Maddie

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?

I think I noticed doing the cool draw laying down is more difficult than sitting up.

No.... sorry, but no lol

When I first got into Buddhism it seemed that every monk or lay practitioner was a "rational" westerner that pooed on anything "superstitious". The western monk at the local monastery flat out told me there was no magic when I came to him for help from my ex that was cursing me. He told me to ignore such things and focus on meditation during the retreat I was doing. Funnily enough I didn't get relief all day during the daytime until the evening chanting time. Then I would suddenly feel a rush of relief as the Burmese monks would do the partita chanting to ward off the black magic and evil spirits that supposedly didn't exist.

I just want to make sure I am understanding this correctly. Are you saying just make sure you are doing the forms correctly and the qi will take care of itself?

I never realized how much repressed emotions I had in my life until I started doing Taoist practices like the inner smile and healing sounds.

I noticed a little over a year ago around the same time I began to reevaluate a lot of things that the very top vertebrae where it meets the skull began to pop a lot and very loudly. Now of course this could be totally unrelated but I have noticed in the past when I've been dealing with issues on a mental level that the vertebrae that relate to the chakra most associated with those issues tends to pop a lot and now I've been reevaluating the big picture in my top vertebrae is popping a lot and I'm wondering if there's any correlation?

That's a perfectly valid and good use of a mantra.