GrandmasterP

I sit seiza fashion which is like kneeling but the zafu takes the weight off my legs and the mat is kind to my knees and feet. "Pain is just weakness leaving the body." ( GM Chang). Notice it and return to the breath then it's bearable plus it serves the purpose of keeping us awake. Longest I go is about 40 minutes and then only on retreat, after that we walk round for a while and then back to sitting so overall in one day about 6-hours but not continuous sitting. Here at home 20-minutes a day, every day; timed. It is remarkably comfortable and, I believe; good for the back. I seldom get back aches. Best way I reckon is to try a variety of benches and cushions before buying your own as what suits one won't necessarily suit another.

One Buddhist monk leaned over to another and quietly asked, "Are you not thinking what I'm not thinking?"

Bald wins every time. Dalai Lama Thich Nhat Hanh Bald. Dreds on a white dude are just wrong IMO.

Tibetan_Ice, on 15 Jul 2014 - 00:04, said: Why do non Buddhists post their non Buddhist stuff in the Buddhist section? This thread's called " Buddhist Discussion". TTB is an inclusive forum hence folks who are able to differentiate between discussion and preaching perhaps feel more at home than those more comfortable within the security of unbending dogmatics. The rather more exclusive " Buddhists Only" club is here..... http://www.dharmawheel.net/index.php Hope that helps some here to find like minded chums. Edited by GrandmasterP, 15 July 2014 - 10:05 AM.

If the nice Tai Chi teacher I go to now and again mentioned any of those words and asked the students to learn their meanings then she'd have no class the following week.

From the Bagua martial art perspective ( well in the dojo where I was taught anyhoo) they explain Fa Jin, or Emitting Power as the martial power that is used for striking or attacking. Although footwork comes first in our ability to defend ourselves, without power you will have a very hard time ending a fight. Fa Jin is broken down into Dou Jin, or Shaking Power ("short power), and Zhong Jin, or Heavy Power (long power). I suspect there's much more to it than that but it 'works' for the MA side. Long power is strategic and gets you to where you can finish the job ( behind the opponent is best) using short power.

Quan Yin rocks and she's venerated by both Taoists and Buddhists. Nembutsu's a nice cultivation too. Info here... http://nembutsu.blogspirit.com/index-6.html You can pick up a Quan Yin or Amida Bu statuette most anywhere. There are some really nice ones out there. https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Quan+Yin+and+Amida+Bu+statuettes+images Nembutsu has really caught on because it is so easy to do.

This is hot off the press, July 2014 and gives an outline of the refereed research to date on Mindfulness MBSR and MBCT. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thrive-Power-Evidence-Based-Psychological-Therapies/dp/1846146054/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405721086&sr=1-1&keywords=thrive

Some Bagua heads hang out on the MA Forum. http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/54-chinese-internal-arts-taijiquan-tai-chi-qigong/115031-tom-bisio-bagua-concepts-dvd-s.html The Tom Bisio 'Bagua Concepts' DVDs in that particular post are outstanding but if you put Bagua into the search box you'll find lots more. If you can find a Bagua dojo to train in then that beats any DVD but Tom Bisio is the best IMO 'for' Bagua DVDs.

That isn't the intention and if that's conveyed then the fault is mine so apologies. I socialise with Buddhists and have said several times on here that we have a western Pure Land Sangha in the next village ( Caroline Brazier's group) plus a New Kadampa spiffy veggie cafe and centre in Leicester city centre plus one of their temples just upthe road from us. Those are not fractious people and they do not bash folks over thehead with texts. What I do maintain is that here on TTB we seem to have a group of Buddhabums who are fractious, who do NOT appear to belong to any Sangha and certainl don't seem to relate to anything approcahing teaching beyond whatever they have read. I simply cannot imagine any of the Buddhists I have met coming onto an online forum and displaying the argumentative and snippy attitudes that we see on here on the Buddha boards. They MUST be right, there's seldom discussion simply yet another cut and pasted text. One guy even queried why "non Buddhists" were even allowed onto the 'Buddhist Forum' implying that we shouldn't have a say. How Buddhist is that? I do wonder is fome of these guys haven't been laughed off the specialist forums for the particular 'brand' they bang on about on here. I really cannot see any lineaged Dzogchen teacher now any other Buddhist teacher from any path endorsing the sheer unpleasantness sometimes displayed on TTB by those claiming allegiance to one idea or another. To claim that " this is right" implies "that is wrong". Likewise claiming " this is the BEST form of Buddhism" is to disrespect other Buddhist paths. I had a PM from one 'Buddhist' on here informing me that " Pure Land is BS". That was not the action of a Buddhist nor are any of the snippier 'Buddhist' posts on TTB. The more facets a diamond has, the better it sparkles. There is no 'one right way' there's one mountain with lots of paths up that mountain. Would that our chums understood that.

