ChiForce

Well, what plants would do in general is try to adapt to the environment by sprouting new leaves or flowers. Plants do not try to repair their damaged leaves. They would just regrow off another nodes. In fact, even the entire stems are dead, if the rhizomes are still buried in the soil with good roots, the plants will regrow.

Yeah but that's usually more complicated than that. For one thing, enlightenment does not usually happen in one life time, as far as what I have been reading and experienced (I became a stream-enterer at 18 when I, "like a blind cat bumped in dead rats," underwent the first 2 levels of the 4 intensified practice to realize enlightenment known as the "Path"). Yeah, I am reading Master Nan's To Realized Enlightenment, chapter 9, I am blown away from his discourse and the precision of it describing my experiential manifestations.

I think when we talk about enlightenment, we have to look at it from the standpoint of life times, birth, death and rebirth. And how an arhat has to undergo several life times of cultivations to finally accomplish enlightenment. He may have been enlightened to some degree but not the final liberation.

From what I have read and understood so far, you can be reborn in the form realm or the desire realm's heaven as devas as soon as you have achieved certain degree of merit and cultivation levels. I guess in this heaven of the desire realm, you become a god but with still human and emotional attachments. Again, not much I can really speak of from experiences... Still, these devas can be reborn again as humans for whatever the reasons.

Here is an interesting question. Can you obtain enlightenment and to liberate the consciousness WITHOUT a body??? That is, a consciousness energy or an entity like spirit or ghost can still cultivate their mind without having a body? Funny enough, death and rebirth in our physical realm are often needed to liberate the consciousness.

Hmm...hobbies? Spiritual enlightenment, with the implication to change the world and your life entirely, is a past time hobby?

The answer is of course yes for most people. In fact, to follow the path, you have to overcome your career. That's how things are. Unless in your career you are actively practicing the dharma. That would be considered a very noble profession.

We know what we are talking about here, drugs like weed and other hallucinogens that are designed to alter our minds and making our minds to see things. Afterward, people crashed and feeling withdrawn. Eventually, one becomes addicted and dependent on them until who knows what would happen. We aren't talking about water and air or food.

That's the English translation. I haven't read anything relating to the practice dealing with drug use. In fact, Taoists would often go into retreats and spending months in the mountain consuming minimal of food and water, and fasting. So, you are relying on drug use in your cultivation, how can you even undergo these fasting? From my personal experiences, every morning I feel more chi flowing in my body than at night because my stomach is empty as well as my mind is well rested.

I can see this discussion would be interesting. I don't believe in drug use, especially in sports. Drugs and spiritual cultivation? That's really the new age stuff. As a local amateur racer (cycling) for 4 years with sufficient knowledge in training in general to optimize my genetic potential, the only way to get faster on the bike or swimming is to do them faster, repeatedly, at shorter intervals. In cycling, you ride faster with a bigger gear. You don't strap yourself with 50lb weights. Hahahaha... And hoping once the weight is off, you become faster. No way..... See, to go faster in cycling or swimming or even running, you need to train your muscle to move faster at a higher power output. And with spiritual cultivation, you aren't talking about efforts here but just letting your mind and body be, "naturally." If your bodily system is all pumped with drugs and other "chemicals," it is almost impossible to allow your body just be, in a state of emptiness.

Chi channels opened. Seeing light in your meditation. Transforming your jing energy into shen. Of course, according to Master Nan, the final liberation would even stop your chi from moving and your blood from flowing. I don't believe one can be truly liberated but we can be liberated to some degrees (managed to enter and leave various state of samadhi and to experience 2 or 3 or 4 levels of jhanas). If your body is too weak from not eating healthy or taking drugs, you will have a hell of a hard time to cultivate your mind. If you have the power to ignore your body, you will have the power to strengthen your body and to heal it. By pretending your body does not exist, it does not mean you have the power over your body. I think that's what Master Nan called "who is the master and the host???" Or "a host and the guest?"

Maybe he can't heal himself??? Have there been records of him healing people? If not, maybe he can't heal himself. In Taoism, what people called healing is simply to restore the balance of the chi. What is exactly wrong with restoring the balance of the chi as nature intended? That's not clinging. To determine to uncling your body and to deny the body to function naturally is actually a type of clinging. As with Master Nan, for the fact the he smokes, that may have something to do with his health later in the year. It could be some sorts of karma, maybe. Karma can manifest itself through our body too.

Is not a side effect. When your body is too weak to sustain your consciousness, your consciousness will die or leave the body. What if your consciousness hasn't been liberated or enlightened yet?

And he smokes too....

Huh..you are missing the point. You are not liberated if you are dying from old age illness. Certainly not liberated if you are dying from some illness in your 60s or even 70s, regardless how much your mind has been cultivated. Here, death is suffering. Suffering from sickness and illness when your organs do not even have the energy to function, regardless how much your mind may think that this isn't happening. If your mind cultivation is at this high level to transform the body, you won't have gotten sick or ill at all. You would decide when to die. This isn't same as someone clinging to not dying. Is more like when you have fulfilled your destiny, it is time to depart from the world.

