GrandmasterP

I had a look at your forum via that link over on the Space-Cadet's Panda forum Ken. Seemed to be just you and LeoViridis on there and no one else. But " Great oaks from little acorns grow." So.... Good luck with it anyhoo.

I used to nurse inmates who back in the day were referred to as the 'criminally insane' and incarcerated in secure psychiatric facilities for the protection of the general public. Almost all of them were demonstrably mentally ill, not 'bad' as such but 'mad'. What used to be termed for 'possession' back in the old days tends towards being described and often successfully treated as paranoid schizophrenic spectrum in our more enlightened times. Those people were not responsible for their actions. Just a few though, and I won't name names; were purely evil. I don't think those were 'possessed' as such, they were themselves all the way through. All of them were psychopaths. Very consistent is your psychopath, usually very clever and often quite charming. Just never, ever; turn your back on one.

I rest my case. Those matrix movies were rubbish BTW Keanu. Little Buddha was OK-ish but, for constructive comment... ...nowhere near enough Lolcats in it plus it but coulda used a few more more car chases and exploding buildings.

Being a sage A is wise enough to realise that attempting to change anyone but oneself is a recipe for discord.

Very cathartic is Eskrima.

Walking Cane self defence seminar here.

I took it as a clever play on words. Inherent/ Inherit.

Hi again Dee. Forgot to mention in my earlier post. There's a link to some free QiGong resources in my sig, All good wishes to you for every success with your cultivation.

You make a good point LeoViridis. All those cultivations you mention can be taught and learnt, there's no question-marks about lineage, validity of what is being taught or tradition. There are dojos, associations, grades, schools, the whole shebang. One knows what one is getting and is welcome to associate with whichever cultivation one might be interested in. Western MoPai isn't like that at all, no dojos, no associations, no acknowledged teachers, just some dudes posting about what they know and how they came know it. Jim taught online, Kosta does, or did; his thang. For the rest, to get a flavour of western MoPai we only need to look here and elsewhere online.

" According to one Taoist legend, after Lao-Tzu joined the immortals, he was reborn as Shakyamuni." ( Bill Porter {Red Pine} in ' Road to Heaven. Encounters with Chinese Hermits', page 63.)

Maybe wrong to generalise but in my experience such as it is folks who cultivate some form either internally or externally are generally really nice folks who would do anyone a good turn before ever they would do anyone a bad turn. There's a MMA dojo in Leicester and most of the dudes down there look like they would bite the heads off whippets for fun but they raise so much money every year for kids' charities. Hardly a week goes past when they are not doing some gig or other to raise money for a good cause. We can't know what's going on on the inside with anyone else but when you look at the 'fruits' then you can soon tell if those are good fruits or not.

Isn't Apech Keanu Reeves? I always rather suspected that he was.

Fair enough. I'll respect your opinion there CT. I don't share it but it is as equally valid a point as is mine. Possibly we only differ on semantics. If suffering 'is' then I'd say that it 'inheres' in the sufferer. Hence 'suffering is' at the point where it is experienced. The aetiology is debatable but I'd say that suffering is only 'effected' within a sufferer and will defer to you as to wherever suffering may or may not 'come from' and 'why suffering arises''. Deep Bow. /.\

Fred was poorly served by his sister. She was the one along with her rather loopy husband who pitched Fred as a Nazi booster. He never was. Hope that cold dries up soon MH.

I've adopted 'Western MoPai' to differentiate between the MoPai who are and would be accepted as MoPai by the MoPai and those ( generally west of Java) who use the term MoPai to describe what they do but who would not be accepted as MoPai by 'the' real MoPai. Western MoPai is a genuine thing with its adherents. It is not however the same thing as the MoPai which is a Chinese clan with traditions and praxes, very much 'pre- internet' era ( but not so much now as the post 'John Chang' generation of born MoPai developed other interests with greater options than the 'old folks' ever had) active in Java and other settlements where Straits Chinese from the MoPai villages of China settled, mainly as traders. To themselves Western MoPai players 'are' MoPai and no one will convince them otherwise. To the MoPai they are not MoPai nor ever can be. The MoPai is a closed clan system, no one who is not born into it may become part of it, ever. Whatever MoPai is nowadays, by the very nature of social change and cultural development on its home turf, it is far and away different than it was way back when Jim and Kosta visited it.

