goldisheavy

I believe everything is possible, but not everything is equally probable. So, it's possible that a person can go through a wall, but it is also unlikely. So if I hear something like that, I'll not be very quick to believe it. Further, I also believe that psychic powers have only a tenuous connection with wisdom. So if someone demonstrates a power or two or even 100 powers, that doesn't mean I'll become a follower of that person and/or listen to everything they have to say.

He who cuts the branch he sits on is a fool.

So is it true that there is no truth?

I enjoyed this link. Thank you.

Forget all the fools who pose as teachers. If you were to meet Zhuangzi himself, the second Patriarch of Daoism, what do you think he'd tell you about finding a teacher? Well, here's what he would tell you: http://www.terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html So if the second Patriarch is telling you that your own mind is the teacher and you ignore him, then no one can help you. Good luck.

There is no way to apply any of these principles in the way you're thinking. Everything proceeds from the deep inner mind down through the body and outward into the world. Once there is a process that's ongoing at the deepest level, you can't change it by force at the level of the body. The only thing you can do is meditate to calm yourself if you aren't naturally calm. If you're already naturally calm, meditating to get calm will make you more disturbed, because it will be pretentious. Once you have a reasonable degree of calm, you reflect on everything we've talked about for 5-10 minutes, or even just for 1 minute. This reflection is not a mechanical process. It's a creative and sometimes unpredictable process. You may get new insights, new angles to investigate, and so on. You may get some insight which surprise you and which even contradict previous information or beliefs. Over the course of many years, like say 10 years, some of your very deeply held beliefs will begin to budge. Once they budge, the process of manifestation which proceeds from the innermost level down through the body and out into the world will start to reflect that change. So it isn't something you do per se. It's not like say setting a bone, or applying stitches to the wound. It's not something like exercise. It's none of those things. Essentially it's a process that involves changing and softening up your beliefs about many things such as yourself, the world, your relationship to the world, and so on. This change occurs most readily in contemplation. If you just refrain from thinking, your beliefs will not melt of their own accord, imo. Why not? Because all things, including beliefs, have habit energy. They have inertia. And they tend to remain the same unless otherwise. In our world everyone has itchy hands and feet. People want to get busy all the time. What do I do? What do I do? Well... nothing much. Meditate, contemplate, investigate and participate as usual. You're confusing substantial with the superficial. Currently what you think is substantial is actually superficial. What is actually significant you take as superficial. That has to do with your beliefs about the mind and its role in life. People are never difficult. What's difficult are certain specific actions or expressed beliefs. On the forum you don't have to deal with actions. On the forum the only difficulty is dealing with expressed beliefs. One thing you can try is asking yourself, "Why does this belief, when expressed, bother me?" And take it from there. It may turn out that you don't have a leg to stand on. Or it may turn out that you're bothered for a valid reason. Once you investigate the issue, you'll know what to do on a case by case basis. It's completely wrong to lump all the expressions and behaviors you don't like into one single category of "difficult people." This means you don't plan to investigate the import and impact of actions and expressions on one by one basis, as you should be doing. It means you plan to shut off the source, such as for example, telling the person to shut up, or removing yourself from conversation. People are very complicated and broad. People are like universes. Or you can say people are like oceans. So there is no such thing as a bad or difficult person just like there is no such thing as a difficult ocean. Instead there are difficult events. For example, tsunami is difficult. It's one singular event. Learn to deal with such events either by preparing for them or by accepting them for what they are. But just because an ocean occasionally spits out a tsunami doesn't mean the ocean is bad in and of itself. The same is true with people. A person can do things you don't like, but the person is much too vast and much too mysterious to say the entirety of the person is bad or difficult. So examine the difficulties on case by case basis. Why is hearing this or that difficult? Check it out. Follow it up. And don't think you'll figure it out in one day. Many people are at it for decades and they still haven't figured it out. That's a very complex question. You can start by following up your feelings. So let's say you spend 30 seconds to calm down, then bring to the foreground of your consciousness a feeling of dissatisfaction as you know it. As you recall how it feels to be dissatisfied with your life, specific events will float up in front of you mind's eye. You might say, "OK that event was unsatisfactory. And that one. And that... oh my, there are many such events, so no wonder I am dissatisfied." Then you follow up, "OK, event A feels unsatisfactory. Why?" "OK, someone told me I was an ass." "Should people never tell me I am an ass?" "Should I be able to accept being told such things?" "Where does the meaning of the words come from?" "An ass has hurtful meaning, but where is this meaning stored?" "Ah, the meaning is stored in my mind." "Why do I think ass has a hurtful meaning?" And so on. It will eventually become obvious what's going on. Eventually, after examining enough unpleasant events on a case by case basis, you might start to discern broad patterns and underlying reasons that are common to all of them. Once you can see what in the abstract sense makes you unsatisfied, you no longer need to investigate events on a case by case basis. At that point, you can pursue your investigation into the common root cause that underlies all the little unsatisfactions. While various people can give you hints, no one can make you realize anything. When you realize something it will be all you. One way to do it is to consider an idea that your life is more than your job. You work to live and not live to work. If you find your work shitty, you can try to change it and make it less shitty. For example, you can make a lot of jobs less shitty by trying to become more excellent at your craft. Alternatively you can accept that the work is temporarily unpleasant, but consider that you have important mission in life. I'm not telling you what it is, but you can know this mission for yourself. If you don't know it, you can make it your mission to discover your mission. Then, if you can find a purpose, life can be much easier to tolerate and you'll always have the light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to. If you live thinking that it's all hopeless and everything will just vanish anyway, that's a very oppressive and burdensome mental environment to live in.

