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There´s plenty of bad around if you look for it. And yet the sun still shines and the grass still grows. Look around and you´ll discover people painting, writing books, eagerly awaiting the right time to plant spring flowers. Kindness is everywhere. To see the good is not to deny the bad; on the contrary, our awareness of the good will give us the strength we need to deal with the darkness.

-- Paul Reps

The question is: have you rooted out the evil in yourself? Plenty of dark side in all of us.

Why did the ancients develop Neigung/Neidan/medicine/martial systems to get more oxygen? They have more oxygen than now.

Then the devil played another trick; convincing the the world there was only one devil. Ah folks see it. How could it be invisible? It's been broadcasted non-stop to the point, folks have become desensitized to it. "Rocking the boat" causes collateral damage as well. It isn't that folks are scared and weak, it is a sobering situation, and needs addressed in a way not rushed, which plays into the elites hands. Oh, shit, did I equate elites with evil?! Not necessarily, although,,, Don't hold your breath on everyone uniting as one. There are small groups that have stated objectives of holding accountable the ones who are dangled by the strings. The ones dangling and tugged by those strings are the truly weak. These intrigues are often inside jobs and border on the political fringes What usually happens in times like these, when the curtain has been drawn open and evil takes off its mask, is the world is dragged into major war. The 4th generation theory Because it is held by the elites that after a big war, folks can be controlled for three generations. Civil wars prevent revolution. Evil has carefully constructed presumably safe haven hideouts to weather the coming storm and the rest of us face horrendous odds of merely surviving. Let alone, feel good about it. There was a mural I was shown in 1978, in an air force hardened bunker,9 forecasting today's landscape and the coming aftermath; there was a caption: "The living will envy the dead" Apologies everyone for posting this. And, sometimes perhaps, predictive murals get it wrong. There is always hope. There are already places where there is no room for the faint of heart. Perhaps coming soon to a location near you. So, there could be some facsimile of a grand uprising. They do occur, rarely. Civil wars, mixed with the larger war mostly. Every now and then a true revolution. My approach is on the side of choosing to be Meek. Not to be confused with weak. A holistic grass roots effort, emphasizing kindness and service to the poor and downtrodden.i deliver meals to disabled seniors it is a little thing. But enough little things by those on the other side of the spectrum than the elite, do add up.

I wonder what value there is in ascribing the negative characteristics and manifestations we see as “evil” as opposed to human? It feels to me that it is a way to distance ourselves or absolve ourselves of responsibility, a form of dehumanization such as is used to normalize atrocities.

Annnon, While I appreciate your sentiment, threads such as this are no longer welcome here - not due to any particular political allegiance. Please read, or re-read this thread: After consultation with the various mods, this thread is now permanently locked. _/\_

My dear Robert, they are not platitudes, they are highly practical instruction IF pragmatically practiced. They are only platitudes to those too fearful to try.

One definition of "doing evil" from a Buddhist perspective:

Every experience is mind experience. It cannot be "outside" of mind's phenomena. Whatever we perceive as external, is still an internal experience within the mind. Nibbana is a different thing. It is the unconditioned, where something like "life force" cannot be. It is beyond the idea of life itself. The end of birth aging sickness, and death.

I have to say, I am pretty happy in the world I live, and I don't think evil is running wild.

It seems you are being 'hunted ' for any hint of something that 'someone' ( that reports people a lot ) does not like . IMO its in the eye of the beholder . My eye sees your question as 'is evil running wild in the world' . Yep ... always has been . Ya know , war was always evil ( yes a human judgment indeed , but these are human affairs ) , nasty, death dealing , horrific . violent .... but it wasnt until Vietnam War got blasted via TV into our lounger rooms that people started realizing how bad things were in the modern world . ( Excepting the unfortunate who had to live through such things ) And with the advent of modern 'improvements' in communication , I think we are certainly now more aware of what goes on - outside of our insular , air con , electronic environs . The safety of western civilization is collapsing and will effect more 'safe ' people as time goes on ...... regardless of who runs things ( some may invoke more of it some less ) .... its an inevitable collapse due to the false foundations it was based on ( ie. ideas of unlimited resources and economic formulas of ever increasing expansion ) . .

The entire Torah is completely encrypted, and people are searching for these codes using computers. A pioneer in this field was mathematics professor Eliyahu Rips, who lived in Israel. Dr. Rips was a leading expert in mathematics, and he mathematically proved that the probability of a random coincidence approaches zero. This is a stab in the back for all atheists.

If we ever have occasion to drink beer together -- and I think it would be fun -- I´ll be sure to bring Modelo. Goes well with chips and guacamole.

