Vmarco

Sorry to hear about your Aspergers,...you obviously seek some relief from this repetitive patterns of behavior,...as if stuck at one point of a fractal. Don't mind too much with what I say,...I'm easily old enough to be your grandfather,...and quite "out there" to boot. You familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy? If I had Aspergers, I'd imagine I'd be at the base of the scale,...things such as Self-Actualization or Transcendance would have little meaning to me. I am where my attention is, and where my attention is, I am,...if I had Aspergers,...I'd imagine that's where my attention would be. I could be called a very lucky person,...haven't had much mundane stuff to deal with,...stuff like an alcoholic, who generally submits to the theist 12 Step program, just to function in society,...and becomes permanently tethered to that scheme. Anyway,...wish you uncover some relief through the Taoist/Buddhist ideas that flow through these discussions.

Another trendy distraction,...All is not energy! All of what is not (that is, the skandhas) is energy,...however, there is no "energy" in the Now. To have energy (a condition) in the Now (the Unconditional) is absolutely impossible. There is no Present, Now, or Instant in Time, Energy, or Duality. Thus, the term Now Healing is rather an oxymoron of sorts. However,...a realization of absolute Nowness does shift the imagined physical energetic form,...to be more in alignment with what Is. In other words, to paraphrase Buddha,...Suffering is a consequence of the desire for things to be other than they are. Buddha never said do not desire,...he implied to let go of the desire for things to be other than they are. Most people desire things to be other than they are,...and they will continue to do that until they have a direct experience with how things actually are. The 6 senses can NEVER observe things as they are. Of course,...this comment is not what you ask for,...which seemed more of a Mayer ad, then a question,...thus this response is more for other TTB's, not so interested in temporary feel-good distractions,...but desirous to relate with what can never leave them,...that which does not "shift."

I have no problem the Affordable Healthcare Act,...don't know why Republicans do,...it's their invention. I do think Obama should be not only impeached, but that his citizenship be revoked under Sec 3 of the 14th Amendment,...for his Faith-Based Initiatives which subjugate non-theists to second class citizens. Just the majority of the American Sheeple agree with...."I could not in good conscience, vote for someone who honestly thinks that the other 95% of us (who believe in god) suffer from some sort of mass delusion." Palmer Joss (actor Matthew McConaughey) in the 1997 film 'Contact'. ...I say: When in the course of human events, if the unalienable rights of the people are abused, usurped, or found destructive to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then it is the right and duty of the people to throw off such despotism, and to provide new guards for their security that respect and honor the values and ideas of the Constitution. There is not, to my knowledge, a single member of Congress who puts their Oath to the Constitution about their faith-based agendas.

"about a week ago, the Texas State Board of Education approved textbooks extolling the alleged influence of Moses on the U.S. Constitution" Fact Check: On February 10, 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote that common law is that system of law, which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England . . . about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century. . . We may safely affirm that Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law. Actually,...Christian values are not American values. Christian values are not natures values. Christian values can never lead the world towards an era of peace. The United States is a secular nation, a nation whose founding principles arose from freethought and deism, not evangelism and theism. The U.S. was designed to be a guiding model for the world. Yet Christians (with their legally protected and privileged superstition) fail to realize that their First Commandment is in direct opposition to the United States Constitutions First Amendment. In fact, for the most part, their Ten Commandments are everything that the U.S. Constitution is not. Christian values are inherently un-American and unnatural values. Christianity needs immediate marginalization, such as its addition to the NC-17 laws, along with cigarettes, alcohol, and pornography. That is to say, no children under 17 should be allowed in or exposed to faith-based environments. There should not be a single religious school for children in the U.S., especially tax exempt ones, that indoctrinate our youth into the ignorant and superstitious beliefs of hollowness. The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion. That declaration was drafted in 1796 under George Washington, unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate, and signed into law by President John Adams on June 10, 1797. http://www.nobeliefs.com/commandments.htm

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Arthur Schopenhauer America has been neck deep in the first two stages since the beginning (and I stress, the beginning) of the McCarthy era. The McCarthy era never died,...but merely transformed,...in to the Reagan Era (the first President to put his faith-based agenda before his Oath to the Constitution), to the Moral Majority, to the Tea Party Social Conservative Movement.

