Can some people be gifted...

Valley girls have a deserved reputation for drinking vast quanties of alcohol but never reaching their drunk point. I uses to drink so much in one evening it is scary thinking about it now...

I could tell you, but then I may have to kill you...depending on your Nationality!!

 

I am American. Also, willing to die.

Go for it CarysB, I mean kill away.

 

What are your spiritual beliefs? Do they have a nice convenient label?

That's a shame - I've told everyone you're coming.

On what grounds do you think this? This is a forum where I express my opinions. Our classes are just spent in combat training. OK - so there are a few jokes thrown in, but we don't discuss much apart from martial techniques and strategies.

Your reason being... ?

 

No. Some people might call them "shamanic" I suppose.

Well, I wanted to come, but when you start saying things like "your heresy" as if there's some belief that we're all supposed to have, and you are justified in using that langauge with others just because they don't share your world view, well, how can we be on good terms? How can I not be concerned by that? I mean, it's going to be bit frosty, isn't it?

Well, I like discussing, but the impression I'm getting is that you're not taking the discussion as just discussion. So I worry that that must extend to your class. What would I find - some extremist religious group?

But here's a note on what I've tried to explain to you - we can not help but draw in the opposite of what we imbalance ourselves towards. For all the talk of moral conscience and peace, you cause massive conflict through sitting in judgment on others, calling them heretics - declaring war on other world views. Always like this.

But you know, if you're telling me it's just chat, and I've mis-judged your tone...

Honesty, Joanna.

 

Hi FQ.

Well I don't see why it needs to be frosty, though I do think you are a bit crazy. The "diabolical heresy" statement is just expressing my genuine beliefs - from a Judeo Christian perspective, someone declaring that the only god is oneself is heretical (we live in a culture that has been Judeo Christian for 2000 years) and in Christian terms, quite Satanic (i.e. in opposition - antithetic).

Regarding the "honesty" statement, you're going to have to qualify this. I've been doing Bagua and Xingyi for slightly longer than I've been doing Taiji, so I don't know what you are getting at.

 

The majority of people believe in moral conscience, especially those with religious convictions. Therefore, it is in complete accordance with the dictionary definition to describe the opinions you hold that disagree with that concept as 'heresy':

 

Even after a few drinks? Oooo must not type....that....what ....I ....want ...to ...say.

Must.....not grrrr .....get .....banned.....

 

Well, crazy and wise are on an edge together. If I can come up there on a professional basis, with nothing to do with religion, then I'm happy to do that. You know, pretty obviously I don't want to go to some place where someone's going to start screaming that I'm a heretic and evil. Would you?

You know, but if you're saying that won't happen... and we can just keep it proffesional.

The Judeo-Christian tradition does nothing but declare the self as God - that's its whole point; and so declared, then proceeds to torture it, telling it how unworthy it is, how pathetic and useless it is before God... It is a simple psychological mechanism designed to make the self seem real through torturing it. "Cult of self" is our only religion - our only religion, no other, whatsoever, whether it is expressed through Christianity or Marxism, or Scientology - all the same.

The great irony is that the only paths that truly bring people insight and peace are those that explore the artificial nature of self, and the corrupting power of the cult of self. What is Christianity at the end of the day but a religion based on the principle of the tortured, suffering human being? Out of cringeing self pity we make a religion that actually has as its symbol a suffering human body, as if the most important, terrible thing in the universe is for a human to suffer. And they call me crazy!

We create these myths, like "evil", because we're lost hopelessly to self pity and judgment. Then we deify love, becuase its the best thing we can feel - self pity again. Then we build religions that place man at the highest point - self importance, pretending that God is the highest point, yet its all about us.


As beings, we are crippled by self pity and self importance, and all our ideologies are twisted by the gravity of those things in to self worship. Yes it is, truly a heresy, because it enslaves us, pandering to our self importance... it is no coincidence that those religions confer on us the sense of our importance.

As for worshipping ourselves - we are our only Gods, whatever we may say, until we free ourselves from self importance. Heresy is just a way of trying to stop people from thinking. "Rah rah rah" random acts of heresy. Joanna, at what point did you stop searching?

My advice is to always say "I am a student of" and "As a student of... these are some applications I have learned." Chen Zheng Lei has a son who did one form for twenty years, and still was only classed as intermediate level, compared to senior level. Bagua, Xing Yi, and taiji are profound marital arts, requiring years of intensive, proffesional study, achieving, ultimately a point where they are fluid expressions of your intent - that's when you "know them." We have to be honest about our level, otherwise, others may judge that to be "expert" level, but only very few people have the right to say that about themselves in those arts - and they probably wouldn't any way.

 

I cannot disagree more strongly and more absolutely with your religious / spiritual / philosophical views, whatever you prefer to call them.

I don't often mention my teachers for very good reasons, but I've mentioned them in the past. I don't study with anyone now and that's that. I have learned enough stuff - it will take me longer than the rest of my lifetime to perfect what I already have. I stop searching when I have the answers I've been seeking.