That's how I see Buddha too. I like Buddha but I don't see him as perfect. I don't see any being as perfect. We're all human. I think we can and should try to be a little better than before, but at the same time, I doubt we can reach the extreme of perfection. Our vanity has reasons. It doesn't arise just because we decided to be dicks. We are vane due to our beliefs about ourselves, about reality, about the world, about others, and perhaps even about our beliefs (yes, beliefs about beliefs, or meta-beliefs). Some of these beliefs are deep and have huge habit energy behind them. Changing them is not easy and isn't done in one or two days. In a way, we're all already doing what you're asking. We're all already trying to reduce our vanity by being on the paths that we're on. We just can't do it fast enough for some people's liking. I think there is no perfect answer to this. I think the Taoist answer would be to seek moderation of desires. Moderation of desires can't arise on its own because desires depend on beliefs. So first, beliefs have to be questioned and re-examined (that's what Zhuangzi teaches), and once beliefs change, desires will change too. So moderation is not something that's practiced by exercising brute psychic force over one's emotions. It's a combination of gentle inner force and working with one's beliefs. But even if you follow all this to the letter, you'll still not be perfect. It's worth it though. We tend to believe that we are tiny creatures who are struggling to survive against all odds in a cruel universe. This leads to fear and insecurity. This means we perceive the need to defend what's ours and to protect our body and social status (this means protecting our ego). Why? Because in our way of life social status often directly translates into the ability to maintain one's body! This is why people are obsessed about trying to present their egos in the positive way, because they fear retaliation. At the same time, when people perceive their sense of self was attacked, they will defend it vigorously due to the beliefs that's in the first sentence of this paragraph. So there are two competing desires: 1. you must present a smooth appearance to get accepted by others, and 2. you must fight to protect yourself where "yourself" is not just your body, but also all your ideas about you, which is to say your identity. It's only natural that 1 and 2 don't mix well together because every time you defend yourself, you lose smoothness points. But if you don't defend at all, then there is fear and dread of annihilation nipping on your arse. The solution to this is a little counter-intuitive, but it makes sense if you think about it. If the cause of our problems is our belief that we are puny little stragglers who are destined to vanish, just reverse that. We are vast, limitless, powerful beings who are destined to live forever! And presto, we now have a lot less need to defend ourselves. So in a way having small ego is very counterproductive as you can see. But even if you feel completely secure in yourself, that only solves half the problem. People are not only attached to their own selves but often people have a vision of the perfect world. When this vision gets violated, people get upset. So even if you feel secure, if you have a vision of a perfect world, you'll still get upset and you'll still try to defend that vision. Even though you might not worry about injury to your identity, you may still worry about injury to the world's identity, or to your world vision. But the concern number 1, the desire to appear smooth and acceptable to others will be gone if you feel personally secure, because you won't fear your own demise anymore. See what I mean? So you'll have less inner conflict, but you can really butt heads with other people sometimes when you perceive they are trying to injure your world vision. The only solution to this second problem is total apathy. I don't support total apathy. I think it's better to care about one's vision of the world even if it brings a certain degree of suffering with it. It's much better than nihilism and apathy, allowing the world to do whatever it pleases and then clapping your hands when people do well and also equally clapping your hands and eating popcorn when the world goes into the toilet. The only thing I can say is that it's a good idea to care about one's vision of the world lightly and non-obsessively. So one avoids the extremes of apathy and obsession. That's how I look at it.

