madMUHHH

Hi there seth, first of all, I did not spend my childhood on a farm, but my grandfather had his own farm when I was younger and I come from avery small village of which people say that there are more cows living here than humans (which is of course wrong, but whatever ). And 1.) So what? Perhaps I expressed myself wrong, but grass being short is in not necessarily a contradiction to grass growing faster. The grass on most pastures certainly doesn't look ultra lush and wild and stuff, but it doesn't look dangerously short either. It's probably also a matter of how much cows per acre you keep.Of course I cannnot prove this from personal experience, but I have read several times that when grass is being cut (as in "eaten") it actually grows faster, which would result in more biomass produced (even if the cows munch it down to a short length) and more carbon dioxide fixed. Obviously I don't have the experience to be exactly sure, whether this is really true (I've never watched grass grow), so you might aswell be right, but I guess you don't have the necessary experience either, do you? Answers to 2.) and 3.) will soon follow, gotta go now.

Hi there folks, I just wanted to add a few things to the discussion, even though I am not sure how on-topic this really is. So feel free to ignore my post. First of all, let me start by saying, that I really don't want to argue for or against vegetarianism here. However, I think some arguments used in favour of veganism/vegetarianism are flawed and not completely thought through. The two main arguments I am talking about are 1. meat eating is unsustainable and takes up too much resources that could be used to feed people and 2. factory farming is cruel, therefore it is wrong to eat meat. So here is why I personally think those two arguments are problematic: 1.) Yes, the amount of grains used to feed cattle etc. should better be used to feed people directly. But the thing is, cows really aren't supposed to eat (that much) grain in the first place. They eat grass. And you know what? That's actually a really awesome thing because a) this makes the grass grow faster and thus is a good way to fix carbondioxide and b.) cows running around on the field with all their stomping, pooing and all that is a very good way to restore depleted soil, which is a really great and highly overlooked problem caused by modern agricultural practices (this is also a factor many people tend to overlook, that modern agriculture effectively depletes the soil, destroys ecosystems and thus also causes the death of many animals). The story is similar for chickens and geese etc and pigs are very versatile animals anyways, there's really no need to feed them grains. 2.) Yes, factory farming is cruel and simply wrong, wrong, wrong. But then again, this is not an argument against meat consumption in general, but with the way, most animals are raised today. Raising animals in a way that is more in tune with their natural lifestyle is not only much healthier for everyone involved, but also less cruel. You could certainly argue, that it is still wrong to take an animal's live and that's a valid point worthy of consideration, but if you eliminate any unnecessary cruelty, I think the whole moral issue becomes a lot harder to decide. How wrong is it really to take an animals live if it is more or less in accord with the role humans and other carnivorous/omnivorous play within an ecosystem? I really do not know. Ecosystems are in a naturally balance and predators are a part of that balance. Eliminating the top of the food chain does cause imbalances as has already been mentioned with some areas having too much deer running around and causing trouble. So I think that the whole moral issue is a very complex one and I personally still haven't found my answer to that. And to make my point clear, I don't actually want to argue for or against vegetarianism/veganism here. I think vegetarianism/veganism has a lot going for it and I might actually go for a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle in the future. A little fun fact to conclude my post: As many of you may already know:,John Chang asked "God" whether it is okay to eat meat and God said that it is: The Magus of Java, page 125 Personally, I have no idea what to make of that.

I don't wanna take any position here whatsoever, as I haven't really made up my mind about this yet, but still I thought I might share this criticism of the campaign here. Can't help to view the situation fro several angles: http://justiceinconflict.org/2012/03/07/taking-kony-2012-down-a-notch/

I find it fascinating how Drew's haha seems to have such a strong impact on everyone (including me).

There you go. http://www.dragongate.dao-de.org/download/download.html

<3

I just wanted to add two things to the whole flexibility/stretching issue: 1. Yes, in my experience the microcosmic orbit/small universe meditation definitely does help to get into full lotus and stay in it for a longer period of time. 2. Concerning the stretches. I've had it happen to me a few times now that, during very intense meditaion sessions, my body was beginning to stretch on its own (and then got back into full lotus more or less automatically. So it seems like my body actually wants to go into full lotus). So the stretches that I've been doing during those "automatic stretching sessions" were the one that Eddi Bravo practices at the very beginning of the video. One stretch that is similar to the tortoise pose: basically trying to get the upper body as close to the ground as possible, while leaning forward and staying in full lotus. And then also the "opposite" version of that stretch: Lying on your back and trying to get the legs as low as possible, while still maintaining full lotus. So, I'm not really sure what to make of this just yet, but seeing that I never did any of those stretches before in my life, I would assume that they are exactly the stretches I need to stay in full lotus for a longer period of time. So those stretches might be helpful to you people as well. I will definitely try to incorporate those stretches into my routine more often and see whether they do anything for me. @Taomeow: That gender/polarity specifity you mentioned is very interesting. So am I correct to assume that the same thing also applies to sitting in the normal cross-legged position, that one way to sit corresponds to yin and the other to yang? And if so, which position corresponds to which polarity? @FixXxer1845: That whole past lives business you mentioned is also highly interesting. Any documentations you can recommend, that you found especially informative/insightful/helpful?

Hi there, I'm new here (obviously), so for anyone interested, here are some more or less interesting facts about me: Who are you? My name is Matthias, I'm 20 years old, male and from Germany. Also, I've just recently started studying cognitive sciences. madMUHHH, what kinda nickname is that? Atmittedly a very silly one. But then again I'm a very silly person, so I guess that's okay. It's just the internet nickname I chose when I was 12 or so and it stuck with me until then. I've always though about getting a new one, that's really awesome and totally fits me, but I haven't been struck by any flashes of inspiration yet, so I once again settled with this nickname. (MUHHH os the German equivalent to MOOO, btw). What kind of cultivation techniques do you practice? I probably should add, that I'm a long-time (well more or less) reader of Drew Hempel's blog, so a lot of my practices/beliefs have been inspired by that. What I'm doing right now is mostly some hang zhuang stances, the SFQ small universe meditation, a bit of full lotus meditation (as much as my flexbility allows me to do) and some SFQ level 1 exercises every now and then. Why are you here? Why not? It seems like a good place to gather more information and to actually communicate with other people who are cultivating, there aren't really that much of us out there, so I'm very glad this message board exists. Okay, that's more than enough already. Peace.

I'm studying in Tübingen. There actually are only two and a half placed where you can study cognitive science in Germany righ now, as it is fairly new here. And yeah, my main reason for studying this is that I hope that I'll can somehow help build a bridge between Eastern philosophy and cultivation and Western scientific research on consciousness and similar affairs. But then again, I probably would have chosen to study this even if I had not gotten in touch with Eastern philosophy.