Todd

We never know where truth will lead.

I don't know much, if anything about this whole transmission thing, but it might be that Cam is getting results since he's already plugged into the whole Dao thing. He's already interacted with an enlightened being or two and looked into his own experience while with them. For me, if there is any truth to this practice beyond more experiences, and more seeking, then it is a way of tricking us into stepping into the Dao and staying there. I can't say. And there's nothing saying that a person with sincerity can't use untruth as the gate to truth. There is no other gate. Also, maybe we've bumped into an enlightened being or two without realizing it... who knows? maybe we all got the transmission without even realizing it.... what a crazy idea. I am very thankful for experiences I have have had and continue to have with a being who points to the truth of us all. However, my first four teachers, are: 1.Everything 2.Everyone 3.Nothing 4.No one. The list varies a bit in order, from time to time.

I suppose emptiness can be used. I used it a lot before I knew what it was. What I didn't know was that it was using me the whole time. About buddhism: your description is of what you THOUGHT buddhism was. You experienced your thoughts about buddhism. I don't know what buddhism is, but I do know that many people have very different experiences of it than the one you described. It may be that the thoughts you ended up with about buddhism were given to you (as perhaps all thoughts are), and it is also possible that the people teaching you buddhism believed similar thoughts, even if only unconsciously. This doesn't change the fact that your experience of buddhism was created by those thoughts, which you carry around to this day, distorting your perception of the possibilities of the world. You also seem to carry around a lot of thoughts about what taoism is. That doesn't mean that you don't have some access (or total access if you're willing to drop the iceberg) to what taoism can point toward. In fact, when you are trying to prove how special taoism is, you often dip into fairly decent descriptions of truth. It is innocent that you might think taoism is special if moving into things related to it led to a return to your body, and to the world. I would suggest that the iceberg you feel separating you from Laozi's truth, is nothing but your thoughts. It is possible to not think about the white monkey. Well, no, maybe not. But it is possible to not have the energy follow the white monkey. Its a kind of skill. It is hard to learn if we don't intend to. It hard to learn if we have no idea what is happening. It is like we are born blind, and with a particular curse (and a blessing) that we must always be moving. We keep bumping into things. Sometimes its a nice soft something. Sometimes it hurts like hell. If we don't recognize that we have some control over our movements, that we can choose to move one way instead of another, even though we have no concept of direction or of movement even, since we were moving before we were conscious, then we just keep bumping into things more or less at random, forever. Waking up is like realizing, "Oh! this is me, moving into things. I'm not sure what movement is, but I'll be damned if I didn't just miss that big sharp thing that I'm always impaling myself on around this time" Thats when things change. Its still darkness, its still moving, but we begin to navigate, even without concepts of how to navigate. On a more down to earth level, we all succeed in not thinking about the white monkey... there i go again... we all succeed in not sending our energy after the white monkey with thousands of things. For example, you might put no energy whatsoever into anything that I'm saying, because you KNOW that it is not true. You've just seen right through it. Its like somebody telling you that you have six fingers on one hand and two fingers on the other. Or like someone telling you the world is a place to be run away from because its wrong. Totally false. No energy.... unless, you think that you need to combat such false beliefs. Thats one that I get trapped in from time to time... Its good to talk, but this all goes so much deeper than any particular THOUGHT... though it is those thoughts, when they are believed, that create our world before love.

Intuitive knowing is the movement that we are when we do not know. It can have an intellectual component, which we often call a realization. The intellectual component can also just be discrimination operating, like knowing what words refer to, or knowing to stop at red lights instead of green lights. Knowing is not believing any particular element of this intellectual functioning is true, or that things should change at a particular time, or should not change. That is the danger inherent in thought, that we might think it is true. It gets really seductive when it comes in the form of transcendent or all encompassing realizations. Not believing (or not knowing in the conventional sense) allows movement in accord with truth, which seems so right, but can never be grasped and made right forever. To keep knowing we remain as we are, still and ever, moving. Blah, blah blah...

