Maddie

I want a sandwich!

If we were going to address the original topic, as a TCM practitioner I would say it is possible to build and nourish Jing with Jing tonifying herbs such as Shu Di Huang and He Shou Wu just as a few examples.

I'm just here for the snacks, I don't know what the heck is going on

I have actually wondered about Stevenson's research, and why it wasn't accepted by his peers? I assume because it does not and/or can not meet the criteria of the scientific method?

Okay yes you're correct point taken but I guess I'm just a Sagan fan girl LOL.

Obviously people can and will believe whatever they want to believe but to convince the world an extraordinary claim is true requires extraordinary evidence and this is a reasonable point of view. *It's probably not a coincidence that we don't see any chi Masters dominating the UFC.

How do we know this is true? How do we know the are two thousand year old immortals?

Questioning things and not taking them at face value it was absolutely what the Buddha was about.

We did seem to get a bunch of self-proclaimed unquestionable guru's in here lately didn't we? all around the same time?

There were a lot of people like this when I was an acupuncture School. In addition to acting erratic like that they also had the crazy eyes. 👀

Sorry today was the day that you joined. I've been on this forum for a really long time and I've never had anything like that happen to me until today.

I think I can kind of define the problem. Forums like this attract all types including the kind of people who want super powers. Wanting superpowers is an act of ego and ego causes delusion. So with the superpower people you're going to get a lot of deluded and highly egotistical types of people.

I guess it is kind of a chicken or the egg question especially when we don't know the person. Like was he having mental health issues to begin with or did trying to be a self-proclaimed guru make him lose his marbles? Or did he have mental health issues become a self-proclaimed guru and it exacerbated the problem? I think he would definitely be a cautionary example about doing things on your own.

Yeah not everything in the Pali Canon is scientifically accurate but it's probably the closest there is to what the Buddha actually taught.

I think the Pali texts make it quite clear that nimmita is not enlightenment but rather the way a concentrated mind interprets itself.

The dude has the audacity to ask me for an apology after personally insulting me. I had a message for him LOL.

Exactly. We should be open-minded especially to evidence. But we should also use critical thinking and have healthy skepticism. Saying that it's bad to question things then leaves open the possibility that I propose that all cookies are made by Keeber elves in a tree and if you disagree with me you're attacking me personally and then if I become above question even in the face of evidence we are no longer progressing but going back to the dark ages.

Usually lack of digestive enzymes would be described as spleen qi deficiency not stagnation

Actually that is not true. There is a lot of scientific research into TCM. ST 36 is considered one of the primary points of the digestive system. They did studies in a lab where they would measure peoples digestive enzymes before and after needling it and it was definitively shown that digestive enzyme levels increased to a significant degree! This is objective evidence.

I think there has been a misunderstanding of my views because of a straw man that Blue Jay built of me. I am open minded to things that can be supported. Don't let the version that a crazy person constructs of me become the version of me that is believed here. I am simply skeptical in a healthy way of things that can not be supported, which is as it should be in my opinion.

I agree, although I never did belittle him or his belief. He seems to have some issues and was just spinning it that way. I agree with the three gates for sure! :-)

I didn't feel anything. It's like I was sitting there and a light was on over my head but I could still "see" it somehow. It's weird, I know.

One thing that really confused me when I began meditation was that after a while I would always feel like I was sitting under a street lamp even though I would typically meditate in the dark at that time. I had never heard of nimitta back then and had no idea what was going on. It would feel like a light was shinning over the top of my head.

This is a classic situation of a definite subjective experience being interpreted as an objective experience.

This dude is starting to sound like a psychopath