RobB

How is the series as a whole? I like Adam's work - really enjoyed Hypernormalisation - but I'm not sure I currently have the fortitude for another trip down the rabbit hole of 'why everything is fucked'.

You might enjoy this talk to the (UK) Buddhist Society by John 'Maki' Evans. John is an interesting guy and an engaging speaker. Part of the talk is a discussion of a mandala relating to his school and practice as painted by one of his students. He also drops in a few references to William Blake (as per my post above) who he considers to have been an advanced Vajrayana practitioner.

Not a yoga person myself but a few people I've come across in related areas seem pretty susceptible. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-55957298

As a point of reference, as someone who works in top-tier academia (but is not an academic), I'd like to note that you can have multiple academic credentials and still be mad as a hat.

Yes, I think you've got it there. I suppose it's also reinforced by having previously found things of value by plunging down rabbit holes that no-one else was interested in.

But at what point does an inclination towards questioning accepted narratives and towards independent enquiry ( quite common amongst the martial arts/meditation community) become a vulnerability to nonsense? When you spend years or decades cultivating wisdom, discernment and insight - why are some people not proofed more effectively against this stuff?

I'm.planning to learn a bit about Ba Zi. Good time of year to start something new!

My teacher has shared the purpose/achievements of our practice as: 1. To be happy and able to flow with the changes in the world. 2. To understand the nature of reality 3. To clean up our celestial mandate prior to returning to the Dao Cheer up, wise up, clear up!

Ohh - it looks like something very odd has happened to the kwon3d webpage - seems to have been hijacked. It was valid a few days ago (https://isbweb.org/resources/software-resources/130-movement-analysis/three-d-analysis-of-human-movement/473-kwon3d)

I particularly liked this bit: What practical, actual and applied value is this question to the one who has *not come* to this point of experience?What practical, actual and applied value is this question to the one who has *actually come* to this point of experience?The answer to both of these is the same: it is *nothing*. Of course, I now have to throw my computer away and get off the internet...

@Limahong, to be honest, I have no idea. I've only just got your 'particular' joke...if, indeed, I have got it.

Local can mean something quite specific in physics when related to a frame of reference. Perhaps he means 'local' with reference to time as this page explains 'local' in reference to space http://www.kwon3d.com/theory/transform/refrm.html

I sit on a chair.

I'm having a bit of a spring clean so my diet is pretty basic at the moment. Tonight was some peppered belly pork, roasted in the oven for about 40mins until crispy around the edges then chopped up on a pile of broccoli and cabbage. Yesterday was a standard - chicken in broth. About 1/2 litre of chicken stock, flavoured with garlic, ginger, some sort of dried mushrooms I have in the cupboard and a pinch of wakame. Stick a chicken breast in to poach then vegetables that you have to hand. Last night was some mushrooms and choi sum. I think there might have been broccoli again. Works well with salmon and prawns instead of the chicken. Day before that was a fry up of onion, cooked brussel sprouts, mushrooms and chorizo. There are worse diets!

So, where do you Bums perch your...bums... during your practice?

Beng Chuan. 😄

One of the issues for Government of any mass-medication programme is that a non-zero percentage of people will have an adverse reaction. It's a cost-benefit decision. I wasn't happy about the proposed UK approach to Swine flu vaccine as I didn't think the flu risk was clear. I'm OK with the idea of mass vaccination for COVID.

I like the suggestion above about trying a change of practice to one that focusses on the breath. This would couple an attention-boosting practice with observation of physical sensation rather than mental process - which may be useful. As a side effect your breath may lengthen and relax, releasing physical tension and increasing oxygenation (more Qi!).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/daoism-religion/ Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy Table of contents: 1. Early Daoist Texts 1.1 Laozi and the Daode jing 1.2 Zhuangzi 2. Origins of Daoist Religion 2.1 Exorcism and “Shamanism” 2.2 “Far Roaming” 2.3 The Fangshi, or Masters of the Methods 2.4 Huang-Lao Daoism 2.5 The Divinization of Laozi 3. Main Schools and Lineages 3.1 Tianshi dao 3.2 The “Southern Tradition” 3.3 Shangqing and Lingbao 3.4 The “Three Caverns” 3.5 Tang and Five Dynasties 3.6 New Lineages in the Song Dynasty 3.7 Quanzhen 4. Dao and Cosmos 4.1 The Dao and the “Ten Thousand Things” 4.2 Essence, Breath, Spirit 4.3 Cosmogony 4.4 Cosmology 5. Gods and Rituals 5.1 Daoist Heavens 5.2 The Pantheon 5.3 The Function of Writing 5.4 Rituals 6. Soteriology 6.1 The Immortals 6.2 “Feigning Death” 6.3 Re-Generation in Life 7. Views of the Human Body 7.1 Terminology 7.2 Models of “Symbolic Body” 7.3 Main Components and Loci 8. “Nourishing Life” 8.1 Practices 8.2 Criticism 9. Meditation 9.1 Inner Gods 9.2 The One and the Three Ones 9.3 “Pacing the Celestial Net” 9.4. Contemplation 10. The External and the Internal Elixirs 10.1 Waidan or External Alchemy 10.2 Alchemy and Cosmology 10.3 Neidan or Internal Alchemy Bibliography Academic Tools Other Internet Resources

I'm sure you're right. Very much a beginner's definition but, that's where I am! 😄

Andrew Nugent-Head had a great video, about two hours long, on the meaning of Qi. Most of it was him reading out the definitions of the different types from the dictionary. For some reason, the fact that he mentioned several relating to the aviation industry has stuck with me :-). @Desmonddf's post seems spot on to me. It's a multi-use Chinese word entirely dependent on context. In our school, and in the context of practice, we start by equating 'qi' to 'vitality' and go from there...

You could try prunes. minimum 4 per day. Give it a couple of weeks and see if that helps.

Oh well - that's me screwed then!