Please read this!!!!

Ok every one here really wants to talk about the merit issue in a purposeful and direct way. I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself before I go on. I’m 23 years young; I don’t have hardly any experience in qigong/meditation. The most powerful experiences I’ve had that even relate to this stuff deal are with hypnosis, audio entrainment, and hallucinogens. I’m totally the wrong person to bring this up, but Michael (And I really think Michael has a lot of merit [at least compared to me] and is an amazing person) probably doesn’t have the time to talk about this directly (I don’t blame him). Why? I don’t know exactly.

I was taught about a sort of merit a long time ago (I didn’t “get it” at the time). I was raised Catholic (I’m not confirmed or anything, i dropped that stuff when i was 15) and was taught all the stories of Jesus, which are just a bunch of misconstrued (at least in the King James Bible) stories about a semi-enlightened master with relative great merit (for his time at least). The problem is none my priests, teachers, (or anyone I’ve met in the churches I went to) ever really understood how jesus got this merit. They thought Jesus could perform miracles because he was blessed (i guess you could say that, but ain’t seen no god handing out free merit, it also sounds like someone’s excuse for being a fool is that they’re not blessed). The truth is he could do it because he was an enlightened master of sorts. He got this way by using his merit. If you don’t believe in myths and legends (like jesus) than don’t believe in the yellow emperor or Lao Tzu you being just as much an isolationist saying these legendary figures are based off truth (“emperical principles” whatever) and the other aren’t. It is only those who try to depict their masters in their own image (with their own understanding) that are performing the blasphemies (sort of like what I’m doing right now, if you’ll forgive me).

Jesus’s merit was so powerful that long after he died the stories (teachings) of his life helped liberate Jews into organizing against their Roman oppressors, is that right? Anyways, the teachings where so powerful in how they could help advance mankind, particularly these Jews (back to the idea of utilitarianism [that which does the greatest good]) that eventually even the Romans had to except certain parts of Jesus’s teaching (hense the roman catholic church).

Of course they (the romans) used Paul’s letters to keep their women oppressed and distort most the really modern (and somewhat meritous) ideas that Jesus had. But they had to comply with Jesus’s main ideas about eating with whomever you want and helping the poor, sick, ignorant etc. (the romans killed off their weaklings, I beleive) I can also understand how these ideas of charity (instead of just trying to killing people), which helped everyone into being convinced into complying with the spread of Christianity and helped over populate our world. Think about it your people are doing ok right, but everyone hates the king. So here comes these christens with ideas about sharing their food, wine, and love. Who ya gonna join up with the law that taxes you or the Christens who are offering you charity (I’m really going out on a limb here).

Over course throughout time this idea hasn’t always held over in Christianity. Eventually those with power will figure out what’s going on and figure out a way to distort it into a new method of controlling their subjects. But that’s not the issue. The issue is merit. Jesus had to have merit in his actions to get the first waves of compassion and actually belief in the power and nessisty to change going. Consequently this same merit had given him “superpowers”. But you’re going to confuse yourself if you’re looking for some kind of “superpower” merit, because it’s a contraction. In fact, the scope of your merit wont be known (except by you and maybe one or two of you’re close buddies most of the time until long after your dead. When the Romans killed Jesus some of his disciples (Paul for example) turned their back on him and they even get the chance to watch him walk on water (or do whatever mircalously thing) right?

What you saw Michael fly (That would be so cool)? Would that help your merit any? For some it might. Others wouldn’t believe their eyes and think Michael was pullin of a David Copperfeild trick and it would probably hurt their qigong practice by covincing them qigong is a bunch of phoneies. This is what merit is all about.

I think it has to do with fear. Meditation is used to achive enlightenment. We all know this. Enlightenment is difficult to achieve, because we’re living by means of karmic attachments (we all know this too). Me intellectualizing this concept is an example of my karma, which is an attachment (I’m quite sure by now you realize that). When I realize Jesus was a lower level master, because his teaching have been easily distorted and used against his people (As compaired maybe to Buddha or Lao Tzu or maybe even Boddidrama), but he still must have needed great merit to lift his people up in the first place.

I realize just how far I have to go if I want to even have the cultivation skill of Jesus. No more judging the homeless as bums, blame weak people for being weak, sick people for being sick. I work as a nursing assistant in a nursing home. Think about that. I clean, dress, feed, etc, demented old people for a job (I don’t mean to be disrespectful just honest). Could you do that job and like it? Feel comfortable? Do you have the merit to handle that? Or are your money, health insurance, respect, and other attachments (few people respect me for what I do), more important. I’m not trying to justify Jesus, or nursing homes (honesty these both have become lesser alterinatives) But thats not the point what Max is trying to tell you guys is there are so many hopeless situations in the world and so many people are too caught up in karma (which certainly can include your own wish to advance in your practices which is obviously an attachment) to realize the truth of these kind of issues. But if your merit doesn’t stack up against this stuff, what your to gaining all this skill for anyways? Dont you have to understand what good will come of something to gain anything from it? You might be an olympic gold medalist and hate the world right?

If you cultivate to heal yourself maybe you can prevent someone else from getting sick, but how are you ever going to know how bad it is “out there” (meaning how are you going to know if you have any merit to truly heal yourself or anyone else in the first place) until you go look (both inside and out)? Conversaly how can you test your own health if you already live in paradise (rich people rarely achive great merit why do you think they are always giving their money away to charities, they dont know what to do with it).

I see someone dieing and I witness just a little bit and it tells me gosh Mark if you don’t learn about what’s going on in your body, cancer, etc could sneak up on you too. None of these people are bad or good; they’ve all done bad/good things but they clung to their attachments (emotions) their whole life (hang out with someone who has really bad Alzheimer’s you’ll know what I mean).

Does this make some afraid of death? It does for some people. Some people need the warning think about death. Some can’t handle it and go into denial or some psychological defense mechanism, assuring their own deaths chance to sneak up on them. So do I get merit from doing good deeds? No not at all. But i can accumalate more merit in the process trying to, which in some situations is a lot easier than trying to figure out that sort of merit after you go to your “cave”. Of course if I had that kind of merit in the first place I would have known what the nursing home kind of death was all about without having to go through my karma. But im sure glad i did it anyways. if my grandma gets sick and take her time dieing i know what i have to do to handle it for myself.

That’s the best I got for you guys. I think if you’re older than me and haven’t been so addicted to something (TV, drugs, your family, education,) that you ignore the rest of the world, you should understand this better than I do (that’s why you got the philosophical version first, I was like duh… you guys need to read ancient Chinese poetry to figure this out? That sounded crazy to me). If you test your merit in a situation like working with the mentally ill or sick you’ll see how far your practice as really come (outside your “cave”). But just hanging out in the “cave” meditating isn’t appropriate if you don’t have the merit to know if what your doing helps. Of course meditating is a way of building merit (cause in most cases your not inflicting your karma on the world) as well. Ok, I’m not smart enough to take this any farther (for some of you my personal contradiction have already skewed the message I was alluding, but I did my best)I’m my histroy is wrong about Jesus or the Romans, but i was just using them as an example of how merit could change. So take that into account. Not all your attachments are easily noticable looking around in your vast innerspace. Good luck.