bradley

but wait--what's that rub? sweet smell of smoke and corn bread pat's friday burnt ends

this makes sense. see i thought they got that from the wesley snipes movie for some reason, but its all coming together for me now, yes okay, fine, japan is much more east of china than west.

I was just kidding. "Western Origins of Yijing." I guess its the "Western Origins" that still bugs me. Granted, everything west of china is west of china, including china itself and japan if you row across two oceans. The article is actually pretty interesting, though, I only now just read it Isn't the hypothesis just that the Yellow Emperor possibly came from an indo-european-derivative speaking people, alright ill say it, from the West....? Kublai Kahn was a mongol, though and doesn't mean everything in the Yuan-period came from mongolia... Seems like he focuses on the culture that has been attributed to "indo-europeans" like agricultural practices and the use of chariots and then the yijing and doaism itself, but isn't it possible for those cultural things like chariots and agriculture to migrate through ordinary cultural exchange independently. Also it seemed like the arguments about the Yijing and doaism were a little tenuous. First of all, the fact that different cultures have the number 3, does not mean a whole lot. I for one worship 7, but that's just me. I think he is just using that to support his yellow emperor theory, but feels like there is a lot of conjecture in there, though I dont know. If the question is whether there was cultural exchange in china with indo european speaking peoples in the bronze age, Seems like the answer is yes. how could there not be. The bronze age was a groovy time, baby.

i should have said not "necessarily" a people, in the same way that you cannot generalize that engligh speakers are from england, nor that english are french normans. I dont know much of anything about this, except what I pretend to in my head, so I will let you all go on. Seems pretty tenuous to me though to say that Europeans invented the root all of chinese culture, so to speak, but then again, any thing good that ever existed, came from the west, baby. also aussie football is legit.

if you are going to give up your soul to be rich, the 70s was the time to do it. sort of the height of analog american culture, before the start of the great digital downfall of man... : ) plus ive been watching a lot of Columbo.

indo-european is a proto language, not a people. it is not "western." otherwise india would be in the west. even if the article hypothesis is correct, which i kinda doubt, it just means that it came from some people who spoke some derivative of indo eu language. sanskrit is indo european, but doesn't mean buhddism has anything to do with western culture. americans speak english, but does not mean the english invented football ( you know, the real football where people smash into each other, not the wimpy one americans call soccer ... just kidding )

who needs a soul if you're rich... ( just kidding) but serious though, it'd be nice to be rich, you know like crazy rich. also be nice to be living in the 1970s, diving those awesome cars and calling people on your land line telephone, from the office in your mansion, of course, with my sectretary tapping away correspondences on her typewriter in the room next door. you know shes kind of cute, but Id never. meanwhile my private cook is making prime rib in the kitchen for dinner. oh i can smell it from here. oh yes, tomorrow there is an art auction, im going to buy some for my mansion, we still appreciate physical things in the 1970s. and i need to meet jane for tennis at 10:00 tomorrow, before lunch. going to be a busy day

oh the dao of debits and credits...

One aspect of Liber Null that resonated with me was the use of laughter. Do other magical systems incorporate anything like this, or is it specific to Chaos Magic? It’s amazing how liberating laughter can be. Quote: Consider laughter: it is the highest emotion, for it can contain any of the others from ecstasy to grief. It is its own opposite. Crying is merely an underdeveloped form of it which cleanses the eyes and summons assistance to infants. Laughter is the only tenable attitude in a universe which is a joke played upon itself. The trick is to see that joke played out even in the neutral and ghastly events which surround one. It is not for us to question the universe’s apparent lack of taste. Seek the emotion of laughter at what delights and amuses, seek it in whatever is neutral or meaningless, seek it even in what is horrific and revolting. Though it may be forced at first, one can learn to smile inwardly at all things.

here we go again : )

dude let the Jurassic park thing go.

I dont think we should just take Shaun C R Ramsden's word for it and does it even matter. Indo-European is a proto-language not necessarily a culture or people. The fact that Mexican's speak Spanish does not make a spicy burrito any less tasty, nor imply that it came from madrid.

