silent thunder

$40 is a great price. While seeking my copy, I looked every few weeks for over a year and the cheapest I found was then 330.00 with one plucky copy going for 1,051.00. I was happy when I found one for $51.00 and didn't hesitate to grab it as a birthday present from me to me.

@Papayapple Here is the excerpt Rene shared years ago... that when I read it, prompted in me, such a poignantly familiar resonance that I spent years scouring booksellers for a copy @ a palatable price. I'm only part way through and find the book a pearl-laden pleasure. Blofeld's manner of sharing his encounters and personal insights are eerily and wonderfully familiar, simple and authentic.

when one who is awake, sits... i wonder. is it to achieve something? or is it simply sitting? a being at rest?

I read that as well. 33 scientists backed it up. I can see where the genetic oddities are a bit boggling... but to jump to the theory they offered in support of how that genetic oddity appeared here with us... was rather staggering to me. Though with a creature as incredibly magical and unlikely as the octopus, Heisenberg's disembodied voice rings in my ears. 'Reality isn't stranger than you think it is, Creighton. It's stranger than you can think it is.' My son has been fascinated by them since he was a toddler. We've spent many hours researching them and as of now... however they came to be, I find my opinion of them something like "Given the octopi's remarkable mental acuity, problem solving abilities and advanced, anticipatory predation techniques, combined with their innate ability to completely alter their physical shape and color. Nature limits them to a 2 year life span, simply to allow the rest of the Earth's species, a fightin' chance."

Sure. I should have added the title in the first place, thank you for asking. It's from Blofeld's book The Secret and Sublime. In it, he shares many gems garnered in his encounters with various taoist sages and buddhist recluses in his 17 years wandering China in the 1920's and 30's.

This awesome conversation has reminded of Fritjoff Capra's book: The Tao of Physics. Where he shares his experiences of the similarities and mirroring of western physical science and ancient eastern esotericism. Like spokes to the hub of a wheel, all phenomena stem from and return to source... it's natural that any sincerely deep enquiry would result in similarities of realization and insight. He sums it up rather succinctly in the epilogue with this: and the resonant nods of understanding from Heisenberg and Bohr are telling: Werner Heisenberg's insight resonates harmonically for me with taoist realization in his quote "reality isn't stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine.". as does Niels Bohr when he expresses his understanding of quantum physics... 'everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.' These emanate the very core insights of Lao and Zhuangzi to me. Echoes of ancient esoteric truths yet resonating from modern, material scientific perspectives. Niels Bohr, when knighted, chose as his coat of arms the black/red yin/yang symbol, ringed by marching elephants with the latin phrase 'contraria sunt complementa' ~ opposites are complimentary. Esoteric and Scientific are complimentary, not oppositional and like spokes to the hub of a wheel, will eventually all lead to similar truths when studies in depth and sincerity. (this same principle applies for me in all seeming dualistic antipodal relationships... these phenomena are not experienced as oppositional conflicting separates... but two complimentary expressions of one unified phenomenal process).

Source is source and gives rise to all. All phenomena arise from it and return to it. Seek it from the persepctive of a tibetan buddhist and you will encounter it. Seek it from the perspective of a taoist recluse and you will encounter it. Seek it from the perspective of a physicist and you will encounter it. Or perhaps you may not encounter it in awareness. None the less. Source is source and we are never separate from it... ever. No matter what we do, think, say or wei wu wei.