I'm glad you're happy Stig. As for how to translate it, I think it will translate itself in due time. As you interact with the new (or old forgotten) information, you change. Then the new you will be able to arrange a new presentation without making a concerted effort to think about various specifics, simply because you will be a slightly different person then. If various specifics are relevant, they'll present themselves to you. If they're not relevant, then simply the new you will know what to do, so there is no worry about translating. Or to put it this way -- if you let the new information affect you, then the new you is the translation you want. Then the new presentation is only a fresh reflection of the new you. I like to say this is the "no-how" as a play on "know-how." No-how, my friend.

I actually agree with you about the Buddhist jnanas. I never liked the idea of categorizing and boxing up the meditative states like that. However, the Buddhist idea of the mindstream is the opposite of cerebral. It's simple: it's simply the continuity of experience. That's all. That's a very interesting way to define the term, but when defined in this way, it becomes something vastly different from the Buddhist definition. And that's fine. But now because there are two incompatible definitions floating around, we should be careful about which one we mean. So when you became aware of the mindstream in the Taoist sense, how did your life change, if at all? What do you see in the mindstream?

It's a difficult question. Let's assume we have a perfect Sage who cares nothing about his own self. So a personal insult against the Sage doesn't move the Sage at all. How does such Sage feel about others though? Does the Sage care about others? Suppose the Sage is sitting on the couch downstairs at friend's house, waiting, while the friend is upstairs getting ready to go out. At that moment the burglar breaks into the house downstairs and let's assume the Sage can see this and is able to take neutralizing action. Now when you neutralize a violent person, sometimes the violent person gets hurt from one's own attempt. So if this happens, can you really blame the Sage? Now, if the Sage were a total pacifist, what would be the result? Second, what kind of state of mind is required for absolute and total pacifism? I posit that the state of mind for absolute and total pacifism must be apathy and cowardice. So, in my opinion, even a Sage who is very well disposed and who cares little about oneself, will sometimes get stuck in situations where the Sage can be perceived to be confrontational or violent. Let's take an example with Buddha and Angulimala. According to legend Angulimala killed 999 people and was about to kill his own mother. Buddha decided to take matters into his own hands. He appeared before Angulimala and thus became Angulimala's new target. Buddha made it so that no matter how hard Angulimala tried, he couldn't catch up. What is this? It's psychic violence. On the mundane level there was no violence. But at the psychic level Buddha has denied or negatively interfered with Angulimala's intent. Getting one's own intent to go over that of someone else is the very meaning of violence. Of course Buddha's intervention didn't harm Angulimala, but it did harm his intention to kill. And later on Buddha accepted Angulimala into the community of monks, so there were no hard feelings. Now if Buddha lacked psychic power but wanted to still help, what would have happened? The situation wouldn't have turned out so gracefully then. There would have been a fight to the death, perhaps injuries, perhaps either Buddha or Angulimala would've actually died. Perhaps an innocent bystander would've gotten caught up in the fight and also died. So it's only an overabundance of psychic power than prevented that from happening and not lack of violence. If anything, at the root level Buddha was even more violent than someone swinging a sword, but it's not easy to recognize that. Buddha blocked someone at heart level instead of blocking at the level of the body. In a way that's actually even more violent. People who interfere with the body do not directly interfere with the heart, and still leave some wiggle room for the heart. Let's think about what happens when people argue on forums. They are interfering with each other's intentions in a way that's more visible than Buddha's interference in the story of Angulimala, but also in a way that's much less powerful than what Buddha did. The end result in Angulimala's story was that Angulimala was unhurt. The end result of the vast majority of forum arguing is the same -- no one is hurt. Of course Buddha forgave Angulimala, or perhaps Buddha didn't even have to forgive because he never ceased from accepting Angulimala as is, but neither did Buddha apologize. In fact Buddha argued many times. There were times when he made people mad by arguing. Now all of us can sit here and say, "But they brought it upon themselves." Sure we can say that, but we are ignorant and biased. We weren't present when the Buddha was arguing. And we likely sympathize with the Buddha to begin with. But try to put yourself into the shoes of some of those folks who were on the receiving end of Buddha's attitude. Because while Buddha was polite, he'd never bend, and that unbending attitude can be interpreted as an attitude of an asshole. If you were arguing with someone who wouldn't bend on any points and who expected you to do all the bending, how would you feel? Now you know what some of those folks must have felt like when arguing with Buddha. So how do you expect people on forums to behave and feel? In a way, we're doing very well. We use less power less effectively and no one gets hurt. The only place where some of us could do better is that some of us here like to hold grudges. If we could let go of the grudges not too long after the argument is over, we'd all be within a spitting distance of Buddha's own behavior! Cheers!

