Maddie

I think this is my first post in the Rabbit hole. I figured since I would approach a totally non-controversial topic like Christianity it would be best put here. This is a topic that I feel can't be ignored nor simply taken at face value either. My own history with Christianity is complicated. I was raised a Protestant, but after joining the military fell into a radical Christian cult that was fundamentalist and literalist. I wound up in their seminary mostly by cohesion rather than desire. I spent three years there and completed my degree but was not awarded a degree since at the same time I left that particular church and since its a cult this is how things go in cults. For the next few years though I was still very much involved in fundamentalist Christianity. The main line taught was that the Bible was literally true and if any part of it was not true or contradicted any other part the whole thing was not true because how could an omniscient and omnipotent God be incorrect or inconsistent. My downfall in Christianity came when I began to want to understand why Judaism did not accept Jesus Christ as the messiah. My goal of course was to be more efficient at converting Jewish people to Christianity. When I began to study the reasons that Judaism did not believe that Jesus was the messiah or God I began to doubt the claims of Christianity myself, at least the literalist definitions of it anyways. The whole thing fell apart for me and at that time I thought that was it. I would never ponder Christianity again. The problem was is that the majority of Western culture and thought has been baked in a Christian oven for the past two thousand years so it is impossible to escape having to deal with it. Additionally I began to notice that while the Bible might not be literally true there were undeniable cases of Christian adepts throughout the centuries reaching high levels of cultivation, making profound insights, and working extraordinary displays of power. It gets complicated due to the fact that Christianity is both sectarian and at least on the surface exclusive in that it promotes itself as the only way to God and salvation. The problem with the extreme sectarianism in Christianity is that there are so many different groups making so many varying claims that the sheer volume of pronouncements turn into this white noise that makes sorting out what is true very difficult. The Catholics claim they are the original church while the Protestants claim Catholicism is a corruption of pure original Christianity. Then it gets more complicated because there are so many Protestant churches that also disagree with each other. If that wasn't enough research into early Christianity shows that early Christianity wasn't a single unified church, but it would better be described as Christianities in the plural, with eventually just the branch that the Roman Empire decided to promote becoming the official version and then retrofitting history to reflect this. The official religion that evolved out of this could be on the surface easy to dismiss as one that encourages guilt and judgment but at the same time out of this religion came some extraordinary minds and amazing achievements. Yes there have been political power struggles of the popes, crusades and inquisitions, but there has also been figures like Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, and Padre Pio to name a few. So how does one reconcile a system that as a system seems to be rather deficient as a whole, but on the other hand has had some extraordinary figures and achievements come out of it?

The TDJ says the Tao that can be spoken isn't the true Tao. The Buddha came along and said "this is the way". Does that mean his way isn't the true Tao?

I feel like that the second noble truth of Buddhism that states that the cause of suffering is desire which is caused by delusion is often ignored at best and disliked at most. I believe the Buddha said that basically the degree to which someone rejects the notion of desire causing suffering is related to the amount of delusion and attachment they have. The more delusion and attachment, the more that desire is seen as a good thing rather than the cause of suffering according to the Buddha. This is actually not dissimilar to what Christianity says about not loving the world. In personal experience I've noticed that out of all the teachings of Buddhism I tend to get some of the most emotional reactions to the idea that desire and attachment are the problem as opposed to happiness. I guess its hard to tell someone that the thing they think makes them happy is actually causing them suffering. At the same time and I suppose its due to delusion and attachment while this truth makes sense it also bums me out.

I've been pondering lately and I feel like the version of Theravada I was taught was very nihilistic and noticed most of the monks teaching it looked depressed.

Many of the replies have been very good so far, with many good contrasts. Now I want to switch it up a bit and consider the similarities. 1. They all have an "ultimate". Buddhists have Nirvana or Buddha nature, Hindus have Brahma or moksha, Taoists have the Tao and Immortality, Christians, and Muslims have God and heaven. 2. They all methods for obtaining these "ultimates". Meditation, Cultivation, Prayer, ect. 3. They all have some concept of merit and demerit. 4. They all have evolved beings that can help one along their way, Bodhisattvas, gods, saints, angles. 5. They all have pilgrimages and holy sites and relics. I'm sure the list could go on but considering the common thread that runs through all of them is also interesting.