I don't think its quite "switch off your mind" Though, idk. I think its more not clinging onto to thoughts as they arise, like the dzogchen technique. Like if you are driving down the freeway, your mind is very active, but that activity arises naturally. But if you are consciously thinking, oh yeah there is a turn up there, and I need to turn the steering wheel to the right 5 degrees, and then back two degrees, while letting off of the accelerator, and consciously trying to think through every movement, your car is going to be all over the place. just drive the f-ing car, and dont worry about it. I don't really know anything about this, or if that is what she was saying, but I agree on the cat thing. Now the real hero in the story is the monk who stole the tofu, and got away with it. This required some planning on his part.

I think you are on to something here. I was up all night thinking about this. There are so many inconsistencies in the story. First, cats generally don't eat tofu. Second, tofu is denser than water and typically does not float. It would be quite a miraculous thing if the density of a single piece were to instantaneously change causing it to float to the surface. Finally cats hate water, and it seems unlikely that one would be digging through milky tofu water in the middle of the night. Maybe I've been watching too much Columbo, but all of these little things add up to this: It was not a cat that stole the tofu, it was the sentry, and he just blamed it on a cat.

Cat bowl is broken hungry fur skims owners leg feigning affection

For breakfast - you’ll live forever! Agreed - you will live forever.

What do you think about chen style? ive been learning the chen competition frame an i am hooked...

tobaco is nightshade, so that makes sense. there are lots of other chemicals in nightshade too. like solanine, which is poisonous and also keeps insects away. thats why you shouldnt eat green tomatoes, at least in abundace, nor smoke them for that matter...

i think the smoke is bad for you, but there are losenges an patches, for example, where you dont smoke. granted being addicted to anything is not good but just thinking aloud (via my fingers...) i would actually say beans are the key to longevity. maybe avacados. : )

are there health benefits of nicotine? i.e. not the smoke itself? I heard (maybe on this site, actually) that is preventative against alzheimers? They have nicotine lozenges that one can take, for example.

I don't know. I do appreciate your perspectives and views, though. There are so many ways to approach living, and at least from my perspective, it does not really matter which approach one takes, so long as it is done with a kind and open heart. There are so many incredible people from all sorts of different traditions out there. I met the most wonderful fellow from kurdistan at a coffee shop today. He was a christian and would not stop talking about his love of god, and the kindness he sees in everyone he meets wherever he goes. It made my day. I dont think any one tradition can claim a monopoly on the answers to existential questions nor "enlightenment" in general. To me enlightenment is more like a sparkle that you can just see in peoples eyes when you speak with them. Ive come to realize that I don't really need to know the answers to existential or metaphysical questions to live a meaningful and fulfilling life. I just have to be. That's why I liked the video. I do find esoteric approaches and ideas interesting though, and sometimes try them out, hopefully with the same spirit of "just being". That is why I also like reading yours and others perspectives.

What functions and authority are there to unfold other than being? Did you watch the video? I liked it.

Thank you for sharing. Was it or "Dont Know Mind" or "DoNo Mind" ? Seems like "dono mind" is similar to the Wu Wei concept? interested if anyone who watched the video agrees/disagrees. Does it matter what your essence is? If one were to discover and scientifically understand one's true essence, as some sort of magical spiritual object or otherwise, what would be gained? A tofu-stealing cat does not need to know it is a cat to be a cat. I think the point of the video was that by ceasing to seek answers to esoteric questions, one is free to be what one is. PS, I also very much appreciate your posts on this site, Tommy : )

this can be said for many ancient texts. the problem is that the copy machine was not invented until the mid-1900's, so real people were assigned the task of manually copying down what was written, as well as translating from other languages. so there is this monk named bert, and he loves cats, so he casually slips into a document a cat allegory, about how cats are the highest form of being. next thing you know, 2000 years later, people are worshiping cats, and walking on all fours, wearing cat masks and cat suits, etc.

Also the microwave oven! Wikipedia: In 1945, the heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was independently and accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer from Howland, Maine. While employed at Raytheon, he noticed that microwaves from an active radar set he was working on started to melt a candy bar he had in his pocket. The first food deliberately cooked by Spencer was popcorn, and the second was an egg, which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters. Apparently there is still an ongoing controversy about what kind of chocolate bar invented the microwave.