Maddie

I guess I'm a bit confused because I hear about all this non-duality spoken of in a Buddhist context here and granted I've mostly read the Pali Canon but I've never heard of non-dualism spoken of by the Buddha.

My personal experience of Buddhism involves more crying and less debating lol. But yes Buddhism is grossly misunderstood even by Buddhists.

Yes stifling anything is actually not Buddhist because the point of Buddhism is to know things as they actually are and stifling is the opposite of that.

In the Kalama Sutta the Buddha did encourage people to inquire into things to see they were true and not just accept things at face value. 😉

Buddhism doesn't see feelings as an illusion. Buddhism sees feelings as an experience so therefore one of the true real things there are. What Buddhism does see as an illusion is the narrative that we tend to make from feelings.

Ok two questions.... 1. What could he do? 2. Would it still work if he tried it on a non-believer / MMA fighter?

Oh I didn't realize that lol. But about videos, its too easy to fake stuff in video.

A video will never convince me, nor should it convince anyone with any critical thinking skills for obvious reasons.

Or Nuts-gone.

What the actual fuuu....?!🤨

^Magic martial artists are real because "trust me bro".

The questioning that arises from learning that some of the traditional martial arts that you used to revere are basically useless, caused me to question "what else have I assumed to be true and in reality is BS?"

Don't tell anyone you saw me shooting rainbows out my butt 🤭🌈

Lol I was never worried about powers, that seems to have been a rabbit hole that developed. My topic is being disillusioned after finding out the claims of a tradition, technique, or teacher are not authentic.

Yes! I think one of my favorite teachers is Ajahn Braham. I've never seen him do a single power nor heard of him doing one, but he's emphasis on kindness, especially self kindness has made the biggest difference in my life. To me kindness is a super power. 😊🩷

Yeah if I ever cross paths with one for sure. When I was younger I fell into a Christian cult. One of the main ways they gave the cult leader legitimacy was to talk about all the amazing miracles he did and visions he had had on the mission field in the Philippines in the past. The funny thing was, is that I never saw him do one single miracle (unless you count getting people to give you all of their money a miracle) the entire time I was around him. It was always far away and long ago, ie. in a place that could not be disputed nor verified by anyone. So to me when I hear of all of these "secret masters" with powers but you just don't know who they are or you can't see them, this really seems no different to me than the cult leader or for that matter even Santa Clause. I'm of the mindset that I see the proof first and then I believe it, and not the other way around which I think is reasonable.

I appreciate you sharing but I will never be convinced by a video, too easy to fake.

Yes I have done several meditation retreats at monasteries and spoken to many people that claimed to have powers or abilities. I have always been underwhelmed to say the least.

So I guess the answer to my question is predominantly no this has not happened to most people who have responded so far.

So here's my question about these mystical teachers that are hidden from society, much like Santa Claus and God if no one's ever seen them how do we know they exist?

That's a bit convenient don't you think?

Well there's certainly a lot of people who make that claim but every time they fight a real fighter they get their ass beat.

Anyway since everyone keeps wanting to bring it back to MMA versus traditional martial arts I'll move along with an example of my own lol. Since there's video after video of a Tai chi Master being beat up by an MMA fighter I began to look at other examples where the claims didn't meet reality. As a Buddhist I began to question why even though Buddhism claims to teach the path to enlightenment you never see anybody that's actually enlightened and the sutra say it's supposed to bring benefit here and now. Just as one example. Dear I mention the lack of any actual immortals in Taoism?

Again I want to reiterate that the point of this post wasn't to start another MMA versus traditional martial arts debate but to ask those who have become disillusioned with fake traditional martial arts because of the MMA phenomenon if it affected other things in their life such as religion and or philosophy?

Yes I have the same question. But I think everyone's getting in the Weeds about the martial arts aspect of this and not the questioning that comes out of it.