Humbug? Does that stupid characterization have to do with the new legislation put into the new budget deal calling for a reduction in earned benefits for current retirees at economically distressed multiemployer pension plans? Part of the 1,603 page spending bill which also rolls back regulations that prohibit banks from using federal deposit insurance to cover investments on some complex financial instruments. The AARP says the new reduction agreement was a "secret, last-minute closed door deal between a group of companies, unions and Washington politicians to cut the retirement benefits that have been promised to them."

"I stay at home / I don't work / I'm not sure what I'm doing yet" Why can't one stay at home,...or not work in the Groupthink fashion,...and know what they're doing? Seems like a quite biased poll to me,...kind of like Binary indoctrinated Sheeple, who think that there are only 2 genders. Actually,...there are numerous gender identities. IMO,...real happiness does not arise from a "livelihood." I like how Bucky Fuller put it: “We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.” Buckminister Fuller

America puts $550 billion into fossil fuel subsidies per year,...that is to say, $550 billion Corporate Welfare for Oil Companies alone. Germany produces 6 times more solar energy than the entire USA. (note: Germany is slightly smaller than the State of Montana) Why? Sure,...America is about BIG MONEY,...but one look at its elected officials, and it is obvious that America is about Christocracy too. "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand....after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Secretary of the Interior James Watt on Global Warming, according the Bill Moyers "the more deeply I search for the roots of our global environmental crisis, the more I am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis that is, for the lack of a better word, spiritual". Al Gore

Substance,...is a good start. Substance to Christian would likely be very different than substance for a non-theist. If we lived in an era of peaceful alternatives to criminal management, instead of the current violent, Neanderthal solution to social problems, America would surely be a different place. Look at the percentages of U.S. prisoners by race or socioeconomic class. Blacks comprise nearly fifty percent of prisoners. (In the 1920s and 1930s, Italian immigrants were often treated with more contempt than were Blacks.) More than a million people in the U.S. are currently in prison for nonviolent crimes. What could society do with the tens of billions of dollars spent incarcerating nonviolent offenses? A peace-orientated society would be discussing the decriminalization of many nonviolent crimes and figuring out how to empower the impoverished. Community resource centers could establish conflict-resolution programs and create financial and self-recognition opportunities so that the disadvantaged could build personal value and self-respect. In a culture of peace, prisons would be an option of last resort, not long-term mandatory condemnation. A non-Christian community-justice strategy based on healing, wellness, encouraging peace, and the birthing of human beingness would cost far less than what is spent on imposing humiliation, suffering, and hostility on others. Although polls suggest that fourteen percent of the U.S. population is nontheist (for example, the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey), only one-fifth of one percent of U.S. prisoners are said to be nontheists. This suggests that prison populations, thus crime, could be reduced by some ninety percent just through the commonsense of nontheism. That would reduce the U.S. from being the country with the most prisoners on earth to about sixth place among the 215 countries listed by the International Center for Prison Studies. Nontheism would save at least $100 billion a year just from the prison system. A society that “trusted in love,”...instead of a murderous, pro-slavery, vacillant, petty, racist, conditional God, who is so insecure, that it demands to be worshiped, obeyed and prayed to,...could save ten times that amount. Could you imagine taxation being only a small percentage of earnings?

If one was to objectively (without Nationalistic emotion) at the overall World's prison population,...a prudent person may think that perhaps an objective dialogue could follow. Unfortunately,...American's as a whole,...not all,...but surely the majority of voters,...are tethered to an ego-centered psychopathy that quivers from any suggestion that they were wrong. Christian American's often believe in punishing those who they feel infringe upon their interpretation of faith, and perpetuate rules with long terms of incarceration or capital punishment. The US States with the highest utilization of the death penalty are the ones in which church attendance is the highest. Do killing and incarcerating others heal us, or those who we feel hurt us? Is the further disempowerment and disconnection of those in anguish through hefty prison sentences, isolation from society, and even death, a love-based, nonobjective response to the crime? Is not a criminal simply someone who has forgotten or who has been obscured from the presence of love? We are all love, every individual on this planet, from the most admired to the most despised. Duality’s beauty may be relative and in the eye of the beholder, but once more, I say that the beauty of the inner love is inherent in all of us, without exception. Western religions strive to proselytize for a concept of love that merely reinforces a delusion of separateness. That is not love. Only in duality’s construct is love considered the opposite of hate. In the reality of undivided light, love has no opposite. Division is an illusion of the deceived,...and 100% of Christians are deeply deceived. Christian beliefs now undermine many of the values established by those who founded the United States. Even our criminal justice system is a product of Christian ideals, not American or spiritual values. Just as Christians see their god and so-called evils outside themselves, they also see crime and criminals as outside themselves. To Christians and to adherents of the other Abrahamic religions, criminals are separate from society, not part of the interconnected dynamic of our national and planetary community. More than half of all U.S. prisoners have been incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. Most are first-time offenders, usually people who possessed small quantities of marijuana or conscious altering psychotropic substances. Many get “punked out” and sold into slavery as sex partners for the duration of their often lengthy imprisonments. What kind of hateful society does such a thing to people for minor, victimless crimes? Is this incarceration doing anything to solve the so-called drug problem? Following the September 11, 2001, tragedy, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, You can eliminate people, but you cannot eliminate human thought. If we could love even those who have attacked us and seek to understand why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome? These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at all. If you truly wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another.

