Krenx

Buddhist don't train to get rid of feelings. They train to develop the right "attitude" towards it. See it for what it is, and not act on the account of it heedlessly. So with the right attitude and refinement of views around feelings, even when feelings arise, it cannot cause suffering or automatically roll into actions carelessly for the trained person. And that kind of framework supported by skillful habits and actions with the right views around feelings as a basis, emotions cool down in intensity. The idea of non self, is specifically around the position that things which are fleeting, impermenant, subject to change, are "unfit" to be regarded as me, mine, myself. To regard impermenant and unstable things as me, mine, myself, is to subject your mind to unstable and an unreliable mode of existence. Equanimity and peace cannot arise when one clings into unstable features of existence. So one discerns what is impermenant, and gradually develop dispassion towards those things. Or decrease its priorities at least. The Buddha understood that although existance is impermenant, different things do change at difference rates. And to take something that changes a little slower more as self like the body compared to the mind, which changes all the time, would generally lead to decrease in suffering. And gradually that insight and discernment, with the dhamma, could lead to realizing the lesson of impermanence (Anicca). A paragraph from a sutta: https://suttacentral.net/sn12.61/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none¬es=none&highlight=false&script=latin But an unlearned ordinary person would be better off taking this body made up of the four principal states to be their self, rather than the mind. Why is that? This body made up of the four principal states is seen to last for a year, or for two, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or a hundred years, or even longer.

You assume you can 100% prevent such things from happening to you in the world. You cannot. You assume there is "safety" in being involved in this world. Participating in the politics of it. You assume safety and comfort is a given in existence, that humans have some special "right" to safety. Nope. There never was such a thing. Work on the roots that lead to all these suffering in the world within yourself. Stop asking others to do it for you, change for you, be involved like you, wish the world becomes more agreeable to your comfort zone. The world cannot do such a thing. Nobody can, nobody will, not in the past, present, or future. That would be my recommendation. That way you live closer to reality, and be able to navigate life a little more skillfully, take more personal responsibility, instead of demanding others be responsible for your sake. It is quite a selfish thing to insist other people accommodate to your views. Let that go.

The problem with discussing politics, is that it is stacked with too many piles of lies and misinformation everywhere you turn. So two people discussing it in this day and age, will be working with totally different sets of facts. It is unhelpful to draw any relationship between the political world, and the spiritual philosophies, if facts/whole realities of situations, are inaccurate from the start. It is by design this has happened. To stack lies and deceit in both sides so high that you cannot even begin honest conversations. It is impossible for two well intention individuals to begin any useful discussion, when they are speaking from totally different realities. One has to iron out the realities first before even proper political conversations can happen. If not there is no benefit, and absolute waste of time, and every word uttered in the topic is just falling deeper I to the traps of lies laid out by extremely evil people who created the whole mess from the very beginning. Is it worth the effort to uncover all these lies? We do our best. But we will never keep up. The ones who lies and misleads the public will always be one step ahead in the world to harm, a thousand fold step towards the woeful realms. The wise ones steer clear of these things entirely. There is nothing to be done. We don't have to swim in that trap of lies. That is the nature of the world, worldly ways. It has always been like this, as always will be like this. There is no need to drag others into that mess. If you traveled the world, lived among people in small towns, tribes in the mountains, you will realize many are able to live, minds untouched by ideas of world politics for decades and decades even till this very day. Yes they feel the effects of global politics to an extent, but they carry on with their life. Politics or not, changes happen in their lives, and they focus on their tasks at hand, their families and loved ones, their religion, and move forward in life.

Emotions are due to past conditions, views, actions, conduct that we have participated in for a long time. In this life, in previous lives. Emotions are not so much stored, but experiencing enough of it, the layers of the body adjusts, rewires, to accommodate these flavours of emotions. To be more efficient in expressing them, to fuel them, to accommodate them. And often at the cost of our health. Because it takes a lot of twisting internally and physically to accommodate its existence. Emotions are blameless. They are just a natural phenomena of life doing what to supposed to do, based on the conditions of our views, ignorance, habitual participation in it via thoughts, speech, action. It is doing what it supposed to do. In buddhism, there is the teachings of dependent origination. Alot of training happens at the link between feeling and action. An untrained person, allows feelings/emotions to automatically roll into action. And it causes suffering, strengthens the chains of samsara, weighs one down to lower realms. The job is to weaken, and eventually break these chains. So as feelings arise, one does not act due to the pressures of the feeling. Instead train to eventually see that it is actually totally separate domains that arises on its own. This reveals true responsibility. Because we realize ALL our actions we were actually responsible for. No amount of pressure of feelings or emotions could have ever crossed from the gate of feeling into the gate of action. We were solely responsible for making that connection out of ignorance. That is why virtue has this very specific quality. Virtue is wholesome action is done out of wisdom, "no matter how intense the pressures of feelings are against it". Why virtuous person chooses death instead of making unwholesome decisions/ actions. The question of how to "cool down" emotions, is basically to tackle its roots, which is refining views, developing wisdom, and paired with taking skillful action and habits, to gradually untwist the mind and body, so various emotions cool down and have no fuel or basis to arise.