Taomeow, Do you see any contradiction between the first part of your post and the last? I think you described the process of finding an answer quite beautifully. Crystallization out of potential. The longer we spend in potential, the more encompassing the crystalline structure can be. I would disagree with one thing, though. The crystallization can never become a source of truth. The crystallization is actually the movement away from truth. If we live in potential, then the crystals are closer to truth, but they can never produce life. They are dead. They are dependent upon the potential, dependent upon what gives rise even to wonder. There does not need to be a crystallization for the potential to exist. It is the only thing that actually exists, and it requires no effort to exist. That is why it lasts. Anything built by effort is subject to the law of entropy. Haven't you noticed? If we quiet down our efforts, we might notice what actually lasts, what actually exists. Tough pill to swallow though, huh? I sympathize. I'm not even sure it should be swallowed, though it seems you have already been tasting its benefits. Sean once said something that I ended up remembering: "My intelligence is really just a measure of how long I can go on about something before I hit I don't know, which is the ground." You already know what I don't know feels like, so those words might have meaning to you. Why keep looking for something else?

The metabolic feedback loop metaphor is a good example of the intertransformation of Yin and Yang. Good stuff to us TCM students. If we ask ourselves fifty questions in a minute, there will be no sense to any of them, and nothing much is likely to come from them, except perhaps a headache. What interests me is how questions produce answers. I've always felt that the good questions take awhile before answers come forward. Surely you've experienced this. Good questions stop us, and then we wonder. Out of the wondering often comes an answer, which can be so thrilling. We are so glad to have the answer that it is pretty easy to overlook the wondering. In my experience, the purest pleasure comes not from the answer, which is thrilling, but from the wonder, which flies. It is easy to overlook that the thrill of answers emerging from wonder, emerges only from wonder. Answers are like the contrails of wonder, and as soon as we shift our being from the flight of wonder to the vapor of an answer, then we have no choice but to watch it fade over time. Luckily for us, we aren't actually able to shift our identity from questions to answers; it just seems like we do... there is no separation. The seeming can be quite painful though. That is getting a little ahead of ourselves though, into answers, which never did anyone who believed in them much good. So how do questions produce answers? Have you ever noticed that answers that are quickly given to tough questions are likely to be without much worth? This is the realm of conventional faith. These sorts of answers usually boil down to something like, "Because so and so said so," or "Because thats what I believe," or "Because thats what I think." Original thinkers (as well as artists, and even athletes, or just anyone who does something really well) are all relatively comfortable in the space in which a question exists, but an answer has yet to arrive. This is more common in their field of expertise though. I'd bet that you experience this sometimes, maybe even really often, before you write a post, or as you are in the process of recovering a memory, or as you do any of the things that you are good at. What would life be like if we realized that this doesn't have to be only an occasional process, dependent upon certain predisposing factors? It doesn't have to be. It is already what we are, and it only takes our willingness to see that. Willingness comes only from experience, and experience only comes from willingness to see what we see. What we see is a question. Every question is a manifestation of wonder, which flies. Who would have thought that it could fly forever?

Which have you found to be more useful in your life, questions or answers? Which one, in your past or current experience, lasts longer? A particular answer or the feeling that expresses itself as a question?

I know what you're talking about. Cultivation leads to a lot of states. At some point those states have as much or more intensity than states created by drugs, and the opiates can mimic those states. In one sense, those states have a different quality than those created by drugs, in that they don't necessarily lead to degradation of health, and often quite the opposite is the case. Who knows, maybe drugs lead to wonderful things from time to time, but it doesn't seem to be most people's experience. In another sense, the two feelings aren't different at all, since they are both states. Maybe not everyone on the board has had experience with both opiates and meditation, but I bet many of the cultivators on here can relate to what you're talking about.

