Ryan T.

I actually found Maher's views to be just as extreme as many of those he was interviewing/skewering. He came at the whole project with his worldview absolutely set in place and nowhere does he open himself up seeing another view. In fact I found most of the people interviewed were so extreme so as to only perpetuate his thesis about religion. "I certainly believe, honestly, religion is detrimental to the progress of humanity. You know, it's just selling an invisible product...it's too easy." He went out to prove his ideas and chose those that would give his ideas the most credence.

Are you referring to the soup-like mixture that contains beans(sometimes), tomatoes, onions, spices and meat? Or chili peppers? Sounds to me like you are referencing peppers.

So you're coming onto a Taoist discussion board to find out what people feel would be the spiritual ramifications of you doling out vigilante justice with "your pistol". I believe that is what you are asking, either that or you just want to increase your "street cred" here on the internets. Either way this is my response: "Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them. Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint. Peace is his highest value. If the peace has been shatteered, how can he be content? His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn't wish them personal harm. Nor does her rejoice in victory. could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men? He enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if he were attending a funeral." Tao Te Ching, 31 Stephen Mitchell translation In my opinion you seem to take too much pleasure in the act of or the idea of exacting revenge from those you believe have wronged or will wrong you. Either that or you have a lingering unresolved anger that puts your mind on this path. It may feel good to take your revenge or think about as you do but when all is done your pain will remain.

Hot green or white tea are some of the best cooling beverages. Avoid chilled/cold beverages.

Everything I have read and heard through various survivors is that the destruction near complete. Taoism in China as it was is now a cartoon of itself. That isn't to say that there isn't still great wisdom to be gathered up. Now it is spread across the planet and China is much less the focal point.

Find a Spring!

And it definitely sounds like you do. But generalizations about "excessive, unneeded scans in ERs" take the problems of the overall healthcare system out of focus and fail to recognize the merits of our system. Again, I don't say there aren't issues like you mention. I just think the larger issues have to do with insurance companies and ,more importantly, the general public's lack of understanding of health and how behavior affects health. They also have no concept of cost either. Why does a 24 healthy young man who "hurt his neck while weightlifting" on a Saturday think that it is appropriate to be at the ER a second time the following Wednesday? Does he not have insurance? Does he not understand what EMERGENCY ROOM means? Does he not have a regular doctor because his insurance switches every two years? By entering that environment with those types of complaints he is going to receive thousands of dollars in tests and services. We have a tremendously high level to the quality of our care in the United States. Some just get more than they need and others get none.

Now my experiences are strictly anecdotal but... It has been my experience with every ER doc that I have seen or known that they only do tests that they feel is necessary to rule out any/everything that cannot be be gathered from history, incident or talking with the patient. It should also be understood that anyone accepted into an ER is accepted under the assumption that they are having an actual emergency. Bringing up ERs in the context of quality healthcare is strictly belt-lining. And your characterization of ER doctors as being lazy or not having good diagnostic skills is ridiculous! Overwhelmed perhaps. Our doctors are still in the top tier for training in all the world. Period. Systemically things in healthcare are not nearly as good as they could be and in some cases things are downright terrible. I see it more as a failing of the insurance side of things than of the medicine itself. But again, to bring up anything regarding ERs in the healthcare debate misses the forest for the trees!

I don't know about the specific tea you mention but I have sampled many forms of pu-erh. It is an aged tea, usually semi-fermented(oolong). It has a terrific fat-cleansing effect. It will actually help flush out triglycerides from a person's blood. Usually I avoid pu-erhs because of this. I really don't need anything that results in weight-loss. Plus, I find them a bit too musty for my taste. I tend to like teas to taste a little less foggy. The really old pu-erhs can be quite expensive. I'm talking like 40 and 50 year old teas. Pretty cool if I think about it.

Gyokuro is highest grade of Japanese green tea. But that doesn't mean it is the best, just the highest grade that Japan has to offer. Really good Chinese greens are too numerous to mention and pointless to try to qualify. I personally have always been most taken by a certain Taiwanese tung ting style Oolong that I have seen referred to as Jade Oolong. Very creamy and floral. Closer to green than black but not as grassy as say a Pouchong or a true green tea. Very balanced semi-fermented tea.

Of course he does Taiji. He's frickin' MacGyver! And he's getting paid to do it.

I understand the argument that MPG is saying. He says he is upfront with his not wanting children and that should be "enough" honesty. I just think it is only part of the psychology of the relationship. I think most people would agree that when you get into a relationship even though you are told the way something "is" you still have a hope that it may change with that person in the future. Anyone who doesn't recognize every person's idea that eventually the other person will come around an idea has not looked at their relationships very closely. So to say "Well I told her up front that I didn't want kids" is not enough if we honestly are looking at the situation and honestly care about the other person's feelings. An argument can be made that says well it doesn't matter if she thought I would change my mind because I told her my stance on the issue. But she doesn't understand how made up your mind is until she knows that you physically altered yourself to make sure that it could NEVER happen. The way this seems to keep getting stated is that MPG has had a woman/women leave him once they find/found out that he was sterilized so his rationale is that by not being forthright about his sterilization he is able to keep them in the relationship. Would not the flip of that being a woman who gets pregnant to keep the man in the relationship? Both situations seem self-serving at best. I sense a fair amount of pain around the issue for MPG so I can't say that he is absolutely incorrect to take this stance. We tend to protect ourselves when we suffer these types of emotional traumas. But we also need to go back later and look at the situation and see if it is has at all altered our moral compass.

