Maddie

Ah I love these free will questions. Based upon the way the mind works and past conditioning I do not think free will exists. I will qualify that because often, verry often when you say you don't think there is free will, people assume you said you do not believe there is will. I do think there is a will, because we make choices during all our waking hours constantly. I do however understand that these choices are influenced and based upon past conditioning and there for are not completely "free".

I work a lot, I love my couch! :-)

I finally took a selfie I don't hate lol

I had previously started a topic on this in the Buddhist room, but thought it might be interesting to "widen the net" so to speak. Over the past couple years mantras have seemed to evolve into one of my primary practices. I don't hear much said about them here and would be interested to hear feedback from others that use mantra in their practice and what experiences they have had with them. As a Buddhist I tend to primarily use Buddhist mantras for a variety of various purposes. As a nerd I like to try to observe any cause and effect correlations I notice while and after using them. Probably some of my most used mantras over the years have been the Zhunti mantra, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo (no I'm not a Nichiren Buddhist) Om Mani Padme Hum, Medicine Buddha, Amitofu, various Tara mantras, and Vajrapani. It tends to get weird with some, especially Zhunti. I would be very interested if anyone else uses mantras and would like to share their practice and experiences.

I think Taoism is an interesting topic. What I don't think is interesting is people thinking Taoism is about semen, immortality, and super powers (oh my).

When people dismiss something as "placebo effect" they usually forget the second word.

I'm not sure but I don't do it anymore. It makes my life absolutely miserable every time I do it.

I just do them solo.

This does not seem to have a rational explanation

I thought I would bump this topic because I find it one of the most difficult topics to make sense of. I have noticed in my own personal experience that doing mantras does seem to have profound effects but I can not rationally explain it at all. If anyone else has any insight I would appreciate it.

I'm just glad you are doing better! :-)

I hope this doesn't sound bad, but this is making TDB interesting again (to me at least). Fighting about super powers gets old fast lol.

This is where I'm at now. It's new territory.

I think one reason I am having this line of questioning now is because I've relatively recently been realizing some attitudes that I brought with me into Buddhism were from the particular evangelical Christian cult I had been in, in the past. Namely buying the whole thing, hook, line, and sinker without a lot of questioning. Naturally I was not aware I had carried this attitude with me into Buddhism, but it caused me to practice a very extreme form of Buddhism that was really not any different than a monk. The thing was, this mentality in my Christian cult made me miserable, and it made me miserable in Buddhism as well. The hard core attitude. Once I began to realize that I had carried this attitude with me into Buddhism I also realized I had carried the attitude of just accepting everything you were told or read as absolute truth without much questioning. I'm not saying Buddhism is bad, what I am saying is that the mindset that I brought with me into Buddhism was not a healthy approach, and now it does a lot to explain why a lot of my time practicing Buddhism was miserable. It is also the reason I now want to evaluate Buddhism in a more objective way.

I would say it is about practice, because we want to make sure we are doing the right practice to accomplish what we want to accomplish. For that we need to know not only what we are doing, but if what we are doing is going to accomplish what it claims. After all right view is listed before right effort.

Hey Keith It's not being dragged but I would argue that the spirit of the Buddha's invitation to open inquiry is being honored here. The Buddha encouraged questioning, and asking "why is the thing that I think to be true, actually true?"

Sorry I'm not trying to be rude but I don't understand what you're talking about.

What evidence do you have for this true self beyond the mundane mind?

Sure why not :-)

Well I don't think so, and yes I would like to hear what you actually think and why you think it.

Why do you seem so surprised? lol

I would like to know what you actually think lol

I'm not saying you're wrong, but why do you think so?

Naturally 🤭