If humans aren't capable of being responsible then we are a bit screwed because there isn't anyone else on earth promoting morality. Religious people are still people and though they claim to be living by divine codes as has been well established such codes certainly seem to change over time. Good thing morality seems overall to show a trend of improving as our civilisations advance then. The huge gaping hole being of course that many atrocities have been commited in the name and with the backing of religions. You are of course right that religion is not the only cause for atrocities but the polarised position you present is just as bad as the one your criticising. True religion is good therefore anything bad is not true religion... thats not a very logical position. It would be like me saying all atheists are rational therefore if there is any irrational atheists they are not proper atheists. Mr. McGrath again I'll deal with that on a seperate thread in religion when I get the chance. Your views are unpleasant to me and I'm not an ultra liberal. So all the Monotheistic religions? Thats a suprise. What about people who claim to use magic for positive purposes like healing someone or trying to add to world peace? What about someone trying to use magic to protect their family or cure someone they know from illness? I don't believe magic exists but I find it hard to see why all magic must be bad or for that matter how what people use magic for differs than what most people pray for. I suspect you will argue that proper prayer is not for personal gain but then once again we are left with a circular argument were you define prayer as you see fit and then just ignore all the religious people making self interested prayers as not really doing proper 'religion'.
Yes why did he want religion destroyed? They aren't unpleasant they just have been tried before and discovered to be pointless. prohibition for example. Tell that to Gandalf! JK I hate to point this out but like gandalf, magic isn't real. The Bear.
And on and on it goes. There is no gaping hole in my argument, because my whole point was It is wrong to try to manipulate the universe through supernatural forces, period. It is immaterial whether or not magic works, trying corrupts you - magicians try to summon malevolent and supposedly neutral supernatural forces in the belief that they can control them, and that is not about service to the greater good, but about consorting with evil to pursue one's personal goals, regardless of what they are. Prayer should usually be about giving thanks, but if people do ask for help, the difference is that they are asking, not commanding. Now, work calls.
Wow this thread took a turn, I just wanted to point out that I have been privileged to sit in on a few Traditional Taoist prayers and all of them included the health, well being and peace for the earth/people/life etc. For the most part TRUE taoists care little of their own gain, though honestly they can be a bit overzealous when it comes to interuppting their own cultivation methods. But I have never heard it come to extremes that people think (though there is probably instances of doing so). As with any religion/art/belief system their are those that take things to the extremes, but lumping it all into one, or creating generalizations can be dangerous. Such as Onyomi mentioned we could condemn numerous things within our lives b/c they could be deemed "wrong". Again these things are present within our lives and it is up to the individual to make these things "right or wrong". Almost everything we exp. in our day to day lives (porn, drugs, medicine, politics, cars, religions) can be used and manipulated to our own ends and means. These things are tools, symbols, ideals etc. that are just that, JK you seem to give them life and say they automatically corrupt people. It is a person's choice to be corrupted and fall into the "wrong" aspects of day to day life. Blaming other things that we do/use is making scape goats and not fessing up to our own faults that lead us down paths of corruption. Just my views and opinions Regarding this: I think it will take time as even if someone was to step up and do some "magically amazing" demonstration of Qigong/meditation there will always be skeptics and people that say the experiment wasn't controlled enough etc. etc. There will never be a definitive answer, all I know is I love what I practice, I can help people and that is all that matters. Well how about I throw in that I will cover shipping and handling? You know where you live it can cost an arm and leg so I am taking a big hit here! And just b/c you are a MAPer I will throw in a Qi vest t-shirt (not as strong protection, but looks really fashionable!) and if you buy 4, what the heck I will give you the 5th for half off! Man I am giving these things away. OOOOO Duck here come some more bullets :woo: nice one! LOL
I agree that this is deemed wrong, I personally have not found teachers that do promote this. They may have studied it in their past and agree that it was wrong so now they don't promote such. Mostly from what I have studied is how to undo what the magician does (per your above post) by sending malevolent or manipulated supernatural entities to where they may belong. So if said entity is causing general evil and destruction upon anyone/thing then it is through prayer and the divine that people are able to send this on. In reality it is not much different than praying and asking for relief from suffering and pain, the focus is just different. Rather than saying it is a general term (i.e. suffering/pain) you are focusing the prayer (to malevolent entity). I also agree with the asking, and Apache shaman once said "I am nothing but a bridge for the divine, it merely works through me, I don't command it, I am the tool." His idea was to let the holy work through him, he was never in control of the divine as this would be wrong, you cannot control God/The great spirit/Tao whatever, but you can let it work through you.
