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  • For the record, I don't think anyone reads these

    I plan o save the world. I'm not going into how or why or any of that right now, so don't bother asking it's pointless and I probably won't check my replies for this posting. I'm mostly doing this to be polite because the forum asked me to.

    Here's a little bit about me:

    I'm going to save the world. This is definately the most important thing about me.

    Unfortunately, I currently lack discipline and follow through, big time. So I need to find someone to teach me these things. I can teach myself eventually but it takes longer.
    By the way, please don't bother posting "Just do it." If I could "Just do it" I wouldn't need a teacher.

    It occured to me this year that now that I have a plan to save the world I need the discipline and follow through to pull it off and I need someone to teach me, soon. I'm not getting any younger here.

    There aren't many people in the world that teach self-discipline, control, or follow through. Theoretically your parents are supposed to teach you, but mine didn't. Oh well, no use focusing on the past.
    Many will try to say something like school or college or whatever, but those don't actually teach discipline, they just expect you to have it, which is not the same.
    I decided that to learn it I should probably find some monks or perhaps a Shaman. I'm investigating those options now.
    I've always been fascinated with Shaolin Monks ever since I saw Kung Fu as a child. It was the wisdom and poise of Kane in the show that first attracted me to Asian culture and Shaolin. I am also impressed with the physical capabilities of Shaolin Monks.
    This sight contains some of the best information I've found so far. Kudos to you.

    I'm not a martial artist.

    I'm not interested in becoming a martial artist. I don't mind learning fighting skills, but for me that's not the point, it's only a method and an oportunity to compete.

    These above are the basics of why I'm here. Below are just random tidbits:

    I'm an animist, which means I believe everything has a soul and a personality and deserves respect, even ants, rocks, and computers.

    I don't care what your religious beliefs are; I don't mind anyone's religion, but I'm going to decide for myself what I believe. I will never let a book, a religion, or another person decide for me. I am responsible for myself at all times.

    I'm always open to others viewpoints, but that doesn't mean I agree. I prefer to base my choices on gut feelings, experience, logic, and emotion.

    Happy to be here.

  • #2
    Welcome to the madness. Just as an aside, here's what happened to the "wisdom and poise of Kane in the show that first attracted (you) to Asian culture and Shaolin".



    Well, there's a lesson in there somewhere.
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

    "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

    (more comments in my User Profile)
    russbo.com


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    • #3
      welcome....... :-)
      ZhongwenMovies.com

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      • #4
        Actually, the writer is responsible for the "wisdom and poise" of Kane, and the point is that the how opened a door for me, exposed me to knew ideas, even if those ideas were not acurate.

        In the matter of physics, the first lessons should contain nothing but what is experimental and interesting to see. A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulae extracted from our minds. --Albert Einstein

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        • #5
          PS. Thanks for reading and replying. It's nice to feel welcome

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          • #6
            You'll find that people here are very welcoming and responsive.

            And, a bit nuts.

            But, we're friendly. Really.
            Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

            "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

            (more comments in my User Profile)
            russbo.com


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            • #7
              and this is why you may find yourself at home here....lol
              ZhongwenMovies.com

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              • #8
                Well save the world is very common goal

                For instance in budism, bodisatvas promise to do so, end every suffering such as suffering of animals, ghosts, war beings

                I suggest

                1 Have a plan, what suffering u want to end first

                2 Go to the root, find the causes of violence and suffering and act there

                For instance Theravada would say the cause of suffering is ignorance, mainly ignorance of the suffering of other beings and ignorance of 4 noble truths. Vajrayana would say the cause of violence is grasping to the idea of an independant self

                3 I ask my master about that, he replied become a bodisatva

                4 Give up desire

                5 Work to stop using money in the world

                6 Go to where power is

                7 Meditate on death and war, and find the right path to end suffering

                8 Dont cling to views, dont believe u know

                Hippie peace and love

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                • #9
                  Saving the World
















                  I suggest

                  1 Have a plan, what suffering u want to end first


                  I do have a plan, which I will outline in a seperate thread at some point, as for choosing what suffering I will end first read below.

