Capital

I feel the great and overwhelming need to make a 'Your mom!' joke... I won't though, as this article was quite a bit of help to me today in getting closer to a true full-lotus. It's hard though... I have rather stocky legs.

And you're sure there was no bias on the part of the journalist? Often, verifying whatever you wish to prove correct in journalism is simply a matter of only providing certain sources and comparing them in a particular way. You would probably be able to find just as well-made articles that say exactly the opposite. I'm not saying that most astrologists aren't probably BSing, but don't you think that in a universe where energy permeates and cycles constantly the positioning of giant spheres of matter (matter being energy) might perhaps affect us little humans? Other animals are powerfully affected by the shifts of the moon and sun, and most likely other 'stars' as well, so what makes us humans so imperiously unaffected?

Bump!

All the contradictions will get to you, especially if you came on this site in order to try to understand energy use. They got to me at first, until I realized that getting 'energy' isn't really important to me. I'd rather I never get a lick of energy ability, if it's not naturally along my path. Meditation should be an opening up and a loosening, not a grasping. If you have to concentrate to feel it, then you're making it up. Every intuitive truth I've ever felt came at moments when I wasn't trying. Also, to the original poster, I think you need to accept your fear and laugh with it. When weird shit happens during meditation, I go with the flow. The time I didn't, which I posted a thread about when I first joined, I felt tired and drained for days afterward.

@Tao99 - The quote you highlighted in red by Vajrahridaya (I can't type that name so many times... ) seems to say that Ralis' interpretation was simplistic and black and white. It wasn't an attack unless taken as one. Ralis seems to take every statement Vajrah says as an attack in the posts I've seen (and he then responds with all the emotion of an abused victim), whether I can find said attack in the context or not. This has led me to the conclusion, perhaps too black and white itself, that Ralis (and SotDE) is the primary instigator in most of these arguments. This seemed logical from what I've read in quite a few threads, but I didn't read through the many other threads hosting the same arguments again and again, so I don't know enough to be fully objective; regardless, I should stop casting judgment. In this very thread, I didn't read any page but the last couple; worse, my response was one made in foolish frustration at the fighting that seems to spawn from nothing more than a misinterpreted line here or there. EDIT: Tao99, if the following quote is the quote you took as 'an attack', then perhaps it is misinterpreting more than just a line here or there. Nothing, nothing in that post is offensive, unless you have a skin as thin as that which covers a baby's scalp.

They don't seem to want to say anything profound without money being involved... That's enough for me to say peace and goodbye.

I feel it important to mention that I am certainly no Buddhist. Neither am I a true Taoist, to be honest. I simply don't know enough to call myself either. My interruptions in these constant fights have been mostly on Vajrahridaya's "side" because in each thread that I've read, he has simply posted an opinion, and you (Ralis and theSofDE) attack him again and again simply because his opinion differs. I think if Karma is a reality, which I don't insist on or insist against, as I have no say in the workings of nature, then you are reaping in bad karma with your nasty thoughts and responses. It is repugnant to see apparently grown adults become so very passionately angry on an internet forum that is supposed to discuss (primarily, not as a rule) Taoism, a religion of compassionate moderation. EDIT: Funny how Peace and Love changed to War and Peace, eh TheSongsofDistantEarth...? ...What? If I have seen anyone putting someone down, it has been you. To do so as constantly as you do, and then to blame the very person who you've been putting down for putting you down is simply saddening. You think and question everything? Think and question yourself and your defensive, enraged responses then.

Mixing the first two gives a wonderfully dynamic sound, in my opinion.

Good post, Vajrahridaya. I think that once your stalkers read that post, they may actually be forced to comprehend what you're writing, as it was quite clear.

I was going to say something similar last night, but I didn't feel that I had the experience to negate someone's comments about Qigong practice, as I'm an absolute beginner. I will say that I think it is silly that every one of those rules ends in 'dangerous' or some other negative. It's the kind of fear-mongering that harms any practice far worse than breaking any of those rules will. You can't meditate being constantly afraid that 'your doing it wrong!'

The idea of anything being unchanging and eternal seems contradictory to all I've heard about Buddhism on this site.

