Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that

Your not butting in, you can comment on what you like, although I was talking with Marblehead it was in general view of free will for anyone to comment upon, so I don't mind at all. My point was not that there are not obvious consequences, as in if I break a law for example. My point in that post or another, was I disagree that anyone has the fundamental right to make such laws that can govern my life. The 'rules of engagement' are not rules I had a choice in creating. Now I will warrant that some laws are in fact for my benefit, but many others are certainly not. To make a law you have to first come up with concepts of right and wrong, yet I do not believe in absolute right or wrong, so therefore, any punishment I may receive for any possible wrong doing would, in my view, be unjust, no matter I had previous knowledge of the consequences, I do not agree that, in view of the law, there should be any consequences(although I do know there might be). If it was a sport, and I choose to play the sport, then yes, I accept the rules. But, as far as my memory goes, I did not choose to be born in my country of birth, so therefore I did not accept its rules. So in my view, this is an obstruction to me being able to freely exercise my will, as I don't want to be punished so I will then restrict my own actions. I disagree with my self imposed restriction, although I did have the 'free' will to make that choice. It's still, in my view, not freedom. Who has the right the set up the game rules before I started to play? You present two choices as if these choices, in the first place, are right and proper. Yet I disagree that they are. My sovereignty should not be conditional on what another says is right/wrong and what and how I should be punished for those actions. The tail is wagging the dog. Free will is a conditioned response, to a greater or lesser extent, by the good boy/bad boy, approval/disapproval pat on the head or smack on the bum variety we received in childhood. What people perceive to be their own decisions based on free will, is many times, simply there past conditioning in operation. No need to apologize at all S.S.S, we are all here trying to communicate our ideas and opinions to each other.

...It's just so much more fun. I see your point. However, I never see the muddy waters here, all I can ever see for miles and miles are flower beds of the most exotic variety. Free will is troublesome in Asia.

Do you think you it might have been useful to mention this in the first place? I for one feel like a wasted my time replying. It's not like you're a beginner at it, and, possibly a lot of us wouldn't have posted the usual stuff. No offence, but when I waste my time I like to know I'm wasting my time.

I should perhaps correct myself. Walk down the street in the summer. Oh hot pants, oh mini skirts....oh oh oh. How Asia ever became the epicenter for Buddhism and monks I'll never know! I'm thinking it was an extreme reaction to an extreme. I see the Buddhist/Daoist argument has started again. Good luck with that!

There is no dark. What is the sound of one hand clapping? A slap on the face!

Oh, now I know, Mr. Ong Bak, ya, he's great. Only seen two of his movies, but I like him a lot. I'd like to see you jumping over your car Marblehead. Too much information!!! Come back to Asia, one walk down the street will sort out that erection problem in no time at all!!!

I can see the whole idea isn't very popular on this thread Actually it's not that difficult. Out of smoking, drinking, sex and what not, meat is by far the easiest thing to give up. You don't have to make a decision to do it for the rest of your life, just give it a go for a month or so, you will find after that month you are at the point where you don't mind too much either way. I generally take 3 months of the year as a vegan, just for a body clean out, as meat putrifies and stays within the body for a long time. You needn't become fanatical about it, fanatical people are fanatical as a way of forcing and convincing themselves not to do something they still want to do. Make sure you get a load of vegetarian recipes before you start otherwise the boredom of no meat can hit you pretty hard. The only downside I would say was the first time I did it, after about a month I had a serious lack of energy, until a friend informed me I should be taking iron suppliments, Seth has mentioned some other things too already. It does suck at first when you go out to eat with people and they order their meat, man does that meat ever look good!!! It will make your body feel much lighter and actually speed you up a bit, as long as you have the right combination. Don't forget the Dofu. And don't start thinking it's all 'spiritual' or you will become sanctimonious, and no one likes people like that.

Got it, understand it and agree with what you said. Absolutely. I have no idea who Tony Jaa is(I'll have a look later), I used to love Martial Arts movies, until I came here and they are on TV all the time....for some reason it was then I lost interest There is a film you should watch that will be good for your furniture, I think it's an early Jet Li film(my memory is also failing me), it has a fantastic scene with a drunken Tai chi sword fight. If anything it's a good excuse for a drink first. Wish I could remember the name of it!!

