Maddie

Speaking of the pure land since you seem to be knowledgeable of the medicine Buddha I was going ask how much you knew about Amitofu? For whatever reason the Amitofu chant seems to resonate with me more than the medicine Buddha mantra. Not sure why.

The reasoning behind your motives make sense for sure. I do agree that if there were just thousands of Nichiren Buddhist that were currently enlightened it would make for a stronger argument. Though perhaps if by following Nichiren practices one is going to have a reasonable chance of liberation then I wonder if by default it increases one's chances of obtaining rebirth in a pure abode if that is what is necessary to get the job done?

There's a similar school of thought in Hinduism with meditation not being adequate for the Kali Yuga but rather chanting practices.

I think this is a common misunderstanding but also easy to understand how it could be misunderstood. To the best of my understanding I don't think Nichiren thought he knew better than the Buddha. I believe his main thesis was that there are different methods for different times and that the time of the Buddha was a different time and therefore the methods he taught were good for that time but in the time of Nichiren so he argues new methods were needed for new times. At least I think that's his argument from the best of my understanding of it.

One other one that I forgot to mention that I did to my surprise fine to have some effectiveness was the Catholic rosary but I suspect that Mary and Kuan yin are possibly the same being.

It's the sectarianism that also is a little off-putting to me as well. And yes the more traditional forms of nichiren are to my understanding not considered to be culty like the more modern SGI. I believe part of the cultural context behind the high degree of sectarianism of the time in Japan was the threat of the Mongol invasions and there is a widespread belief that the correct form of Buddhism had to be found in order to save the nation.

I guess I would add personally my thoughts on Nichiren's thoughts. My greatest exposure and initial immersion into Buddhism was primarily from a Theravada point of view. This being the case meditation was of primary importance and chanting was a minimal importance. So just based upon that I had a tendency not to take what Nichiren said very seriously. On the other hand though the Buddha said to you not just take someone's word for it even his own word for it but to prove everything by experience. My experience that are for showed that hours and hours of meditation we're not really helping to make me much happier. On the other hand experience showed that by doing various mantras I would notice more obvious results as far as I could tell from my subjective point of view. So from a purely experiential basis it would seem to me personally that there's something to what Nichiren said about the third phase of Dharma decline and meditation being less effective in this day and age. If one is curious about Nichiren the wiki page about him is actually a pretty good place to start. I tend to avoid SGI sources because they seem culty.

If you're referring to nichiren Buddhism it is a very sutra based tradition as the chant nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the title of the lotus sutra which they've venerate as the most perfect and complete sutra in all of Buddhism. I actually don't know much about nichiren Buddhism and couldn't recommend any books about it. All I do know is that nichiren believed that we were in the third stage of Dharma decline and that earlier techniques such as meditation we're no longer effective and that for this current age the chanting of nam-myoho-renge-kyo was the most effective way to achieve Awakening. And now I've told you pretty much everything I know about nichiren Buddhism LOL.

From a subjective point of view here's a summary of my experience with various mantras: Zhunti: to me this is the nuclear-powered pulling out all the stops really blasting karma mantra. Effective for rapid change but can also be extremely unpleasant in the process. Nam myoho renge kyo: seems to have a more gentle karma changing affect then zhunti mantra and seems to help one get what was their intention for chanting. Amitofu: this one seems to be very soothing and calming. Manjurshri: after doing this for a while I tend to get more nerdy and turn into more of a bookworm. 🤓 Om mani padme hum: this was the first one to ever get my attention and I found a very soothing and calming. But that was a long time ago since then I don't seem to notice that much from it. Atanatiya parita: reciting this sutta seems to be very helpful if I feel that I'm being messed with by exterior malevolent entities. I think one observation I've made ever since I began practicing karma changing and karma purging mantras and practices is that the states of my life become much less permanent. This would make sense as the karma that would bring one into a situation would tend to keep one in that situation as long as that karma exists but if one is actively attempting to change their karma then at a point the karma that brought them into a situation is no longer relevant then change happens. I've noticed this with jobs, relationships, and other life situations in general. Ever since I began karma changing mantras these things don't tend to last nearly as long but when one ends something better tunrns up to follow it. I tend to be amazed now that people can remain in a life situation for so long at this point in my life.

Yeah I'm not in SGI but I do like nam-myoho-renge-kyo. My intuition is that it does a similar thing and has a similar effect as the zhunti mantra but it seems to be a little more gentle.

Again an excellent response thank you. What's your opinion assuming you have one about nam-myoho-renge-kyo? This is another one I use extensively.

I've never done the mudras yet this mantra affects me more profoundly than any other.

Vajra Fist thank you, excellent!! 😌. As a follow up question, I think I heard before that Medicine Buddha mantra is useful for success and obstacle removal in general?

I'm curious as to why you have this view?

Yes I know this might seem like a strange question on this forum, but it seems like the concept of Taoism is in China versus the West is very different. As I read the blog posts and watch the youtube videos of most westerners there seems to be the idea that Taoism IS Qigong, or some type of martial art, or some kind of alchemy. On the other hand when I read about how the Chinese practice it it seems to be more of a religion with temples and gods and rituals and incense and texts. I realize this divide isn't exclusive only to Taoism because I know that the Western vs Asian view of the practice of Buddhism it's quite different as well with Westerners tending to view more as a philosophy and Asians tending to approach it more as a religion. A lot of things that I used to assume were Taoist I have come to find did not originate with Taoism, but rather a lot of it is from Chinese folk religion or has been integrated from other systems. Such as many of the gods and goddesses come from Chinese folk religion. The concept of yin and Yang and the five elements come from the naturalistic school. The I-ching predates taoism by quite a bit. So this begs the question. What exactly is Taoism? I think largely part of the ambiguity of how to practice Taoism let me to see more definitive answers and things like Buddhism. so I'm sure I'll get a plethora of the responses but basically what I want to know is what is Taoism and how does one practice Taoism?

Going back to the topic of morality, isn't morality the primary approach of Confucian Qigong?

As of lately my primary chant has been Nam myoho renge kyo as that had seemed to have a good effect upon my mind. Lately however I'm finding Amitofu to be increasingly effect. I seem to go through phases where at times one chant does it for me and then after some time goes by not as much but then another does. The very first one I loved was Om mani padme hum. I then spent a significant amount of time doing Zhunti mantra, but that one usually made me feel bad.

Thank you for the recommendation. Can you tell me a little about this mantra please?

Is the Medicine Buddha mantra useful to get difficult people out of one's life? Or would another mantra be more suitable?

Sure, let's go with that lol 😉

You could look up Bruce Frantzis

In the spirit of exploring Tao again in the past couple days I've done "ba duan jin" Qigong again after having not for a while. I'm surprised how sore my limbs are, as though I lifted weights.

That or Taoist magic 🦄 Like how to get a very problematic ex to leave you alone for example lol

Yes lol 👻

I wonder how one tells if they indeed had a problem like this and then if so what is the source of it i.e. a ghost, a demon, blackmagic?