                  2 Go to the root, find the causes of violence and suffering and act there


                  As far as I can tell the root cause of all suffering is loss and expectation.
                  And people or creatures in nature use violence when they can't think of a better way to get what they want.

                  2B. For instance Theravada would say the cause of suffering is ignorance, mainly ignorance of the suffering of other beings and ignorance of 4 noble truths. Vajrayana would say the cause of violence is grasping to the idea of an independant self


                  I disagree.
                  However, ignorance is definitely a big problem and definitely something I want to correct. Ignorant people are easier to control and far more dangerous.




                  I can't currently remember the 4noble truths. I'm sure these teachings work for some people, and good for them for finding a solution that apparently produces results (has anyone ever put these teachings into practice and experienced an end to suffereing and voilence? Seriously I want to know). However, I don't think these are the solutions I am looking for.


                  You know how you can tell something works? You can tell when everyone starts using it. For example, the cell phone or the bow and arrow. They worked , so everyone used them. The same goes teachings about how to live. If it works, everyone will use it. Furthermore, I think people should make decisions for themselves when it comes to religion or spirituality. It's great to seek help when you need it, but to let a 2000 year old book or a teacher you've never met make all your decisions for you seems like a copout to me.

                  3 I ask my master about that, he replied become a bodisatva


                  I don't know what a bodisatva is, but I am a holy person (nobody told me I just knew, I fit the description of a holy person: prays a lot, lives for the purpose of serving others, people randomly show up and irritate me until I help them with their problems, etc.)

                  4 Give up desire


                  Let me ask a question: How can you give up desire iving n order to save the world when it is the desire to change the world that guides you in the first place.
                  As far as desire goes, I will always have it. I'm just careful about what I desire. What I choose to desire and what I desire without concious choice. If I desire something that is unhealthy I search within myself to discover why I desire it in the first place and if I am just using the unhealthy thing as a substitute for something more basic that I need. Like using a car because what you want is for strangers to admire you. If the core desire is admiration there are other ways.

                  It think it is etremely important for people to discover what they desire and why they desire it. This is the most basic step a human can take along the path of success in life. From this all other things stem. If you do not examine your foundation how do you know if you are not standing on unstable ground?



                  5 Work to stop using money in the world


                  This might work, but it might now. Have you seen Zeitgeist? You should watch that and the sequel, you would like it.

                  6 Go to where power is


                  The power is within each of us individualy, so theoretically, I am already here. The power is within you to.

                  7 Meditate on death and war, and find the right path to end suffering


                  Did that when I was a kid, don't know how good the answers I came up with were. I prefer to think about the solution rather than the problem. For example, I've seen over 40 movies about WWII and no movies about how to prevent WWIII or about what would have happened if we had avoided WWII. The point of making mistakes is to learn from them, not to fixate on them.

                  8 Dont cling to views, dont believe u know


                  What are people supposed to cling to? How can we know anything? We can't. But we have to believe in something, even if it is the world around us. Also, if you don't believe you know how can you ever decide? There is a difference between knowing, guessing, and deciding. They are all different from closing your eyes.





                  Thanks for the info, but i don't plan to save the world by ending suffering. You do have some good stuff here though.
                  Suffering is apart of life. I don't know if it is a bad thing, but I don't think so. I have experienced great suffereing, but my suffering is a tribute to the one I love after they are gone. Suffering teaches me which choices produce the results I desire and which produce pain. Suffering is an emotion like any other. I have a problem with suffereing not when I feel it, but when others inflict it upon me, so it is not the suffereing I resent so much as the loss of chioce. Not that I want to experience suffereing, I don't.