I do wish you'd stop over exciting yourself with those Jet Li movies. Honestly, between Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li there must have been millions of dollars of damage done to furniture around the world. When Bruce Lee died world furniture sales dramatically declined. You make my head hurt you do! Any chance of some laymans terms? Nice to see you here again by the way.

Great analogy.

I can live with Hanwei, not bad at all. I would encourage you to invest in an antique sword though, as the hanwei lacks a certain romance when doing away with me. In general that story was a metaphor for the benefits in society as a whole and not just propagation rights. I think 'shame' is the problem. It's a tool used to control individuals. In truth the level of shame put upon a person in western countries is quite minimal. I've realized I'm going from what I've seen and experienced in Asia. Some of the guilt/shame trips I've seen put on people by their own parents in order to get them to do what the parents want them to(which has benefits for the parents)is quite horrifying to me, it leads the offspring down a path that will create a whole life for them that they never wanted, yet, feel obligated to do. I've seen the pain that causes and the sadness in their eyes, so I've kind of got a bee in my bonnet around the topic of society/obligation/shame and free will. The real problem is they have no comparison in the first place, as everyone around them(pretty much)has suffered the same. So they consider this fairly normal. Therefore, they rarely even consider an alternative. The prison of the conditioned mind is the most water tight prison ever built. :lol: That's a bit strong! Problem is I don't really accept destiny as a fixed thing either. Ho hum. I'm back to free will. Anyway, I think we understand each others views and there's not much further we can go with this. Thanks for the replies Marblehead ps. I would replace your sword with a rubber one first, thanks for the tip off!

I remember reading Path notes by Glenn Morris and from what he says the whole moral code part is unnecessary and is actually the wrong way round. As in, first the energy kicks off and then you gradually become like that. And what has happened is religion has taken the actions and character of masters and tried to make it into a set of rules that may, perhaps, get you there. According to Mr. Morris it won't, only energy practice/meditation will. I think that's the nail on the head right there.

I just bumped a thread by Noon which was quite good about the subject. It taught me something when I first read it.

Bumped for Durkha

I'm very interested in parallel lifetimes, so I found your post an interesting read. I've had a few wild experiences down that path, some which scared the crap out of me. It's good to note that some experiences could be noted as illusion, yet seemingly as real as this physical life, which leads to what I think someone else pointed out, the fact that here is no more 'real' either. I do hold to the no time theory, and it has been proven in a sense. Which means everything is effecting us in some way at this moment. The human brain simply filters out certain information in oder to maintain a focus on this reality, otherwise we might all go bananas or be enlightened. I've had some recall of some things I've done wrong in other lives(?)and frankly speaking I only wanna know so much! Let sleeping dogs lie is what I say, no matter they are in an adjacent space time continuum and not in the past

