GrandmasterP

I never really gave it any thought at all when I was in the army but then you tend not to at that age. I still reckon that , factoring out the being shot at; army life is a great formative experience for single young chaps though. I refined laziness to an art form in the army and it has served me well over the years since. Worst thing about being a medic was they didn't issue medics with a weapon so the shooting-at was all one way. Happy days though, overall.

............. Good question Reed some students want to be disciples, some want the teacher to play mommy for money, some teachers play up to those needs. Some of the system sellers seem to be the worst offenders for grooming dependency. It's to their best financial interest to keep the students dangling from their apron strings. Good teachers promote learner autonomy and I like Dao rain Tao's point that some teachers can sort of transmit learning without actually teaching. That whole satsang-thang works well where and when it works, we were chatting about epiphanies elsewhere earlier on here. Real learning is what remains when the student has forgotten everything the teacher ever said and discovered their own answers.

You'll maybe need a snorkel and mask rather than headphones for Atlantis research buddy.

Just this last hour finished a book by Edwin John Dingle (see post in What are you reading) he was at that secret Tibetan monastery gaff too but a while earlier than this chap. There is nothing new under the sun

Sometimes it's fallen down behind the sofa. Always an idea to check there first.

Ouch!

Yep, I respect what you are saying Judo it's pretty unpalatable, howsoever pragmatic; is fighting wars away from home. It can't ever be ethically justified nor would I seek to attempt to do so. 'Do unto others' and all that Just that with an aggressor enemy, sometimes; it's maybe best to do unto them..... First.

Finished it. Amazing book and a fascinating chap indeed. He retired age 40 to California having made his pile from publishing maps in China then emerged from retirement in 1927 to found Mentalphysics, made another pile from that and had Frank Lloyd Wright design a centre for him. That's now the Joshua Tree Retreat Centre where they still host mentalphysics gigs although the centre itself is eclectic and no longer wholly owned by the mentalphysics set. The book I have is an obvious reverse engineering job designed ro lend kudos to his mentalphysics lectures and embryo movement. Good stuff, very much of its time with lots of odious racism in the early chapters, Aryan nonsense and all sorts but the Tibet chapters are good fun Looks like that book was the source for Lobsang Rampa's fictions according to a quick Google trawl. The Theosophists published it for a few editions out of India too so it's likely my copy is a photo litho of one of the Theosophist versions . Well worth reading if you like that sort of thing.

And odd shaped balls too.

Take a walk, anything physical to regularly break up study time. It's easy to lapse into a routine of becoming chained to the desk or reading chair and staying put for hours. We have a system at work that flags up every hour advising students locked into terminals to take a short break. You'll notice a difference almost immediately.

Ah you had to be there. Poor old Hornets have never been the same since. Some do say that the Bradford Bulls (note Bull) are in league with dark forces. Big Hermetic following in Bradford after all.

Wherever political fascism has held sway there was far less individual liberty for the masses than you tend to find under wobbly old democracy. Fair enough the folk at the top of the fascist pile could more or less do as they chose but for the squeezed middle classes and folk further down the ladder things weren't quite so hot. Not to mention minorities and the disabled. Fascist chic is cool though all that social realism, cabaret music , really sharp fashion sense mixed with heady decadence at the top. Some of those video games designer geeks cottoned onto fascist chic early on so you see that coming through in some gaming imagery and concepts.

Rochdale v Bradford. played on Sunday 15th February 1998 at Spotland, Rochdale Attendance: 5,466 ... Rochdale Hornets 10, Bradford Bulls 48. A day of infamy.

Posts directed to a minor could be deemed to be 'in loco parentis' under English Civil law K hence if said minor were at some stage to claim to have been influenced negatively or in some wise traumatised by any such post then that could be actionable and in order to find out if it was or not would have to be investigated under Child Protection procedures involving the police, social services, child's GP etc if the child is resident in England. You did the right thing in baling out the moment that poster claimed to be 17.

Other way to look at i is the old saying... The only good thing ever to come out of Bradford is the road that leads Manchester. Were there a god and that god wished to administer an enema to the Earth then the tube would have to go into Bradford.

I just never got it into meat eating really having been raised veggie. The whole idea of eating meat still nauseates me if I stop to think about it, which I seldom do. However for someone raised eating meat that's just what they do and in some places where veg are thin on the ground due to climate and topography such as Tibet they have to eat a lot of meat just to survive cos there's nothing much else on offer. If the choice was between eating meat or starving to death then I'd eat meat, might not enjoy it but suspect I'd enjoy death by starving a lot less so a nice plump priest slow roasted.............

Via a recommendation on here... Edwin John Dingle's My Life in Tibet First published in 1911 my copy is an Indian edition of 2004 from that fascinating firm Pilgrims Publishing of Varanasi, they do lots of Tibetan Lore reprints. First impressions, I intuit that Dingle is making a lot of it up to suit his readership. Good yarns so far though.

http://www.rockinghamremembered.com/WHPolicemanTestifies.html Made me chuckle anyway....

MacTavish visited London for his annual holiday and stayed at a large hotel. However, he didnae feel that the natives were friendly. 'At 4 o'clock every morning,' he told a friend, 'they hammered on my bedroom door, on the walls, even on the floor and ceiling. Och, sometimes they hammered so loud I could hardly hear myself playing the bagpipes.'

Dunno about a Taoist take on it but I can see where Jeff is coming from with that list. If that's what happens for some cultivators and in that order then fair enough and if someone is teaching that particular series-method then having a planned series in list form makes sense because the students can check their progress against the list and see where they are up to. A lot of these proprietary cultivation systems on sale do much the same thing, sort of...'If this... then that' and so on. Other cultivators and some teachers don't use a linear approach at all, more a sort of intuitive 'customised' way designed to meet individual needs. Horses for courses and what suits one learner does not necessarily suit another so the more ways there are out there the wider the menu each learner has to choose from.

How?

I would like a big lottery win please.

Steady lads. Best to keep it nice n simple for starters. Take this as a metaphor if you wish... One cubit is the distance from the inside of your elbow to your stretched middle finger so a tall person's cubit is bigger than a small persons. That distance of one cubit, all around your body, including under your feet is where the external stuff interacts with you so the soles of your feet interface with ground surface is a dodgy place to start someone could be sucking up far too much hot stuff via bubbling well points and not know it until problems manifest internally. External via hands is your best bet and that Qi ball, big or small gives 'hands on' practice.

LIL :-) E agroo weth thut.

I had all sorts of problems when I used Kindle but since I got this iPad it works fine except for the odd time when the whole site goes down.