Maddie

I'm not sure, that's why I' asking lol

Fight, kill, attack! Ok consider this the people doing these bad things would not be doing them if they had more loving kindness, more compassion, more selflessness. So if you decide the answer is to kill these people, fight these people, attack these people then what do you replace them with? Someone else who lacks compassion, and loving kindness. That is why revolutions tend to replace one tyrant with another. What is it that these people want? what do they care about? Money. They don't care if their own soldiers die cause they lack compassion, so fighting them won't make them care. But as Nelson Mandela understood if you focus on what they care about then you get their attention. They want money, that is why sanctions helped to end apartheid in South Africa. On that video the generals in charge of Burma want to develop tourism to get more money. Since its money they are after, then it would stand to reason that affecting their cash flow would be a better way to get their attention. Since they don't value human life, they don't care about people getting killed in a fight.

Yea that part (about how is a man thing in India) I'm aware of, so what is the thing in the west (marketing, perspective) that makes it predominately female here?

I was reading Ajahn Brahm's Anapansati instructions and this caused me to be aware that my mind tends to drift quite a bit during Samantha meditation. I had been doing the "Budo" mantra but Brahm said that it does not work quite as well for westerners. So instead last night and this morning I used "be here". "Be" on the inhale and "here" on the exhale (mentally). Well I think it worked cause I was aware of this CONSTANT tendency to drift like every second. So I just kept bring myself back to here and now. It was hard lol. I felt exhausted afterwards and I meditated a shorter amount of time than usual. But what I noticed afterwards was that I kind of felt sad. I'm not sure exactly why, but I'm wondering if its that I actually enjoyed drifting off and now feel like I had that taken away from me?

They already tried riots, it just got a lot of people killed. Gandhi and Mandela promoted change in their countries with out violence and more bloodshed. Violence begets more violence.

No I was being quite serious.

alright enlighten us with the solution then.

wow why isn't more being done about this?!?!

Yea Buddhists don't believe in a soul as in a permanent self. As far as physical immortality I've heard various claims from Taoists. Some say immortality is not physical, some say it is. Personally though I'd think if physical immortality was real then we would have heard of some actual examples.

Hmmm well I can't say with 100% certainty as I'm less familiar with Taoist theory than Buddhist but if I understand correctly then I think becoming an Immortal in Taoism is similar to becoming a Buddha in Buddhism; meaning that you eliminate desires and escape the cycle of birth and rebirth. Both I believe understand the consciousness to be "immortal" as in it continues to exist after death like the west does, but becoming an Immortal or a Buddha means that you escape the cycle or Samsara.

I'm not sure what the question is?

So did the government just round people up and make them work?

guess "willing to Listen" is no longer applicable.

Why are Buddhists so upset with Muslims in Burma?

I was just wondering why it is that women tend to be the majority in yoga and men tend to be the majority in qigong?

If then Nazi's were all that good at mind control why did everyone else fight them?

From a TCM point of view I see several things going on. Lung: yes unhealthy lungs do cause sadness as the emotion of the lung is sorrow and grief. Kidney: they house the will and the jing. If your jing is low then the kidney's governing action on the head hair is lost and it falls out. Also if the kidneys are weak the will, will also be weak. Heart: its emotion is joy so if your heart qi is low then you won't have a lot of joy. The heart also houses the mind/shen/spirit, so if your mind is dull that is also a heart issue. This also does relate to the pineal gland as Drew was mentioning as in internal branch of the heart meridian goes up to the brain where the pineal gland / upper dan tien is. This helps explain why you hear that the shen is located in the heart and the upper dan tien. That is the connection. Liver: if liver qi becomes stagnant then one will often feel depressed.

Ah the human realm of Samsara.... nuff said

Sounds like your heart qi is low. By your own words you feel like the "fire" has gone out of your life, and the fire element is in the heart. Also the heart houses the shen/mind so if your mental process is dull it would be explained by that as well. Might want to give these herbs a try. http://agelessherbs.com/blood-mansion-formula/

That's pretty cool. Yea I used to be in the military, joined right out of high school, all gung-ho and patriotic n such, even considered making it a career. Then at my first unit I became friends with some nation of Islam guys who were all cynical and skeptical. At first they didn't like having "whitey" in their squad, but I guess cause I would actually listen to them and ask questions with an open mind they warmed up to me lol. Anyways some of them had been veterans of the first gulf war and really opened my eyes to the agendas of the government and made me really feel like a pawn in a large cooperate game. So at the end of my contract I did not re-enlist but rather went to a seminary after I decided to go all spiritual and screw the world lol. So I went through the seminary program but at the end wound up not agreeing with that particular church so did not go into the ministry. Then I wound up in Alaska and went to the University up there and eventually majored in history. Well really studying history (not the version of history the church taught me) just finally wound up ruining Christianity for me all together lol. And now here I am studying TCM.

I'm not sure how but some day I think I'd want to interview and do a biography on you lol. What was your activist group for/about? What became of your Buddhist monastery adventure? Is yin chi "dirty"?

Yea I just finished a nice long Kidney meditation. It actually took me a good long while to get my kidney glowing a nice blue. Its a rather depleted organ lol, but at the end kidney seemed happy.

what is it that you do?

I'll agree with you that Air=Metal. My take on wood is that its a combination of earth and water, thus the extra element of Taoism. You water the earth and a tree sprouts out. Wood is the generative life force. Or another way to put it water (sperm) and earth (womb) make new life (wood).

There are some issuess like this where I think both sides make valid points. Yea I'm sure it sucks for an animal to be killed so that it can be eaten. On the other hand using Eskimos again for an example (hey I lived and did my undergrad in Alaska lol) though not called this they pretty much had what in my opinion was one of the most closely Taoistic societies on the planet before white guys showed up. They had very few laws, or social structure and organization. Laozi says many times that the more laws and rules the further a society is from the Tao. They were all about living in harmony with nature. The shaman would spirit travel to find the whales and once he found them the hunters could purify themselves spiritually before the hunt and not talk to or see the women before the hunt (it was considered bad luck to do so, not some sort of misogynistic attitude). If they went through all that trouble to raise their shen before the hunt to help them find the whales then they didn't want to think of women and such before hand and have their shen re-convert to jing. They were very generous and non-greedy with each other. Once they brought the whale back all the village would share it. I found it ironic that when the missionaries showed up to teach them about the love of Jesus, the missionaries had to teach the Eskimos to not share so much lol, but to understand the value of money... sheesh. So the point is, the Eskimos were a very heavily carnivorous society and yet were one of the most closely Taoist societies.