deci belle

-k- said: I came on to add one thing to my last post to say that floating around in the center of the compass refers to keeping a subtle consistency in watching over one's thoughts and feelings in the midst of everyday ordinary conditions— this is the conditions I refer to, and also the illusion. We live in a dream. Our own dream. It's ok! There is no other dream (for each individual)— it is the nature of the created. It's just that the nature of perception is uncreated. This is what is us, and that is what we do with this light, unawares. It's just the way it is. But we can avail ourselves of the light, because it is us. Why? Because in this light is not only dreams of our making, but mystery upon mystery, not to mention a key to participating in everyones' dreams with awareness, objectivity, sagacity and delight. Here is the other point I wanted to add: it's in Lao Tzu chapter 16 "…preserve the utmost quiet; as myriad things act in concert, I thereby observe the Return.", can illustrate preserving a subtle concentration in the midst of the conditions one finds oneself in. The perspective of inner quiet affords the delicate sensitivity to observe the return. We breathe; alternating in succession, it is called respiration. Seasons do it, the waves coming to shore do it. The source of our universe does this and the living aware energy (potential) does this. Our own functions are modeled after this alternating rhythm. In the evolution of situations, we call this cycles of yin and yang. When breaths of potential return and you sense it~ that is called observation. When you observe the breath of creation, you gain a bit of detachment, as well as intimacy in your relationship with the world, because the nonpsychological aspect of perception is spiritual. So, floating around in the illusional, conditional ocean of our situation means we conduct ourselves with flexibility. Keeping to the center of the compass denotes the still, quiet perspective necessary to maintain equipoise within the evolving situation/condition/illusion enabling us to sense breaths of potential. It's not "out there" …it's you. As one learns to enter the mystery, the connotation of "illusion" and "conditions", loses it's ominous aura. It's just the nature of the beast. But the dragon has a pearl which we can steal.❤ ed note: added— "enabling us to sense breaths of potential. It's not "out there" …it's you."

-k- said: It doesn't even make any difference before one tastes true lead, real knowledge. At this point, one concretely recognizes external reality as wholly subjective. One knows one is responsible for the illusion one is experiencing. This is a preliminary operational stage described as sense returning to essence, because one becomes consciously aware of true knowledge, where conscious awareness/yin is tentatively balanced and harmonized with true knowledge of the mind of tao/yang. I would call this unrefined elixir— when firmness/other/sense is first called back to re-unite with flexibility/self/essence. One's self uses flexibility to impersonally abide in the knowledge in order to adapt to conditions. Why? Taoists call this stealing potential. This is gathering energy by not using it. Worldly beings use energy (create illusions) to go along with conditions. Enlightening beings go in reverse by not using (not speculating) in this energy. Buddhists call this saving energy. The body itself knows how to use this energy for spiritual evolution when we are unminding in everyday ordinary situations. Though we recognize thoughts and feelings, we do not validate them. We are all this sameness, this energy. The difference is in how we use it. What is seen is immediate knowledge that is keyed on potential, forever present. We are not separate in this. Though no one knows one's seeing, it is a matter of adapting appropriately and freely to the situation without projecting, oneself forever present in order to match potential. The power of nonpsychological awareness dissolves obstacles inasmuch as obstacles are like thoughts~ they dissolve when we take note of them. Still, since we do not deny characteristics and freely give of ourselves by changing along with conditions, it is in acceptance of or immediate acquiescence to conditions that allows us to stay centered without going along with conditions; going along with polluted energy in order to find out what happened. If I said …going along in order to influence… (the situation), that would imply a selfish relationship with conditions and an illustration of concentration damaged by insight. In alchemical terms this is inability to withdraw the fire. Eventually, as we slowly penetrate the influence itself— in order to get to know it, we simply enter the tao in reality. So we use conditioned, polluted karmic (created) energy in order to transcend it: we use the disease as the cure. Though this is not calculated, it is a sublime strategy. In The Art of War this is called "victory depends on the opponent". This is what I mean by seeing through things. We are not isolated, nor are we good. We just begin to learn to respond impersonally and appropriately, with gusto— with acute sensitivity to inspiration and the timing of the inevitable. After re-uniting with sameness, obviously— all is thusness. When phenomena are accepted without denying characteristics, either before or after realization, potential is the same. This is why it doesn't matter. When one has the mind to match potential, awareness and energy is a mutual response to conditions. As exorcist-1699 mentioned, when one has access to to nonoriginated mind, energy is there to meet it— so we know that energy cultivation, grafting, or mental gymnastics is not the thing. ed note: added "— with acute sensitivity to inspiration and the timing of the inevitable."