i used to fall into the concept that I was one thing. Separate. i'd live in this concept for months and years and decades until presence and awareness dissolved the concept like fog in warm, morning sunshine. now i can't escape the palpable sensation that this form that i used to consider one thing, is more akin to many tribes of trillions of tiny sentient beings. What my teacher calls organs are no longer wiggly bundles of meat that mindlessly churn out processes, but vibrant living communities, comprised of millions of citizens with a common purpose, that have functions they fulfill within parameters of stimuli and in response to the environment around them. some of these tribes will even on occasion go into what appears as conflict from certain perspectives, over resources of food and healing... yet for the whole, this is considered vibrant health. this body is not one thing. i am not one thing, even in my own skin. my skin used to seem like the container that kept me separate and proved i am an individual thing. cut off. apart and autonomous. now the unshakable knowingness that my skin is the breathing, living bridge that directly connects me to all other phenomena. it and i are one process. inseparable. every meal is a merging of inner and outer, as is every inevitable excretion later on... my mind didn't escape this process of mingling oneness either. my thinking mind used to seem like one thing as well. Separate. now i regularly experience the thoughts in the mind coming from one of the myriad sources within my tribal organ body structure. where is this one i that is so disconnected from all other phenomena that cause me to be a victim and seek out fault for actions and reactions to stimuli. any longer, there is one, palpable flowing universe and i am I in all within All. responsibility. yes. responsible. not always pleasant, but unpleasant does not mean suffering any longer there is bouyancy, clarity and calm acceptance, mingled with a loving presence and awareness.

*quietly tends his bees...*

in my universe GOP=Grand Ole Party GLP= some other shit, or a typo

It's written in the Elven script and language invented by JRR Tolkien as one of the support structures/spin off content from the world he created for The Lord of the Rings saga.

"Fortunately Pien, like all true Taoists, was incapable of being digruntled." ~John Blofeld

and always remember... three lefts... make a right.

That which has form will dissolve. That without form will manifest. Relax and Be. I'm less concerned with how long I resonate in this form, than with the quality of that resonance.

Check that stuff for collectibles before you dump. Some of those kids items may have appreciated wonderfully, [ yoda voice (fund your retirement they may...)]

that sir... was inspired... Nicely done. eta: I know a guy with bees, in case you need a backup plan.

Responding spontaneously while not vexxing oneself? Turning a challenge into an opportunity to cultivate patience? I'd say you're emanating tao mate.

I find this notion of naturalness has expanded rather radically from where it used to be in my life. A nigh on 180 degree shift really. What in the realm of the manifest, could be said to be 'unnatural'? If it's manifest, it stems from its nature and nature flows from tao. If all that manifests is part of nature, surely all that manifests is natural. By proxy, this extends to all manner of human activities that are condemned by the old classics and by modern eco-conscious folks and my old sentiments on the topic alike. Yet let's take cities and plastics as an example. I used to view cities as heinous scabs of unnatural imbalance. Lately, I can't shake the palpable gut sense that cities are the utterly natural expressions of the social nature of humans... if there were only one city to ever form, perhaps I'd still consider it an anomoly and unnatural, but cities form wherever humans thrive... so cities, (and all of human endeavors for that matter) which I used to consider unnatural, are now no longer a source of bitter tension for me as they used to be. They are the utterly natural expression of large herds of social humans. The manner of my actions and behavior within cities alters pretty drastically, compared to my actions in less manufactured settings. Plastic thus is natural to me now, where it used to be anathema. Cities are now utterly natural. Even styrofoam is natural, though none of them may seem beneficial to my perception, I can't shake the sense that nothing in nature is wasted, s I cultivate the understanding that perhaps I just don't yet perceive how they will be utilized by nature. They are a by-product of human activity. Humans grow out of the very fabric of nature. What humans do then, is not possible to be unnatural to my present perception of it anyway. Even if cities and plastics and styrofoam result in the end of the human species... is this unnatural? Countless species have risen, endured and died off, from their own actions and the actions of nature upon them throughout all of manifest phenomenal history. The sense of the use of the concept natural seems more... what is beneficial and harmful and what actions within each realm of nature are conducive to living spontaneously in the flow of nature from tao? I think this is the context of the word natural here. So perhaps I'm being persnickity here and arguing semantics... but that's just like me. Niggling over the meanings of words. These days my wife rolls her big beautiful blue eyes dramatically and mocking calls out 'oh lord!... Semantics! Again with the Semantics!'

