Evil

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Evil

Postby monogatari » Sun Dec 15, 2013 10:39 am

In this festive times, let's address Evil. :) Uppercase 'e' at that.

Is there such a thing as a Devil ? When aiming at making one's inside empty of thoughts, transparent, "in contact with the universe", does this open a door for Evil to get in ? If it exists, that is.

Now and then, although most likely rarely, there are some mention in QiGong literature (and I think Dr. Yang also mentions it - not certain though) of a 'bad' energy. A bad energy that must be expelled from the body by 'cleaning' QiGong practices.

I reckon that the body mechanism generates waste components everyday as a result of its very functionning. Millions of cells are made waste every day and deep breathing helps in cleaning. But is it possible for a person to actually concentrate and create bad energy ? At the QiGong level I mean. Not by having anger, violence and other emotions like that, but at the energetic level. Anger and violence are expressions of not-so-good energy but they are not created at the energetic level per se. They are mostly overheating emotions, and reactions to external events (sometimes it can be reaction to injustice and murder, which in those cases can put the negativity of such emotions and the manifestation of their energy in another light).

Is it possible for someone following the Tao (even loosely by doing for instance embryonic breathing and small circulation) to actually generate bad energy and generate it by intention ? To be more full of him/her self, to boast more ego, to exerce more calculated power on others for egoistical purposes ? And as such, to incarnate was is termed in many religions or other Good/Bad principles, Evil ?

And also, does the Yin/Yang aproach has somewhere hidden in its basis (surely haven't read anything about this yet) , a God/Devil thing that would say something akin to "if you're not one of us, then you're against us" ? like so many other religions have when pressed and questioned thoroughly ?

So I'm questionning this these days and wanted to share that. I think it is a Good (!) thing to question these things. Is it actually a devilish thing to try to form a spiritual body in the taoist sense ? Does doing this or aiming at doing it actually makes it against nature, against karma, against God ? Or is this rather said by people who would like to bring you into their religion, who would like to restrict your views, to limit your experience of Neidan ? Who consider that taoist pratices are evil ? And I'm not only thinking about blatant Western religions. There are also the same thoughts in Buddhism, or at least by some people who claim to be Buddhist practitioners and are part of Buddhist groups of some sort.

On those questions, cheers :)
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Re: Evil

Postby Monsoon » Sun Dec 15, 2013 4:03 pm

Hi,

although I do not wish to curb your enthusiasm for asking questions, it seems to me that you have many misunderstandings of daoism and buddhism, not to mention some of the key concepts held by both.

For instance, the phrase 'against karma' has no meaning. Your interpretation of karma is based on the concept of retributive justice. This is just plain wrong.

Therefore, my advice would be that before asking these questions you should get some education on the subjects at hand. There is plenty of free stuff out there. I do not know of any specific daoist resources (I am sure other members here will know some) but for buddhist stuff I can recommend the 'access to insight' website (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/).

Here is a link to the first result you would get if you searched on that site for:

KARMA

Hope that helps, and please do not take this message as too negative!

Have a fab festive season!

Monsoon
peace and harmony

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Re: Evil

Postby Josh Young » Mon Dec 16, 2013 12:21 pm

I may only share my opinion.

Evil is a choice, not a thing unto itself or an energy.

Will is everything.

A devil is a choice in a person, choice and will are forms of action that entrain energy.

There is no devil insofar that if there were no human beings tomorrow, there would be no devil to speak of.

God is a word that has many contexts, meanings and definitions.
If the concept is that God is a pre-existing entity with a plan, an agenda, then I challenge you to examine this concept deeply. Where did it come from? When did it originate?
What is the stated purpose? Have you met this deity formally, face to face? Or is your perception of this deity something beyond such a meeting?

Belief systems are funny things. Buddhism has nothing to say about that, and by that i mean it has a lot to say.
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Re: Evil

Postby joeblast » Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:47 pm

monogatari wrote:In this festive times, let's address Evil. :) Uppercase 'e' at that.

Is there such a thing as a Devil ? When aiming at making one's inside empty of thoughts, transparent, "in contact with the universe", does this open a door for Evil to get in ? If it exists, that is. Intention, intention, intention. Evil does not burst through a locked door, most often it walks into an open door.

Now and then, although most likely rarely, there are some mention in QiGong literature (and I think Dr. Yang also mentions it - not certain though) of a 'bad' energy. A bad energy that must be expelled from the body by 'cleaning' QiGong practices.

