Maddie

I ask because I don't notice anything as obviously noticable either.

I think there is a misunderstanding in Buddhism where they think that the Buddhist teachings on no self or no soul Buddha didn't think there was any kind of self or soul at all. But if you read what he says about the five Skandas he's just saying that those five Skandas are not self, not that there is not a self or a soul. There were other sutras were people explicitly asked the Buddha if there was no self and he said that he never said that.

It's interesting that you say that because I feel that the majority of the western Theravada monks equate the mind and the spirit as being synonymous or think that there's nothing beyond the mind.

I'd be curious to hear what your experiences with nembutsu is as well. I'm assuming from the spelling you do the Japanese version?

This is a topic that I find very interesting as I have primarily been learning from Western Theravada monks. I guess as far as doctrine goes they're very orthodox and seem to teach that the only path is the Buddhist path and specifically the path that he laid out in the early Buddhist texts, which they seem to interpret either implicitly or explicitly as mind only the physical body has really no benefit at all. If one were to ask them if any spiritual benefit could come through practices involving the physical body I think they would emphatically deny that was even possible. So therefore I find the notion that spiritual cultivation might be possible through the physical body fascinating though not exactly sure how possible.

The discussion about thoughts, feelings, and karma I feel leads to a discussion of the five Skandas, form, feelings, perceptions, volitions, and consciousness. 1. Form or the body. 2. Feelings. Feelings are one aspect of the mind. Feelings in this context are the input that comes through the senses and a distinction of if it's pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. 3. Perceptions. A recognition based on past association and experience. 4. Volitions or thoughts. This is where the will and judgments as well as thoughts are made. This is also where karma is both made and operates. 5. Consciousness. The awareness that the rest of the Skandas are functioning. Thoughts, and feelings, and karma are all parts of the mind.

(that i can choose infinite actions, but my only "compass" is feelings.) Yes very strongly agree.

Karma does not produce more karma, but if often leads to the creation of similar karma. It happens enough this way commonly that it can be said to work this way conventionally for most people. The primary factor that can prevent karma from leading to the creation of more karma of a similar type is mindfulness. Typically for example if someone has the karma of anger and this karma ripens in their mind and causes them to feel anger as a reaction to a certain circumstance, what usually happens to the unaware mind is that it tends to react in a manner that is angry thus producing more anger karma. So the cycle seems to keep going around. On the other hand when a mind is mindful the same anger karma can come to fruition and one feels the emotion of anger, but when mindful one is aware of the feeling, but does not react to it thus letting that particular karma run its course and come to an end. This is the importance of mindfulness.

I had to run into a wall with a particular type of attachment that I seemed to be getting nowhere with until I tried the medicine Buddha mantra.

I thought I would bump this topic as well and ask if anybody had any recommendations for dealing with curses and black magic especially against one's finances?

