Talk:Toni Packer

Editing accuracy

• just starting the talk page, the first time is that a previous editor changed the word german for 'lutherian' but in fact i am not aware of a strong religious leaning by her father that would justify a change of context this way. Andrew Osip7315 07:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Andrew. I started this biographical stub because I felt Toni Packer deserved one. I am not well versed on her biographical data, and appreciate any contributions people might make on the article to further it's accuracy. Personally, I do not know whether her father was Lutheran or not. The other editor seems to think so, and also claims to have been a student of her for ten years. I removed the portions concerning "discussing editing" and the beauty of the center, the latter due to the subjectivity involved. It is also not pertinant to Packer's story, either. If you feel inclined to create an article for the center, it would be more appropriate to place such information there (that said, I still don't feel the information is encyclopedic). Concerning meditative inquiry, I am also unsure if the definitions of it belong, either. Certainly it is worth mentioning, but getting into the esoterism of the "technique" is dicey. I would personally like to see more biographical data, ie. her childhood, names of parents...what it truly was like living in Hitler's Germany. I am also interested to see an in-depth explanation on her departure from Zen Buddhism. Certainly I encourage discussions and additions, but lets not start editing wars here. Hope all is well. (Mind meal 07:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC))

• why was the phrase "The Springwater Center is a place of great beauty with sparkling streams and green leafy trees that just blow through the soul..........." deleted

intense visual lyricisim is part of toni packers approach - Osip7315 (unsigned)

• Please see my above post for my reasons. (Mind meal 07:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC))

• Toni packer is constantly misunderstood or misrepresented by people in buddhism, she eschews any notion of technique

it is a life work for her and you cannot have a biography of her without her work which is outstanding theres an intrinsic 'boundarylessness' to it that perhaps is making you uncomfortable and are looking to fit her into some mould that doesn't fit. it was really only the after war started that the nazi jewish extermination program got going, the 'hitler years' go back to 1930. information on wether her father was strongly religious would be welcome, i haven't seen anything to indicate it was more than the usual conventional aquiesence Osip7315 08:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Hi again Andrew. I am not uncomfortable with anything Toni Packer may teach, yet I do not wish to see redundant information in the main article. You are correct to suggest that Jewish persecution began long before WWII; perhaps we should change the wording to "during the Third Reich's reign", or something along those lines. I have no personal axe to grind with you over this article. Information on the beauty of her center is entirely redundant concerning her biography. This is not an article of Sprinwater Center. This is an article about Toni Packer. Furthermore, I also do not see why her father's supposed Lutheran background should only be pertinant if he was extremely pious. Given such reasoning, should we now not mention that her mother is Jewish? I personally find such information interesting, as it details her background in childhood. Familial information is very relevant in biographies, especially when they are of a religious nature and the subject themself is a religious or spiritual figure. Given her many years of Zen training, religion certainly has played a big role in her life. I will be contesting the additions on the beauty of the center and other information as opposed to removing them for now. I feel this article is headed downhill as it stands. (Mind meal 08:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC))

• she doesn't teach, is not a teacher and doesn't have students

she has empahtically rejected zen and buddhism you are really not familiar with her or what she says. the article is excellent and you really have face your wanting to pull it back down just because you don't like authentic spirit i have already had one reader say to me how good they thought the article was and how well written it was you are in vipassna?

most people are not religious and actually both her parents were scientists and her father quite well known as the author of an importana chemsity text, maybe it could be put in as a seprate paragaraph, but the focus of the paragraph is the fact she was half jewish and she and mother were on the death list and perhaps her half brother as well, and it was only her fathers intervention with the gestapo that saved them

i don't want to go to far into the nazi thing out of respect for toni who may read this at some point and its bound to be upsettingOsip7315 09:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• "The Springwater Center is a place of great beauty with sparkling streams and green leafy trees that just blow through the soul"