I reckon that the body mechanism generates waste components everyday as a result of its very functionning. Millions of cells are made waste every day and deep breathing helps in cleaning. But is it possible for a person to actually concentrate and create bad energy ? At the QiGong level I mean. Not by having anger, violence and other emotions like that, catering to them cultivates them but at the energetic level. Anger and violence are expressions of not-so-good energy but they are not created at the energetic level per se. They are mostly overheating emotions and where do those come from, and reactions to external events (sometimes it can be reaction to injustice and murder, which in those cases can put the negativity of such emotions and the manifestation of their energy in another light).again, intention...feelings like clouds, while they may alter albedo, they are a byproducts...or do you focus on the dreary day outside where the sun is blocked by clouds? one may use any event for impetus to promulgate another event, so ask again what is the intent!

Is it possible for someone following the Tao (even loosely by doing for instance embryonic breathing and small circulation) to actually generate bad energy and generate it by intention ? To be more full of him/her self, to boast more ego, to exerce more calculated power on others for egoistical purposes ? now think of why they say selfishness is an evil path...And as such, to incarnate was is termed in many religions or other Good/Bad principles, Evil ?

And also, does the Yin/Yang aproach has somewhere hidden in its basis (surely haven't read anything about this yet) , a God/Devil thing that would say something akin to "if you're not one of us, then you're against us" ? like so many other religions have when pressed and questioned thoroughly ?

So I'm questionning this these days and wanted to share that. I think it is a Good (!) thing to question these things. Is it actually a devilish thing to try to form a spiritual body in the taoist sense ? you already have a spiritual body, cultivating it is not against taoist principles, in fact, it is in accord, cultivating it is furthering oneself. Does doing this or aiming at doing it actually makes it against nature, against karma good post monsoon! karma is the conglomeration of effects....div/0, the concept of 'against karma' , against God ? Or is this rather said by people who would like to bring you into their religion, who would like to restrict your views, to limit your experience of Neidan ? Who consider that taoist pratices are evil ? And I'm not only thinking about blatant Western religions. There are also the same thoughts in Buddhism, or at least by some people who claim to be Buddhist practitioners and are part of Buddhist groups of some sort.

On those questions, cheers :)

8)
Even in mildly complex systems, any outcome is the wrong thing to target, with the process being where the focus should be.
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Re: Evil

Postby monogatari » Sat Dec 21, 2013 5:42 pm

Monsoon wrote:

> although I do not wish to curb your enthusiasm for asking
> questions, it seems to me that you have many misunderstandings
> of daoism and buddhism, not to mention some of the key concepts
> held by both.

Maybe. I do not want to sound rude and blissed in ignorance, but I've written loosely, in a non-formal way. Theravada buddhism, the link given, is one type of buddishm. By that I mean is it needed to have walls made of conceptions ? I was told yesterday, as part of regular one-on-one meetings about buddishm at the back of a Chinese restaurant, that Sakyamuni Buddha has broken out of his karma by doing what he did.

And there are a lot, a lot, in many, many religions or crystallized forms of spiritual following, of things like that over which people can talk and even dispute. There are Buddhists followers calling Chinese singer Sa DingDing a whore because she uses Tibetan buddhist expressions and clothes.

It does not seem to end unless one closes everything else and adopts a following and sticks to it. Until a confrontation happens. And this is bound to happen.

At the moment I'm carefully listening (eg. pausing DVD, taking notes, etc) to Dr. Yang's first DVD on 'Understanding Qigong'. This is somethig I can relate to. It is open but moreover, it is based on experience. Lots of theory yes, but what does it mean if it is not directly experienced ? And to have immediate experience, one can start at any time. There is no need to even assimilate all this theory (although it satisfies the mind to know about this and maybe in turn gives a deeper experience w/o having to rediscover what was discovered in the past thousand years).

And this is almost (I sense it coming :)) an arguing point with the buddhist-related discussions I'm having. Because at one point I will surely be asked to follow something. To make a comittment, a vow. And that would be one step on the path of enlightenment. So this is one way of seeing it, of implementing so to speak a path to enlightenment. By saying that all those who have reached enlightenment in the past will come back now to help the ones that are really willing to become enlightened.

And then there are taoists. Not the 道教 but the 道家. Not the yellow robes and altar that resulted when taoism met buddhism, but the Tao more commonly known in the West, the Laozi/Changzi/Liehzi one, the one that mixes with TCM and the one that is explained by Dr. Yang. The one is which the person experiences inside energies and outside (heaven, earth for instance) energies. In rather simplicity. In humbleness. Does it mean that by not having 'joyful giving' and 'benevolent heart' principles that it is of lesser spirituality ?

