doc benway

So when the sage goes to a motel, does he use a credit or ATM card?

waves of soul music inspired by rhythms from Bootsy Collins' bass http://25.media.tumblr.com/97fd8c42c326bd1547f026a2f47f1472/tumblr_mhf05uoFsL1qll1ero1_500.jpg

Good luck to you Heath. It was nice having you around for a while.

First of all we're discussing a sage - an idealistic character. So it is logical to infer that the idealistic character will respond in an idealistic manner. If the person we are discussing is incapable of acknowledging, experiencing, and working with an irrational fear before responding in a programmed manner, then I think the original premise is flawed - we are not discussing a sage. Secondly, what I'm describing is a very accessible technique. It is not at all limited to idealistic people or situations. It is very easy to do. It's simply a matter of practice. It's best to start under controlled circumstances and gradually apply it to more and more extreme circumstances. I do it all the time. I do it as a way of working with and through a variety of emotional and psychological challenges - facing the daily grind, dealing with anger, dealing with unpleasant people and situations, etc... Edited to add - Third, what I am describing is not even a response. It is simply making a habit of living in awareness rather than a conditioned response. One can't negate fear until it is first felt. I'm talking about feeling it fully before responding. One would think the sage would be aware of his surroundings and feelings and would respond appropriately, rather than in a dysfunctional, irrational fashion.

Sorry to come so late to the party. Most of my thoughts have already been put out there by others but I'll toss out some ideas, anyway. The sage is a mythological creature. I guess each of us has an idea of what that means and that's the point of the thread in the first place... In my imagination, the sage would enter the apartment, notice the spiders, and then look at the reaction they elicited in her, if any. Assuming that a strong feeling of fear arose, she would look deeply into that fear. She would allow it to unfold and blossom fully. She would not analyze it at an intellectual level but simply experience it in the body, in the emotions, in reality. At this point the sage would see the fear for what it is and then would simply choose to stay in the room or to move on, depending on whether the spiders posed a substantial threat to her health and well being.

Anger is a reaction, a response. It is usually an indication of underlying fear, insecurity, dissatisfaction. Anger often comes from a defensive posture. It is born of our illusion of independence and separation. I was conditioned to express anger and used it, unknowingly, as a primary reactive mechanism for many years. It created a lot of damage to the lives of loved ones, including myself. I was able to let go of the majority of my anger. You've already taken the two most important steps! You've recognized that you are responding to the world with anger. You are unsatisfied with that approach. The good news is that change is virtually guaranteed! First, look at the anger very closely and very deeply. Not in an analytical or intellectual way but rather become that anger. Feel it in your body. Feel it as deeply and completely as you possibly can. Let it be there for as long as necessary. Don't repress it. Don't take action to diffuse it. Just be with it and look into it's face, into it's heart, and see if you can determine exactly what it means to "be angry." Recognize that you ARE NOT angry. Anger is an experience. It comes and it goes. It is not who or what you are. You were there before it came and will remain when it passes. Recognize that the anger is in you, not in reality. In similar circumstances, another person might feel no anger whatsoever. Once anger is looked at very deeply and seen for what it is, it may lose some of it's power over you. It will come and it will go. And the one who experiences it will remain. And that is who should make choices and take action. And it is valuable to make sure that the action taken is consistent with what you value in life and not simply a conditioned response, like the anger. Good luck - it may take a long time but I guarantee it is worth whatever energy you are able to invest to liberate yourself from being a slave to conditioning like anger responses. And at the same time, anger is a valuable and useful experience. It has a legitimate place in our lives. I like this quote by Maya Angelou, referring to her childhood abuse - "Bitterness is like cancer, it eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean." But like fire, it can become a bad thing when out of control.

My point is that there is no such thing as a literal translation of Hanzi. As a rule, characters have multiple potential translations that vary with context and perspective. Chinese translation into Western language is necessarily interpretation (of course there are some relative exceptions).

Show me a translation of Chinese characters that is not an interpretation, please.

PS - another, very similar translation comes from Derek Lin. In fact, in his book he refers to the more 'negative' translations, (those that refer to Dao as 'unkind', etc...) as misinterpretations of the characters. I don't have the book handy to quote him but it's worth a peak for anyone interested in this.

I believe that is Jonathan Starr

The Way of Energy by Lam Kam Chuen is a good book. For intermediate to advance practice, I'd recommend a live teacher rather than a book.

