Stosh

Being totally fine with both sides of your personality, is great wisdom, I am not there yet either. It is only then that you have real choice in the matter, and so then it is the speaking of a true heart.. I believe in the depths of the true soul we each are happiest at harmony but that harmony still can meet sword with sword .

And yet there are humanitarian things done. The only measure of the benefit or harm another culture offers, is whether it is embraced.Was India better off with suttee? Is asia better off zenophobic? How can I possibly know in any other way? I can't measure the welfare of them , they have to do that estimation themselves.

Bonobos have promiscuous sex to mitigate hostilities and to cement social bonds, male on male female on female , icluding juveniles, everyone seems to agee on that, making much more of it is speculation beyond purpose

Its just my opinion, but yes, our capacities for abstractions predictions and novelty comes at a price, clarity of purpose sanity etc..

In africa there is cultural practice of cutting women's genitalia to promote marital fidelity. Folks were very relieved when it was made acceptable by western influences that they no longer need to keep to the practice. It is just my opinion that it is possible to apply ones own biases to folks of other cultures.Blaming western culture as everyone else's bane belies the embrace of many aspects of it.Just judge yourself if you must judge and leave the rest of us westerners to do the same.

Its a great question, already But what do you mean by 'explain'? Does the explanation on a cosmic scale not seem to Work on the mundane scale? There are different orders of magnitude at which particular Laws hold sway , it is the role of tao as a practice, in its many Forms , to convey how the basic laws apply at the level you witness Them is it not? Even so , there is, that which is, and at some logically derived point Causal explanations fall apart, that is where some cultures insert a god figure, to play the role of originz tor, creator , anchor of the universe. I personally don't need to go that last step so I can intuitively be comfortable with the design of the universe, I just go ahead and accept it right there at the point where things just run to speculative fancy.

Lovely images

Yeah my word choices are harsh more often than need be-but the frozen crystals of water can't know the intent of words since the sounds used are arbitrary, that which may be harsh in english may be very pleasant in swahili. There is no ugliness or beauty in stars or water or flowers , its just there if you perceive it to be. The water guy and the brain guy are obfuscating , that which is really 'the way' things are and how it all works.

I agree with your points about subjectivity, and if that was the point they were trying to make, then so be it, but as I read it they weren't , they were instead warping the subjectivity that you are talking about to mean that you don't need eyeballs to ,drive a car, for instance

If you want to see or hear what is presented to you , in front of your face , you need eyes and ears your brain can be stimulated by other methods like probes on your brain , but the simulation is not in response to a- material thing mediated by sense organs Its just my opinion, mind you , but the person who wrote that book did it without a brain.

Unless the author clarified it for us ,, it will be speculative but I like to do that Did you notice the similarity of his tassels and beard to the horns and fringe of the dragon? If he defeated the dragon beneath his feet , and looks to the next dragon in the sky he is still drawn onward eternally (as his posture reflects) if he defeated the dragon which was above and now stands on it then he has become a dragon himself I suppose it also makes sense but his goal is in limbo. If he was drawn to the divine , though the divine was beneath his feet, he therefore becomes his own divine-dragon, by chasing a dream of the divine I guess we could use input on the traditional significance of the stuff in his hands, it looks like a coin and a thing of incense. power and humility the tools to his hearts desire? Imo the image is done wonderfully , and such like it are the possible content of many enwisening threads a blend of the intuitive and the derivative

Be speculative with the stuff from UK , the species differ and there are lookalikes for some in Fla. Location location location Though stuff does fly around , the ranges are really well established , here in Fla we get maybe more than average numbers of one-off passers-through but in going on three years of birding here, Ive only seen one that didnt 'belong' where it was ( and I am looking for those )

潰 All hell breaks loose

In the pic it looks like the same dragon that calls him onward is already quiet beneath his feet. Aye! do you mark him mateys ? It is the White Whale !

Smartness is usually considered to be the rate and quantity of factoids one accumulates But this quotient has nothing to do with the legitimacy or value one is accumulating There are many , 12 dozen or more identified brain functions that can improve performance but none really guarantee it. The really smart thing one can do to be ultra smart is surround themselves with smarter folks and then shut up But I dont think the TTC puts much value on brainpower in terms of smarts , and rightly so. Luck innocence, stubbornness, benevolence, chutzpah , and- peace with oneself, as is etc .. can trump smarts nine times out of ten unless you are trying to win at some arbitrary test for a meaningless score.

