Taoism and Buddhism

T

thinman

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Back in the early '70's was a TV series "Kung Fu", I was instantly intrigued. In one episode Kwai Chang Cain used the term Tao and it was like a light was switched on in my head. This led to learn more about Tao and Kung Fu and Feb 1979 joined a Tai Chi Chuan club, today I still practice my Tai Chi and also added Buddhist teachings. had a Tibetan Buddhism teacher and took Refuge and Bodhisattva vows and have 8 Buddhist names.

Around 2005 I studied Yoshinkan Aikido for 4 years, very much Zen philosophy. My first Tai Chi sifu said that Aikido was the Japanese Tai Chi and that planted the seed.

 
I played a computer game called Kung Fu Master in the 80s:


... and a few similar ones. Didn't really put me on a path towards enlightenment or anything, though! 😄 I did end up reading some books and have been fascinated with Eastern religion / philosophy, but not enough that I have really adopted any of it, except for some light/basic yoga. Well, it may have been one of the many influences that sent me down the path towards veganism, actually.
 
Eastern philosophy has value, I think many people can recognize this. We can see in this year how eastern culture dealt better with COVID than the culture of the US, because eastern countries, at least in the case of Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan and probably others, have a strong sense of community and working for your town and country, while the US values more individual freedoms. So there has been a clear example this year of how the west can learn from the east.

I´m not religious though personally, while I think there are good elements of Eastern religions, I think athiesm (or agnostic) is the way forward, as long as we take something spiritual out of our relationships with friends and family and nature and ourselves as well.

Indian Summer, did you ever play double dragon? My brother and I once put so many coins in the arcade machine that we got to the end of the game. We also had the game at home. For some reason elbowing people was more effective than punching them.
 
I have played many video games, mostly D&D type RPG. Have an old Xbox 360.

 
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Indian Summer, did you ever play double dragon? My brother and I once put so many coins in the arcade machine that we got to the end of the game. We also had the game at home. For some reason elbowing people was more effective than punching them.
Oh yes. Oh yes. It's one of my favourites! I played both the original on arcade and of course the converted version on the Commodore 64. Once in the late 2000s when visiting Chicago I played through the whole game on an emulator. It was the weirdest thing. I was visiting some sort of computer game shop with my wife, and the guy who worked there invited me to play the game with him in 2-player mode.
 
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By the time we got to the end of the game his elbow button stopped working, so I won (in the part at the end where the two brothers turn on each other).