Very unpopular opinions

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

 

Regarding that ; 'its going to be alright'   . Do you think this is a modern thing ?   It appears to be in astrology , the old 'born under a bad sign' seems unpop .  In the old days, bad natal configuration ; Sorry , you're fucked . Better go straight to damage control    Now  ?  

 

Well, that is a terrible thing to say ..... I should be ashamed of myself !  

 

here you go  guys .... have a ' came first at the other end ' award  .

 

 

I'm pretty sure the whole "positive thinking" thing was/is a psyop.  Don't know how modern, but at some point -- I seem to recall in the 60s -- it was unleashed in earnest on the population, as an antidote to antiwar protests, to fighting injustice, inequality, poverty, tyranny, in general to making too many unsanctioned waves.  People were indoctrinated to "don't worry be happy" or else risk social stigma.  After a while it sank into the subconscious and became a self-perpetuating thing. 

 

Nothing makes me feel more forlorn than toxic positivity.   

[Nungali]

" We are sick,  hungry, and you stole our land !  "

 

" Shhhhh ......   forgiveness !  "    or   this classic one  ;  " Dont worry, after you die and go to heaven  you will get justice .....  in the meantime , learn to love your oppressors ."

 

This was one of my fav subjects  in Comparative Religion ;

 

" Here you go 'peasants', Jesus wants you to have these ."

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology

 

 

[Cobie]

 

18 minutes ago, Tommy said:

… 

 

I think that’s politics. I have reported your post. Politics is only allowed in a special subforum, you can request access, here 

https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/52830-current-events-discussion/?do=findComment&comment=1034434   

 

 

Edited July 11, 2024 by Cobie

[Nungali]

Hey ,  thats an easy way to post an unpopular opinion here (in general sub-forum )  !

 

My take on the current political situation in Gaza is  ......

[doc benway]

6 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

 

I think that’s politics. I have reported your post. Politics is only allowed in a special subforum, you can request access, here 

https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/52830-current-events-discussion/?do=findComment&comment=1034434   

 

 

 

I agree.

@Tommy - please keep political posts in Current Events. I've moved your post to the World at War thread there. 

If you do not have access to Current Events, you are welcome to request it. 

Thanks for your cooperation.

[Nungali]

I can 'psychically heal'  machinery  

 

1.  Two women looking confused at a car engine , bonnet up parked . I stop to help, " Cant get it started ? "

" No, we cant figure out what is wrong ." I look at the motor, I have no idea what I am doing , I place both hands on what I assume is the alternator ......   " Try it now ."   One gets in and it tries it and it starts first go .  The other ; " What did you just do then !? " I get in my car and drive off.

 

2. Working with a group of Aboriginal men, helping to build a bush pole construction over toilets for a festival they are having . The chainsaw will not start , they are  swearing and cursing at it , several  try , curse at it treat it rough . Me " Whoa, hold on fellahs, let me have a go .  " .... sarcastic exclamations and comments   ( as they know my 'character '    )   . I kneel down and gently stroke the chainsaw ; " Awwww , poor little fellah, they been rough and mean to you , well I won't treat you like, you are a good boy aren't you ."

Starts on 2nd gentle pull .   More exclamations but now of exasperation and  " Bullshit  !   WTF ?  "  ( My teacher is there, he has gone into a laughing fit .)

 

3. This afternoon ;   I get on the new tractor , notice an hydrophilic lead on  the 3 way front bucket is disconnected ; damn , it cant 'grab' and I want to move some big fallen logs and branches .   I drive up to the guy's place that just bought the tractor . He says he cant get the lead on . He tries several times and no go .  I look into the plug and then press the plug on the end of the lead on to the framework, the valve goes in and out , I put it on the feed plug ..... 'click'          and he is standing there  

 

I have no idea what's going on .

 

Well... this could have something to do with it ;

 

 

Spoiler

There are those three , and a few more .

 

But a 100 times , when I am by myself   and everything is fucking up and won't work and I am  " Well F YOU ! Right I am going up the shed and coming back with an fen sledge hammer ... I have F en HAD IT everting I turn my hand to today has ....

 

 

 

 

[Cobie]

10 hours ago, Nungali said:

… I have no idea what's going on . 

The true sign of enlightenment. 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2024 by Cobie

[Tommy]

On 7/11/2024 at 2:10 PM, Cobie said:

I think that’s politics. I have reported your post. Politics is only allowed in a special subforum, you can request access, here 

https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/52830-current-events-discussion/?do=findComment&comment=1034434   

I do not see the post where I said something political. Please let me know and I will delete it.

[Nungali]

On 7/12/2024 at 11:06 AM, steve said:

 

I agree.

@Tommy - please keep political posts in Current Events. I've moved your post to the World at War thread there. 

If you do not have access to Current Events, you are welcome to request it. 

Thanks for your cooperation.

 

 

What ?       It is ?

 

Jeeze I am glad  I dont   know about that .