You do know that there are more than just the two alternatives? It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

While I agree that women, whether they know it or not, are slaves to a biological need to reproduce. I find it a bit disturbing that you suggest that a person should actively hide sterility in a relationship. Why wouldn't a man just be an adult and be forthcoming with this information and the reasons behind it? Why go down any road with someone without complete honesty? Seems to me like it creates more problems than it solves. As far as having the procedure or not, I would say it all depends on your situation and your state. If you know that you do not want to take a chance that you could father a child but you still want the pleasure of the act then you should do it. If you were to father a child, having that child (and this is just my opinion based on my personal experiences) could/would dramatically impact your cultivation practice much more than having your body being unaltered. You really just need to do your own math on this one. Like any other decision a person makes there should be some cost-benefit analysis.

Perhaps in forums like this one. But even the examples you site of the growth of yoga and meditation practices are hardly divorced from materialism. If fact I would say at worst this trend is vanity and at best a form of spiritual materialism. Very few follow these paths with any true depth. It all gets commoditized in the end.

The New World Order that I have seen theorized about for some decades now is not the order that seems to be coming to fruition. It is less about a taken and maintained financial and political control of the peoples of the world and more about a general secularizing, commoditizing and dehumanizing of our world. sum up succinctly what I believe are the main problems that are to be struggled against in today's world. Basically, it comes down to the spiritual vs. the material. And most seem to be choosing the material. Nothing is being taken from us. We are giving it all to the powers that be.

How about you focus your energy elsewhere? Stop focusing on masturbating, ejaculating and porn. Go do something for someone else. Go be of service. Good luck!

Tai Chi for sure. Plus, MBTs might help with your recovery process as well.

It actually is all grains. It goes like this... If this is the whole of the time that humans have been on the planet, _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. Then this is how long humans have been eating grains, ________. None to long relative to how long we have been around. Sixteen thousand years or whatever since the advent of agriculture is not really all that long for our bodies to adapt to something that we didn't eat the previous two-hundred thousand years. And when we did start eating grains we went to the max. Some would even say that the advent of agriculture and a safe, steady food supply is root of all of our modern problems. Once we started to farm grains we needed more and more land. The nation-state springs directly from that need to control more and more land to feed a continually growing population. But I digress. So basically our bodies just haven't had time to adjust to this newer food source.

It seems to me from what you have described is that you have some severe expectations of what life is supposed to provide for you. That in turn is leading to some serious resentments. Remember: you are responsible for the input, not the outcome. You may wake up every day with your little plans for yourself and your life and your world but those plans have little to do with what things will end up as. The fact that you are contemplating suicide(or have) in relation to these feelings speaks volumes. It sounds to me like you need to learn to live life on life's terms. Like others have stated, you may want to consider some professional help. And that is not to say that the "demons of conspiracy" aren't plotting against you. They may well be. But I don't know if that is necessarily any different for anyone else. We just deal with it.

My experiences seem to be different from that of yours. My experience is that many, I would even go so far as to say most, people initiate change in their lives because of pain/discomfort and the like that they have put themselves in. I would not wish these painful experiences on anyone. I just know that that is how most people are able make themselves more of what they would like to be...by seeing or feeling what they don't want to be. And the sad reality is that most, even though you tell them and tell them, will not find a good teacher and will not follow the form or practice or whatever the way it is supposed to be practiced until they run into that pain or discomfort. Does it need to happen? No. Will it continue to happen? Yes. We will have to agree to disagree on this. I think closings should be utilized. But many will not utilize the closings, they should still practice. They will get to where they need to be in spite of what is you or I might say or write. The end is important in all things.

Saying "sometimes" is a little more ambiguous than your previous statement. And I don't disagree that it is important to have closings, nor do I disagree that there CAN be negative affects of not using it when it is very much called for. But for most people practices like we are talking about are all a part of their life path. There will be wrong turns and sometimes some doubling back to where you began. But does that mean those people should have never started down that path? Do not many find these paths as a means to overcome or discard laziness or any other unwanted characteristic? And sometimes the only way, and I mean the ONLY way, that people will learn and become what they can be is through these foibles. And I rarely roll my eyes in ignorance...just at absolutism!

Riiiiiiiiight. Because nothing is better than something? While I personally agree that closings are an integral piece of every set, I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water.

Your path is your path. You must ultimately make the decisions that you feel are best for your long-term health and well-being. That being said. You don't describe your work environment in any real negative light. I would be asking myself if I want to look at other employment due to lack of job satisfaction or due to some belief that a person needs to be working in nature or with plants and such in order to achieve a higher spiritual practice. Because the latter just isn't necessarily the case. A person can work among people(even in front of computers all day) and still have a beautiful, thriving spiritual practice. In whatever your practice is, are you taking advantage of every opportunity that your more economically comfortable living currently affords you to have a deeper practice? Are you trying to leave the "rat race" so to speak or are you just running from your own inability to do what you need/want to do for yourself? "Wherever you go, there you are." Good luck.