silent thunder

Always room for more mate. Welcome!

Well said Ikote. Thanks for sharing.

...

We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy. ~Simon Newcombe in 1888

The 10,000 things, 5 aggregates, yin yang... many aspects, one unfolding process.

Strong scent of Zen in this thread, particularly in recent pages. Resonant with some of Shunryu's insights. As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it. As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw. No teaching could be more direct than just to sit down. Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours. When you sit, everything sits with you. and a couple of DT's as well... However insistently the blind may deny the existence of the sun, they cannot annihilate it. Foolish are they who turn their backs to the light and argue about the nature of the shadow in front. Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water.

Tseng Lao-weng: 'Your going to such trouble to visit me is flattering. How may I best be of service to you?' 'You mean, why have I come, Venerable? I have been longing to meet you ever since I heard our mutual friend describe you as an illumined sage.' Tseng Lao-weng sighed and answered resignedly: 'Why to people talk so? Such words are tedious. You will find no sages here, just this old fellow and four or five other very ordinary men who are students of the Way. It must be dissappointing for you.' 'Do not blame Yang Tao-shih, Venerable. He wished only to make me see for myself that Buddhists do not have a monopoly of wisdom.' 'And does seeing an old man distinguished by nothing more than an unusually bushy beard convince you that they do not?' What could I say that would not sound like flattery, which he obviously disliked? "Venerable, it is just that, as most of my teachers are Buddhist, I am ignorant about what Taoists mean by such terms as wisdom and illumination, and about their methods of approaching the Tao.' He laughed. 'How strange. Can there be two kinds of wisdom, two kinds of illumination, Taoist and Buddhist? Surely the experience of truth must be the same for all? As to approaching the Tao, be sure that demons and executioners, let alone Buddhists, are as close to it as can be. The one impossible thing is to get a finger's breadth away from it. Do you suppose that some people -- this old fellow, for example -- are nearer to it than others? Is a bird closer to the air than a tortoise or a cat? The Tao is closer to you than the nose on your face; it is ony because you can tweak your nose that you think otherwise. Asking about our approach to the Tao is like asking a deep-see fish how it approaches the water. It is just a matter of recognizing what has been inside, outside and all around from the first. Do you understand?' 'Yes I believe I do. Certainly my Buddhist teachers have taught me that there is no attaining liberation, but only attaining recognition of what has always been from the first.' 'Excellent, excellent! Your teachers, then, are true sages. You are a worthy disciple, so why brave the bitter cold to visit an ordinary old fellow? You would have learnt as much at your own fireside.' (His harping so much on his being just an ordinary fellow was not due to exaggerated modesty, being a play on the words of which his title, Lao-weng, was composed.) 'Venerable, please don't laugh at me! I accept your teaching that true sages have but the one goal. Still, here in China, there are Buddhists and there are also Taoists. Manifestly they differ; since the goal is one, the distinction must lie in their methods of approach.' 'So you are hungry not for wisdom but for knowledge! What a pity! Wisdom is almost as satisfying as good millet-gruel, whereas knowledge has less body to it than tepid water poured over old tea-leaves; but if that is the fare you have come for, I can give you as much as your mistreated belly will hold. What sort of old tea-leaves do Buddhists use, I wonder! We Taoists use all sorts. Some swallow medicine-balls as big as pigeon's eggs or drink tonics by the jugful, live upon unappetizing diets, take baths at intervals goverened by esoteric numbers, breathe in and out like asthmatic dragons, or jump about like Manchu bannermen hardening themselves for battle -- all this discomfort just for a few extra decades of life! And why? To gain more time to find what has never been lost! And what of those pious recluses who rattle mattets against wooden-fish drums from dusk to dawn, groaning out liturgies like cholera-patients excreting watery dung? They are penitents longing to rid themselves of a burden they never had. These people do everything imaginable, including swallowing pills made from the vital fluids secreted by the opposide sex and lighting fires in their bellies to make the alchemic cauldrons boil -- everything, everything except -- sit still and look within. I shall have to talk of such follies for hours, if you really want a full list of Taoist methods. These method-users resemble mountain streams a thousand leagues from the sea. Ah, how they chatter and gurgle, bubble and boil, rush and eddy, plunging over precipices in spectacular fashion! How angrily they pound against the boulders and suck down their prey in treacherous whirl-pools! But, as the streams broaden, they grow quieter and more purposeful. They become rivers -- ah, how calm, how silent! How majestically they sweep towards their goal, giving no impression of swiftness and, as they near the ocean, seeming not to move at all! While noisy mountain streams are reminiscent of people chattering about the Tao and showing-off spectacular methods, rivers remind one of experienced men, taciturn, doing little, but doing it decisively; outwardly still, yet sweeping forward faster than you know. Your teachers have offered you wisdom; then why waste time acquiring knowledge? Methods! Approaches! Need the junk-master steering towards the sea, with the sails of his vessel billowing in the wind, bother his head about alternative modes of propulsion -- oars, paddles, punt-poles, tow-ropes, engines and all the rest? Any sort of vessel, unless it founders or pitches you overboard, is good enough to take you to the one and only sea. Now do you understand?' Indeed I did, though not with a direct understanding firmly rooted in intuitive experience that matched his own; but I pretended to be at a loss, hoping his voice, never far from laughter, would go on and on and on; for, just as his mind when lost in the bliss of meditation had communicated a measure of its joy (on my arrival), so now it was emanating a warmth, a jollity that made me want to laugh, to sing, to dance, to shout aloud that everything is forever as it should be, provided we now and then remember to rub our eyes. ... Tseng Lao-weng's talk of rivers flowing into the ocean had put me in mind of Sir Edwin Arnold's lovely expression of the mystery of Nirvana, 'the dew-drop slips into the shining sea', which I had long accepted as a poetical description of that moment when the seeming-individual, at last free from the shackles of the ego, merges with the Tao -- the Void. This I knew to be an intensely blissful experience, but it was Tseng Lao-weng who now revealed its shining splendour in terms that made my heart leap. Afterwords I wondered whether Sir Edwin Arnold himself had realized the full purport of his words. At a certain moment in our conversation when Tseng Lao-weng paused expectantly, I translated the beautiful line for him and was rewarded by a smile of pleasure and surprise. Eyes glowing, he replied: 'My countrymen are wrong to speak of the Western Ocean People as barbarians. Your poet's simile is penetrating -- exalted! And yet it does not capture the whole; for, when a lesser body of water enters a greater, though the two are henceforth inseperable, the smaller constitutes but a fragment of the whole. But consider the Tao, which transcends both finite and infinite. Since the Tao is All and nothing lies outside it, since its multiplicity and unity are identical, when a finite being sheds the illusion of separate existence, he is not lost in the Tao like a dew-drop merging with the sea; by casting off his imaginary limitations, he becomes immeasurable. No longer bound by the worldly categories, 'part' and 'whole', he discoveres that he is coextensive with the Tao. Plunge the finite into the infinite and, though only one remains, the finite, far from being diminished, takes on the stature of infinity. Mere logicians would find fault with this, but if you perceive the hidden meaning you will laugh at their childish cavils. Such perception will bring you face to face with the true secret cherished by all accomplished sages -- glorious, dazzling, vast, hardly conceivable! The mind of one who Returns to the Source thereby becomes the Source. Your own mind, for example, is destined to become the universe itself!'