That is an interesting article, with a lot of potentially good advice for someone dealing with liver problems. However, her reasoning with regard to Chinese herbs is mostly flawed or incomplete. Per my studies and references: Chinese Gentian (Long Dan Cao) is a cold herb that is used to treat Liver Fire and Damp-Heat conditions. It is contraindicated in case of Spleen/Stomach weakness, especially for use alone, and should be used in such cases only with caution in a balanced formula. It is a strongly acting herb with the potential to damage the body (the Spleen/Stomach system) when used inappropriately. Bupleurum (Chai Hu) is a cool herb that relieves Liver Qi stagnation. It is also useful when external pathogens are trapped between the surface and the interior, which is known as a Shaoyang condition. It guides such trapped pathogens outwards to be released at the surface. These two herbs would work well for someone suffering from Liver Fire due to Liver Qi stagnation, which is likely what the author suffered from since she had a good response to them. For someone with her condition, Dang Gui, Ren Shen (Ginseng), and Gan Cao (Licorice) would not be appropriate, since they are all warm and tonifying, which would exacerbate the internal fire and increase Qi stagnation. Of those three, only Dang Gui has any moving property, and it moves Blood, not Qi. Qi stagnation is usually described as the initial organ disharmony in excess conditions of the Liver. Therefor the immediate root of most excess Liver conditions is Qi stagnation, and not Blood stasis. Blood stasis may result from Liver Qi stagnation, but treating it is only addressing one of the branches and not the root. The author may have a point about plant estrogens exacerbating her symptoms, but her history can also be understood in TCM terms without much difficulty. It might not be the best thing to generalize about all Liver conditions or women's menstrual issues based upon her experience. I guess this is an example of how we don't need to understand something intellectually in order to follow our experience and intuition toward better health. Though it might be best if we don't then decide to tell everyone that our way is the way for them too.

Funny you should mention cyborgs. I've been using the cyborg metaphor for my experience a fair amount recently. Naturally, I've been using it differently from how you just used it. To me, the cyborg parts of myself were the ones that were true, and the human parts were in reaction to being in contact the cyborg parts. Imagine a metal breast with a ragged edge of flesh bordering it, inflamed and twitching occasionally. This metaphor seemed natural, since truth doesn't have any problem with untruth... only untruth has a problem. A macabre metaphor when it is separated from the felt sense of hyper-aliveness of truth--- moving so quickly that it might just seem still. Well anyway, thats was mostly just a place holder for deeper experience... a way of avoiding a deeper what is. As far as everything being a dream or not, you are absolutely right. Everything is not a dream. Everything is most definitely something. If it were not something, who would be having this conversation? We could get into the semantics of, "sure its something, but why can't we call that something a dream? Perhaps it is useful at a certain point to call that something a dream? After all, isn't a dream something?" That aside, lets just say that everything is not a dream. However, as you have often said, most people do not experience everything with nearly the immediacy and richness that they could. The reason for this may just be all the things that we assume to be true about ourselves and the world that are not actually true. Since they aren't actually true, and we insist on assuming them, the natural result is that we don't see and feel things quite as they are. This distorted perception feels like disconnection. The question, for someone who wants to feel more connected, becomes, "How do I realize that the untrue things that I assume to be true, are not actually true?" Thats a good one. We've a got a lot of answers to that one. Cultivate until your energy gets so strong that it burns all falsehood away, and you merge with the universe, yet remain distinct. Give up everything and let the world take you. Say God's name ten million times. Do good works. Love your neighbor. Recapitulate evolution, integrating all species that ever were into your personal being, becoming the pinnacle of life. I can't speak for anyone else, but none of those seem to work, as long as I haven't examined the basic assumptions that are creating my experience of separation in this very moment. They might work for a bit, to create an experience, but they always seem to fade as long as we aren't prepared to go all the way into our more basic assumptions about existence. This is where descriptions of the world as an illusion come in handy. If a person hears this at the right time, in the right state of mind, then they might just begin to examine everything that they once held sacred. I can't speak for Mr. Twain in this regard, but as far as I can tell, references to the illusory nature of existence are only useful when they are used to inspire such unrestricted questioning of the nature of existence. "What in the hell really exists!? I hear this, "everything is illusion," and it strikes chord with me. In fact, I've always known, somewhere, that nothing is quite right, even when everything seems to be going right. But here I am, asking the question. I can feel myself-- being. But what the hell is really happening? Where does this feeling come from?" Funny thing is, that though someone who takes that all the way might describe the result as realization of nothingness, here they still are, talking to us. Nothingness and illusion are just words, which only describe movements of being. Nothingness is just a movement away from illusion, described as nothing since it is actually the ceasing of false movement. However, it easily becomes another illusion. Illusion is tricky like that. Thats enough spouting off, but I'd like to add my appreciation to Taomeow for the prodding. We'll see if I grab onto these words, as I have onto others in the past. Its a good learning experience to watch myself start believing thoughts, even as I am trying to open a door for others to question their beliefs. The key word there might be "others." This dialog may also just be uncovering tendencies to belief in me that would have remained hidden if not for the stimulus. Though it may also just be a cul-de-sac. Either way, thank you.