Don't take my word for it, as this is only a paraphrase from a book I read, but if you aren't holding your tongue up to the roof of your mouth during meditation, I heard it can cause very bad things to happen with your head and neck when the energy first rushes through the far more sensitive energetic areas in those two places. For some reason, what you said reminded me of that, and that could be important, you know?

You question seems odd to me, as 'Practicing awareness', in my book, should never include something to 'do', because you are then creating expectations. To be truly aware of yourself, you have to stop hiding from yourself, but that isn't really an action. It's more of a cessation of one. That doesn't imply 'bringing down' the mental walls around you. That would involve a nasty crash. Instead, you merely stop building them; time will eventually see them crumble naturally.

I'd like to mention that capitalizing words does not add emphasis. Italics and bold-font should be used for such things. ALL CAPS is shouting, and it should only be used in the English language if one is meaning to shout. Perhaps it is because I spent most of my online-forum time on a forum that was very strict on literary standards, but capitalizing every word really gets to me. Honestly, though, if one needs to shout when they aren't even talking face-to-face with someone (i.e. the lovely internets that we are communicating on), then they need to reflect on some anger. EDIT: I cannot speak for threads before I arrived, but in those that I've read that have recently come up, you and Ralis have been the instigators...

I must say, I laughed.

How many threads have you derailed, my angsty friends? Forget your arguments, for you are bringing much stress to the whole board with your thread-stalking and contests of dogma. I know I have little right to say anything, as I have not been here long, but the constant fighting is ridiculous. Let each other be free to feel as he/she may. Both Taoism and Buddhism preach dispassion towards both praise and ridicule.

No one around me meditates. No one believes in inherent energy. It's either Christianity or post-Christianity Atheism/Agnosticism with everyone I meet. It was only due to weed, quite honestly, that I ever realized how silly my own post-Christianity Atheism was. Just because the majority of those in the Judeo-Christian sects are narrow-minded and hateful of the unknown doesn't mean that 'god' is instantly a lost cause for me. I started meditating, out of the blue, while under the effects of cannabinoids; I made some of my most deep-felt acceptances of nature under the same effects. To be clear, I agree that marijuana (and any drug with ranging hallucinogenic effects) are not needed for meditation, and certainly do cloud perceptions- and increase fear and paranoia needlessly, but I would also say that for those of us with no possible connections to anything esoteric perhaps a mind-altering substance is quite needed.

Haha, I turned eighteen in 2008... What a good time to become an adult in America, eh? ------- @ Original Poster Do what the above posters describe if you have the will for it. Perhaps you will find your ability to 'overcome death'.

So the lion deserves compassion, has "Buddha Nature" (I only put this in quotes because I have not even a simplistic understanding of what it means), and suffers, but does not 'understand' like a human, so it cannot reach liberation? What separates the man from the animal, and allows us to forget our original nature as animals? What is the Buddhist opinion on the evolution of creatures? What controls the movements of souls from one class of being to the next, and how did enlightenment occur before our species had the ability to think with our monkey minds? Now, this is somewhat unrelated, but I thought it was cool. Isn't it interesting how at times creatures were so much larger than they are in today's time? Giant Ground Sloth. Today's sloths don't even compare, but they are apparently from a similar Order. Someone please explain how that is even possible!

Do lions suffer, Vajrahridaya? From a Buddhist point of view, or at least your specific Buddhist point of view, can an animal suffer?

The cow says "Mu" The dog says "bark." The pig squeals and oinks. The human can say all of these things, if it wants. Then again, so could the parrot.

magic of the game does not reside in the game but in its player EDIT: Rather, Magic of the game resides not just in the game but in its players

An alternative option, and the option many seem to take, is being completely secret about everything that is fundamental, yet pulling fools in with 'detailed (usually wrong) directions' on how to do the powerful and obtuse. I cannot say that I have never pondered on the depths of what a being can experience, but I'd much rather have abundant direction on the basics and the theory than a how-to-do on Telekinesis.

That was quite beautiful. It helps one to realize that emotions are far purer than our conditioned mind when one sees them so clearly in an animal like the elephant. Also, to see the first breaths... I wonder how that elephant breathed before it had access to the air.