GrandmasterP

Yep some folk seem to enjoy doing that to others. Found a Tony Parsons freebie book .... http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Open-Secret-by-Tony-Parson.pdf He's the chap I was banging on about earlier. It's good stuff.

I'm not keen on the whole Sheeple idea as I understand it's been presented. There's a sort of implicit 'Sheeple are lesser beings than some unspecified higher sorts', and that can't be right.

Dunno there's one of em on TV right now. I find them interminably boring.

I'm not sure that it has. Retreats now, those puppies must be disassociation central, by their very definition, as folk go on 'em , presumably; to 'get better'. These rigorous purgative cultivations some try out too. Are they not perhaps an attempt to 'disassociate' from who or what one was before? Sort of 'before and after' cultivation. These proprietary-system merchants are flogging hope as much as they are selling DVDs and such.

Just thinking about the OP though, there are some cultivations that are separate practices. Pilgrimages for example are a sort of 'one off' cultivation. You do it, then it's done. Maybe 'retreats' are similar. (No truly happy person ever went on a retreat). Just finished a course of weekly lessons to learn Beijing short form TaiChi before the holidays, not something I'll keep up but it was nice to learn something different from a super TaiChi Union GB teacher in a fun group whilst it lasted.

"If you don't have money, go where money is" Hence a lot of these gurus of the mystic east seem to end up in the USA. Tony Parsons is a righteous dude, he only charges a nominal door fee to cover the hall rental. I don't begrudge anyone a fair living but what some of these ' proprietary answers' merchants charge for twopence worth of DVD is beyond belief. There's a morbidly obese bloke sells a 'keep spiritually and physically fit' system online. Makes as much sense as (bald) me setting up as hair-restorer merchant. Caveat Emptor. ;-)

It has rained here 24/7 over the holiday so far. Thinking of building an Ark. :-)

Agreed. Read a book about Taoist Hermits in China, those guys are seriously dedicated to their methods of cultivation, nothing else matters and it's more or less all they do 24/7.

Pretty close then. ;-)

One of the advantages of belonging to a fraternal order was that in the old days men who travelled for a living such as actors and trade representatives could pitch up in a new town look up the local lodge, turn up there having given the passwords on the door and immediately be amongst chums who could advise on the best digs to put up in etc. It was the same in the services, someone posted to a new garrison and not knowing anyone could go to the lodge and immediately be amongst like minded people. There was a big Masonic following in the Metropolitan Police (Greater London ) still an unusual police force demographically in that most of its officers come from elsewhere in the country and single officers live in barrack like 'section houses'. Also the Met attracted a lot of Scottish officers and the Scottish lodges being more democratic or blue collar than the English ones hence the Metropolitan Police Lodges were similar in makeup to Buffalo (Poor Man's Masons) lodges elsewhere in England, in that there were fewer 'toffs'. In the army the officers would be Masons whilst the other ranks tended towards Buffaloism. One posh army officer once dismissed the very elegant Grand Lodge Buffalo Building in Harrogate as " A civilian version of the sergeants mess". I don't know about the Masons but the RAOB (Buffaloes) peaked for members in the 70s and has been in steep decline ever since. In this Province there are only four lodges still just about in existence , and they struggle to keep going; down from more than 150 lodges in the 1970s. The RAOB shares its heritage with the fraternal order of 'Elks' in the USA.

Does a verb always activate a noun in Chinese ChiDragon?

We are currently listening to shot guns. The toffs are out upsetting the local pheasantry. It is raining hard. Good!

This is good, and it's free... http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=zxm9GGUDYCM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dzxm9GGUDYCM&gl=GB

In a nutshell it says acid fecks up yer synapses but they get paid by the word. More words = fatter fee.

http://www.theopensecret.com/PDF/Personal%20or%20Impersonal.pdf :-)

I have no idea K. Enlightenment has always been a puzzle to me. Talking about it puts me in mind of chat lines for some reason or phoning up a restaurant and having the waiter read out the menu over the phone but never going for a meal. Postcard is a postcard far as I'm concerned. Always nice to get one though. Anything someone describes to me as being enlightenment or how they are enlightened then I'm thinking... "Fair enough, that's your experience, good luck" but one of the wisest people I know says that what matters in those areas is 'indescribable'.

https://catbull.com/alamut/Bibliothek/Serotonin%20and%20Hallucinogens.pdf Just had a flashback. Remembered just how much I hated theory classes back in nursing school. :-) Drugs? Just say NO buddy. ;-)

Holding up my hands as I type. Guilty as charged your honour. Lucky to have survived this long. No way will anybody ever be convinced by anything I say on here but it passes the time posting. Healthy do beat sick though.

Yep alcohol is certainly the recreational drug of choice for many and everyone on here knows at least one person seriously messed up by booze. Psychedelics mess up your synapses, sometimes long term and sometimes quite a while after the trip. We discharged a guy who was clean for three years after; talented guitarist, got some gigs. Decided he could fly one night and got out of bed to give it a try. He was wrong. Left a girlfriend and a lovely little kid behind. Flashback they reckoned.

OK not recreational, shit you buy from a dealer rather than from a registered pharmacist on prescription. I grew up in the 60s when LSD was everywhere and many who were teenagers then took it. A lot. My generation are now running the country. Look at the mess we're in! ;-)

Each to their own but we had lots of seriously messed up recreational drug users as patients in the psychiatric units I've worked in. I've heard many arguments about recreational drug use both yea and nay but from what I've seen I reckon the safest way is to steer well clear of anything that messes with your brain chemistry that wasn't prescribed for you by a qualified doctor.

Bit like receiving a scenic postcard from Alaska through the mail and thinking that's what the place is all about without ever actually having visited Alaska

Even the bad stuff can turn out to be positive later on. Even if it's only along the lines of... " No way am I ever doing THAT again. Not after last time". Everybody has regrets, we all have some bad shit in our pasts, trick is not to let it feck up the present.

Great thread. No way could I fit 2-hours cultivation into a working day but mindfulness throughout the day is a constant goal. There was an old saint, will look him up; talked about finding God amongst the pots and pans. Brother Lawrence, maybe not a saint. Somebody who talked to him a lot wrote a little book of Lawrence's wisdom called Practice of the presence of God. http://www.tochrist.org/Doc/Books/Lawrence/The%20Practice%20of%20the%20Presence%20of%20God.pdf

....... Not all Masons are sexist. http://comasonic.net/ My aunty Edna (married Arthur Wagner a GI and went to live with him on Long Island after the war. Admiral Avenue they lived I expect you guys in the USA moms n dads knew them) became a big shout in the Co Masons.