Qi and Spirit?

[kfson]

The spirit was what allowed people to heal others, themselves, to understand the cosmos (to a limited degree) and to even cause "miracles" to happen.

Because this realm has the functions of the material and spirit. The mechanical aspects of spirit is often seen as miraculous by non practitioners.

[Scott R. Brown]

yet is experiencing the power to choose, nothing more than experiencing a life of pre-destiny and fate?

I never really cared for some reason. I never understood the value in determining which it is, although I have had enough interest to comment on it in the past, but that is more for the intellectual game of it.

To me IT IS what IT IS. Whatever we choose to call IT, IT won't change what IT IS, we will only change what we think about IT.

We can paint a picture of an orange, we can write a description of an orange, we can grow an orange, cook with an orange, make art with an orange, throw an orange (something I loved to do as child growing up near orange groves!), write a poem about an orange, etc. so on and so forth, but none of these change the inherent "orange-ness" of an orange!

So, while I may play with the idea of predestination/fate vs. free will, in the end I don't really care.

Just as we may be become attached to material objects and relationships, so too can we become attached to ideas. In the end all phenomena are artificial constructs we create for convenience and then bind ourselves to with our mind attachment.

I try not to attach myself!

[kfson]

I never really cared for some reason. I never understood the value in determining which it is, although I have had enough interest to comment on it in the past, but that is more for the intellectual game of it.

To me IT IS what IT IS. Whatever we choose to call IT, IT won't change what IT IS, we will only change what we think about IT.

We can paint a picture of an orange, we can write a description of an orange, we can grow an orange, cook with an orange, make art with an orange, throw an orange (something I loved to do as child growing up near orange groves!), write a poem about an orange, etc. so on and so forth, but none of these change the inherent "orange-ness" of an orange!

So, while I may play with the idea of predestination/fate vs. free will, in the end I don't really care.

Just as we may be become attached to material objects and relationships, so too can we become attached to ideas. In the end all phenomena are artificial constructs we create for convenience and then bind ourselves to with our mind attachment.

I try not to attach myself!

Do you detach yourself from the phenomena of your neighbor breaking into your house and inserting a pin under the fingernail of your left index finger every night as you sleep?

[Scott R. Brown]

Do you detach yourself from the phenomena of your neighbor breaking into your house and inserting a pin under the fingernail of your left index finger every night as you sleep?

Perhaps you misunderstand what it means to be detached within the context of Ch'an/Zen teachings.

Detached is a state of mind, not a state of physical action. Attachment of the mind creates bondage and is caused by ignorance/not understanding, the true nature of phenomena.

I may attempt to maintain possession of an item that belongs to me under the law and social custom, yet I would not feel a sense of loss should I lose the same item.

About the only phenomena I am attached to are my family, and while I maintain attachments to them I do not forget that those attachments are artificial and I have chosen them.

Because I have chosen them I am able to remain attached or detach myself as I chose. I rule my attachments rather than allowing them to rule me.

[kfson]

Perhaps you misunderstand what it means to be detached within the context of Ch'an/Zen teachings.

Detached is a state of mind, not a state of physical action. Attachment of the mind creates bondage and is caused by ignorance/not understanding, the true nature of phenomena.

I may attempt to maintain possession of an item that belongs to me under the law and social custom, yet I would not feel a sense of loss should I lose the same item.

About the only phenomena I am attached to are my family, and while I maintain attachments to them I do not forget that those attachments are artificial and I have chosen them.

Because I have chosen them I am able to remain attached or detach myself as I chose. I rule my attachments rather than allowing them to rule me.

I don't think you can detach yourself from prolonged intense pain no matter how artificial everything is in this realm.

[Scott R. Brown]

I don't think you can detach yourself from prolonged intense pain no matter how artificial everything is in this realm.

The best you can say is you don't think YOU can detach yourself from prolonged intense pain no matter how artifical everything is in this realm.

Pain is pain, if you feel it, feel it! Then let it go!

[Lucas]

i do when i sleep!

[Scott R. Brown]

i do when i sleep!

When you sleep do you dream you are a butterfly or dream that you are Chuang-tzu?

[Lucas]

i dont dream at all, well im sure i dream but i dont remember them. when i do though (roughly 1-3 every year or so) its very lucid. i have kept a log that i write my dreams down in, usually very long and pretty wild with lots of detail. I die in a lot of them.

