Thijs Buelens

I totally agree with you that the morality of the church is in many ways valuable, their 'policy' on gays and lesbians on the other hand is what I was reffering to. Sexual freedom can be nice I guess, but I am the first to agree this could lead to many problems, std but also emotional issues. Buddhism is indeed not free of morals as you rightly pointed out. Buddhism without morals would be something like zen 'buddhists' during world war II in Japan, actually has not much to do with buddhism anymore, if interested see Brian Daizen Victoria' s Zen War Stories on this, great piece of historical inquiry. However I would say buddhism, along with taoism is more amoral than moral in nature, they show you a way and tell you will suffer the consequences if you do otherwise (by feeling bad or out of balance), they are not moralising, pointing their fingers at you. A great book on this topic is Hans Georg Moeller The Moral Fool, A Case for Amorality. An example of how morality is practiced in buddhism would be the fourrteen mindfulness trainings by thich nhat hanh, notice they are called trainings not commandments :-).

Although I think you are right white wolf in stating that a lot of western people don't look to the contemplative side of their own culture (in christianity for example), there are a lot of reasons why they have turned their backs on christianity, sociological and historical ones (scientic materialism, the moral standponits of the church, consumerism and the fact that the church doesn't really offer ways for people to develop their contemplative side,...) Stating that buddhism is for lazy people and that the buddha didn't help anyone and tried to 'escape' suffering, in my opinon, shows that you don't really understand what buddhism is about, but it is fine, I am not gong to try to convince you

Meditation is not foreign to christianity, check Thomas Merton for example.

I actually have this book and although it is probably a great book packed with information, I would not recommend it for beginners, it is just a lot to take in, I'd say a good reference book for the more experienced practioner. It's actually standing on my book shelf most of the time so I speak from experience probably later on I might look into it more. I can recommend Ken Cohen's THE WAY OF QIGONG:THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CHINESE ENERGY HEALING and Lam Kam Chuen's The way of energy. Warm wishes

As someone already stated, Lam Kam Chuen is great,

Greetings from Belgium. My name is Thijs, I am a buddhist practioner with a strong interest in taoism, my branch of buddhism (Vietnamese zen buddhism in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh) is heavily influenced by taoism when buddhism came to China from India, so now I like to explore taoism in greater detail. I am also a student of qigong and taichi (northern wu style). I am very much interested in both philosophy and practice. Currently I am learning taoist kidney breathing, niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Ciao