On the nature and utility of 'goal posts' in meditative and energetic practice

[Taoist Texts]

13 hours ago, Pak_Satrio said:

Come on, what is even the point of these stupid questions. 

Thats what i meant above. No rational dialog possible.

14 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

How do you know that the moon is made of green cheese? How did you arrive at that conclusion? How confident are you? 

1] Thank you for quite rationally  not denying it outright. Means the cheese-moon is a possibility!

2] We see cheese and we see the moon hence the cheese-moon. There is even  a wiki for it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_is_made_of_green_cheese so it must  be true

3] i am very open minded and not biased against it. Thanks for being likewise

4] PS government conspiracy

14 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

Unless you are saying that people who claim to have experienced siddhis or abnormal events are somehow beyond all reason and logic

When you go around the streets you might have noticed large buildings full of people singing dancing talking to an invisible old man in the sky. They are  very keen  on siddhis and abnormal events. On reason and logic - not so much.

[freeform]

Equating the idea that ‘the moon is made of cheese’ and that ‘it’s possible to generate qi that can affect physical matter’ is neither logical nor skeptical - it’s just purely cynical.

 

Skepticism is important - cynicism not so much.

 

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large buildings full of people singing dancing talking to an invisible old man in the sky.

great example of cynicism… and I don’t see what’s so logical about ridiculing billions of people on earth with some silly unoriginal narrative you just made up.

 

(this is actually on-topic, I promise!)

[Indiken]

48 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

Skepticism is important - cynicism not so much.

 

With all due respect,

 

I agree that people have to be respectful in a sense of not expressing anger and contempt even to things which they do not understand and which look silly to them, but...

 

I am very ignorant on the topic, but it seems you are using folk (peasant ) concept of "cynicism" as something disrespectful. As far as I remember Cynicism is a school of philosophy: for example Wikipedia says: "For the Cynics, the purpose of life is to live in virtue, in agreement with nature. As reasoning creatures, people can gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which is natural for themselves, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, and fame, and even flouting conventions openly and derisively in public.", which for me, the ignorant, seems very similar to Daoists (and other bums ). 

 

Also, in my opinion you are using the "acquired mind" here, I guess simply transferred from society. If you would stop and wait for emotions to pass, I arrive at the conclusion that "large buildings full of people singing dancing talking to an invisible old man in the sky." is a valid rational statement. I think it is similar to delusions, schizophrenia. But this is just a tiny piece of the puzzle. They have their motives and it seems not all understand. 

 

48 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

(this is actually on-topic, I promise!)

 

It seems I am guilty of this also. 

[mcoolio]

On 2/1/2023 at 8:05 AM, Taoist Texts said:

It seems, the OP asks: these traditional achievements (goalposts)  are obviously fantastic so its either:

A] the tradition lies. OR. B] these words do not mean what they mean (they are metaphors).

I did not see the direct answer to this dilemma on the preceding 17 pages, so here it is. The answer is the goalposts are literal and real but only subjectively. When you achieve them, to you,  they will be as literally real as a chair you sit on but only in your mind's reality. They will not exist for anyone else.

 

Ahhhh, I see now 

Your posts from the past weeks, ... very insightful. (not in terms of shared knowledge about dao and spirituality though)

 

On 2/1/2023 at 8:05 AM, Taoist Texts said:

(That said of course there are people who claim that fantastic miracles like siddhi etc are objectively real, a claim that cannot be reasonably discussed.)

 

Yea, why not simply close up the whole forum. These things just cannot be discussed rationally, right?

[Taoist Texts]

8 minutes ago, mcoolio said:

These things just cannot be discussed rationally, right?

We can always try;)

[freeform]

11 minutes ago, Indiken said:

seems you are using folk (peasant ) concept of "cynicism"

Haha - yes totally using the low level peasant meaning of the word and not the philosophical origin (which sounds great ).

 

I don’t think (peasant level) cynicism is disrespectful.
 