I remember writing a paper about Huckleberry Finn in high school. It was an analysis of the sporadic poetic imagery to be found in the text. I correlated the occurrence of this imagery with information about his life from the introduction to the book. I think I was basically trying to say that he had competing drives-- one to continue to be a writer of popular fiction and to gain money and renown thereby, and another to express the immediacy of ecstatic experience and awe. I was generally a disinterested student, but I worked long and hard on this paper and when I got it back, I received the lowest grade I had ever received on a paper, "C+". Its cool to see that maybe my intuitions about Mr. Twain weren't completely false. Thanks for posting the excerpt.

Thanks Yoda, though I don't know much about Taoism. Its great to have you around too!

If you feel that it is a problem, I would suggest you explore your tendency to side-step experience by searching for interpretations. Get to know it. What is it like? How does it arise? What does it feel like to search for interpretations, or to settle on a particular interpretation as sound? What comes of these sorts of movements? I would also suggest that you not settle for any answers that feel like you could grasp onto them. Answers that can be grasped are like judgements about people. They aren't helpful if you want to get to know someone. Getting to know someone is much more about feeling. And what happens when that feeling gets stuck somewhere? So explore how it feels to seek interpretation, to grab onto answers, and get to know your problem. Get to know it like the most interesting person you've ever met and the sun on your face all wrapped up into one.

Obviously the word "ego" would be an anachronism if applied to classical Daoist thought. However, the thing to which "ego" refers, when it is used well, is something about which Laozi, at least, had a fair amount to say. This "ego" is a verb, a motion that obscures the Dao. The word "ego" is often used to refer to this movement, since one of the primary ways that we obscure the Dao is by obsession with the idea of a personal self, which can gain or lose things. There is nothing wrong with such an idea. It is as much a part of everything as anything else, and much entertainment comes from it. However, people like Laozi saw something else to pay attention to, something which, in contrast to the idea of a particular self, actually lasts. He saw his particular self fade into insignificance, and what was there then? The uncarved block, the undyed cloth... the dark beyond dark. Whatever floats your boat, just so long as you don't think its any thing, or that it can be gained, or has been gained. A huge part of the Taoteching, and perhaps all of it, if I could understand it correctly, is basically a description of this state, which boils down to don't do the whole ego thing. Don't move from what actually is, if anything actually is. And if nothing actually is, don't move from that. Don't move from nothing, and don't move from something. Don't move. Maybe going from description to prescription was his way of acknowledging the futility of description, though he talks a bit about the goodies that we enjoy when we are ready to acknowledge them. The ego is just as much a mystery as the Dao. It is not seperate from the Dao, so it is small wonder. Use whatever word you like for it, even incompleteness, or unintegration. However, you might consider that it is not so much incompleteness or unintegration, as the sense of incompleteness and unintegration that often obscures the Dao. You might have a point though, that it is not so much ego, but the sense of an ego to be gotten rid of, that often obscures the Dao.

