Maddie

Usually in TCM if you have lower back pain that can not be explained by an injury its caused by Kidney deficency.

I would appreciate wisdom and insight from those who have been doing this a while. I've been doing mindfullness for a few months now, and notice that sometimes afterwards all kinds of funky emotions and thoughts come up. I've been told this is "normal" but is there such a thing as doing too much mediation. Also are there ways to deal with challenging thoughts and feelings that come up in the process of meditation?

what is the heart's desire is to no longer desire?

That was actually my attempt at humor haha. Ok so what I'd really do is what I do these days anytime I find myself reacting to something no matter what it is, and stop and ask myself why I feel that way, as opposed to simply reacting. I'd go and meditate and see where and why I have this particular craving or desire. Just about every time what I thought it was at first dissolves into some facet of ego, and once I see through it as just a manifestation of ego then it dissipates.

I was under the impression that to see into ego you did Vipassana and to be calm you did Samatha. But lately I've been mostly doing Samatha and having a lot of spontaneous insights into ego anyways... hmm.....

Go back to what I've already said and see if you can figure out what I'd say lol

I just remind myself that something must be wrong with her for liking him haha

Repression.... yes indeed a problem, but what is repression really? Is it just beginning to feel what you are really feeling as your energy level gets to the point for you to really start feeling it, and then distracting yourself from that by releasing that energy? Or is it when your energy level rises and you begin to feel what you really feel but then sitting with it and allowing yourself to feel it until you get to the bottom of it no matter how uncomfortable it may be? Which one is truly repression?

That's pretty much the definition of proselytizing your own opinion. Agreeing with what someone said because you agreed with that opinion already. Not at all, I simply made an observation.

Yea I guess I should have specified, all sentient beings have consciousness, and I don't think plants are sentient. But as far as the animal kingdom goes they are sentient.

Yes to have truly free will one must be enlightened, BUT even unenlightened beings still have a will, its just not completely free. In having a will you make choices though one has to consider what factors influence those choices? According to Buddhism all living things have a consciousness and a will and desire pleasure and to be free from suffering. The mention of conditioned responses is actually a good example of one of the elements that causes will to not be totally free. So the cat sees the mouse and its hunter instinct kicks in creating the desire to catch that mouse. That desire then strongly influences the cat to choose to chase it. The two factors of desire and will usually happen so fast that we see them as one. The smoker feels the desire for a cigarette, and then either chooses to or not to smoke, though his will is heavily influenced by craving and desire for a cigarette. Since only a Buddha has fully eliminated craving and desire only a Buddha would be completely free from such influences.

When I speak of enlightenment I do so from the Buddhist point of view that you have eliminated all desires, craving, and clinging and thus are free from Samsara and have attained Nirvana.

I pretty much changed my life path from one that was not working very well for me, to one that works much better, .... so yea, I'd say so lol

Walking meditation is one of the four postures of meditation in Theravada. Sitting, walking, standing, and laying on the right side.

Even the simplest creatures in nature make choices

We come from and are part of nature so where does one draw the line? I've seen a cat play with a mouse, kill it (slowly for fun) and not even eat it.

Is the Dalai Lama not enlightened already?! The reason would be that they use up all their good karma and merit as a deva and drop down.

I pace in my apartment looking a few feet in front of me at the floor, doing the "Budo" mantra mentally. I've found that if I'm too antsy to do sitting meditation this helps get me to that point.

Well that part as a general rule I'm well aware of as I was a history major

Oh no I definitely think there is a perceiver as perception is the second skandha. If we keep going with the skandhas then after an act is perceived and then conceived then our volition often adds a judgment of what we think that act is, in this case either good or evil. Again as to whether or not there is something called "evil" depends on what you mean by the term. If you mean evil exits as a matter of perception and volition on the part of the observer then many versions and definitions of evil exist. If you are meaning a more objective standard of evil even this can still come down to perception and conception. To the cat the rat is evil for chewing a hole in the wall of its owners house. To the rat the cat is evil for trying to eat it. To the cat wanting to eat the rat is simply its nature, and to the rat chewing holes in the walls is simply its nature.

And everyone has a slightly different definition of what "evil" is, thus back to perception. I think free will exits in the universe, but that most people do not posses a completely free will until they reach enlightenment. I have a view for sure, but just how "independent" it is, is impossible to say as I am as of yet still not enlightened and therefore have not freed myself completely from delusion.

I had a LOT of heart stuff a few weeks ago. I'll try to pay more attention and see if I can localize this feeling as so far its felt very non-localized.

To have a perception of evil, there must first be a perceiver

I was just contemplating in another thread yesterday that in Buddhist cosmology the various god realms are described as being as far "above" the earth as the distances to the various planets. This caused me to ponder if there is "life" on the other planets, but just in a form that we can not realize. Could that possibly explain why the Romans associated various planets with various gods?

But the precept of not harming or killing others is as old as the Sangha. Deviation from that is the basis of my question in the first place.