Like the floor was on 45 degree angle and i had to hold on from rolling off the couch. Lots of stuff like that, weird, tripped out but not really fun. LSD i thought was more pure and made mundane stuff thrilling to the bone like entering a magical wonderland. Crazy but fun. Very fun like talking to plants, seeing chi in the wind and air, ripples in the fabric of reality. But it seemed like a trip, not like mushys feeling more real. I agree, dissasociatives is where its at for life changing deep spiritual stuff. I couldn't get enough of them but luckily not readily available luckily. Now i can get the same result in a different way through qigong and im not a passed out mess, plus i can remember it all. I still have my madman scribbled notes back from those days though haha.

Haha i think the setting is definitely important. Going from one setting to another can change everything even in the same evening. Massive mood swings and outlook changes song by song. Certain songs are really cool, and even years later the song can bring you back there again. I like Enya. I've seen awesome times and bad times, in both myself and others. I think bad comes with frequency, perhaps the 'happy' chemicals within are used up. There was a stage i went a bit crazy with everything i could get my hands on, everything well known and several things most people have never heard of. Now i haven't had anything for almost 10 years. It doesn't draw me any more. Sometimes others can draw you into the hype but truely i just don't find it fulfilling anymore. The fun wears off. Whats more you've only gotta look on bluelight.nu the dark side and it's enough to make you want to steer clear of that as a cultivation path. bluelight.nu and erowid.org both have a wealth of information. I'm not sure you need a PHD to discuss it, i think having a PHD is just a silly excuse for to make it seem legitament to get wasted. If you want to get wasted, just go ahead, there is no shame. Nutmeg... man that stuff is fowl to ingest. I only had the pre-ground stuff i could find in the supermarket when i was a young tacker so it wasn't as strong and didn't get much out of it. Supposedly you can get blends from those happy herbal shops and take out certain parts and have those parts all on their own and it's insanely strong. Strong and short is best i think. Some things just last too long and it becomes tiring. Also i think really anybody who tries anything new needs to give it at least 3-4 goes before their body learns how to use it, and gives your consciousness long enough to realize what is happening. I can replicate at least 4 strong substances... without substances, using just my mind. I'm not talking about just a 'has it started yet?' feeling, i mean full blown, stronger than the substance if you want it to be feeling, although it can take a few days to build it up to this level. I plan to write a series of articles about how to do it, i just haven't got around to it yet. Oh and a little warning..., i wouldn't even go near Belladonna. You'd want to have spent a few years on the moon before even having a little taste. I haven't heard anything good about it and plenty bad. That is just poison. A fool it is who wants to try a psychoactive plant and tries Belladonna even after taking LSD or something like that. I doubt it will be what anybody is looking for except a test to see if you can keep your sanity.

It wont matter what alcohol you use just whatever is cheapest and its around 40%. Metho would dry out your skin too much so i wouldn't use that. I would be careful trying to translate into Chinese characters because there are no accents on the pinyin and its not a 1 to 1 translation so you will likely get the wrong words. Just take the pinyin list to the shop, in sure somebody will be able to read it. If not try another shop... I've had no problem from 3/3 shops