Yes, a part time job in a warehouse (Kaufhaus). People know that since years. They also know that I gave up psychology for practical reasons and unbridgable differences with the institution'S dogmas, and that I worked for free in cooperation with a hospital which then turned into a complete meditation group with no more people from hosptial attending, until I gave it up after some years and the thing growing bigger than I wished it to be. In a multi-semestre practition time I worked with and for dying people at hospitals, and I also had time in a closed psychiatry. You can assume in all safety that I know why I did not choose to follow the trail of contemporary psychology for all my life. I have worked (for free again) in several free social work services run by the church (!) since then, and in earlier years participated in therapy projects for torture victims from the Balkans as well. I also worked in a factory, several depot halls (Lagerhalle), as cook in a cheap restaurant, as waiter, as salesman, and for one single opportunity as a bodyguard. Then I had a short intermezzo as trainer with a local security company but caused a training accident that almost killed a trainee, that threw me a bit off track back then, and on my travellings I also workd in the security field for foreign correspondet teams from the West, shooting a docu in the ME.

Whats your point, if you have any? All that is very old news, being told here sionce years. I have come around a bit. Anything wrong with that? You can safely assume that I can afford to live the way I live my life. Else I wouldn't do it.

Oh, and I never did Ninja stuff. I did swordfighting, and martial arts, yes. I even learned how to decently handle a bow. But ninjatsu I never claimed to have done, nowhere - and Ninjatsu is much, much more than just these three.

How does that story show the need for arming security forces?

Have you seen this thread?
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=127167
It's about a girl with a broken car, reaching home, finding his boyfriend in bed with another one, and being bitterly dissapointed and sad and down. the male counselor giving advise talks about the motor problem exclusively.

The same joke is happening here. there is a story told about the two very different perspectives the rich and the poor have when seeing all those christmas sceneries, and how obscene it is in a way, that what we consider to be there for our plaisir, for some is nothinging funny, luxurious and entertaining at all, but a needed tool to fight for surviving a cold night.

Christian law and order addicts will ignore it all and instead immediately will lecture you about the letter of the law, and the need for penalty. "Christians" walk upright, you know, with the nose high up in the air - at least some of the carricatures of true, honest, self-righteous Christians that live on this board.

Now that for once is funny a joke, isn't it. ;)

Same here. I dont blame him for taking those clothes to keep himself warm. He never hurt anyone.

Its funny SUBMAN, but I have never seen any serious attempt, by this mysterious atheist axis that you keep mentioning, to ban Christmas. All I can see is your reactionalry responses to anything that doesn't fit with your narrow world view.

Also suggesting that freezing vagrants be gunned down for trying to keep warm is not what I would call a very Christian attitude.

wow! your achieved alot in your life and heres me thinking you were just a psychologist :) How do you handle doing work for free, i use to do alot of that, we call it voluntary work yet i stopped cause i found people just take you for granted all they want out of you is more more more until you burn out then its oh sry about that and they wait for the next fool to come along. Thats just going from my experience i mostly got alot of enjoyment out of it but i also got alot of stress. Now i avoid it like the plague.

Subman... What is wrong with you?

It is a dilemma that you correctly identified, I found out especially with the meditation groups I ran for several years, all in all around 300 people, plus/minus 50, I assume. The one thing I really demanded was a certain kind of dicispline, or: regularity. But doing my "service" for free helped an attitude of "Oh, it is free, okay, I have nothing to loose, let'S start it, and if I do not like one day, or have plans, I pass." Whereas I know that it is important to have a regular scheme, a regular pattern that helps to create a safe haven in your weekls and daily time table where you know nobody can reach into, that rests unmoved like a rock in the surf, that stays no matter what dramas and stress and hectic life is throwing at you, and that you need to defend against all demands adressed to you (real emergencies exlcuded, of course, but not everything somebody claims is an emergncy, is an emergency indeed). Especially for beginners this is importan, and very much so.

But if you do it for money, you (at least in my case) may feel something is wrong and you may loose interest for what you are doing, na din this special case I wpuld think of it like wanting to tax people for breathing air: meditation is your own most natural basic right, it bases on your very own basic ressoruces, and it leads you to your very own fulfillment eventually, that again is part of your most basic rights in this life. nothing is hidden from you, and nothing that would be opwned by anybody who then would have the right to sell it to you. Also, if you nevertheless demand a payment, people again change their attitude "He takes my money, so I can demand somethign from him. Hey you, i payed the price you wanted, now show me something. Do something exciting. Where is the fancy stuff?" -

Expectations - that is the problem here, and no matter how you deal with it, they interfere.