Well, I'm very pleased you would be fully exercising your free will . Although you would be breaking the law. What kind of sword is it? I'm hoping I'm not gonna be impaled my a cheap Samurai sword imitation. I'm hoping for an American civil war antique sword. If not, I would prefer you do not exercise your free will. This is interesting, and actually before I fell asleep I was rather considering your mention of primates and their form of order.... ie. wrong doing = punishment. Firsty, I should state that it is my belief of Daoism that the practice of Daoism, with sit down meditation and breath control and other, does, in fact strip away past conditioning, leaving a person bare but in touch with the Dao. I believe the Dao to be basically expansive and nurturing, so I don't believe people will go around punching people on the nose at every occasion. Although I will say, there seems to me, to be a rather dangerous cross over period of time. In any case, your point about people higher up the social ladder with more free will is exactly connected to an example I will give in a moment. But I will say this, you say people are free to revolt, but are they? How free are they to actually revolt? For example, lets say I was American and I decide that the American government is quite crap actually and a lot of people agree with me. I could, I suppose, pursue democratic means, yet, as we all know in western countries, in a democracy there are, pretty much just two parties(sometimes three)with a high chance of office, due to the fact that to run a campaign you need serious money, who gives them the money? Multi national companies and so on. Will they give me the money? Doubtful when I tell them I don't agree with war particularly, or some of their other dubious ways of making money. Will I be able to simply walk up to the white house and demand the keys? Of course not. The power structure is in place. So, I therefore choose your option, revolution . I call myself a freedom fighter, they call me a terrorist, and they have the power and the influence to make sure I'm portrayed in the media as a terrorist. Che Guevara is considered a hero in China, but perhaps the majority in America consider him otherwise. Who is right? I don't know. Should I win my revolution I can simply make sure that people consider me a hero, otherwise if I lose, I'm sure to be a social pariah. But...I certainly did exercise my free will. If I win, no doubt my free will will have brushed up against many others free will, to the point of me having to kill them. Am I right or wrong? I can certainly re-write the history books and make it look as though I am right, as all good revolutionaries/victors do. Bearing in mind I don't consider killing an option(a luxury I have due to never having been conscripted)I would therefore say I have no free will in this situation, unless I believe so called democracy to be effective, which I don't by the way. A four year decision is no decision at all, it's not like they then ask the people about even a minority of the decisions they make in the four year term of office. Democracy, nice word, but one of the biggest cons ever perpetuated on the human race. Anyway, onto a more light hearted scenario: A group of monkeys live up a mountain together. Everythings going swimmingly well, bananas get eaten, monkeys swing off trees and the females get impregnated. Order is in place due to the alpha male. Yet, sadly for the other male monkeys, they just can't get any action. Why? Because the alpha male considers himself to have boning rights. The females, in general, are inclined to agree with him. Let's say the alpha male has really gotten tired of having to fight off the other males, and certainly, he's unlikely to say "oh, ok, do what you want", due to the fact he had to fight his way to the top. There had to be some benefit, and he'll be damned if he's gonna give that up. So, lets say these monkeys actually have the power of speech, and the alpha male thinks 'how can I make my life much easier? I know, I'll create shame and social acceptance, I'll re-educate them'. So he gathers all the monkeys and then says "thou shalt not bone females, or your a bad monkey! And females, thou shalt not allow other male monkeys bonage, or that makes you a bit dirty'. After some time each monkey is conditioned within the group that this is social acceptance and the line must be toed. Every now and then the males and females thoughts wander, but, luckily for the alpha male, they have been conditioned with shame and the fear of social ostracization. One day, a rather cheeky monkey, that often likes to throw bananas at others heads for fun, spies a rather attractive female monkey that he's noticed frequently gives him a rather lingering monkey look. Now, he knows that he is not supposed to do anything, but then he comes up with the concept of free will, and decides this just isn't fair at all. Luckily he has noticed when the alpha male goes for a poo behind the bushes there is just enough time to get in there, get the job done, and get the **** out. So, he carefully steals himself to the task at hand, and waits patiently. As the alpha male goes behind the bushes our cheeky monkey slides up beside the female monkey and whispers some pertinent sweet nothings in her ear and proceeds. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to even the alpha male, he didn't in fact need a poo, but in fact only passed wind. And upon emerging from the bushes scratching his head sees one cheeky monkey with his pants down, so to speak, and a female with a rather happy expression on her face. Well, all hell breaks lose, and after monkeys have been slapped about a bit by the alpha male, both are banished from monkey society. All the female monkeys tut and and say what a tart she was, and all the males say what a bad monkey guy he was(whilst secretly being jealous). This above scenario is pretty much society as we have it, but obviously in a very simplistic form. My point being that all conditioning we receive, for the most part perhaps, benefits someone else and not ourselves. The exercising of free will will often come up against societies mores, mores that were created to create 'order', yet intrinsically are not there for the benefit of the majority of individuals, but for the chosen few. I guess my argument has become free will Vs. Societies mores, and the value of individual choice over societies choice of your, supposed, place. I feel sure that were a monkey a Daoist he/she would certainly do as he pleased, not necessarily to the detriment of others, but, in fact, it would be somewhat impossible to avoid at some point. A Daoist, IMV, although one with the Dao, would always follow his/her heart, not the expectation of society that had been forced upon him without his ability to consciously choose otherwise. Perhaps this is why in history Daoists ended up living alone up a mountain. I'm guessing monkeys and humans are somewhat similar, which is rather telling of how little we have progressed. I get you, I'm more interested in pursuing societies mores, which make up our conditioned selves creating a limitation of free will. Although it was I that used murder as a rather extreme example in the first place. My question is who says society has a right to quantify right or wrong, I for one, do not agree that it does, bearing in mind it's based on an seeming extension of 'Gorillas in the mist'. Just to further make my point(and yes I do realize I'm going on and on)I consider taxation to be no better than common theft. Yet society has decided it's right, good and proper. If you don't pay your taxes your a cad and a leech and everyone will throw rotting eggs at you, or at least they will want to. In truth they are secretly pissed at you getting away with it and them not, such is the society we have created. Taxation, country wide, was first created in order to finance the war against the American revolt of the British. Thanks for that We can only blame ourselves. Yet, if you take 20 dollars off me and then give me a bag of sweets/candy, to the value of about a dollar and say 'see what nice things I did for you' I will say I could have done it myself and what happened to the other 19 dollars? To take money in any form without a persons permission is theft. No two ways about it. It doesn't matter if it is government sanctioned. And these are the same people I'm supposed to listen to as to right and wrong. It is my free will not to pay taxes. Because I don't agree with theft. Am I right or wrong? Having said that I do pay taxes but it's certainly not my choice. You might ask me 'well, how is society as we know it supposed to function without us paying taxes', and I would say 'why are you making a problem you created my problem?'. I am not concerned with society, I care only about the individual and his/her ability to realize, and go beyond the conditioning that restricts his/her free will. Oh well, I've probably taken up too much space on this page so apologies to all.....