I don't know. Maybe Jesus should have warned people not to start a religion out of his teachings. If you like the teachings, learn them. But religion? Heck no.

Stig, I am somewhat of a fan of Ricardo. I find his vision inspiring, and so if the chance arises I tend to drop his name pretty quickly. I'm glad you're enjoying it. He's one of those people I want to become when I grow up.

If I could change something, I'd make sure that Jesus, Mohammed and Moses were never born. The world would be a better place without the Abrahamic religions.

I think your systems will definitely work for you, and they will probably work for those HR folks who will try them. (How many is that? Do you do follow up surveys?) When I said they don't work I meant to say in all likelihood the HR people are not terribly interested in something other than the status quo and perhaps moving up the corporate ranks. I would say your system worked if it made HR people act less as employment speed bumps and more as enablers who find great people that they would previously reject because they didn't have the right buzzwords on their resume, things like that. And then I would also say it worked if in every employer-employee conflict scenario they had a very strong bias to take the employee's side. In other words, it worked if it made the world a better place and made corporate cultures more humane. Now if some HR ass wants to climb up the corporate ladder and uses your system to successfully rise 3-4 levels in a year, you'd probably say your system worked, while I would say it didn't work. If that happened I would say it's possibly a tragedy, if anything. However, as we are discussing, it has increasingly become apparent to me that it doesn't gel with my core beliefs so I need to change what I am doing else I just have to get out of the corporate speaking arena completely. You can try shocking them with the truth in small doses. For example, casually slip in the idea that motivation is not something that must be cajoled, that it's always there when the person is well rested and healthy. But this can backfire if it goes too strongly against what they already believe to be true. Following this thought I will openly admit that I want develop a new presentation that will work within my current market. But, in saying this, I am more mindful of speaking true to my heart rather than being attached to my current audience. I am sure that my abilities to adapt will go in my favour. I think you have great presentation skills in general, but I have one suggestion. If you're going to do a magic trick, it might be better not to mix magic with important information. The reason I say that is because when you're doing magic, my mind is focused on the magic that I know is going to happen with the money and I am not paying attention to anything you're saying. This may be what you want if you're a hypnotist and you need to distract the conscious mind with the magic trick while you're slipping in your suggestions straight into the subconscious mind. But if you're not attempting hypnosis or NLP, it may be better to let listeners' minds focus on the actual information and then as a reward, show them an illusion later on. The basic idea is that the conscious mind can only focus on one thing at a time. So if you want conscious engagement, you might want to consider what it is you want your viewers to engage with: your illusion or your information about Taoist magic. Sure I hear you, but Taoism is not anti-materialism in the sense of being renunciative of the material world. OK, I guess I've learned about Taoism from different sources then. Or maybe you define renunciation slightly differently from me. I don't know. What we are about is not creating artificial systems of hierarchical valuation of things and, by not indulging in such contrived preferential identification of material goods, we avoid the exhaustion brought about by incessant desire and craving. We certainly do embrace the fact that people need basic material things to "fill their bellies" and "strengthen their bones". But this materialism only extends as far as providing what could be deemed naturally arising sufficiency and abundance. I don't call what you describe above, "materialism." Filling your belly is fine even for a renunciate. Renunciation is not about suffering or depriving oneself. On the material side it's about simplicity and on the inner side it's about an attitude of slight aloofness toward the world and toward one's own destiny. It's a kind of care free attitude that doesn't enter into the extreme of recklessness. The other thing to consider is the variants around our De. Now my POV of De is that it is our