Maddie

Yes very good explanation! I feel like in the West when I mention Buddhism the only thing that most people think of is meditation.

The pacifism versus self-defense moral dilemma has been one that I've often wrestled with.

On the topic of morality one thing I find interesting is when I tell people I'm Buddhist they always bring up meditation for the most part and yes that's definitely part of Buddhism but on the other hand there are some suitas like the one I read yesterday the Sallekha Sutta suggest that the main progress is to be found in morality as opposed to meditation. To me that's really interesting because it's so different than how Buddhism is perceived in the West.

I think the timing of this post is very interesting because just yesterday I was reading Sallekha Sutta. To summarize this sutta basically the Buddha says that the way to make progress in cultivating the mind is not through meditation but it's through moral precepts.

Sure. It turned me into a sex obsessed maniac LOL.

Yes the 10 precepts are a further step up from the eight precepts.

I feel like this question is a bit vague to give a specific answer to. And most hypotheticals like that I would say it's a case-by-case basis. It's also important to remember that in Buddhism the morality is training precepts as opposed to commandments. A commandment is basically like saying how dare you break this rule you'll be doomed and it connotates a lot of judgment. A training precept is more like you know this would be a good idea to do this in your life will go better if you do. There's definitely a difference in tone.

The eight precepts are a step above the five precepts. For everybody there's the five precepts and if someone goes on a retreat then they take the eight precepts which are a bit extra. 1. Don't kill 2. Don't steal 3. No sexual misconduct 4. No wrong speech 5. No intoxicants I think the precepts are the same for all branches of Buddhism.

I'm Buddhist and obviously Buddhism has moral precepts but they can all be boiled down to two general rules. 1. If it hurts somebody don't do it. 2. If it doesn't hurt somebody don't worry about it.

Karma affects everything!

This is why there is a noble eight fold path of which awareness (mindfulness) is but one part. It is not a one fold path.

I guess if you wanted some Buddhist specific qigong then the Shaolin forms would be a good place to look.

hello I would like to change my name to Maddie

I think some of the stuff he teaches is legit and helpful but his semen retention stuff practically made me go bonkers. 😵‍💫

I think the word I would use would be that I found them effective. They did a lot to release the trapped emotions of each organ which could be a bit overwhelming at times which is why I don't know if I would call it helpful, but it was effective at cleaning out the organs.

Yes I used to use those extensively.

Actually this was another question I had if the mind can be cultivated through the intellect LOL.

Oh this wasn't the school this was a bunch of people who went to the school from a bunch of different lineages and I'm not saying it's a fair assessment I'm just saying that's how it affected me at the time LOL

Do you mean Pilates only have a difference at first? Because I consistently feel like I'm in better shape longer I do pilates.

I still remember the exact moment my disillusionment with Qigong. I'd already spoken to several of the practitioners at the school and they all seemed a bit mentally unstable to me. One day after lunch I had eaten and came back to the school and one of these cheat on groups was practicing in the outside break area and I watch them practicing in a suddenly just looked like a bunch of mentally unstable people waiving their arms around and it kind of killed it for me. I'm not sure why it suddenly seemed that way to me but it did.

This was exactly my experience. I gave Qigong several good years and it didn't really notice any difference. Later I started Pilates and after just a month noticed a lot of difference.

Yes and no. I've mostly practiced Buddhism on my own so I have less sample size but I did a few retreats at a local Burmese monastery. There was one older American monk and because of the language he was the one that I spoke to the most. I think he was a secular Buddhist and may have not believed in reincarnation which was interesting to me since he was a Buddhist monk. The main thing he seemed interested in talking about was being a monk and the rules and how great Myanmar was when he was there, which I also thought was interesting considering they have a military dictatorship. He wasn't a very good listener though and would tend to monologue. On the other hand he didn't strike me as off riding his unicorn like a lot of the Qigong practitioners at my Acupuncture school did.

I agree. When I was in acupuncture school, I'd never before nor since been around such a large gathering of lineages and traditions. It all seemed very impressive at first, until you got to know the people and honestly the vast majority to me seemed mentally unstable. That being the case I didn't care what lineage they claimed, I didn't want to buy what they were selling. It did a lot to turn me off to Qigong and caused me to look to Buddhism.

Sometimes this makes me wonder why in the Pali cannon it seems like people became enlightened frequently and yet these days that doesn't seem to happen very often at all. It makes me wonder what was being taught that didn't get passed down?

I really don't want to start a new post but I feel like this debate could almost be called cultivation through the intellect or not.