Lost in Translation

Is there a special significance to the number 5 (or 25) or is this simply artistic expression?

Welcome. May you enjoy bumming around with the rest of us bums. ;-)

Keep in mind that the media are overwhelmingly Leftists. They are emotion based. Idealists. In 2016 they, for the first time in my lifetime, believed they were realistically on the cusp of achieving permanent, socialist paradise in the US. So what did they do? They abandoned all pretense of neutrality and went full on in their support of Clinton and hatred of Trump. It was not about individuals. It never has been. It was pure party politics. Then they lost. Then they freaked out. Now they resist. It's an emotional temper tantrum. Eventually they will wear down the population. It's already happening in large measure on college campuses. It's already happening in Silicon Valley and in other Progressive corporations. Barring something really big happening, they will win. That is why it is best to turn focus internally. Cultivate virtue in yourself. Raise the collective energy in subtle ways. Gross and overt actions are not the way. Man, it really hate to type this. But I gotta call it as I see it.

It's like when the Flash runs into a brick wall. He just passes through it like it wasn't there. Voila! Paradox resolved!

I realized the partisan bias of the media in 2009. They spend 8 years absolutely castigating President Bush in the most crass ways. Then they spend 8 years apologizing for and fawning after President Obama. Now they are back to terrorizing President Trump. Truth is today's media are nihilists at best and marxists at worst. They are nit to be trusted.

Dennis Prager is a highly intelligent, conscientious, and moral conservative. I have followed his radio show since 2009 and have read many of his articles and books. He is a very good man.

There were several of us in the room. The shaman was drumming, and chanting. I don't recall him touching me. He is a powerful man, calm and nothing to look at, but with a strong presence about him. Funny thing, he stopped teaching our group shortly after that. He never said why. Raised atheist, turned agnostic. I've always wanted to believe - a regular Fox Mulder. But I've never been able to, not really. Part of me knows that if I can just 'flip that switch' I'll be able to believe, truly believe. Another part of me knows I won't do that.

That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing! I have experienced mini events over the years, nothing as shattering as you describe. A while back I was working with a shaman, mainly using visualizations and such. Quite watered down, suburban stuff IMO. That's fine. I'm not into the hard core anyway. One journey I traveled to the upper worlds, kept going up and up. Kinda surreal. When I finally stopped I stood before a door. OK, opened it up and... A wave of pure golden light, moved in tendrils - not like any light I have ever seen. It fell upon me and I felt my mind just stop. Null. No thoughts. Instantly I fell to the ground, prostrated. Was filled with... shame. Not the best word but the closest to what I felt. The light could see through me. It knew me - intimately. It knew me better than I knew myself. Infinitely so. I could not hide. I could not make excuses. I could not think. There was no point in thinking. Any thought I could possibly have it would already know before I would. it just held me there for what felt like hours. In reality it was only a few minutes. When the shaman brought me back out of the journey I was crying. I knew that I had seen God. It was overwhelming, but not. Does that make sense? Maybe this was just my imagination. I can't prove anything. But I experienced it just the same. This world is filled with strange things.

What does this mean? What is "karmic blood and pus"? Is this just karma?

Classic! ;-)

"Heard any good Koans lately?" Ha! That's my attempt at humor. I need to work on that... Welcome!

108. When the Taoist sage Lai was on the verge of death, another sage asked him, "Great is the Maker of Things! What will become of you now? Where will he send you?" Lai replied, "A child who obeys his father and mother will go wherever they tell him to go -- east, west, south, north. Yin and yang, the elements of nature, are they not to a man like a father and mother? If I were not to obey them now that they have brought me to the point of death, how wayward I should be. They are not to be blamed. The great earth burdens me with a body, forces upon me the toil of life, eases me in old age, and calms me in death. If life is good, death is good also. If an ironsmith were casting metal and the metal were to jump up and say, 'Make me into the best of all swords!' the ironsmith would regard it as a bad omen. Now that my human form is decomposing, were I to say, 'I want to be a man! Nothing but a man!' the Maker of Things would think me most unworthy. Heaven and earth are a great forge and the Maker of Things is a master ironsmith. Can the place he is sending me to be the wrong place?" pp. 141-142 Graceful Exits How Great Beings Die 1997 Sushila Blackman

Imagine Chuang Tzu shaking his fist and screaming this just like William Shatner in the end of Star Trek II. "Laiiiiiiiiiii!"

This will either excite the hell out of you, or put you to sleep. Maybe both.

I've always thought of this analogy: Imagine a large painting, maybe a scenic view ten feet high and twenty feet wide. God is the painter. The painting is creation, and it's "done." The brushes are put away. All is good. Now, imagine the left side of the painting is "before." The far left is the beginning. The right side of the painting is "after." The far right is the end. You, me, and everything else are bits of paint on the canvas. We're conscious paint! Yay! We imagine that we are moving, and thinking, and doing. We imagine that we have control, and can affect things. But we're already painted. If the red stroke that is me meets the blue stroke that is you, is that my doing? How absurd! And when the red stroke that is me comes to and end, because we've moved along to another part of the painting, does that mean I'm dead? Again, how absurd. But this is just an analogy of mine. I'm sure it reflects the truth of the matter about as correctly as a child's coloring book does. My two cents.

There is no Batman. Batman is us.

What is the ratio among warriors who are not meditators? Warriors place themselves in situations that can end their lives in a instant. Such situations demand living in the moment. Anything else is sure path to destruction. Perhaps it is the living-in-the-moment that leads to enlightenment?

What is 'Taoist' anyway? We're talking about something with thousands upon thousands of years history. I imagine quite a bit of opinion has been injected along the way. You and I are in complete agreement. As I have said in other threads, we have knowledge and we have belief. Knowledge is based upon one's own experience. Belief is everything else. Since I can't live someone else's experience I choose to not dismiss their words off-hand, but neither do I accept them as truth. People experience lots of crazy things. If I wrote about all my experiences... but I digress. Some of us listen. Others talk. Some preach the gospel. Some even debate how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. It's all good. Amen. We all die, and death lasts forever. We're immortal but we aren't alive to enjoy it.

Enlightenment: Absolute acceptance of what is, with the understanding that you have no ability to change it. Of course, first you need to be able to see what is. That's the hard part. I'm still working on it.

Wow. So fast! Thanks!

I would like a PPD please.

Mountain lake with sunset