 

 

 

Latest unpopular joke  ; 

 

 

 For sale on   eBay ;

bits of Donald Trump's ear .

 

 

Coby ! 

[old3bob]

"nothing new under the sun" 

 

 

[Mark Foote]

On 6/3/2024 at 6:28 PM, stirling said:

 

I'd still love a plain english version of what you are suggesting here.

 

 

 

The plainer English version:

Applying the Pali Instructions

"stirling" appears twice!  (thank you, from the bottom of my heart /\ )

 

Edited July 20, 2024 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

On 6/2/2024 at 5:56 PM, stirling said:

 

First jhana is concentration on the sensation of piti. There is still thought. I don't think it is possible that thought and one-pointedness co-exist.

 

Finished a post that I think gives a better explanation of this. I'll quote the part I think is particularly relevant, then give a link to the post in case you're interested in the context.
 

In the mindfulness of Gautama’s most famous sermon (Satipatthana, MN 10), the mindfulness of feelings consisted of a mindfulness of the pleasant, the painful, and the neither-pleasant-nor-painful. In the mindfulness that was Gautama’s way of living, however, the mindfulness of feelings consisted of a mindfulness of feelings of zest and ease, feelings that he also identified as belonging to the first concentration (SN 54.1, tr. PTS vol. V p 279; SN 48.10; tr. PTS vol. V p 174).

 

In my experience, the feeling of ease associated with concentration is the feeling of ease that arises from activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness. Activity of the body can follow automatically as the location of consciousness leads the balance of the body. Automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness has a feeling of ease, and initially a feeling of energy (or “zest”) as well.

 

Gautama spoke of the extension of the feeling of ease, an extension such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this… ease”. He used the words “steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses” to describe how the feeling of ease pervades the body, indicating that the feeling is accompanied by a fluid sense of gravity.

 

The extension Gautama described maintains an openness of the body to the placement of consciousness at any point, and to ease through automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness at that point.

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

 

Maybe a better explanation of "one-pointedness", from the same post:

 

Modern neuroscience now includes the study of the “bodily self”:
 

A key aspect of the bodily self is self-location, the experience that the self is localized at a specific position in space within one’s bodily borders (embodied self-location).
 

(Journal of Neuroscience 26 May 2010, 30 (21) 7202-7214; https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3403-09.2010)

 

The “self (that is) localized at a specific position in space” is commonly associated with consciousness. The Indian sage Nisargadatta spoke about “the consciousness in the body”:
 

You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of “I am”. It is without words, just pure beingness.
 

(Gaitonde, Mohan [2017]. Self – Love: The Original Dream [Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Direct Pointers to Reality]; ISBN 978-9385902833)

 

The specific position in space of “the consciousness in the body” is often assumed to be fixed somewhere behind the eyes. Zen teacher Koun Franz suggested that the location is not fixed:
 

… as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture (legs crossed in seated meditation) and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.
 

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site, parenthetical added)

 

Franz spoke about “letting go” to allow the “base of consciousness” to move away from the head. Gautama spoke about “making self-surrender the object of thought” in order to “lay hold of one-pointedness”:
 

Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.
 

(SN 48.10; tr. Pali Text Society [PTS] vol. V p 174)

 

Laying hold of “one-pointedness” is having the experience of embodied self-location wherever consciousness takes place.
 

Consciousness can be fixed in place by the exercise of will, as Gautama explained:
 

That which we will…, and that which we intend to do and that wherewithal we are occupied:–-this becomes an object for the persistence of consciousness. The object being there, there comes to be a station of consciousness….
 

But if we neither will, nor intend to do, nor are occupied about something, there is no becoming of an object for the persistence of consciousness. The object being absent, there comes to be no station of consciousness.

(SN 12.38; tr. PTS SN vol. II p 45; “persistance” in original)

 

A surrender of the exercise of will, of intention and deliberation, is necessary to allow the “base of consciousness” to move away from the head, to allow a laying-hold of “one-pointedness”.

 

(ibid)

 

 

Edited May 5 by Mark Foote

[old3bob]

Don't know about all of that Mark but i will say:

to surrender will takes will,

 

[Mark Foote]

6 hours ago, old3bob said:

Don't know about all of that Mark but i will say:

to surrender will takes will,

 

 

Gautama spoke of the extension of the feeling of ease, an extension such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this… ease”. He used the words “steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses” to describe how the feeling of ease pervades the body, indicating that the feeling is accompanied by a fluid sense of gravity.

 

The extension Gautama described maintains an openness of the body to the placement of consciousness at any point, and to ease through automatic activity of the body by virtue of the location of consciousness at that point.

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)
 

 

How to use the mind becomes "quite clear":
 

So, when you practice zazen, your mind should be concentrated in your breathing and this kind of activity is the fundamental activity of the universal being. If so, how you should use your mind is quite clear. Without this experience, or this practice, it is impossible to attain the absolute freedom.
 

