Stosh

I thought chickens already had tails? I think we may be off topic.

There was a documentary about at least one frozen mammoth, how they chopped it out of the permafrost and flew it somewhere, but I didnt see the next installment suggested ,which was to go forward clone it and pop the embryo in an elephant. Retro evolving a dinosaur ? neat if it can be done, so long as it doesnt go all Jurrassic park on us Im not sure about using a chicken though...Im thinking evolutionary trails are so contorted geneticswise... youd have to know what pattern was the right one, to go back and make it,.. ( circular reasoning) And whales .. I hope youre right. Attitudes shift .

I guess they ,who like the bigfoot stuff , for the most part are subconsciously wanting things to be a bit different than they are , they like a bit of mystery and unknown out there , just like I like to think about whales wandering the seas , and think it would suck if there werent any ,, even if I will never see them., and it would be cool if they would go ahead and clone some of the species which didnt go extinct all that long ago. I think mammoths ranged right up until just a few thousand years ago , and they could still be feasible. It'd be nice if an oil company wanted to make a good impression , get some good publicity ( instead of oil slicks) , and it could tie together that 'yes some things go wrong' , but they want to have them returned pristine as much as the public does.

Quite right Mh about the changes over time , I cant speak for anyone else very confirmedly. But If I look back at who I was as a kid , and who I am now ( at my best) those are two really similar mes. Yeah about the unfortunate choice of filler , but , like conservationists going to far in requiring everyone to have the exact same attitudes as they do , end up losing more folks from on the fence than winning them IMO

Yeah , there are many messages bombarding us daily , but since I think our personal life theme doesnt change much after initial development , somewhere around 6 through 10 yrs old , and pretty much ceases entirely by the end of puberty...these messages are just odditites or reinforcing of the things we already agree with (or dont.). Some meditation should reveal the internal bombardment which is going on at an even faster pace. Most information gets taken in temporarily , a big chunk of it is dismissed as a beneath our need to remember it , and of the stuff thats left over , during sleep we sift through it for anything of value. If one doesnt attatch emotional content to this new data, it just isnt used, it has no assessed value , and so no net impact. Ah, the science channel , really one of those wonderful new institutions. The photography and subject matter are awesome. I wonder sometimes how far the proliferation of niche programming can go , because the one and only ( excusable ) thingie Id like to see them do is spin off an even more intense version... with the kind of particulars that tend to interest 'just- the few'. Maybe you tube will eventually have something like that for Doctoral presentations, just about anything interests me , so I dont get bent out of shape because a topic is obscure.

Im just thinking that trying to replace a neg thought with a pro thought WOULD be quite as difficult as you say it is , for one thing ,it doesn't negate the paradigm that youre operating on, and so- Facts being what they are , the conclusions you reach are still the ones you started with. Either that , or you would be changing the subject while you were still in the situation demanding your original attitude. The powers you do have are to minimize your reactions to the sentiment which go beyond background noise levels. Change the situation you are in. Get and seriously consider more accurate facts. The easiest thing I can think of as advice for this puzzle is to examine your situation from a perspective you might have a year later,, or from someone elses view entirely . Much of the BS we deal with just isnt as important as it seems at a given moment , so with the distance of a broader perspective there is an awful lot you can shrug off. But no it isnt always easy at all, and I was wondering myself this morning on my drive to work if it is even possible to make a thorough long term change in oneself intentionally. Oh I know there are folks who would stand up and say that they have just changed SO MUCH ! Just following some simple recipe, I dont see it really , and it seems to me that people pretty much are the same at 60 as they were at ten. ( While its just true that they may pick up some tricks along the way- I dont see all these wise peaceful old folks gliding around careless and carefree. ) Sorry , I know its not an upbeat message , but at least you aint the only one with a 'monkey mind'.

