silent thunder

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.

I'm drawn to share this paraphrase of a conversation I had with my son back in January. I was lying in a hospital bed, recently stabilized from septic blood poisoning and reassuring him regarding the health crisis and near death experience. It exemplifies at least some of what I'm trying to convey of my sensations regarding personal responsibility and connectedness to the nature of all phenomena. "When one experiences the entire world as one's self... for me, there can be no other perception than personal full complicity in all that transpires. I am fully responsible for this rupture in my gut buddy and the great thing about that is it means I'm not a victim in this, it's not happening to poor helpless me, who is dragged along by unseen forces beyond my control. I'm as much the generative force in the illness as the entire cosmos... and what's truly wonderful in this realization, is the unshakable notion that I am also the generative force in the healing and regeneration of it. I'm coming home soon... in fact... we can't be anywhere but home, it's all home" ~ This sentiment is echoed by the wonderful Alan Watts, who realized it in an experience spontaneously as a 17 year old boy in a moment of nonlocal clarity... and to whom I owe several key awakening realizations at the hands of his sharings. He shares his senses of it thoroughly in his powerhouse of a book: This Is It! Which I recommend highly to all seekers and near wakers. Here is a small quote from the opening essay that echoes the sentiments coalescing in my own unshakable sensing and experience of it now.

Thanks for sharing Mate! I'll be adding my voice.

I echo your senitiments and add my intention that all will awaken in whichever manner is natural. The barrage of 'shoulds' 'should nots' 'musts' 'must nots' 'truths' 'falsehoods' that stream from the sources you mentioned seems endless at times and can readily fill a mind for life, if uncountered by presence awareness, or waking up. I recall a quote that resonated rather recently and seems appropriate. "you must program your mind yourself, in every facet, down to the smallest detail... or the environment (your family, society, religion and politics) will do it for you." Our minds can't avoid being filled in early life... ages 0-7ish. My own waking process started rather early (around 10) and has been a long slow unfolding for nearly four decades. It's foundation lie firmly on the belief system of my household religion. Once this seemingly unbreachable wall of dogma had been breached, my eyes were primed and I began from then on, to look at each institutional dogmatic structure, be it secular or spiritual, with a wary, penetrating gaze. I think once that first gap in the house of cards designed by my birth religion was breached and an inkling of what lay beyond the world they painted for me had been perceived... the process of waking became its own animal so to speak and manifested an inertia of its own in my case. For I could not stop searching out the cracks in the dogma that lay in systems all around me. what a gift! Painful at times to be certain... to have long held notions revealed as utterly false and at times ill intendedly so... but what a gift to garner that glimpse through the illusion... for once one has breathed real, fresh air in the mind and soul, nothing in the world of dogma can ever again, quench thirst or slake hunger. This type of gap in the card house experience is the point where seekers become seekers and then strive to inquire past the maze of tulpa like concepts that otherwise corral our mental processes for the entirety of our lives. This process may be benefited, or hindered by the mindset and disposition of the waking sleeper... but any longer and for some years now, my own process has long since garnered inertia beyond my personal control (through desire, former practices and grace) and has begun to carry me along with it as it follows its natural path. Any longer, for me there is no straining or seeking, only a concerted non-striving intention to remain open to the flows of the natural order and to cultivate presence, awareness and emptiness. As insidious as the processes of dogma are... they are not infallible and once breached, they quickly lose their teeth. Keep the Path and bouyant, freedom will be realized and discovered where it always lay... within our very essential nature. Never lost, never separated from us, only hidden under the barrage of notions and false concepts of the structures of mankind we had no inkling were untrue when first encountered as children.

Thanks for sharing. This resonates. All my life, I've been walking in and out of various dreamscapes... some of them while sleeping, most of them in what we call 'waking life'. And through all of it, this unshakable sensation, this anticipatory knowingness that one moment, I will awaken within this waking dream, the same way that I become lucid in the dream state, each night. The Tibetans talk in some detail about this concept. what is it to waken from a dream into another dream? what proof exists, beyond any doubt I wonder, that reality is not but a shared dream? I can't shake the sense of it. The sense of it is the flavor of the very air I breathe. i wander dreams within dreams and wake within dreams what is this.. to waken in sleep akin to the dream I've lived so long in waking within this wandering of dreams I weave a wakening walking way the mirrors are full of masks am i the reflection, or the butterfly? can one dream themselves awake I wonder?

I have awareness... of that I'm still certain. Though I have no number to the potential of responses to conditions, nor of conditioned responses to stimuli. Understanding is of little importance, even though it can feel strong and vital to make strong statements and have my mind reinforced with logical understandings, these days the mind games seem little more than passing entertainment compared to... Presence, Beingness and Awareness... Release, Clarity and Emptiness. If there's an action for me any longer, it's unfolding. Radical, constant opening and unfolding in presence. Being. Here. Now. In this unfolding there is no effort involved, though some actions seem repeatedly manifested. Release, acceptance, acknowledgement and presence repeatedly reinforce and cross manifest with each other. Though there is no straining to achieve this... rather it manifests when enough of the filters and extraneous mental chattering and egoing no longer garners inertia. I would characterize this unfolding as a repeated awareness of the absolute perfection of the manifest and unmanifest resulting in the radical release and deeply grateful acceptance (both of actions taken and not taken and of all phenomena). Unfolding to true presence the way a flower unfolds. No effort aside from a deep yielding to one's innate essential nature of beingness and presence. There is a profound level of trust that I am living now, directly related to this unfoldingness and grateful acceptance of the perfection that is what is... that I would not have thought possible prior to recent shifts. Where I am now, I couldn't claim with a straight face that anything is absolutely necessary... from tao, nature flows. It flows according to its nature and can not be other than it is... and as the fluid nature shifts that which is manifest then is other than it was, yet is still naturally flowing from tao. i am this flow... thoughts are a menu of sorts, or a book that refer to nature, but are not of it... so always seem somewhat ineffective for conveying the beingness of concepts. I wonder, to what level, how radically and deeply the conditioned aspects of personality can actually shift with awakening. Even in this it seems our essential nature in awakening does not erase personality, nor emotions, rather the relationship with them shifts. hmm... hope some of these words helped clarify what I'm trying to share. It's a wonderful and potent conversation. Deep gratitude for all involved.

The latter responses remind me how in The Secret of the Golden Flower, reference is made to 'the square inch inside the square foot'. This was regarding the focal point, or gateway orifice between the inner and outer selves, according to Wang Li Ping. Though it doesn't seem to relate to the verse in question to me, I mention it in case it carries resonance for others.

That sounds awesome! I would so be there with the fam if not for the pesky little pond between us mate.