right outta high school i tried to get a job as a proctologist but i couldn’t find an opening, so i became an auto mechanic. that didn’t work out too well so i got into insulation, but they gave me the little fuckin shit breathers so i quit the fuckas. now i handle people’s wood. anything you need i can build the fuckin thing. new construction, renovation, addition and repair. i do it all, tough guy. and i can find work anywhere. you put me in the ass end of the philippines and i’ll find a fuckin job.
…handle people’s wood. 
Come on Prom, was that intentional?
I like this one:
Hey promethean, can I quote you in my sig?
I think that would be a wonderful idea. Everybody should have a promethean75 quote somewhere in their lives. Either in their sig box, on a roll of parchment, stuck to the fridge with a magnet, printed on a bumper sticker, or framed and put on the bookshelf.
Wait so you… when I… you thought I… OMG NO! No man! Oh gross! No way!
Sorry, I couldn’t resist… that joke was right there for the making, from a plate you unintentionally offered… fodder, placed in the hands of the infamously-immovable British-innuendo witty standard. 
Next time I’ll resist. 
Thanks dude! I’d go for the tattoo on the forehead.
The truth is, magsj, that I set the whole thing up… and thanks to you, we made a funny together. I cannot thank you enough.
No don’t do that gib because what if I say something better later on? You’ll have to pay to get the thing removed and to have the new quote put on.
'course you could just start a full sleeve of quotes on each arm and leg dedicated to a particular subject. Left arm epistemological quotes, right arm short aphorisms and maxims of thought, etc.
My body is your canvas… that sounds gross.
Shifts uneasily in chair
Yeah so uh did you did catch the 49ers game yesterday? Helluva game, helluva game.
swigs beer
This thread is taking a (too funny) turn… humour is good for the psyche and soul… has healing qualities… start healing thyself Gib.
I was but an innocent pawn, in a deliberate set-up, to unwittingly make a funny with Prom… about handling wood. 
Gib, you should check out Prism’s Spirituality and breathing thread… though it’s not about Buddhism, but mindfulness and overall well-being.
Thank you Mags, I gave it a quick read. I’ve had plenty of practice holding my breath for at least 30 seconds… when smoking pot.
Saying that one’s breath retention capacity is directly correlated with their quality of life and spiritual maturity is an pretty extraordinary claim, which requires (you guessed it) extraordinary evidence. I only read the OP, but I hope he can back up his claim with real life examples.
In any case, as I said in the I don’t get Buddhism thread, I don’t think this path is for everyone, and here I mean me specifically. I’ve dabbled on occasion but could never get into it. Work seems to be what’s getting me by these days. That’s my primary focus now.
Anything, even work, can be a kind of meditation.
I would recommend you consider:
Zazen is considered the heart of Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist practice.
The aim of zazen is just sitting, that is, suspending all judgmental thinking
and letting words, ideas, images and thoughts
pass by without getting involved in them.
No 4 noble truths, or 8-fold paths to follow… Zazen is not the same as meditation, in that you simply do nothing. I would say that it’s the next stage on from meditation, when you find that meditation has no more utility in it.
I suppose it depends on how you do it. Otherwise everything becomes meditation and meditation loses its meaning. How would one do something such that it becomes meditation?
You could always choose to focus on what is bothering you just out of your everday consciousness. Pot can help with that. Like if you get nervous socializing in certain contexts, go into those feelings when stoned. You can get insights and even express feelings you are not usually so aware of. People do this on ecstasy also, sometimes with a therapist in tow. This isn’t meditation, in the Buddhist sense or Hindu sense, since you are precisely NOT disidentifying with the emotions. You are immersing yourself in yourself. This can be a way to integrate.
I think this can be done without drugs, but drugs can offer a shortcut sometimes.
Karpel Tunnel,
Would you not say that alcoholics are already too much immersed within their selves? Perhaps what they need is to get away from their selves, move out of their own way, move toward others. For instance, put one’s self out by doing volunteer work with cancer patients. Meditate on that!
Yes, drugs can offer a shortcut just as alcohol can. So we are going to suggest to an alcoholic that he take one more shortcut. It seems to me that an alcoholic’s life has been inundated with shortcuts in order to avoid progress and healing.
It actually doesn’t lose its meaning - I do not want to sound condescending but (I will,) if thats your impression of what happens when you meditate too much, you have not reached a true stage of meditation.
There are many cultures who investigated meditation and many maps having been made of the mind states and qualities and ranks of consciousnesses to be attained; here is the “western” one.
This is always my experience, Ive never lost lust for life, meaning was never elusive to me, I think you misread me here.
I asked: why preserve ones life? And then gave an answer.