deci belle

The reason there are teachers is to manifest the application of subtle awareness by treading the path of prior illuminates in endless transformations. When the elixir is purified in the furnace and cauldron of the heart of heaven and earth it comes out as inconceivable violet mist. It must be sealed away in secret and incubated until it is mature. When there are teachers to authenticate and certify the achievement, it can be assured that one's effort has not gone in vain. Still, one is no different than ordinary people in that potential is no more in sages and no less in ignoramuses. As before, there is sameness in the midst of difference and the nondifferentiation of absolute and temporal has no beginning. This is why there is nothing gained by complete perfect thoroughgoing enlightenment, and one is then a function within creation yet not subject to it. Enlightenment is just evidence of the efficacy of one's practice— in truth, there is no before or after in terms of subtle operation freeing potential from the midst of creation. The reason there are teachers is to manifest the application of subtle awareness by treading the path of prior illuminates in endless transformations. Really it is teachers are the manifested application of subtle awareness treading the path in endless transformations of prior illuminates because in terms of stepping over, there is only looking back on the path's incipience as the teaching is the voice of Return, which is the action of the Tao. Therefore it has always been a "looking back" by prior illuminates because this is how the knowledge is kept alive. What this means is, in Dogen's words, "People become buddhas and buddhas become people". Though there is before and after, even in terms of people and buddhas, the action of subtle operation in the midst of ordinary affairs never changes. So even though we say one sets up the furnace and cauldron again (in the aftermath of sudden enlightenment) to enact advance practice, the operation is the same. What setting up the furnace again implies is that the emphasis is different. Before one refined the self and awaited the time to transmute, whereas now there is nothing that is not it. ed note: typo in 4th sentence; changed that to than.

The reason there are teachers is not to offer views to seeklings because essence cannot be taught: People must see essence on there own. The reason there are teachers is to guide those who arrive in the aftermath of realization. Essence is inherent; it has only to be witnesses oneself. Stanzas 8 and 9 insist that essence cannot be taught, therefore there are teachers to make the work gradually clarify itself. Since it is necessary that illuminates seek teachers in the aftermath of the sudden, therefore teachers are necessarily qualified to assess the firm planting of the seeds of buddhas and work the tongs in the forge of mastery of subtle operation and advance refinement in the gradual path in the aftermath of the sudden. After Bodhidharma left the Emperor of the north who did not have a grasp of emptiness he left and faced a wall for nine years. Even the Buddha sat for years after his enlightenment under the bodhi tree. People should understand that enlightenment does not confer buddhahood.

In just this "on one mental moment there are past and present of all worlds" you do not entertain fascinations regarding self and other and eternity is traversed. You have no changes here~ and though the depth and breadth of creation has been completely transcended without stooping to movement or stillness in terms of self and other… before the first thought one already knows. Since the entire past and future matrix of karmic evolution constituting creation is comprised in one mental moment, it is possible for those with discipline and insight of enlightening being to dispense with this residue of action which all creatures detest before a single thought. Taking the forward step independent of self and other, before and after, good and bad is the result beyond convention that no longer entertains fascinations regarding feelings pertaining to objects or outcomes. One ceases comparisons and leaves the whole of creation as if it were a brackish leaking trickle streaming galaxies without end, because it is just that in reality. Before and after, stillness and movement, self and other have their increments, yet what constitutes change has no power over one who has no part in their sameness because it is no longer another time, another direction, another person. All are self. Since it is self without beginning, where could it go? This is stillness which is not arrested and movement that has already arrived. Even so, this is inconceivability known by oneself alone, independent, free of causation.

