Harmonious Emptiness

I think it is good to understand that "manifesting" does something, but there are things which are beyond our control too, maybe from past lives, I dunno. How I understand/experience it is that sometimes we may wish for something without realizing that we're wishing for it. The movie "the secret" borrowed a lot from Robert Collier who was sort of an inspirational writer in the 1920s and on, and his writing was very influenced by Christianity and his own experience with "mental healing" as a child. The main thing was that you get what you focus on and what you wish for. When someone is mad at themselves, they are wishing themselves to be punished. Any trained TCM practitioner will tell you that self hate is very dangerous. After we stop hating ourselves we might start to notice some damage that had been done. We're not wishing for this damage, but in a way we were earlier. Our thoughts can easily turn into actions without us realizing the connection. Self hate turns into eating terrible food, not going out and enjoying life, and other things which eventually punish the body and the organs. There are numerous other ways that the body can be damaged; however, this IS one of them, and western science has finally had to recognize what every healing system in history has recognized. Another more obvious scenario would be someone hating their job. They pray for something better and soon end up getting fired. They have faith that what they were looking for will come along, and an opportunity appears. They can't just wait for it to fall in their lap, but the branch hangs a bit lower when they're following their destiny. -edit: Another good one that I read somewhere is that some chronic illnesses won't go away because the person is so attached to the care and love that they receive as a sick person. This can develop out of childhood especially.- It's always worth asking the question "what will this manifest in my life" when we're careless with our emotions (and I don't mean that in an extreme way either). I wouldn't attribute a disease to "manifestation" right away, but it's definitely something to consider very deeply when trying to stop the disease, as someone might still be telling their body to punish itself while treating it externally and so it will fight rather than welcome the healing.

Thanks for the response K. Glad to know it resonates. Great questions too. O.k., u ready?: My knowledge of ego and super-ego theory comes only from knowing the general concepts and then applying them to what I've read in Buddhist and Taoist scriptures, and how I see those theories playing out in myself and people around me. So, hopefully this won't be critiqued along side the Freudian theories (which I suspect he lifted a lot from Buddhist and Taoist writing anyway.. lol). So, from my view, the super ego is fear driven, and this fear comes from deep survival instincts which also play out in the need for status. This need for status is almost constantly fed by advertisements, and a lot of people who want us to do something will also use this desire for status as the carrot on the stick. Because this is so normal, we unconsciously accept that this is what normal ("high status," in-crowd, etc.) people do, and so we try to bite the carrot as if we will lose our status if we don't. Living on this plane of existence is out of touch with the true self, who might get in the way of trying to survive this kind of puppet show. I think the super-ego is like a mist that surrounds the true self. It's not so much another personality as a set of tendencies to "inflate the ego" or create an "ego ideal" that is not real. People who act from the true self do not care what their status is in the world, largely because they know that most of the world is just a puppet show as mentioned above. The difficulty is not seeing one's self as inherently better than the super-ego puppets (the super-ego being the strings) and having compassion, hoping that they will find contentment. When someone looks down on the others, they are really just falling for the fears of super-ego and engaging in the same type of status game. When they fail to realize this, the super-ego strings are pulled and the true self gets clouded over. At this point, the true self can see and say "oh, shit, this is a big mess of clouds" and clear it all away, reverting back to the original self which is not like a shiny new mercedes benz but is 100 times better for them and allows them freedom from all the bill collectors. So in answer to the question "Do some people have more of a tendency to be 'run' by 'super-e'? If so, why? What would be the conditions?" I think one of the biggest causes of this is what I would call "expert disease." There is a term "zen disease" which occurs when someone gets into zen and then starts to think that they are a buddha or more intelligent than everyone which is part of the reason some masters have said high knowledge can be a bigger poison than a cure for some people. It's the same with being an expert at anything. We can easily play into the status game when we have a really good hand to play. Its far more tempting. This might be why Taoists say that the higher up you are the more humility is necessary. The other side would be when someone tries to step on us to get closer to the carrot (see metaphor above). They push us down to push themselves up. It's like we were walking in the park and a soccer ball comes at us -- it's tempting to kick it but that would make us part of the game. If it's totally out of bounds we would be right to kick it back in without joining the game though. In answer to "Are super-e and e split from each other? Do they 'talk'?" I think if someone splits their super-ego from their ego, then they are in serious trouble. I take responsibility for my tendencies to occasionally fall into super-ego mode. I am one person. Sometimes I do stupid things, but it is me who does them and me who corrects them. Does the ego create the super-ego? sure, possibly, but it also realizes eventually that it is just playing dress-up and tells itself "quit it." Talking to ourselves is not abnormal behavior... mmmost of the time

