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That's what what I've read would seem to imply.

I'm stumped on that one. Truth be told, I don't expect to ever really get it.

I'll agree with point one on the Zazen classes I took. The sensei seemed to have this uncanny knack for knowing when I was daydreaming, maybe I'd start making weird facial expressions?.. As far as "getting it", I'm pretty sure he didn't expect me to just "get it", though I could be wrong.

That's... Just... Fucking... DUMB. I slap a creative commons copyright on all my stuff (not that hardly anyone pays attention anyway, it's mostly garbage), because I think copyrights have pretty much been the death of advancement... Especially in music. Who was it, some Sousa guy who went off about this God knows how many years ago?

It's just greed, plain and simple. While I get that's pretty much what everyone else seems to be implying, I'm still upset and frustrated. I think I read a prediction somewhere that something like this would happen one day, but I forget where. The position is so stupid, though, that I'd like to say I'd be surprised if they get anywhere with it, but I know better than that, these assholes might just have a case if enough people donate and they bribe the right people.

Lincoln was a Republican...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln

Well, you know, it's ALWAYS a woman's fault... :P

EDIT: Not trying to sound sexist or anything, but in a lot of the old stories I've read, you'll find that kind of stereotype.

EDIT EDIT: Which, I'm really worried about cracking this joke, because A) it might not be funny to most people and B) someone's misinterpretation of my intent may spark a horrible backlash. I'd like to think that this addition to my post will help to prevent that, and hope that I can talk my way out of it should such a horrible backlash occur... Still, I'd like to think ya'll have a flexible sense of humor, please don't prove me wrong.

LOL @ Johnny 5

Bad Beast, that's quite the experience. Personally, I can put up with a bunch of stuff, even go to church and talk about religion with people without mentioning my own lack of belief, and them never asking, and even if they do, I'd smile and encourage them to tell me about something else. I don't have a problem with religion.

But attempted exorcisms... Man, I don't know why, but that shit makes me ANGRY. I scared my grandmother half to death one day because she tried to use prayer to get the demons to leave me alone (I had a cup filled with a milk shake in my hand, which I crushed with my fist, making a terrible mess). They just don't appreciate how much work is involved in getting the demon in there in the first place, I guess. :P

That being said, I find it funny how every "act of God" that fits in with a particular Christian world view is praised and accepted, yet when God says something like "Thou shalt not make tacky sculptures of my son or thou shalt roast marshmallows by its light." they're like "There's no spiritual significance to that.". Keep in mind, I'm not targeting all Christians here, there are just some of them that go too far.

And yeah, before you mentioned it, Bad Beast, I found myself thinking they probably spiked your drink... It's highly possible.

Thanks for your answer. Yes, I see how they seem to dislike people stopping to think, even for a second... But if the reply were thought out beforehand, it could be enacted instantaneously... Still, a slight lack of confidence in the answer may be indicative of something.

As far as meditation, I don't do it frequently... Who was it who said that everyday activity is a form of meditation?... Anyway, I've had a slight bit of training in Zazen meditation, it was one of the many classes offered at an Aikido dojo I used to go to a long time ago... I won't say I'm great (or even half-decent) with meditation, although I can see how it's important, every time I think of it I still keep thinking of the thing about polishing a floor tile until it's a mirror.

For a while, for reasons I can't describe, I found Pai Chiang's fox koan rather interesting. Now, I find a whole bunch of them interesting, it's hard to pull one off the top of my head... "A mud Buddha does not pass through water, A gold Buddha does not pass through the furnace, A wood Buddha does not pass through the fire." (Chao Chou's three turning words), The Surangama's scripture on not seeing, The one about the seamless monument... There are a lot of other ones. I'm already pretty sure I'll have to read it several more times.

I'd actually like to know your thoughts on the sixth patriarch, I think it was, the one who was forced to flee with the robe and all that stuff.

Still... Thanks a LOT.

... Nigel, making me feel all warm and squishy inside is something I'd advise against, you might feel bad about it later... But thanks a lot, I needed that. Now... It's just a matter of waiting for one of these guys to school me on where I've gone wrong with zen, which is another thing I need, and by need, I mean, I really freaking need some input, this crap is far too mysterious for me to make sense of without some correction, and I can't think of a better place to find it.