From a Buddhist perspective (Pali cannon): There are 5 realms that make up existance. The hell realm, animal realm, ghost realm, human realm, and heavenly realms. Hell realms are beings who suffer in all horrible kinds of ways you can imagine. These beings, you cannot communicate with. They are busy suffering. Animal realm and human realm, we interact with in our physical world at various degrees. Ghost realms are made up of hungry beings. Craving, unsatisfied, hungry. In a hungry limbo. They are hidden from the human realm, but do sometimes overlap, but cannot really cause any harm. They are in like a broken record loop of craving. This is why they knock on the same door, walk across that same door in that house over and over again. They can be an annoyance, and there are ways to relieve their suffering to help them cross to the next phase of their incarnation. Human realms are made up of humans, spirits, nagas(Dragons), Yakkhas(kind of spirit troll). And like humans, spirits have various temperaments. Overlapps sometimes. Heavenly realm consist of heavenly beings/ gods/devas. They also have a mix of different temperaments and interest depending on the deva. But there are some general characteristics, and unique ones that the buddha talks about: - Devas generally are busy enjoying themselves, and their long lives. Most don't have interest in other realms, despite having knowledge about it. - The human realm, and most humans are actually very gross to devas. Not because of anything personal, it is like spiritual physics. Similar to how shit and mud is pleasing to insects and animals, but gross and dirty to us in general. - Virtuous people have a special aura/ light about them. And this is pleasing to devas, and it interest devas. This is why devas tend to interact with the buddha, or famous spiritual figures in religion. Virtuous people spiritually smell good and have a bright glow that devas/gods appreciate, and have interest in how they achieve it. There are suttas that talk about devas in different sizes appearing in the thousands flooding around the Buddha sometimes when he gives a dhamma talk. - Mara, the evil one, is a very powerful deva, interacts with humans, and tries to stir a lot of trouble and suffering. Mara is a unique deva with this evil quality, and also a cosmological position that will always exist/be born after one passes away. Mara also represents the symbolic evil in our hearts. Mara often directly interacts with highly enlightened beings like the buddha and his disciples, because he does not like the fact that the dhamma they teach gets people to stop playing in his playground of suffering he has constructed, shaped in the world. Many devas do have some sense, or memory of how they acquired their position. It was due to meritorious deeds, various virtues, generosity, etc. And because of that, they really celebrate it, and continue to enjoy its fruits for a long time. So when they witness virtuous beings, they are inclined to interact, question them, learn from them, and commend the human's achievement, share their own experiences, recommend virtue to humans for their benefit, and hopefully join the heavenly realms one day. (Mara is the odd one that is has different evil goals). You can sense this flavour of devas/gods, mara, in other religions.

It is a strange thing to be collecting energy from the dead (I assume you are doing it around graveyards?). That kind of energy is basically a permutation of yin energy. And probably on the stronger side of yin around the dead. That is why Cemeteries are pretty quiet and still. It is VERY yin, but it doesn't make it pure, or practical to tune to. It is a kind of yin that is strong, heavy, and reluctant to transform easily, kind of like the death, that does not come back to life. Nothing particularly evil or bad about this energy. It is just a quality of energy. It is what you do with it. But you could unintendedly start interacting with the ghost realm. And ghosts could start interacting with you. And you'll have to make extra effort in future to stop them from annoying you. Not sure what your goal is, why you would want this extra burden of ghost to deal with, why such low heavy frequency energies appeal to you. You do understand things that are heavy energetic qualities spiritually drag you down, and which realms down belongs to. But that's some information for you. Stay safe. If you have no particular goals around this energy, and just like feeling different things, absorbing different stuff with no plan in mind, my suggestion is to stop for your own good, and review what your goals are, and achieve them in a safe and healthy manner.

