JoeBats

Not making sense, no. You are caught in papancha - a proliferation of concepts, which is just confusing to yourself. With your renewed interest in Buddhism, go take a seat in a quiet place and practice meditation to calm down. Perhaps once calm insights will arise.

From your continued dialog it's not clear what you want- to critique Buddhism in general, find fault in the teachings and the practice, wondering if you should bother with it given you are somewhat content, living mildly stress- free, or what possible value it has for humankind.

So sit down, calm yourself down and dig in to find the path best for you. No one is forcing this stuff on you. If curious- by all means explore. But this dialog has run its course for being of use to you.

Be well.

Sceptical doubt is considered one of five hindrances to Buddhist practice. True, the Kalama Sutta shows that one should question and examine any sort of doctrine- really get in there and see it for what it is and if it will be of value for one's own practice (see http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html ); however, unless one practices, it remains a theory. It's up to the individual to practice to see for oneself. Reading about practice and thinking about it is not practice.

Well, start tasting...

Sexual misconduct is the issue, not so much sexual activity. There is a difference.

Hmm... maybe in a way of analogy to unclutter the views exposed on the topic of "ultimate Purpose" (holding views is just confusing):

You look up at a tree and see a fruit which you've never experienced before. You look at it trying to figure out what it is. You speculate and wonder what it is, doing mental gymnastics in trying to make sense out of it. You've never touched it, tasted it, smelled it... all you've done is look at it way up there in the branches and come to some mental ideas about it. You have some knowledge of it via your mental imaging and build some story around it, fabricated out of your reasoning mind.

Along comes someone who says they've actually held the fruit, smelled it, tasted it. You ask them what it tastes like. The person has no way to describe it in words, because the taste is really all about tasting it, not talking about it. The person offers the fruit to you, but you don't want to really touch it, smell it or taste it. You rather just talk about it.

And that then is the problem in discussions of this nature.

We'd rather do mental gymnastics about something rather than experiencing it firsthand.

It's an endless cycle that leads nowhere.

Well, since your intellect is piqued, why not just practice some of the Buddhist precepts, meditate and see what arises? The intellect tends to overreact at the expense of the other sankharas when reading about Buddhism. It is a practice, after all. So, try practice and see where it leads. That is what the Buddha taught.

You're using your thinking mind in ways that are antithetical to Buddhist practice. Calm down. Breathe. That's it.

Our building from what I see has lots of empty units. I think there are at least 6 empty units on my floor alone. Has everything but a gym. You can get a gym membership across the road or down the street a 10 minute walk. Your close to everything. Been here 5 years. 8500 to 12000 should get you a really nice unit. Up to 20,000 would get you a larger unit.

May one ask the name of the building and in what city?

Thanks in advance.

What French? I'm Serbian. Can't you read? It's in English.

Why do you think I am pouting? Because you are in love with Trudeau, so everyone who isn't must be a cry baby?

What a narrow minded arrogant view.

Enough.

@ "Guy" (French?).

No. Not quite right, fella. Read again: I'm non-resident. Non-residents don't pay income taxes on earning outside Canada. No ties to Canada. Money in Luxembourg. Tax exempt.

But what does this have anything to do with the fact you are crying- no... pouty and all bunched up - over the fact Trudeau now leads a majority government in Canada? What part of reality don't you understand?

You're in for the long haul of grief given your disposition.

I think your tact is to get over it, or jog on. Whingeing here, or at me or anyone else, is not doing you any good since it certainly won't change the direction Canada is headed under Trudeau. Cry and whinge and pout all you want, pal, it's a done deal.

Trudeau is so bad for Canada that I'm considering going back to live with my Thai gf after we get married. People who benefit from this regime the most are the ones on dole. Sign me up.

Off you go, then. One less whiner.

This is a typical Canadian arrogance.

When you tell a Canadian you want to live in Thailand they say exactly that because how can you say anything bad about Canada especially Toronto.

Now that Trudeau has won it seems like all Trudeau lovers are behaving exactly the same like when Obama won. There is no middle ground, just arrogance. The same close minded mentality that thought oil will be above $100 forever and we don't need to have any other economy. It is just too fun to watch a bunch of "whiny" Canadians complaining on internet forums how much they are losing out on cross border shopping. Just hilarious.

Are you declaring your TEFL salary? You know Canada taxes on world wide income. Trudeau needs your help.

Retired before 60. Well to do. Live in Thaliand (5 years+). Money in Luxembourg.

Uh... were you trying to whinge about something?

Trudeau is so bad for Canada that I'm considering going back to live with my Thai gf after we get married. People who benefit from this regime the most are the ones on dole. Sign me up.

Off you go, then. One less whiner.