self-nature, our individual expression of the universal Tao. Now it may be that the persons individual De gives them a natural predilection, or even natural destiny if you wish, to be successful in the area of material wealth. In that case then the most naturally evolving thing for that person to do is to allow this natural wealth to manifest. Not to extraneously pursue or crave this wealth, but to simply allow its natural occurrence. To throw other examples around. Let's say someone was a singer and singing was the natural emanation of their De to sing. Do you think that this person should pursue their life path as a singer? Not for ambition's sake, nor for recognition or accolades, but because singing is the most natural thing for them to do. Sure, I agree with you here and I like your examples. Now try my example: Imagine someone who is naturally greedy and who is naturally obsessed about the future. That's their De. How will you approach such person? We could ask the same thing about a leather tanner, or a builder, or a medical practitioner and I am sure that we would agree that these people should follow the inner direction of their De. So what about the business man? What if it was the person's "higher calling" to excel at commerce? Should this person deny this calling because someone has declared that business is somehow "wrong"? It's some people's De to be greedy and it's my De to destroy such people. I hope that answers your question. So while yes, sure, everyone follows their De, don't be fooled by it. A synonym for natural is "habitual." I hope this clarifies matters. Or is it perhaps that you think that in following Tao we all end up the same color of gray? Nah. Now non-ambition is a very important discussion to have, and I thank you for the Wenzi quotes that you have provided. This is one area that was definitely creating conflicting thoughts for me. The corporate world is all about ambition and managers just love it when I fire their staff up with ambition -- "Let's go hit them KPI's boys!!" LOL I believe this notion of non-ambition comes back to wei wu wei which, for this purpose, I am rendering as leading without controlling, or action without contrived effort. Leading without controlling is something Ricardo Semler is very good at, from what I hear. Is there such a thing as natural ambition? Try these synonyms for "natural": "habitual" and "comfortable." I hope it makes things clearer. Or let me say this: it's only natural that nothing is natural for long. Does a flower exhibit ambition as it turns its face to follow the sun? Does a lion have ambition when it stalks a gazelle? I would say you need to check the lion's health at middle age. If the lion has lesions from heart attacks or ulcers, yes, probably too much ambition. If the lion is healthy, probably no ambition at all. But really I don't know without meeting the lion in person. I think a differentiation can be made between when an ambition arises naturally from the "movement of De" and when it arises from contrived thinking. In one instance we are simply "going with the flow" of our inner inspiration, in the other instance we are trying to artifice something out of nothing or forcing something against its natural movement. I think contrived thinking is when we make things more complicated than they need to be, or when we think things because others say so while we ourselves don't believe in what we're thinking. For example, if you're thinking, "Yea, I have to get back to studying soon for my biology exam" but you're only thinking this way because your father wants you to be a doctor, while you want to be a dancer, then that's an example of contrived thinking. And I think that it may not be absolutely correct to say that Taoists don't have ambition. Our intention is to "be one with Tao", to be healthy, to be harmonious. If we were puritan with our words then we would say that these things are the Taoists' "ambitions". True not ambition in the commonly used sense, but perhaps ambition all the same. The key again comes back to wei wu wei. When we talk about ambition being a bad thing, we mean things like hurry. For example, my ambition is to set the whole universe in order, but then I have 10 aeons to do it, so I am in no hurry. So this means my ambition is a non-ambition. Do you ever notice how some people in the corporate world want everything done yesterday? There is a story in Liezi about a man who decided to move a mountain. That's pretty ambitious right? Except he wasn't in a hurry. He was OK shoveling the mountain all his life a little at a time, then teaching his son to do it, and then his son would teach his son and so on. Remember that story?

