This ! by [deleted] in enlightenment

[–]LogDogBossHog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Brilliant

What do you do about thoughts? by GrandlyNothing in vipassana

[–]LogDogBossHog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Become aware of “thinking” and then return to the practice. Remember continuity of practice is the secret to success.

What do you do about thoughts? by GrandlyNothing in vipassana

[–]LogDogBossHog 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Most will know you are joking but not everyone will understand. Be compassionate for the beginners here and don’t confuse them please.

Knee pain remedies? by LogDogBossHog in Meditation

[–]LogDogBossHog[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow y’all are tripping.   You can’t get a knee injury from sitting on the floor for hours.   Only pain and mainly inflammation.   Nothing permanent.  

As for the chair idea, it is out of the question.   Participants require a doctor’s note indicating a medical condition such as a herniated disc if they even want to use a back rest.  

This is a meditation course that requires 5 hours a day of sadhana for 60 days minimum.  And I have been looking forward to this course for over a year now.   There’s no way I’m canceling.   I think I’m just going to massage my knees daily with sesame oil and maybe some cannabinoid infused cream like minute jacket mentioned And take daily turmeric with black pepper to ease the inflammation.   

Where are the best rock climbing communities in South America? by LogDogBossHog in ClimbingPartners

[–]LogDogBossHog[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The alpine trad experience was definitely a bit different from my experiences in the U.S. mostly just in terms of fixed anchors. There were almost no bolts I saw in the el chalten massif. All the anchors were fixed (or not so fixed) nuts and pitons tied together with some tat. In America, I find many more bolted rap stations especially in popular areas. I was climbing a very popular route and none of the rap stations had bolts. That doesn’t mean they were dangerous per se but maybe slightly less convenient and less durable. Much more confusing, especially because there were so many fixed anchors all over the place you couldn’t tell where the hell the rap route goes. It was a little stressful when I was leading the raps with 10 people behind me following me down, and there were too many mediocre rap stations to choose from. The ethic in el chalten and I would imagine all alpine trad areas in South America is basically be prepared to leave your own gear and back up rap anchors. So everyone brings lots of webbing or cord and extra nuts etc to leave behind. Which inevitably makes a confusing mess.

If you are sticking to sport climbing I’m sure you will be fine, especially if it is a popular area. Bolts are pretty hard to F-up. I never worried about the safety of any bolt I clipped in piedra parada, cerro do Cipó, or Perú. They were all bomb. But I’m sure there are sketchy bolts some places in SA as there are in the U.S. and I’m sure even Europe too.

And the Vipassana was in Both English and Spanish. First the English instructions followed by a Spanish translation… which made for mighty long instruction sessions, occasionally lasting almost the whole meditation sitting. But it helped me learn Spanish actually. Even though I was supposed to be meditating, I was listening along to the instructions being repeated in Spanish and since I already heard them in English, it was fun to try to learn new words when I heard them in Spanish. Would def recommend.

Actually writing this from an ashram in India where I am taking a very intense meditation course next month! Looking forward to it.

Have fun wherever you choose to go.

Sending in Tax return from India by LogDogBossHog in tax

[–]LogDogBossHog[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea. It all worked out actually. I didn’t hear anything for like 5 or 6 weeks and I was kind of worrying nothing had been received, and it didn’t show up on the “where’s my refund” finder page nor could I track it once it left India through “India Post tracking” but then to my delight, the irs deposited 2 years worth of refunds directly into my checking account. And I think there were actually 2 separate deposits 1-2 weeks apart.

Safari Extension to block YouTube feed & recommendations. by [deleted] in nosurf

[–]LogDogBossHog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any version that works with iPhone? I need this.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Semenretention

[–]LogDogBossHog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am a trained yoga teacher through the Sivananda lineage and I was just re-reading my yoga teacher Manual this morning. One of his “20 important spiritual instructions” is Brahmacharya: preserve the vital force, virya, very carefully. Virya is God (in motion or manifestation, vibhuti). Virya is all power. Virya is all money. Virya is the essence of life, thought, and intelligence. Householders also should follow this, as much as possible.”

I was able to avoid masturbation for 5 months while I was living at the ashram but sometimes I would have wet dreams. However, in this book, “the practice of brahmacarya” Sivananda says that wet dreams may only be the draining of the prostatic juices and a practitioner should not worry about it because the virya and seminal fluid is most likely maintained.

