GrandmasterP

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. ( Wordsworth). The child is indeed mother or father of the (wo)man. Where else would our inner-child go?

Fundamentalism might be more up your street Ryan. Those guys deal in certainties. You'd possibly find that more conducive than Taoism. Taoists tend to have to think it through for themselves, at least eventually. Fundie pastors, Imams and such can tell you what to do, what to think and what to believe. Our guys tend towards sorting you out for trouble free cultivation methods and after that it's ...."YOYO". ( You're On Your Own). That doesn't suit everyone, it can make some folks quite tetchy finding out that in life, sometimes; we have to work hard ourselves to attain the worthwhile. Either way you win because there are plenty of folks out there who will play "Mommy for money" to you if that's what you're after.

"Nobody reads my posts." :-( Ryan94 is right yet again. Coming next week to a thread near you. Following on from his award winning post... "Pope! Catholic? Yeah Right! Meh." Ryan94's hard hitting new investigatory posts on...... Bears. Do they shit in the woods? Keep it TTB for all the news that's fit to print.

Oh man I remember sunlover. Now he was bat shit crazy. And I say that with the greatest of respect for bat shit crazy.

The Chinese have beaten you to it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27156775 Full sized houses 'printed' via 3D printing technology.

Also... How to set fire to newspaper without recourse to matches or lighter* That's been a real money saver. :-) * Tired of wasting money on matches and fire lighters? Do YOU need instant fire where and when you want it? Look no further. Because.... Honest GMP Publications ( The Old Firm) has just the book for you.... Secrets of Mo Pai Level 32( ' Setting Fire to Stuff' by Sifu GM Smokey the Bear. (32 pages, softback, no illustrations). Special introductory offer to TTB and Space Panda members. Just $2,000 ( postage and packing extra). Buy today and receive our ' Bonus Butt Wire' completely free of charge ( one size fits all).

I have learnt nothing here. A most valuable and salutary nothing. Thank you TTB.

Well you are missed. Pop in any time. You leaven the 'lump'. :-)

Julian of Norwich's 'Revelations of Divine Love' is a Zen text.That's in middle English and the first book ever published in English written by a woman. Good read. e.g... "He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God. In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover, I cannot tell; for till I am Substantially oned to Him, I may never have full rest nor very bliss: that is to say, till I be so fastened to Him, that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me." Agree with you that 'our' TTB- interest literature tends to start out in a foreign language. The Zen guys in Japan use a form of Japanese for their rituals that's equivalent to middle English. Nobody much can understand it without having studied it so different is it from modern Japanese. Thing is we can read modern translations in our own language. My point such as it is stems from my puzzlement at chums who feel the need to dive into an alien culture when the texts are available in their own language. For some ( Western Tibetans and those 'off the shoulder frock' wearers who won't eat after 11am) maybe it's the lure of the exotic, esoteric or good old masochism but for Tao, Pure Land, Chan or Zen I just can't see the point as those are universal cultivations transcending language and culture. If cultivation's doing not believing then surely we can simply do it using our own native tongue as and where necessary.

Could be I suppose. Whatever. Gender is performative. :-)

Thanks Ken. I'm not even a member on Space Panda but seem to have two threads going under my name over there. At least the original thread has been more politely renamed from its original title. :-)

You got that right TI. Some real old stars write over there on ZFI. There's a real life Dharma Bum ( " Japhey") still alive and writing pops in there now and again plus at least one Pulitzer Prize winner. Jimmy Yu 'too', some big hitters for sure. They do let us lesser mortals have a say too though. Nice folks. (Deci is a guy now?)

" Liberty is not a license to do whatever you want to do. It is the freedom to do what you ought to do." ( Sign on the wall in the Jimtown store in the Alexander Valley California)

You forgot about the tinfoil hat and butt- wire BKA. Gotta have a tinfoil hat and butt-wire before the Space Panda people will let anyone in. That's the rules!

Yep Morrisons is good. Nice to have a choice. We're deeply rural so the big supermarkets don't bother too much with us. It's Tesco, Aldi or the ( super expensive) Co- Op and that's it unless I want to drive for miles, which I don't.

