Maddie

Something I've really been confused about lately. Is it possible to reach enlightenment as a lay Buddhist? I mean if your not celibate at least. If the notion of reaching enlightenment is to be free of desire, then how can you desire a spouse and still attain enlightenment?

Just had to share this experience today. Ok so my roommate is female. A nice agreeable person no complaints at all. A few months ago she got this new bf so most of the time is not around very often which is cool for me cause I get the place to myself a lot. Well this afternoon it just so worked out that I was back from school and she was there for a while taking care of some stuff. So we are sitting on the couch watching tv but I'm really tired so I'm kind of just sitting there with my eyes closed.Well I guess the first thing I noticed was that I was tired in the first place which is why I was closing my eyes. Well second thing I notice is that I feel a bunch of my energy going into her. It was weird but I perceived it like this cloud or field around me going into her. So in my thoughts I'm like "NO! don't take my energy!". With an extreme exertion of my will I feel it stop going to her. At that exact moment she made some kind of random sound which distracted me from that, and made me think of her again (simply the fact that she was there). At this point I feel my energy resume to go to her. So I exert my will again for my energy to not go to her, but basically the whole time she was sitting next to me like that I had to concentrate my will in order for my energy to not to go her. After about a minuet of me stopping my energy from going to her, she gets up off the couch and continues to go about doing her stuff. After this incident it occurred to me that with her being gone a lot lately that the contrast suddenly hit me. I realized that when she is around that I am usually more lethargic, but sort of the same flavor of lethargy as I experienced after talking to the girls at the clinic Speaking of the girls at the clinic. Today was the first day of the summer semester so we were back in class. Now last week one of the girls who was also making up hours at the clinic was in my class. Usually she has been very quiet and kept to herself, but she was very chatty today which is very unusual for her. She is another one that I felt very tired after talking to last week. This is all very odd. The only difference lately is that I have been meditating a LOT. Freaky experiences lol.

Sounds like from what you said that your Heart qi is low. Herbs can help.

oh well if we are talking about the political spectrum you can always write to their congressman/MP. You still don't have to be apathetic if you don't want to be :-) But then again there is also a difference between apathy and people's varied interests. I guess technically when it comes to politics I could be called apathetic, but not really. I'm just not interested in that topic. Now if deep down I had an interest in politics but just felt that it was hopeless or impossible to do anything in this realm that would be apathy. I just have other interests.

There is a world of difference between letting go and apathy even though its possible on the surface they might appear similar at a glance. Letting go means you don'g cling it something. Someone who is apathetic can cling to something very much, just not have the energy or hope that they can obtain what they cling to.

Hey Sufidao I see that your location is Iran. It's interesting to see someone from there on this forum. I'm curious about a few things. Are you a taoist there? Are you muslim also? I've been increasingly curious about Sufi practices that are similar to Taoist and Buddhist cultivation practices. What is your take on things?

One of my main interests in the study of TCM is the treatment of psychological health. A large percentage of patients I get come in for these types of issues, apathy being included. So wanting to help my patients I look into these various disorders from a TCM point of view. If I get an apathetic patient this is how I generally tend to treat it, allowing of course for individual differences. First in just about every case that I see I look at the Kidneys first very often as they are the foundation of so many factors in the body. One of the mental aspects of the Kidneys is the will. Also by far one of the most common organs to be deficient in most people in our society. So you have the part of you that is responsible for having a will deficient then you will lack will. It is actually very rare for me to see a patient who's kidney's are not deficient. So it would seem that we have a society of people who lack will. Sometimes people mistake anger for will, but this not the same thing. In fact very often anger is a result of not having much will. The kidneys being water are supposed to feed the liver being wood. If the liver wood is not getting enough kidney water your poor liver is weak, tired, and frustrated, so it gets angry easier. Also since the wood element (liver/gallbladder) is responsible for planning, foresight, decision making, and problem solving if this is not getting enough of what it needs (kidney water) then all of these functions will suffer as well...apathy. Finally is the heart fire. So if there is not enough water making enough wood, then you don't have enough wood for the fire of your heart. Being that the heart houses your shen (spirit) and mind, and its emotions are joy and enthusiasm. So if your heart is not getting enough of what it needs then you will not have a whole lot of enthusiasm, again another component of apathy.

Actually I just recently listened to a monk talk about how Buddha was doing mindfulness meditation when he reached enlightenment and how the path to enlightenment is the 8 fold path, and that people sometimes tend to over complicate things.