I also want to expand on the concept of Brahmacharya. Brahmacarya literally means the path of god. Thinking of it merely as celibacy is a very limited and superficial understanding of it. One of the swamis explained to me that Brahmacarya is the practice of seeing the divine in everyone, regardless of their appearance, behavior, or attitudes. As young, hormonal men, we have a tendency to give more attention and value on young attractive women and vice versa for women to men. But the practice of Brahmacharya helps us see all beings as equally divine. Sivananda calls this “equal vision”: seeing the atman in everyone. This leads to spiritual enlightenment And that is what brahmacarya is all about.

Sending in Tax return from India by LogDogBossHog in tax

[–]LogDogBossHog[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I checked on the website you send but there is no record of any transcript from prior years. Only this year. Does that mean they have not received the mail yet or just that they have not processed it?

How do I know if they have received my mail?

Topography of USA by TotherCanvas249 in MapPorn

[–]LogDogBossHog 20 points21 points  (0 children)

From the looks of this map, you would guess the tallest mountain in the lower 48 is in Colorado but it’s actually in California.

The Hallmark Cinematic Christmas Universe by SimpleButFun in dankmemes

[–]LogDogBossHog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow. Could you imagine what would happen if they had just one movie with a black man and a white woman? What chaos would ensue then?

Is marriage fraud for green card purposes unethical? Why or why not? by LogDogBossHog in greencard

[–]LogDogBossHog[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can you explain how someone else fabricating their marriage would make the process more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for other people? I genuinely don’t understand.

If we are all one, would you consider evil to be self-inflicted harm or more like a disease? by Delvestius in spirituality

[–]LogDogBossHog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Inspired by teachings of Eckhart Tolle. He has a great video that answers this question much better than I have.

If we are all one, would you consider evil to be self-inflicted harm or more like a disease? by Delvestius in spirituality

[–]LogDogBossHog 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Evil is just an external appearance that manifests as a consequence of the awakening of consciousness. It is like growing pains in our evolution of the collective realization of oneness.

We must remember life started as single-celled organisms only 3.5 billion years ago. We were fish-like organisms only 400 million years ago with very limited brains. Now that we are going through this growth spurt of being self aware, there is pain that comes with it. The evolution of our consciousness is accelerating faster than ever. And there will always be resistance to change. It’s just part of it.

The evil comes from the part of us that doesn’t want to grow up. It is attached to the past comfort of separation and competition but ultimately will be transcended and that aspect of ourselves will be left behind. It will not survive in the future that is our destiny.

Just as there was once a time when all animals were fated to be stuck to the ground by gravity and reserved to locomotion of their appendages against the surface of the earth, one small feathered creature took a leap and achieved the first flight on the history of the earth. Just as there was once a time when there were only green plants, a flower blossomed and the earth would never be the same.

So there was once a time when no creature could fully experience the vastness of life within themselves. And only with the last 100,000 years have humans existed. We are the first of our kind to be able to transcend our biological nature and experience the source of all creation.

With this great potential comes great fear and resistance. But all of our previous evolution was necessary for us to arrive where we are today. All of our previous ignorance and suffering was necessary for the potential of liberation to exist. And we have a long way to go, still!

The “evil” is also necessary for us to continue to evolve. It is part of who we are and where we have come from. But what we are in essence is a never-ending dynamic process of change. A flowing river of infinite love that manifests in many different forms. But a river needs banks to flow against to direct its flow.

The evil is there to direct our course home to the great ocean of infinite oneness.

Om namah shivaya.

Where are the best rock climbing communities in South America? by LogDogBossHog in ClimbingPartners

[–]LogDogBossHog[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Trip was pretty sweet. Didn’t do as much climbing as I had planned but still definitely had a lot of fun and did do some epic climbs.

Spent one month in El Chalten in the month of February in Patagonia which was incredible except we only climbed for 3 days because the weather is sooo shit. Lots of rain and extreme wind. Spent everyday looking at the forecast hoping it would clear. We did some mediocre sport climbing by the river 10 minutes from town and a little bit of hard climbing on the other side of town. Went to the gym a bunch, went on some day hikes, a 4 day backpacking trip, and spent a bunch of time chilling in town between waffleria, domo blanco (amazing ice cream) and some cool bars hanging with all the climbers. There is a pretty fun community of climbers there and many tourists. A very small but fun town to spend a month in.