This is from Master Nan "To Realize Enlightenment." Page 155: "Illuminating mind and seeing true nature means seeing the dharmakaya. When your cultivation reaches the point that you are fully equipped with the six spiritual powers, and the three buddha-bodes and the four wisdoms of the buddhas, and the 32 marks of the buddha, and the 80 good qualities of a buddha, this is the completion of the sambhogakaya. When your cultivation reaches the point that you can manifest hundreds of millions of transformation bodies, this is the accomplishment of the nirmanakya. Many of the teachers of the Zen school managed to see the dharmakaya, but they didn't necessarily achieve the sambhogakaya and the nirmanakaya. Among the 28 Zen patriarchs in the India, and the Zen Patriarchs in China before the 5th and 6th Patriarch, some of them achieved all three buddha-bodies, but after the 6th Patriarch those who achieved all three buddha bodies were few."

However, one still can not decide "when to die" because one hasn't mastered the body, regardless how much your mind is cultivated. Master Nan talks about this mindset early on in his "To Realize Enlightenment." When your body is healthy, you experience all sorts of mental bliss. When you get old, you die from sickness and illness. You haven't been liberated.

Here is a good link to explain the 3 Buddha bodies... http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddhism/cul/cul02.php

You are correct. If you haven't done so, go read Master Nan works. He said that one of the problems with the modern day Zen is that monks do not cultivate their bodies. Their bodies should exhibit the 3 Buddha bodies if they claim they have achieved enlightenment. http://buddhism.about.com/od/buddhismglossaryd/g/dharmakaya.htm Looks like they may only have achieved the dhamrakaya body, the mind. Their bodies are suffering. When they pass away, they may died from sickness or illness. Regardless how much their mind is cultivated, they can't help their own bodies to overcome suffering. That they aren't able to transform their bodies. They are still subjected to the nature of the biological decay, which, in the overall scheme of things, you haven't broken free from the samsara.

I agree BUT the issue here is that aliens are cooperating with the humans already. I would like to know how and why? I am more interesting in how since we need a common language to communicate. Two, obviously, we are just some humans and with backward technology. What would the aliens get in return?

I don't want to watch the whole clip but are there any interesting questions or answers between them that may explain how and why aliens would be sharing technologies with the humans? How do humans or the aliens communicate to each others and what "languages" do they speak? Or he is just a crazy Canadian???

Hahahaha...at one point he was throwing the chi ball everywhere while getting his ass handed to him by a student. So, the master mind or chi is very limited, which is far from the universal quality of the chi energy.

I wonder if this dream I had 2 weeks ago was a meditation case. Basically, in this dream, I was meditating. I have a nail over my head. I then used my mind to drive it through my crown. I didn't feel anything. I didn't know why I was doing it. I knew I have to do it. The nail went through my throat, to my center channel, and then existed through the left side of my ribs. Just below the heart. In the dream, I felt nothing. When I woke up, I felt nothing either. Normally, dreams dealing with the body parts would tend to have a psychosomatic effect. I had those in the past. But not with this dream. One thing I thought it was interesting was that instead of forcing something to come out, I was forcing a nail to drive through my skull. It feels like the nail was clearing something in my center channels. I am not experiencing any chi blockage physically. Maybe spiritually and psychologically I have been feeling that a bit stagnated.

Heheeh...too much energy? Take up endurance sport like cycling. I try to ride 80 mile on the weekend for 6 hours. And usually 2 days with 40 miles each just to prepare for that long weekend ride. Other than through meditation, cycling is my other way to cultivate my chi. Not exactly easy to survive 6 hours on the bike with only energy bars and drinks and constantly putting out or burning up about 500 calories per hour. 3000 calories per ride.

Well, I have been reading Master Nan's Diamond Sutra and he spent a good portion in talking about Buddhism in general. He brought up the topic of arhats. Supposedly, an arhat has to under go 7 rebirths in order to reach full enlightenment. As you reached closer to your 7th rebirth, your habit energy would lose its clinging power. He even talked about it is possible for "anyone" can be living in their 3rd or 4th rebirth because one may find oneself more interested in nature and outdoor life style. Or one may find there are more things important in life than wealth, money, career, and women. Or someone just not really interested in the cyclical and repetitive nature of our worldly existence because they understood them in early age. I do wonder if I were once an arhat. I have one dream in which I remembered that I was a monk in a lecture hall. I was with other monks. There was this Indian guru talking about something. He asked us if we can see the vase on the table with our third eyes. So, everyone is trying to see this vase on the table with their third eyes. I saw a half empty white vase on a white table. And I told him what I saw. He then said that I didn't see the white vase on the white table. Is one of those Diamond Sutra principle of non-clinging. I was confused for the moment and then I became self conscious of my being. I looked down at myself and realized that I was wearing the robe of an abbot monk. I woke up after that. I also had a dream about being persecuted as a Buddhist monk by certain Chinese emperor.