Awareness has no fixed location. Locations are artifacts of functioning awareness. In my understanding there is nothing besides awareness. In other words, awareness is not aware of anything other than its own state. That's why I also call it mind instead of awareness. I don't think of my beliefs in terms of nationality. Chinese people have certainly thought the same way I think, I have no doubt. But then I am sure so have Italians, Russians, Arabs, Egyptians, Peruvians, Greeks and what have you. So I don't think there is anything original about my belief but at the same time, I don't exactly copy it from somewhere. Many people have similar ideas. For example, have you read "Illusions" by Richard Bach? It's a great book and it talks about the same things I believe. What attracts us to various teachings? I find that for the most part, when I was interested in some teaching, it wasn't because it taught me something, but it was only because it validated and confirmed what I have known and believed all along. I haven't learned a damn thing from any teaching. The reason I love Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra is simply because it confirms what I always believed. In the best case a teaching have awoken something I forgot. For example, when I read Castaneda for the first time, he talked how waking is a certain type of dreaming, and how dreaming is the same as waking. And I went, "Aaahhhhhh... YES!!!" It was like a light bulb going on. It was like something that makes sense and something that I know, but forgot or simply didn't pay attention to. Now it was brought to my attention and I recognized it immediately. There were a couple of moments like this when I had these "aha!" moments of recognition, and then every other teaching either refined or confirmed what I already knew/believed. The teachings are still useful because they give me a chance to reflect, to refine my beliefs, to challenge at least some of them, and so on. But the teachings are not like a fresh software install into my mind. So even if some Chinese people think this way, I won't be calling it Chinese. I agree that this happens. This is one of the possibilities. In general all experiences are possible. For example, it's possible to experience life without sleep. It's also possible to experience a life that lasts 10 aeons or a life that lasts 1 day. It's possible to experience oneself as one body or as a pack of bodies or as no body at all, but rather as an abstract individuality. These are just some examples of what's possible, but the possibilities are limitless and if you can think it, it is possible. I think when it comes to our lives though, we have to take into account probabilities and habits in addition to possibility, which is limitless. Because habits exist and because we have beliefs which structure our experience in a certain way, some possibilities are probable while others are not very probable. What exactly is probable and how much exactly? Ultimately you determine that in your life. If you can see that your mind contains the entire universe-appearance, it's very normal that your intent affects the entire universe as you know it. Then, synchronicity is only the working of your own intent. Intent works across mind and because the mind isn't anywhere and has no size, it works across all that appears, which is to say non-locally.

In my understanding the mind is neither in the head nor in the heart. It's not located anywhere. Things like the head and the heart appear in the mind as a result of mind's natural shimmer or living energy. Of course not only do the head and the heart appear in the mind, but everything else appears there as well, including the entire known universe. At the same tame, the mind is also a repository of all potential that does not manifest right now. So not only is it a "place" where things appear, but it's also a place that contextualizes everything without exception and the context for the manifest is the limitless unmanifest potential. This I think is true roughly speaking, but to be precise the mind is not anything specific at all, it is simply the nature of all things, and at the same time, it is also our ordinary day to day mind -- all that is one and the same mind. The ordinary day to day mind is also the mysterious mind that I am talking about. The reason most people don't experience their day to day mind as something amazing is because people saddle the mind with limiting and sometimes outright wrong ideas about the mind. So for example, they imagine they have a mind that's entirely separate from other people's minds, which is false. They imagine the mind to be in the head or in the brain. Or they imagine that the subtle and private experiences are in the mind, but the gross and public experiences are outside the mind. And so on. All these ideas limit and constrain what the mind actually is.