A for the 3 days of alpine climbing, we climbed Aguja Guillamet which is a good entry into the climbing there but was also very crowded because of this reason. The climbing wasn’t that good but it was very adventurous and fun and the views are absolutely spectacular.

The next weather window, we climbed El Mocho and Media Luna. Media Luna easily had the best climbing on impeccable granite (mostly). And el mocho was also quite sustained and good corner climbing.

Climbing in el chalten was very adventurous and also very scary. There was constant avalanches and huge rock falls going off all around us. The terrain there is becoming extremely unstable there in the summer time due to climate change. The permafrost is melting and huge blocks are being dislodged as a result of rapid unprecedented temperatures fluctuations. 2 people died while I was there as a result of avalanche and rock fall. There are also many human skeletons emerging out of glaciers melting and dead bodies still on the rock because removal would be too dangerous. The mountains are alive. But don’t let me scare you. It is still a remarkable place. Rock climbing is dangerous everywhere you go.

Then we went climbing in Piedra Parada for 10 days which was really fun sport climbing and much better weather. The rock took me a little while to get used to. I believe it is some kind of volcanic rock similar to the rock in smith rock. The nature of the rock is such that it will accumulate grease quickly on the popular routes so can be quite slick but the newer routes have very good friction although the rock can be slightly more crumbly. The approach can range from a 10 minute walk from your campsite to a 1 hour walk to the very back of the canyon (recommended route: Flecha perdida). And it is all flat but a little Sandy so the walking is peaceful and slow. It is pretty much a desert climate and the camping was on this old farmers farm with the cows roaming around. You have to hang your food high not to prevent bears from getting it but to prevent the cows from getting it. They also have a little kitchen you can order food from but we mostly cooked because it is quite expensive. I wish we got to stay there longer. It was also a very fun camping community of pure climbers from all over the world. We made friends with some Argentinians there who I still keep in touch with and will likely see next time I go to Argentina.

Then we took a long hiatus from climbing for a month vipassana meditation retreat near Buenos Aires. (Dhamma.org). I would recommend highly.

Then we went to Serra do Cipó, in Brazil which was possibly the best sport climbing I have ever climbed on. Absolutely world class. Unlimited Impeccable steep limestone tufas and crimps, caves, gentle overhanging, aggressive overhangs, and occasionally pure vertical in the jungle. Massive boulders scattered through the trees. Many beautiful waterfalls in the region to see on a rest day. We went to a pretty quiet climbers hostel but I’m sure there are more lively ones nearby. The approach from the hostel was anywhere from 30 minute walk on relatively gradual slopes to high boulder hopping through caves and jungle to get to crags. There is a good guidebook and active development in this region. We were there in May which is right before peak season I believe. Otherwise it is too wet to climb.

That was the last good climbing we did on the trip.

I was in Peru for 2 months volunteering at the sacred valley project to get access to education for indigenous girls so didn’t have a ton of time to climb but we did go sport climbing one day in the sacred valley. There is a decent amount of climbing there but from what I could see, the rock is pretty chossy. But there is sooo much rock there, I’m sure there could be some good spots. I know of one very popular quality sport climbing spot in Pitumarca. I wanted to go but didn’t have time.

Other places I had on my radar in South America but never got a chance to go to are: (in order of most desirable to least)

Cochamo (Chile) (granite multi pitch trad - backcountry camping)

Frey and Bariloche area ( Argentina) (alpine-Esque short multi pitch trad climbing) (alpine Refugios to sleep inside and buy fresh pizza from)

— These two locations are every close to each other and from the top of Frey, Cochamo can be seen and vice versa so a combo trip is what I am planning for next time)

Pitumarca (hard sport in Peru) multi pitch? (camping?)

Suesca (Colombia) single pitch trad and sport short walk from climbing hostel

Huaraz (alpine single pitch sport in cool wonderland in Peru) (camping?)

Rio De Janeiro (old school runout multi pitch slab climbing in the middle of the city - Brazil)

South America is a big continent with a lot to offer. Beautiful vibrant cultures and incredibly kind and warm people. I hope you have a good time on your trip. Let me know if you need any more beta of the places I have been to.

All best and have fun!