A pot-smoking, university drop-out who befriends all walks of life in the Canadian Mosaic, now leader of a democratically-elected majority, with 68% of the country voting , the largest turn out in federal elections since 1993? You go Trudeau! Love it. Love Canada! All is well in the great white north. Looking forward to 5 years of decency and level-headed governance!

Just let me remind you..... Shiny Pony weed smoking Trudeau got less than 40% of the popular vote. Most people voting.... voted for someone else... for good reason.

Are you still sulking?

Get over it. It's finished. The die is cast. Canada has a new government, whenever that beady-eyed sneaky dick Harper decides to leave Ottawa. Rumour is Nov. 4.

Even if the vote was cast with proportional representation, Trudeau's Liberal party would be a minority government.

In any scenario, the strategic "Anyone but Harper" vote succeeded. Canadians made up their minds it was time Harper and his secret, unilateral and questionable methods got the boot.

Ding dong- the witch is dead!

http://www.warrenbuffett.com/warren-buffett-on-gold/

Personally, I keep no money here, other than what I need to live on. I have offshore bank accounts and credit cards and investments

I use your strategy as well.

Let's set the clock on the new Liberal Government.

As the election turned out, The Liberal Party won a majority number of seats (188 Lib, 99 Con, 44 NDP, 1 Green) and therefore form the new government of Canada.

In terms of popular votes, the Liberals had 39.47%, Conservatives 31.89%, NDP 19.71, Green, 3.45%.

From the election map attached, only Alberta and Saskatchewan predominately voted Conservative. One would assume, then, those who post negative reviews of the election result to this thread are from those provinces.

I suppose one can bicker over the results, but the die has been cast and the Liberal Party has the democratically-elected mandate to rule.

There are a lot of arm-chair pundits and those unhappy with the results, but the only direction to look is forward. Harper is now gone as are his policies ... thank goodness!

So now what will the Liberals do?

The lazy-minded among us will gripe and moan and put their own spin on what will happen, but another tact would be to look at the Liberal platform and see what they say they will do. Here is the Liberal Platform website:

We now have a baseline on what they say they will do. Over the course of their five-year mandate, we can measure what they say they will do from the platform versus what they actually do.

You really don't know much about the election do you? Here's what happened;

- Conservative vote held steady

- The NDP vote collapsed with a majority of voters swinging to the Liberals. The strong showing by the NDP last election split the vote in ridings and decimated the Liberals.It allowed many Conservative MPs to squeak by.

- The vote was not an endorsement of the Liberal election platform. Rather it was a repudiation of the Conservatives. People had grown tired of the party after 10 years in office.

- The Liberals do not have a majority of the vote, nor are even close. A majority of voters selected a party other than the Liberals.

- The conservatives were shut out in Atlantic Canada, the welfare belt of the country because the Conservatives refused to engage in the corrupt politics of payoffs, and generous welfare payments for people who refuse to work and who abused the Unemployment insurance program. The same thing happened to the provincial liberal government when they were in office a decade ago. The provincial PM of Nova Scotia was tossed after he said no to pork barrel politics. The provincial conservatives took office because they engaged in pork barrel politics.

Mark my words, the corruption scandals will start soon enough with the Liberals. The same corrupt scumbags who ruined the party 10 years ago are still around and some of the younger people now involved in policy making are worse. The NDP which was trounced deserved better treatment from the electorate. The NDP ran an honest campaign, a responsible campaign. The voters preferred the BS and bribery of sh*tstain Trudeau, the boy who never worked a real job in his life and who's claim to fame was as a drama teacher for a couple years at a grade school. It boggles the mind that the left of center NDP had the fiscally responsible budget proposals. Trudeau intends to run $10 billion deficits for each of the next 3 years.

Well, a hater's got to hate I suppose. Hate away. The Liberals won and are running Canada now. Get over it.

Let's set the clock on the new Liberal Government.

As the election turned out, The Liberal Party won a majority number of seats (188 Lib, 99 Con, 44 NDP, 1 Green) and therefore form the new government of Canada.

In terms of popular votes, the Liberals had 39.47%, Conservatives 31.89%, NDP 19.71, Green, 3.45%.

From the election map attached, only Alberta and Saskatchewan predominately voted Conservative. One would assume, then, those who post negative reviews of the election result to this thread are from those provinces.

I suppose one can bicker over the results, but the die has been cast and the Liberal Party has the democratically-elected mandate to rule.

There are a lot of arm-chair pundits and those unhappy with the results, but the only direction to look is forward. Harper is now gone as are his policies ... thank goodness!

So now what will the Liberals do?

The lazy-minded among us will gripe and moan and put their own spin on what will happen, but another tact would be to look at the Liberal platform and see what they say they will do. Here is the Liberal Platform website:

https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/

We now have a baseline on what they say they will do. Over the course of their five-year mandate, we can measure what they say they will do from the platform versus what they actually do.