Back in the day as a young trade union rep if we recruited a new member after that member had paid three months subs we got a small recruiter's fee. Back in the days of full employment and job mobility that could mount up nicely over a year. Just sayin' is all.

Poor old Jim just 'didn't get it' simply because he didn't want it. The minute spirit communication came up then Jim had to begin making his own meanings based on his Christian background and upbringing. All respect to Jim who comes across as an honourable dude via his book and I've not seen any personal criticisms of Jim as a guy. IMO he was a nice guy. However, Jim's take on crucial aspects of the MoPai path, were of necessity influenced by his own faith path preferences. Some MoPai are Shamen. No shamen, no MoPai. It's all of a piece and all 'in house' - clan members only. Anyone not born into MoPai need not apply. These guys boosting Western MoPai are no more MoPai than our cat is the Pope of Rome, nor ever shall be.

We all suffer Sinan. Suffering is our default setting. It's how to best deal with suffering that can be quite fun in the trying of various paths to 'deal with'.

He's the guy who got me into zen archery. The Mrs and I sorta morphed into regular archery as that was all that was available locally and it's still our wintertime indoor 'sport'. Back then he was making English Longbows but shooting them zen style and was incredibly good at it too. I think the Health & Safety put a stop to his archery gigs in TiPi valley. It's one of those pastimes that cost organisers a small fortune to get public liability insurance for their classes.

Brilliantly insightful and searingly honest post Manitou. I'm on the fence with 'Awakened' as a catch- all term but if ever a post was awakened to the actualities of relationships then it yours there. Kudos again!

Apropos Theosophy I have always maintained that Alan Watts lived and died as the Theosophist he was raised to be. Few now remember that the London Buddhist Lodge ( Christmas Humphries, Watts old Dad as secretary and young Alan as his assistant) was a founded and run as a Theosophical Lodge. Nothing Watts taught, wrote or said strayed very far from Madame B and old Annie.

Simple Jack buddy. Enough with the cut and paste already! Anyone wants to read Cleary can and should buy or borrow the books. If you have points to make based on Cleary's work then your ideas supported by inter-text reference might be a better way forward. Gives us chance to understand what you think rather than what Cleary has to say. Nobody writes books for their work and ideas be passed off free via serial quotation. There'd be fewer books published if that was prevalent and we'd all be the poorer for that.

There's only one way to decide this. Horseflies v Robots FIGHT!!!

Thing is though that Tao infuses ( 'is') everything so it's in the New Agey stuff as much as ever it is in any kind of Taoism. Many a time these other paths are saying exactly the same sorts of things that we are but just using different labels to describe what is much the same sort of thing. If we begin saying 'we' are right but 'they' are wrong we're not too far away then from our fundamentalist chums. The place you find fun in fundamentalism is in those first three letters of the word and seldom anywhere else. There was a guy on here recently banging on about how 'his' Taoism was the only real Taoism and by implication, anybody else's Taoism was BS. Quite rightly IMO he was given a vacation by the mods. There are many paths up that old mountain.

That is so right Spotless. Every path has its 'in' language and buzz terms that those on the inside learn and use. Brad Warner the Hardcore Zen guy had a piece recently about Tassajara the Zen centre where he commented how it was easy to tell the regulars from the visitors by the way they speak because the regulars and residents almost had their own language and certain 'inside' terms and phrases that only they understood. With the best will in the world some 'professional language' seems to be designed almost as if to exclude the uninitiated.