the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Could really use some right now...

From my small mind, such a thing has never existed.
Find the peace within yourself and the rest will be hisotry.....

samsara and nirvana come from the same mind!
A wiser man than me (the stupid one) said it

it is said that peace is within us, buried under all of our thoughts, practises, and distractions. When we act upon de-cluttering (through martial arts practice, meditation, mindfulness, etc..) we begin to strip away all of the thoughts that prevent peace.
How many people here are guilty of various thoughts during practise/mediation? eg: oh, I need to pay that bill when I get home, Oh I need to call so-n-so later...
The only thing that matters when practising/meditating? tic...This very moment..toc...right...tic...now...toc...

When you can achieve a level of mindfulness so that all distractions are eliminated and the only thing you can think about is this very moment... maybe, just maybe... peace will reveal itself within you.

Then begins a whole new level...

I removed the request for deletion, might be an interesting topic? Thank you for bringing me back to the basics Meeks. I had a few interesting things happen on Friday...

Honestly, I didn't really ask for it but I received Reiki Level 2 as part of a Neigong/Neidan intensive a while back. It's really much deeper than most will teach and I feel it's got a very deep connection to esoteric Japanese practices. Our lineage specifically can be traced to a Shingon priest and the various Vajra practices have enabled me to move on to practices from Lingbao, Nyingma, and more. I have really felt improvement in mental health in the two years since I started. The Daxuan Udemy course linked below is very similar to basics of Reiki Level 1 with some Chinese theory as its foundation.

https://www.udemy.com/course/stress-and ... e-taoiste/

Check out the book "Beyond the Relaxation Response" by Dr. Herbert Benson. I find it valuable for its simple and direct approach.

I follow the ancient Tibetan teaching: Don't start none, won't be none.

One of the most clever things I've heard is:
Everything I do is for self preservation.

Thanks guys, keep fighting the good fight

we are all one. so doing everything for one self you do it for all the other too....

Finny wrote:I follow the ancient Tibetan teaching: Don't start none, won't be none.

it beez like dat, mon ami

klonk wrote:Check out the book "Beyond the Relaxation Response" by Dr. Herbert Benson. I find it valuable for its simple and direct approach.

The reason I again recommend Benson is that he took his source material from Tibetan Buddhists, and from India, Westernized it, brought it into the scrutiny of the scientific community, proved that simple contempative practices lower your blood pressure, and teaches you how to meditate in minutes not years.

Thanks for all the help. I'm kind of burnt out from nursing old sick people you can't cure anymore. Helping people is one thing when you have a perspective for them getting better and improving their situation... In caring for the elderly I've noticed that sometimes (or often...) life is over way earlier than society might like.

I have to grit my teeth, try to be content and at peace at the end of the day, just this month more... I need money to pay for the upcoming Tudi workshop... Then I will look for different work, I promise that to myself.

People constantly moaning, desoriented, looking for their loved ones, screaming, myself changing emotional states 100 times an hour or so to be empathetic... Kinda feels like a battlefield.

In the end what I'm doing isn't fruitful help. The energy just vanishes, paying no dividends.

It is not the environment for everyone. A buddy of mine, a Christian priest, is okay with that environment, but it is uppermost in his mind that your past is only your prolog. You never really end. I have gone with him to help him conduct the weekly memorial service he holds at a care facility. Every week, those patients who are left gather to honor those who have left. I begged off after a while. I would look around for familiar faces and realize... Oh.

A part of the emotional cost of end of life caregiving is that you are not going to win the battle--not if the win is they walk out of the place and take up happy and productive lives again. The win, if there is one, is to improve their comfort and dignity as they go.

I did long-term home caregiving for my very elderly mother. When she died, I felt rather disoriented and at loose ends. The same priest mentioned above told me something I had not realized. I had invested my time and resources into caring for my mom, and when the activity I had framed my life around for six long years was over, what I had been focused on was gone. I needed to find myself again. I have since heard something from another long-term home caregiver--who also felt empty and exhausted when, at last, it was over.

Multiply that by a whole ward of people with various stages of terminal oldness, something you or any other healers are powerless to fix, and you have a very trying environment for an empathic person.

"In the end what I'm doing isn't fruitful help. The energy just vanishes, paying no dividends." I know that feeling, but I am not sure it is altogether on target. If you improved their day in any degree, perhaps your day was well spent after all. But, yes, by all means look to see what else you might do, something with a clearer pay-off emotionally. The fight of a healer against death is really never more than a rear-guard action.