Perhaps partially, a fear of letting go the parental influence that defines sheeple. IMO,...Christianity needs immediate marginalization, such as its addition to the NC-17 laws, along with cigarettes, alcohol, and pornography. That is to say, no children under 17 should be allowed in or exposed to faith-based environments. There should not be a single religious school for children in the U.S., especially tax exempt one’s, that indoctrinate our youth into the ignorant and superstitious beliefs of hollowness.

Every challenge to the OBVIOUS Constitutionally illegal endorsements of the majorities theism is dismissed in one way or another. Look at the Michael Newdow. Yes,...he got the despicable "under god" thing to the Supreme Court,...and the chichen-shxt SCOTUS threw it out because they said Newdow did not have proper "standing." The pathetic and illegal gravity of the matter was totally brushed away,...and non-theist continue being second-class citizens,...if citizens at all,...in the eyes of the theocratic majority. "I don't know that those who don't believe in God should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." George HW Bush

American's are obsessed about being judged. "To dare to even speak about judging in America, or about American's, is against the unstated rules. And of course, one's definitely going to be put in one's place for doing something like that." Why do American's get all frazzled when others judge them? That answer is simple. "You can judge a society by the way it treats its minorities." Mahatma Gandhi You want to know the real America of today,...look at its prison system. No other Country comes close to the incarcerations numbers of America,...and minorities make up the majority of inmates. A pre-McCarthy era Humantarian once said, “As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” Eugene V. Debs. That America is long deceased. In the 1950's, Christians with a theocratic agenda took over America. They changed the US Nationalal Motto to the constitutionally illegal Christianized national motto, “In God We Trust,” thus replacing “E Pluribus Unum.” The Land of E Pluribus Unum is long deceased. The US Governments continued, Constitutionally illegal endorsements of the majorities Judeo-Christian god, goes unchallenged. In May 2002, the 9th District Court said that the "The Pledge, as currently codified, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion because it sends a message to unbelievers that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." In essense, they said "Under God" promoted a situation where non-Judeo-Christian-Muslim minorities,...such as Taoists, atheists, polytheists, Buddhists, Deists, Wiccans, Humanists, female based monotheists, etc, are not members of the Community.

Yes,...it would be interesting if the Vatican acknowledged how they attained mons vaticanus, the most sacred place of the Phrygian religion, where the cult of Attis, whose priests were called Gallaens, strongly influenced the invention of modern Christianity. Such an admission could lead to why people engage in such an absurdity as present-day Christianity? It does not take a degree in religious studies to see how this new Christianity got its deep grip on society. History is quite clear regarding the roots of this deception, which was firmly grounded by the end of the sixth century. Theodosian laws, for example, condemned all non-Christians, thus promoting ardent persecutions of freethinkers, deists, pantheists, polytheists, pagans, and others whose confiscated property enriched the new church. Then came the barbaric reign of Justinian, which barred anyone outside specific neo-Christian beliefs from civil service, and whose forced baptisms upon Arabs encouraged the way for the establishment of the misogyous, pediphile religion of Islam. Christianity was spread through violence and now propagates its faith through the fortune raised from that violence. In the United States that is a serious felony, and their propagators are nothing less than accessory felons. About the pediphile comment: Muhammad (570–632 CE), the Abrahamic teacher who, prompted by persecutions upon Arabs, such as those continued by Pope Gregory (540–604 CE), the Father of the Dark Ages, invented the Arab version of monotheism. Interestingly, this new religion supplied the pedophile prophet with many attractive wives, the youngest of whom is said to be nine-year-old. I live near Myanmar,...where Buddhists have finally been standing up to the Muslim minority who have been enjoying taking up to 4 Buddhist women for wives, assisted by millions of dollars from the Saudi's,...while the Western Inter-faith Community, led by US America, condemns the Myanmar Buddhists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_polygamy

