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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 17, 2015 - 09:08am PT
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I'm envisioning a half Hartouni, half Trotter colossus destroying Sedona right now, leaving a trail of flattened Range Rovers in its wake.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 17, 2015 - 09:17am PT
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Hitlers swastika was the a reversed swastika from the original transcendental impersonal swastika which was common all over the planet.
This how one can easily see how the gross materialists misuse these transcendental symbols ......
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 17, 2015 - 09:50am PT
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Snappy dressers, though.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 17, 2015 - 10:11am PT
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Nope.
I do not write any of the "Eastern traditions" off. Never have. Quite the opposite. Why, I even glean significant benefit from them. The paddling comment (do I actually need to explain this?) was a tongue in cheek parody of Loves' beaten to death "Eastern stuff is better" cliche. Don't get me wrong, paddling is a real practice from which one can gain much insight. The ocean makes a fine teacher - even if she's a bit harsh at times. But it's just one of many practices one can engage in...as is meditation.
I will readily admit that I can be...mmm...impatient with people who are not quick on the uptake with regards to recognizing what I consider to be pretty obvious satire or parody. I must select pals who are of a similar nature - probably why its so fkn fun when we get together.
I'm just saying that a 'this is better than that' argument is childish is all. Do ya play pop music, Love? Can you dance like Michael Jackson? If you could - I'd wager you'd STFU about it's relative worth as a practice.
Is the hick who can hit an aspirin tossed in the air with a long bow 'less profound or evolved' than a yogi? Is his practice somehow less valuable?
What if he practices archery to Lynyrd Skynyrd (sp?) ? What then?
I would say the meditationalists here do have one market cornered: Egocentric thinking fueled by good old fashioned tribalismo.
Not terribly evolved IMO, really. I'm underwhelmed.
Different strokes.
Plus, they've proven to be really, really lousy at grokking the statements of others, even as they rant the opposite - driven by their internal need to cast themselves as 'teacher' and those they really know nothing about as 'student' or 'clueless'.
I do 'write off' the idea of a 'universal watcher' or any process that lies outside the physical universe - for lack of evidence. Experience alone- given the proven fallibility of memory - is not repeatable evidence. And one cannot 'turn memory making off' when conscious and remember enough to report just that, by definition.
My statements are extremely limited in scope and bounded. I spend most of my time in this discussion burning straw men.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 17, 2015 - 10:35am PT
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Well, news flash - you've assumed wrong. I do not write it off. Nor do I need to have any history at all of any practice not to write that practice off. That makes zero sense.
I think it's called 'having an open mind'.
I could go into my own personal meditative practices, but really, who cares? They're personal, and this is definitely not the forum for that.
What's amusing to me is the whole 'competitive meditation' theme promulgated by the meditationalists. I don't know how a person can take themselves seriously wielding such a ridiculous viewpoint, but apparently, they very much do. I suppose I could do some chest bumping about paddling or something and join the clown show.
Please validate me!
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 17, 2015 - 01:55pm PT
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Two years ago I read a book on Mindfulness Meditation and one central theme is that anything can become a practice.
Apparently, that idea is not universally accepted among meditationalists, but it seemed to fit well with my experience and that of those around me, so I adopted it.
And that is the idea that I'm espousing here.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Mar 17, 2015 - 03:26pm PT
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TT quoted "Hard not to "be here now" while fly-fishing. Wading in the middle of a stream while taking note of the insects hatching off the water with ears a tuned to the slurp slurp of dining fish puts me in the now moment every time.......If this is TVash's thesis then I agree.....just my two cents from yet another gross materialist.