Naturally karma is a complicated and confusing topic with several different traditions each having their own nuanced interpretation. Back in The Vedic times in ancient India karma was described as being the performance of the correct ritual by the bramatic priests. Then came along the Jains and they had a different interpretation of karma which they said was any action done at all not just ritual. So if you trip over a pine cone and then you land on a ladybug and kill it, that would be a negative karmic action of killing even though it was an accident, because it was still an action. Then the Buddha came along and he identified karma as being the domain of the fourth Skanda, Sankhara. Sankhara is usually translated as volitional action, or willful action. The Buddha said this is what creates karma and this is what is affected by karma. According to the Buddha if you're walking down the sidewalk any trip on the pine cone and you fall on the ladybug this is not a karmic action because it was non-intentional. On the other hand if you're walking down the sidewalk can you see the ladybug and you get an evil gleam in your eyes and you lick your chops and you intentionally squash the ladybug then that is a karmic action because there was intention behind it. Another reason that karma can be confusing is because often there is a time period before the karma ripens which is usually due to certain causes and conditions needing to be in place for it to do so. So if there was a teacher that was intentionally scanning students for money he might indeed accumulate a sizable amount of money for a time, but at some point in the future even possibly or probably another life this teacher will find themselves being scammed out of their money and being taught things that are an authentic for example. Likely someone like this you could offer for free to show them authentic teachings and they would not accept it because they wouldn't have the karma for it. This would be why in general some people come across good teachings and accept them and understand them when other people do not come across good teachings or even if they do they don't believe them or understand them. One either has the karma for it or they don't. This is like people who complain that they only ever date jerks but have no interest in nice people. They simply don't have the relationship karma that is good enough to come across nice people or be interested in them if they do. As an aside I don't really do the Zhunti mantra anymore just because it's too strong and the effects are too unpleasant but one thing I would notice when I did do it for long periods of time is my insight into karma became much more focused. I had this friend when I was in college who seemed like a pretty nice guy. He was always polite and respectful and courteous and kind and after college he became a police officer. He also liked to hunt and trap a lot. One day I was in this truck and he asked me if I would like to take a ride with him to the woods and since I like nature I agreed. It turns out he was going to check his trap lines. I didn't really know much about trap lines at the time but as we were checking them there would be that animals stuck in them who had gotten snared and then frozen to death or starved to death. Some had tried to gnaw their leg off to get out of the trap. I thought this was a pretty horrible one to die but my friend didn't seem to be concerned about this. Apparently he did this regularly frequently and often. Fast forwarding several years I lost touch with him but then I saw on the news that he had been killed in the line of duty which obviously was very sad. I remember thinking what a nice guy he was and how friendly and polite he always was how he treated people respectfully and I wondered how this could happen to him. This was around the time I was doing regular Zhunti practice. It was not long after this when I was doing Zhunti practice that the topic of his death was on my mind while I was doing the mantra. As I was doing the mantra it popped into my head very clearly and distinctly that in the sutras the Buddha had said that the karma for killing was a shortened lifespan, and then I thought about all of the animals he had killed and many of them in very inhumane ways and then I understood. Another time when I was heavy into Zhunti practice I had found out that my first ex had died of cervical cancer. The reason she was my ex is because at the time I was in the army and we had barely been married a couple weeks before I went to the field for a couple months. Even though we had only been married for a matter of weeks when I came back from the field I found out that she had cheated on me repeatedly and spent all my money that I had saved over the course of a couple years. Naturally when I found out about this I ended things and we got divorced. It was only years later that I ran across her on Facebook that she actually apologized for the things that she had done to me in the past. It was a year or two later that I found out through Facebook that she had passed away from cervical cancer. It was after I found out about this and I was doing Zhunti practice that I was pondering her death that over the next couple years when doing the mantra I would begin to see her various reincarnations. I believe the first one was as a squirrel but then after only a few months I saw that she was reborn as a bird. Every few months I would see her reborn as another small animal until more recently I think she finally was reborn as a larger animal I believe a deer. Anyway I begin to wonder why she kept being reborn as these small animals as I was doing the mantra and then it became clear as day. It wasn't just me she cheated on she was like that a lot with a lot of people basically she had no impulse control when it came to sexuality and did what she wanted to do regardless of who it would affect. A lot of these small animals tend to reproduce often and frequently totally driven by instinct. There's no thought behind the instinct they're just compelled to reproduce. Then I remembered in the sutras one of the Buddhist said that most basic karma for being reborn as an animal is ignorance and to basically act like an animal which would be just acting like impulse with no self-control. Anyway I went on much longer about karma than I intended to but it is a topic that I study a lot and deeply. It's also a topic that I realize is not simple and has many interpretations. If one really wants to understand, and it doesn't mind doing a practice that involves a fair degree of suffering, then I would recommend Zhunti practice.

Is there a good method for finding out which practices are best for any one given individual? I have been very impressed with medicine Buddha practice lately.

Well I have more experience when it comes to chanting with mantras but I've noticed that lately experimenting with sutras as a practice it feels different but I can't really explain how yet.

I thought I would bump this one along with medicine Buddha as I enjoy these threads and want to learn more about mantra and its effects.

Your understanding of Karma is more similar to the Jain understanding. This is why they wear masks and sweep the sidewalk as they walk. They believe even accidently stepping on a bug or breathing one is is bad karma. In the Buddhist understanding if one were to accidently step on a bug unintentionally is not considered bad karma because it was not intentional. I guess it comes down to which interpretation of karma one accepts.

This is why the Buddha said that the foundational problem was delusion because it leads to all of the other problems that give rise to suffering. If through delusion a teacher tells all of the students to jump off a cliff and then he jumps off a cliff too he might mean well but the delusion is still going to be harmful.