Truth Quotes....moving beyond denial All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. ―Albert Einstein The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. ―James A. Garfield It is not truth that matters, but victory. Adolf Hitler The first duty of man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth. Marcus Tullius Cicero Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. ―Winston Churchill Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. ―Marcus Aurelius Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. ―Albert Einstein The truth is more important than the facts. Frank Lloyd Wright Truth, like light, blinds. Falsity, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object. Albert Camus "We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." ~ Anais Nin "A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real." Vajradhara Buddha "99.9% of the World's so-called wisdom, East and West, for the purposes of awakening, is about as useful as a glass of warm spit with a hair in it." Jed McKenna Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie. ―Anonymous "Contradictions in perspective among those Seeing the profound do not occur" Taranatha Two truths cannot contradict one another. Galileo Galilei

To not seek truth is a theme seen over and over by those compelled to unravel the meaning of life,...even if it has no meaning. Do not seek truth,...seek and uncover all the barriers you have built against it. And yes,...cherished opinions should be at the top of the list. Gurdjeiff called them our Chief Feature,...or, what we like best about who we think we are.

Oh,...you could have brought your silk cushion, and detoured it through High View, WV.

"Relative and absolute, These the two truths are declared to be. The absolute is not within the reach of intellect, For the intellect is grounded in the relative." Shantideva

Nor was I attempting to paint an intricate comparison,...but just a broad brush stroke to bring attention to the broader condition. I recently shared: The (very hard) rub, IMO is,...that one key is to reduce one problem to its core. One thing is to try to resonate with these quotes: "Contradictions in perspective among those Seeing the profound do not occur" Taranatha Two truths cannot contradict one another. Galileo Galilei The (very hard) rub,...to recognize that those who Know, do not Gnow. Those who Gnow do not contradict the truth. In other words,...all individual truth is false. Who can admit that everything they thought was meaningful, may be meaningless? Or, as PJ Merola argued, "The biggest crux to the evolution of humanity is breaking through your own indoctrination. It is very, very difficult to overcome emotional elements that have become so engrained in you, that you have an immediate reaction, an immediate suffering and pain, if something interfers with [your idea of the status quo]. It's a very, very complex problem. We have to learn how to identify and break our own indoctrination if we expect to move forward at all as a civilization"

Whoa! That is so negative,...and imprisoning to any authentic wish for liberation. To suggest an expectation with a perceived positive outcome, is superior or in any way desirable, while an unfulfilled expectation is desireless,...is quite insane. From a Taoist/Buddhist point of view, all expectations,...whether fulfilled or unfulfilled,...are negative, and should be let go. Although the term "hope" is considered to be positive and admirable idea, especially in US America,...please take an honest look at what it really means. hope n. from ME. hopa, an expectation. 1. expectation of something desired; anticipation of some future event. 2. a guess or belief. 3. that which gives hope; a substance or object hoped for; an expected payoff. Is there a more dishonest, perniciousness word than hope? No matter what level we wish to view it from, hope is false. Hope is an anticipation of the future; thus it must arise from a predisposition, a belief, and attachment to the past. Hope implies lack,...how else could we possibly define it? Hope is for something we think we don't possess. How could hope ever be expressed through an Open-Mind or Open-Heart ? The belief of hope is a barrier that obscures the Present. If our attention is on seeking hope, how are we to ever experience the immediacy required to be in the Present? If we seek hope, our overall frequency pattern projects a self-manifested incompleteness, and thus can only attract to itself, that incompleteness. It is no different than a mirror in ones bathroom; if you look into the mirror with a frown, it will not reflect back a smile. In other words, our hope will never be realized as long as we hope; just like joy is never actualized if we are looking for it. Hope is a condition,…whereas, if Love is Unconditional, how can hope ever enter Love,…a condition cannot enter the Unconditional. Thus, if there is one action in the world which could precipitate a tremendum of Collective metanoic proportions, it would be the deletion of the word hope from our vocabulary. 2 billion Christians believe that faith is something hoped for,...Hebrews 11:1. Prajnaparamita says that enlightenment is impossible to all who cling to hope. "the highest goal is being devoid of hope and fear." Tilopa Ultimately, people who cling to expectations for their identity, have no business in Taoist/Buddhist discussions.