No problem Marble, but the idea of Mystery still has no place in materialism. I imagine most thoroughgoing materialists would scoff at such an idea.

Of course. You've been telling them something that you don't believe in your heart, but you know it sells, even if it doesn't work. Riiight. Riiiight. Neither do I. After all I did bring up Semco, Ricardo Semler, and Mondragon. In Taoism non-being is as real as being. Which Taoism is that? You tell me. In the materialist philosophy there is no place for a concept like non-being. It doesn't even make sense from a materialist POV. I don't think you came close to articulating the Taoist value of simplicity and non-ambition. For what it's worth, I am convinced you're doing the best you can to bring a ray of sunshine into these people's lives and that's very commendable and I don't mean to stop you from doing it.

Look how politely Lao-tzu spoke and yet no one takes him seriously even today, after more than 2 thousand of years passed. If I was really doing this for my own self-aggrandizement, then being taken seriously would be a very important consideration for me. However, I care little about the opinion of others of me. My only "goal" is to maintain my own integrity. I callz them like I seez them. My language is meant to be a little spicy and entertaining, but it's never meant to do anything more than tickle. If we maintain pretentious propriety, then the slightest impropriety will be perceived as a great threat to common order, and society will become unstable, while even the slightest criticism will be perceived as libel (already happened in UK). This is why true Taoists like myself do not worry about propriety. We only worry about integrity, which is to say deep inner honesty and maintaining conduct that reflects the center of my being without aberration and without adjusting it. Tao cannot be studied. We can study Taoist writings, however, and that's a good thing. But don't confuse studying Taoist writings with studying Tao. People who hold respect and propriety as their number one value are called "Confucian." They are pretty much the ideological enemy of the Taoists. Remember that there are no good and bad at the ultimate level. Do you remember that? Remember how you were preaching to me that there is no such thing as good and bad? What happened to you? Why are you such a hypocrite? You also said you'd put me on ignore, and what happened to that? So obviously you have little integrity. You are being mean. You are offensive, but you don't realize it because you confuse superficial offense with offending integrity.

Translated by Thomas Cleary isbn 0-87773-862-9

I figured I'll type up section 3 from Wen Tzu, starting on page 5. It's relevant to what you're talking about and I'll highlight in bold the parts that are especially relevant: And a part of section 4: If you read some of this to the corporate idiots, most likely their ears will fall off and their stomachs will churn, because this is so alien to their mindset. It's almost the exact opposite of how they behave and what they believe. I wish there was a softer way to say it that would still be true, but I don't see it. Good luck.

Looking good Stig, Ooops. Ooopsey. So you've been lying to your clients? A little, at least? Hehehe. No worries, lying is the way of life in business. Businessmen are petty individuals by and large. They are motivated by greed, insecurity, egomania and all manner of delusions. This of course doesn't describe every businessman, but it does describe a frighteningly large percentage in my opinion. Stig, please slow down. Now dig this: Taoism frowns heavily on ambition. Taoism frowns heavily on materialism in both senses: the view that the world is made of matter and the view that material things are necessary for happiness. This Taoist attitude is 100% contrary to business. I was going to say modern business, but no, it's really contrary to all business, modern or ancient, Western or Eastern, doesn't matter. Taoists laugh at ambitious people. They are thought of as fools, as idiots. Taoists have notoriously rejected the title of the Emperor when offered by abdicating Emperors. Do you understand the importance of what I am saying? Do you know that the stupid morons you preach to in your corporate consultant role would delight, they would jump at the opportunity to be an Emperor? In my opinion if Taoist values were used in business, you'd end up with something similar to Semco or Mondragon corporation. So I suggest you look up Semco, then Ricardo Semler, and then Mondragon for inspiration. In general Taoism is highly renunciant in spirit. It is hardcore. I am not sure if there is some kind of Taoism-light that is really compatible with business 100%. Oh, and the Taoist way of motivation is simple -- don't motivate anyone! People already have natural motivations. If that's not enough, then you have to adjust your company instead of giving people a kick in the arse to work harder. In other words, if people aren't motivated, don't try to motivate them! Let them rest. Heal them. Then their natural motivation will return. That's the Taoist approach. Have you read Wen Tzu?