My answer was this:

I tried to keep the groups constant, only slowly changing, and not surpassing a certain size that was small enough that I could take maximum care of every single individual. I asked everybody to contribute to a fund that was used only and exclusively to pay heating, light, and rent for the hall. the box was of glass, any anybody could see what was in there. I pinned the bills close to it, so that everybody knew how much still was needed. Somehow, the money needed always came together, sometimes with occaisonal small presents and gifts, like a small miniature, or some special food. I made no income from it that group servciing, and so it was not much money for the individual to pay.

And I allowed interested people to stay for reasons of curisosity and "testing" wether or not it was what they were looking for, for only 2-4 weeks - then I demanded them to make an obligatory decision to leave or to stay. If they stayed, they would have had me in their neck if they jumped off, or did not come with regularity. Did not happen often, though.

I also did not allow anyone to stay for longer than around two years. If they had not experienced (=learned) anything in that time that would help them to show up with the discipline needed to continue without having me in their neck :lol:, then I probably would have been the wrong teacher anyway, and they better find another one. After all I never would claim to be a master of any kind - only a teacher. If they wanted to come to the place I stood at and share the perspective on the world that I enjoyed from there, I could only describe them the easisest way that I had found to reach there. If they wanted to move to another location, and higher to look farther, I eventually could only point a direction or upwards and tell them that i do not know the way, but that they should search for chances over there - not more.

Also, the meaning of meditation is not to make it an everlasting home of comfort to simply relax and avoid the world and the noise and the stress. Ideally, it's side effect is not to teach you to avoid the world and the life and their noise and dirt and stress and hectic, but to approach all this in an unmoved state of mind and unshaken emotional calm, which is the precondition for true freedom of acting, and a peaceful mind.

Well, that has been my way to adress the problem you pointed at. When the thing nevertheless developed in size and direction that I could no longer guarantee not to violate my own principles and pay maximum attention for the individual, I knew I had reached my limits, and closed it down in an act of emerency-breaking. Others may have other, maybe even better solutions to run the show and deal with the problem at the end, but I can only act according to what I know for sure by my own, immediate, direct experience - everything else, or acting without experience and on the basis of hear-say and book-reading only would be irresponsible, and mean towards man.

The jobs for voluntary social work (that I did not for overly long) for the local church community was coming from my wish at that time to do at least something, and by receiving assistance from my slowly growing friendship with a Christian monk, with whom I had many friendly and fruitfuil debates where we found out that our views on things came under different names, but with many shared similiarities in opinion, and that we both were very critical of the traditial churche's role and dogma. He also was everything but a holy saint - in fact a very tough guy, strong, and full of energy, and a boasting voice. Preaching to people in kind and calm words was not his thing, instead he waited for them to ask, and meanwhile lend a hand where needed and tackled problems head-on. No comparison with the pastors and priests I remember from my youth and childhood at the rare occasions I visited a church service, and their strange and annoying mildness in their voice, and dumb smiles, always. This guy was even cursing at times! :D and immediately after, all anger was blown away. Cursing is healthy, I honestly believe. It helps not to store your anger inside yourself, and becoming ill from it.

The monastery has been shut and deconstructed about one year ago. To see it lying in rubble gave me a sting.

I think it's outrageous that anyone would suggest shooting someone for taking a coat from a nativity display to keep warm. Everyone knows it would be far more cost effective to simply place land mines around it.

That one was for the benefit of those who see a star rising in the East and automatically assume it's a Tu-95 coming over the horizon:rotfl:

:D Chock

I didn't lecture about the letter of the law, or the need for a penalty, yet I am a Christian. Guess that sort of blows your theory....

I can just see that: 'On the command three, you WILL relax! One, two... wait for it... wait for it! I DEMAND DISCIPLINE! THREEEEEEE!':rotfl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF4QALVjPf8

Sorry Skybird, I'm only joking, it just put that picture in my head the way you phrased it.

:D Chock

:lol: sure, I already figured that out. Maybe "dedicated attitude" to do the things with regularity would be a better description. but you probably got the idea anyway. Nothing is to be gained, but all is to be found. that cannot be actively acchieved, but only passively received. It's not so much about doing the right things, but giving up doing the wrong things. So, pressure and "disciplined working" is very much useless from the very beginning. You only can help to improve the circumstances, that way making it more likely, maybe, to let go your conditioned habits, and by that giving room to let "enlightenment" happen all by itself, which again is not acchieving something new and different, but only realising what always has been there already, never being different. But that already is a misleading, dualistic conception again, so you better do not wish for "enlightenment" at all. :lol: Language, thinking - always a trap. I should bite a piece of soap, probably. :D

I guess you need to define the problem first before I can answer your question! :D

-S

A (what people would call it) "cute" story. He must have known that it wasn't okay to do it, and from what I can gather, he didn't try to defend himself from doing it. Just a man trying to live, that's all.

Then he needs to go to a shelter.