No, no, no....it's not about if other Countries are better. What good is the perceived good in US America, if the false is denied. Are the American Countries of Mexico, Costa Rica, or Uraguay better than US America? What does better mean? Is it even important? Seriously,...consider this quote: "we need to draw our attention to what is false in us, for unless we learn to recognize the false as the false, there can be no lasting transformation, and you will always be drawn back into illusion, for that is how the false perpetuates itself" First of all,...is it a reasonable statement? Or are we afraid to admit to the false? Many Americans are like George W Bush. He once tried to say (while President),..."Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." But the words that came out of his mouth were, ""Fool me once, shame . . . shame on . . . you," followed by a long pause, then, "Fool me—can't get fooled again!" "What's revealing about this is that Bush could not say, 'Shame on me' to save his life. That's a completely alien idea to him. This is a guy who is absolutely proud of his own inflexibility and rectitude." Let's go back a little further,...9-11. Even today, US America will not admit that the tragedy of 9-11 was not an unsolicited attack, nor a "sucker-punch",...it was a "faith based initiative" by those who agreed with Martin Luther King, that America is the world's leading purveyor of violence. Once Americans begin to realize this, then the healing can begin,...the healing of this Planet can begin, but not before.

"we are all one" is merely a concept,...until one can recognize that "I am the One"...and as there is only one, One,...and no actual "we," no Other, because all is One, then there is a shift. So,...in the mall,...by the Ladies Room,...try singing. To the tune of We Are the World,...sing something like: I am the One, I am the certain, I make the World a brighter day As I start giving, all will be giving The choice is recognizing what we're making We're uncovering our real lives thus true we'll make a better day The I that's you and me

Adya is such a fundamentalist theist. Blessing, sacrament, holy,...are theistic words. No truth can arise from blessing, sacraments, or holy things. Overall,...Adyashanti causes much more sustaining of ignorance, than any guidance towards liberation. I forced myself to read 3 of his books, and saw not even a glimmer of someone who is Truth Realized. Adyashanti,...Thich Nhat Hahn,...and similar Interfaith Promoters, have done much damage to their followers. Very, very few, Truth Realized persons, or near Truth Realized persons on this Planet today. Adyashanti, as seen by his own teachings, is part of the 99.9% As Jed McKenna correctly said, "99.9% of the World's so-called wisdom, East and West, for the purposes of awakening, is about as useful as a glass of warm spit with a hair in it." It is quite difficult for those who haven't realized even a single truth,...to recognize truth,...thus, the authentic seeker of truth, looks to recognize the false as the false. All theistic ideas are false. If a short quote, like Adyashanti's above,...pivots upon theist ideas,...then the whole quote is likely false. Osho said, "The real seeker of truth never seeks truth. On the contrary, he tries to clean himself of all that is untrue, inauthentic, insincere - and when his heart is ready, purified, the guest comes. You cannot find the guest, you cannot go after him. He comes to you; you just have to be prepared. You have to be in a right attitude." Theism indoctrinates people to have the wrong attitude.

Usually,...it is only those who cling to the falsity of ideas like "shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods" who attempt to judge what is true,...when in fact, their falsity obscures truth. "When people say 'I have faith', what they really mean is 'I don't want to know the truth'." Nietzsche "When people say 'I have faith', what they really mean is 'I don't want to know the truth'." Nietzsche Of course,...truth from a Theists point of view is quite different: If the bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it. -- William Jennings Bryan "Reason should be destroyed in all Christians." -- Martin Luther "If the church should have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appear white, we ought in like manner pronounce it black." St Ignatius Loyola

Even though the State of Maryland and six other states still have articles in their constitutions saying people who do not believe in God are not eligible to hold public office. Even though Maryland’s Constitution still says belief in God is a requirement even for jurors and witnesses. Even though....43 other States do not stress this Unconstitutional requirement,....it is generally assumed by the Sheeple majority of all 50 States that belief in a god is not only necessary to be elected,...but that their elected officials, put their faith-based agendas before their Oath to the Constitution.