Maddie

He didn't say there's anything wrong with desire, not like it's intrinsically evil but he did say it leads to suffering. And this is quite easy to confirm from one's own experience. therefore it's a reasonable conclusion to infer that by letting go of desire one will let go of the cause of suffering.

I think if you just define qi as energy it works well. Energy simply defined is the ability to do work. This applies to qi. Potential energy is the energy stored by a body relative to other objects. This also seems to work as a definition of qi. Kinetic energy is the energy of motion which also applies to qi. Thermal energy is the energy of heat again the seems applicable to qi. Einstein in E=MC squared said that energy and matter are synonymous just in different densities. This would seem to apply to qi also. Qi is energy. Very simple.

I think it depends on the goal. If one is wanting to quiet the mind then yes visualizations are too busy, but if one has other specific goals then visualization can be very effective, having spent a great deal of time with both methods.

Basically yes. Anger is just the inverse of desire. The Buddha said suffering comes from desire. Either the desire for or the desire against. This desire against is called aversion and anger is one derivative of aversion.

Maybe the truthiest truth that has ever been truthed!

Yes for several years I was a by the book Buddhist and found many useful things in it, but didn't find that my personal experience and the suttas always lined up, or that not everything in the suttas made sense. Before that I was a by the book Christian, just repeat what I said about Buddhism for my experience with that one lol.

Then your original post was more of a statement than a question.

Let's just take one, memories. People have false memories all the time, would a false memory be self? People forget things all the time too, does part of self disappear when memories are forgotten? Memories are unreliable as well. Ask any police officer about interviewing eye witnesses at an accident and how many different stories they get? Are incorrect memories self?

Actually all the things you listed were things that the Buddha said are not self. Memories, choices, thoughts, are within the domain of the Sankhara skanda, or volition Senses are a skanda as well.

The Buddha seemed to prefer to answer the question, what the soul is not.

Oh it's not even alluded to it's said blatantly in several suttas of the middle length discourses, but I can't remember the exact suttas off the top of my head. I'll try to find them later.

That was exactly my point lol. 🙂

I agree but this wasn't about Buddhism. The point of the post was to explore the aspect of human nature that tends to view somebody that disagrees with oneself as intrinsically wrong at best and evil at worst. But if I was going to use Buddhism specifically, I can say the Buddhist say the goal is nirvana and the Buddha said nothing about the Tao. The Taoists say no loud to said the goal was to obtain the Tao and said nothing about the word Nirvana. Then when you ask each group to define what is their end goal and it is and it is basically more or less the same then it can be seen that this isn't a matter of right or wrong but of definitions and perspective.

So basically just a curse.

You basically summed up my ex lol

It has been curious to me lately that the Vajrapani mantra has had the most effect being that its protective and clears negative energy, but I've had more than one person tell me that they have heard my ex "pray" for horrible things to happen to me, so basically formally cursing me.

Yes it seems to have very profound and immediate effects with me. Another one that affects me very very profoundly is the Zhunti mantra.

I've been doing a lot of experimentation with mantras this year since I stopped meditating (it was having too many adverse side effects). It seems lately I've been getting by far the most dramatic results from the Vajrapani mantra which I suppose would also qualify as a fiery type mantra.

Hmmmm 🤔 I think you might be technically correct about that.

There is a popular Catholic exorcist that can easily be found on YouTube named Father Rippenger that has at this point probably done around ten thousand exorcisms. Needless to say, he has a lot of experience and has seen a lot of things. He is also a very traditional Catholic and so is his theology. That being the case most of the conclusions he draws from his experience with exorcism, I do not agree with, yet his experiences are fascinating to listen to. The things he says he has witnessed first hand include people's appearances changing, speaking in other languages, levitation, supernatural knowledge, supernatural strength, ect. The thing that confuses me about him though is his theological interpretation. Basically, if you do this Catholic thing, then this happens, so a rather narrow and fundamental view of the world and spirituality. How to make sense of this? ***warning his talk is very traditional Catholic and I don't agree with the Theology, but I find the experience interesting.

I believe when they combine the theory of electricity and magnetism into the electromagnetic force they determined that the magnetic field consisted of photons.

Getting back to the theme of the OP I would say maybe the deeper inner truths are hidden but not by the teacher but by the student themselves due to their inability to comprehend. If one has ever tried to talk to the average materialist worlding about spiritual stuff and you can see that they have no idea what is being spoken about then this will be easily understandable.

I think balancing yin and yang are a step on the path back to Tao. I think the idea is to go towards the simplicity. So first he tried to consolidate the 10,000 things into the five elements and then the five elements into yin and yang and then to balance yin and yang into Tai chi, which is the one and then from there back to the Tao. It's kind of the same idea and Buddhism that you keep letting go and letting go until there's only Nirvana. That makes me wonder if that's what the Abrahamic God is getting at when he said no other gods no idols?

I think our scientific instruments are able to detect plasma but so far to my knowledge we've not developed any kind of instrument that can measure qi.

It's been a long time since working with deities was part of my practice but back in my Christian days I was just as disciplined if not more in that practice as I am now. I saw some pretty amazing things happen when I was a Christian and my two primary practices were Bible study and prayer. My praying wasn't just rattling off a wish list but it was contemplative and deep and could last hours sometimes and at that point the being that I was praying to would sometimes begin to answer back. With that preamble I would say the answer in regards to how to connect with a deity is sincerity, desire, a great deal time studying the scriptures related to it if there are any, and most importantly lots and lots of contemplative prayer directed at it. As far as profound outward manifestations and Powers I might have had more of that occur when I was a Christian than now.