Maddie

Yea I think part of my issue was that I misunderstood Brodi at the time, well I half misunderstood and half did not. At one point I thought he had said that asana was really no good, but he did not say that. What he said was that asana was good for your health and opening your qi mai (channels) to a point, but that to make any deep progress you had to meditate and asana alone would not get you there. That I can jive with as I've never heard of anyone becoming enlightened through asana alone (though if there were a true case of that I'd think it would be way cool and likely would want to become that persons disciple lol). The part of what Brodi said that I did understand correctly (I think) but am not so sure I agree with is that meditations that involve the body or form like MCO, chakras, meridians, ect. are discouraged. I guess he is afraid that such body or form based meditations will lead to clinging to the body or form which I suppose is a possibility, and I have seen many people use form based meditation and practices to actually strengthen their ego and desires, but after getting back into these types of practices I can also see how the can be great facilitators for other types of formlessness meditations.

I really did use google and try to find a pre-existing forum about this, I swear lol. So here is my question. So there is the god realm, and then there are the gods and goddesses that human beings have worshiped for ages. What I want to know is how many of the gods and goddesses that are worshiped on earth and we have statues and myths of are actually representatives of the real gods in the actual god realm? I'm sure that a lot of gods worshiped on the earth are just anthropological and/or animistic human creations to explain things, or for other human/ethnocentric purposes. I also imagine that there had to be some type of exchange between ancient human beings (probably through a skilled shaman) and the beings actually inhabiting the god realm. So does anyone know of any good way to distinguish this?

Thanks Sun Funny you should mention that as when I began to re-evaluate Brodi's take on things I pondered Shaolin which is a classic example of Buddhists incoorpererating qigong into their practice! Part of me thinks Brodi may have had an over or anti reaction to the yoga crowd who get into it for fitness but only do asana and don't meditate and therefore have very limited spiritual progress, not saying that all yoga people are that way, but the pop/trendy yoga movement.

haha that made me smirk :-P

Yes this is something I have been re-pondering lately too. When I started off I was doing a lot of qigong exercises along with the qigong meditation plus doing hard core martial arts training all the time (which gave me really good muscle definition). It made sitting in meditation easier, and my qi was high. I went to my acupuncturist in Alaska at the time I was doing this and the first time he did my pulse diagnosis he looked up at me and said "wow you have a lot of qi!" lol. Fast forward a couple years and I get to Austin for TCM school and spend the first year of that with this psycho gf who drains the life force out of me, and then after that because I'm so drained and since my practice takes a more Buddhist tone which emphasizes the body much less than qigong they physical part declined which made tasks like meditation actually more difficult and day to day stuff like going to school more difficult as well. So just very recently I've begun to pick up the qigong side of things again and am already beginning to feel better, and its making meditation easier and helping me school as well.

Yea that's how it felt to me as well. I would do mindfulness then I'd do inner smile and they both felt very similar.

Very interesting. I was thinking about some of the fasting and fasting-ish comments interesting. My Spleen is too weak at the moment to fast much but I have gone down to two small meals a day and I've noticed that this really helps my practice. If I eat too little I'm too weak to be of much use and if I eat too much I just feel sluggish and slow. That part about the skyscraper made me decide to share something from yesterday that I had originally been hesitant to. So I was doing a two hour session of Samatha with reverse abdominal breathing. Towards the end of my meditation a thunderstorm started outside. The flashes of lightning and thunder draw my attention to the storm outside. My mind was observing the storm for a few moments as I continued to meditate. Now maybe I'm just going nuts, but I could have sworn that I was aware of these two .... um .... beings/creatures running to and fro in the clouds and I got the impression they were storm devas or something like that. They seemed to have this sort of smirk on their face as they ran back and forth in the clouds doing something (I'm not sure exactly what) and seemed to be having a good time doing it. *oh also Cayenne pepper from a TCM point of view is good for your heart since its red and good for your lungs since is pungent. Only thing to be careful of if eating a lot of it is that since its very yang you need to make sure it does not burn up all your yin. Eating seafood or berries and cool veggies is a good way to offset that.

yea I know same thing happened to me haha.

I was reading some of the following posts and debate and I thought I would clarify my question a bit. My angle is not of the Monotheistic creation God point of view. Mine was more of the Buddhist / Taoist point of view that gods and goddesses are just beings with in Samsara, that did not create the universe but are simply part of it and eventually die as well. My personal take on the dead spider is that once it was squashed its consciousness moved on to some other form of incarnation (I'm assuming that the spider had not obtained Nirvana, but one never knows). I don't think consciousness is something that can be seen so that would explain why it could not be seen. So depending on the spiders conditioning and karma it may have been reincarnated as any number of beings on any number of levels of existence.

Though part of me find that this could be potentially fascinating at the moment I want to know wtf this is?

Hmmm yea ok, I looked into that (My undergrad major was history with emphasis on WWII) and apparently Joseph Goebbels propagated the myth of Hitler being a vegetarian as a display of his total dedication to Germany. Apparently this is why Hitler officially remained single until almost the very end so that he might be seen as the potential suitor of all German maidens. Alright thanks for the correction.