Lovely writing, It really brings forth an image,

I cannot understand why anyone would object to this beautifully crafted piece of descriptive writing, Surely entirely suitable for a page about Toni Packer... Eprunster 09:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• I have no axe to personally grind with you Osip, as I stated previously. This so-called dispute has little to do with accuracy and more to do with relevancy. In the article you state Toni is "constantly misunderstood or misrepresented by people in Buddhism", and yet you provide no evidence to back this claim up. Who in the Buddhist community has "constantly misundertood or misrepresented" Toni? This needs citations and sources to be credible. Now, to critique the style of the writing. You posted in the article: "Her talks have an intensely visual lyric character with naturalistic imagery from the center and its surroundings. They convey a sense of boundarylessness. The Springwater Center is a place of great beauty with sparkling streams and green leafy trees that just blow through the soul." All of this is entirely your own perception of her, all 100% personal opinion. It is simply not encyclopedic writing. Also I would like to point out a flaw in your reasoning that Toni eschews all notions of technique. This cannot be so if she has coined a technique known as "meditative inquiry". If Packer has nothing to teach, is not a teacher, and eschews all techniques...why on earth are we discussing this "meditative inquiry" in such minute detail? It boggles the mind. No, I am not a vipassana practitioner. While it is irrelevant, I am a Korean Zen practitioner. However, I am not looking at this article as a Zen Buddhist. I am looking at this article as an editor concerned about the integrity of an article. You made additions without capitalization and with some downright odd wording. As we speak there is a sentence missing a period at the end of it which you have placed in the article. I am not going to further edit you before consultation from others on this discussion page. It is my hope you would do the same in the interim. (Mind meal 10:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC))

• years ago i stayed at the kwuan um centers in providence/cumberland and boston, providence was absolutely beautiful , surely you have felt the green and the trees there?

then went north to the springwater center

wow, faces long gone but i can see them before me now

you should read a round a bit, emily dickenson, ee cummings, robert frost get a feeling for a more literary style and not some crude stupid school marm version of english

read Seung Sahn poems on the kwan um zen page

toni gave a talk at cumberland years ago i think and they didn't take to well to it, like you.

get some 'don't know' mind and enlarge your horizons, or at least read with some understanding Osip7315 11:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• repaired yet another 'spiritual materialist' rewrite that attempts to move toni packer into the buddhist orbit and also contained factual errors

i don't know why these people come here since they obviously have never talked to her or been to springwater.

do some background research please and her talks are avaliable from the center Osip7315 15:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• You know, you got a real negative attitude, considering the message you're representing. Your version of the article was blatantly inappropriate for an encyclopedia. And I most certainly did not try to move Toni Packer into the Buddhist orbit; I took her out of categories which said she was a Buddhist.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 18:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• she not really a writer per se, she has written some books but her focus is her 'work'

you don't seem to get the complete repudation of buddhism. she has no 'practice' thats just your projection

you don't seem to have read whats written and understood it

with no experience of springwater and no personal contact with tony packer, you seem very willing to scrap my work and that of one :other who also has some personal experience , i think it says a lot about you

you are just out of it with cognitive issues that you don't seem to recognise, low reading age and attention issues

you have spent a lifetime accumulating 'spiritual' nonsense and toni packer of course shows it up so you try and spoil it

did you not see the comment earlier by eileen saying how she liked the writing of what you have removed

you can't understand the portion you have removed and in fact you have to let go of your accumulation of spiritual trash to understand it and this upsets you so you remove it

you are a pest and not about to change your ways i suspect Osip7315 20:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Listen, Osip7315, I'm going start just plain ignoring you if you want to continue saying things like "low reading age" and assuming that you know something about me. We are here to write an encyclopedia, not make childish insults. The first sentence of the article has to state who Toni Packer is, not describe her parentage. How would you like me to describe her? And what should I describe her meditation-related behaviour as, rather than "practice"?—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 00:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• nat, i have been in contact with a friend of toni's at the springwater center who has known Toni for quite a while, so hopefully there will be quite a bit more of useful input to this page, you are overconfident about what you do not have any practical experience of and it would be helpful to you just to even follow those two links on the page to get a better feel for the differences between toni packer and buddhism

its years since i have been there but stayed for months and only ever saw her do a sitting mediation for about 1/4 of an hour once, basically she does not meditate

the 'sitting meditation' session you get with zen is entirely voluntary at the center and i never did it either much at all when i was there, waste of time if you see the mushy brains it turns out

the title of her most recent book "The Silent Question: Meditating in the Stillness of Not-Knowing" does not refer to sitting meditation but is a not entirely successful attempt to convey something of 'boundarylessness'

