konchog uma

does it ever make you wonder why buddhism is the only spiritual tradition not to honor the creator according to its understanding? you may think thats because buddhist understanding is superior and everyone else is wrong. But i would put forth the suggestion that it has to do with a deep misunderstanding of the nature of the force that all the other world traditions call "creator" by any name. So in other words, i don't think the problem is supreme perfect understanding here... hahhaa but a lack thereof. I haven't said anything because buddhist babble drives me nuts, and i can't explain god. I don't understand it. I guess some people just go through enough to know that life is intelligent and that there is a hierarchy of being up to the top. And some don't. And the ones that don't believe in any root to the plant just see the leaves and think they dreamed themselves into existance, or smell the flower without pondering deeply what nourishes it. But i digress.

many thanks!

ahahaha like the truth is in the "most famous science journals"... or how bout the idea that you have read each and every famous science journal so you actually know what youre talking about?! Man, your attitude sucks, and there is no single theory of the immortals that i have ever heard of so what on the green earth are you talking about??? If you were interested in learning anything about qigong you would realize that there are a lot of teachers out there who have dedicated their lives to furthering the art that they love... but you don't care about learning.. you just want to parade around with your know-it-all pants on showing everyone how much shit you can talk!! Borrrrring. We don't care. Why don't you read Chinese Medical Qigong Therapy, or CMQT v5, about Oncology, and then get back to us about your theory of the immortals.. its probably just your own thoughts that you had after you were done reading a book in chinese. For your (actual) information, people use qigong to heal from diseases, even reduce tumors to nothing. If you would bother to educate yourself before you open your fool mouth, you would know this. i would think you work for some official allopathic medical organization, but you aren't smart enough to be a doctor.

not to get in the middle of it, but i always understood it as the primordial shen resided in the physical heart. Not xin, the heart/mind... i have never heard that xin is shen. I think thats why its mentioned in the article Scotty posted on the heart. here is an article i found helpful. Chapter one, that is. Thanks Scotty. http://itmonline.org/shen/index.htm "In sum, shen refers to that aspect of our being that is spiritual and looks to the universe around, and is not focused on emotions. Shen draws our attention to the divine, contributes to wisdom, virtue, and calmness, and maintains our whole being in order. The spirit can be harmed by external factors if we fail to maintain vitality through good habits, physical strength, and adequate nourishment. The spirit can also be harmed by internal factors, mainly excessive emotions."

beautiful! thank you for sharing

i've always seen soul translated as different from spirit spirit being shen. i think soul is po. or hun po. or there are multiple kinds of souls and chinese is confusing. i forget. but i'm not a chinese speaker, just an ignorant american.

nice why did the buddha cross the road? cause he was about to meet someone who would kill him. ouch. im not good at making up riddles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyNAbOJFZIc

no i don't have any more of those. That one came from The Tao of Meditation by Jou, Tsung Hwa. There were some buddhist koans and zen/chan koans but that was the only daoist one. lets make up some daoist riddles. you first i'm tired.

that zen nun is awesome! "title doesn't matter" is easy to say when everyone calls you rinpoche! hahaahah nice vid! C T i think you are a shining example of buddhist awesomeness. I really appreciate your presence here.

i think i somehow feel obligated on behalf of all the public who might log on to the forum in search of information and read one of his posts. I strongly feel that the very next post should say WTF is this nonsense no seriously, thanks for the reality check, you're correct.

right on

somehow i doubt that you grasp it yourself. btw dao isn't a religion. They tried that, in the early hundreds AD, back when buddhism was the big thing, and it kinda flopped. daoism is a western idea to describe an eastern mystical tradition of shamanic descent through a series of monastic lineages. And that tradition has little to do with what you are talking about on the threads you keep derailing. I think 3600d is a lot of money to charge for 10 days, but maybe its Master Wang's way of assuring that he only has 2 kinds of students, very sincere students who will sacrifice to learn the great arts he teaches, and rich tourists? I'm sure he can tell the rich tourists from the sincere practitioners in an instant, and probably gets a lot more out of it in more ways than just cold hard cash.

i think that given his approach to communicating in a forum like this one, people are being really nice to him. Look at all the threads he has posted in. They have gone to shit and nonsense about how we should stop practicing and just philosophize our way to health. I can't possibly understand it either, but maybe for different reasons.

i totally agree with your point, but you mean jews and gentiles. christians didn't come around til later. since this thread is already completely derailed and all :D

i think the main issue for me and my bones here is the idea of cracking the seal of the alchemical crucible. But Cameron what you say is true that silence would benefit someone else more than immature teachings.

well I think that the issue being brought up here is that sharing with like-minded people, like-minded though they may be, will actually detract from the experience.

it makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks for your insights. yeah when it comes to information i usually have a pretty liberal attitude about how it should be shared, but in this case, i am going to keep my cards against my chest. I don't think the things that are benefiting me would really benefit another person who read about my personal success anyway, unless they were to practice diligently, which is something i can not undertake the responsibility of guiding. So really it is my ego jostling for position, which is what i suspected, but needed you wise bum's advice to really see. Secrecy always bummed me out, but i guess thats just because its used so widely to manipulate and pull the proverbial wool over the eyes of people. Keeping ones private practices private is another thing altogether, and i can see why a lot of stuff is kept secret too.

i'm not using a book, although some of what i've been doing can be found in the various books on neidan. I am lucky enough to have an awesome teacher.

thanks, i downloaded ingram's core teachings book. I look forward to reading it. it seems more like teachings than technique, which i am all for sharing freely. In that case i think everyone should share wisdom with each other, it really helps. But in my case, I'm working on the jing/chi/shen/emptiness inner alchemy, which is more technique, visualization, mudra, intention, that sort of thing. I mean, some people write books about that, but I would have a hard time writing about it without sharing my own personal accomplishments, which is where i get the weird feeling in my gut. I mean, i'm not a teacher, so why don't people just read the books of teachers? When i have insight or wisdom as a result of my meditations, i can talk about those realizations to anyone. But i get a really weird feeling when i think about talking about exactly what i'm doing. Like it would compromise the work itself to talk about it. Thats all.

hahah!

Thanks cat! Makes a lot of sense to me. I was going to listen to my bones, but now my brains can agree but seriously, that is a really helpful response.

thanks dwai, that gives me a good sense of where to draw the line if i do find myself talking about my practices

I wasn't thinking about it in terms of keeping the practice methods secret from others, although I have read that serious cultivators should only talk to their teachers about that, and not even to fellow practitioners. I was thinking about it more in terms of sharing my experiences and successes. I am not really qualified to teach methods of meditation, so if i had a practice journal here, it would be for talking more about my experiences with different techniques. I think I am going to opt out, since I just don't feel comfortable in my bones about it. In the end, I think it is, in part, a matter of ego and wanting to be recognized for my successes. I would like to outgrow those urges. And even a lot of the stuff that my teacher teaches me, he says "just practice, don't start showing other people this stuff" because of course I am not experienced enough to teach, and improperly taught techniques can be dangerous. So I thank everyone for their feedback, it helped solidify my feelings about it. Happy new year!

well if you're dictating what i can talk about, i'm done talking.