I engage with Lois on occasion. Depends what Lois offers... What I can say of Lois is that Lois is consistently Lois...

Local awareness recalls an epiphany related to suffering that occured in the midst of many years of chronic pain. This body had a condition that caused debilitating pain for years and years. It remained undiagnosable for much of that time. The pain left the body consigned to a chair, or walking with a cane on the 'good days'. Some days the suffering was seemingly insurmountable as the pain was inescapable and this body is immune to morphine and most commercial pain killers. Eventually the following realization settled in awareness and remained. This body will experience discomfort. This body may experience pain. This does not mean there must be suffering. From that moment on, suffering ceased, though sensation of pain continued for several years.. Grateful to report eventual diagnosis, two surgeries and the intervention of a TCM healer brought me full mobility and pain free health again. But in this awareness' experience, suffering is not caused by pain, suffering is a crisis of perception. It is of the mind.

I am not an anthropologist, I studied in that field a bit out of interest while taking extra credits. Not particularly interested in Greenland or Africa's city of Lagos. Thank you for your time.

Gotta have a method for getting those taxes back home efficiently...

Anthropology. Why do you ask?

The 'ignore' feature doesn't really ignore the person, in fact it accentuates the posts in a manner by hiding only the text with a message in a special font, but leaving the post in the flow of conversation. Far more effective I've found is to just scroll passed their contributions when reading... as the ignore feature is in action, more of a 'highlight hidden text' feature.

Well the feed of activity often reads more like a personal blog than a community site due to the spamming of one very dedicated user. C'est la vie.

I spent a while studying this fascinating process way back in my University daze. Really intriguing process to look into... the literal formation of religious thinking into a new type of religious action, born in modern times.

Daoism, Shamanism, Yoga, Tantra and Tea. These are a few of my favorite things... Welcome to the Bums Frey!

Much resonance here, with this response, and the bolded in particular. Thanks for sharing.

I'm so non-dual... my pants only got one leg.

That's Mary... his wife, she's checking the hem on his robes to make sure he's not making a bad impression while out in public.

God says...__________ Curious that it's always a human talking.

This.

Welcome to the Bums mate.

Who determines what is natural for humans? Some folks are psychotic and murderous. Some are quiet and loving. Some are sociopathic and power craving. Some don't care about much at all and just try to get by... Some are outgoing and attention seeking. Some spend more time thinking about and serving others than themselves. Some are...__________ Some are...__________ There doesn't appear to be one nature among us. And yet, we are one. As for failure... Who's to say what is failure? Perhaps a strong missed step will prompt a grand awakening? Who could be the Arbiter of success? Intriguing question regarding failure; that to me has no firm answer. Which is awesome. I prefer unanswerable questions to answers that shouldn't be questioned. Thanks for sharing.

lmao 'deadliest' cat... The way they try and sell these things..

Well if you're missing it, I am now as well. It was in this conversation and talked about sock puppet accounts being here now and him recognizing one in particular. The comment seems to be hidden or deleted.