which word you deleted in the earlier article because you are so busy making boundaries lol

because springwater carried a lot of its personnel from the rochester zen center, there is quite a bit of accomodation to people who really seem unable to break entirely with the zen way of thinking

her own views are different and not so constrained

the use of 'gentile' to describe her father doesn't fit, the readership is not jewish by and large

the original sentence was "Toni Packer' was born 1927 in Germany to a German father and Jewish mother. Her status as half-Jewish in Germany during the war years had a profound impact on her outlook"

that imo reads better because it does not double state things

1927 implies ww2 and "german father and jewish mother" implies her father was not jewish as well the obvious "half jewish" laterOsip7315 13:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• While I don't want to flat out insult you Osip, it does seem as though you might have a mental disorder. Instead of choosing the words you post here with care, you seem to just shoot from the hip, saying anything you like. This is not a blog for you to post on. Even if you know Toni Packer, this does not mean you are automatically qualified to write encyclopedic articles concerning her. In a sense, I feel it is this so-called personal understanding of Toni Packer that is clouding bias-free writing. Frankly I find the writing style you use to be poor in punctuation and grammar and highly subjective. Encyclopedic articles are to be objective, if they are to be of any credibility. This article is not for propoganda purposes. It is for unbiased information readers wish to acquire about her on the web. I personally believe you are not qualified to edit at Wikipedia, given the utter lack of respect and "adult attitude" it takes to be a part of this community. As for you're "superior" approach to spirituality over Zen Buddhism...I ask, "Just how childish are you?". Grow up a little before editing the main article further.{Mind meal 05:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)}

• to the READERS

i think at this stage we are looking for more biographical data about toni, info on her husband kyle, dates, anecdotes from the life of toni, info from friends about her and her work, travels, retreats, toni and kyles adoption,

more information on her parents and early life

the infuences of j. krishnamurti and also possibly ug krishnamurti as i seem to remember seeing a book about or by him in her bookshelf in the interview roon at the center

other influences

please read back on this discussion to get a feeling for the issues this page faces with buddhists attempting to 'revise' toni packer and the narrow minded 'spoiling' by these people that has occured, toni packer is a direct repudiation of the failings of buddhism and religion and its not surprising that at least one attempt on her life has occured

space is free on the web, an additive approach rather than removal or rewriting of what is there is more productive, though this will vary, this should be a positive experience and be able to use what others have written in a constructive way is what wikipedia is about

wikipedia does preserve previous editions and i am am attempting to preserve what is written from the deletions of parties that are a very bad advertisement to buddhism

perhaps it is appropriate to recall john keats's "ode on a grecian urn" with the haunting end lines "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odeonagrecianurn.html

sadly education teaches disney and 'macdonalds kosher' is what is being enforcedOsip7315 14:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• the human head is a funny animal

the eyes in one direction

you have to turn around to seeOsip7315 21:09, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• " an additive approach rather than removal or rewriting of what is there is more productive". This is a popular misconception. Wikipedia grows by both addition and subtraction. When edits are added which diminish the quality of the article, they must be removed. Not enough of this really goes on on most articles, unfortunatey. Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 22:19, 16 December 2006 (UTC) —P.S.: I have removed one of your insulting remarks, above.

• which was "cowardice is such a universal human attribute unfortunately :o("

can't you bear to think about these things? haven't you noticed it?

does a litle bit of self doubt about your take on things ever cross your mind?

am i the only one to say this to you? i don't think so judging by some of the other comments on your edits on other entries

your idea of quality is "what nat agrees with"

why are you attracted to toni packer and this page? surely lojban has a better call on your time

if you think lojban can replace english and that ambiguity is intrinsically bad then you don't understand how to use language

the simplest way to break out of the religious mindset is to read some poetry, try philip larkin and see the better quality of thought

but you won't,

its like some of the followers of ug krishnamurti, they can sorta see ug is right but sit there wasting their lives frozen in some religious

belief, yet follow ug around but never agree with him

people like that at springwater to

america is a waste land of vaccine damage now, you look young enough to have had one of the bad lots of the dpt :vaccine......autism, aspergers syndrome, adhd, ring any bells?

buddhism, religion, springwater is full of it, have these issues myself, you are just amongst like kind, thats why you are here Osip7315 04:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Hello editors, thanks for your work and debate. I’d like to weigh in on a few points. Full disclosure: I work at Springwater Center, though I speak only for myself.