I've tried to hijack enough threads unsuccessfully about this topic so I thought it deserved its own thread. There are multiple lineages that speak of various ages and the practices that are best suited to those ages. The Hare Krishnas say that in the Kali Yuga the most effective method is chanting. Several sects of Buddhism speak of the third age of Buddhism in which the methods used at the time of the Buddha were effective then but are not as effective now. This is what Nichiren was saying when he proposed chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Even in Christianity it is said in the various prophets that in the latter days faith will weaken. So what are we to make of this? Do practices change for different ages? Is chanting one of the best things for this age?

Well that's a rather broad question since meditation is broad topic. But being very general, typically the purpose of meditation is to quiet the mind and order to see more accurately what is in it.

If your goal is relaxation then there are definitely better techniques for that than meditation, such as Tai Chi.

The information is always going to be overwhelming. It's important to figure out what it is you want to do and accomplish and then make a plan from there.

What is your goal?

First I realize that the general discussion for this is probably not the best place but since it involves both Buddhist and Hindu as well as theist and atheist views that it didn't belong well in either sub-forum category exclusively. So I opted for the "neutral" ground of the general discussion. So now on to the topic. The Hindus (and most other theistic religions in general which is to say most other religions) say that there is a "soul" or a self and by extension an ultimate self which is usually called God. The Buddha said that there is no permanent, unchanging, essential self or soul and rejected the notion that we come from any sort of ultimate or greater self commonly known as God. He went on to say that the feeling that we have of having a "self" is an illusion from the function of various processes working together. So without getting too nuanced I would like to hear various thoughts on this topic and reasons for thinking them. Do we have a real self? Or do we just think we do?

I definitely think there is merit and wisdom and what you're saying. The problem for me is I have come across more than one of these people that I thought were going to be extraordinary and I ended up getting burned.

🤔🤔🤔 Hmmmmm

Thank you, that is good stuff. I think I feel a bit lost lately. First Christianity said this is the way it IS, but then later I thought "alright but this doesn't really make sense". Then I try qigong, but after a while I feel like I'm just flapping my arms around. Then Buddhism says no this is the way it IS, but then I'm like hmmm I'm not sure. So now I'm scratching my head a bit and trying to find something verifiable. ** Interestingly enough I just remembered I had some kind of dream last night about yin and yang.

I remember years back when I started doing ZZ briefly I couldn't believe how much I was sweating from just standing there and I thought maybe something was wrong.

I think this is the reason I eventually fell out with qigong. I began to feel like I was doing nothing more than fancy calisthenics. Then when I was in Acupuncture school there was another student who was a self-proclaimed Qigong master and seemed to have a group of mainly female disciples following him around that he would teach Qigong to or something to. So anyway when I was struggling with the question of am I just doing calisthenics I went up and asked him as he was being swooned by his disciples what's the difference between Qigong and calisthenics and the blank look on his face told me he didn't really know the answer and that's kind of when I dropped it. On an unrelated note I don't really know what he was doing but he was doing something cuz I've never seen a pack of women follow a guy around like that outside of cults.

Yeah that's the fun part of knowing a lot of angry religious people.

I will say that if I'm feeling out of sorts and I do the Vajrapani mantra that half the time that clears things up for me rather quickly. Unfortunately I know a lot of people that when mad will "pray" for you, so yeah they throw out a lot of curses.

I'm a little confused?

Thanks, for the moment very simple is what I'm looking for. :-)

Nice thanks, and the lower?

Why then if I spend time on the upper dan tien do things get weird?

Oh I'm not saying I don't think psycho-emotional functions are not a part of jing, qi, shen, but I wonder what they are? And no I do not think Dan Tiens are the same as chakras.

Something I've been wondering about lately concerning the three Dan Tiens. Aside from being store houses for jing, qi, and shen, do with have any other functions? such as psycho-emotional functions? Also sort of related I've seen some posts lately discussing the different between Taoism and Buddhism in the energy work vs psychological work approach. Would this not be the same as working with qi vs working with shen?

We've already had a couple other threads on other emotions like what is fear and what is courage so I thought I would ask the question about what is lust? I'm not interested in talking about Chia as that topic has been discussed more than enough on this forum. My question is simple, what is lust? Some might say it's Jing but that doesn't work for me because children tend to have more Jing than adults, and before puberty they don't have sex drives. So what is it? And why do people get so weird about the topic? It's bad, it's good, it's right, it's wrong, it's spiritual, it's unspiritual. So many various opinions about one topic. What is lust?