We don't have a Lidl near us Aldi rules round here. Tesco is my weekly penance. Aldi once a month. Man those Tesco prices have shot up this year though. Some stuff we can only get in Tesco hence the penance, plus it's right next door to work..

Weeds are vigorous.

Cultivating Nembutsu diligently ( as per your avatar headline) will do the job equally well for those who cannot find a teacher. That's why we have nembutsu as an option. For cultivating IA though, teacher knows best for sure.

It's on DW too. The NY guys on there reckon these weren't monks just dancers dressed as monks. Something to do with commemorating a dead 'pop' celebrity who was a Buddhist.

Zen master Ummon, who, upon being asked "What is Buddha?" replied: "A dry shit on a stick". The stick he meant was a special toilet instrument for cleaning the remote parts of our body. Therefore, before we criticize master Dogen for his rather vulgar insults and comparisons, we should realize that he is making a link to master Ummon, whom he honored very much. To understand Dogen's bizarre story we must first understand the koan, a story in which the master Ummon says that Buddha is the same as a dry shit on a stick. Master Ummon simply says that Buddha is the same as reality before our eyes. If there is a dry shit on a stick right in front of our eyes, then reality is just a dry shit on a stick. Thus Buddha is a dry shit on a stick. If it still seems disrespectful, imagine how the historical Buddha taught somewhere: "I'm mountains, rivers, forests, skies, clouds, grass, all living and non-living beings, earthworms, sand, wind, rocks, but certainly I'm not a shit. And certainly not a shit on a stick, something you wipe your ass with." When Buddha attained enlightenment, he said that together with him all things and all beings attained it. Enlightenment means to wake up to reality and reality does not exclude anything, so even a dry turd on a stick is necessarily a part of the enlightened reality.

We do miss you on the Zen forum deci. Such wisdom, do pop back now and again. Excellent post above. Absolutely spot on. Thusness just is. Job jobbed. :-)

Are you called Hymie?

£123 in Tesco yesterday for very little. Aldi next week for sure.

It is simple good manners to honour our ancestors as they continue to honour us from spirit until such times as they decide to move on via reincarnation or ascension. Even then we should remember them albeit they're less likely to pop back for a chat.

I'm a NLP 'Master' for no other reason that some years ago when money flowed like water my workplace put all the Principal Lecturers through a programme one day a week for an academic year as 'staff development'. Less than convinced and grumpy about being made to attend the sessions I sat through the first part of session one with my arms crossed radiating hostility and firing the occasional barbed question at the trainer. I regarded NLP as BS and the trainer as a snake oil salesman wasting my 'valuable' time. We broke for coffee after a couple of hours and the trainer guy came and sat with me chatting politely and nothing at all about NLP. I found myself thinking ' This guy is OK, I've been a bit of a boor.' Then the penny dropped that he was 'doing' NLP to me and I told him so. He replied... " Yes I was. Good isn't it?" From that time on I buckled down and quite enjoyed the course. NLP is a useful tool to have for anyone dealing with others. It is an externally directed practise, one needs a 'subject' to apply the techniques towards. The external 'subject' is the practise 'object'. The objective being to 'programme' the subject neuro-linguistically towards a certain end. Usually that objective is getting the subject from " No" to " Yes". Not so sure NLP's especially effective for 'self directed change' insofar as to do it well one has to somewhat step outside of one's regular mindset and into 'NLP mode'. I do know that some NLP techniques are marketed for 'self change' and maybe those do work but if they do then the person they work upon is not practising NLP for them-self rather they are allowing an NLP master to work on them via a book or DVD. I have reservations as to how well that could work. NLP practice is a kinaesthetic activity as much as it is auditory or cognitive. A book or DVD cannot 'mirror' one hence the 'force' of the NLP is, of necessity; very dilute. If it works for you then by all means use NLP. You do want to do that don't you, Yes? ( That last sentence is a NLP riff BTW. But it works best if you're 'there' to hear and see it enacted.)