“Practice,” “teacher” etc.: meditative inquiry is not a practice in the sense of some instruction to be followed, something to be repeated. Toni says somewhere something like, “awareness is the world as it is from moment to moment.” A technique is by definition less than all-as-it-is. This is also the thrust, I think, of her assertion that “teacher” doesn’t describe her: she doesn’t give someone a technique to practice, tell him how to go about his life, or even convey information as her essential function. The thing is to help him discover his own confusions, and clarity thereby. Then, as she says—when two people see the same thing at the same time at the same depth, where is student and teacher?

(She does use “teacher” casually though, colloquially, and she doesn’t object if someone likes the word “practice” either. Her preferred terms “work of this moment,” “meditative work,” “meditative inquiry” etc. aim to avoid the pitfall with “practice” of implying anything more straitened than the whole conundrum you’re born with. But no word is perfect. “Work” doesn’t do justice either, for instance, to the sense in deepening meditation that no-one’s MAINTAINING awareness, it’s just brightly there, everything is illuminated. Then almost an automatic intelligence about what could obscure awareness operates as needed. It isn't exactly work when life's just brightly happening, with no-one apart from it to work on it).

In a broader sense “practice” might not be inaccurate: like, a person's “religious practice” just in the sense of what they do objectively speaking, where they put their energy. But in the usual Buddhist sense—“what’s your practice?”—it doesn’t apply. Awareness isn’t a practice among practices.

● “Boundaryless” beautifully describes the context for sitting meditation at Springwater. The truth of all things is by no means limited to sitting quietly. Toni does like to sit quietly, though! I’ve heard her muse that those who sit a fair amount on retreat seem to get more out of it than those who don’t. Ideally what Springwater offers is the chance to discover the beauty and the limits of sitting quietly, for oneself: so you’re not sitting an hour a day solely because all the texts tell you to, but with a real reference-less inquiry into what helps and what doesn’t. And without the superego of traditions—though any traditional proposition can be tried on for size.

● To say Buddhists constantly misrepresent Toni puts too fine a point on it, I think. Look at Buddhist (or Buddhist-ish) teachers’ blurbs on her books — I feel many show quite sympathetic understanding. (There are for instance Joko Beck, Stephen Levine, Larry Rosenberg; Jack Kornfield and Jon Kabat-Zinn on her new one due next spring). Better to say there’s been SOME misunderstanding. (Remarkably little, in my view! She’s gotten off surprisingly lightly). Verifiable instances that come to mind are George Bowman (Zen teacher) quoted in “The Work of this Moment,” and Helen Tworkov interviewing Toni in Tricycle. Bowman said basically “if there’s sitting, talks and meetings, it’s Zen, whatever she may call it.” To which Toni replied, what is this urge to categorize? (More full disclosure: I sat with George Bowman for a time, I liked him very much). From Tworkov’s interview the only bit I remember is “are you (Toni) so convinced that the methodology of effort can’t work for anyone?” but I remember having the sense in general that Tworkov hadn’t felt her way (yet?) into the subtlety of Toni’s points.

(I’ve quoted people a number of times without exact references. If y'all think any belong in the article I’ll be happy to track them down).

● “Accommodation of people unable to break with the Zen way of thinking:” no two visitors to Springwater share the same set of spiritual affinities. Zen or other conditioning certainly can and does cloud folks’ ability to perceive the subtlety and uniqueness of what’s on offer, but an appreciation of Zen or whatever isn’t NECESSARILY a failure to grok Toni’s approach. “Zen way of thinking” is too broad a category; it includes much besides mere prejudice. It includes those things that a person has found to be of real value in Zen, in Advaita, Tantra, whatever, entirely through their own experience rather than through authoritative repetition. Springwater's ways are always subtly evolving through the different affinities people have absorbed.

● I agree “green leafy trees that just blow through the soul” is lovely and refreshing, funny, speaks to my feeling for Springwater, and I agree it’s too subjective and too low on information for a reference work. Many are the trees that blow through the soul in this world, not just at Springwater.