Truly Heroic and Highly Spiritual /\ /\

Beer drinking is a mostly peaceable activity -- as long as nobody brings Bud Light.

but while drinking vegetarian beer together that should not be to hard?

and to give a biblical paraphrase that goes along that line: "it not what goes into the mouth but what come out of it..." but don't tell that to a hard core vegetarian.

Did you add lemon with the tea? Was tea hot, cold, if we're going to be scientific, details matter. On an empty stomach?

But I tried drinking tea to stop the war .... didnt work .

Oh damn ! Just when I thought I was heading towards mastership !

In Modern Buddhism vol 1 one can find instructions on emptiness teachings. Also training in compassion so one doesn't end up with dry insight.

Dharma(s) is/are teachings, not rules or regulations. No person created it/them. You can actually reduce the causes of suffering to a simple formulae: What are you attached or averse to? If you are in the world and have no attachment or aversion there is equanimity. You are in alignment with the Dao, and generating NO karma. Congratulations, you are actualizing the fundamental point. "Free will" is a mind generated fantasy created the moment we imagine that we are a separate person and experience attachment or aversion to our delusion of a reality with separate things. Look for "free will" when your mind is still in meditation. Look for "self" when the mind is still. How about "suffering"? If you are looking closely you will see that none of these appear in consciousness when it is still, just blissful being-ness. How is this possible? Where did it all go? Watch what happens when your thinking process comes back online - there is suddenly and "I", and all of your suffering, attachment, and aversion to separate things begins anew. The suffering has always been "yours"... so also the "liberation".

metaphysical platitudes mean well but are very limited...

...or realizing that we have missed a trick and there isn't one.

Good luck rooting out evil in others! Changing ourselves changes the world.

First we have to find the 'one doing things'.

Working on yourself affects everybody since you are not separate from everyone else. All concepts.

I do not believe it was the great mystics or sages that brought about laws which society abides by. Rather it was the rulers of the realm which created the laws. They defined the offenses and the punishment. And also provide the organization by which the laws was dispensed. Divinely inspired thinkers did not create civilization. The first recorded civilization were the Sumerians and the first recorded laws were the Code of Ur-Nammu in the Sumerian city of Ur. Civilization believed to come about thru people living together in close proximity. Laws came about as the ruler of the realm needed to keep order in the land. In the words of Mel Brooks, "It is good to be the king." Or better known as Might makes right. Free will was thought to be brought about by Eve and Adam eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Having knowledge of good and evil gave a person choice. The ability to choose their actions. There is the law of man and there is the law of the divine. Each overlaps the other. So far, I do not agree with your premise. Can you expand on your thoughts about this so as to present a more solid argument??

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.” Right now the reason evil is running wild is because it is invisible to a large portion of people, even when presented with proof of it, their mind cannot see it. The people who can see it are scared, and view themselves as weak, and they don't want to "rock the boat". The solution is for all the people who feel like that to unite as one, and do something about it. The problem becomes convincing them all to adopt the mindset of "together we can change this", from "I am weak and powerless, and nothing I do matters".

I’m not disputing the classical classification of fajin methods. I’m pointing out the gap between formal taxonomy and trained reality. The fact that Peng underlies most fajin methods does not mean that most practitioners have actually built Peng as a functional internal condition. In practice, developing a high-quality, coherent “Taiji body”, one that is genuinely expresses full Peng, is exceptionally difficult, especially for people who begin training as adults. This is an uncomfortable reality about the standard level of Taijiquan practice among adult starters, not a denial of what the art theoretically contains.

There is no big pool of oxygen in the body. Only if one breathes more into the lungs with Qigong.

In modern science, what is in the air that humans needed the most is oxygen. Thus the postnatal chi is oxygen.

No . Qi and the history of market and economics are actually different things . Stored Qi ( having a large pool ) is passive , it is the active principle that gathers and stores Qi . having stored Qi may enable one to more efficiently gather more Qi , but the issue of just having a store of Qi will not automatically attract more . Which has nothing to do with previous 'supposins ' Large masses of energy are not the same as an ocean sized mass of water . One needs to understand how the tides effect the oceans first before making any comparisons with that dynamic . But even supposing you were correct , you seem to be saying that having a large 'mass of Qi ' is better ? Unless you think if you have a lot of Qi the tides will effect it ? Actually, what are you saying here ? let's start with .... not the above . Okay . But first , please define Qi based on natural principles and science .

Was I the only one who read the title and thought of this.

your last sentence was fine imo, the rest sounded like foolish B.S.

I try to learn something new every week. Over time improvement has been noticeable. This is something life coach gurus call self improvement. (Which fight club famously compared with mastication.) Recently, I have found a new adjective for this process. "Evolution." I feel like I am evolving. I wonder if this is a path God favors for His followers? It used to be common to debate: do you believe in evolution. I contend a person cannot truly believe in evolution unless they practice it as a lifestyle.

Deja vu