Exactly, because you can't accept it. You are a conditioned model of society. How about I bounce along and say I don't accept your conditioned model of society, it's my free will to do so. How about you say you can't accept if I have 'a thing' with your wife, but your wife says she accepts it just fine(just an example by the way). Who's wrong? And how about I say to you that your idea of me taking responsibility is restrictive to my freewill, now I cannot do what I want because you say it's 'wrong'. Where has my freewill gone? Where is the line that says everything is my responsibility if not societies conditioned view of acceptablity, which lets face it, changes as does fashion. 100 years ago were I a Chinese male it would be perfectly socially acceptable for me to have 3 wives, if I could afford them, now, not so. So why should I pay attention to that which is not real. So I can fit in? How about I have no desire to fit in? (by the way, dont take the wife example in the wrong way, it was simply what came into my mind as I was typing, not an attack of any sorts) Again, if I am accountable and will be punished, then 'free will' is not a real thing, it is an illusion. Free will with limitation is not free will, it's similar to the lovely Christian view 'God gave you free will.....BUT, if you do this you're going hell...Happy Christmas!'. And how should we be held accountable for our actions that were, more than likely, based on a childhood we had no control over? Cut off a hand? Stoning? Prison? Death sentence? And how can I, or you, judge such a punishment when we have not lived that life? Is not the American constitution supposedly structured around the concept of 'freedom'? Is freedom by degrees freedom? I would say not. Don't get me wrong Marbles, I'm not saying I want everyone running around shooting everyone, I'm just toying with the concept of free will, and I find it wanting. Also, your idea of accountability is very confucian. Nothing wrong in that, but personally I've never really been able to reconcile confucianism with Daoism. Is your goal to uphold society and it's mores, or to be a Daoist? How about if being a Daoist contradicts societies mores.... I won't go as far to say murder... but I mean some other fairly common thing that is simply not acceptable to the society you're living in at the time. What would you do? Which path? I know there are a lot of questions there Marblehead, I don't expect you to answer them all, they are more for pondering than anything else. I gotta go to bed, or one particular element of society won't be best pleased with me.

I get your point about the hollywood thing, but 'Karate' is also not a specific style. Might as well have called it Martial Arts kid. I hope there not calling Jackie Chan Mr.Miyagi too.