                  Saving the World:


                  There is a story from the book The Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card, it talks about the unmaker. It basically states that everything we build the unmaker tries to destroy, the goal of the unmaker is to unmake everything in the world.
                  Then the story goes on to describe building a wall by laying bricks one by one. (there are millions of people doing this on earth right now by saving the whales or saving the rainforest, or becoming healers, ect.) While laying the bricks is important and good you can never lay bricks fast enough to counter the destruction of a wall, it is simply not enough So to defeat the unmaker you have to find another way.
                  I'm not saying I believe in the unmaker, but the story makes a good point. Right now what most people across the world are doing are treating the symptoms of a disease rather than the disease itself, and we can never save enough whales to save the world. Rather, when I save the world, since the whales live here they will be saved as well. We all will. I seek a solution that is a solution for everyone, including the rocks and the trees and the whales and people who don't give a damn. Everyone. And while I think some of the teachings of the Bodhivista are useful along this journey, I do not believe they an end to the journey.


                  Solutions that work for everyone:


                  I think the biggest problem we've experienced as a race is the lack of taking responsibility for our own actions. I don't have all the information yet, but I have a good chunk of it. Somewhere around 10,000 years ago someone said, “I have found the one right way.” and then they went out and forced everyone else on the planet to do it their way. This lead to several negative results the most primary being, people started to look to others for answers rather than within themselves. More specifically, people have always looked to others for answers when they needed answers, and this is a good thing, but somewhere along the line a group of people were doing it a certain way, a way that worked for them. Then some other people came along and said your doing it wrong. And the first people said, no this is good, it's working for us. Then the new people said, no you're doing it wrong and we will force you, one way or another, to do it our way. And they succeeded. And the original people started to think that they must have been wrong because they lost and started to look to other people for the answers when they had the answers all along.... anyways, I don't have the whole theory yet and don't quote me on the above because most of it's wrong. Contrary to popular belief, decent ideas are not static, they are fluid and changing as we gain more and more information about the world and ourselves. Even the Bodhivista, it is possible he found the correct answer and tried to teach others but couldn't because he was too advanced for normal people to understand him anymore so instead he just has to wait patiently for everyone else to catch up, leaving clues as best he could, or it is possible that he found the best solution for him that worked in that moment and told everyone else in case they wanted to know. (Of course it's always possible that the Bodhivista is completely right and I'm going to the hindu version of hell.)


                  Oh well, on to Solutions:


                  I am apart of everyone so I should be able to find solutions that work for everyone, but more specifically, people can find solutions for themselves. No one person can find a solution that works for everyone because people must find their own answers. One mistake is letting others choose for you. One mistake is choosing for others, and yet this is necissary when they can't choose for themselves. So how can you tell the difference?
                  People who are capable of choosing for themselves will in fact, try to choose for themselves. Then you can support them, ignore them, or try to stop them. This is getting into areas too complicated for me at the moment so I'm going to move on to other things.


                  Saving the world is both extremely complex and extremely simple. The concept is simple, the practice is hard. That's pretty much true for any discipline worth pursuing that I've encountered in my life.

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                  • #10
                    Well thanks 4 ur intention

                    On one hand u say u want to save the world, on the other u say each should find by himself

                    On one hand chan says u dont need a master and u have to find absolute non violence 4 every being by urself
                    On the other hand tibetan buddhism says u cannot find without a master and to believe u find by urself is to believe in an independant self which is the cause of all suffering

                    Do u know a bit about emptiness? That might help u

                    R u vegetarian?

                    These days i come with the following questions

                    1 Do u know what is absolute non violence?
                    2 Do u know fish swims away from u when u want 2 catch her?
                    3 Isnt it because u know 2 but dont trust it that u dont know 1?