When self is refined away to nothing, there it is as it has always been all along within the real body which has no location. Realizing this is the discovery that right now is as close as one can function in harmony with the tao in reality. It has no timeline. Those who enter this and arrive in terms of authentic presence are perpetually refreshed within potential inherent in ordinary situations as a result of there being no differentiation in fact between absolute and temporal. Reality is neither. Tao has never begun. Nonoriginated itself is the meaning of beginningless. It is immediacy already present. Lao Tzu started nothing of the sort. Tao is not a thing invented by people, much less a people. The Flower Ornament Scripture says that Universal Good is the source of civilization, not by a country. It is the source of people's aware nature; not by people nor limited to them. Tao is not culturally bound. It may be the source of Chinese culture, but not the other way around. The Unborn is universal. It has no identity. Enlightening beings know no identity. People who would identify with or as anything do not know tao. Discovery of one's inherent nature is literally older than sin because there have ALWAYS been people born with the knowledge, people who are naturally imbued with discipline and insight, people who's perception of reality is clear. Then there are those who have the natural aspiration and unstoppable will to discover their essential nature. Humanity is indebted to their potential that has kept the knowledge alive in spite of the critics bound to convention.

Then should we not aspire to this nondifferentiation as the definition of our own lives expressed in terms of inherent nature? This would naturally require that we first discover what is inherent in our being no different that life itself.❤

Since this is so, before the first thought~ who does the beginning? Just this is the maw swallowing and spewing the source of religious activity from time immemorial and beyond. This is the crux of the matter of birth and death, arriving at the totality of oneself and the fundamental function and realization of causeless nonorigination void of emptiness, energy replete at the cusp of going into action in perpetuity. Open aware selfless nonbeing. This is not a person, not a thing; it has no location yet blazes without beginning in your own skull. Before the first thought, who can know this one? Since this is so, who is this transcendent wisdom likened to a conflagrant mass of fire?

wibbly wobbly inconceivably natural nature!! haha!!❤

I'm hoping HE will update this list as he seems to be more on top of the situation than I.❤ It's actually quite possible there won't be a Complete Reality section as well as the Contributed Articles section from what I'm hearing… Anyway, these titles have served me well over the last 20 years~ I've actually worn out the Taoist I Ching, The Book of Balance and Harmony, and if Thunder in the Sky weren't hardback, it would have been replaced already~ haha!! I have a very tiny collection of books (about 50cm wide on my little shelf) The Taoist Body (only the last four chapters 7~10) by Kristopher Schipper. trans from the French by Karen C. Duval Red Pine's Taoteching and Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma Thomas Cleary's collection of translations culled from the teachings of the Complete Reality school of Taoism in the Taoist canon: I only have a few of the many Shambhala titles. The Taoist I Ching by Liu I-ming (1796) The Buddhist I Ching by Chih-hsu Ou-i (17th century) The Complete I Ching by Alfred Huang Kuei-ku-Tzu (4th century BC) Tung ling chen ching by Keng-sang Chu these two volumes appear in the translation titled Thunder in the Sky The Secret of the Golden Flower (T'ai i chin hua tsung chih) by Lu Tung-pin 400 Words on the Gold Elixir (Chin tan ssu pai tzu chieh) aka: Inner Teachings of Taoism Understanding Reality (Wu chen p'ien) these two preceding volumes were written by Chang Po-tuan ca. 11th century CE Immortal Sisters: Secret Teachings of Taoist Women (Sun Bu-er and others) Huai-nan Tzu (122 BC) Chung ho chi by Li Tao-ch'un (The Book of Balance and Harmony) 13th century CE Sun-tsu ping fa (The Art of War) 6th century BC Vitality Energy Spirit: a Taoist sourcebook Cultivating the Empty Field by Hongzhi (12th century) translated by Taigen Daniel Leighton The Unborn by Bankei translated by Norman Waddell Flowers Fall (with commentary on Dogen's Genjokoan) by Hakuun Yasutani trans: Paul Jaffe Avatsakam Sutra (The Flower Ornament Scripture)

That is a great package in V2, P— I have those individually and I agree with what you said about them!!

Yay! Thank you for adding that, EH❤

Stepping over eternity is not some other time, place, or person. On one mental moment there are past and present of all worlds. The 5th stanza is just saying there is no other time, place, or person and there has never been so. It's just you, here, now, for the first time in forever; there are no precedents and no causes to influence your limitless ability to adapt to the time freely. When you yourself are done weaving hairs and creating your own entanglements unawares based on views of self and other, on one mental moment there are past and present of all worlds coming and going without end comes to an end for you. So stepping over eternity is a matter of being done with the world on your terms. That's what stepping over is. From now on, you can respond selflessly, impersonally and precisely, according to the timing of situations on your terms, because there are no dependencies, no needs, nothing to differentiate based on self and other, right or wrong, before or after. It's also taking over creation and stealing potential according to the time too, because knowing the pivot of creation, you stand subtly aside, somehow, of the influence of creation. At the right time, you just pick out the real from the matrix of the polluted simply by not going along with the flow of conditioned energy. It's a very strange affair, because, in a way, it is like deliberately putting your self into a trap you know has been set up by circumstances, and without wanting or needing or being compelled to do so, you just trip the trap at precisely the exact timing called for in terms of the celestial, full well knowing that that is what you have done. It is never a matter of reasoning, but of the time. But you neither do anything after that that a normal person could be expected to do because your motivation had nothing based on convention. You just know it is time to act, then you just stop. And that is all I can say about it. This is inconceivability that no one knows. You don't even know it. You just know that it is up to no one but you. This is enlightening being and the beginning of the Virtue of the Receptive where response according to the timing is inconceivable.

Even so, how could I mislead others by saying there is relying on an instantaneous flash of selfless wonder and enable the conceits of the ignorant to blaze within their very hypocrisy that claims enlightenment isn't "that big a part" of taoist teaching either. Stanza four relates what a comfortable little spot that rat's nest is. Stepping over eternity simply has nothing to do with seeing essence. Sudden enlightenment has its own bag of worms that must be dealt with in its aftermath that can very well take years. Some never exit the dark cave of attachment to the absolute after seeing essence. Don't think enlightenment is a thing~ before OR after. It is simple an evidence of efficacy in terms of one's ongoing practice— that's it. I never had a clue that some people sought it as something to strive for and it took me years to figure out what the hell had happened, but eventually I did— you see, I never had anyone to tell, much less ask for thirty years. I don't believe this or any other forum is that big a deal in that regard, in terms of learning stepping over eternity and accomplishing the subtle operation of endless transformations surpassing an instantaneous flash of selfless wonder. There are people born knowing. The very fact of stepping over is what facilitates gradual practice before and after realization occurs. As long as one does not gain a sense of potential in actual affairs that is transcendently inherent in situations themselves and recognizes it as such in order to follow it and not the phenomenal realm, one might as well, as they say, be boiling sand instead of the alchemical elixir of immortality. You will never accomplish the great transformation— even if you want to. How much the less for those who don't even bother to wonder about and work at discovering the totality of their real immaterial body. So there is that special brand of taoist that considers enlightenment a thing it is not and also claims taoism is not about giving birth to immortal enlightening beings. This is like living off your parents even after they're dead and claiming that all their inconceivable effort that now provides for your "day-care" taoist life-style isn't all that big a deal. Consider the peerless ancients who accomplished complete reality and entry into the tao before actually writing the classics. Who never bothers to wonder how they could have actually arrived at the understanding of complete reality to accomplish the task of leaving the secrets of the knowledge of the Causeless behind for us?!! I assure you that not a single one of those people passed off spiritual enlightenment as "not all that big" a deal. Utterly unconscionable is what this kind of person is, wallowing in one's own conceit of ignorance and doing absolutely nothing to requite an inconceivable debt and all the while throwing around terms like yellow sprouts, cultivation and the like. What a comfortable little spot that rat's nest is. ed note: Add "Stanza four relates…" near the top of the page

Ya P~ I had been into the gnarlier Complete Reality stuff when I got turned on to Liu's Awakening book, so I never bought it even though I'd love to have it on my little shelf. I could still fit a couple more volumes on it (2~3) haha!! Anyone who studies this stuff is indebted to Liu I-ming for his utter command of the subject matter and clarity in elucidating it for those who have the will to see their essential nature and enter the tao in reality. What works are in Taoist Classics Volume 2? All of Shambhala's titles in that series have been compiled and re-packaged into fat hardcovers since I've been using them. I'll bet other bums might like to know as well. I find The Sun Tzu indispensable in terms of gaining a sense of the psychological terrain in ordinary affairs and therefore saving huge amounts of energy. Thanks for all those ISBNs!! I really value the Taoist I Ching because it helps one to strip one's analysis of the times of events of intellectual and emotional content and bring it down to the bare abstract medicinal or energy level for ascertaining the gravity and degree of potential in terms of the firing process: i.e., advancing or withdrawing the fire and yin convergence. As far as reading goes, I can burn through a couple paragraphs in as many days if I'm not too careful about gazing off into space… hahahaa!!❤ I absolutely do not ever try to understand this stuff. People must remember that this is not about intellect. Self-refinement is a matter of refining yourself away completely— which is a natural affair when you empty the mind and fill the belly. It is intellect that fears this process because essence and life is not about thinking. This is a matter of unbending intent without regard to length of time. Eventually, it will crap out. It will go p00fs!! yahaa!!❤❤ Do not apply intellect as a matter of practice itself. If you do, it's like telling your mortal enemy all your secrets …baaaaad!! When you cease to exist and realize what has been there glowing all along it is because you succeeded in forgetting words. Words prop up intellect. Intellect is the seat of identity. Identity is the fallacy at the root of the karmic compulsion to act— which is what perpetuates itself. Empty the mind by not using it. Avoid Vmarco's brand of hodge-podge (collage) creative intellectualism~ if only because complete reality isn't thinking. Similarly, using the classics as speculative recreational philosophy that isn't grounded in your intimate situation to find out what it does, then you can transcend meaning and image. It is only when you succeed in blowing a gaping hole right through the written word to do begin to gain a sense of entry into reality itself. That and constant reflection on the situations I'm dealing with at any given time as I read. Application of the teachings in real time is fundamentally the way to go without a doubt …otherwise, why bother? Of course, that's just me. I just relate the teachings I'm reminded of while reading/reflecting to what is actually going on in my life at the moment.

Since stepping over eternity is perennially active as the result of the power of impersonal intent independent of conditions, obviously it is not a matter of movement either. Not stillness, not movement; not self, not other— Sudden enlightenment is the result of just this kind of activity! Stanza three just says that stepping over isn't something one does, it's just one's functional posture symbolic of acting beyond the confines of karmic evolution. One enters the path of prior illuminates by responding to reality, not our habitual self-reflecting image of a separate identity dependent on its relativity with externals we are either killing or being killed by. It's not a strategy, but strategy is the result of its mastery. This is the very reason why The Art of War is included in the Taoist canon. BTW, it was written by a woman long before ink ever saw the page.

Stepping over eternity is accomplished momentarily without relying on anyone else, so it is done independently without involving cause, therefore it is not a matter of response but rather the result of recognizing nonpsychological spirit. Stanza two says one traverses creation, transcends fascinations with it and one's relative sense of being it, in an instant. Independently, without relying on causes and conditions, as a result of recognizing the unborn nonpsychological spirit before a single thought, one steps over the totality of karmic rule and the tyranny of having a self, the fallacy of identity. This is the place where one enters the path of adepts in the midst of ordinary situations unbeknownst to anyone.

Stepping over eternity isn't a matter of seeing your nature because the unattributable nature of awareness is inherent. Inasmuch as it's you already, there is no eternity to speak of, therefore there is no stepping over in terms of realization. The first stanza is just saying that stepping over eternity is not a matter of mystical experience, because the absolute exists before the dichotomy of yin and yang, i.e. it's not created, therefore it isn't in the scope of discussing "stepping over". You don't step over what is inherent, only what is conditioned. Eternity is Creation, numberless universes arising and subsiding in one mental moment, its depth, profundity, self-sundering allure and fascination; the totality of the might of Mara and rule of karma.

Don't forget to list that book's ISBN while you're at it P, it's a good one!

hi PG❤ Awakening to the Tao lies in the dim mists of high mountain air. It is a lovely primer I recommend highly. My dharma pal and (don't climb any more) former climbing partner and long-time initiate associated in one Bay Area Tibetan lineage, would bring that when we'd go climb rock+ice in the Sierras. I was shown proper meditation posture and have me sit while throwing rocks at my knees— I forget why that was necessary, but I never once forgot to say OUCH! These books were written before ISBN numbers— just be glad they have titles in English and do some digging!! heehee!!❤

In terms of dark virtue spoken of in the 10th chapter of the TTC, I say yes. But beyond this, you make a good point, because in terms of the Power and its Virtue, the way is inaccessible in its obscurity, but its virtue is all we have for its expression— and its expression is impersonal as is its (and the nature of our) unborn awareness, so yes again. A point I made earlier was of not habitually adding (oneself) to situations, that is, habitually taking it upon oneself to assert intent in terms of speculative relationship with creative (karmic) evolution, because this then is arbitrary action, which perpetuates karma and your entanglement in it. This nondoing activity is virtue. Finally, the Yin Convergence Classic speaks of the Virtue of the Receptive. We can't know the Way, even in terms of penetrating the absolute and seeing our essential nature's nonoriginated causeless nonbeing and transcendental function. The reason the sage does not act and the master carpenter does no cutting is because of this. Practicing this is, from the start, all anyone can do before and after realization because this, and only this, is in harmony with our impersonal nature and what naturally accesses the power of incipient spiritual development. Not one tiny aspect of practicing this function's reality entails entertaining intellectual understanding, so there is no reason why my eye's awakening can possibly limit your eye's awakening. What is most important then is not acting arbitrarily. Because of having weaned ourselves from habitual investments in conditioned phenomena, we are then open to receptivity of the arising of real potential in the very midst of our worldly affairs.

Oh, I don't know… I'm just writing about the same things as the classics, hydrogen~ but, I admit that I may concentrate a bit more on the aftermath stuff, as that's where I'm at (not teaching students). The fact is that before and after (realization) are no different in terms of the fractal aspect of the lifetime defining a cycle of creation whether it be a relationship's or event's waxing and waning. Self-refinement is being tuned into the timing of the firing process of the medicines as opposed to self gratification, that's all. That's where going along and reversing diverge. Using the alchemic model either before or after is similar, but the emphasis is different. Just watching for the mind that does not think is all one can do in the beginning, but it doesn't have to be formal meditation. All I took to heart in the beginning was being mindful of natural goodness in myself and others, not as a blanket exoneration, but as it manifested spontaneously in ordinary situations and being sincerely content in that as the basic truth of human nature. It just kinda took off from that. That being said, yes, acceptance of intrinsic goodness and also of one's basic state in the midst of everyday ordinary situations as is, is all anyone can ever do. Regardless of one's capacity for or present conscious development, just this is the highest practice, because it is already naturally so— and as it is so, it will never change; only grow. This is the constant subtle concentration of whole unified open sincerity from start to finish. Without it, there is nothing to work with because Complete Reality is already just what it is. When this is recognized and accepted, and one ceases adding anything to it, the path opens up naturally.

At the right time, just out of the valley, You rise lightly into the spiritual firmament. The jade girl rides a blue phoenix, The gold boy offers a scarlet peach. One strums a brocade lute amidst the flowers, One plays jewel pipes under the moon. One day immortal and mortal are separated, And you coolly cross the ocean. —Sun Bu-er East Mountain walks on water Though there is no such movement Still it flows on black as space. Endless transformations within self and other Without deliberations setting up self and other Comprehends the pearl hovering before causes. What unifies sense experience and the Unborn has nothing to do with mystical awakening Stepping over Creation is just forgetting fascinations. Forever free of self-reflective fixations And self-degrading entanglements You wander along a slight incline.