 

Um, can we get this back on topic? It has drifted, as many threads before, into a religious arguement.

:saz:

 

Wait a second you have to go now Fire-quan! You promised and going back on your word will make you sound like well, "insert your own word". I would call you a lier. Go and let the woman convert you. Don't let it get to you.

Also, you can than come back an rag on her, if she just totally offends you. :woo:

Like her poor physical coordination.

I wish I lived as close to most of these people on this forum. I would go and practice with them. The thing is in America the closet people to me are like 5 hours away. It would help me stay on top of the practice you know inspire me some.

 

IMO there is little value in proselytising ... all people build their own belief systems from the raw material of their world perception and personal experience is the glue that binds it and makes 'sense' of it.

One may nudge however ... heheh, but an attempted take-down will probably elicit resistence!

FQ, why not test the waters and visit JK's place of training ... if the opportunity is there to experience directly the person and their viewpoint ... take it.

Cheers

 

I agree Carys. FQ steered the thread on to philosophy and religion on page 8. A challenged comment about drunkeness progressed to his bringing up Foucault, Jesus and "cultures that stone people to death." From there we did some stuff on the wider impact of our actions and you and FQ chatted about wine recipes. It's funny no one ever objects to things going off topic when they're chatting cosily about being drunk. I guess it's because you're all so big and clever.

People frequently God-bash and religion-bash here on the IMA and Tai Chi threads as if it can be taken for granted that no one here will like God, and in fact, most will be able to be relied on to say nasty or jeering things about Him or anyone who believes in Him. What a cosy little world this is - safely tucked away from people of faith. This is a forum where topics are debated and argued and people challenge each other's opinions all the time. The ball is in other people's court on religion. If people attack God or His followers when I am around, they will be challenged. I'm not the one bringing the subject up - people just can't resist turning their God-bashing up when I'm around.

Regarding this:

You'll be glad to know that FQ should be coming to train with me later this week. If he thinks my coordination is poor, you'll be able to huddle together in corners and giggle. It's a shame you can't come too.

 

Fixed posture, 'good form' is not the destination. Form is a 'vehicle' to teach you things. We have to take those things and make them usable. Applications, allignments, body mechanics, jin training.

It's a basic training vehicle. There has to be other stages to bring about 'fluid expression'. What it gives you is 'building blocks'.

That's not a terrible way of looking at it.

Or you're just reading way to much into what i said.

I'm not criticising zhan zhuang.. I train zz with intention, sometimes without. I have a friend who i often train with, he has been to yi quan classes, seminars, studied material and trains its specific exercises more than I do. I have in turn learnt exercise passed on to me for tai chi that use static postures together with visualisation/intention to train peng for example.

You are simply assuming my experience with it. I am not against it nor is it an either or situation vs. form training (for me.)

I find both are useful up to certain points. Useful ingredients in both to put toward 'the whole cake' so to speak. i think some similar elements can also cross over and inform either methods which in turn can go on to inform free movement / 'free fighting'..

Let's not pretend that any of these are anymore than useful training and conditioning exercises. Let's not mistake form for fighting, this is not something I've ever done or would promote.

 

Ah yes ... Jk, if you know the sun is going to rise in the east, why waste time arguing with people who say it will rise from the west, or will not rise at all?

Same argument applies to anyone and pertaining to any 'subject' I guess. When we 'defend' our POV, it might be because we're less than sure ourselves?

I'm sure that any God (should they exist) doesn't need us to defend their agenda ... but of course I could be wrong .

 

I hasten to add that I'm not attacking you Jk ... or anyone else for that matter.

Peace!

 

This is just a ridiculous and unfounded bit of psychobabble to me, I'm afraid. Some people have convictions - you people just don't get it do you? Like if you knew that someone had been wrongly accused of something and you stepped up to defend them, safe in the knowledge that they were totally innocent. The fact that you had done so would not "really" mean that they were more likely to be guilty. It would just be you standing up for what is right.

It isn't about whether or not God needs people to defend Him - it is about people jeering and spitting and mocking and bullying faith and people of faith because they can generally get away with it on a martial arts forum, where so many people are cynical and have a lot of unhealthy personality issues and they think they are being really daring and edgy by challenging the nature of good and evil all over the place. Out in the real world you'd be quite heavily outnumbered, which I guess is why you take your opportunity to scoff in your cosy little martial arts forum world. And you all think you are so clever when you do. Sad.

 

There is a growing belief that it is wrong to have beliefs and that beliefs are the root of all evil. This belief is rigid and intrinsically contradictory, but no one seems to care.

 

Jk, I find it to be irrelevent to my world view whether or not I'm part of a larger group ... and ... I was not meaning to attack your belief, just participating in the thread . We are all trying to do the best we can ... even when others judge us to be deficient.

There is much I read through you that I admire,

Peace friend ...

 

Beliefs are only problem when they are enforced by dogma. No-one has a problem with your beliefs only the dogmatic way you defend them. I feel the same way about the Karma Commandos out there too.

The Bear.