A potential lead is the "Super Sleep" CD by the Monroe Institute. It is used to reach deeper states of sleep at night. My former psychology professor did her PhD on people who recovered from fibromyalgia, and one of her subjects maintained that this CD was key to her recovery. She apparently turned over a hundred other fibromyalgia patients onto this CD, most of whom saw great benefit or recovered. Keep in mind, this is third hand information, and I have no personal experience with this product. My professor's take on the overall process of recovering from fibromyalgia, was that those who took the illness to heart, and really examined their lives, tended to go through some sort of spiritual transformation and ended up feeling thankful for their illness. She also said that many fibromyalgia patients aren't so interested in those sorts of things though, and don't usually recover. That said, she also said that a lot of people recovered using just the CD, which as far as I can tell, doesn't induce spiritual transformation. For what its worth....

What is meaning? Also, what effect does meaning have on your cultivation and life? I'll lay my cards on the table and say that I think meaning is an illusion, and is one of the greatest obstacles to cultivation and to free flowing life. This might just be my biases showing through, though. Perhaps my tendency to seek meaning makes the realization of its absence pretty freeing for me. Perhaps those who run from meaning might have a different perspective. Or perhaps I just don't know what meaning is? Can anyone clarify this for me? How does this look to you?

Perhaps it might be useful to make a distinction between content and meaning. I am in no way denying the existence of content. To do that would be the mental equivalent to having my head up my ass. The fact that this conversation appears to be happening is proof enough for me that there is content. Meaning however is something else entirely. It is a result. Something happens, and there is a result. The key question for the existence or lack of existence of meaning in any situation is, "Does this have any result?" In most situations, this can be answered in the positive (and the more open we are, the deeper the ramifications of any event). However, when one considers one's existence as a whole, "Is there a result?," the only honest answer (for me) is, "I don't know." Considering this, it was a bit silly of me to say that meaning is an illusion. But I can also say there are times when the belief that there is meaning, that there is a result, drops. It disappears into a simple acceptance of the fact that I do not know-- in fact I'm not even sure who I am. If I don't know who I am, then what thought can there be of there being a result to who I am? Its even hard to phrase the question in a way that is comprehensible! Its a bit like describing a dance move to someone-- not likely to mean much unless they are following along, or have done something similar in the past. Hearing the dance moves explained verbally, one might wonder what all the fuss is about. But if we actually dance the dance, if we are actually honest enough to allow ourselves to not know if there is a result, then a whole world opens up. At first it might not seem like much, since we've all been here for our entire lives, and here has always presented itself to us whenever we have stopped insisting that it be something else for even one moment. However, for most of us, we have not allowed ourselves to be here for very long. And one of the ways that we pretend that we aren't where we are, is with silly beliefs in things such as meaning, a result that might be achieved, when, if we are honest, we just don't know if such a thing really, ultimately, exists. Taomeow: It may be that we are just using different versions of the word meaning. It seems that you have meaning connected to a certain immediacy of experience. Nothing I said above denies the value of that. But is a result necessary for such immediacy to exist? Immediacy is content as it is, before we start carving the block, as you so astutely point out, but what effect does saying that it has, or will have a result have on the block? Trunk: Good thoughts. But given the distinction between content and meaning made above, can there be abstract thought without believing that it has an ultimate result? I know that abstract thought is a part of my content at least, though at times its absence can make the non-ultimate nature of thought very much clearer. Rex: That is a danger in using words. These words may be more dangerous than others, too, since they are so obviously useless or counterproductive to anyone who doesn't take the time to find out if they are really true for them, and to see what that is like. Words never are the truth, and believing in any of them is pretty silly. I hope no one takes anything I say as anything more than invitation to look at their own experience minus a preconception or two. Or else as some guy's babbling on. Freeform: I like the blah exercise. I'm not sure if I do it the way you suggest, but it brings a smile to my face to replace the thoughtstream with, "Blah, blah, blah, blah..." and to return to the richness of life without coherent thought about it.

Welcome.