Solid advice from the Buddhists. I agree with it. That's why I appreciate and use the term bouyancy... as it conveys the very neutral sense of weightlessness I experience in regards to relational phenomena, without the manic quality of intense happiness (which cannot be maintained without cost).

That sure can be infuriating. Bees are my preferred course for most institutional confrontations and stalemates... so I'd use bees. After the third call, I'd also go with Marblehead, Kar3n and the threat posed by Daemon. Call up the chain of command and threaten to cost them more money, (that should at a minimum get a response) and have mail held at the office, so you can actually get to it. But that's me talking out of my butt... (which explains the breath)... I'd really use bees.

I tasted the despair of the void when I was younger. More recently, it seems to reveal immense expansiveness and a clarity born of the utter freedom from all conceptual noise. A deep resonant silent expanse of pure freedom from all the noisy makings of mind and phenomena. Comforting and bouyant are the characteristics of it now. In my youth, I couldn't see how it was possible to experience joy in the nihlism of Nietzche, but now, I'm surprised it took me as long as it did, to saturate in the resonant clarity and expansive, joyful freedom of it.

Each side's very essential nature by definition; relies in large part on the nature of its opposite. The two are one to me... far more similarities in behavior and function than dissimilarities. Not separate parties, but two extreme expressions of one unified process... politics. The more extreme the expressions of each, the more similar they appear in their manner of speaking with one another, the seeming inablity to listen to any ideas not instantly familiar with one's native desires... and fierce protectiveness of dogmatic conceptual models that are vigorously defended, or used as an excuse for justified outright attacks on 'the other side'. Each of the extremes seem to embody a fierce certainty that is rivaled only in the realm of religion as far as I've experienced. Certainty is the death of growth and communication. The full cup cannot engage in conversation summed up in this simple, angry affirmation: We are not Them! Left and Right define themselves in large part by not being what their other is... yet that very defining unifies the two into one spectrum. My take on verse 2 of the tao: 2 As high defines low, difficult defines easy, sound requires silence. Relative to self, mind creates a position, perceptions arise. Mind of perception, exists in fields of conflict, self against other. Having and losing are forever together, always rise with fall. Always opposites, reflecting in their other; the truth within form. Beyond perception, opposites experienced, as unified bliss.

This notion of perfection is tickling me in that spot I can't ignore... so thank you to all for this conversation. This sensation lately, is usually an indication I'm about to encounter another previously held false notion in my own mind. When I walk through a forest... I don't consider any of the trees imperfect, no matter how they twist, weave, split or fall down. Same with clouds... I don't consider any of them to be 'wrong' or 'imperfect'. They are as they are. They form to their nature and this flows from tao. If I open to this notion of perfection within form however it manifests and in the passing of form, however it dissolves... the notion of the perfect square resounds all about me and nothing is imperfect, no matter how seemingly flawed to my mental story monkey mind. I build scenery for a living. I strive for perfection in everything I build and it amazes me, after several decades of perfecting my skills and craft, how elusive the perfection in form that is manifest is from the notions of it in my mind, even for an accomplished master with decades of experience and skill. So perhaps this notion of perfection is the source of dissonance. Who am i with my human mind to be the arbiter of what constitutes perfection in form or not? Where is the definition of perfection and who judges, disseminates and protects this notion? Can't put it in the exact right words, as words cannot convey such beingness... but there's a potent, palpable sensing deep in my gut that what I used to consider the imperfect square is only in my mind... for the manifest comes upon its form through nature which follows tao, which therefor is perfect. How could it be other than it is... this is how it formed following its own nature from the tao? What in its natural expression is imperfect but that our minds make a dissonance saying... 'you should be other than you are'? This notion is echoed much more palpably by Alan Watts who experienced it spontaneously as a 17 year old boy in a moment of nonlocal clarity and it went on to shape his entire, beautiful life... he generously shared his sense of it in his powerhouse of a book: This Is It! Here I quote a section from the opening essay that echoes the sentiments coalescing in my own sensing of it now.