In general these days I consider free will to be something of an illusion. A quite convincing one mind you. Take this example, a guy grows up in an abusive/violent family, guy gets a rather serious knock on the head, guy begins to abuse animals, guys regains feeling of lost power due to result of abuse(by killing an animal), guys actions escalates due to overriding emotional factors, guy progresses to serial killer status. The above factors I have cited are the generally accepted psychological/physical surrounding of the development of a serial killer(made very very simple I might add). Was it his fault? Did he have free will? If you are simply a conditioned result of the environment you grew up in, which psychology holds as true, and frankly speaking does seem to be true; then how can you ever be blamed for any wrong doing? All you have is your overriding emotions juxtaposed to societies concept of morals. You either choose to go with your emotions or repress them. But even if you choose to repress them, thus, supposedly, exercising your free will, you are in fact, simply following the conditioning of your environment in some fashion. Where's this 'free will' often spoken of? It doesn't exist. The only thing 'free' about free will is you are free to choose that which you must. If I were God, which I'm sure you all know I'm not, I would simply have to forgive everyone for everything they did 'wrong'. I would have no other choice, as they didn't have free will, they only had the illusion of free will. The game was already rigged, unless I could show that they chose that lifetime and environment specifically. Were I God I would still be in the wrong though, because they(for the most part)couldn't remember choosing that life. The real question isn't free will, as in do I buy some bananas or apples today, the real question is 'do I express or repress', and how much of that decision is truly my decision or other. And is there really such a thing as 'right or wrong', a Daoist would have to say there is no right or wrong, because right and wrong are purely subjective(ie. kill for yourself you're a murderer, kill for your country you're a hero). Things get rather dangerous after there is no right of wrong. The term 'Free Will' is spin invented by societies too unsophisticated enough to be able to understand the development of the human mind, a form of black and white thinking were everyone can be slotted nicely into good guy/bad guy status without really having to deal with the issues they could neither understand or deal with.

It's a sad day when a film called 'karate kid' is set in China with Jackie chan doing Kung fu. I liked the originals, I like Jackie chan too, but still, kind of wrong to call it Karate Kid. I've not seen it yet. Sounds pretty interesting though from the comments. Wax on, wax off!

I'm inclined to want to agree with you. Obviously. Thanks, that quote was really interesting. Gonna have to wait til i got more time to read the thread...

I might be missing something here, but since when did Daoism postulate reincarnation, as some of you have suggested? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, but it seems contrary to Daoism.

I don't think you should let it bother you too much that China is officially atheist, because they still have mosques, temples and churches. Perhaps you can look at it another way, that they have the right to choose to be atheist in just the same way as everyone else has the right to choose to be religious. As far as I have seen all the major religions are represented in China. The practice of those religions is 'fairly' free. I say fairly, simply because each sanctioned/allowed church/temple and so on, has a communist party official attached to it. They simply don't want religion to become an impetus to revolution. It is true that they actively discourage it through education though. But I don't see any difference anymore, due to the simple fact that in my education Christianity was actively encouraged. Tibet and the Dalai lama...ooohhh, that is a hot potato. There's not even a starting ground for debate with that one here due to them having no idea in the first place as to the western idea of the history. I will say this though, everything is not quite as it seems. The history between China and Tibet is quite intricate, it's not as simple as Tibet used to be independent, as far as Chinese history goes it only became independent after the British left in the early 1900's. Before that time it was considered a vassal state. I honestly can't say who is right anymore, I'm long past caring to be honest. There is some truth in the Chinese argument that the Tibetan people were kept in poverty by the 'ruling' classes(lamas)but that may only be subjective due to the Chinese considering money, wealth and possessions to be God. A further point would be if it were true that the Tibetan people were kept in poverty then why didn't China choose to do anything when it was a vassal state. Honestly the whole Tibet topic is a real headache, and the main problem is the Chinese are very emotional when it comes to pieces of land, as far as I can make out they can't differentiate between themselves, their government, their country and their mother(on an emotional level). That would be, for the most part, due to very effective propaganda, but also the way the Asian mind works. I wouldn't say I'm fluent in the language, I would say I'm only at an intermediate level with a few bells and whistles to spice it up a bit. I've never taken a class, In general I learn by doing, I'm a poor student where sitting down and studying is concerned. Oral Chinese isn't that difficult once you get the hang of the tones, although they like to think it is, it's actually the characters that are difficult, but they find that difficult too, there are characters that they don't even know. I'd rather not say what work I do, but it's nothing special.

Nicely done.

I like this piece of advice much better than my own, there's nothing like a good adventure with the possibility of fate lending a hand.