It seems that when we get down to brass tacks, we are in agreement. However, we don't seem to be meeting at the brass tacks level in much of this discussion. Thats fine with me. The brass tacks level never meant much of anything anyway. I do not remember myself as a two-day old infant. I am confident that such an experience is available to those who want it, and it is possible that I may want such an experience some day. I agree that an integration of the past seems to be an element of embodiment. However, this experience seems to hold no more inherent value to me than sitting here typing to you. It is all play. To think that it is anything else is to grasp, to say, "This experience is me!," and to deny one's identity as the Tao. Indeed, what use are concepts of the Tao? What use is it to say, "I am the Tao," or "The Tao is mysterious" or "Twenty percent of everything is unpredictable and governed by chance," if we don't know that they are true? They make nice arguments, and create a nice identity. We can even separate ourselves from the world with thoughts of ourselves being one of the most connected beings that we know. What about all the beings so foolishly denying their connection? Are they just lost? I admit, its counterintuitive to look at the world from the perspective of no ultimate meaning. In a way, it is to go against everything that we experience. I am not even saying that someone should look at the world this way. It is just that if we stop grabbing on to this and that, and we stop pushing away this and that, thinking that somehow, someday we will be more connected than we already are, then that allows us the see the infinite connections that already exist. They can't not exist, since everything is the same thing, and the appearance of variety is this one thing's play. However, taking one step further, this one thing relates only to mystery, and seeing that is the revelation of nothingness. Nothingness (or Shen level of Tao) is not a thing to be sought; it is the marrow of all this existence, as you often eloquently state. If I haven't answered any of your questions, please restate them, and I'll try to be more direct. I wasn't sure what entity you were referring to when you asked if I identify with it. As far as "eternal" entities go-- I have no conceptions of being any such thing, though such a mystery may be what you and I and everyone is.

Dubaya? Ok, so we have a workable definition of meaning-- the connections between things. In the progression that you presented, nothing has meaning in and of itself. It is only when a thing connects with something else and there is a result (as there has to be, or else what use is there in saying that there is a connection?) that meaning arises. This seems obvious. But what happens when we go deeper with it? When two things relate, or as you say, connect, they create a result. This result, or third thing, can be called meaning. Another way of looking at this meaning is as a wider context. When I respond to you, there is a conversation, in which a meaning, yet to be determined, arises. The result off this conversation, in and of itself has no meaning, except that it connects to something else, and an even wider context is formed, out of which comes some result. My question to you is, "Is there an ultimate context? Is there a relationship that encompasses all relationships? If so, what is that context like? Does it have a result? And if there is no result, what use is there in saying that it has meaning? What would it connect to?" As far as the gun to my head analogy goes, to say that I need a reason to not do a positive action seems to me to be assuming something that perhaps we might be better off not assuming. This inquiry goes much deeper, but before it gets too philosophical, I'd like to connect it to our experience. In some of my questions above, I was assuming that there is an ultimate context. This does not have to be an assumption. It is not ultimate in the way that we normally think of it. It is immediately available in our lived experience. What about you has always been there? Have a look. From yourself, you can run, but you can't hide!

My TCM studies are going well. There are ups and downs, as with everything, but overall my interest and involvement with my studies has been growing. I was mostly following an intuition when I started, and experience has continued to point the wisdom of following that intuition. Time will tell though. I like Jeannie's approach with the words. Simplify what we tell ourselves about our experience in the world, so that we might see the common elements. If a person goes from telling long involved stories about what he is experiencing, to recognizing a basic, "OUCH" or "HELP", perhaps he might recognize where Jeannie is pointing at and let go of even those words. What I said above can be simplified as well, which it seems you were trying to do. Namaste.

