Maddie

I see what you're saying but it also seems from what you're saying that you've made progress. I think an important thing to keep in mind though is awakened people don't need Buddhism. Buddhism is for those who are still in delusion.

I think I am finding that mantra practice is working for me better personally than mindfulness meditation. In fact I think I am discovering that mindfulness meditation at least as I learned it would often make me feel much worse.

Until recently I have not done any visualizations, but recently I have begun to try and visualize the Bodhisattva or Buddha who's mantra I am doing some of the time. I'm not sure but I feel that it might add something.

Why do you think you've not been a very good buddhist?

My general understanding of Buddhism is that typically one focuses on cultivating the mind and it is assumed as a given that the energy will follow suite. What I want to know if I am understanding correctly (or not) is if the concept in Taoism in general is to cultivate the energy and then let it affect the mind?

I've noticed lately that reading various religious texts affects my qi in different ways. Just the act of reading it, regardless if I understand it or not. The qi starts moving. Has anyone else noticed anything like this?

This seems to be a lot more involved than what I learned in Dr. Yang's book. In his book you just focus on the Dan Tien and breathe. If I do this a while I usually feel tingling in the area. I didn't realize there was more involved. Developing the Dan Tien has a stabilizing effect on the emotions doesn't it?

So Buddhism has the concept of no-self, Hinduism has the concept of atman, Christianity has the notion of soul. What is the Taoist idea in regards to the "self" or the lack there of?

Thank you that's a really good answer. Do you know what this original true self is? or is considered?

I have noticed that celibacy conserves energy and as the energy increases it adds energy to everything, including our imbalances. If done without mindfulness this can be very problematic as a mild temper can become a large temper, or a mild obsession becomes a big one. One the other hand if one is practicing mindfulness then making things louder can actually be of great benefit as it brings things to the awareness to be mindful of. It becomes to observe how craving is indeed to cause of suffering.

I think just based on my own personal experience is that to a lot of Westerners they are taught that Buddhism or what ever other method they are learning is "meditation" and there is not a lot of study or theory. What I came to realize as the problem with this is that the Buddha didn't just say "go and meditate" (he had already mastered meditation before he became enlightened). The Buddha taught the "Dharma" which involves a lot of things that need to be studied and realized and not just meditation.

This makes me think of the divide in Theravada between the village/scholar monks and the forest/meditation monks. The village monks tend to look down on the forest monks for having a shallow understanding of the dharma, while the forest monks tend to look down on the village monks for having a weak meditation practice. I tend to think of it as both are important and its not an either/or issue.

So in Buddhism desire is seen as the cause of suffering and something to be let go of. Is this the case in Taoism as well? If not what is the attitude about desire in Taoism, and the view of "liberation" if there is such a view?

I took a blend called "allergy"

Science dismisses homeopathy as quackery but I used to have really bad allergies and sinus issues and it pretty much ended that problem for me.

When I first got into meditation and Buddhism (in that order) the common and constant notion I read, or heard was that ultimately the only way to Nirvana was via meditation. Not knowing much I just accepted this as a fact. As time went on and I began to read more of the suttas myself as well as having more time to have personal experience I began to read that there seemed to be more ways to awakening than only meditation, and even that meditation wasn't enough. I read suttas that seemed to indicate that there were multiple methods to enlightenment. Meditation of course was a way, but there also were listed mindfulness, study, loving kindness, devotion, and faith. I was confused when I read these after having been told and read that the only way was meditation. Has anyone else had this experience or have any thoughts on this topic?

At the risk of sounding a bit dense, what exactly is spirituality and what do we consider spiritual or not spiritual and why? Why is it that places like India and Tibet seem spiritual but some place like medieval Europe don't? Medieval Europe had monks, nuns, monasteries, hermits, and the spiritual dominated the thoughts of the common medieval person probably much more than the common person of today. So why do people not think of this time and place as inherently spiritual. Why do people tend to think of the Himalayas as being so spiritual? Why is the Zen monastery in the mountains thought of as being more spiritual than the church down the street? I'm not even saying that I disagree with these common notions, but I am wondering why we think what we think about what is and isn't spiritual.

I have been wondering if the sacraments have any actual energetic efficacy or if they are just a ritual?

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.