Maddie

strongly agree

I had a feeling there would be something to be said about my assessment of MMA compared to TMA, but I do think TMA has its uses especially for developing the person like Mr. Miyagi. The average MMA fighter might be better at fighting, but I am pretty sure I'd rather hang out with the TMA person.

I thought instead of starting a new thread about a topic that I'm sure has been discussed a lot I would just dig an old one up. My question is when doing the eight brocades is there anything that you do internally or is it all just the movements and breathing?

You might want to consider taking a break from meditation. If you look at the eightfold path number eight, concentration is meditation. It's generally the last step on the path and if one skips steps they tend to have problems. Westerners have a tendency to want to start at the end.

I think MMA did a lot to peel away the mythos and bs of supposed "deep stuff" and showed the mechanics of fighting are rather straight forward.

I agree, but coming to this conclusion for me was kind of like learning that Santa Claus wasn't real when I was a kid.

Very good, you have the right idea. In the ultimate sense what you are getting at is exactly what the Buddha said in his four noble truths. 1. There is suffering 2. It is caused by desire, which is caused by ignorance 3. It is possible to end this suffering 4. There is an eight-fold path to end suffering .... So yes the idea is to not need, desire, or want products or sensations in order to be content, BUT we also need to realize where we currently are realistically in the present moment. That being said if you realize what you seem to realize and want something to motivate you forward then perhaps you could consider making letting go of wanting, being the thing you want. Letting go of desire as the thing you desire. Letting go of motivation as your motivation. Here's the tricky part, how do you let go of something by grasping it? You can't at least not directly, so what is one to do? This is where the fourth noble truth comes in, the eight-fold path. 1. Right View 2. Right Intention 3. Right Speech 4. Right Action 5. Right Livelihood 6. Right Effort 7. Right Mindfulness 8. Right Concentration

Having been someone that spends a great deal of my time contemplating and practicing detachment I thought I'd take a stab at this. So first of all what you are dealing with sounds like depression. Depression is not the same thing as detachment, it is not the same thing as having no desires in the ultimate sense and this is why. If one truly lets go of something they are at peace, but the fact that this indifference seems to bother you, or at the very least you want "the next thing" shows that there actually still is desire, a desire to not feel how you are feeling now. What you seem to be lacking is not desire, but direction. You want, but you don't know what you want. A tough place to be in for sure. If you had no desire in the ultimate sense you would be totally content feeling this way, for what would there be to want something other than what you feel now? That being said I would venture to say what you need to find is what it is that you actually do want. One thing seems for certain. You seem to have outgrown whatever it is that you used to like and desire, but have as of yet not found what it is that you do want. This is something that no one else can answer other than yourself. Hopefully realizing what the problem isn't may help you to understand what the problem actually is and hopefully that will help you to find the answer that you are looking for.

If you want the name you can send me a private message and basically yoga is the same idea as Qigong but just from India

Hey there. I read that you are in a relatively small town. Do you have access to any nearby acupuncturists? I am an acupuncturist and one of my friends from acupuncture school currently practices in Alabama. This can be very helpful for many of the things that you listed as concerns. Also, it's been my observation that in areas with limited resources it's often easier to find a yoga studio. They call the energy prana but it's the same thing as qi.

Goodyear for acupuncturists then?

Oh the Lego was not the hulk that was a giant troll

Okay clearly you want some attention even if it's negative so in my compassion I will try to provide that attention. "Oh no how can you say that how dare you" 😐. You're welcome.

In regards to mantras something else I've noticed interesting over a span of several years is I can do very limited amounts of the Manjushri mantra and that usually is enough to set me on a several months-long course of questioning everything that I thought I knew and looking for answers period ironically even though it's a Buddhist mantra it causes me to question a lot about Buddhism.

That's true, but then you have the Liver Hun that is said to fly around at night and result in dreams and is what is responsible for reincarnation.

This is actually very understandable from the materialist point of view that sees the brain and the mind as synonymous. In fact it's the only point of view that is scientifically provable.

And I'm celibate so there you go LOL.

yeah I totally get that but in my case I was taking a break because I felt that I had been doing too many various mantras and that was making me feel bad in its own way so I was trying to make a pause to reset and detox and then pick it up again a little more thoughtfully but I guess life had a way of helping me choose one to pick up again LOL.

I had started this thread because I was feeling oddly out of sorts and couldn't shake it with my usual Acupuncture and herbs approach. While going back to my text books I was reading how in the very earliest days the approach was to treat illness by dealing with evil spirits. The book was making it sound like evolving past this stage was a sign of progress but since the medical means that I knew of weren't doing anything I began to think of alternative explanations. Yesterday I played 30 minutes of the vajrapani mantra and almost immediately began to feel wonderful.

I think Taoism explains what's going on under the hood, and Zen tells you how to start the engine.

That's actually very interesting, thanks for sharing!

This first quote is so blatantly yin and yang, the polarity of opposites. The second quote seems to me to be more about yin specifically. Yang is more obvious and fast but in the end Yin wins.

Definitely not linear but in board generalizations it seems to be the trend.