i am

I will say that alwayson is defending a fantasy world...setting up his version of how the world could be, then chastising us all for not having the same fantasy. In the world we live in, at least my area of it, cheating of your fiancée, wife, or being part of someone else's wife cheating etc., hurts people. It tears them up and causes all sorts of internal agony. Are you going to disagree with this? Or has your fantasy world taken over so much that you'd look at a person emotionally raw from being cheated on and say "open your mind. Mammals aren't monogamous"? You're assuming all partners are willing partners in this, that because you don't see much (though there is some) monogamy in nature, that nobody minds being cheated on, and weekend orgies are totally cool. Is breaking up marriages, engagements, having compulsive sex a healthy, spiritual lifestyle? You really think that? Come right out and say you think that's cool, rather than a whole bunch of quotes about something else entirely. You remind of some guys I knew in college. Cool guys. One of them was into grabbing people's asses. Men and women. He was...different in a way that made 99% of the people he did it to ok with it. Well, these other guys decided to pick up on it at this party, except they were only doing it to girls. Some of the girls got pretty offended...when we confronted them they got in our faces telling us to "open our minds. It's just a body. It's ok". They were imposing their pseudo-philosophical thought of the day on other people's bodies. If someone is hurt by getting cheated on, if someone doesn't approve of casual sex, are you "on the path" if you disregard this and do your thing anyway? Is hurting people ok, because your philosophy says sex can be with anyone at any time? Even though theirs doesnt? If you meet a society where everybody is up for sex whenever, no hurt feelings, no monogamy...then cool, you'll be where you want to be. But I don't see that society here...so stop acting like it is.

I bought a hand-crank coffee grinder, so I'm one step closer to trying this coffee... Now I just need the coffee! And maybe some of that spring water...

Oh come on, wouldn't you love a packet of Crystal Light in that water??

I found that a spring about 15 miles away is on that spring site you linked. I keep meaning to fill up a big jug... One of my favorite parts of backpacking is getting to camp and drinking some of the local water out of the nearest stream or lake.

It's true. And "new-agey" or not, it's giving rise to much more, uh...enlightened views about cultivation.

Exactly. Sex is part of our nature, and is good. But when you're breaking up realtionships, marriages, impulsively seeking it out like a fix? Sounds like something that neede work. Anyone seen the recent movie Shame? This is what I'm talking about. Alwayson, watch that movie and tell me if that guy is healthy, and that we're puritanical to judge him. Of course yes, it's just a movie, but I think it shows pretty clearly what I'm talking about here. Sex is great. Addiction to sex is not.

I bought one a couple weeks ago, but I'm really a tea drinker. So...I'll get around to it, but it will also involve buying coffee and a grinder...my current grinder is the crappy kind that heats up the beans too much, and I've been using it to grind other stuff that I don't want mixed with my coffee... So it'll happen, but its the sort of thing I'll experiment with when I feel like it...I do fine with my tea, so I'm in no rush.

I don't use photobucket or anything so I just have to go with what I can find online already... I'm currently going with a blank, empty space. Without trying to define it any more than that. I've considered working on putting my thought and energy into that space to see if it has any different effect...

I think the idea that cultivation only happens with a transmission from an "authentic" master is silly and elitist. Is nature an authentic master? If your answer is yes, then never mind. Your statement is not silly. But that's me. I like this distinction. Yes, there are definitely some CULTivators, or kultivators around this site.

I like how you like your own posts...that's funny. You're picking certain parts of religions that not all practitioners of those religions practice. Like saying all Christians are southern baptist, or are snake charmers, or all Mormons are polygamists. Or all Moslems want to kill us And you're confusing a life and path disturbing LUST which sounds to have been the main driving force in the OPs life, with healthy sex, and using it to get on a soap box which isn't really apt to this thread. It sounds pretty clear to me that there was a PROBLEM. We aren't talking about sex as cultivation, we're talking about sex as an addiction, and disruptive/damaging force in this guys life. If you want to find a Puritan to preach about healthy sex to, I'm sure you can find one. But he ain't here...

Yeah this depends HUGELY on how low of a stance we're talking about. I'm not doing crazy low horse stance, but definitely bent knees and sitting position.

Yeah it's unfortunate that retention and a celebate lifestyle in the name of cultivation sometimes get combined with Puritan "sexuality is bad" tradition. Anyone who actual studies anything about cultivation understands what all the talk of being celebate is all about, and doesn't confuse it with anti-sexuality. For those who have sufficiently separated themselves from their Puritan morality issues, thoughts of abstaining from sex don't bring up those kinds of arguments. It's pretty clear in the OP that there was unhealthy stuff going on. Sex is great when no one is getting hurt, and its done out love or at least respect. Not when it's just using people to satisfy urges. Celibacy or retention in the name of cultivation has nothing to do with prudish, repressed sexuality. Or at least it shouldn't.