                    Hippie peace and love

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                    • #11
                      Isnt it because u know 2 but dont trust it that u dont know 1?
                      i love this question, liu.. nicely put.
                      ZhongwenMovies.com

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                      • #12
                        [quote=liutangsanzang;39819]Well thanks 4 ur intention

                        A. On one hand u say u want to save the world, on the other u say each should find by himself


                        I both want to save the world and want people to choose for themselves. Sounds like a contradiction doesn't it. Here's how it all makes sense:
                        I want to save the world by creating new ideas and oportunities for people to think for themselves and make their own decisions. Right now on this earth most people are living in a kind of perpetual slavery, the many subjected to the will of the few. It might not seem that way, but at the end of the day you've got a few guys in charge of millions of guys with the latest technology in weapons who know how to use them and that essentially makes it difficult to fight back when one disagrees with the established authority.
                        In "well we elect our leaders so we're the ones with power" or something like that. They are both right and wrong. We are the ones with power, but only because "we" are the majority, and the morjority more or less always has the power. We also have human nature on our side. For example, people(soldiers) don't really want to go kill people they don't know (like the president) just because some other guy they don't know told them to and is signing their paycheck, hence all the PTSD suffered by Vietnam Vets, etc. It's just not natural. So we have both those things working for us.
                        What we have working against us are over 1 million people who will kill or punish anyone for disagreeing with the guy in power just because he told them too. (Tianamen Square {China}, that time they killed all those protesters in the 70's, the IRS, all the guys held without trial in quantanamo bay.)
                        Essentially, people can think for themselves, but most of the time they just don't. They let somebody else choose, like the president, or their boss, or society, or the guy with the gun. Now, I can understand these things, there is currently a lot of pressure in the world to do what you're told. If you don't you could starve, get imprissoned, or shot. All of which happened to Ghandi because he decided he wasn't going to follow "the rules". (The rules at the time stated that Indian's had less value than white people.)
                        Furthermore, people don't know how to defend themselves against these powerful weapons and the powerful mind control device called "propoganda", "You're either with us or against us" is a popular mind control device. It is a lie of course, but people believe it because it sounds good. Here's another one, "We have to attack Iraq to stop them from launching weapons of mass destruction against the US." Except there are no WMDs and Iraq has never shown any inclination of attacking the US, ever. We invaded them the first time, and the second. Sound impossible? Check the history books. That's what propoganda is, more or less lies designed to control the minds of others so they don't think beyond what you've told them.
                        Then there is the total lack of education across the world today. How many people know survival skills? How many can defend themselves against an armed gunman? or an army? How about critical thinking skills, how many people have those? Even if someone could live off the land how many are allowed to?
                        What about those children forced into the military in Africa, or the child prostitutes in China, what are they learning? Why should they have to live that way? What can they do to defend themselves? What are others doing to defend them?
                        The answer is simple. The answer is nothing. No one is doing much of anything about all the helpless people in the world today. People don't know how to defend themselves and they don't know how to defend others. They don't know how to think for themselves, but they are constantly trying to think for others. People let others make decisions for them because they don't know there are other options available to them.
                        I plan to correct all that. I want to teach the world that there are other ways, give them new opportunities. Teach people on the whole to think for themselves and to defend themselves against violence of all kinds. Obviously this didn't work the first time around, Rome and England, etc. took over half the world and forced everyone to live the way they thought was right because all the tribes of the world couldn't defend themselves well enough; and sadly they had more abilities in that department than we currently do. But we can learn, we have a lot of technology working for us. It's going to be a hard battle, but it's one I think is worth fighting.
                        Scientists will say that all problems in the natural world today stem from overpopulation. Christians will say that all problems with the world today stem from sin that is naturaly occuring in human kind. Budhists will say all suffering stems from an attachment to the material world. Politicians will say the law is imperfect or they don't have time to meet everyone's needs (which is true). Rebels will blame the establishment. And economists will keep searching and taking notes.
                        But the truth is, very few people are taking responsibility for they actions. They don't know how, no one has ever taught them. They aren't allowed to, society and the law won't let them. They don't want to, it's way more difficult than not trying at all.
                        I also happen to think it's more rewarding.
                        I want to teach people to defend themselves in every way, mentally, physically, and emotionally. I want to let those who succeed in controlling many know that they can't control me. I want to create and show people new ways of doing things so they know that it's possible. New econmic models, new political structures (or none at all) new technology, new types of interaction, new hope. The process of evolution involves testing new things. I believe evolution is a good thing. I hope we make the cut.
                        I don't want to tell other people how to live. I want to give them new opportunities to decide for themselves. (On the other hand that could be my way of telling them how to live.)