● I've never detected any influence from U.G. Krishnamurti. No major influences come to mind outside of J. Krishnamurti...Toni adopted the coinage “awaring” from Shunyata/Emmanuel Sorensen, a fascinating Dane...Vaporpennant 04:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• User: Vaporpennant 11:43 p.m. life is full of traps and decoys Osip7315 13:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Osip, could you please start capitalizing letters at the beginning of sentences you add in the main article, and provide periods at the end of sentences? Please? I don't understand this whole debate we are having, any criticism we have tossed your way concerning your additions is simply personalized and deflected. You said some crazy things above about Nat and me, yet the irony is you yourself show no ability to handle criticism without reverting to fits of anger. This article does not concern Nat's religious views, my religious views, or Osip's religious views. Stop pretending to have the inside scoop of some ungraspable truth. I feel as though you think you are the only party involved in this article. Very arrogant and childish. Seems you have attained "anything goes" in your boundryless practice that isn't a practice. This article, imo, looks TERRIBLE right now. Could you please start taking your own "boundryless" advice and actually consider the views of others? Man, work on those social skills already.{Mind meal 14:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)}

hmm you are plasterered all over the web, a little 'zen master' dispensing comforting advice about death, writing wrong minded haiku and posting pink floyd lyrics

no eye contact in your photo and you are the generation damaged by the bad DPT vaccines, do yourself a favour and have a look at your vaccination record, you have all the neural signatures of it

you are such a card carrying buddhist and i presume with the kuan um zen group(thats is a photo of sueng shan? on your e sangha posts?) which is a group somewhat hostile to toni that you, if you have any sense of shame should not be editing a page on toni packer

ohhh hhmm , just read something you wouldn't want posted here

o(

if your lifes such a mess why do you think you have things right?

look at your vaccination record, its real help to understand you were killed before you had a chance Osip7315 06:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• You sound distrubingly like a stalker. Not to mention, a real nutcase. You know nothing about me, quite obviously. I don't hold anything against Toni Packer, and why you think Buddhists do is puzzling. Searching my name on the web, and finding some posts I made on a Buddhist forum is just not right dude. Get yourself checked out. You have crossed the line, big time. The whole vaccine talk you've obsessively indulged yourself in is quite scarey. Lighten up and quit with the creepy talk. Watch yourself Andrew.

{Mind meal 07:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)}

• "watch yourself" yeah the veiled threat, my neighbour has similar issues to you, i know the scene and the behavior so if you can modify the board on equal terms to me it's hopeless.

its toni packers and the springwater centers problem, so i am signing off, its been a bit gruelling, have learnt quite a lot

the trouble is theres no young generation coming though with any clues, they are all too damaged, you in fact without the dpt vaccine would likely have made good progress, but a signature of dpt damage is almost a schizophrenic rigidity, do a web search on the dpt, the dpt vaccine was so bad even the medical profession noticed and they changed to a less viruluent version in 1990

bye Osip7315 07:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• wittenright, the two paragraphs/sentences you have joined are by different authors and together seem disjunctive

'meditative inquiry' is a nonsense term in a way, that first sentence is an attempt to address that issue, its abstract

the second sentence is a different perspective and actually seems to fit taking the context of 'it' from the previous :paragraph/sentence

"Meditative inquiry" is a contextless inquiry into the nature of reality and unsettling to normative human intelligence with its social referencing. Simply put, it is earnest, diligent, and thorough questioning: questioning of everything that we have been conditioned to think we "know" about the nature of our lived personal experience. This is, in her words, "seeing without knowing": simply allowing the mind to attend, without imposing any judgements whatsoever.Osip7315 04:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• given the content stability over several months, have removed a disputed content warning as superfluous to the under development flagging Osip7315 09:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

writtenright, i think the quotes should be authentically toni and not vipassana derivatives, the fire one is standard eastern religious hash

i am not sure 'identity is division' comes off because identity can be used in the sense of being whole

its only rarely material is suitable for quotes, it has to be able to stand alone and her talks use context a lot211.27.72.36 13:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• a certain julia rossi has gone through with a cut and paste that only bespeaks a silly overconfidence which is so par for the course for this sort of thing i am thinking about withdrawing on attempting any input on toni packer wiki page