I don't see the need to constantly highlight the fact that people disagree on this issue and probably will 'on and on'. If such discussions really do tire you there is a simple solution (one which I myself engage in from time to time if I get a bit frustrated)... do not get involved in them. I don't mean to aim this at you specifically JK but the constant discussion or mention in almost every other post about the futility of discussion followed immediately after by someone engaging in the discussion can be a bit grating. If you don't want to discuss such things then not contributing would seem to be the way to go rather than making arguments or statements and then moaning about people still discussing the matter. I know I'm ranting a bit but seriously... it's the equivalent of saying well evolution vs. creationism arguments go round in circles so I don't know why people bother, now here is my list of 10 irrefutable proofs of creationism. I did notice you said that but I still don't think that fills the hole. You did recognise that anything can be abused but you then went on to argue that: 1. Religion is the present day main scapegoat for society ills. 2. Religion has been persecuted and other ideologies have been responsible for atrocities. Point 2 I don't think anyone could debate. Point 1 I don't fully agree with since as is particularly noticable in America- Religious belief is the mainstream. However, the hole I am pointing out is that you seem to be unable to accept that 'real'(tm) religion could be responsible for atrocities when it's quite clear it can be. You seem to define 'true religion' as only what is good and you believe in but my point is that while this definition might suit your personal beliefs it does not correspond to the reality of religious belief displayed throughout the world. I don't buy your claim that people engaged in what you would term 'magic' believe they are dealing only with evil or neutral entities and only to command them. From my own study I know that there are many good entities in religious Taoism who are petitioned, not commanded, for their assistance. This seems to be yet another circular argument: Since A) Trying to make use of supernatural forces that don't correspond with my religion is an evil practice then B) Anyone who engages in such practices are involved in an evil practice. This is not a sound argument but yet another personal religious belief which you are trying to argue corresponds with reality. To me the Christian praying to God for their child to get better is just as 'guilty' as the Shinto follower requesting assistance from the kami for their child to get better from an illness or the Wiccan performing some magick rite to help their sick child. Taoquan I'm right with you on the need for personal responsibility over prohibition but in regards to there always being skeptics... well that's probably true but the thing is once something is proven to be effective under proper conditions skeptics don't have much to stand on. I know I'm only skeptical of Chi claims because the evidence is so flimsy and the best 'demonstrations' are parlour tricks like the one's provided earlier in this thread (or maybe it was the other one) that people have now distanced themselves from.
Oh well, I should evidently have stuck to what I originally wrote then "my views are only unpleasant to liberals" I think this is a bit silly. It is self evident that pornography is exploitative and recreational drug use serves no useful purpose. These things only cause harm. People certainly are responsible for their actions, but we can choose to feed our desires or control them. "Lusting after the pleasures of the world" makes people surrender their free will to their desires. The hebrew word for addiction means "to sell yourself" and there is a broad spectrum of dependency before recognised addiction kicks in. If you indulge a habit, you are somewhere on the dependency scale. I would recommend that rather than flying off the handle at this claim, people consider it. Giving up a pleasure seems fairly unimaginable when you are in its grip, but you can retrain yourself to be free from it and gain better self control, allowing you to live a more ethical and considered life.
Point taken CKava. I just find myself having a lot of these kinds of arguments these days in life too. Religion might still be big in the US, but it isn't in the UK. Most believers even seem a bit down on it. I have wondered why I can't just have the last word though - kind of like - well this could go on all day but I'll just say this and then no one needs to say anything else. Well it was worth a try I will take break, because I do get a bit frustrated by being a lone voice so often against a whole bunch of qi believers or moral relativists or atheists, if only because I don't have time to argue against so many people - I post something and somone else has posted while I was writing. I just don't have that much free time. So for the record, and to save having to keep on posting, anyone who disagrees with me on any issue is wrong. There you are you see - I'm not so different from everyone else.
My parents would both describe themselves as "conservative," but I'm sure they'd find your views on censorship extreme. I think it would be a more accurate reflection of political reality for you to say "many hardline religious conservatives agree with me."
I think more accurate would be "many of my fundamentalist friends agree with me and so does god. So I cannot ever be wrong" The Bear.
I would say the most important aspect of my particular practice is the ability to change/control MYSELF. Breathing and meditation practices help me monitor / control my emotions, and help me to keep perspective when life hands out lemons. It's far more about psychology than physics. And it works for me. If you aren't interested, or it doesn't work for you, *shrug*, don't do it.
Ok I fully respect Qi is a broad topic with many differing view points but lets at least attempt to bear in mind the original topic when posting please. If people have a problem with the way people debate their view points then I suggest they take it up via PM instead of dragging it across multiple threads.
There is, but you can't see it as it's a very subtle process. Essence (Jing) and Qi are the material foundation for Shen (Mind), or Sanbao. Every time you do Qigong, whether you like the spiritual component or not you are triggering Sanbao, internal alchemy starts and your spiritual self strengthens a bit more every time you do so. Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Treasures_(Traditional_Chinese_Medicine) I recommend you this reading: Qigong Meditation- Embryonic Breathing (Yang Jwing-Ming). The book also contains internal images of the human body (medical) as well as an explanation on how does "qi" work during internal cultivation. It also explains the relationship between the two brains that our bodies contain: upper brain (brain itself) and lower brain (lower dantien); not much differenta from any other energy circuit (bipolarity), positive and negative. Positive/Yang our upper brain and negative/Yin the lower dantien, and bot linked (like any other circuit) by the spinal cord Note: Dr. Yang JWing-Ming holds both a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (Purdue University, Indiana/US) and a Bachelor of Physics (National Taiwan University, Taipei/Taiwan), so this author knows a great deal of this subject as he dilutes the existing gap between ancient Taoist knowledge about internal body energetics with the more conservative scientific method. Final note: I don't recommend anyone to learn from books.They are just a guide. In my case a hobby as I love reading. Qigong is not something one can learn from a book, it would be like giving a loaded gun to a child but with a backfiring effect.
Gerard, trying to recommend I better understand the nature of my own qigong practice which I've been doing for years with an actual teacher by suggesting I read YJM books and Wikipedia is stupid and presumptuous even for you. As an aside, YJM's qigong books are full of idle speculation, oversimplification and outright glaring errors. He is by no means an expert on qigong, just one of the least awful to publish on the subject in English.
It's not stupid, it's smart. Has your teacher shown you the basics of internal energy cultivation? That wikipedia entry is a basic Taoist tenet. I don't understand why you get so offended about it. Sanbao 三寶. Or maybe you and your master reject this concept? I am only suggesting not to read the whole repertoire of books written by that author, only a selected reading and specific parts of it which I related to your question about qiqong being better understood. Some of the stuff he writes about makes perfect sense to me, and as you should know common sense is not dictated by either cultural or linguistic factors.