(“Thursday Morning Lectures”, November 4th 1965, Los Altos; emphasis added)
 

For me, it's always been more about getting out of my head, how to use my mind, than anything else. The will only has to do with a clarity of view regarding suffering.  

The trick, though, is that thicket of thorns. If the root cause of suffering is ignorance of being, then I must find a way  to open to the point to point occurrence of embodied self-location as the source of activity, and that opening is the opening of the nerve exits between the vertebrae of the sacrum and spine. 



 

 

 

 

 

Regarding the concentration in which activity of the body is purely by virtue of the location of consciousness, by virtue of the "embodied self-location", Gautama said:
 

… it is as if (a person) might be sitting down who had clothed (themselves) including (their) head with a white cloth; there would be no part of (their) whole body that was not covered by the white cloth. 

(MN 119, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III p 134)

 

Feeling over the surface of the entire body, in each of the dermatomes of the chart above. How those nerve exits come to be open in sitting, is the topic of my latest post.

 

Edited May 13 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

On 5/13/2025 at 10:36 AM, old3bob said:

Don't know about all of that Mark but i will say:

to surrender will takes will,

 

True that Gautama said:
 

Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.
 

(SN 48.10; tr. Pali Text Society [PTS] vol. V p 174)

 

 

What I find is more like:

 

The presence of mind can utilize the location of attention to maintain the balance of the body and coordinate activity in the movement of breath, without a particularly conscious effort to do so. There can also come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.
 

(Common Ground)
 

 

Involuntary.

 

Likewise with regard to the "thought applied and sustained" of the first concentration:
 

Applying and sustaining thought would appear to be a preparatory practice, but in Gautama’s “intent concentration”, the thought comes out of necessity in the free placement of attention in the movement of breath. When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention draws out thoughts initial and sustained, and brings on the stages of concentration.

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)
 

 

Again, involuntary.

 

Nan-yueh said, "Practice and verification are not nonexistent; they are not to be defiled."

 

(“Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, Carl Bielefeldt, p 138)

 

 

Not defiled through the exercise of will.

From my current post:
 

Gautama recommended a cross-legged seated posture for “arousing” mindfulness. I believe, based on my own experience, that the cross-legged posture exacerbates the shearing stress on vertebrae of the lower spine in the movement of breath. In my experience, consciousness can take place in a specific location in response to that stress, and the location of consciousness can lead the balance of the body to engage activity in order to relieve that stress.
 

A frailty in the structure of the lower spine emerged in the 1940’s, when research demonstrated that the discs of the spine cannot, on their own, withstand the pressure of lifting significant weight...

(The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns)

 

A lot of useful kinesiology in that post, some of which I only discovered through research in the course of writing it.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:49 PM by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

That's my opinion, and it's very true popular!

[Cobie]

On 16/05/2025 at 12:51 AM, Mark Foote said:

That's my opinion, and it's very true popular

 

Okidoki it’s your truth, good for you. You look so nice in your profile picture so I will also agree, yes popular. 
 

 

Edited Friday at 10:51 PM by Cobie

[Cobie]

According to some Sinologists, most Chinese lost the ability to read Warring States period Classical Chinese around c.the time of Wang Bi (3rd century AD).

 

Edited Friday at 08:38 PM by Cobie

[Cobie]

I hear this a lot, “My teacher knows what the DDJ says, because he is Chinese.”
Really?
The DDJ was written at least 2300 years ago.

 

Can an English speaker read Beowulf?  

And that’s from ‘merely’ a 1000 ago.

 

Languages evolve.

 

 

Edited Friday at 10:33 PM by Cobie

[Cobie]

So it comes down to belief system. A Daoist will believe the received copy. Others may believe the Sinologists findings.

 

Each to his own. 
 

 

Edited Friday at 11:10 PM by Cobie

[Sanity Check]

Opening the third eye.

 

Is overrated.

[Nungali]

.....  everything he  ^   said .

 

 

 

 

 

.

Edited Saturday at 03:52 AM by Nungali

[Mark Foote]

On 5/16/2025 at 11:31 AM, Cobie said:

 

Okidoki it’s your truth, good for you. You look so nice in your profile picture so I will also agree, yes popular. 
 

As long as we're in the unpopular opinions thread, yes, I am so nice! 

[Mark Foote]

On 5/16/2025 at 6:17 PM, Sanity Check said:

Opening the third eye.

 

Is overrated.
 

Use a phillips-head!

[Nungali]

On 5/17/2025 at 8:33 AM, Cobie said:

I hear this a lot, “My teacher knows what the DDJ says, because he is Chinese.”
Really?
The DDJ was written at least 2300 years ago.

 

Can an English speaker read Beowulf?  

And that’s from ‘merely’ a 1000 ago.

 

Languages evolve.

 

 

 

Same with ancient Egyptians  ..... some of those ancient hieroglyphics were copied with out understanding what they were . Even as recently as the development of Aikido ( 1920s)  - the founder  was said to speak a form of Japanese his  Japanese students could not understand -  too old school and formal , as well as some 'conceptual' things they were having difficulty with .