its also noticable how the new springwater site is creeping the buddhist paradigm back just like rossi has moved the wiki page back to an infantile collectivism, i am sure more atrocities and a rejection of any poetic spirit will soon occur

i don't actually think the current approved 'teachers' have to bone to stand up for what is right and springwater will sink into some fringe buddhist circuit

i can't fight it and don't wish to and have confidence in what i am doing and my material and don't wish to squander resources on what is changing and moving away

good luck to you and rossi :o)

grrr... look those twits rossi is publicising in the "see also"

just walk away Osip7315 10:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• have reverted it to the version before rossi's viral escapade, her purpose was to provide links to non associated semi-religious teachers, she's australian, no practical experience of springwater, doesn't know toni at all and has no compunction in overwriting a carefully thought out and backed by eye witness experience page

Toni Packers notablitiy is not in Question, she is very well known, you should do some goggle searching on her Osip7315 11:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• anybody able to provide a citation for "Toni Packer is the preeminent exponent[citation needed] of a semi or nonreligious, semi-philosphical approach"

i would say its a consensus view by anybody with any discernement and thats not asking a lot in the way of discernment

lenore friedman's book 'meetings with remarkable women'? probably need a page number but from memory it does stand out in the book as her opinion

poor old toni, something in the nature of a cremation inscription having a wikipedia entry about her doneOsip7315 00:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

New article

In an effort to make this article encyclopedic, I have completely reworked it. I would hope that any material added hereafter will be referenced by reliable sources independent of the subject. As a friendly reminder, WP:OR does not allow for editors to conduct their own research. As always, to be included in this encyclopedia statements must be reliably sourced and independent of the person the article covers. (Mind meal (talk) 23:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC))

its typical of american reality denial that you took out the bit about toni her family being on the nazi death list, i know that for a fact because i heard her say it

as i understand it her mother was jewish, you have removed just about everything you can about her being brought up in the nazi era and being half jewish, your attitude smacks of anti-semitism

toni packers style springs from theosophy and not zen, theosophy was big in nazi germany and a lot of nazi doctrine is formulated from it

toni would be exposed to it in her formative years so jiddu and ug krishnamurti are more her native language

you are welcome to act like some zen robot dog, putting the zen imprint or urine scent on every object you feel the territorial mark is needed

Osip7315 (talk) 23:35, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

What I did was include only referenced material, as this is how Wikipedia works. Original research is not allowed. I can't believe you just accused me of antisemitism. You are very unpleasant, frankly. everything in this article is referenced by reliable sources. Take your fit up with them. (Mind meal (talk) 23:39, 16 February 2008 (UTC))

Andrew, it appears as you have overstepped your bounds by resorting to name calling and ill-conceived content. It would be appreciated if you do not contribute any more to this page. I say this as her son and because of this I am familiar with her history from a factual standpoint. Thank you. Arpy5150 (talk) 22:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

in the end i figured toni packer like zen is empty

what is the point of building some-one else up as a surrogate for ones own experience?

let the likes of you (whoever u are) and mindmeal meander about this entry forever :o)

somewhile back it became quite obvious that this sort of entry is not something that wikipedia does well, theres always some new schizophrenic ready to pop out and defecate all over the entry

however i valued the entry which was mostly my contribution at that point and put it on my web page were it will last my lifetime at least

at some point mindmeal will understand the issues of terminal over-volunteerism, but another schizophrenic will step into the breach or maybe the memory of toni packer will just fall away with time

Osip7315 (talk) 01:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

one of toni packers issues is that she is accommodating an awful lot of nonsense for what is essentially a volunteer activity which is a weakness that runs right through springwater that other centers with their need for income are more real on, in the sense that the nonsense is promoted with an end in mind and not entirely unreal in that respect Osip7315 (talk) 02:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

if you compromise there is some limitation on the development and perhaps that has happened to her, though there can be other reasons for a limitation on development Osip7315 (talk) 00:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

given that zen is such a spewing pit of schizophrenia she has done quite well

in the end, being a volunteer activity one asks if it has been got right and she has it right

Osip7315 (talk) 00:11, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

how zen is springwater?

i think the promotion of seated meditation as a vehicle for 'whatever' does place springwater and packer still in the zen orbit, so comparisons with zen are not unfair. one can see an ipso facto transmission given to her leading disciples which is another almost unique zen charateristic.