[Scott R. Brown]

i dont dream at all, well im sure i dream but i dont remember them. when i do though (roughly 1-3 every year or so) its very lucid. i have kept a log that i write my dreams down in, usually very long and pretty wild with lots of detail. I die in a lot of them.

You are the only person besides myself I have ever heard of who dies in their dreams. I have been dying in my dreams since I was 17 years old.

In the first dream, I was shot in the head and I didn't know it was a dream. I thought I was really dead! Totally weird experience. Since then I have probably had between 30-50 dreams where I have I died.

I have been stabbed, motorcycle accident, drove my car over a cliff, run over by a steam roller, and broken my neck a number of times!

I haven't had one, that I can recall, for a number of years!

[uki]

I don't think you can detach yourself from prolonged intense pain no matter how artificial everything is in this realm.

you also don't have to let anyone inflict intense pain on you either.

[Lucas]

ya isnt it crazy. i usually wake up really disorientated and confused for a minute. the weird thing for me is that my dreams generally are not very realistic. either twilght zone-ish, sci fi-ish, fantasy-ish, or wild....like being a dinosaur...lol

i used to have this re occuring dream when i was a child that was like a focus of all my stress.

it always started the same:

i am a small pebble floating in an endless void. there are large boulders floating as well. everything is on a pattern. like orbits. without fail i always got smashed to dust between two large boulders. i would always see it coming a ways away and the stress would build and build and build until i was crushed into dust. then i would wake up. im not sure when that dream stopped happening during my childhood but im glad it did, it was horrible. the weird thing is, as an adult i can discect that dream a bit, but it still doesnt make much sense that i would have that dream as a child as it seems like the meanings behind the dream were beyond my minds maturity and comprehension level. but i guess my chronological maturity had nothing to do with it.

[ZouMaKanHua]

Wow thread explosion!

uki:

yet these qualities also manifest after discovering the way... look around at some folks on their path - can you move them?? would you want to try and force them from their path??

Yeah, this is the only way I can understand St. Paul's "when I am weak, then I am strong"; that is, our own personal strength is not the same as the strength that comes from the way. But if we rely on our personal strength, we are less likely to realise where the way is leading.

kfson:

What are the consequences of forcing someone from their path?

I think the 'way' is alive, not necessarily a fixed path, so it would be hard to really force someone off it. That being said, we cannot truly know the effect our actions have on others. The best we can do is try to follow the way in our own lives. My ideal is something I read in the 'Wen Zi', that when a person has utmost sincerity in their lives, the spiritual effect on others has no limit.


In terms of the free-will question, I think it becomes a big issue because we fall into biological or physical reductionism, thinking that everything can be understood on those levels. There's no apparent room for free will on a mechanistic level, but there's no real reason to choose *those* levels instead of the human level. After all, we are humans, and we experience life at a human level; and from the human level for all intents and purposes we seem to make choices....

sanjuro_ronin:

The spirit was a working force, it was harnessable and could be used, it had "personal" qualities and wasn't "just" and energy force.
With out the spirit there was no life and when one died the spirit returned to God/source of life or energy.

Yes, that's a much richer sense of what spirit is, more complete and substantial, I mean. The metaphysics I'm reading into is called Hylomorphic dualism, which means matter and form dualism. It's more complex than the idea that there is a 'spirit' inside a 'body', and the two are separate. But it allows us to define everything living and non-living in terms of a spiritual 'form' that configures primary matter or pure potential.

This kind of thing is interesting when taken to its limits, because it helps to resolve the problems of quantum mechanics ie. the fact that 'matter' is indefinite at the smallest levels.

In other words, how can we define spirit in relation to the material world, when matter itself cannot be defined? The answer takes us back to a kind of yin/yang interaction of potentiality and actuality.

This kind of view allows us to accept modern science and biology for example, without having to disgard the rich interpretation of spirit, and spiritual 'powers' which traditionally include the intellect and the will.

Pretty cool; good discussion

[uki]

here is one of my favorite stories from the bible...

Judges 15:13-17

13 So they spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand; but we will surely not kill you.” And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands. 15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. 16 Then Samson said:

“With the jawbone of a donkey,
Heaps upon heaps,
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have slain a thousand men!”

17 And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand, and called that place Ramath Lehi.

Pretty cool; good discussion

these are as rare as black pearls.

[Scott R. Brown]

The concept of "Let go and let God!", is universal amongst the mystically minded.

Ch'an Master Huang Po said, "Ordinary people look to their surroundings, while followers of the Way look to Mind. The former is easy enough, the latter very difficult. Men are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void with nothing to stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma."