deci belle

I understand wu wei as the epitome of enlightened action, the way to guide non-discursive observation and one's relationship with creation. It's like maintaining a subtle continuity night and day to not go along with the flow. Why do you think it's called non-action action? This is alchemy of the highest order and the whole art of reversal in a word. Action begets karmic conditions. Wu wei does not. Good karma is just as much a botherment as bad karma. The way to live in wu wei is by being independent right now. If you are free now, then you will be free when you die.

My response? Not doing anything purposely to acquire happy feelings; and not hanging on to unhappy feelings. Just noting mental states without dwelling on them and accepting the goodness in one's ordinary existence without craving arbitrary changes to one's environment. This is close to tao and is the practice of taoism.

Really appreciate both the topic and your perspectives~ very refreshing to say the least, NeutralWire and freeform. I also work to gain a practical vocabulary from these rich teachings which helps me digest shifts in terms of changes in experiential modes. And I love the diagrams!

What is ego is what thinks about ego. Actually it is thought that creats ego. That's why any kind of practice is designed to negate the production and influence of thought in our lives. Opinions and feelings are ego's lifeblood. Ego really isn't a thing at all. Ego is just a function. Not a bad thing such as it is- but it forgets that function and takes on identity just because it can. The problem with this scenario is the forgetting part. That and the bundle of neurosis that sticks to everything it can just to validate itself because it knows something ain't right- but it doesn't intend to give it up or let it go.

It's not so much feeling great about yourself, but not noticing the feeling and getting carried away with the state that produces it and separates us from the moment. Of course, I'm not refering to one who is actually driven to "feel great" about oneself, but to those who practice meditation in action, and temporarily get carried away with conditions.

Ooh, it is so heartening when people are moved when concluding that reality is where one can arrive! So beautiful, Z3N.

Cleary's is a product of Chan/Northern School of Complete Reality, which deals with "mind only". If that is your emphasis, I recommend it highly. "Turning around the light" is the same as the "taking over creation", in other alchemical works. It is quite an audacious process. It is very much like "Art of War" in terms of actualization of objective awareness and adapting to situations impersonally. There is this aspect of "it's not about me", yet it is also "it's just me" - so you leave the world out of the equation, making it just the variable formula. What is really happenning is that you are making YOURSELF the "other". You let the "formula" deal with "other", while you take the heat impersonally. Like "The Matrix", the world does NOT want you to be doing this at all. You are actually screwing with CREATION. While "The world", becomes the situation with which you adapt, you deal with it on its terms. But, you operate on your own time-table. YOU make the world wait. Do you believe this is easy to describe? Jesus said "Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Be utterly true and sincere to this situation, but never forget that "turning around the light" is no joke. Creation is out to kill you anyway. This is a fight for your life. Do you have any doubt what life I refer to? Even if you succeed, the world will never know the difference. Why should it? Neither you nor it exist. In the meantime, all one can do is refine the self and await the time. I have been describing the time where you use the world to refine yourself instead of gratify yourself. The world says "when". You say "how".

It does not matter what others do or do not know. Neither certainty nor authority matter, ultimately. The sincere will to know for oneself is all that matters. If you question authority, be sincerely empty - or share in the very know-it-allness that seems to be at issue.