I am sure many taiji practioners read the news paper, so they have so much concern for the qi of the trees but at the same time support their demise.
Something to think upon…
<font color=“red”>
Visit a local newspaper. Ask how many tons of paper they use a week. Did you know it takes 17 trees to make a ton of paper? How many trees does the newspaper use each week? Do they use recycled paper?</font>
I am not for/or against the use of trees for qi gong. I do qi gong 10 feet from a forest 5/7 days during the week. I find it fresh and wonderful. Do what works for you. The practice of the internal arts is body and mind, exercise both, but too much of either one can be frustrating to the other…
Nexus
<font size=“1”>“Time, space, the whole universe - just an illusion! Often said, philosophically verifiable, even scientifically explainable. It’s the <font color=“blue”>‘just’</font> which makes the honest mind go crazy and the <font color=“blue”>ego</font> go berserk.” - Hans Taeger</font>
Why would anyone want to deplete the qi of something that supports their own life? Our relationship with trees is pretty much symbiotic, and to do something like that, if it’s possible at all, would be self-destructive in the end. Instead of trying to take qi from a tree, why don’t you try to exchange more with it? Just practice your qigong beneath the trees, and let your natural exchange grow.
“I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust.”
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice
“In a park in the Northeast, I noticed that a group of pine trees were dead. No one knows what kind of qigong some people were practicing there: They would roll all over the ground and afterwards collect qi from the trees with their feet one way and with their hands another. Soon after, all the pine trees over there turned yellow and died. Was what they did a good deed or a bad one?”
sam is right. no matter how you look at it, he’s right.
Nexus, goooodddd point!
Sam…here is a problem…have you ever seen humans live in symbiosis with anything lately? We are on the top of the predator scale, so high that our only predator is our own specie!
Even the bacterias in our intestinal tracts that help us digest things could well live in some other place…in theory, we should live in harmony with all the animal and plant species around us, exchanging our qi to regulate each others…in practice, well you can see what’s happening…
As for the pine tree example, it’s quite interesting but it’s light proof…you can’t establish a causal relation so easily…if I touched someone and that someone died of a heart attack or heamorragy the day after, it would be kinda fast to say he/she died because of my dim mak, right?
I’m no qigong expert, but how can a human deplete qi from a tree? these plants are far more stronger than us, live longer, resist to extreme climates…now if you follow qi theory, isn’t it a proof that they have plenty of qi (not to mention that they have roots, things we humans spend a lifetime trying to acquire while practicing CMA…OK, it’s a pun, but it’s not a coincidence if the chinese chose the word “roots”)…how could a frail creature like us steal the qi from the tree so much that it withers??
Again, I’m no expert, but I’m convinced that exchanging qi with a tree can’t be dangerous…it’s just me…
I am not a student of Buddhist cosmology but I can say that in Hinduism (an older religion), one who is a voyeur during his/her life is reincarnated as a tree that they may be seen naked by all. The will of the dying person determines the nature of the next for the entity occupies. As a tree or even a blade of grass has Qi there is no reason (from Hindu perspective) that a living being could not be reborn as any other living being.
(this has nothing to do with China, but is intersting, regardless )‡
Yessssss!! Good post!
You know, buddha was hindu before being…uuhh..buddha LOL so primal buddhism was heavily influenced by the concepts of the hindu mind…
I would say that practicing vampiric qigong to the point of killing another living thing is going to an extreme it ideally should not. Why would a cattle farmer kill off all his cows just to make a dozen hamburgers for a cookout? I would say that draining another living thing of its entire life force is simply overkill, since there are plenty other sources from which to gather qi. The practicioner should have long ago moved on to another source of energy rather than completely depleting a single source.
One day man will have to pay for his transgressions against nature by living with the consequences, unless he can find a way to rectify them before the consequences are unavoidable. Man still has a chance to live in harmony with nature instead of trying to subvert it to his will. Maybe he can do so before it’s too late.
“I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust.”
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice
You are starting to sound like one of those religious preachers on the christian network Sam.
Sorry to burst your bubble
(joke)
Nexus
<font size=“1”>“Time, space, the whole universe - just an illusion! Often said, philosophically verifiable, even scientifically explainable. It’s the <font color=“blue”>‘just’</font> which makes the honest mind go crazy and the <font color=“blue”>ego</font> go berserk.” - Hans Taeger</font>
I meant no offense in my comment’s about being a plant as it pertains to Buddhist cosmology. You’re right that I took the words you said completely literally, because that’s how it came across to me.
Ironfist, what Crimson said about the Asuras is very close to what I’ve been told about why they are sometimes considered lower than humans. I would say it’s not exactly that they “cannot” be enlightened (after all they can of course be reborn as a human in the future!), but it’s that they are basically slaves to the Gods. They are considered the “messengers” of the Gods and basically do not have the freedom that we as humans have.
In Buddhism it is said that the human-realm is somewhat of a turning point in the cosmogony of beings. That is to say, below us, the beings have very little choice in their actions – for example, animals must kill. Above us, this is also true – Gods can only be benevolent. It is only in the human realm where we really have the choice to do EITHER good or evil, and it is this very fact that allows us to so easily reach enlightenment from this realm. The beings in the other realm are caught with a one-track-mind so to speak.