While thats possible , that Freudian? view , I think is suggesting a division more thorough, than I suspect is the case for most folks. But I do agree on the idea that there are things which go on behind the scene in our minds. Philosophically , Taoism seems unfeasible if one thinks those muppets depict our 'natural' selves, Freudian psych seems to suggest that very thing though. This sets up a fundamental paradigm which covers some religions, and that is ,,a person is a bad thing which has to be corrected, disciplined, over ruled , to reach a blessed state. From the way the original post is presented, folks could either be nice inside,, mean outside OR ! ,they could be nice outside,, but mean inside. Either one would possibly be a 'sad' truth..... but what I was trying to point at , was that having an incomplete mental repetoir wouldnt really be a feasible suggestion for many instances. . Cloistered in some compound , maybe someone can get away with half the package, and maybe they would be happier , I dont know. Because of that issue, I figure wise advice cant be so one sided as to say always act in this particular ( nice )behavior mode all the time. To give helpful advice one would have to find some other paradigm by which to judge expedient behavior. ( and thats why chapter 1 says what it does)

Im thinking there isnt much difference between calculated and uncalculated, the differences just lie in which mental elements are coming into play. Is it emotion or logic or reflex which predominates is a reasonable thing to look at , but ultimately, one does, what one does ,as a summation of those. If the subjects mother was being beaten, which would be the 'normal' response , that of the muppets or that of the lady? When TTBs were polled abouit self defense the large response was that it was imperative, appropriate etc , so how can anger or retribution be considered 'unnatural'... Im thinking it can be justified by circumstance. Yeah people like being happy , they also like other feelings. Grandpas wisdom cant be 'always be nice'.

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.I was going to post debunking Mr Jins opinion but ..nevermind just go forward with your treatise on merit Vitalii.I regret my misguided effort to explain.

Look guys, The idea isnt exotic at all. Lets say you look at a hot woman..substitute a dide if you like.. and you say she is super attractive because she has... huge tracts of land. Well the dude next to you doesnt think so..it isnt that she doesnt have huge tracts of land.. its just that yall are considering from a personal subjective position. There is no reality to her attractiveness beyond the impression on the viewer. just as right and wrong are subjective opinions ..sometimes agreed upon.

Well it looked like CT was including both men and animals on a spectrum of merit having , and thats OK , ( Im just trying to get a view of how they see things, how they link the logics of their faith ) but he'll have to answer to you on that ,because I deny 'merit having' at all! I think Vitalii was getting me correctly ,(that I am talking about non-duality)

Sorry , thats exactly not what I am getting at, I am getting at that there is no merit , there is no accumulation of merit Not for me or you or my cat What there really is ,is what actually happens , the cat is comfortable, she kills and eats mice, cares and raises her kittens in the way of cats etc,, she is what she is ,, its just my judgement that she is pleasantly fuzzy , that she is brutal with her food.. that she is a good cat to have around. I do cherish her. But in that sentence I imply much which is false on one level and true on another.. There is no distinct I, there is no distinct her , my emotions are entirely subjective...those are all illusory ACCEPTING the illusory state of being me .. then I accept me as existing , and her likewise , in a cosmos we are distinct in , and my emotions which are directly experienced by me , are subjectively true. I attribute her merit , I pet her and feed her and take care of her,, she has importance TO ME. But to the cosmos she is just a vortex in an invisible matrix, a fictional subset of an infinite whole connected to everything and for all time.

You had said i guess the fundamental good heart of beings decide I wanted you to be more specific because beings could mean magical or animals etc. and my premise was that morality was the crreation of man specifically. So I said Would this "good hearted being" with the imaginative capacity for morality,, be a human 'being' He said At the Shen-->Tao stage, however, the practitioner must let go even notions of merit and virtue. So I said that would render animals, the comatose,the dead ,highly meritorious.. Because animals are generally considered to not have merit and virtue. So a man at Shen --Tao (Level?) would then be similar to an animal as I see it implied. having no illusions at work. and He said More so the reverse. Accumulation of merit is cleansing of the mind Which seems to say animals are beyond merit,, that it is the cleansing (rather than the Shen Tao state) which is attaining merit ,,,,but that having it ! , one is then 'beyond' it. So to test the boundaries of the implication I brought my cat into it ( shes a great stand in-cat being a short word ,- a natural thing ,-and she doesnt seem to mind : ) Whew!

