Not only does Buddhism offer a sound and practical approach to understanding the human mind and its functions, but compared to Western theories such as those of Freud, you could say that it has also stood the test of time, offering as it has for thousands of years methods for alleviating mental distress, whereas one could not say that Freudian concepts are as useful today, as they appeared to be when first established.

I'll take 20 minutes of meditation a day over any old Freudian psychoanalysis, thank you. Psychology is the business of any dedicated Buddhist.

I was thinking about half-way through, that another reason why people might join a monastery, is to run away from failed relationships and I noticed that she didn't address whether/how she had come to terms with this issue in her life or not.

Maybe she left that part out for brevity, but her emphasis seemed to be on how she became enthralled with the idea of why negativity in and of itself, is not such a bad thing and it just left me wondering, what about the two failed marriages?

I think if I had been in a similar situation, I would have gone off into some dark cave somewhere, or at least stayed single until I worked out why the marriages didn't work.

It's very satisfying to nurse a baby in need. I helped a friend out once whose baby needed to nurse when my friend couldn't do it herself right at that moment (why, is another story). I remember worrying that her baby would be too weirded out by strange breasts, to relax and feed, but she latched on and sucked away until she fell asleep. It was beautiful. I also worried that my own child who was present at the time would get jealous, but she didn't act so. It was like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Then not long after that, another friend cared for my child for a few hours, to let me get some rest and while she did so, my daughter wanted to nurse and climbed into her lap and nursed, again, like it was the most natural thing ever and she had never done that with anyone else before.

That experience led me to feel that breasts are meant for sharing and not just within single households. They are probably designed more as public amenities and when you think about that, if that's how we used them, it would mean that we would have enhanced immunity, because when nipples come into contact with the bacteria present in a mouth, the breast immediately responds by producing the anti-bodies required, in the milk. If we shared boobies we'd be covered for a wider selection of germs.

1. My grandmother tried to convince my 17 year old mother to have me aborted, but failed.

2. I flew in a plane for the first time when I was two and remember the air steward taking my unfinished glass of juice, because it was almost time to land.

3. I have been in close contact with dozens of venomous snakes, but never been hurt.

4. I fell in love with Persephone and her story, listening to an audio cassette in my school library at the age of 9.

5. I wasn't satisfied with my parent's explanation for the word 'rape' when I heard it on the news at the age of 6. I could tell they were lying.

6. I was the cultural representative of my school in senior year.

7. I was the first in my family to go to University.

8. I was the first woman in my family to delay marrying until after the age of 17.

9. I climbed Uluru not long after Azaria Chamberlain was taken by a dingo.

10. I used to sail 12ft Thorpes on the Brisbane River. My crew was a beautiful transvestite called Alison.

11. I dreamed of being multi-lingual as a child.

12. I love foreign languages and wish I could have kept up my German and Spanish as well as I have my Japanese.

13. I was a hostess in a Yakuza bar in Osaka for one night only.

14. I love being pregnant, giving birth and being a mother.

15. I wish I had had a lesbian relationship at least once.

16. I let my art lecturer sleep with me once because I believed it was an honour to be in his bed.

17. I drove solo across Australia once, never getting a flat or hitting a roo.

18. I meditate and am learning Chi Gung.

19. I sometimes talk to the dead and they tell me helpful stuff only they and their relatives know.

20. I know that our limited perception of reality is the reason we experience fear, anger and hatred.

21. I keep dream journals for my children. I have recorded their dreams since they first learned to talk about them.

22. My daughter reads my mind and lets me know she can do it, by bringing up whatever subject I am silently thinking about at the time.

23. I know that people I encounter are really me in another form.

24. I don't read/listen to the news/t.v. any more.

25. I will walk across Australia next time.

Richard tried, but he didn't manage to pidgeon-hole the Catholic church quite how he would have liked to, on the topic of evolution.

Dawkins is about 50 years too late in trying to make the church look bad in its view.

He could make a much more effective use of all his energy in questioning Catholics, by discussing their beliefs about the concept of sin, abortion, celibacy for priests, women having limited roles in the church and hang-ups about sexuality. These are issues where the Catholic church still lags behind.

