Mr.HenryCheesecake

There is nothing more to say, this is wonderful, I mean as far as the mind goes. As far as knowledge goes your feeling has a pulse, a pulse that we all share and know without need of articulation. After reading the TAO TE Ching for the first time I realized that I was a taoist since birth. Beleive it or not, what you have written is as profound in a similiar way. My process of liberation has undoubtedly begun, but I need guidance in a general sense. Maybe you could refer me to a source of proper discipline? Websites, authors, whatever? Ifeel as though I've sort of been lost lately, or have I? I dunno.

When the six directions are consumed by the pain of inner conflict, if there is potential for recovery, the mind and the spirit will surrender to the true gravity of the situation. It is what is done after this stage of turmoil that will decide the spiritual evolution of the subject, and whether or not she will become reoriented with the center of her experience and achieve the clarity to recognize the eternal state of constancy. It seems as though those who pursue wisdom are attempting to return to there infancy and reclaim an unconditioned frame of no-mind, an unstructured state of uninterrupted consciousness. The life process of the "practitioner" relies upon a continuum rather than a standard of extremes, where all experience, knowledge, wisdom, and intuition are interconnected, where love and hate, good and evil are the same and not at all. My awareness of the subtle truth is vague I know, as I distantly watch my feet deviate from the clear and simple path, the clouds in my eyes seem to be the fixed remnants of a sustained confusion, an accumulation of selfish colors that characterize the viscous struggle that is identity; that is the SELF. The futile efforts to preserve my ego; why cant I let it die? When it is threatened it thrashes in its cage, my stomach comes to a boil, and it will defend itself and survive. With each display of superiority further into the maelstrom of suffering I go, as the animal inside me resists and forces me to resist the turbulent current of surrender. Why cant I allow the conditioned, conceptual part of myself perish? Why cant I let go of perspective and embrace the Integral Oneness?

Im not quite sure that there is any definite interpretation. As you already know this journey is yours, so define heaven as you may. Listen to many different views without prejudice, without resistance caused by your current convictions, and absorb each peice without choosing one as the answer. You will probably realize that your unrefined outlook, your initial outlook that is, was more precise than any other. Go with that deep down feeling. Use your eyes to study, but after gathering the input, do not resort to reasoning or words. It is very dificult not to contaminate those intial feelings, those feelings that are characteristic of awareness. We allow are thoughts and lodged emotions to interfere with that process of inborne truth, but do not worry, inevitably we will harness the truth, if we havent already. Well, I kinda went off the deep end here and ended up giving advice, maybe it will help, maybe it wont, but either way it will. Back to Lao: " There are ways but the way is uncharted, there are names but not nature in words"

The topic that you describe goes hand in hand with the interactionalists point of view in psychology and sociology. John Lockes theory of Tabula Rasa certainly influenced this "perspective" as well, stating that the environment creates the subject to a point. You know nature/nurture. Any way, all of our experiences are perceived in the meter of memory, so we constantly cast self centered shadows upon this idea, this object, this particular situation, never leaving room for objectivity. I've found the center of the universe! It is where I sit, but also where I sit, it is not a space of truth because I am still coloring the room with preconceived notions of being. So, my question to you is where can I unlearn. Where is it that I can start? How can I forego these self-constructed obstacles?

Excerpt from Chuang Tzu's (Zhangzi) Autumn Floods. The dialouge is from "Jo of the North Seas" section. "There is no end to the weighing of things, no stop to time, no constancy to the division of lots, no fixed rule to beginning and end. Therefore great wisdom observes both far and near, and for that reason recognizes small without considering it paltry, recognizes large without considering it unwieldy"