Maddie

You can ask yourself the question where does this irritation come from?

Ideally compassion should come before ego 😌🩷

Practice is to make the theory more a part of life LOL.

OMG that is how it goes with an acupuncture clinic. I'll have 50 people tell me that I changed their life for the better and then one person is like "eh it didn't do anything" after ignoring the treatment plan and then I just want to go off and cry even though 50 people told me that they love me lol.

This is such an interesting perspective to consider and I'm sorry this happens to you. I guess I have never felt this from this forum. I suppose its one reason I wanted to discuss our experiences on this forum itself. This too can be an interesting study and topic of discussion. *btw don't feel inferior Luke, you're one of my favorite people on here! :-) <3

Very much agreed. Personally if its possible at all I think understanding exactly what the Buddha said is probably a very difficult task as every school has their own texts and own spin on things. I think some people think Theravada Buddhism equals original Buddhism, but I don't think so. This is why I try to piece it together from the Pali texts, but I must keep in mind that those don't necessarily reflect all the words of the Buddha accurately either.

I guess the main branch of Buddhism that I have studied was Theravada but I don't consider myself to be any particular school. I think I eventually realized that Qigong wasn't going to answer the big questions. When it comes to Buddhism these days I'm more interested in exploring both modern interpretations while simultaneously looking at the original texts and avoiding most modern Western understandings.

When we see our view as part of our identity then we see the rejection of those views as a rejection of the self, which leads to all sorts of emotional reactions. When we see views as just views and not "our views" then if someone rejects the view it really isn't a big deal.

I think this was Dao Mo's concern when he first got to the Shaolin temple and saw the poor health of the monks from lots of sitting meditation.

I agree, its not that people disagree that is usually the problem, but how they disagree. Respect is always warranted.

yes subjective experiences are defiantly real experiences, but they do not prove objective reality and its important that we recognize the difference between the two.

I use all eight.

Developing healthy boundaries and developing a healthy sense of self worth that is balanced and based in reality are the best and real super powers that these practices give us!

I remember when I first got into qigong my partner at the time really did not like it. They were abusive and controlling and I think they noticed that after I had begun doing meditation and stuff that I began to react less to their crap and have less tolerance for their nonsense. They were always paranoid that I would leave them and I suppose were afraid that doing these new practices would cause that to eventually happen. They were not wrong about that lol. I began to cut all sorts of toxic people out of my life after I began my qigong and meditation practices.

Also for objective reality. Objective truth isn't subjective. People are free to believe what ever youtube videos or anything else for that matter that they want to believe, but just because they are convinced does not make it objectively true. Objective truth isn't relative, and to think it is can be dangerous.

I've said it several times here, but I'll say it again, youtube videos are not evidence.

When I was in acupuncture school it was basically like the Dao bums in real life, so needless to say quite an eclectic assortment of personalities. There were several people while I was there that claimed to have siddhis, and several of them "demonstrated" their siddhis. It was always quite underwhelming to say the least.

When claims are examined objectively its almost certain that some of them will be "debunked", but truth trumps ego, right? I assume you know what evidence means, but nevertheless what is meant by evidence is, what reason can you give to demonstrate that what you think is true or correct?

There's nothing wrong with healthy skepticism. There's nothing good with naivety. Typically the only people that balk at supporting their claims with evidence are the people whose claims have no evidence.

When making a claim the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. That is my basis for questioning Rudi or anybody else that makes a claim.

That's basically what it boils down to lol 😂

I think since Dan Tian is close to the waist it is at or near our center of gravity. This is why it's important in martial arts and why it's considered a place where energy comes from, as in kinetic energy.

Even thought I do mantra, I don't understand it, but if I stop doing it, it almost feels like I'm suffocating. It's really weird.

The best Taoist ever obviously :-)

Celibate yes, priest no. Well obviously how can one not list Albert Einstein for relativity, Nikolai Tesla for electricity, Loui Pasture for microbe theory and of course pasteurization, and Marie Currie for radiation. Also Galileo for astronomy and Pythagoras for mathematics. One of my personal contemporary hero's is Neil DeGrasse Tyson for his efforts to popularize science in an era of declining scientific literacy in the United States.