Here I go again with questions :)

The initial questions were about the existence of bad energy, of Evil with an uppercase 'e'. As it was quickly mentioned in a buddhist talk - still have to go back on that, though !

(ツ)
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Re: Evil

Postby monogatari » Sat Dec 21, 2013 6:07 pm

Josh Young wrote:

> There is no devil insofar that if there were no human beings
> tomorrow, there would be no devil to speak of.

Hmmm... Does that include excluding all the lost souls that circulates around the earth lost in some kind of limbo, preying on emotions of living humans ? :)

> A devil is a choice in a person, choice and will are forms of
> action that entrain energy.

Then this person dies with a 'devil' intention. Energitically speaking, it could be that this 'evil' energy is not lost in its current nature. It could be that under some principles it even accumulates and grows 'out there' in limbo. Who knows ?

Just saying. I'm not going around scared by ghosts or anything like that. But we've all heard about hovering lost souls. We can very well toss this out quickly w/o further thinking. Or it is also possible to be curious about it.

> God is a word that has many contexts, meanings and definitions.

I'm certainly not a God fan. And certainly not a fan of God created by humans to exerce power and control on other humans. So as opposed to ghosts, I tend to toss away God rather quickly :-) Maybe I'm wrong and will meet my fate when St. Peter will tell me "No way, you don't enter here, you belong down there. And quit looking at those virgins. Yes, Islam was right too. Now go down there. What, you want another chance ? Hey, Jesus, we have a customer here who knows about reincarnation..."

In Buddishm, the focus is on actions. Good and evil actions. "A Buddha is someone who has the courage to acknowledge these two fundamental aspects of life." as Soka Gakkai group says. There is seemingly no such thing as Evil as an external force. Seemingly.

Now, that I have questions about this might just be the stored catholic energy in my brain, from the youngest years. And that would call for a cleanup :)

We could perhaps ask Buddha. It is rather convenient that he is now re-incarnated and currently present amongst us. His name is Ryuho Okawa. Yes, this guy says he is the Buddha re-incarnation. And he has a few million followers through the Happy Science sect.

And that surely calls for taking a deep breath ! Or a couple.

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Re: Evil

Postby monogatari » Sat Dec 21, 2013 6:17 pm

joeblast wrote:

> Intention, intention, intention. Evil does not burst through a
> locked door, most often it walks into an open door.

Your quoting style (aikido style ? get in and rotate :) took me by surprise. But after studying carefully the scriptures (using hastily-crafted special glasses that clearly separates black from dark blue) I could extract the essence. :)

Yes, intention. That's pretty clear and certainly the obvious one. People can do evil. Remove people, no evil. A tiger killing an antilope to eat is not evil. It's nature.

And then why do we do evil ? Selfishness is one. Too much indoctrination could be another (as demonstrated in numerous examples by catholic priests all over the world) but it might have to do with selfishness anyways.

> you already have a spiritual body, cultivating it is not
> against taoist principles, in fact, it is in accord,
> cultivating it is furthering oneself

From what I can see (I mean read) so far, is that the spiritual body, the 2nd body, has to be specifically cultivated to come out of the baihui point. Once it has formed, then a 3rd spiritual body can be formed on top of that, which is the one that will live after death.
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Re: Evil

Postby joeblast » Sun Dec 22, 2013 11:36 am

hehe sorry 8) I wanted to address those things specifically. next time I'll use red :mrgreen:

its not just people. they've studied monkeys and observed the same behavior, might makes right, etc. at root, all selfishness. so the perversions of certain catholic priests, perverted by selfishness. greed, jealousy, etc...those all just point back to doing for oneself at the expense of others. so it is masked by some people in many contexts because often their interests arent necessarily at odds with yours, but perchance theirs are, they will quickly show who they are inside.

wrt/ spiritual body...consider the yinyangness of spiritual and physical. cultivation allows one to get past the spiritual-energetic coefficient of friction. its a little more than just finding an exit via baihui :D
Even in mildly complex systems, any outcome is the wrong thing to target, with the process being where the focus should be.
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Re: Evil

Postby Monsoon » Sun Dec 22, 2013 3:03 pm

Oh boy, oh boy. Where to start.

Monogatari:

Your understanding of buddhism is severely lacking - to the point of extreme misrepresentation actually. And I'm not sure I have either time nor the space here to explain why. I seriously suggest, if you are interested in finding out about the real stuff, that you seek out a teacher (preferably in person) to address your misconceptions.