Buddhism teaches the 4 noble truths. The first truth that suffering exist in samsara, and the cause of it being craving, and the release from craving to end suffering, and the path of this entire process of abandoning craving to release from suffering, enter nibbana. Apart from the details of the path, you probably are familiar with the first 3 truths stated. So is the goal of buddhism to "experience" all that life has to offer? No. That is not the goal. The goal of buddhism is very specific to nibbana, release from craving. Gradual Dispassion of the world. Because of the phenomena of reincarnation, we have actually experienced existence many times. Countless times. All the pain and sense pleasures existence has to offer, we have covered it abundantly through the different realms in our countless past lives. Hell, animal, ghost, human, heavenly realms. The Buddha said the amount of blood we bled in our past incarnations could easily fill up all the oceans in the sea. World cycles, expansions and contractions of the universes. But most of us presently cannot recall such past lives. But we do carry the kamma of our past actions, and experience the fruits of it, bear unripe good and bad kamma within us, waiting for conditions to unfold. So after all these experiences, why does our mind still remain confused? In doubt? And tend to fall into that whole cycle again and again through birth aging sickness and death? It is because we have not understood samsara, we do not understand existence. We did not come across the noble dhamma, the truth of existence. With ignorance as condition, we continue this cycle of samsara and suffering. The Buddha said this: “And what things should be completely understood? Form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness. These are called the things that should be completely understood. And what is complete understanding? The ending of greed, hate, and delusion. This is called complete understanding. Sutta (SN 23.4). Key term there is "complete understanding". And come clues on what leads to the complete understanding of existence? It is a big claim, and big clues to do with greed, hate, delusion. Experiencing life, does not automatically lead to understanding. It Requires very specific insights, knowledge, a path to practice and used as a vehicle to reveal the truth of existence, understand existence. You mentioned avoiding suffering seems like what Buddhist practice. This is a misunderstanding. Aversion is NOT skillful in this path. Aversion is fundamentally craving, craving for a certain set of worldly conditions and sense pleasure comforts that are not in your control, and impermenant. The goal is to abandon craving, not partake in it, or indulge in more of it. There are precepts, the virtue. Things we practice to abandon, and in that practice reveal the pressures of craving within us, and work with to tame the mind and actions. The 5 precepts for lay people is not Lying, stealing, intoxicants, adultery, killing. We develop conditions and insight that allow us to see things as they are, develop right view, see and understand the root of suffering, and abandon craving, ending suffering. The terms used is abandon, lay down the burden. It is a totally different flavour from "avoidance". Because when something is abandoned properly, nothing can sway the heart of the noble one. Not even the threat of death. The arrow of pain may land in a noble one, but the second arrow of suffering in the mind does not land. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.nypo.html Because the noble ones know for themselves where suffering is, and its roots. It has seen it clearly, and that which has been seen cannot be unseen. https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.031.than.html This sutta clearly explains all the knowledge the Buddha knows, and what he actually chooses to teach. Because he is only teaching the 4 noble truths, the goal to liberation. Any other knowledge and distractions, he does not teach, there is no need to. His life is limited on earth, and he is has perfect precision in what he shares, and only for the goal of liberation from suffering for all beings. Hope that helps 🙏

Yup. I think you have to be there in person, and have practiced for awhile to be able to judge. And I can say out of the 6 people who had aggressive spontaneous movements, 3 of them clinged to that spontaneous experience. Enjoyed it, relish in it. Vocally mumbling things like "love, yes, yes, love love". Did not want it to end, do not plan to end it. Have no control over it, has not plan to manage it. Almost knocking other attendees over from their movements and rolling around, when most of them just wanted some silence to experience the subtle conditions of the exercise. There is a blindness to the setting of the workshop that was really alarming. Alarmed Damo as well. He understood what was happening, and he had to try restraining them eventually.

So I have attended his workshops. I have observed the attendees, people who have been training his system for a long time. Some are instructors. I will lay out some observations. There were a lot of spontaneous movements that happened to attendees. I think to about 5-6 of them. It was not your average type of zi fa gong. It is hitting the ground, screaming, blissful mumbling. And it seems to be a norm for some long time practitioners. Zi fa gong I know is a normal phenomenon. But to have it to this extreme, not be able to manage it at least in a public workshop setting, it raises questions. I will give damo credit in this. Because he recognizes that it was going on a little too much after the 2nd/3rd day and stepped in to help get some of them to calm down, which did not help much. Damo is actually a very nice guy to talk to, and very cheerful, polite, respectful, open, curious, sincere. I actually have no issues with him personally. But there is something about what comes out the other end of the system. It feels off, and I have seen it with my own eyes. It might not even have anything to do with him particularly. There are other forces that can get involved in these arts as the identity and ego of a school grows to this size. We can also see Damo has had difficulties managing his tendencies to interact on the web with his inner thoughts; when he should be wise enough with all his training to realize the blowback from the public. His personal goals and path seems muddy in recent years. Again, lovely guy in person actually. Not many who talk about him have met him. I have. But puzzle around his school, system, quality of practitioners from my own observations still remains. Granted it was only one workshop that I observed. So take as many grains of salt you wish to take from that. 🙏

👍. Cool cool. Thanks for clarifying. As long as things are discerned, we know where these ideas belong, who holds these different views, others can consider it on their own terms while still maintaining the purity and distinctions between various doctrines.