Generally the cynic is someone intelligent… who sees himself as intelligent - and is awfully frightened of being labelled as unintelligent or gullible by others… so they deny things outside their narrow experience as a method of self protection - protection against believing the wrong thing… protection against losing status amongst their peers.

 

One of the major tools of the cynic is ridicule and denigration… this tool, I find is disrespectful (though sometimes funny)… but the cynicism it comes from I just find it sad… understandable but sad.

[Indiken]

2 minutes ago, freeform said:

Generally the cynic is someone intelligent… who sees himself as intelligent - and is awfully frightened of being labelled as unintelligent or gullible by others… so they deny things outside their narrow experience as a method of self protection - protection against believing the wrong thing… protection against losing status amongst their peers.

 

One of the major tools of the cynic is ridicule and denigration… this tool, I find is disrespectful (though sometimes funny)… but the cynicism it comes from I just find it sad… understandable but sad.

 

Guilty me, most of the time. 

 

One of the issue is not a healthy body. There have to be some "body reserves" for a person to take that which he do not approve with calm.

[freeform]

26 minutes ago, Indiken said:

If you would stop and wait for emotions to pass, I arrive at the conclusion that "large buildings full of people singing dancing talking to an invisible old man in the sky." is a valid rational statement. I think it is similar to delusions, schizophrenia. But this is just a tiny piece of the puzzle. They have their motives and it seems not all understand. 

This might seem rational - but it’s simply wilful ignorance and intellectual laziness.

 

How many Christians have you talked to? There are billions of them… what’s your sample size?

How many of these billions truly believe there’s a magical dude in the sky who grants wishes?

 

Some of them - sure.

 

But not all of them. I’d say many millions of people don’t believe that at all - but they’re still Christians.
 

In reality you know this is true, I’m sure…

 

But a nuanced perspective wouldn’t fit the narrative you’ve constructed… so you make a caricature of millions of people to ridicule them…

 

This is wilful ignorance. This is cynicism.

 

It’s exactly the sort of ‘rationality’ the Catholic Church used to denounce Galileo…

 

[freeform]

3 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

large buildings full of people singing dancing talking to an invisible old man in the sky

Incidentally - Daoists are far worse!

 

They're in large courtyards burning fake money and little paper models of mobile phones, cars and other gadgets so that their dead relatives have everything they need on the other side.

 

Alchemists - even worse - they’re into sucking up semen into their brains coz they think that’ll make them get pregnant and then they’ll be able to birth a little immortal baby version of themselves!

 

[Indiken]

7 minutes ago, freeform said:

This might seem rational - but it’s simply wilful ignorance and intellectual laziness.

 

How many Christians have you talked to? There are billions of them… what’s your sample size?

How many of these billions truly believe there’s a magical dude in the sky who grants wishes?

 

Some of them - sure.

 

But not all of them. I’d say many millions of people don’t believe that at all - but they’re still Christians.
 

In reality you know this is true, I’m sure…

 

But a nuanced perspective wouldn’t fit the narrative you’ve constructed… so you make a caricature of millions of people to ridicule them…

 

This is wilful ignorance. This is cynicism.

 

It’s exactly the sort of ‘rationality’ the Catholic Church used to denounce Galileo…

 

 

Off-topic alert! 

 

I agree.

I would call this intellectual generalization, thinking in stereotypes.

Having dealt with clinical depression and read a few books about this topic, there is tendency for depressive person to mentally generalize and fatalize: for example, if a man was rejected by woman in a mocking way, he might assume that this will be the case with other women...

 

But somehow I have a feeling that you are using the same cynicism now...

[Taoist Texts]

19 minutes ago, freeform said:

relatives have everything they need on the other side.

i make food and drink offerings to mine every week. Seriously, i do.

[Wilhelm]

3 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

Thats what i meant above. No rational dialog possible.