However, I guess I could touch on a couple of points.

There are no 'types' of buddhism, as your post implied by mentioning the Theravadins. There is only buddhism, the realisation of the buddha. However, there are (reputedly) 84,000 doors to the dharma - or if you prefer 84,000 approaches to realisation. The implication is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. What works for me might not work for you, and so on.

Karma relates to the arising of conditions, nothing more. Cause and effect is a simplistic way of looking at this, but karma relates to absolutely everything in the universe. So thinking about it as cause and effect is only helpful as a beginner's stepping stone.

Also, buddhism is not about creating constraints and barriers as such. It is a way to free the mind and reveal the nature of truth. If I was explaining this using tai chi I would say that yes, you work within defined boundaries of movement and energy. And yes, you learn (apparently) rigid forms and stipulated training routines. However, all of this is a precursor - if you become skilled enough - to the time when there are no forms in what you do and there is simply the transition from wuji to tai chi to wuji. This is not a really appropriate example but I hope the meaning is clear.

Another thing. There is no need to 'assimilate all this theory' with buddhism. The heart of buddhism is the practice of buddhism. Or to put it another way, the goal IS the path! Education is nice but not essential. A classic example is Hui-Neng (read the Platform Sutra - also referred to as the Altar Sutra). He was (allegedly) and illiterate wood cutter who experienced a sudden enlightenment of hearing a phrase from the Diamond Sutra (Vajraccheddika Sutra). So no, lots of theory is not required.

By the way, buddhism predates daoism by several hundred years, although over time they have probably both had major influence on the other - at least in China.

Sakyamuni Buddha has broken out of his karma by doing what he did.


Sakyamuni didn't 'do' anything at all. And he certainly does not stand outside of karma as this is an impossibility.

The most common problem that I see with beginner's looking at buddhism is that they lack the perception to understand the metaphorical nature of the teachings. I mean no disrespect by this. We have all been there, especially me! Yet with good practice and a willingness to calm the mind and allow insight to arise, these teachings reveal themselves.

A typical example is the misunderstanding of samsara - the cycle of birth and death that is characterised by suffering. People latch on to that last word - suffering - and assume that all of buddhism is negative and pessimistic. It is nothing of the sort. It is a potential way out of the trap that is samsara. Nothing more, nothing less, and may not be achievable in just one lifetime (for most of us it won't be).

Oh, and watch out for charlatans. They are everywhere, looking for followers, needing your money or your obedience. A Buddha demands nothing from you.

As at the start of this long post, please find a good teacher (in whatever direction you decide on).

Peace.
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Re: Evil

Postby yeniseri » Tue Dec 24, 2013 12:15 pm

Evil comes from the individual and not some interplanatary force outside of the universe. Some men are evil, some pretend to be not evil but their actions show who and what they are and then you have wolves, who pretend to be otherwise. Evil is man made!

Individuals create their own karma!
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Re: Evil

Postby pilotfish » Sun Dec 29, 2013 3:45 pm

It seems to me that monogatari is relatively new to eastern thought.

I suggest consulting The Shaolin Grandmasters' Text, by The Order of Shaolin Chan. It contains a clear, concise (92 pages), and fair review of the history and Buddhist and Taoist philosophical concepts involved. They are clear that their discussion is from their own Chan (Zen) view, but they are also fair in presenting different views on various topics. They rely on Dr Yang's The Essence of White Crane with respect a number of times, and the bibliography is generally useful for those interested in further study.
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Re: Evil

Postby 4bsolute » Wed Jan 15, 2014 8:25 am

The term 'evil' is a misconception.

There is no evil. Only our limited believe of something that we can not instantly address or cathegorize, possibly creates a tangible detrimental effect in us. You can also call it: negative.

You Are Life. In order to be this life you must have a certain positive threshold. If it is lowered by some worldly means, you feel pain. This is merely your interface telling you what to do.

The more one advances spiritually, the easier it is to notice such imbalances before they even appear on the physical level, or even on the emotional level if one can work with the auric field.

So please, choose terms correctly and avoid creating further seperation. This is not 1999, this is 2014.

Thank you.
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Re: Evil

Postby John the Monkey mind » Wed Jan 15, 2014 6:26 pm

Evil? Yes there is such a thing. Lots of evidence for it. Society is increasingly overshadowed by it and it has a favorite trick, the trick is to make people think that evil is good and good evil.
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