For me, oolong all winter, green all summer, with an occasional yellow thrown in here and there. At home I have a clay pot and actually "brew" the oolong tea. At work, and pretty much always with green tea, I just put the leaves in a glass and pour not-quite-boiling water on them. Drink till there's about 1/4 left in the glass, refill. Sometimes as many as 6 times. Lots of trips to the water cooler.

Well, on the topic of diet, get used to being frustrated, and hearing endless conflicting data. Eat what makes you feel best IS the best advice I've seen in this thread.

Well here's a plug for my favorite tea company. http://www.sevencups.com Teavana is kind of like the Starbucks of the tea world, except Starbucks actually has pretty decent coffee... But if they get more people started on loose leaf tea, they're ok by me.

Easier is relative...easier in relation to figuring out which voice is emotional craving and which is my body telling me what it actually needs. I think it's a lot easier to identify what I've been TOLD is good for me all my life. That's everywhere in media. The actual cravings are going to be harder to distinguish...

Deciphering between the two takes a surprising amount of cultivation... Which voice is the "brainwashing" I've been exposed to, which is the emotional craving for food and food types I don't need and aren't good of me, and which is the inner me telling me what I need? Figuring that out will take time, though I think getting rid of the brain washing will be the easier part.

Yeah I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do right now...eating much less meat, so I'm turning to more grain. Quinoa and oats and rice and kasha, almost entirely in its whole, unground unprocessed from, but still...more grains than I used to eat. I'd love to get in on the Yellowstone bison hunt, though. I haven't gone in for one of those tags, yet. Lots of controversy, but its all pretty silly. That'd be enough meat to feed me for a couple years, and have friends over for roasts and bbqs all the time.

I agree with Taomeow on the eating patterns, but the stuff I learned in school was that the accounts heard of the "land of abundance" with crazy amounts of game was due to the earlier exposure to Spanish explorers. The native populations had essentially been wiped out already due to the spread of disease, relative to their earlier population numbers. So the excessive amount of animals was due to a huge population crash of natives, causing an over abundance of game, right around the time that we start getting more contact, and historical accounts of what the new world was like. But of course there used to be huge bison herds and salmon runs, even with a healthy environment. The idea is just that when people really first started settling, they were seeing an unbalanced ecosystem due to crashing native populations. American Holocaust is a good book to read... But that doesn't change the fact that for most of human existence, we weren't eating grain...

Plenty of people doing it, especially kids, these days. I see them all the time passing through town, bumming money off people, with backpacks and for some reason always bulldogs/pit bulls these days. Travelers. I think you'd find a lot of creeps in that crowd, but likely also some good, like minded people. I see you're very one-track-mind in your posts lately

Sort of on topic...but as much as I have at times dreamed of glory and living a life acknolowledged by people as great and all that sort of stuff, when I think about what I really want out of my day to day life...what makes me happy is having a home, if not in the country/mountains, at least with a yard with lots of privacy, and the ability to live a nice, mostly quiet life, doing daily chores and meeting my own needs. Most people can't even enjoy a day around the house with nothing going on. I love to get up, do my exercises, drink tea and listen to NPR and make breakfast. Drink more tea. Do some chores. Maybe nap. Chores. Music, read, snack, chores, dog walks. Dinner. Chores. Read or music, bed. Every few days add doing something with friends. So simple...but if you're a very busy person, running here and there, never turning down invitations from friends, doing all there is to do... it's hard to relax...you can't do it. It takes a while to slow it down, to where you can sit in your back yard, sipping coffee/tea, perfectly content with yourself and the world...

That is true

From what I have read, it is not a "physical" thing. It's not something I have firsthand knowledge of. But my understanding is that if you cut open your abdomen, you aren't going to find something there you can point to, and say "there, there's my dantien". It's more of an energy center. So...in theory, it's very much there, but it's not something you can point to, like a liver or kidneys.

After reading master Lam's book on zang zhuang, I started putting honey on my water in the mornings. Up till recently, I was just doing warm honey water and no other breakfast till around 930 or 10 then some nuts. But I'm trying out new (non packaged non freeze dried) food for backpacking, so I'm learning how to cook breakfast grains with minimal fuel and water. Anyway...I like honey water for breakfast. For all purpose sweetener I've been using maple syrup, but I sweeten very few things. But...I liked this thread best when it stuck to mostly to coffee