The length of post contained within a quotation box ?

There is always some level of subjectivity in the conclusions, even if the data is as objective as can be found. Though I know people who truly make every effort they can to arrive at the conclusions that the data suggests , its the strongest position to be in ( when the data supports your conclusions) In the sciences in particular there are plenty of folks who want to grind their axe on someone elses conclusion. He who would try to determine the percentage would have to judge everybody else and as Cz wouldve said , "who can judge between us" ( with impartiality).

At least its a fair fight.

I think I need to get away from this material a while

Are you saying Tsongkhapa is wrong straight off -right from this very basic ,popularly referred to quiz question? Are the various schools so completely at odds as this appears? The buddhanet and access to insight sites DS referred to arent exactly what I was hoping for in the terms 'concise' and 'thread', so that could either be a rude brush off , or it could be the only honest answer ...in that possibly there is no consistent dogma or understanding to be related I brought up my question because if even ChiDragon is corrected in the way he was , for another very simple popularized conceptualization of emptiness ,then perhaps all the popularized views of the subject are just as off mark.. I dont know , what do you think? Im just looking for a quickie rundown to have some Idea where yall are coming from ,Im not wishing to delve into Buddhism for a doctoral thesis which extends beyond even the few lay buddhists I have spoken to, just the simple ground rules .

Is there already a nice concise thread about buddhist dogma ,from the point of view of buddhists intended to be helpful for those who are not ,I can access?

The Buddhist notion of emptiness is often misunderstood as nihilism. Unfortunately, 19th century Western philosophy has contributed much to this misconstruction. Meanwhile Western scholars have acquired enough knowledge about Buddhism to realise that this view is far from accurate. The only thing that nihilism and the teaching of emptiness can be said to have in common is a sceptical outset. While nihilism concludes that reality is unknowable, that nothing exists, that nothing meaningful can be communicated about the world, the Buddhist notion of emptiness arrives at just the opposite, namely that ultimate reality is knowable, that there is a clear-cut ontological basis for phenomena, and that we can communicate and derive useful knowledge from it about the world. Emptiness (sunyata) must not be confused with nothingness. Emptiness is not non-existence and it is not non-reality. What is emptiness then? To understand the philosophical meaning of this term, let's look at a simple solid object, such as a cup. How is a cup empty? We usually say that a cup is empty if it does not contain any liquid or solid. This is the ordinary meaning of emptiness. But, is the cup really empty? A cup empty of liquids or solids is still full of air. To be precise, we must therefore state what the cup is empty of. Can a cup be empty of all substance? A cup in a vacuum does not contain any air, but it still contains space, light, radiation, as well as its own substance. Hence, from a physical point of view, the cup is always full of something. Yet, from the Buddhist point of view, the cup is always empty. The Buddhist understanding of emptiness is different from the physical meaning. The cup being empty means that it is devoid of inherent existence. I suppose Im more a nihilist ,because as a matter of opinion , if the cup has no inherent existence , then it is ultimately unknowable, I just pretend to know what it is so I can have a glass of water.

Throw stale bread all over the place.

In case you missed a point , is generally seen as a negative attitude associated with a lack of enthusiasm and interest in ones life. If you mean it as a sort of casual attitude towards your life it could indeed turn out to be a wise thing. In the negative form it arises from a lack of constructive feedback either positive or negative , social interactions are often very important for their feedback valu.Folks also often gain drive from organizations hobbies pets work and so forth. The things that have significace to you are the things that give you 'strokes'emotional currency.Many negative experiences which are not yielding that constructive emotional currency depltes ones enthusiasm - yields to an apathy. The positive form also can yield meaning and enthusiasm but inthat case it is not a deficiency of the feedback coming in it is a sufficiency of the currency one has. (but in normal usage there really no positive spin as it relates to callous disregard for others and self with depression and defeat)

American crows are about twice as heavy as the fish crows you are likely to see. Am ones tend to call CAWWW the fish crows tend to go CAH-AHHH ( but they make lots of noises ) Id imagine the ravens are even brighter ( as Jb suspects) but we dont have em down here unfortunately.