Those who know the valley spirit by having penetrated the immaterial aperture of the mysterious female have no sexual identity. How then could the nonpsychological spirit of the heart of heaven and earth be categorically differentiated by outsiders clinging to descriptions? How does one describe that which has no location? The puzzle is without remainder, only entertained by the doubts of the human mentality. The valley spirit is where potential is activated; where change originates. The mysterious female is a metaphor. Mystery is movement: yang. Female is stillness: yin. Neither yin or yang, East Mountain walks on water.

The task is the "door". The gate is the opening and closing of the Mysterious Female. The Art of War states that victory is up to the enemy and that the general must choose the ground of death in order to live, find the place of victory, and wait there for the enemy to fulfill its fate. Adepts know the gate and door of the Mysterious Female and wait there for the inevitable to arrive. Here are two terms not customarily used: inner and outer Mysterious Female. This from Thomas Cleary's notes to his translation of ancient alchemic poems of female adepts in Immortal Sisters — Secret Teachings of Taoist Women. 1989, North Atlantic Books ed note: add the comments above the quote attributed to Thomas Cleary.

I don't get all ready and proceed to do heel-breathing, but it happens spontaneously on occasion. It is possible to do it deliberately, of course~ but I don't bother trying. I don't even know why it happens, but I'm sure some people do. I don't have an extra eye that needs funny ski-goggles or anything so i can see through guys' um… that's what tights jeans are for~ hahhaa!!❤❤ The dharma eye or wisdom eye is open, yes. People don't necessarily try to fool me, but they sure do fool themselves and are perfectly happy to take anyone along with them down those purloined paths, if you know what I mean. When one sees essence, impersonal primal knowing is accessed. Thereafter, according to one's continued gradual refinement in the aftermath of sudden awakening, the dharma eye develops. It is referred to in the alchemical manuals as "a grain, and another grain…" to denote the developmental capacity of endless aware potential in terms of the unfolding of the Golden Flower.

Other than the fact that one's life is a candle in the wind, one must not tarry nor rush ahead. In the past I've climbed huge granite walls. There are instances where a piece you've attached to the rock is slowly slipping out as you calmly affix the next higher piece. The most efficient means to avoid disaster is to neither tarry nor rush ahead in spite of the fact that there is absolutely no time to spare …that's what gets you there.❤ I don't practice other than adapt to everyday ordinary situations. The issues and problems provided by conditioned evolution is all there is to work with. By not going along with potential in terms of its inherence as created manifestation, one is effectively seeing through phenomena. In so doing, one does nothing as far as the matrix of karmic momentum is concerned to resonate with it and this then is why potential is absorbed because you do not resonate with the polluted. You are a magnet for potential while the conditioned created energy slips past by virtue of your nonresistance and nonattachment. You are already the same as both, because you do not differentiate, but real potential is living aware energy and the manifest is polluted potential death energy. As soon as yang culminates in the situation's creation cycle, it reverts to yin. When this harsh killing energy arises as it always does, adepts are poised to withdraw the fire and seal it away void of intellectualism. In harmonizing with the real in the midst of the false, your wuwei/nonaction is resonant with primal nonorigination. It is a natural, inconceivable subtle operation requiring absolutely no intent or effort. Wuwei doesn't happen, it's not just you— it is inherent in the situation itself. It is the result of purity, truthfulness, sincere openness and unbending impersonal intent that cuts through every bit of it all at once in perpetuity. By not using what can be seen in the course of adapting to situations for self-gratification, one is using the world for self-refinement instead of perpetuating a habitually random opportunistic speculative relationship with the world. This is "turning the light of awareness around to shine on its source" in everyday situations. That is what practice is for me. I just lump everything else into "formal exercises" because they are construed to arrest and neutralize the human mentality and emotional consciousness in order to give the weak original aware nature something to rest on in the beginning of a student's return to naturalness.