When Mr. Coyne says that no tradition can claim that they have the absolute truth, I don't believe that Mr Dawkins can claim such open-mindedness. Dawkins reminds me of a child who feels he's been lied to by all the adults in his life and desperately wants to catch them out in the lie.

What he's missing, is that the great lies he thinks they are making, really don't mean a thing, in the grand scheme of things. I rekon if he meditated more, he'd mellow out and know how to hang loose with people, no matter what their philosophical persuasions might be.

When I was a kid I used to think he was singing "I really love your beat, just wanna shake your tree." That was before I grew a pair of my own peaches.

Your comments fall on deaf ears, siftbot. I don't have a competitive bone in my body. How do I switch this off?

In reply to this comment by siftbot:
Your rank has dropped by 1. You are now ranked #93. User thinker247 is now ahead of you. You can do better than thinker247, can't you? You're only 4 votes away from getting back in front of thinker247.

I love it, Arvana. Is this one of your installations?

Gee, thanks everyone. Didn't realise this was so well-liked. I love it too.

It's a dupe, sorry. http://www.videosift.com/video/Masturbating-in-the-hair-salon

Congratulations pinky, you've opened up some great discussion here and it's heartening to read some of the considered and thoughtful replies.
Feminism is definitely a worthwhile forum for debate, as is any movement which moves humanity onto greater awareness of our states of being.

I'm looking forward to the emergence of the masculine movement, when men reclaim their right to self-expression, without fear of being labeled less-than-manly. I look forward to seeing more men hugging and crying together in public and all the other configurations of men embracing their yin-ness.

I also look forward to the day that both heterosexual and LGBT labels have disappeared from our language. I look forward to the day that men and women are who they are, in whatever form that takes, without the need for society to have them pidgeon-holed into some category.

Yes Laura et al, we can apply filters and choose not to see the shit. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, nor that some of us are not deeply affected by it, whether we have those filters in place or not. By the deeply affecting shit, I am not referring to poorly chosen jokes or worded comments which appear on sites like this. I'm talking about serious sexism that can make a person without status or privelege less than human in the eyes of others.

I like your measure of appropriate language, kronos. If it's not something you can say out loud at work, it's probably best left unsaid, wherever you are. I noticed with interest kronos, too, that in your recent post about bad jokes, when you asked that racist jokes be left out, people followed your request. I wonder if you thought it would sound too draconian to include sexist jokes in your list of ones to avoid? I kinda wish you had, because it seemed that some members took that omission as a green light to try and out-do each other with the worst sexist jokes they could manage. I refer to videosiftbannedme's comparison of older women,to dog turd.

Well done to those who have contributed to this discussion with positivity and insight. If people of all races, gender and sexual orientation feel that they have a voice here, then it's a pretty good indicator of an amazing place.

No need to feel ashamed. Everyone looked cheesy in the 80s. These guys may not be much in the way of actors, but they did their part to put Australian swimmers in the lime-light with all their Olympic effort.

I didn't know about Lisa Curry's surgery. I used to live with her sister and one day when Lisa came to visit, some local gromets were hanging around trying to get a glimpse of their swimming idol.

I decided to take a nap, only to be woken a little while later by one of the gromets yelling out, "Hey Lisa Curry, my mate wants to fuck you."

I ran outside, told them all to piss off and chased them down the street.

I don't know if she heard them, or if she did, if she even cared about what they were yelling, but I was certainly annoyed with the negative attention being directed to our house from a bunch of horny 12 year-olds.

I hope your surgery goes well, Lisa. Love and light to you.

Lots of women sound like that giving birth. A good midwife, however, will get her to change the pitch of the scream. A deeper, lower pitch will be a much more effective use of her vocal cords, both to relieve pain and also help open the cervix. You can also tell by the scream, how close she is to getting ready to push. A really grunty, low scream is when she's feeling pushy.

Women in labour need to know there's nothing wrong with making lots of noise. Someone needs to tell them, though that the deeper the noise, the better.

BTW all the judgement in this thread about what a wus this girl is, along with all the assumptions about what kind of a person she is, based on this, is really lame.

Seems ok to me.

In reply to this comment by arsenault185:
Dead

http://www.videosift.com/video/Tantric-Yab-Yum-Technique

What's wrong with a good old fashioned hula hoop? Why not make it two, then you can both work out and admire each other's moves?