Cheshire Cat

Being a daoist student, I know that everything is regulated by the laws of yin and yang. Females are yin and males are yang. So, by nature we have a sexual dichotomy in roles. Of course, there is the possibility that some women are more yang in nature. But, if almost all women are now yang in nature, that means something strange. You think in terms of "individual" and this is not daoist. There is the Power of the Dao which manifest himself trough individual. The yin power of the Dao tends to manifest trough females and sages. My point is just that society disregard yin power and you can see this by thinking at housewives: nobody wants to be the humble housewife. But, in sane societies everyone threat housewives with great respect: it's the role with the greatest dignity in certain matriarchal society (yes, matriarchal means "great value to female role" and NOT "taking male roles"). The result is that women, by external conditioning want to be males to have dignity and respect in society. This is natural and legit. The yin power of the Dao manifests more trough males, giving birth to the so-called beta-males. Beta so hated by women because they incarnate the power which they're trying to forget.

No, feminism is about turning women into men. What you don't like is the disrespect that this society shows to traditional female roles. Hence, you feminists say "society is right, abort those female roles!" But, the roles are good... society is wrong!

Well, the nice side of the coin is that it's easier to have a "no love, just sex" encounter with a feminist than with a sane female.

Mansplaining! Hahahah Facts remain: women play like men.

Yeah, seen it. It looks like and advertisement directed to Norbu's disciple so that they can accept his son as a real Master. It seems that there's someone who simply doesn't accept him as a legitimate master. Hence, the need for this film. Just my opinions of course. Apart from that, the film is really nice.

Feminism is when females disregard their female power because it appears too humble for them. They abandon their female power to take the male power which is of an higher rank in this society. The result is that women act as males and it's almost impossible to find a real female in western society. No more femininity. How sad.

It seems in my very limited experience that almost every mantra has the potential for attraction of the opposite sex, from the Jesus Prayer tot the Great Mani. Rarer is the mantra that attracts real money...

That is to have a very high opinion of oneself, isn't it?

In my personal opinion, we are all quite passive as human beings and our behavior plainly reflects the external conditions in which we grow up. This is a subtle thing and one should be very very honest to notice it. If you have an interest in spiritual stuff, it's sure that -at the very least- you were in contact with a religious person in your childhood, otherwise it's an interest that won't last or that it will not develop so much. Men tend to develop, to expand, to enhance everything they get. Hence, if you plant the seed of spirituality in a young boy, it will eventually develop in a full spiritual life with distinct features. He will search for the The Tao Bums and start writing and reading in order to get information and enrich his spiritual life. Women tend to keep, to protect and assimilate things as they are. Just like pure mirrors, they retain what they get exactly as it were given to them. If you try to speak of spirituality to a young girl, she will only get some dogmatic belief passively that she will carry on her shoulders until some conflict will force her to discard it for another one. So, a spiritual man is someone who "develop" his spirituality, looking for improvement, being a critic for himself: he is rarely satisfied. A spiritual women is a girl in a spiritual setting who passively absorbs external influences as they are. I'm out of any delineate spiritual settings and many guys whom I know are like this. No label. It's a continuously changing thing. I never met a woman like this: they are statically fixed year after year and their spirituality is something passively absorbed by an external group (the infamous spiritual groups!). No seeking here. No personal elaborations. Hence, when I say "spiritual girl", I should refer to the group whom she belongs. Ok, this is a general view. Maybe there are exceptions. There are men who behave like women in spirituality, etc...

ON a practical level, what is emptiness? Is it just an empty mind? Yet, perception is there. Is it possible to have a mind without thoughts and without perception? That would be something that I can call "emptiness". Who can do this?

Yes, but why is chocolate tasty?

edited

Hi Gerard You're right and I agree that today we have some freedom to cultivate sagehood in secrecy. My point was that in the past, a wise man was respected. Hence, the society followed a bit of good sense. The bad side was that "highly regarded" means "power" and this stuff attracts all sort of egoistic persons... or it can even transforms sages into fools (there are many stories of yogis who get powers and left the Path). When this happens, sages are suppressed indiscriminately. In the case of druidism, we know that romans conquered the galicians and druids were not directly persecuted because the Roman Empire had the tendency to assimilate foreign Gods. Hence, if they disappeared it is because either they changed denomination or their political role was usurped by romans. But in this case, they were not mere sages: they were administrators with a direct interest in society. A good administrator isn't a pure sage. A pure sage is prone to lose bonds with society... yet, he helps people as much as he can. As for the witches, I believe that real shamans and mystic have enough power to escape such suppression by changing denomination or by hiding themselves. This is a protection from higher spirits. Many good magicians were killed and lots of knowledge were lost, but this was something like the Shoah: it was meant to eradicate a form of "social power". It wasn't exactly for changing sagehood into foolishness because the Church had a different denomination of sagehood . In their opinion, a sage should be subordinated to the church and many wise men did so in order to survive. Definitely, not a good a thing... but there was a tiny bit of "theory" behind. Today, a wise person is a nutcase, no matter what. It is not respected and have no social power. This is a good condition for sages, but a disastrous situation for the society in general because when people think that wu-wei is madness, they are ruled by personal gain... and real craziness comes forth This is just my opinion.

Priests aren't trained in meditation: they just learn some prayers that should be used for meditations. But those prayers are supposed to produce spiritual effects on their own, like some sort of incantation and people rarely use them for the purpose of self-realization. The categories of people who approach God/Enlightenment are: 1-sick people 2-those who are looking for material gain (they pray to have benefits like money, etc...) 3-sages 4-those who are curious Our society teaches that 1 should look for good doctors, 2 should work harder, 3 are suppressed (sagehood is a shame in our society) and 4 can enjoy technology (iphone...) and a variety of interesting stuff. The result is that generally only sick people and those who have emotional/psychological problems end up praying, meditating, etc... This is the tendency of our western society and the responsibility of the church is partial, in my opinion.

This is a short clip with Prabhupada's explanation to this matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=w7kHPV8AFTY

A month ago, It was so. Today, something is in my mind about him

Difficult to believe since serious tibetan tantrikas perform pujas from dawn to dusk...

They have to make money, not good films Our society is based on money, not on good quality. .Those who speak against meditation, probably they never practiced it consistently; yet, they feel in charge to instruct people on this matter Nothing strange. This is how we -human beings- are playing on this planet from time immemorial. Those who know don't speak.

Yes, the karmapa is so compassionate

Yes, this is a fact. But I don't think that this is the cause of failure. Otherwise, this movement should be very little and marginal since the beginning. This movement experienced a dramatic expansion during Prabhupada's day... and great failure after his death. I believe that the strength of this movement was the presence of a legitimate spiritual master or Acarya. Today, ISKCON gurus are appointed in a way that is inappropriate since Prabhupada never left a successor nor selected any gurus in the movement.

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