Todd

Look within. If there is revolution happening, it is happening within you. It does not have a place. Dreams are fine, what is the source of dreams? What gives them power? Is any dream worth losing that?

There is nothing wrong with what you are doing. I am merely pointing to a another way. You may or may not be interested. I am pointing to the dissolution of the distinction between spiritual and mundane. It is true that there is a cycle between open and closed. If we have been closed for a long time, open seems very freeing. You mentioned it in an another thread. A to B, B to A. Or B to C ala drew hempel... not sure where you were going with that, but you showed some insight when you pointed to the transition as the gate to freedom. This is what I am pointing toward. What is the transition? What is the fulcrum? Does it ever go away? True spirituality is not about open or closed. It is a shift in identity from the thing that feels open or closed, to the source of life. To look at the source of life, to know it from experience, is different from being it. Ultimately, we can't not be it. THAT IS NOT USEFUL TO KNOW. The question is, how do we feel? How do our body and emotions respond? Is it as if we are separate, or is it from this deeper identity? It can be hard to recognize, but that is where honesty comes in-- integrity. We can talk about the ultimate all day long, and get nowhere. Where is the edge, for us? Where can we feel it in our entire being. I can't tell you where that is. I am just making suggestions. Once it makes itself known, is it necessary to leave that edge? Does that edge have qualities, such as open or closed, such that it does not exist in one state or the other? Xuesheng mentioned it in another post, that answers do us no good (unless they destroy a previously assumed answer). It is the questions that are really valuable. Why do we jump to provide our answers? Most importantly, why do we jump to provide our answers to ourselves? This is a valuable question, though no one has to, or needs to ask it.

Stigweard, I just realized that I used "Toltec" where I meant "Tonal" a couple times in my post. I edited that. Sorry if that caused any misunderstanding. ... I don't know what the I Ching is teaching us. I always kind've felt like it was laughing at me. You seem to be describing the result. I actually don't think that there is a result. There are just changes. They aren't important unless we meet the Dao. Even then, they are not important-- at least not in relation to the Dao, from which they all come. What is the way to the Dao? What is the way to the way? Funny question that one. Do you think you know? I sure don't. This is the beginning of wisdom.

Yeah. Maybe faith helps? I don't know.

No, he's not. But in March he starts again. I mean April.

White Tiger, I second Cameron's recommendation of True Meditation by Adyashanti, although even that is a little too much. I kind've like the instruction of "Find movement in stillness, and stillness in movement." I recommend Adyashanti since he is local to you, and you could go see him if you felt so drawn. He is a tremendous teacher. Todd

Just more words. Do you know what is coming? Now never disappears. Thoughts cannot disturb it. What is that? Alright... let go of even that. Bam! There you are. Now what does that feel like? Is it really necessary to deny what you are, even in really subtle ways? It all starts from the realization that you can access. Thinking you can access it just cuts it up into little pieces. What was always there? What do you wake up to? How has it been moving?

Thanks for your message. You hit the nail on the head with crying vs. laughing, especially for me. This has to do with my particular history, including social forces, whatnot. This is at the level of becoming, however. I have sense that I will always be a the tip of the iceberg with becoming. The idea of reaching the bottom is just an idea, for me at least, and I haven't met anyone that I trust who says otherwise. It does expand, or get clearer, though. There are shifts that happen. There is a time for laughter and a time for crying. A time for boredom, and for pain. A time for tying oneself up into really small knots. There is a time for letting it all go, and a time for watching it arise anew. There is a time to resist, and a time to enjoy. I can't speak for the whole world, and perhaps what I have not really encountered will hit me soon. It already hits me when it wants. Then I wonder, and it is divine. That takes nothing away from the pain, or the confusion, or gracelessness of the appearance. But all those are just a few flavors, and there are so many flavors to enjoy. I appreciate your call to this, and to solidity. Laughter does not need to be left behind, though. It is a gift. It is one of the things that allows us to inhabit the real, without adding to the mess.

As-if is what makes the whole game go around. When we no longer try to hold up some thing, we are free to pretend, wildly. Our pretend becomes real, and disappears. This is the bubbling of life... or the song if you would like to call it that. The nature of vibration is yin and yang. Of bubbling is arising and popping. Tao is yin? Maybe not, but closer. Its funny to call it anything, since there is no yin without yang. Its not both either. What is the function of laughter? One might as well ask, "What is the function of existence?" Laughter is a particularly human (and primate did you say?) expression of the movement of the Dao. This movement is return and excursion. In this way laughter can build on itself. Laughter releases folly, into the Dao. All folly is appreciated, thanked for its existence, without any of that solemn gookiness that sticks in the craw. The dance is allowed to dance itself, in the light of humor. There are many forms of laughter, and the human expression is only one expression. Perhaps the master you know has found another way to laugh. Have you asked her? And please don't chop off my head for this question, but how would you know if she were telling you the truth?

Are you looking for something to dream about?

WYG, Lin may have a better response than I do, but the only way I know to answer your question is allow it to drop into your heart. How is your heart with it? When we stay in the head with the question, it gets all locked up. Even stillness in the head (not having an answer) is a state of rigor, or even if it is a relaxation, it cannot really live until it drops into the heart. The heart has the question that lives. It is not worried about enlightenment. It has a force greater than any desire filtered through the head, though. We can only feel it by giving up any attempt to feel. Just for the heck of it... just for a moment, let it pass through your chest, front and back, without stirring a breeze. Respectfully, Todd

Hi Brian, It seems that you are trying to set up a platform from which you might explore the broad specrum of what is called Daoism. The definition you give serves that purpose well, but I do not feel that it is accurate with regard to the Dao that is referred to in the Daodejing. First off, the Dao is not singular. The Dao is before singularity. (Chapter 42) Also, the Dao is not an order. It is not a theory. It does not explain things. It is not of the realm of knowledge. If it was any of those things, then it could be described. It could be given a name. Beyond the obvious Chapter 1, I would refer you to Chapter 21. The order aspect of the Dao might fall under Dao as an image, which is just inside of Dao as a thing. Inside of the image is a creature, and inside that is an essence, and inside that is a heart. I know, it doesn't make sense, but it points to one thing. Know further. Know deeper. Don't settle for any thing, or for anything just beyond things. What would Dao as a creature be like? Dao, the heart of the essence, has no qualities. Thats not to say that we can't explore Dao as a creature, or an image, or a thing. Thats fine, but if we don't know the heart of the essence, then it is vain to claim that we know anything. The heart of the essence is the basis of all our knowledge. All that said, I think there is a very good reason why the word Dao was chosen for this mystery. It is a direct pointer to the most simple teaching. Dao means path. Have any of us ever not been on a path? Have we ever stopped moving? What a wonderful joke. My two cents, of course. Todd (Sorry, I won't be able to continue this conversation for a couple weeks, or maybe a bit sooner if I decide to be irresponsible.)

Ok, but how does the Tao work? Something tells me that it doesn't have a concept of itself, "The Tao", doing what it does. This is where the words "more like a certain attitude" and "watching" come in. These words are relatively close to what experience is like without an experiencer, which is close to what the Tao is like. I am not trying to make one point stand out over another. I am merely raising the question of what it is that powers alchemy. You have said that it is working like the Tao works, and not having the Tao working on one. That works for me. It is true, that if there is one for the Tao to work on, then the highest alchemy is being obscured. But how does the Tao work? Lets take the example of that you gave of working with blood and artemisia and smoke. What part of that performance holds the most power? It is true that many conditions must be met, and anyone of them failing would ruin the whole affair. But assuming all of these conditions are met, including prerequisite knowledge, ingredients, timing, ect, what aspect of our actual performance is most critical? What holds the magic? I'm guessing that it was the moment of waiting for the shape of the heart of the person, whom one wants to influence, to appear in the smoke. One waits, and watches, which is what allows the heart to appear, and also allows one to take advantage of it when it does. If we take in the smoke hastily, then all of our effort will be wasted, and if we are lax in our attention, then the heart will pass and once more our efforts will be wasted. It is worth considering what role such an attitude plays, or could play, in the rest of our lives. It can be interesting to find that the attitude is not really an attitude, but I'm not feeling that at the moment, so these are just words. Also, it is not my intention to step on your more experienced alchemical toes, by using a word that you call your own, but the question that I raise might be useful to some of us. Then again, there is always the whole boiling point thing to consider too. I won't be able to respond for awhile, but I'll give it a try when I return if you want to continue the conversation.

I can't say what triggered this for you, or even what is happening with you, for sure. But I can describe something of what having these base energies triggered within me was like. It came pretty suddenly, and once it started, it just went on, popping up during meditation and throughout the day. It included massively violent thoughts, toward others and myself, and various different sexual scenarios, including homosexual (though that wasn't the bulk of it for me). My response to this was basically to let whatever rose up run through me. I didn't push anything away, or really react to anything as being gross or disgusting. I also didn't take any action based upon them. It was similar enough to any other sensation that comes up during meditation or during the day, that I just reacted the same way that I do with anything else. There is a physical energy that is released as well. I let that run through me too. It helped that I was on retreat with my teacher when this started, and he mentioned the process in a dialog with another student, with the only advice being to not resist it, and sharing his experience with it in the past. It took about three weeks before things settled down for me. That was basically accepting everything that came up and not resisting it at all. Not grabbing onto to it either though. I feel that these energies are within all of us, and always try to come up if we repress them. They can shape our behavior to the extent that we try to push them away. It up to any of us, no matter where we are on spiritual path, how to react, or not react to these energies. Its powerful stuff, but just more stuff too. There is also the thought that what we repress becomes twisted. The base energies are actually quite healthy, and don't come out as needless violence or sexual excess except when we suppress the healthy aspect of them. That thought can lead to judgment though. I certainly can't say what is or is not healthy. No one can. We find our own way with that.

I second Xuesheng's comments, especially his "quick edit". Basically we are one with everything, and that means everything. Anything that is supressed (not allowed into the light of awareness) naturally comes into our awareness. Its not really talked about much, but I feel that this is a large part of what was being conveyed by the legend of Maya coming to Buddha in the form of demons and temptations as he sat under the Bodhi tree. There is a a shadow side to us all that comes forward to be seen. It goes pretty far... basically as "horrible" a thing as you can imagine, that will come up to be seen. The key is to realize that this process is normal, and that it is something that pretty much anyone who goes really deep goes through. There is nothing wrong with it, and the less that you resist or indulge it, the smoother the whole thing will go. If there is a teacher whom you resonate with, then by all means consult him or her. It is important that you resonate with him or her though, since a bad teacher is worse than none at all. In my opinion, the best thing that a teacher does for a student is to help him to relax into an entirely natural process. You seem to have already tapped into this view, but just to reinforce it, everything that comes up is you in a way, but none of it defines you. It is an expression of what you are, which is more than you can ever imagine. You can relax knowing that there is nothing that you can, or need to push away.

Yeah, I understand. Its a big block of words, after a bunch of other words. This application of the attitude of alchemy to the rest of our lives was what I was trying to point at with all of those words. It took me a long time to get there, but if you didn't read anything that I wrote in this thread, this quote would be the take home message: I guess I'm trying to blur the line between conscious active participation and unconscious participation, if that makes any sense. I get the apparent need, but we end up where we started in a way. In fact, I am guessing that our arrival is in proportion to our realization that we never went anywhere and that that is a very beautiful thing. We never went anywhere and all that stuff happened! Well anyway, more words. Thanks for participating.

The last two nights I have tried to express something, and both nights I have failed pretty badly. I'll try once more, in the spirit of walking into the unknown. What I want to express is a vision of the dynamics of existence that is not rooted in any particular tradition. By not being rooted in a particular tradition, it can be applied more freely than those that come from tradition. It is not that there is anything wrong with joining a tradition. It is just that my personality finds them limiting, and distorting. There is truth in most traditions, but due to the nature of words and thoughts, as they become codified, they become twisted. That is a really interesting inquiry in and of itself. How do the people who are most intensely seeking, and even finding truth, end up creating such monsters? I don't believe that it is actual evil intent, but more just an innocent misperception. If there is evolution in the sense of from bad to good, then it would be this misperception that would have to be outgrown. It is a stretch to assume such an evolution, and in fact, nothing I am about to say will really support such notions. I am digressing, though. In order to construct a vision of the dynamics of existence not based in tradition, we might be best off starting really simply, and then seeing if it is necessary to add anything else. We are speaking of dynamics, since it is readily observable that the world changes. Nothing stays the same, not completely. Oftentimes times things will radically alter. I can look at you, and then you walk away, and I am looking at the window you were standing in front of. That much is readily observable. Another way that things tend to change, is that over time our bodies change; we get older. Opinions change. Interests change. People die. In noticing this change, many, if not all of us, begin to want to affect the way that this change develops. Since things are changing all the time, we reason, why shouldn't they start getting better and better and better? This is the birth of ideas about how the world can be a better place. This is the birth of ideas about magic and about alchemy and about religion and about science. All of these disciplines have historically been intertwined with the movement to make the world a better place. It doesn't matter if the world is defined as an individual or the collective. It is a drive toward a change that is subjectively perceived to be superior to some other change. How do all of these disciplines go about accomplishing this project? There are many ways that have been, and are being tried. However, within all of these disciplines there is a thread of selflessness. They have all recognized on some level that we just don't seem to get what we want for very long, unless we somehow are able to give up the seeking (and the seeking creates the self, hence the term selflessness). The seeking is what created the disciplines in the first place, so that puts the practitioner in kind've a pickle. Most practitioners end up giving up the seeking within certain limited contexts, while diving full force into the seeking in other contexts. We play this game in so many ways, that I can only barely begin to explore it in this discussion. We only need to look to our own lives for examples of this, though. We have all managed to let go of the effort to get something, and then things have worked out really well. We may even be able to do this with regularity in certain contexts, such as playing a musical instrument, or meditating, but what about when someone does something that really annoys us? How do we react then, even if only inwardly? Or else, maybe we still really think that the desire for enlightenment is actually noble, and is helping us to get closer to truth. "Everyone should do what I do, and achieve the results I have achieved. Or even if they shouldn't, they would probably be better off if they did." The whole time, we are ignoring the fact that it was only by letting go of our demands on the world in some limited area that we achieved anything at all. Oftentimes we achieve something through a kind of control, but that achievement is not really an achievement, since the limited progress in one area is actually due to regression in other areas. Its kind've funny actually. We can export the attempt to control from one area of our life to another area. It seems then, that as long as we are attempting to honor the principle of selflessness in only a limited area of our lives, hoping that somehow this honoring will seep into the rest of our lives, we aren't likely to get very far. It is true that within the limited area that we are able to realize selflessness, we will see tremendous development, but this is often at the expense of regression in other areas. I might realize that I am the universe through a practice, or even through just looking at things in the right way, but then I start thinking that not many people know this, and isn't that too bad. If I do this, I have just taken a tremendous insight into my true nature, and turned it into a giant wedge between myself and others, immediately obscuring that true nature. The question arises. Is there a way to tap into the power of letting go, without making the trade off described above? The answer, in my experience, is maybe. This vision that I am sharing is more of hypothesis than anything else, but maybe we can let go, with all of the wonderful benefits that that entails, without grabbing on tighter somewhere else. The key, once more a hypothesis, which can only be proven or disproven in our own experience, is awareness of the pattern. We need to realize that if we are going to let go in a way that isn't merely rearranging furniture, then we need to let go all the way. Not only can it not be achieved by effort in some small corner of our lives, such as the hour and a half or four hours or 12 hours that we meditate each day, but if there is any corner of our lives into which letting go has not penetrated, then the desire for control will concentrate there, and burst out upon us again, undiminished, as soon as we give up vigilance. This is not a call to give up practices, but merely a call to explore the power behind our practices, and to invite that power into the rest of our lives. What happens to any moment, when we allow it to be as it actually is? In our practices, we have already found the answer to this question. Amazing things happen. Beauty happens. Joy happens. Insight happens. Compassion happens. Just so action happens. It feels good. Things transform. That is why we do our practices. But why not give recognition to what is actually happening. Why not give recognition to where all of these good things come from? They come from moments of letting go and watching what occurs. What would happen if we did this in every moment of our lives? My hypothesis is that any moment that we are able to let go, whether it is a formal practice or not, becomes imbued with the same power that our practices are imbued with. Any moment can be alchemy. This is an invitation to notice, and to explore.

