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Hallucinogenics - A 'smash-and-grab on the Transcendental'?
When I was a young cructacean with a fixed idea of reality, LSD broke that rigidity.That it's not true or helpful?
It could have been broken by art, life, meditation, love, insight etc.
It is not true or helpful to suggest drug based mind alteration in the hope that it might be useful. It also might induce delusion and psychosis. Psychedelics are not safe, guaranteed or required.
:wave:
What about the emotional 'I'?
Good topic. If any insight doesn't change us as a person, if it doesn't change our reactions to things, it is merely an idea and not an insight.
What is meditation?
Funny thing is the suttas don't have a word for meditation. The word that comes closest is the word "bhavana" which is occasionally translated as meditation, but more literally means cultivation.
I tend to refer to sitting meditation when using the word meditation, but 'cultivation' can happen at all times we are not sleeping. So meditation in a broad sense is not a specific activity or state of mind, its our willingness to learn about and cultivate the mind. In that sense it doesn't matter whether we are sitting down on a cushion, pushing a lawnmower, doing the dishes, driving a car, or whatever.
I tend to refer to sitting meditation when using the word meditation, but 'cultivation' can happen at all times we are not sleeping. So meditation in a broad sense is not a specific activity or state of mind, its our willingness to learn about and cultivate the mind. In that sense it doesn't matter whether we are sitting down on a cushion, pushing a lawnmower, doing the dishes, driving a car, or whatever.
Fracking for natural gas is safe?
fracking is completely UNsafe, it is destroying communities, and it is marginally cheaper than other fossil fuels. my experience with this topic is intiment, but all i care to cite is that a close friend of mine lives in a rural Pennsylvania community that the fracking industry has all but taken over, politically as well as functionally. i have had my hands in this debate for a while, and my chief objection is the potential harmful effects that this can have on our drinking water, and our effected watershed areas. this is energy greed at its highest and should be stopped immediately.
Personal responsibility & Compassion
I believe we can add to that, "And even when they do think of you, they seldom ever judge you so harshly as you imagine they would or so harshly as you judge yourself.""You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do." (Eleanor Roosevelt)
What is meditation?
Being at Ease
That would be the simple answer. We have to enter or practice that in a variety of ways. Physically, emotionally and mentally. Formal meditation in the Buddhist tradition allows us to sit still, breathing calmly, allowing the mind and emotions and physical agitation to settle . . .
. . . until we are . .
a Being at Ease . . . :om:
That would be the simple answer. We have to enter or practice that in a variety of ways. Physically, emotionally and mentally. Formal meditation in the Buddhist tradition allows us to sit still, breathing calmly, allowing the mind and emotions and physical agitation to settle . . .
. . . until we are . .
a Being at Ease . . . :om:
What is meditation?
I think the practice of enlightenment comes from Zen (Dogen). Here is my own thought on it. "There is no division between the practitioner, the practice, and enlightenment."
I can sense the essential state here and now, yet conception and grasping keep me from it. I need to be hit with a stick. =(
I can sense the essential state here and now, yet conception and grasping keep me from it. I need to be hit with a stick. =(
Sayings
"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life"
Confucius
Confucius
Personal responsibility & Compassion
Regarding body issues, a good friend once told me: "You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do." (Eleanor Roosevelt)
I really hear what you're saying though. I will admit that I most definitely preach acceptance of all shapes and sizes, and yet, I'm pretty harsh with my own body.
I really hear what you're saying though. I will admit that I most definitely preach acceptance of all shapes and sizes, and yet, I'm pretty harsh with my own body.
Personal responsibility & Compassion
Well- As a fat/size acceptance advocate and a HAES (Health At Every Size) activist, now you've stepped into MY territory! So I just gotta say, with all due respect:I don’t know where your friends are coming from; but this is the thought that came up:
The idea of accepting ourselves sounds nice but obesity is a serious problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity
Real compassion is not always being nice and compassion for oneself can also include facing a painful truth and taking responsibility for the amount of calories we put in our body.
And who made you (or anyone) the police of other people's bodies - or 'health' - or caloric intake?
That is a horrendously arrogant position to assume based on nothing more than what a person LOOKS like. It is a bias, a prejudice, and nothing less. There is no 'compassion' in assessing, judging, and shaming people based on their looks.
Overweight / obesity is a VERY complex issue.
For the most part--- the "obesity epidemic" is a media & diet industry created faux crisis. Obesity rates have fallen and leveled off for the last 10 years or more; especially among children. There are studies, believe me, but they don't sell fear and loathing to the masses with those studies...
Fat people CAN be healthy. MANY fat people are active, healthy and yes, even athletic.
Thin people are not automatically healthy by merits of pants or dress size.
There is not one single solitary disease that ONLY fat people get because they are fat. Not diabetes, not heart disease, not cancer. They claim that being obese "raises the risk factors" for certain diseases. However, according to the studies (even quoted by my own doctors) the rise in the percentage risk factor is NOT THAT SIGNIFICANT.
Here's a good Example:
The new obesity horror-de-jour is cervical cancer amongst fat women. Here's how it works:
Take a random sampling of 100 average-to-thin size women and about 3% will at some point develop cervical cancer.
Take a random sampling of 100 Obese (and ONLY obese) women, and the percentages 'jump' to 4.5 - 5.5%. , not exactly significant.
Oh sure, nearly double, but it's not like it's jumping from 45% to 80%. Things are never kept in perspective when there are pills to sell and diet plans to shame fat people into....
It is certainly much LESS significant than the rise in stats for smokers vs. Non-smokers, drinkers vs non-drinkers, etc. Yet we don't exactly attempt to assess and vilify every single person seen sipping a cocktail, do we? And one reason there may be that rise in statistical percentages is because many fat people avoid preventative medical care or monitoring- to avoid going to health care "professionals" who shame them for their weight and/or blame their weight for every symptom under the sun.
Another thing to ponder; according to the ADA; Diabetes has a current rate (in the USA) of 8.3% of the entire adult population. However there are claims that 35% of the adult population in the USA is Significantly Overweight, and 15% are morbidly obese.
Soooooo.... why isn't diabetes up to at least the 15 - 20% mark instead of merely 8%? Because weight is usually a SYMPTOM of diabetes, not the cause of diabetes, that's why. Never has been.
Even if you are a doctor, one can not judge why a person is fat, nor their health status, just by looking at them. You can't divine their cholesterol numbers, their triglycerides, their hormonal balance, their thyroid function, their blood pressure or any other VALID measurement of "health" just by how fat (or thin) they are. This is a fact.
