forestofclarity

That's not necessarily the case. Bodily repulsion is a different meditation. I learned the traditional 32 parts of the body meditation on my last retreat, and it had nothing to do with repulsion.

What about when you go to sleep?

I've recently made a significant change in reducing meat over the past few weeks. Quite frankly, I feel better, lighter, more "sattvic."

Wilhelm doesn't translate the whole thing, and his translation is colored by his teacher who was helping him. Further, Wilhelm translated from Chinese to German, which was then translated into English. Also, WIlhelm uses strange Christian and Jungian words, such as anima and animus. Bottom line, Wilhelm's translation teaches a version of the MCO and Cleary's teaches a version of awareness training.

I vote Cleary. It was helpful for me.

Not to wade into this discussion, but this is not necessarily true. Correlation does not mean causation. One of my old friends used to say, the rooster crows. The sun rises. Does the rooster make the sun rise? Consider speech. Speech occurs in the mouth. You can correlate oral position of my teeth, tongue, and haw to every word that I speak. If my mouth is damaged, my ability to speak is impaired. Therefore, speech is contained in the mouth. You can make the same argument that hearing is in the ear, vision in the eye, and so on.

Here is how I learned the Heart Sutra in a Zen group: We repeated it every time we sat. After about a year or so, I had it pretty well inscribed into my mind. Then, as I went about my life and meditation, I would suddenly realize "oh, this is what that means!" This is an ongoing process. In fact, I would say my whole spiritual "path" is just a few ideas that keep getting deeper and deeper and transforming me in the process.

Personally, I don't believe we can undo in one hour what we spend 23 hours building up. I think if one wishes to address anger issues, one needs to look at our daily life. Meditation is good in that you can practice key skills--- non-attachment, concentration, relaxation--- but unless these skills are taken into and applied to daily life, they won't solve the problem.

A lot of people are misled (in my mind) into the same conclusion you draw here from Buddhist teaching. I've been told it is a common misperception in Western monasteries. But Buddhist teaching is like peanuts. It can taste good, or make you sick, depending on who you are and how you take it.

So is pain an inherent quality of fires and sharp corners?

You can also use strong effort AND mindfulness to learn first hand the emptiness of achievement and loss. Of course, it is an ongoing process, not so much a one time lesson. In Seven Taoist Masters, there is a story about a student who overcame sex by going to brothels and discovering first hand the impact it had on his mind/body.

Personally, I would worry less about so-called "heavens" outside and focus on the inner workings of the mind and skandhas and see how ignorance and clinging is created in everyday life.

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So a while ago, I decided to drop all of my energy practices and stick with simple meditation. Mainly I practice in the Buddhist tradition. But then I was reading the Book of Balance and Harmony and was struck, as though hit by a bolt of thunder, by this excerpt: I can sense the spirit of Lao and Zhuang in these lines. I don't say a "Taoist" spirit, because then we already have partiality. If we make things Taoist and Buddhist, then we have imposed a human made pattern on the world. This excerpt got me wondering about the age old debate of intentional practices vs. unintentional practices. I've been toying with the idea of late that the issue with energy isn't that our energies aren't flowing in the right pattern, but that we attempt to impose a pattern on them at all. So it seems that the issue is not which pattern to impose, but in ceasing patterns and allowing the natural flow to appear. What say the Taobums?

It strikes me that the problem isn't about having enough forums. It's about people drowning threads in posts. This could be solved with a modified term of service and moderation. It seems strange to re-arrange the entire forum.

Actually, that is not true. Theoretically, perhaps, but not in practice. VERY few practitioners teach the 5 skandhas in the U.S. I only learned it through Bhante G's center. The teachings on paper are not the same as the teachings in the flesh.

