Maddie

I wonder how far one can get in cultivating the body with herbs and acupucture?

Coming from a Christian literal fundamentalist back ground I tend to react uncomfortably to the word God, but I think in Hinduism it means something different?

I don't know why exactly, but in the last year or so or maybe more I've noticed that what ever I had not traditionally reacted to well whether it be anger, lust, fear, or what ever keeps coming around until I react "better" or maybe better to say don't react. Lately it seems to be fear of lack. In the past I've not reacted well to this situation so I'm trying to keep that in mind now. In the past year I've worked on dealing with anger in reacting to certain people that pushed my buttons, and anger at certain situations. It seemed like usually I would not react well to these things and they kept happening. In the past year I feel like I became savvy to this and decided to react better and then it seemed as I did so each of these situations tended to pop up less and less. So as I now approach the fear of lack I'm trying to approach this with the same attitude.

Fortunately I am an acupuncturist and TCM practitioner so I was able to offset some of that with herbs and acupuncture, but it was kind of like swimming upstream. It does not have to be Buddhism for me, I'm more of a pragmatist and just want to do what works. It's just that for the past several years I thought Buddhism was what worked.

About a year ago I really began to reevaluate my approach of the past several years. I meditated every chance I had, every moment of free time I got, but began to feel like the monks at the Shaolin Temple that were listless passive blobs. I had no energy, no drive, didn't want to do anything, go anywhere, had no motivation at all. This being the case I began to seriously reevaluate my practice and approach.

That is very interesting as I was totally unaware of that. I wonder what caused him to change his mind? * today has been a day of shockers lol

Simply from my experience. Westerners tend to be more dismissive of things like chanting sutras in general, and my time visiting predominately Asian temples this type of practice was much more common.

I guess another method that seems to be popular especially in Asian Buddhism is chanting sutras. I don't quite understand the benefit of chanting something that you don't understand, but it seems to be an important aspect of the religion in Asia, and the chanting of the sutra is said to have beneficial aspects.

You were asking about "my perception" so the word "me" seems applicable.

No, the whole reason I mentioned this example in the first place is due to me evaluating God in relation to the teachings of enlightened behavior that is contained in the suttas. When using this comparison God falls far short. He describes himself as a jealous God. Jealousy is not the characteristic of an enlightened being. It's not about me.

No I'm not, but the difference is I don't claim to be, nor do I demand everyone worship just me and no one else because I'm better than everyone else, nor do I threaten to send people to hell for not recognizing my self proclaimed awesomeness. If I did demand that then I better actually be perfect.

I wonder if different and various ages would (or would not) explain the different "fads" civilization goes thorough? Go back a while and things like Pyramids and Stonehenge were being built. Then when you read the Hebrew bible and the Greek classics its all about animal sacrifices. Then at the time of the Buddha and the other sects in India meditation is the rage. Now it seems to be tantra and chanting? I wonder if this is a thing?

I don't know if I'm familiar with those specifically. Is that a meditation approach?

So I'm going to assume that the Kali Yuga and the third age of Buddhism taught by Nichiren and others during his time are the same or at least very similar. As stated this would seem to be the reason that tantric techniques became more prominent as well as the idea that Nichiren and the Hare Krishnas propagated that now days chanting was the primary method. Not trying to hijack the thread but this does seem relevant to the topic of enlightenment.

The floor and I make it work

This is one of those topics that come along every now and then that cause you to just stop and stare at the floor and rethink your life choices.

How much of an effect has the advent of the Kali Yuga or the Later Day of the Law had on cultivation and reaching enlightenment? Why did it used to be easier? Why did new methods become necessary?

This would explain a lot as to why when I was trying the purely Theravada approach things seemed to stagnate even though I was very diligent to do things as instructed. This is a VERY interesting thing to consider! ** edit: This makes me think of what Nichiren said about the later day Buddhism and why he found it necessary to introduce chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for these times as things had changed since the time of the Buddha.

Yes I feel like these are most people I run into. You have to keep it really shallow. I guess it's why I mostly keep to myself lol. Yet at some level I understand as looking within has been the most difficult thing I've ever done.

Hopefully it's not too conceited too quote yourself but I read the thread and I think I was familiar with the concept but just not by those names if it's the whole developing the jing in the lower dan tien to turn it into qi in the middle dan tien to turn it into shen in the upper dan tien in which in some traditions I believe it is thought that when shen fully developed the upper dan tien then that is somewhat equivalent to enlightenment and now I've brought it full circle 😉. Apologies if that's oversimplified but I know more about Buddhism. Most of my Taoist knowledge is of the medical sort. * edit: This topic is related to something that I was recently pondering and does indeed related to enlightenment which is my recent questioning of what I'm wondering is perhaps maybe a dogmatic approach to enlightenment by Theravada Buddhism. Basically in all of my interactions with monks and practitioners of Buddhism in the last several years the idea of developing the body to achieve awakening would never be taken seriously as possible. Even Bill Brodie says things like if these methods worked why did the Buddha say nothing about them. But what I am recently considering is if the Buddhist method is indeed the only way, or is the Buddhist method more like getting on a train on the east coast heading west and another method like getting on a train on the west coast heading east? Do both meet in the center of the country but merely have different approaches?

Seen it yes. Read it no. If possible I'll do my best to tie this back into the topic 😌

Oh jeez yeah I suppose that is 😶💩

What is the definition of... Xing? Ming?

I just want to point out that I don't think discussing powers in an enlightenment thread is off topic due to the fact that many people equate enlightenment with powers and Powers with enlightenment. Additionally since I personally think seeking powers for powers sake leads one further away from enlightenment rather than towards it then I think the topic becomes very important.

The last statement in my previous post actually reminded me of something. It was back when I was pondering enlightened versus unenlightened behavior that I realized that the monotheistic Creator God in the Abrahamic tradition was indeed not enlightened because he displayed characteristics like anger and jealousy and wrath and favoritism. Yet I had always been told since I was young that he was perfect, flawless, and without fault This was one of the primary factors that caused me to lose faith in the tradition in which I was raised.