GrandmasterP

For bums in UK the movie is on ITV at 11pm tomorrow. Enjoy.

Any religion that needs you to learn a whole different language than the one your old mum taught you is possibly something of an affectation. No disrespect to Buddhists intended but I post on Dharma Wheel now and again and it is chock full of intense western young men spouting all these words and then explaining what they mean. Get a life chaps. It's all total and complete bollocks even the guy who kick started it all Mr Buddha said as much. The entire canon is just what those who wanted to make a living out of it once the guy had passed over thought or wished he'd meant to say. Which was what? Basically... 'Cultivate every day you lazy ba*tards' All the rest is just so much clerical window dressing written by blokes with shaven heads who saw begging as an easier way to earn a crust than honest work. No change there then eh Lama?

WELL I'm 61 next and never knowingly eaten meat (yech!!). So far so good. :-)

OK so maybe it was a Lemurian just saying hello. No big deal, if it pops back ask it what it wants. If it comes up with anything vaguely negative tell it to p*ss off. Anything positive then ask it for the next draw lottery numbers.

I don't know about Tulku but SL could surely do some harm given the opportunity.

Each to their own buddy. I see no harm in anything enjoyed in moderation. It's not for us obviously as we are teetotal but that's just a choice not a virtue. I can see where these anti industrial society guys are coming from and it is commendable but we can't grow toothpaste or tea in our temperate climate so some sort of industrial society is necessary to ship things from A to B and once you get that happening you get markets and everything attached to those. Necessary thing is industry and commerce but we can choose to what extent each of us plays with those big boys. We choose , as little as possible but others are not so so fortunate as to have enough land to grow food and keep chickens and a horse. Still need vets and hen pellet millers etc and the electricity do come in handy on long winter evenings.

What concerns me about SunLover is that forums like these attract some folk who are at a bad place in heir lives. Now SL is a sick puppy for sure. Just say he latched on to one of those vulnerable visitors. Who knows what nasty seeds he might sow in a receptive mind? I was very much for giving him a chance and said so but reading his latest round of rants I really do think he should be banned from posting here if only to protect the potentially vulnerable.

If milk is so good for you how come milking parlours have to be floored with ferrous concrete? (Not a lot of people know this) A. Cos milk eats ordinary cement and concrete faster than a hungry mouse eats cheese. Same with stainless steel vats used for milk. Milk is incredibly corrosive to anything except calves, for whom it was designed. On the plus side if you have an infection drink milk. So many trace antibiotics are in milk that there's sure to be something in there to kill of whatever bug you have picked up.

That 'experiential truth' can be a fickle mistress Wolfie. Bird just sings. Lovely. You find yourself in a hide at a bird observatory and some twinkle wearing all the right bird watcher kit and holding megadollar binoculars and a scope goes 'That's a lesser spotted twite, juvenile plumage, first season warble'. Kid in the same hide says 'Listen mummy, a pretty birdie'. Bird just sings.

Zen archery makes you philosophical no matter how mundane one is. I have the spiritual sensitivity of a two by four but being roundly hammered yesterday by a fourteen year old on his second visit to the archery club can but make one think some things are simply meant for ones own good. You don't actually need bow or arrows for Zen archery but if you use those then it does get a bit competitive and once the new kid has put three in the gold to your three in the outer you begin to meditate. Any archery is a great way to meet new people. Zen archery is just that bit more 'us'. :-)

I've hesitated to join this debate due to an embarrassing professional incident involving Reiki a few years ago. What the hey it's time to confess. Part of my day job involves observing student teachers. One such in 2006 was a teacher of Reiki teaching an adult ed class in a therapy suite. No desks just treatment couches and stools. She had incense burning and new agey music playing softly as she took the students through sending distant healing. They had all brought a big teddy bear to practice on. I set my lap top up on a spare couch sat on a stool and began to type up the observation report. All was going well until next thing I knew the student teacher was shaking me gently awake as the class had ended. Turned out a couple of the students had thought I looked a bit tired ( I was) so had been sending relaxing healing my way. It certainly worked and the student teacher went on to successfully complete her PGCE.

