--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo" <richardhughes103@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: <snip> > > > For the record, as a matter of principle, I > > > don't respond to questions or make statements > > > under threat of being "certified" as a Bad > > > Person if I decline. > > > > Ooh how convenient.
Obviously it's the *opposite* of convenient. > And how cowardly. No, what's cowardly is *responding* to a question posed in such a manner. But what's even *more* cowardly is posing it that way in the first place. It doesn't really take much courage, however, for me to risk being called a coward by Barry. It's only Barry's exaggerated sense of self-importance that leads him to think anybody would take his threat seriously. <snip> > Having posted these questions, I have been > quietly sitting back and allowing those who > still have a pair of balls on them (and I > think we all know who that does *not* include) > to have a go at answering them. And the "pat > answers" provided *would*, in fact, qualify > those who provided them for "Almost TM Teacher" > status. They were right out of the TMO playbook. Note that Barry's framing of the questions is deliberately ambiguous, so he can play both ends against the middle. The "pat" responses a committed TM teacher would give would be very different from those I would give, for example; but even the most outspoken TM critic could easily provide *the same "pat" answers* as the committed TM teacher (especially since most of the critics here have *been* TM teachers). In other words, being able to provide the "pat" answers says nothing in and of itself about the person providing them (except perhaps about how good their memory is). And then the ultimate in Barry-irony: <snip> > The means are not justified by the ends. The means > ARE the end. If you lie by commission or omission > to theoretically achieve a "good end," you are still > performing the action of lying. And that action has > a karma attached to it. How much karma does Barry think is attached to his countless performances of the act of lying on FFL (and earlier on alt.m.t)? But let's see how Barry gets around this little problem. The following is from a post of Barry's on alt.m.t back around 2003 that I ran across awhile ago and have been saving: "Instead of the notion of a fixed 'reality,' we [Buddhists, in context] tend to believe that there are different ways of *perceiving* the world around us. If you glom onto to one of them, and decide that this particular way of seeing things represents 'reality,' then that way of seeing *becomes* your reality.... "Since we [Buddhists] are not attached to any particular description of the world as being 'reality,' we are free to choose the description that seems most appropriate to the moment, and just go with it." Gosh, I wonder whether this is where I first got the idea that Barry prefers to create his own reality? But we have to realize that *only Buddhists like Barry* get to choose the description of reality that seems most appropriate to the moment. Others--especially TMers--must choose the description of reality that is most appropriate *to Barry* at the moment. Otherwise, you see, we are being dishonest and accruing bad karma. Then just to finish off this excursion into Barry-irony-lalaland: "To respond to insults on the level of insults, one has to enter the state of attention of insults. I've done more than enough of that over the years here, dude. I think it's time for a change." Well, apparently it wasn't time just *quite* yet.