I tried a couple times to start one, but you just gave me the googly eyes and left!

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 abnormal events. On reason and logic - not so much.

btw this is all off topic and I'm friggin telling the mods

 

 

[Barnaby]

2 minutes ago, Wilhelm said:

btw this is all off topic

 

Welcome to TDB 

[Wilhelm]

2 minutes ago, Barnaby said:

Welcome to TDB 

 

[Taoist Texts]

14 minutes ago, Wilhelm said:

I tried a couple times to start one, but you just gave me the googly eyes and left!

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I'm not sure that particular abstraction is useful here, sir.

 

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

All this pseudo-intellectualism is honestly quite boring which is a shame since this thread’s topic is very interesting.

 

Anyways, how about amrita as a physical goal post that others can verify?

[Wilhelm]

4 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

 

Oh.  Yeah I didn't see what a green cheesed moon had to do with the physical experience of Qi 🤷 but if the googly eyes meant you'd like to agree to disagree on this one then fair enough

[freeform]

6 hours ago, Pak_Satrio said:

how about amrita as a physical goal post that others can verify?

Pretty simple (but slightly gross) one to verify…

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

2 minutes ago, freeform said:

Pretty simple (but slightly gross) one to verify…

Don’t kink shame!

[forestofemptiness]

23 hours ago, freeform said:

Even if you have a stroke or a brain lesion, the spirit remains transformed… the various subtle bodies remain transformed.

 

The issue is that a set of finite, impermanent causes or conditions produce finite, impermanent effects. They cannot give rise to a permanent, non-finite result-- it would be like fire producing darkness, or constructing space out of wood and steel. 

 

23 hours ago, freeform said:

I’ve actually been in the presence of one such master - and despite being unable to speak or move much, just being in his presence I was filled bliss and my practice (and sleep) was greatly altered when staying at his compound.

 

Intense spiritual experiences, while certainly valuable to the seeker, do not necessarily carry any truth value. Plenty of people have intense and ecstatic experiences that they claim validate tradition claims. In addition, for every person who feels an intense presence in around a realized person, many people feel nothing. We can say that they lack sensitivity, but really we are just valuing our subjective impressions over others. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[EFreethought]

34 minutes ago, freeform said:

Pretty simple (but slightly gross) one to verify…

Per wikipedia, "amrita" means immortality. Is that what you guys mean by it?

 

And when you say "gross": as in disgusting, or easy to detect/not subtle?

 

[freeform]

9 minutes ago, forestofemptiness said:

The issue is that a set of finite, impermanent causes or conditions produce finite, impermanent effects. They cannot give rise to a permanent, non-finite result-- it would be like fire producing darkness, or constructing space out of wood and steel.

They can create the conditions for ‘permanent effects’ to arise of their own accord. You clear the the dust from the lens so the light may shine - you don’t cause the light to shine.

 

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Intense spiritual experiences, while certainly valuable to the seeker, do not necessarily carry any truth value. Plenty of people have intense and ecstatic experiences that they claim validate tradition claims. In addition, for every person who feels an intense presence in around a realized person, many people feel nothing. We can say that they lack sensitivity, but really we are just valuing our subjective impressions over others. 

Are you really trying to ‘debunk’ a friendly anecdote I told in passing?

[freeform]

5 minutes ago, EFreethought said:

Per wikipedia, "amrita" means immortality. Is that what you guys mean by it?

 

And when you say "gross": as in disgusting, or easy to detect/not subtle?

Oh the Amrita in many traditions is the name given to a kind of very sweet saliva that begins to form when a certain inner process is underway.

 

The test for it is ‘gross’ - as in a bit disgusting - because you have to taste another person’s saliva to verify it 

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

12 minutes ago, EFreethought said:

Per wikipedia, 

Ah I see you are a scholar as well!

[EFreethought]

1 minute ago, Pak_Satrio said:

Ah I see you are a scholar as well!

 

Got to start somewhere.