Maddie

I have been meditating a lot and I actually feel better emotionally now that I can ever remember

Yea it is odd isn't it, I made an edit on my last post touching on that.

Hmm interesting. I did a total of about 30 min of standing Zang Zhuang meditation today to build up some qi due to my tiredness issues. I was watching an hour long talk by Ajahn Brahm and was planning on just standing the whole time since one hour sitting is no biggie. But half way through the talk I had to stop standing cause my breathing was becoming labored and my heart started to beat hard, I broke out in a sweat (not that I care about that) and my ears closed up (but they do this when I'm sitting for a while too). So mainly I stopped cause of my breathing and heart beat, though I do feel more energized though lol. I think I like this

Lol yes really. *actually I'm glad you brought that up cause it caused me to realize something. I don't get tired after talking to people I don't want to talk to, but I do get tried when its people that I do enjoy speaking to. Made me realize that when its someone I don't want to talk to its like inside I hold back and don't experience that drain.

I did 15 min of ZZ before breakfast this morning and was amazed at how much energy it gave me! *edit: After breakfast I did another 20 min and at that point had to stop cause I started feeling weird. One thing I've noticed that it does not matter lately what type of meditation I do sitting or standing after a while it feels like my ears clog up.

Um no that's not really the issue at all. I enjoy talking to these people and actually feel pretty happy about it.

Wow I didn't realize he was such a badass as that second video shows lol. I loved his book.

Do you do and/or does Chunyi Lin do or teach any kind of standing meditation like Zhan Zhuang?

Yes, though sometimes don't you ever feel like your damned if you do and damned if you don't? lol. What I mean is that I notice this energy getting drained off of me so I decide the solution is to strengthen my organs so they are strong and thus harder to leach energy from. So after a while of not doing so I begin to do organ meditation again to strengthen them for this purpose. So I go into organ meditation and I can tell my organs are loving the attention and they are just like these happy little qi sponges just soaking up all this qi for healing n such. Well me in my zeal worked on all the organs and they soaked up so much qi in the process that I'm tired again lol, I just have to laugh cause if its not one thing making me tired its another haha. In retrospect I think its either better to focus attention on one organ a lot, or all organs just a little, unless you have lots of qi.

Yea I throw those into the mix as well ;-)

Isn't a serpent also important in the Australian aboriginal beliefs? I like the holographic comparison of the universe to the body :-)

Do you have any knowledge of how Buddhist cosmology differs from Taoist cosmology?

Welcome Sunny :-)

University of Copenhagen... nice Another problem I was pondering considering Buddhist cosmology was that it said humans came from beings who were in a higher plane, so when they first came to earth they had light bodies, and could fly, and only gradually as they ate more earth food lost this and had shorter life spans. Obviously this goes against everything we know about evolution.

That is so cool.

I was reading that wiki article about Buddhist cosmology and while it was interesting I found a few problems with it. One was that it said that humans came first and then animals, but science shows the opposite.

Yea thats a good point. I was reading that "Medical Qigong" book and it basically said to work on the organs on a physical level you make the sound on a very vocal level. To work on a more emotional level you make the sound either sub-vocally or even just mentally.

That made me think of the state of my roommate's mind, the "why is she this way in the first place" question. I'll just go ahead and re-emphasize again that my roommate is one of my best friends and a very nice person, because I've had the feeling that some people misunderstand this whole dynamic and think she's consciously preying upon me which isn't the case lol. So I tried to think a step beyond and see what is it about her that leads to this in the first place. Well since she is gone a lot (unless I've build up a lot of qi apparently haha) sometimes I tend to forget how busy her mind is. She simply can not sit still. She always has to be doing something, going somewhere, with someone, watching something, talking on the phone, ect. In fact I've noticed that if she does stay home that if I'm sitting there quietly and shes around I usually just go ahead and turn the tv on because just sitting still and quiet makes her start fidgeting, and restless to the point that I start to feel restless lol, so I turn the tv on just to keep her mind occupied so I can relax. Now if your bored and feel like going out and doing something shes great, as that is pretty much her world. But on evenings when she is like "hey we are all going to the pub, want to come" and I'm like no thanks not tonight I can see the briefest expression flash across her face as if to say "you just want to stay here alone where its quiet?" as if I'm choosing the worst fate there could possibly be haha. But what is going through my mind is "well we just went out last night and had drinks and talked about John's new gf, and the looser Sally just dumped, and did the same thing last week, and the week before that, so yea I think I'm good for the moment being lol". But to her me choosing to stay home is an unimaginable self torment. So anyways her mind is very busy, and I've noticed at the clinic that the very chatty girls there are also usually the ones with the very busy minds. Nice people mind you, just very busy minds. Now from a TCM point of view lots of thinking burns up lots of qi. So though I'd like to think that if they drain my qi its going to some noble purpose, but I think they are just fueling their busy minds and powering their cravings.

Wow, I love it, very informative. Would you mind going into more detail about how these people can make you feel so lazy?

Found this interesting too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology

Yea I prefer to revive an old thread than start a new one with out looking first. I like to recycle and keep TTB's green haha. Well the simple answer is: Spleen: Hu Lung: Si Kidney: Choo Liver: Sh Heart:Ha The way I usually apply them is while I'm doing the inner smile. As I'm making an organ smile, making it full of its color, if I feel "stuff" in that organ I do the sound and breathe out the junk. I also do the sounds while doing the 8 brocades.

One point that I seem to keep needing to reemphasize is that none of these people are doing it consciously. But I do wonder, hope actually that the energy that they do take does them some good, I'm just not sure if it does or not?

Found something that touches on my question lol

I agree with you that ones wealth is a result of their past karma and merit, but I don't think that means that we should just chalk up the "system" to karma and be totally apathetic (maybe just partial apathetic lol). After all the karma that was made in the past to make one wealthy or poor was made at the time by the decisions and choices of that person. So you bring this karma making process to the present, if we think "just screw the world its their karma" then don't we earn some rather uncompassionate future karma for ourselves? On the other hand if we see the starving kids in Africa and are like "damn I don't know what they did in a past life to deserve that, but I want to do all I can to help them" then we make a good karmic choice that will benefit us in the future as well as the hungry kids now. So I think the fatalistic "oh its just their past karma" attitude forgets about how karma is formed in the present.

I remember reading a few years ago that the ancient Taoists had been saying that we are made out of stardust, which in our day and age has been confirmed by science. All the heavier elements were made by exploding stars, and the Taoists knew this thousands of years ago... cool.