the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Or something like that.

Study links some forms of spiritual training to narcissism and “spiritual superiority”

Anew study has found that some popular forms of spiritual training — such as energy healing, aura reading, and, to a lesser degree, mindfulness and meditation — correlate with both narcissism and “spiritual superiority.”

An implicit feature of spiritual training is that it allows its adherents to distance themselves from their egos, and thereby from things such as the need for social approval or success. By encouraging self-compassion and non-judgmental self-acceptance, spiritual training should presumably make people less concerned with such things.

But as a new paper explains, spiritual training may have the opposite effect. Namely, spiritual training might in fact enhance people’s need to feel “more successful, more respected or more loved,” as the authors Roos Vonk and Anouk Visser write.

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I liked the article, it says a lot of truth. I’ve met so many smug arrogant dickheads amongst Tai Chi, Qigong and meditation practitioners. Aikido is a close contender as well. People who wants to feel superior search up things like mindfulness.

I had a guy showing up to one of my classes. I felt that he had a certain arrogance when he asked: “Tai Chi is about being mindful, right?” I replied: “No, it’s about being mindless.” I guess he didn’t understand or appreciated my dry humor because he didn’t show up again.

I think Tai Chi can have the same effect

Bao wrote:I liked the article, it says a lot of truth. I’ve met so many smug arrogant dickheads amongst Tai Chi, Qigong and meditation practitioners.
I had a guy showing up to one of my classes. I felt that he had a certain arrogance when he asked: “Tai Chi is about being mindful, right?” I replied: “No, it’s about being mindless.” I guess he didn’t understand or appreciated my dry humor because he didn’t show up again.

Being mindless is wonderful!

I mean we're all spiritually superior here, right?

Just like this yoga expert.

No it's pretending to do these things and not following the path that breeds arrogance
Most people I see playing the spiritual guru show their real face the moment they speak

wayne hansen wrote:No it's pretending to do these things and not following the path that breeds arrogance
Most people I see playing the spiritual guru show their real face the moment they speak

Would you say you think you're better than them?

I knew that one was coming
I can judge good basketball without being coby

What you say about humility is one thing. What do you do about it is another. Human Condition 101.

Or, it could be the other way around. Certainly, there seem to be people on this board who believe they or their teachers can control others with their chi or whatever else. These same people seem to be drawn to myopic, racist, and self-serving views of the world. So, maybe the chicken comes before the egg in this case?

As a practical matter meditative/yogic arts tend to make people more of what they are.

The “ennoblement” aspect of serious practitioners is almost entirely about losing their bad habits over time as it detracts from their practice. It it inherently selfish. It is not based off of empathy towards others.

For example, you stop smoking because it makes your qi take a dump when you do. You don’t hate others as it is too much of an emotional drain to invest that kind of energy in an unproductive emotion. Randomly freaking out stops as well. You treat others well as treating them poorly creates too many problems that require your attention later on. You pay your taxes as it is not worth the trouble of fighting about it.

You realize your emotions are just a transient energetic state and that they are largely meaningless outside using them to drive your practice.

Likewise they can be quite financially successful as it is used to provide the resources necessary to drive their practice. You can’t rent out that Scottish tower for three months to do a 100 day ritual without cold hard cash. But you didn’t earn the money for its own sake, you got it so you could achieve a practice goal.

This process can take years and depending upon what is being practiced can actually compensate for bad habits for quite awhile.

But ultimately you get to choose between the bad habit and your practice. The practice wins in the end.

It is a little understood point.

Ian C. Kuzushi wrote:Or, it could be the other way around. Certainly, there seem to be people on this board who believe they or their teachers can control others with their chi or whatever else. These same people seem to be drawn to myopic, racist, and self-serving views of the world. So, maybe the chicken comes before the egg in this case?

I was thinking along the same lines, sure they have found some correlation, but they've done nothing to establish causality.

I submit that most people are arrogant, egotistical, and generally have too high an opinion of their own knowledge, worth, and merit. Any research that measures for these values in comparison to ANY OTHER HUMAN ACTIVITY will find some correlation.

But there is something special about the smugness that one can cultivate with just a few simple spiritual tools and minutes a day of practice.

To me this is an aspect of lowered standards and the resulting cult-y charlatan-ism. The only solution is to raise standards and make students work harder from the beginning, and I mean the very first introductory lesson. The arrogant and ignorant twats simply disappear. However, this is a very difficult business plan to execute.

Kelley Graham wrote:The arrogant and ignorant twats simply disappear. However, this is a very difficult business plan to execute.

There's a lot of money to be had in catering to twats.

The first rule of tai chi is
You must be able to tell the substantial from the insubstantial
The same applies to meditation or any spiritual endeavour
To do that you need chengs 3 essentials
Natural talent
Right method
Perseverance
Most fall at one of these 3 hurdles
Just like UNESCO being the arbitrator of what tai chi is surveys into the spiritual endeavour are looking with the wrong microscope