It can be difficult to say what specific karma anyone individual makes because karma is created by intention. But since you use the word scam, if someone knows that they're scamming people then the karma of that would most likely be to be scammed. If it were scamming someone for mundane objects such as a con man selling someone something inauthentic for a lot of money then the karma of that would be to in turn yourself be ripped off. It gets more complicated though when it affects someone's Dharma. If you're scamming efforts harm someone's Dharma development and increase their delusion and their attachment to samsara then this can be very serious karma for the person doing it. Since the remedy for liberation from samsara is seeing through delusion then it stands to reason that the karma for increasing someone's attachment to samsara would be greater delusion and suffering. If I had to guess a few examples I would venture to say that this person will have a very hard time finding authentic teachings and good teachers and will believe foolishness which causes them more suffering and attachment and delusion.

I think this is one of the things the Buddha was getting at when he spoke of craving and clinging being the cause of samsaric suffering.

Yes I can elaborate on this. There have been studies done that show on average priests, monks, and nuns do indeed tend to live longer than the average population. I attached one such study for those who like numbers, graphs, and research studies. 122836.pdf

That is my understanding.

In my original version I had included arousal as a Jing depleting activity but decided to omit it in order to streamline my point, but yes arousal will deplete Jing as well. It's ironic that the activities that Jing motivates, deplete Jing. Yes I agree that the pre-natal Jing is what carries our Karma. Since the prenatal Jing is stored in the Kidney I have noticed that when I do mantras that have a purging effect on Karma I urinate more. I assume this is part of the karmic purging process. I did notice in the past when I practiced retention while having sex with someone else that the process of exchanging energy with the other person caused me to take on some of that persons characteristics. Sometimes this was good sometimes this was bad. It did indeed reduce stagnation, but brought with it, its own set of issues.

I will try to keep the answer as basic as possible to try to avoid as much confusion as I can. One of the primary manifestations of the Jing beginning to be depleted to a level that is noticeable are the general signs of aging. Wrinkles, thinning and/or greying hair, lower back problems, loss of memory and cognition, fatigue, weakness, ect. So for the average lay person that is not interested in cultivation of the mind/Shen these are the most common things to look for. As far as cultivating Jing beyond eating and resting there are many methods. One of the easiest are essence tonifying herbs. The reduction of physical body based pleasure is also an important method as to reduce consumption. Beyond that practices that balance yin and yang are helpful (i.e. physical movement/exercise and static practices such as mediation) since essence comes first when the body is developing and then the differentiation of yin and yang, so it stands to reason that balancing and uniting yin and yang can be beneficial in conserving Jing.

This was actually an interesting statement that caused me to think. I will for example try a new mantra and feel all sorts of effects and be aware of what its doing to my mind and my energy and be totally blown away and then in my enthusiasm to see if these effects are replicated in others, I will get a friend or two to try the mantra. I'll give them a little time to try it and then when I ask them what they notice they usually say they didn't really notice anything one way or the other. Once this happens enough times I begin to wonder why my experience seems to be so different. So reading your take on it makes me just assume I am wired a bit differently lol.

Hey Indiken thanks for sharing. You mentioned a few things that I feel like have been important things to deal with so far in my practice as well, which are mainly stilling the mind, and observing thoughts. One can not still the mind with effort any more than one can make the muddy water in a pond settle to the bottom. If someone were to try to push the mud down to the bottom of the pond it would only stir it up. The only thing one can do is sit by the pond and not interfere and let the mud settle to the bottom on its own. The mind leads the qi, so the more you use your mind to "make" the qi settle the more its stirs up. This is why breath meditation is often used for such purposes. Instead of getting involved with the mind you focus on the breath and let the mind settle on its own. This goes together with the goal of eliminating desires. Not a small task to do at all. Monks often spend their entire life time working on this and still don't completely eliminate all desires. The Buddha said that the key to letting go of desire was by developing insight which led to wisdom. I think the idea is that once that mind see's through the delusion that leads to the desire arising in the first place, then the mind no longer grasps for that desire and then letting go happens and the desire ceases. I think then it is therefore important to not be overly ambitious but to be patient with ones' self, as ambition is a type of desire. As to observing thoughts. This I have a lot of experience in as I was mentioning my experiences with mindfulness and the various side effects this had on my in my original post. ** I would add if things like this tend to be a problem things like mantra meditation can be very useful.

I was blown away with the effects it had on me.