I'm thinking about how its important to be kind to yourself.

Thanks for the link. BTW I love Ajahn Brahm :-)

Ok so today has been a very interesting day in regards to my solar plexus, and had a lot of insight into its inner workings (I guess several hours of insight meditation will do that lol). This is what I noticed. When ever I have a thought that makes me uncomfortable I often feel it as pressure or tightness in my solar plexus area. As I had posted earlier in another thread today in an earlier meditation I saw how depressing feelings were one side of my subconscious criticizing the other side. The criticized side was the part that would feel bummed out and I noticed this was located in this tight knot in my solar plexus. Well after some more meditation I had even further insight into the inner workings of this process (at least this is my personal experience). So I observed that a thought would originate in my heart. No surprises there as the heart houses the mind and the spirit. Ok so the heart is doing its job in thinking thoughts. After the thought was formed then I noticed the liver would take a look at it. Guess it was like the general reviewing orders from the emperor or something like that. Anyways it was like if the liver had no issues with the thought then that was pretty much the end of story. BUT if the liver did have an issue with a particular thought then the fun and games would begin. If it didn't like a thought it would judge and criticize that thought. Then the spleen being the professional worrier would fret and stress over the fact that the liver was upset. Then I realized that the common pivot point around which the heart, liver and spleen all rotated around was the solar plexus area. Interestingly enough there is a condition in TCM called restless zang (organ) disorder. The main herbal formula "Gan Mai Da Zao Wan" treats the heart, liver and spleen. In fact in the clinic I have prescribed this to more than one patient with depression and it has proven to be quite effective.

I noticed this is an old thread. Anyone on here these days do the 8 brocades? What do you get out of them?

Granted I skimmed this thread rather quickly, but while I saw a lot of discussion about the Jhanas I didn't really see a good explanation as to what they are. Can anyone enlighten me?

Isn't Metta another word for loving kindness?

Yea that was exactly why I was doing it. During the course of this weeks meditation I had been having a lot of desire flare ups, and I had noticed that they would get more intense after eating, but weaken if I ate less. It did help a lot.

I had some what of a personal insight to depression during meditation today. After sitting in mindfulness for a while I became aware of the feeling of depression. So I watched it for a while. The next thing I became aware of was that it seemed that underneath or beyond what I label "depression" or a depressing feeling was a specific inner dialogue. I saw / heard two sides of my subconscious talking to each other. One side was very critical, the other side was the side getting bummed out by being criticized. The next thing I became aware of was this very tight knotted feeling in my solar plexus area, specifically the left side of it going under my lower rib cage. I realized that these feelings were emanating from this area and that it was always tight there and usually I just didn't pay much attention to it. As I kept simply observing it for a while it seemed to lighten up quite a bit, and some of that tightness seemed to loosen up and turn into this "buzzing" feeling lol.

Yes, of course it could also be from the fact that I'm eating less also, but the tiredness has not been as much of a problem today though. My other hunch is that since I noticed a lot of qi moving around clearing out stuff that perhaps I felt tired (at least partially) due to all that qi being used for those purposes. I've noticed in the past that when I've done a lot of emotional type work that I would feel tired while in the midst of it.

Due to the advice of several of ya, I did qigong this morning before meditation, and I have to say it was much easier to meditate! :-). For one sitting there for a long time did not hurt as much which I'm sure is do to the qigong forms stretching aspect. But also the mind felt more settled so it helped in that way too!

IMO the tendency of the threads dealing with obtaining powers becoming so argumentative is indicative of the problem with seeking power. Power corrupts. I'm not saying that everyone who studies Mo Pai or other arts that develop powers are power hungry. Heck as an acupuncture student I'd love to be able to do what Chang did during his acupuncture treatments for the benefit of my patients, BUT seeking power for power's sake is going down a slippery slope. Obtaining powers as a side affect of cultivation with other goals is safer ego wise.

well the only thing I saw you talk about was the mountain sentence so yea that for sure. But I'd love to hear about empty mind as well, and any thing else too.

care to elaborate that? lol

In addition to using qigong for this purpose, do you suppose yoga can be used to the same effect?

Hey Ice, thanks for the info on the book. As far as my goal, yes it is enlightenment, at the very least an optimal situation next life in order to achieve enlightenment asap.

I do, though its been less lately due to the fact that I am spending a lot of time meditating and then afterwards I'm kind of tired.

Thanks that's brilliant! * I love the part about being bored meant that you missed the steps in its formation!