Please do, Shen!

— by Westerners …Considering the fact that the European Enlightenment only recently has come to pass within the last 500 years, anything the west "markets" is touted as a recent phenomena~ as long as someone will buy it. Would you buy a used idea from this man? Intellectualists learn to trans-literate an ideal which has itself undergone countless changes within its host (insert exotic non-euro culture here) before gleaning its franchised "truth" in order to see itself transformed in its new hip fashion. Intellectualist pursuits such as this are for those old enough to know better and a perennial rallying cry for the 18~24yr set. In reality, anarchism is nothing more than a parasitic fantasy forever dependent on that which it is not: a mode of production. Since it can neither seduce, it must share the same fate as its equally contrived polemic counterparts. But I digress …with apologies to Harmonious— I would have enjoyed the excellent article, if I didn't know better!!❤ Taoism's function is a cultivation of secret anarchy. It doesn't have to oppose. This is authentic iconoclasm, for it has no need, or functional apparatus for opposition. Opposition can indeed be effected, but opposition or rejection is not what defines it. In this respect, taoism does not support government from without, only because it doesn't see it as something to oppose. That's why it can't be grasped itself. It's also why it has been around since the incipience of human culture— it is the source of culture, not a product of it. How long has the class act that arrived at proper political anarchism been around? That is not to say the substantial tao, which is what political anarchism would deny …and would take inconceivable ruthlessness of impersonal nature as a separate reality, apart from human organization which must somehow be avoided at all costs as the vapid polemic itself seeks to approach the very fantasy of its own non-organization. Too bad we can't approach the reality of our own non-origination with the same in-the-street fervor. It really is pathetic. My only hope is that an avid Sartre-phile will see this and be furious for my casual use of punctuation! Sartre himself didn't do punctuation but to please his publisher. The reality, the ideal, the function, and the substance is already intact and functioning, thank you very much, is the answer to the question "…but how does it work?". The outwardly expressed phenomena is puerile. As in all political organization, it is a matter of consensus. Well, there is no consensus in terms of the absolute, and there is no consensus of enlightening activity in terms of arriving at secret application of virtue in everyday ordinary affairs. Aside from the few charismatic autonomies and shamanic folk-taoism which predates this authors time-frame by eons, and the church taoism which imitated the newly arrived foreign phenomena of Buddhism (its tradition of celibate monasticism arbitrarily imposed by the Chinese elite for matters of national security), taoism has no basis in quantative authority. It is, in fact, an open secret shared by those who know whatever aspect of the reality they have the potential to arrive at in any given situation. Much like Gnosticism, it cannot live by decree, but by naturally exclusive knowledge and by the kind of practice that keeps the knowledge alive. And aside from the intellectual conceits of those who thrive by words who would imply influential hegemony by their own account and those who would know only enough to be a danger to at least themselves and resent it, taoism, in the practical sense, doesn't need to announce itself, nor can it— in order for it to operate naturally according to the time, not by a country, but by inconceivability; not in service of people, but by reality. The independent charismatic political organizations of the Celestial Masters, et al, were creations of their time by people in certain locations, never intended for mass consumption nor for coddling those with entitlement issues intent on garnering (in)dependent lifestyle guarantees. In short, taoism is not the product of an human yearning but a perennial nonpsychological adaption to reality, in order to follow it. The effective result is selfless realization and the kind of impersonal objectivity that defies description in terms of its application, which is spontaneous, effortless and spiritual. Tell me, if I'm being dissy… Insight of the most fallacious kind, perhaps— by this author …not taoists. Taoists don't reject anything. Even buddhas don't reject anything— that is something acolytes do. Immediate acquiescence and impersonal adaption is enlightening activity. Non-resistance isn't a matter of pacifism— its a matter of knowledge. This is inconceivable to even noble intellectualism, not to mention authentically righteous and oppressed mobs being sold in public by users of users. Who's co-opting the Wall Street protesters today, hmmmmm? This article begins as an in situ view of the phenomena of the Zhao dynasty beginning to crack (without the author knowing it), but is actually describing the second manifestation of the Han after 200AD. I just can't go on with this outsiders' pedantic balderdash and poppycock any longer! He tried, and I tried too, Harmonious!! It's a re-recapitulated romanticization of the noble taoist at its…kindergarden yuckiest! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! But you knew that!❤ (ed note: add (in) as in (in)dependent