Just starting to catch up on this thread... One translation which I like is: Heaven and earth are impartial; they see the 10,000 things as straw dogs. The sage is not sentimental; he treats all people as straw dogs. I'm not sure that this excerpt really relates to compassion, but rather non-duality. While we can feel love and compassion and want to ease the suffering of others, the sage understands that individual lives come and go but that there is that from which they flow that is unborn/undying. Yes, and it is also sometimes misconstrued as a realization and not a path... View and action are both necessary.

Nice post TI. I wonder about the "third party" reference here, however - maybe just semantics. As long as there is a "third party" there is duality, yes? And the infinite regression of that which observes, observing the observer. There is no third party, just spaciousness imbued with clarity.

I don't need to read about it, I'm already full of shit...

when you dress so plain the subtle beauty of life shines through, unrestrained

Are you trying to say that Daoist shit don't stink?

I think different people are saying and implying different things when they say to 'be natural' or 'be yourself.' I don't know for certain what wise people mean and I'm not sure we'd all agree on who they are, but I'll share some of my perspective on it. Most of our thought process and behavior is, indeed as you say, programmed and conditioned from childhood. And it stretches back through generations as our parents and teaches have been a product of their conditioning and so on throughout the history of "civilized" humanity. And we are further conditioned by our life experience, social mores, cultural factors, and so on. So there is the "me" that is the creation of, steward of, and perpetrator of all of that conditioning. The "me" is, in fact, that conditioning. There are some of us who take an interest in who that "me" is and there are traditions that give us some guidance. And the process of investigating and understanding the me inevitably leads to changes and may eventually lead to a dismantling of that sophisticated programming, whether gradual or abrupt. When the "me" is seen for what it is, there is the opportunity for very profound change and, in fact, liberation. The one who is liberated is natural. Their actions are a reflection of our true, human nature - naked, aware, free of concerns for security and liberation. And I think you can recognize that, as dawei points out above. I think those people exhibit qualities like love, patience, generosity, compassion, tranquility, contentment, and so on, because these are natural qualities. The "me" takes it's rightful place in awareness, no longer the doer and the thinker but rather a helpful and concerned advocate - a very useful tool. And once the "me" yields to the space and awareness from which it arises, actions and choices become natural. "Me" is no longer interfering with nature and things occur 'of themselves so.' This is what I would currently refer to if I were to describe someone as natural.

Hi Roger, I'm sincerely glad that's helpful. John's talks and poems are wonderful and this is one of my favorites among his quotations. Best wishes,

We all are simply looking for what works for us at this point in our lives. It looks like you've got it figured out. As long as you're getting what you want out of life and not preventing others from doing their thing, congratulations!

Sounds like you have a good teacher - very nice!

FYI - B6 can be neurotoxic in high doses - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16320662

When Krishnamurti speaks of the observer being the observed, I believe that he is referring to the insight that the 'observer' is simply another thought or thought process that is tagged as the thinker, the doer, and yet is no different from the other thoughts. It's been a while since I've read him, but that seemed to be a significant focus in his work. Very true, and the other thing that I found particularly stimulating and helpful was his constant admonition for us to look for something beyond what is in the realm of the known, never telling us what else might be there or even if it is possible but it made me look (and I'm still doing it). We may well be saying the same thing although I think there is a subtle variation there.

Oh yeah, no question, but for me at least, getting the footwork and waist pattern is the most important place to start. The hands are more subtle, detailed, refined and are stage 2 (or later) in the process. Just my approach but it worked really well. I should qualify that - my teacher is really old school - he'd demonstrate a series of movements exactly 3 times. Then he'd walk away. You got it or you didn't. And the more advance you got, the more he'd give you at a time. He'd come back in an hour and ask if there were any questions. If you were lucky, he'd show it one more time. Then you worked on it for a week and he expected it to be pretty accurate when he asked you to show him next time... If it wasn't, you wouldn't move on until it was. So it was easier to sort of fake the hands but if you didn't have the footwork, it was a disaster. Then over time we would refine and correct. Try it sometime - focus on the feet and waist, get that solid. Then worry about the hands. Everyone's got their own style, but that was a huge breakthrough for me and it took me about 3 years to figure it out, duh...

The "goal" of Daoism is to not interfere with nature - compassion arises from being natural. The "goal" of Buddhism is to manifest your true nature - compassion arises from your true nature No difference in the outcome, only a difference in the methods to get there... Call me new age, whatevs...

Absolutely - the best teachers teach you how to learn, give you a foundation, then turn you loose to do the work for yourself. After a long time struggling, I finally realized that the best way to learn from my teacher was to focus on his footwork. Once you got the footwork and waist movement, the hands and upper body would generally come naturally.