Joe_
“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They KNOW it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
Robert M. Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
LOL. I guess I do! You know, I almost started my own ministry a while back. I was going to call it the First Ever Church of Green Eggs and Ham. I stood outside a bookstore one night with a copy of Green Eggs and Ham and gave a Sermon on the Curb about how the Green Eggs and Ham represented the blood and flesh of Christ, how the boy in the book was a sinner who finally realized the error of his ways and accepted Christ, and at the end held out my baseball cap and demanded of those watching, “If money is a measure of faith, how faithful are YOU?” I swear to you this one guy opened his wallet to give me money! (No, I did not take it, I told him it was all a joke.) Maybe I should be an evangelist.
couple of points
1 i donno about buddhist cosmology but the truth of the matter is you do get reincarnated as a tree.
2 if you were to practise taoist techniques it would be possible to literally kill a woman whilst havign sex by draining her, yup thats bad karma but an interchange of energy is a whole different story.
3 the lower down the level of the scale of what you hurt the less the karma incurred hence why its bad to eat meat the karma involved is a lot heavier than that of eating fruit or killing trees to make paper.
4 dont question it , just seek the truth and these are the answers.
I wongsifu shall strike fear into the hearts of trolls and mma guys who **** me off on these forums oh and in real life.
But actually I agree with 1 & 2 but 3 & 4 will vary answers from one person to the next.
Nexus
<font size=“1”>“Time, space, the whole universe - just an illusion! Often said, philosophically verifiable, even scientifically explainable. It’s the <font color=“blue”>‘just’</font> which makes the honest mind go crazy and the <font color=“blue”>ego</font> go berserk.” - Hans Taeger</font>
I made 50 dollars this week selling my tree qi on ebay.
Nexus
<font size=“1”>“Time, space, the whole universe - just an illusion! Often said, philosophically verifiable, even scientifically explainable. It’s the <font color=“blue”>‘just’</font> which makes the honest mind go crazy and the <font color=“blue”>ego</font> go berserk.” - Hans Taeger</font>
About the tree-qi stuff… Someone mentioned that doing your taji near/in the woods or near a tree will have a good effect. BUT, what will happen if I do external kungfu there insted? Do I get all the good qi aswell?
~K~
“maybe not in combat… but think of the chicks man, the chicks!”
I’m not Buddhist, but my understanding was that plants and trees are not considered sentient life. My understanding is that you do not get reincarnated as plants. If it were the case, then how would you go about finding food sources without incurring bad karma?
cxxx:::::::::::>
What we do in life echoes in Eternity
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“-1”>quote:</font><HR>I’ve never heard anything about being able to be reincarnated as a tree. I always assumed plants were conscienceless, and just like extensions of the eart. Has anyone else heard this?[/quote]
I have never heard it in any Buddhist texts either…
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“-1”>quote:</font><HR>
so is your gf building up bad karma everytime you make love to her? And you, when you realize that, do you get bad karma by making love to her while knowing that you build up her bad karma?
[/quote]
Sexual Union without the ability to retain Bodhimind drops (aka kundalini drops) is considered impure in Buddhism and against precepts and will create bad kamma, and when I say kamma, I mean simply mental conditioning, attachment to the bliss. Sexual Union (or kammamudra) is taught only when a practioner has succesfully collected the winds in the heart chakra.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“-1”>quote:</font><HR>That’s what i’ve been told. Except I heard below gods was demi-gods, but same thing i guess. How could they be below humans?
[/quote]
Refering to the same thing, these beings are driven by kammic actions of jealousy. Their instinctual reincarnation is the realm of hungry ghost, due to the constant cravings of the formless god realm.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“-1”>quote:</font><HR>Some say asuras are below human because their nature is fixed, they cannot evolve more and reach nirvana (well, it’s still pretty cool to be an asura)…they are already enlightened but cannot go any further, while humans can…
[/quote]In Buddhism, they are considering beings still suffering from the life cycle and is not considered enlightened. They are not in the best realm for reaching englightenment.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“-1”>quote:</font><HR>You know, buddha was hindu before being…uuhh..buddha LOL so primal buddhism was heavily influenced by the concepts of the hindu mind… [/quote]True, Hindu’s influence is an important stepping stone to discovery of the formless realm of gods. Buddha has however also found that although their life cycles are considered in eons, as compared to the human realm, their pride on their endless pleasures makes them forget how they retained such merits in the first place, and many choose to return to the human realm to achieve perfect enlightenment, Buddhahood. Others who remain prideful, deplete their good kammas and are reborned in the hell realm. That is why pride is one of the causes of bad kamma in Buddhism.
Someone mentioned Daoist increasing their life energy by adsorbing that of their sexual partner. This, IMO is definitely bad kamma, as this is an act of selfishness, and shortens or harms the life drops of your partner. I am sure, not all Daoist practise this, I have never heard Daoist to be of such teachings. This must be an act of what is said in Cantonese as “Jao-Foh-Yap-Moh”.
Medicine Buddha om namo bhagawate bekandzyai - guru bendurya prabha randzaya - tatagataya - arhate - samyaksam buddhaya - tayata om bhekandzyai bhekandzyai - maha bhekandzyai bhekandzyai -randza samungate soha
In the extreme cold hells, being are considered to suffer such coldness that they dry up and wrinkle and split into many pieces. Perhaps this could sound a little like a plant in cold winter ?
But definitely not taught this in Buddhism. Just an idea.
Also in Vipashyana, one is taught to remain aware of the food one eats, such as plants. These contain much energy, perhaps called Qi. Anyway, more food for discussion…
)‡