sean

Awesome. Sean

"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you" - Nietzsche Over the past ten years I've gone through several periods of time, lasting between a few weeks to a few months, where my awareness of the number 333 occurs so frequently and synchronistically it's as if some form of communication is being attempted via this number. I will suddenly look up from my work to look at a clock the second it turns to 3:33. My total at the convenience store comes to $3.33. I get the urge to stop and eat at a new restaraunt and realize after I place my order it's #333 on the block. etc, etc. Anyone familiar with the history of Western magick will immediately recognize the signifance of the number. It's the dreaded number of the demon Choronzon, named by the famous John Dee and Edward Kelley who stumbled across it in one of their Enochian workings I believe. Later Aleister Crowley reportedly battled Choronzon and even came to define "it" as pretty much the closest thing to evil; a caustic legion of nasty guardians of The Abyss between samsara and Enlightenment. So naturally I've been fairly self-conscious and even alarmed at times when struck with the idea that some terrible demon has been trying to communicate with me for over a decade. Last night though I stumbled across an interesting article by Demitria Monde Thraam (DMT) of the Choronzon music project that really made me stop and reevaluate my understanding of Choronzon, Thelema, Chaos, and the Tao. DMT believes that, basically, Choronzon has been misunderstood by the patriarchally influenced (my spin) Western tradition that is bent on ordering, binding and controlling entities, instead of approaching them in the spirit of relationship as you would another human being or even most animals. In the particular case of Choronzon ... well let's just say he/she/it doesn't really appear to enjoy being bossed around by humans or stuck in a box. Perhaps Chaos is only "evil" when viewed through the distorted lens of an ego disconnected from awareness of metaphysical oneness with the Tao. The incomprehensible complexity and diversity of Chaos, of the noun-less, dynamic, shifting sea of phenomena is only terrifying to an ego clinging to the ever-dissolving parenthesis of the little self. From the perspective of Enlightenment, maybe Choronzon is more like an aspect of Geburah. Or maybe even more like Binah herself! The Mother of form, the dark, primordial sea from which all forms emerge and also ironically the home of The Goddess Babalon who Crowley saw as the very power keeping Choronzon in check. There is also an archetypal resonance with Shakti, the raging force coiled at the base of the spine anxiously waiting for an opportunity to swath a fiery path of wanton purification through your nervous system. Thoughts of the wrathful diety Mahakala even come to mind; perpetually in motion as a holy being, but a terrifying encounter for the weak and evil aspects of your self. And in another sense, and this is probably most in alignment with DMT's perspective, is Choronzon as a personification of Tao itself. Unnameable. Even as Unameable. At the very least I feel that contemplating Tao in it's untameable organic wildness as Chaos provides an interesting contrast to the typical mindset we (or at least I) fall into when inundated by the heavy Western emphasis of Tao as Order or Tao as One in the naively simplistic sense of one as lacking color and energy and diversity. Sean.

I'm quite sure it's better than my Chinese though.

I used to be more into Hermetics. I've dabbled a bit with Bardon. Great stuff. Nowadays Lezlie picks up my slack on the Hermetics angle. What draws you to this Michael?

Agreed. Women are convoluted and unnecessarily difficult.

Can you offer a translation?

OMG! Has someone invoked reference to ... the pit?! *sudden thunder and lightning* It's been years since we've resorted to such grave measures! Only God knows what horrors occur there. Really, Leidee is so right. We are only getting a tiny sliver of information about each other in this context to form our impressions. Furthermore, I truly believe that what we notice and continually emphasize in each other we actually help to activate. In this spirit I propose a group exercise! Three nice things! I think we have an opportunity here to turn this around, at least ever so slightly. Looks like SeanD and Wayfarer64 are already on their way. Even if it's just a tiny ripple in a better direction, let's do it. In any case, this thread is now getting the "100% positivity or else" smackdown. I am going to either lock this thread or move it to the pit if there is there is anything but 100% positive regard written in this thread from here on out. This thread already has enough garbage in it, it's starting to smell up other rooms. Sean

Been meaning to check out one of his videos. Any recommendations?

FWIW I've heard really great things about Reginald Ray, I know a few people who are closely involved with him, one since the late 70s. And Surya Das has a nice vibe about him as well. They both pour all of their energy and resources into making their teachings accessible in the West.

This is how I read it as well.

Sorry you had trouble. I keep updating the language files here to reflect the procedure for becoming a member, but whenever I need to upgrade the software it replaces them with the default and confuses people again. Glad you made it though. This proves to us you are dedicated and will make a fine student. Just kidding. Welcome to the forum. Sean

You are resonating with The Tao Bums morphogenic field. It only gets stranger from here on out. Prepare to have bizarre dreams with other members and synchronicities so frequent and compelling you stop mentioning them out of concern your peers will deem you mad. Sean

ActiveChinese is having a special for anyone interesting in learning Mandarin. I've been dabbling with Mandarin in my spare time btw. How many Chinese speakers do we have here? Maybe we should take a poll sometime. I have an amazing friend who has offered to lead me through the classics of Chinese cultivation literature (Dao De Jing, Zhuang Zi, Da Xue, Huang Di Nei Jing, Yi Jing, etc) in classical Chinese (gasp!) but my first assignment is getting some rudimentary Mandarin down. Site above and the others one I quoted further above looked pretty cool for anyone interesting in learning Mandarin at home. Sean

Hey, nice links Arkadia, thanks. Welcome. Sean

Oh yeah? Well ... (fishing for snappy comeback) ... you should try your best to repress a lifetime of cultural conditioning in a neurobiologically impossible attempt to create a blank slate out of yourself so you can be properly spoonfed a new set of mental clothing from any culture deemed exotic and foreign enough to be considered superior to your own which you are still caught in a knee-jerk teenage rebellion against. LOL! Sean

SeanD, you have to see some irony here in insisting on respect for your lineage. Since you've come to this forum you've systematically insulted almost ever active member, made insulting generalizations about the community as a whole, made sweeping character assassinations of multiple teachers that members here are students of, and in this very thread suggest that Pietro is cursed with millions of years of disrespect from immortal masters of your lineage. LOL! You got some balls dude, I will give you that. And seriously, what kind of lineage of enlightened masters gets upset and hangs on to a post on a message board for millions of years? The whole idea of Tao Bums is that we are regular modern people not swept up in uncritical Asian fetishism. David is selling a course for close to 10 grand. Normal people in THIS CENTURY are going to discuss it and take it apart and analyze it and review it. Get over it. I don't give a shit what people in China or India or anywhere two hundred years ago or today think of the Euro-American emphasis on free, open and skeptical exchange of information. This the basis of science which is how we clawed our way out of the brutality of the dark ages when occult wackos like us had all the political power. Peer review, people! Respectfully, Sean

Love that.

Yes, I am engaged in spiritual practice. Very much so. But I see this as just as much of an obstacle to enlightenment as avoiding spiritual practice. Both are forms of resistance to naturalness. I don't think my seeking is special. I don't believe that my striving, my meditation, my Adyashanti satsangs are intrinsically any better or worse than anything else. This is called humility. I do not think I have arrived anywhere. Because I have not given up yet. If I had given up, there would be enlightenment. I is the ego which is the fantasy of lost enlightenment. I don't think you are hearing what I am saying. I am not saying all you have to do is read some Adyashanti and then use advaitic tautologies as an excuse to lay around and avoid meditation. It's much worse than that. What I am saying is that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that YOU can do, to attain enlightenment. Because YOU is an illusion. Did you really think it was going to be so easy as just find a great teacher and work as hard as you possibly can? How many monks in the world have what they believe are the most enlightened teachers in the world and dedicate their entire lives, 10-12 hours a day to an intensity of spiritual practice we can not even imagine in our lifestyles, and yet still they do not experience enlightenment? Tao moves when Tao wants to move. Not when you do the proper sequence of prayers and prostrations. Do you really believe there is a formula for enlightenment? "Here are the steps, just put your nose to the grind and one day it will happen". Protestant American work ethic, that is the ticket. To be clear, I am not even warning against the desire to go to China and study and practice diligently with competent teachers. I am merely addressing the framework in which that desire is held by the mind. The urge to seek, the urge to meditate, the urge to find God is at best an expression of God's decision to move through and flower in human form. The best thing a human can do is nothing. Yet nothing cannot be done. So do what you will. Sean