I'm not even sure how to approach this topic. Let's start with truth though. Truth is a good place to start just about anything, so why not? Truth is everything. Truth is not a quality that permeates everything, or the source from which everything comes. It is EVERYTHING, the material that we can touch and smell, the thoughts we have, our emotions. Another name for truth then becomes, "what is." Perceiving this is oneness. The perception of oneness is not all or nothing, though it can seem that way. The only way that we might honestly use the term, "oneness," is if we have a perception that encompasses all things. However, this perception usually (though apparently not always) starts out as something more like a sheen on the surface of all things, rather than their very substance. To perceive this sheen is quite profound. It is not everyone who notices that everything one perceives, or can imagine, is the same in some immediate way. It is natural to focus upon this perception, since it is the only thing that we experience that is all encompassing. It is magnetic. However, in this focusing upon the sheen of things, sometimes we miss the substance, which does not seem quite so all encompassing. It is fortunate that the lure of just the sheen of things eventually begins to wane. It is inherently unsatisfactory, and we are drawn more deeply into the substance of things. We are drawn into all that stuff that doesn't seem to quite fit into our new perception. What happens from there varies widely from person to person. In the bigger picture, however, oneness expands and expands, until one day we find ourselves right smack in the middle of everything, and everything we can see or imagine or feel is us. Actually, I'm not sure if this ever happens in a complete way. To perceive what is, with that level of certainty, is likely the potential trap of oneness, just as to perceive nothingness (which is neither here nor there ) with absolute certainty is the potential trap of nothingness. We can never know what is. We can only continue to be it. There is a point at which oneness really comes home, though, and we realize that it is not a matter of perceiving oneness, but of being it. Oneness is all of our illusions. It is everything we ever wanted to escape. It is everything we ever feared, everything we ever hated, everything that bored us to death. When we realize that, our response to all those things tends to change. We can see how previous actions are actually the reasons for what is currently happening. More importantly we begin to see the principles involved, that there are ways of acting, tendencies of action, that create everything we hate. We notice that the tendency that leads to suffering, both solid and psychological, is a would be movement away from what is. This is where "one fighting" becomes conscious. Before, "two fighting" seemed to be the rule, but we drop out of that, and fighting just goes on. That is because there is a momentum to existence, as past seeds bear fruit. It is resistance to that fruit, which is the planting of more seeds. All that seed stuff is just moralistic junk, which might be just the thing for some people at some times, but it doesn't have robust life until it is rooted in the direct perception of oneness. The switch from "two fighting" to "one fighting" can happen at any time though, and it is the basis from which the direct perception of oneness (and of nothingness) develops. All that is needed is an intuition that perhaps the struggle isn't where truth will be found, and a willingness to keep our eyes open without the struggle. This is essentially what all true meditation is. It is also known as surrender, and is something that most of us have experienced at one time or another, even if its only to a cold, or to a bad day. Its often amazing what happens after that.

Its fine if you don't want to talk about it. I appreciate that you did say something, since now we are closer to having a genuine conversation. When you say oneness is always "there", where is that? I may just be picking at words, but sometimes the words we use are clues to the relationship we have with truth. It may also be that you skipped the stage I was referring to with "one fighting." What do I know?

I wasn't asking to get a correct answer. I was asking to establish this conversation in experience. I'm not really interested in presenting coherent explanations of various topics. There are enough of those in the world. I am trying to find out where you are at, so that we might establish a connection there. If we don't start right where we are at, if we aren't willingly to look at exactly where we are at, then its all idle chatter. Thats fine too, if thats what you want. Its just not what I'm in the mood for. For the fun of it, I'll pretend that you answered that you have a sense of oneness that comes and goes in terms of how large it looms in your consciousness, but you also have a sense that this oneness is always there no matter what is happening in your consciousness. Sometimes you are less sure of this. When you think of oneness, your mind basically shuts up, because it is much bigger than any word can encompass, and you're not even sure oneness is the appropriate name. Lets also say oneness is more apparent in some situations and less apparent in others. Maybe in nature it easily becomes obvious, whereas with difficult people it can go right out the window. Obviously I'm just making this up, but lets just say. Then I might say, "Ok, there is a sense of oneness that comes and goes. When it is present I'd wager that it is all encompassing. That means that everything you see and think of has a similar quality. What is happening when it goes? Are things no longer one? Is oneness an experience or one of the basic faces of what is?" You might reply, "I don't see what you're getting at. Perhaps it would be better if you explain what exactly you mean by two fighting in war and one fighting in war?" Then I'd look inside myself to see what is happening. Who knows what would be said from there.