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                        • #13
                          Forcing you to think

                          B. On one hand chan says u dont need a master and u have to find absolute non violence 4 every being by urself
                          On the other hand tibetan buddhism says u cannot find without a master and to believe u find by urself is to believe in an independant self which is the cause of all suffering

                          Who is Chan?
                          I want to find a master because it is faster than learning by myself and I'm not getting any younger here.
                          I just now (litteraly just now as I was reading what you wrote) got what the Tibetan's mean by "an independant self which is the cause of all suffering". I don't like feeling completely alone. All suffering is easier when shared. If I don't feel conected to humans I feel connected to nature. I have one time in my life felt completely alone and I was utterly miserable.
                          I don't think that means I should give up my independant self. As an individual I contribute to the whole. I just need to remember at all times I am apart of the whole and perform actions that reinforce that belief, for my own sake. You don't have to lose your independent self to be happy, but you are unhappy if you feel completely alone. All life is based on the interaction of seperate beings, and we are designed to continue life. (I don't think most people think about it this way.)

                          C. Do u know a bit about emptiness? That might help u

                          What about emptiness? Do you mean the difference between paying attention and running off in my own head somewhere?

                          D. R u vegetarian?

                          No, but I don't mind eating only vegetables when it is convenient to do so.
                          I'm an animist and in nature creatures eat other creatures and while it does turn my stomach on some level, it is essential to survival on another and that's okay with me. If I'm not going to criticize a lion I'm not going to criticize myself.
                          I was a vegetarian for several months in New York and it was rather nice and surprisingly easy.

                          These days i come with the following questions

                          1 Do u know what is absolute non violence?

                          If a man is raping a girl and I forcefully stop him is that non violence?
                          Is it wrong?
                          What do you mean by absolute non violence?

                          2 Do u know fish swims away from u when u want 2 catch her?

                          Does she swim towards you when you don't?

                          3 Isnt it because u know 2 but dont trust it that u dont know 1?

                          I have no idea what you're asking here. Please explain.


                          Do you agree with the things you say? Do you understand them? Just asking.

                          By the way, I know monks are supposed to figure out the secrets of life by receeding from life, but I feel like I'm picking up the secrets at an faster rate than the majority of people on this planet and I throw myself into life. I think maybe the purpose of joining a monestary is to learn self control and paying attention so that you are prepared to learn the secrets of life when they come your way. Maybe that is how they help one achieve enlightenment.

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                          • #14
                            Isnt it because u know 2 but dont trust it that u dont know 1?
                            have you read the daodejing? if not, you might find some wisdom in it. but as i am unsure if you speak chinese or not, i'll just paste an english portion below for you.

                            41
                            When the wise hear the Way, they practice it diligently.
                            When the mediocre hear of the Way, they doubt it.
                            When the foolish hear of the Way, they laugh out loud.
                            If it were not laughed at, it would not be the Way.

                            there is a process to everything, indeed. but, i think this is what liu may have been referring to when asking that question. it's framed so well that the question can easily be interpreted in many different ways. yet, the point is so, that regardless of the answer, the question will always tend to reflect back on itself. that's the idea.

                            where does oneself end and everything else begin?

                            who are you really?
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                            • #15
                              [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BSiZQqlg5E"]YouTube - Tao te Ching (pt.1)[/ame]

                              [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPWY-fFCbRc"]YouTube - The Tao te Ching (pt. 2)[/ame]

                              [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyzAmP3B8vU"]YouTube - The Tao te Ching (pt. 3)[/ame]
                              "Life is a run. In attack we run, in defense we run. When you can no longer run, time to die" - Shichiroji "Seven samurai"

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