To be clear, I am not asserting that your masters are unaware of anything. I don't even claim that my view is something that one that is wise would or should be aware of. It's only the way that currently makes sense for me to formulate my experience in words which is probably based mostly on my own preferences, conditioning, etc. The idea that the Tao was invented by certain people really makes no sense to me. What do human inventions have to do with truth when we ourselves are only an invented thought in the mind of truth? Seen from within a Buddhist perspective (which I am not but let's have fun), I do think there is full blown escapism inherent in any attempt to transcend and liberate ourselves. It's like a new thrilling drug addiction. This is the double bind of the Buddhist path. The cause of suffering is desire. You are free of suffering with the cessation of desire. But there is not a special class of desire that gets a Buddha gold star on the forehead since it's a noble desire for liberation. Who or what wants to be liberated?! Your fucking ego does, that's what. Because your ego is in pain. Because your ego doesn't want to die. And because your ego wants pleasure. And not unlike the drunk sipping his whiskey in the local bar, we wander around trying to get a good buzz off the next big thing to come down the spiritual block. Your ego sees enlightenment as a way to escape pain. And if it can't escape, at least it can use these fancy new practices as a sustainable way to hide out. The desire to cultivate is simply not special. Because your ego is that which desires to cultivate. And your ego is precisely the basis of your whole illusion. This is the red pill that contemplative paths are leading you to either swallow or continue avoiding. Our entire reality is set up to avoid this. There is nothing we can do to escape our ego because our ego is (seemingly paradoxically) an illusion that creates the very desire and impulse to escape from itself. No path can be derived from the truth. Only stunned silence. Sean

I totally agree. Absolutely. Keep it real! I know we've beaten this to death. Maybe it's a devil's advocate view I take, but it makes more sense to me. That enlightenment happens in spite of "advanced Taoist training". Maybe our deepest fear is that it's so simple and easy. How would we still be unique and separate if what we are seeking were readily available and attainment meant nothing special? Consider this: when the truth grabs you by the ankles and starts pulling you into the void, perhaps spiritual practice is the ego's last effort to claw at the ground and desperately try to postpone the impending failure called enlightenment.

I might actually be interested. Mostly in the spirit of an adventure. Like going to review an exotic new theme park somewhere. I think I am capable of going into it with an open mind while also retaining my objective side. I've never seen a video of so called super powers that has convinced me. The video of John Chang shocking the camera woman in that one video was pretty interesting though. About as convincing and honest a reaction I've seen. Anyway, my brother is a documentary filmmaker in Los Angeles. His boss is ridiculously wealthy and seems to always be up for throwing money at unique documentary projects that could make some profit. This could have the potential to be the next "The Secret" if done well. A regular old 30-something partially anonymous internet forum yogi, sponsored by his peers to step into the limelight and undergo training from lineage masters in the mountains for all to witness. I would throw in a few hundred for this for whomever is chosen if it ends up not being me. And I may be able to convince my brother and his producer to fund it even if I were not the star. I would feel bad to take this opportunity from someone who really wanted to go. I could take it or leave it. This whole thing is not really my cup of tea as I think I've made clear. It doesn't match my (in)experience. To me the Tao is simply the truth. It doesn't change. It's very simple and natural. Inescapable. Seeking is actually just another attempt to run from what is. Awakening happens when we finally give up. That can happen now. And it can happen in China after you have accumulated five times as much knowledge and power in Taoist mysticism and are still disillusioned. Either way it's not your choice anyway so just enjoy the ride. Sean

How long is the trip for? What will a typical day look like? Can I have some more details? It would be cool to make a documentary out of this trip actually. Would the teachers be up for some filming? I think I could give an objective report if I went, but it's a time issue. I run a business that I can't leave for large blocks of time just yet. Sean

Welcome Eric. You are a real Taoist cowboy, it's cool to see you here. I've read all of your books. I was really interested in Tao and the Tree of Life particularly, as I have a background in magick as well. Recently I stumbled across an old Chinese diagram that looks remarkably like the Kabbalah I'd like ask you about some time.

I was thinking about either doing this, or joining my local fundamentalist southern baptist revival. I can't decide. They both seem to have all the answers and a direct path to the truth.