Darin, You'll find that all Buddhist schools generally agree on the Four Noble truths, the four dharma/dhamma seals, and dependent origination. The Four Noble Truths (paraphrased): 1. There is suffering. 2. Craving is the cause of suffering. 3. The end of craving is the end of suffering. 4. The end of craving is achieved through the Eightfold Path: Skillful View, Thought, Speech, Action, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, and Concentration. This path is also divided into three: sila (discipline), samadhi (meditation), and panna (which grows from the others). The Four Dharma seals: 1. All things are impermanent. 2. All things are unsatisfying. 3. All things are not self. 4. Nirvana alone is peace. Some schools teach the skandhas, and some don't. Some teach the bodies, and some don't. A good primer on Chinese Chan is: Orthodox Chinese Buddhism

No mean to offend, Xabir, but the fact you illustrate your personal understanding with some one else's words suggests to me that in fact it is NOT a personal understanding at all.

Personally, I think the most effective method is the one that works for you. People are different. Some people are oriented towards thoughts, others toward feelings, others toward bodily sensations. Some people are devotional, some intellectual, some active, some passive. People have different genes, different conditioning, different cultures. In my mind, there is no one way for everyone. Different people need different things at different times.

LBD, I think you make a lot of good points in your post. Old school Theravada Buddhism is actually very much focused on the body. The body is the first of the four foundations of mindfulness. There are specific exercises for exploring this initial foundation, such as contemplation on the 32 parts of the body and the contemplation of the elements. Further, the body is the first of the 5 skhandas, under form. I think the old Taoist critique may be based more on certain schools of Chan Buddhism.

Some of my thoughts on beginning breath mediation: 1. You can just concentrate on the breath generally, wherever you feel it when you think of breathing. 2. You can concentrate on a single point, such as the contact on the nose. This is recommended because it is outside the body and does not cause tension like others may. It is recommended to concentrate on one point to prevent the mind from wandering. However, this area is close to some people's "thought space". 3. You can concentrate on the rising and falling in the abdomen, or the dan tien. For some, this is harder than practicing the others and may lead to bodily tension. However, one bonus I've found that the breath naturally tends to sink even when you're not meditating. This is my main way of focusing on the breath. I tend to be head centered so this is a good way to get into the body. 4. If you cannot concentrate, you can count the breaths. Some recommend keeping the count low, like 1-5, others 1-10. Some warnings: 1. Do not try to control the breath. 2. From time to time, you might want to check the body for tension and relax. Especially in the beginning, it is common to tense the body. This is especially true with tension in the head.

Of course, there are no experts and one is free to believe as we choose. I offer my opinions only as they are helpful, and of course they will probably change. My current understanding is that the Buddhist teachings of emptiness arose in part based on a disagreement in the Buddhist world. The old school, the Theravada, taught that all compounded things lack a self. However, the elements themselves had a self nature (svabhava). The prajnaparamita literature and the teachings of Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka arose in part as a response to this. The teachings of emptiness were aimed specifically at self-nature, or essence, or an independent, enduring self. This includes even the elements. So to take an example, there is no essence of motion or an essence of a mover. The mover and the motion arise together and depend on each other. Without motion, there is no mover, without a mover there is no motion. This doesn't mean that things don't move (nihilism). Both motion and the mover lack an independent self-- they arise and pass away together. Realizing this leads to less clinging, and this is the Buddha way. Wu in Taoism, as described here, is different. This isn't to say that the ideas are not complimentary, I just don't think they are quite the same. In fact, in Chan, you see both used. In Chinese, different characters are used--- for the Buddhist emptiness, we see kong 空 instead of wu 無.

I'm not sure that is the analogy to make in my opinion. Emptiness in my mind generally refers to a lack. You cannot buy something with a lack of money, and so emptiness cannot give rise to something. Emptiness does, however, allow the arising and passing of things. Also, IO is a relational state, i.e. a useful mental concept. They are more along the lines of concepts, in my mind, than of things (or non things). I do think you can draw certain analogies with wu ji and tai ji and Buddhism, but I won't go into those now. One striking similarity is the method, at least with certain Taoists: wu wei and non-clinging.

Color.