i have often wondered about the utility of seated mediation, but now think its just part and parcel of the zen 'package' and its not necessary to separate it or try and seek some resolution, whatever the utility of zen was, it passes with progress and so too with seated meditation.

if its a technique, you have to ask for what and after years of observation i would have to say its singularly unsuccessful Osip7315 (talk) 04:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

volunteering

wiki and springwater are volunteer activities, the problem always is not what you do, but what you are not doing that will reward your life better

i don't think you not volunteer, but you must be very targeted in what you do

basically i only do this stuff now to sort out my own thinking, no illusions of helping the usual human ar*&^%$#

high quality thinking is always rejected by the human mass and its natural mediocracy

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good stuff, interesting to see that i'm not the only one noticing these things

http://www.celiagreen.com/tassano/surviving-in-a-mediocracy.htm

todays world has become very russian with a diffuse non-conscious stalin Osip7315 (talk) 23:35, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

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thankfully mindmeal has destroyed the entry again with his imposition of the urine scent of overboundaryization charateristic of drug use which seems to be so socially acceptable in the usa comapared to any sensible attention to dietary health issues

the authentic toni packer entry is up on http://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/andrew/toni_packer.html

Osip7315 (talk) 21:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

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it only takes one unreasonable persistent person to destroy an entry and that unfortunately is what has happened with this page

you can't do anything about short of getting him banned and whats the point?

too much effort and the desired outcome is unlikely

there used to be more, but they have gone and he is young and will be around for quite a while

Osip7315 (talk) 21:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

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stupidity is quite an active process and requires some degree of intelligence it is so thorough about removing what would defeat it

the tyranny of the talentless

Osip7315 (talk) 11:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi again Osip, glad to see you're still at it. If you think my decision to revert to the earlier version was incorrect, I welcome an independent review again by an administrator. This gets pretty old really. (Mind meal (talk) 13:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC))

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lol, mindmeal re your edit comment, you win, what i have learnt is that being thwarted is usually in my longer term favour, i have my own resources, what am i doing promoting toni packer?

i have seen it so many times, people pilfer one or two ideas of mine then totally distort what is said but use it to garner the attention of others, others just want to shoot me

as i say you are doing me a favour, like one of the demon dogs in ghostbusters that guard the entrance to the spiritual world you are keeping me safe

its odd, visiting springwater all those years ago and what i really took that was useful was that its not safe to tell people what they don't want to hear, there really was an attempt on her life which you removed from the entry

and recently a much better understanding and sympathy of the problems of disjunction she faced at rochester and still faces at the springwater center, just head and shoulders intellectually above those around her and really she is cognitively dissonant in her way of thinking compared to theirs

she took the road of survival and made necessary compromises and i do that too now

interestingly i am more sympathetic to your obsession with jazz now having come across some very good clips of nat king cole and eartha kitt (who is really autistic btw)

nat cole and eartha kitt in the "careless love" video is really one of the best things ever done

keep up the good work!

Osip7315 (talk) 22:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

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mindmeal the technical term for you and some of the others attempting to make toni packer look secondary to buddhism is "apologist"

you are a zen/buddhist apologist, there you are , you have a job!

i was interested you did not step in on the toni packer entry until i put in a bit about her and mother teresa and the similarity of situational disjunction which really cracks the whip and is very fresh and powerful and worst from your point of view as an armchair apologist implies reality is prior to religion

Osip7315 (talk) 19:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

the user http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sandstein has deleted the vast bulk of the comments and discussion in violation of a convention on wikipedia to leave the discussion alone, however this is just part of the trend to hyper editing admins that lack subject expertise that is just killing wikipedia

Osip7315 (talk) 09:48, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

so where are the buddhist apologists and interfering admins who know nothing about the subject?

something to do with wikipedia losing eclat from the destruction of rich content by these self same admins ?

the zen buddists being routed by neo-advaita? toni packer is the least of their problems?

Osip7315 (talk) 23:24, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Toni Packer/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

==Last paragraph== The final paragraph is not really relevant to an encyclopedia article on Toni. The ellipsis at the end is not in encyclopedia style. Writtenright 00:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)Writtenright one day you might understand the relevance Osip7315 05:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 05:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 09:02, 30 April 2016 (UTC)