Your desire may be right, but your action is bad. I don't like how you and Santiago behave on this forum. I don't consider either of you to be enlightened or even half wise. You're just ordinary people who are for the most part unremarkable, if it weren't for your propensity to try to profit from spiritual truths that are everyone's birthright. Not to mention an attempt at forming a secret and exclusive little clique. That is shameful behavior indeed. I am very sorry for what happened with his son, but that's a separate issue. If Santi is too busy to talk, that's perfectly understandable. However, if he has time to answer PMs, certainly he has time to post precisely the same exact thing that would be typed into a PM on this thread for everyone to see. The only difference is clicking a different button, but the amount of effort in typing and composing the post is the same. I'm not sure if I already said this or not, but just in case I forgot to say it, Santi is more than welcome to participate. By no means do I ever reject either you or Santi. I only reject unwarranted secrecy and spiritual profiteering and nothing else. Absolutely! I absolutely and without reservation wish both you and Santiago well. May you always be strong, healthy, wise, happy, fulfilled and may all the highest spiritual treasures reveal themselves to you without the slightest reservation, obstacle or delay. That is my wish for both you and Santi and everyone that surrounds you. That is also my wish for everyone else too and I hope you think carefully about what this implies and how it relates to what I am saying here.

I think faith is just a very deep instinctive belief. For example, I have faith in the gravity. It means I believe in the gravity so much that I don't even contemplate its absence. I don't think about it. I just walk around as if gravity is true and it is. So I don't distinguish faith from belief in a big way because I think beliefs come in various strengths and depths and strong deep beliefs can be called faith. I also equate faith with optimism. To give a basic example, when I return from a walk, I like to pull the door to the building. The door is supposed to always be locked so I should have no reason to even check, right? Well, I decided that there must be times when it only looks locked when in fact it isn't. Why did I decide that? I had no obvious reason for thinking that way. I can say "I had faith that the door would sometimes be unlocked." So I started pulling on the door and what do you know? Indeed! It would sometimes be unlocked when it looked perfectly locked. I still like to do this sometimes and I even surprised my wife once by opening an apparently locked door. Of course in my mind the door is not locked. It only looks locked. I am no magician and if the door is actually locked, I can't open it. I think neither beliefs nor faith are inherently evil, but like fire, they can be in a runaway mode that makes life hard. If we believe in bad things and if we have faith in negative things, life becomes hell. That's why it's good to re-examine one's faith and beliefs, especially if life is hard or hell. If life is good, it may still be good to re-examine beliefs, but there is less obvious reason to do so. If one has a penchant for wisdom, then re-examining beliefs is just an enjoyable hobby that one can do for no apparent reason. It's just an enjoyable process where you can see how you don't have to believe what you currently believe. Beliefs cannot be gotten rid of. If you somehow think you got rid of your beliefs, it just means you believe you have no beliefs. Or perhaps, it means you have faith you have no beliefs. Beliefs are always there, friends. All we can do is make sure they're helpful, or at least, not harmful. We have some say over the content of our beliefs, but not whether or not we believe. That's how I see it.

Yes, exactly. You admit that memory is empty, right? When it comes to memory, I just take your word for it. To me, it's perfectly OK whatever your past memory is like because you're you now, and the you that you are now is OK for me regardless of your past memories. My wife seems to remember a couple of interesting past lives too. So if this sort of thing bothered me, I'd have divorced long time ago. I don't have any fancy memories myself. If anything, I think I have some vague impressions of being a dog in my past life. But it's far too vague for me to be certain. What I am certain about, is my early life memories in this life. I was aware and remembering things from age 2 and I have one memory of lying in the crib even before 2, looking up at the sky. When it comes to your memories Vajra, were you always aware of them, or is it something that showed up after some practice? I think being able to remember past any lives is a good thing because it demonstrates in a personal way that birth and death are illusions.