So ,as you see it, does my cat have merit , which my confusion obscures from me -(mine)? ... Taoiseasy's opinion , seems expressed ,that an animal is less meritorious, or beyond merit, because its view is not obscured. Which would leave men alone among all creatures as possessing of a trait of impurity relative to some energy. ( thats low religion again, man bad -everything else good ) .....and also that the removal of this impurity is also meritorious! which makes no sense to me. Your stance seems to include humanity on the spectrum of the sentient beasts ,so then to me, this would suggest, that people may be just as clearly- or partly- "beyond" merit just as my cat is. Which I could agree with because there is no such thing as merit in the first place. So ,The illusion that there is merit is part of the obstruction to seeing things as they really are. Thats why they call it an illusion.

Thats sticking to the idea that merit and virtue exist and have a cleansing aspect on a third thing 'original energy'. That energy can be impure , ???? and Then there is judgement suggested, that awareness of energy is "proper", according to whom?

Did you say cleaning the mind is accumulation of merit? that would render animals, the comatose,the dead ,highly meritorious.. so all youd have to do is wait and you'll achieve your goals with no effort at all.

Would this "good hearted being" with the imaginative capacity for morality,, be a human 'being' , and can we claim agreement that the basis of what is called 'good' is ease and satisfaction of said 'beings' though they be but a situational subset of the cosmos, and therefore subject to the constraints of subsets of the cosmos ? If so, then ,, though we might be considered religious or secular adherents , fundamentally we are on the same page and bridge a potential cause of emotional conflict and upheaval.

Nicely stated, Im tempted to just leave it be..but the main issue against it os that the position is self negating the philosophy suggests the behaviors are misled and the behaviors suggest the rationale is wrong..this may NOT be the case ..Id expect wisdom lies in resolving the contradictions.But im not sure how that applies to my question about what thing, not a man ,decides whats good from bad...promotes compassion over dispassion etc.

Well I prefsr not to treat people like children ,tell fairy tales assuming they cant handle the truth and essentially compromise my honesty in the process .That honesty and respect is what should prevail from the beginning even if it is difficult to handle. The things people best hear are the last thing they want to hear..Would you wantt to be deceived by those you trust rather than have them level with you because it was uncomfortable? eventually you would have to break a few eggs either way... people have illusions because they love them.

Im sure for some thats true depending on how one reads that. I dont think there is perfection nor are there immortals, but on the same note I dont choose my opinions in order to comply with dogma , and agree that theres plenty of room for that alternative view to be. considered Taoist. Now all I expect is for them to extend the same generosity to me and we'll be even. But figure they wont cant and dont.

Have you ever witnessed the proverbial schoolyard bully picking on the innocuous? Or on large scale, would Hitler have quit his expansion and exterminations if he hadnt been opposed? While as a rule of thumb , avoidance of conflict can work in some situations, since not everyone is coming from that same attitude.. acting like prey, or abdicating ones position, doesnt always negate conflict and can even promote it further. and that is in addition ! to my point that clamming up, changing the subject, avoidance of exchange, offers nothing compared fo honest disclosure interaction etc.

Well , we each can stand on a soapbox and shout out the name of the fruit we like best ,, But my opinion is not going to swing by majority vote and neither is Mr Chuji's. the presentation of the intellectual angle which one finds persuasive represents an opportunity to others, to perhaps, find more cohesiveness in their own understanding. Maybe remove some illusions which are a detriment. Such explanation represents a bridge to finding more understanding of one another. Just saying " I like oranges better- and you cant make me change my mind" offers nothing.

As its written ,, He is is wrong That there is merit ( objectively it doesnt exist ), and wrong that it can be 'gained' , because 'merit' is purely subjective,, IMO and wrong that there is some difference between sacred and profane or ordinary in this case Rhetorically speaking .. Is it really a strain for you to be a decent person? or does it happily feed back to you having gotten on the "right" track. Karmically, or otherwise, reaping what one has sown. Besides, the logic of the tao path is not to strain , that it is counterproductive.