Awesome! Sorry to question you... I'm just too used to... Terrible social instances caused by failure to recognize sarcasm. Thanks for confirming. And I don't mind in the slightest when someone reaches a different conclusion than I do, it's another opportunity for growth in my book.

There is a reason we told you to stay away from the cloning machine, but did you listen? Oh, God fuck no, you didn't!

I'm extremely terrible at picking out sarcasm, so, if you're being sarcastic, please, just let me know... ... Especially text format, that's one of the worst ways to communicate, IMO.

If you're being genuine, Nigel, thank you... I hope it isn't all one big joke at my expense, a little dense here at times.

You've never loved and hated something or someone at the same time?.. The idea of two seemingly contradictory states being true at the same time isn't such a stretch for me. The universe is a strange place... The mind is an even stranger place. An example of ambivalence? Ninja Gaiden... Nintendo hard, the definition of an impossible challenge, and yet... Nethack... I have a game I'm close to finishing, but I'm too scared to play it because I might lose everything I've already worked for. Castlevania, it's just not the same without the terrible rage that those annoying medusa heads paired with bottomless pits can invoke in a person...

Then, there's this one ex-girlfriend of mine, but my negative emotions were all a product of my misplaced attribution of responsibility for the problem... For a while there, yeah, I knew what ambivalence felt like. Now, of course, and for the past several years, I've known exactly where responsibility lie, and it was all my fault, really. Now, ambivalence towards myself, that's going to take a while to resolve.

Consider the idea of a two-faced ambivalent God ruling the universe... It would make more sense than a benevolent father figure and some wicked rebel creation of his. Assigning values to things often undermines the ability to understand the true nature of them. Love, hate, all emotions of the moment, fueled either by a lack of understanding, or a mistaken understanding. There's some old saying, a person cannot stand in the same river twice... Why? The water is always moving.

It may be painful to accept contradiction, but the universe is very large and mysterious, there are directions and dimensions we cannot even perceive with our feeble brains... There is plenty room for contradiction, though it defies our desire to know truth, this is why it is painful and seems to bend the mind. We want to collect ideas and imagine them always true or always false, but it just doesn't work like that. Our universe is slowly ticking down to infinite entropy... Every piece of matter might just fly apart with a great cosmic sneeze? Though, it may be a bit slower than that might imply (and by a bit, I mean a whole freaking LOT slower)... The same applies for all things... Gain or loss? Will it all end in catastrophe? Will there be a rebirth? Am I just like some alarmist who would espouse this kind of theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe

I sure hope not... Or maybe I should hope so. I really don't know. The point I'm trying to make is, true/false 1/0 works for computers... These are nothing more than devices, they lack the qualities we would like to give them... The only good thing about them is that they are easily manipulated, by those who know the art (well, actually it's a science, or, arguably, a bit of both)... And, having a true/false mindset makes it much easier for others to program you. Your wetware is far superior to hardware, people need to stop conforming to the true/false paradigm, and at least breach the edge of that bubble... So many people complain about feeling empty inside, saying there's no answer to the despair they feel, and I think they may be too comfortable with that despair to break out of those boundaries. If one makes oneself easily quantifiable, one totally neglects the greater part of their mind, and lends oneself to be a tool of the puppet masters.

But I know there is an answer to the despair. The despair is caused by trying to use the mind like it's a computer, just because it's easier. being taken in by such an idea forces one to conform all of one's thoughts to such a dualistic scale. Life is not that simple, it's a changing model everyday. Plans fall through, people die, things we take for granted cease to be ours. It's an inefficient process, much time is lost planning around constantly changing and unpredictable factors, time that could be spent on other things. Ambivalence, while a little unpleasant due to conditioning, makes complete sense to me.

Anyway, I'm sure all of you already know that, I felt the need to vent a little... As evidence for my claims, a link will follow.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/329979

It's called "ambivalence"... It's totally possible... Well, ambivalence may be more balanced than I think it is, requiring love and hate at the same time, but I think there may be varying degrees of ambivalence... Off to look that up.

EDIT: Yup, I was correct, for once. It's usually described as being unpleasant, but, hey, I'm ambivalent about all sorts of things, as well as ambivalent about being ambivalent.