Rex, What about the the inner and outer elements and the void being connected would be different than what is happening right now? I like what you said about alchemy being a kind of aesthetic sensibility. I'll riff off of that for a bit. Please let me know if any of this resonates for you. If we take alchemy to be a kind of aesthetic sensibility, then we are really speaking about an attitude. There is an attitude that leads to freshness, and enjoyment, and transformation. It frees up energy to play. It is this attitude that drives alchemy. There are many different words that refer in some way to this attitude: song, relaxation, surrender, enjoyment, love, awe, exploration. They all point to different aspects of the same attitude, which can never really be captured with a word. Perhaps a lot of words will do a better job? hehehe... Well here goes anyway. The difficulty of capturing the attitude of alchemy is its radical simplicity. Even the YES that I referred to above is too complex. To say YES as a word, is to go very far from alchemy. Anyone who tried to say that YES probably just felt kind of bound up and false, unless it just happened to resonate with them, and they went beyond the YES. They saw where the YES was coming from and spent a moment there, checking it out. So where does the YES come from? Actually, thats not what we are talking about. To describe alchemy, we need to describe what that place is like. What is it like to stop before the YES? When we stop there, waves and waves of YES crash over our shoulders. We do not know where we are, but we can feel the force of the universe changing everything that we see and feel. The funny thing about this, is that more often than not (for me at least) such a sensation doesn't really register the way that it might seem to from its description. There are no words for that sensation, so there is nothing to grab onto. Feeling everything as it moves, is more like feeling nothing, in terms of words, but that nothing is the force that moves the world. Most people grab onto something very soon after entering this perception, and that something has a lot of power to it, since it is derived from the place of true power. That something also leads straight to suffering, until one lets go. It is a pattern that we repeat until we do not repeat it any more. Assuming such a thing actually happens, which isn't necessarily important for us in this inquiry. Upon hearing such a description, a person might have many different responses. It might be dismissed. It might be analyzed for consistency with previous experiences, or received teachings. It might be recognized and let go of as mere description. It might be thought of as something beyond where one has gone, and as more reason to buckle down and meditate more. I love meditation, but why should we sell ourselves short? We actually live in this space, whether we know it or not. It is merely recognizing it that is often left out. That is where we started this whole discussion. Alchemy is an attitude. And one of the biggest obstacles to this attitude is thinking that it is somehow special, or distant, or alien. I need to do this, and this, and that, and more of that, in this way to get that view. What if none of that was true? Not really. All of the things that we do to achieve this view, are things that are done within it. The view already exists. That might seem like abstract theory, but its not. The view already exists. It doesn't exists just within me. It exists within you, right now. It has enjoyed every moment of your life. So how do we recognize that view? It is very simple. Where is your enjoyment? What is enjoyment? What brings enjoyment on? What enjoys? I know. Its too simple, and its even simpler than that. Well anyway, let me know if any of that resonated with you. It wasn't really directed at you, but just playing around. A bunch of junk, but thats only if we are looking for truth. I'm also still interested in your response to the question I started this post with. ... Vicki, Ain't that the truth. Peace, Todd

I really like what Mat said. Peace, brother.

Here's an interesting question. Is the sense of no I-ness more a function of having assumed that there was an I for a really long time, or is it inherent in the recognition of truth? Does the recognition that we are everything that we see (and also nothing that we see) have to be explicit, earth-shattering, or is it before all that, and wordless? I identify with what mantis said... he describes one of the openings, which is more the result of, rather than the reality of opening to truth. Entering the Dao, we might say, though that has so many meanings... Perhaps the simplest and easiest, that one can enter the Dao before anything manifests, is also the most powerful. Sometimes I wonder how much we are helping ourselves by identifying this with spirituality. Just offering counterpoint though. Maybe it has something to do with the depth cloud recluse was referring to. These sort of openings can occur with no background in spirituality, and so remain relatively pure, but they might also no receive very much attention. They feel more like a gentle breeze, that we appreciate when it arrives, but we don't go running around trying to feel another gentle breeze. Perhaps the spiritual context focuses attention, so that one might explore those moments, or rather, that truth, more deeply when it arises. It is the easiest thing to pass over, and yet it is limitless. But then we grab on . Lovely. Or then we don't? That movement ceases and so does the thought calling I. Alright, poetic license...

Or water to water. I've struggled with this as a separate self who has some recognition of the uncommunicable. It seems like the most obvious thing, yet it seems to be ignored most off the time by most people. I used to not really want to interact without establishing some sort of understanding at the level of the uncommunicable. I'm starting to think that that was just a really clever way of not seeing/being what already is. Funny stuff, huh?

I love pinching. A great tool that one.

Hi Lin, I am curious about your usage of the word "more" with words that already have "-er" endings. One of the reasons I am interested is that it was a habit of Max's at the Kunlun seminar that I attended. Is this just poor grammar, or is it a hypnotic tool? Or something else? Best, Todd BTW interesting discussion on karma and conditions of the mind... I'm enjoying it a lot.

I thought I understood what were trying to say, but the words were something else. Tiny little differences, sometimes make a big difference.