Many Buddhist temples east of Suez include Taoist shrines. Prayers are said and offerings made then the folks go into the Buddhist area and do the necessary there. You can buy Taoist figurines online and venerate/ pray to those if that's your bag. Might work too, who knows? To me, if something isn't part of one's culture then it's an alien 'add on' hence western Taoists and cultivators tend not to go about things in the same way as those folks out East do. We're born into 'our' culture for a reason and purpose and that doesn't imply turning into a Chinese person , Tibetan, Indian or whatever. Hope that helps.

Sounds good. Not everyone can stick to those times though. Main thing is to cultivate each and every day as close to the same time as possible. Ten minutes every day beats two- hours when the fancy takes. Trouble with all cultivations is that the majority of people get bored, fancy a change and leave off doing it or chase after the next new fad. Hence the endless 'shopping lists' on here and elsewhere.

Bagua's a great MA. You're sure to enjoy it.

Mmmmmmm... I dunno. (((( strokes beard)))))

Teaching is an honourable career. Decent pay, good holidays plus a well subsidised index- liked pension ( in the UK) too. HTH

Schwing!!!

+1 BKA. Once the Qi's flowing nicely round that MCO then 'brain' or 'mind' don't especially feature. For sure the mind is always chattering away there in the background but working MCO ensures it is just background 'noise'. The cultivation is what it is. The better it becomes the less 'you' are present at all either brain- wise or mind-wise. The more we think about cultivation the less well it 'works'. Cultivate daily in a disciplined fashion until not only has the cultivation become part of you it has 'transcended' 'you'. Hope that helps SecretGrotto and all best wishes to you for success.

Apparently so. I can understand those dating forums people maybe overegging the pudding. Nobody advertising themself as a 'snipey self-obsessed loner' is likely to get many responses. But on fora such as TTB! Where's the point of pretending to be something or someone one isn't on TTB? There's illusion and then there's delusion. If these guys were genuine they'd post their Sangha details. They never do because they know if they did that ( if they were in a Sangha) their teacher would tell them to grow up and their Sangha buddies would likely cold shoulder them for bringing that Sangha into disrepute online. No way would any teacher tolerate a student spouting the utter bilge that some Buddhabums post on here on an almost daily basis.

That Space Cadet Panda forum seems to be all but dead. Maybe MPG is lonely. Thing is as far as I'm concerned he can whistle. Two headline threads he started on me over there both of which focused on his main message of "F*** You GMP!" Never having joined his forum nor signed up to anything other than TTB I found that to be uncalled for behaviour. In MPG's favour though the guy is up front and tells it like he sees it, albeit how he sees it, and then responds; seems often akin to a disgruntled foul-mouthed teenager. With MPG there's none of that petty 'cut n paste' sniping, back-stabbing and ego- centric innuendo that some of our ' Look at ME. I am RIGHT' Buddhabum chums seem to revel in. If MPG is let back IMO he should be made to wear a placard on his avatar for a month after the manner of those Chinese dudes back in Cultural Revolution days. The word 'Prodigal Repentant ' could feature on the placard perhaps. That or be soundly spanked. He's been a very naughty boy.

Here...

As promised, pic of my oversize zafu plus the zabuton here. The cocker spaniel ( Miss Alice) lends scale, she is 14 inches at the shoulder. The zabuton often doubles as her day bed.

Well sniping at each other on TTB Buddha boards isn't especially meritorious. Striving to be the one who is 'always right' is just wrong. I'll bet a week's wages that not one of the Dzogchen boosters on here would be accepted as a Dzogchen spokesperson by a real lineaged Dzogchen master. One gets the distict impression that our chums are just trading snippets of stuff that they have read. 'Talking the talk but not walking the walk.' In my experience real Buddhists are amongstbthe most non contentious folks you could wish to meet. The Audehabums on here, in the main; are a fractious crew.

As of this post I reckon that you are MPG. If you're not then you've a twin online who you've yet to meet.

When our lads were teenagers they had to have logo gear. All the kids wore it, it was like a uniform. Farah was all the rage at one time for them. Farah jackets cost £40 a pop ( this was way back in the eighties and I was on about £120 a week take home wage) but a no-logo and better ( IMO) jacket could be bought for less than £10. The Farah kit just had a fancy zip with the Farah logo enamelled onto the pull and a tiny Farah logo on the chest. Fair play they paid for their own 'fashionable' kit from their pocket money and paper round earnings, we refused to buy them fancy logo kit. It wasn't the principle - it was the money.

Will do. Great idea. I'll take it outside in sunshine ( hopefully) tomorrow. They're both black so not showing up at all well under this lamp light. Maybe put a book on the zabuton to give scale.