Aware nature does not negate phenomena, neither does it dwell on it. Detached contentment is escapism, not enlightening being— it must never be one's goal. In the 70s, I used to take the labels off my Patagonia (before counterfeit labels and when Patagonia was still called software, as opposed to the hardware in the front of the Chouinard Equipment for Alpinists catalog). Even before I turned pro, I realized I owned it; that I employed Jeniffer Ridgeway and Jane Sievert— even when they didn't know it, so in support of their efforts, the R+D/"rip-off and duplicate" team and the vision of the founder, I stopped removing the label. Now it means nothing more than utility of the design function to me— which is precious wherever it is found, regardless of labels. In spite of labels …doo love my Chanel~ and now I am flaunting…❤ (ed note: add part about counterfeit labels and apology~ heehee!)

Wow, K! That sure works for me!❤

Why is the Art of War a revered classic in the taoist canon? Contention happens. Why only view killing and gross violence as such. Faces and words are war. Thought is war. Fighting against war and killing is war and killing. It has to be. Ever read the Bhagavadgita? Read it again.

Harmonious said: Oui!! It's something is happening for those dedicated to now, and for those, this is through and through.❤ …as you wish, Qian Xie. It's true~ and this aspect falls directly into operations of yin convergence where parallels in the Art of War are most apparent. I call it recognizing gaps. They all need to be filled depending on the situation. I just go along until the time is ripe, then I clamp, or hook, or release, or hide, or ride, or fill the gap. After it's sealed, there is no before and after; assessing objectively, adapting impersonally and then acting decisively, there can be no regret. It all depends on the configurations of potential that the other brings. Of course, this is a delicate juncture… but the resolve must be resolute, impersonal and clear to be effective, otherwise a sense of forced adamance will require adjustments to effect balance. The 2nd line of the 63rd hexagram may shed light on this. (ed note: add last quote and comment)

Excellent! Thank you for clarifying that, Apech.❤ Now I know better!!

Yum!❤ hahahaa!!❤ Osiris know better than to complain like that… It's just her script!! Reminds me of Chuang Tzu's admonition to plant the useless tree in the vast plain of Nothing Whatsoever, roaming in effortlessness by its side and sleeping in freedom beneath it. (ed: change LaoTzu to Chuang Tzu in last paragraph)

What makes a sage is not-knowing. Sages realize not-knowing themselves. It is not expressed by another but is the result of being sick of being sick. Do you know? Is is so easy as being told that it is so? I think it is not so easy. It is not a matter of agreement. The sage has no sickness because of knowing causelessness. Sickness is in not knowing ignorance. Seeing that one is ignorant is only the beginning of self-refinement. Having a self is the reason for sickness. Not-knowing is seeing nature. Laotzu doesn't stop at the disease But makes it the point of departure. So it's not enough to be satisfied that the sage is not sick. One's own sage is not sick right now. Do you know?