The early suttas, from the anagami level and the arahant, it is impossible for anger to arise when the 5 lower fetters with ill will being part of that abandonment. Some Arahants in the suttas, even the Buddha, may have behaviours that are sometimes harsh, blunt, direct. But it is not out of anger. Just a lingering personality. Arahants still have signs of their own lingering unique personalities even after the 5 fetters are abandoned. It does not mean anything in their behavior is out of ill will. That is impossible. This is specific to the Pali cannon. Not all branches of Buddhism teach the same dhamma. So it is important to discern its differences. And I understand people have their own definitions on what it means to be enlightened, their own definitions of arahanthood. And it makes sense they have to adopt terms from buddhism/ religions to communicate their ideas with others.

Yes I am aware. And I also know other notable teachers who trained with him. Virtue is important for him, and the method, and any spiritual system really. He is sad that small number of his early students neglected virtue on their path. But he understands it is not his place to decide how others want to live their lives. I trained with Mark, and also train yang taiji. The terms he uses in his system does mirror closely to the eastern arts. For example the quality of Vital>Astral>mental >akasha, are close to the qualities of jing>qi>shen>kong. Not 100%, but the overlaps are huge, and can be used to support, and better even, "understand" neigong practice better.

An arahant according to early buddhism of the Pali cannon, is well defined, and posseses qualities that Daniel and Delson do not possess. Do they still have possessions? Do they still cook and purchase/prepare their own food? When they travel, what is their purpose? Is every moment of their life involved in the dhamma, discussing the dhamma, contemplating on the dhamma, absorbed in jhanas, or do that partake in idle talk outside the 8 fold path? Can Arahants live a lay life? Did any Arahants in the suttas ever live a lay life? These are some good questions to ask. Your actions and lifestyle reflect your views and quality of your mind, level of clinging/craving after all. Daniel I can get why he came to such assumsions. He has his own "personal definition" about what an arahant is, different from what the Buddha defined it was. So we can leave it at that. But I am surprised Delson made that error and assumed an attainment with his depth in understanding of the sutta and teaching others in the suttas as a living. But it is not uncommon for even monks do make similar mistakes. And we just try to correct them as we continue striving to see the dhamma. 👍🙏. Guru viking I agree is good as an interviewer. He allows guest to be clear in their views. And let viewers the freedom to make their own judgement.

@Sahaja Mark Rasmus method. Many great students are teaching and doing good work across the world. They are encouraged to use his methods to support their own paths, discover deeper in their own paths. And leaves the credit of skills on his students and their own hard work. Never imposes any need to mention him ever, which is very rare. And spiritually, students truly own their achieved skills because of this free and healthy dynamic for passing on skills.

I have been to his workshops before. I can verify he uses more subtle frequencies of Qi to help attendees run energy a little stronger during workshops. But it is intentionally at the more subtle levels for workshops. There are people I trust who knows him personally, and have witnessed his skills. Like emitting qi in the quality similar to electricity, like the some other masters many of you have probably seen online. I hear he has improved a lot. He does not demonstrate these things publicly for obvious reasons. And I don't believe he ever will. So one will need to seek him out personally to find out in person. The answer to questions around his skill will end up "go find out yourself". It is by design, and will not really change anytime soon. People who know first hand will not share it in great detail, or any detail at all. But there is a clear pattern I think most people are starting to realize, that not many great students actually come out of the other end of the school/ system. If they did, we would be all interacting with them, attending their workshops. But instead it all keeps pointing back to Damo, which is odd after all these years. You see this odd pattern in a few schools. Which does not make sense. Because his knowledge is authentic. His training methods I have experienced is legitimate and effective. There is a missing piece to the puzzle; but have put it aside and will let things reveal itself on its own. But for good knowledge and insights, framework of internal work, and methods of training, damo and his books are valuable and answers many questions correctly 👍. Anyone who would like to learn fundamental theory of daoist arts, I will direct them to Damo's books.