You got that right. Nasty times ahead. December 28th looks to be the kick off date according to the planetary alignments. We continue to do what we can and it'll be a busier time for Shamen no doubt. Usually plenty to do during crises. All success to your work and service FH

Mmmmm OK I can see the point a bit but factor out the M word and agree an ethical code and you are in the same place without immorality raising its ugly head. Unethical means 'contravenes this code we all agreed to abide by 'whereas immoral means I DON'T LIKE WHAT YOU ARE DOING SO STOP IT! No immorality without morality. Ethics we all get to define in order to agree on. Morality tends to be handed down unargued via Bibles and such.

K I work with some third wave post-feminists [feminisms being considered passe in the academy as very old hat white bourgeois affectation this twenty years past and more] and to a woman if they could afford to do so they would opt to be stay at home moms. Average for moms, 'mean average' NE way IMO is that they really love their own kids. Those who don't being those few sorry exceptions who prove the rule.

Morality is subjective. What is moral in one place may be immoral elsewhere for example kissing in public is shock horror in rural China but par for the course in Paris. We always warned lady visitors from UK to our Indian village NEVER to wear strappy tops outside our compound as to do so offended local sensibilities and could in the worst instance render them vulnerable to abuse. Ethics we can all agree on but morality NAH. It's a term most often defined by negative comparison to whatever the speaker deems to be 'immoral'.

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The UK Vegetarian Society used to be a bit cultish back when I wer a lad. We always had their literature [i was raised by radical veggies and loved the food so still eat it]. The old mag was all lifelong vegetarian this and meat is murder that. This last few years they have actively changed from that to a society that welcomes everybody and seeks to encourage folk to try veggie food rather than beat up carnivores in print. More people in the formerly affluent west are tying veggie meals if ony to save money. Very little IBS in vegetarian India and where you do see it it's invariably a moslem suffering from it and they eat meat. I reckon anyone cutting back on red meat alone will feel the benefits of doing so pretty quickly. It has to be worth giving a try if only to save a small fortune off you shopping bill each month. Free recipes at Vegetarian Society website.

Sorry could not resist...... Well if SL is right then armageddin outa here

Paid clergy of whatever path have a vested interest in making folk feel guilty or rotten so that they can flog em a remedy. Create the disease and patent a medicine for it. Very lucrative work hence they keep closed shops where only the favoured few get to wear the silly hats or frocks of authority. Taoism's the only pristhood I have come across where every priest is effectively self employed and gets paid by service supplied if not necessarily results forthcoming.

Respect to all meat eaters. Each to their own path but in these tough economic times a mainly veggie diet will save you tons of money and veggie grub can be hearty and filling. Mrs Gradmaster Ps spicy shroom burgers had our builders begging or more when we recently had a gang in building some walls outside. Big lads, big appetites all wanted the recipe.It aint all nut cutlets and that foul muck Quorn.Only downside is prep time really it aint 'fast' food by any means.

Non native-Tibetan DL devotees too, totally potty. Bang up to date of course. The date being sometime in feudal Tibet circa 1952.

Kind of you to show an interest,will PM you a link when I work out how to make iPad to work again. Back on Kindle at the mo.. Been going a good few years now they advertise special events in MEN and yes as someone who cultivates a PL ritual practice [nembutsu] I would include anyone roundly condemning Buddhism as spiritual suicide reserving the right to lump some Tibetan manifestations of it in with the lunatic fringe pentecostalists. There's one Tibetan New Kadampa sub sect proscribes their members reading any books other than those written by their founder. I'e posted two links to their publications elsehere on here check em out.. Now that has to be spiritual suicide. Fair play to them though they run excellent veggie cafes.

There's something in that same Xtian book towards the front where their god tells Adam to eat animals nd that bit is repeated later on where the god shows Peter a blanket load of unclean animals and tells him its OK to eat them. Hence a lo of em eat meat. Now to me that' not the sort of god a veggie would necessarily want to bother with but each to their own.

Schools aren't the best places to push any particular belief system unless they are faith schools then it is rather expected that the teachers promote that particular faith. There's a good Religious Education strand on the Times Ed Supplement staff room site Www.tes.co.uk

................... Excellent posts