*spoiler alert for Battle Star Galactica Well that is another possibility though the god realm I was speaking of was the one that the Buddha mentioned. But yea I guess that is something else to factor in. Not too long ago I finished watching Battle Star Galactica and you know the whole time I'm thinking that as they are on their way to earth its either around our time or some point in the future. Well you get to the last episode and you find out that this all happened 150,000 years ago and according to the BSG world there were other humans that came from space and intermingled with local primitive humans. I was thinking about that for weeks afterwards lol.

I don't know, what makes you say that?

I'm working on that, but in the mean time ..... lol. I have noticed something interesting though. The Greek mythological creation cosmology bears a striking resemblance to Taoist cosmology. Taoist: Tao - Wuji (emptiness) Taiji or Yin and Yang (2 polarity of opposites) Three treasures (jing, qi, shen) five elements - bagua (8) - and 10,000 things Greek: Chaos (emptiness) Erebus and Gaea - Three Cyclopes Three Hecatoncheires - the Titans - the Olympic gods - and then all sorts of stuff.

Thanks, may I ask what is a good source of each?

Oh well then I'll agree with him, I don't want to touch demons with a 10 foot pole haha.

My roommate is a human being lol.

Alright I finally decided to poke my nose in this thread mainly for some advice. I have tried going meatless a few times in my life and what ends up happening is that I get really weak and tired. If this didn't happen to me I'd be much more inclined to be meatless so my question is does anyone have some good dietary advice about how to go meatless and still get enough protein so they are not weak and tired all the time? *though as far as vegetarianism leading to world peace, Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian.

I think I should re-emphasize that in the incident with my roommate I was able to with hold my energy from her by force of will, and that she was only able to take it when I allowed her to. Though I must admit that when she came home after work today I was in my room meditating and didn't come out until after she had changed and left haha.

Ok I'm trying to think of how to put this. First of all I'll state that I love Brodi's website and I have learned a lot of great stuff there and expect there is much for me still to learn there. Second the Buddha said not to even take his word for anything but to see for yourself if what he said was true. Ok so a while back I began to read Brodi's site and got really into, as it was very interesting and answered a lot of questions, so that part was cool. Yet though he claims a "non-denominational" approach he obviously favors Buddhism (as I believe that is what his back ground is in) and seems to not be too keen of several Taoist practices. So the more I read his site the more I began to shy away from a lot of qigong practices. Lately I've been re-evaluating that stance. Partially from the advice of some wise people on this forum. So what I've noticed is getting back into qigong (as well as doing the more predominately Buddhist stuff I've learned from Brodi) has helped my current practice and filled in some of the gaps where it was lacking or unable to help me as much as I would have liked. Doing organ meditation (a qigong practice) I've noticed makes doing my other meditations easier and benefits me in other ways that my current practice was not. I just finished a nice long session of Samatha meditation while doing reverse abdominal breathing (another qigong practice) and wow it was much easier is several ways. My legs, and back hurt less, and it was easier to not loose focus. It was a nice blending of Taoism and Buddhism. What I noticed was that my dan tien filled up with qi quickly. Then that extra qi began to spill over and some of it filled up my leg channels thus making my legs hurt less (a couple hours in half lotus can start to hurt) and it went up my back making that hurt less too. Also as it was going up my back it helped correct my posture which I'm also sure helped my back to hurt less. It was interesting when it got to my head as it exerted a slight pressure and made my ears feel like they were clogged up for a while. It also made the practice of Samatha easier as well as my mind did not tend to wonder as much and the time seemed to go by faster. It was great. So with that being said, and seeing what a great aid qigong is to Buddhist meditation I don't understand why Brodi tends to poo poo on some Taoist practices.

I've found nothing is better for that conversion than just lots of time spent in sitting meditation. From personal experience I've noticed that I have to spend at least (bare minimum) about 3 hours a day in meditation to even out.

Yes exactly. I don't want to talk above my pay grade (as if that ever stopped anyone on TTB's lol) but what I have noticed so far from doing more meditation coupled with celibacy is that I feel that several things are going on, if even just slightly. I've noticed that my perceptions seem to be slightly more acute. My understanding of some spiritual texts and teachings that had previously baffled me is increasing a little (they are starting to make more sense, and not just on an intellectual level but at an experience level too). The importance of loving kindness seems to have become more emphasized, and the times that my thoughts and actions are not out of loving kindness I seem to be more aware of those as well. Well like I said the change feels slight, but I guess at least its enough to notice something going on lol. Oh but the point lol... so what I want to know is if this has anything to do with the third eye or if its something else?

I think the secret to recharging quickly is really opening up your third eye (if I've understood what he's been saying)

http://www.numerology.com/numerology-news/life-path-number I've been looking at this Numerology website lately and its very interesting. This link tell you how to calculate your life path number and then there are other links on that page that tells you what it means, I've found it to be very interesting and accurate. Interestingly this website also mentions that the oldest writing ever found was a tortoise shell found in China and written on it were numerology instructions.

I think working on the elements is so cool. I've picked it up again this week after having not done it for a while. First I was having a hard time concentrating so I did the spleen (earth) meditation and that improved. Then I was getting energetically drained so I did the lung (metal) meditation and that stopped. Then I found myself stressing about plans, decisions, and problem solving, as well as dealing with the issue of judgment, so I did the liver (wood) meditation and that got better. Then I was thinking a bit much about desires so I did the heart (fire) meditation and that calmed down. I love this, its wonderful :-)