The comparison of meditation practice to activities typically misses the point because the activities referenced are often the ones we really love to do ie paddling , fishing, running, climbing etc.. Meditation practice is more helpful when it comes to being in the moment for activities we don't like ie illness, traffic jams , being fired, basically when things don't go the way "I" wants them to go. I call it wanting a hamburger at the hot dog stand. Suffering can be defined as wanting things to be different then they are; meditation can be very helpful in recognizing that we often cause our own suffering by not recognizing that we can't get hamburgers at the hotdog stand. Meditation practice can be helpful to decrease the time it takes to see things as they are rather than how we want them.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Mar 17, 2015 - 08:35pm PT
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Meditation practice is more helpful when it comes to being in the moment for activities we don't like ie illness, traffic jams , being fired, basically when things don't go the way "I" wants them to go
This is so much more acceptable to me than the metaphysical approach. But I think the word meditation has quite a few interpretations, including the moving meditation of climbing.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Mar 17, 2015 - 08:51pm PT
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One of my favorites among ambiguous lines:
"Take me for a hamburger."
or perhaps
"Taken for a hamburger"
And until a just-now Google search, I thought it was a short story by O. Henry.
edit:
there is also
Can you get a frankfurter in Hamburg?
Can you get a hamburger in Frankfurt?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 12:45am PT
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"The comparison of meditation practice to activities typically misses the point because the activities referenced are often the ones we really love to do ie paddling ,"
Talk to me about that after you've paddled 90 miles in the open Atlantic in seas up to 15 feet.
I'm not sure 'enjoyable' applies.
Want a vacation from your normal mental state? I'll go toe to toe with any meditationalist on that front.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Mar 18, 2015 - 08:13am PT
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TV said "Want a vacation from your normal mental state? I'll go toe to toe with any meditationalist on that front. "
TV please report to WB for another spanking.
vacation from your normal state of mind. We might have to observe the mind to figure out what it's normal state is . How would one do that? What is your normal state of mind? And who is it that wants a vacation from this normal condition?
You may be correct;are most people trying to take mental vacations? Why?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:12am PT
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"Why would I drag my finger across my throat?"
Please to mail order a sense of humor.
The 'spanker' position has already been filled by an Italian. Consolation for Werner - at least she's still Axis.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:28am PT
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Lovegas: An insane person could behave in a non-dogmatic, irrational, and unpredictable manner, but I wouldn't consider that enlightenment.
Normalcy IS insanity.
To move human consciousness in what direction?
This can’t be said. What is a teacher pointing to?
The idea [Hitler could have been enlightened] is preposterous.
“Preposterous” indicates the limit of what is viewed as normal or what is possible.
Loving-kindness (maitre) is not simply what we feel for those who are close or related to us, and compassion (Bodhicitta) is not mawkish pity, emotional overwhelm, or idiot compassion. Both arise simultaneously as emptiness arises, oddly enough. All seem to be wide-open, immeasurable felt experiences—the very experience of experience itself—not concepts or objects.
The belief that Buddhas or enlightened people must be “good,” because that’s how they became Buddhas, cannot be accurate. Causality cannot be found or established—not for Buddhas, or for anything else. Holding opinions of “good,” “right,” “appropriate” IS religious—whether they concern evolution, morality, or art. There can be only one reality. What manifests must be reality. How could there be more than one? So, how can there be different views? Incommensurability (of views, of scientific disciplines, of religions) should be apparent. The mind is like a radio tuner; the band of frequencies infinite.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:37am PT
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If you want to jump on the fast track to enlightenment, put a paranoid chihuahua and an aggressive tabby kitten in the same room together.
Or maybe that's just levity.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:42am PT
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When there is no evil person to take the place of a world catalyst event a liberated soul descends and acts out the event.
Hitler comes to mind.
Then disappears when finished.
Those who only use their 5 material sense to understand what's happening remain completely bewildered.
You're stoopid science evolution progression theory and guessing is completely thrown out the door then.
Modern materialistic theory of evolution is complete lunacy except for the materially condition souls who "Think" they got figured out ......
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:52am PT
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I do not agree with that statement. Violence and theft are all evolved behaviors for this apex predator, and nearly all of us are capable of both given the right environment and circumstances.
The population of violent offenders is heavily represented with psychopaths and the mentally ill - that is true. But that is not the whole story.
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Mar 18, 2015 - 10:10am PT
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Tvash, although I am on the spiritualist side of the discussion, I have to say I highly enjoy your posts. You have a way with words and I want to give you props for that.
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