yes. I agree with that. you could, but personally, I don't think intentionally focusing on every sensation experience is necessary. It's good to enjoy the sun and the smells and everything else, and when thoughts or emotions start to take over then it's good to rein them back in, but to walk around like we just stepped into another body all the time would be more of a distraction than a liberation, imo. that makes some sense. you shouldn't be totally oblivious to your inner state. Yes. In this statement you got it. For me, excitement is necessary at least once in a while, but this state is the best way to be during normal everyday activity, imo. Johnny Osbourne, Purify Your Heart

a broken line is always yin, solid line is always yang for the trigrams. there's lots of different ways of reading the trigrams (like I was doing above for example) and the cool thing is that they often make sense even when you get really far out there with it. With the water trigram, you could say that the center "moves" but the general reading of it is that it does not "change." So your inner self can move. The thing here is that it does not change when it moves. According to Taoist and Buddhist philosophy, the Original Mind/Self is always there, just like the clear blue sky is always there behind the clouds. When the clouds (anxieties, extreme emotions, false beliefsm edit: and convoluting everything like I'm doing here) disperse the Original Mind appears. This is why it's said that everyone is a Buddha yet to be revealed. Personally, I believe there are far more advanced things than this, and that realizing the Original Mind and the wisdom that comes with it is like a foundational achievement to get into the really high knowledge, so don't fall for delusions of grandeur if you manage to have this mind all the time. It means you have achieved higher attainment than most, but it's not the be all and end all of cultivation. So.. getting back to water... what you said pretty much supports what I was saying -- that the unchanging solid self can move around, while the masks of self a.) get caught up and stuck in the pond/basin of super-ego games and b.) get controlled (see the water controls fire relationship again) since they don't have a solid true self. hopefully I'll be able to get back to the other responses later tonight...

I don't remember seeing anything about that. You sure your not confusing it with a hexagram?

That's pretty much exactly it. The happy/content/loving person is fine with who he is or is not. The outside super-ego has accumulated all these ideas of what he "should" be, and since the super-ego is just a fabrication - it has nothing but what it pretends to be. The super-ego get easily agitated by small things that seem to lower it's status because it exists as a mask, and if someone changes the mask then it tries to protect itself (I'm a He-Man, not a Strawberry Shortcake!). If the super-ego is allowed to run the house, then the self is subordinated to the childish game that all the other super-egos want him to play so that they can play. When he plays, he can lose. If he doesn't play, he's still the adult, while the other kids are playing make-believe and pretending its real, getting caught up in their status, while the one who isn't part of this mask parade can just walk through, be themselves, and do what is in their nature. Following our true nature strengthens the mind, and, believe it or not, the body. So the water element moves and survives on its own following it's true nature or "path of least resistance" (ie, not forcing concepts about itself), while the fire element feeds on false concepts and burns out. The fire element (also the area of reputation in Feng Shui) can eventually evaporate water, but water controls fire according to the 5 elements theory. Now, that said, using all these concepts and this and that to try and make a course for ourselves can easily just be more concepts feeding the super-ego. Water just is. It doesn't depend on anything, though it comes from metal, so you might say that strength, knowing who you are, is first necessary. Metal comes from earth. Being like earth (sitting meditation), you will know the self.

Yeah, I think it's being a bit esoterically vague or incomplete. There is often the metaphor that the sage's mind is like a mirror. However, when it says this, it is saying that the mind does not hold on or grasp. When something comes up, the sage responds; when it passes, he lets it pass. His mind is clear. It's only full when someone comes along with a full mind and he responds like a reflection. When they're gone, the water reflects the vast blue sky again.

Definitely awesome. To analyze would be to ignore its message. Saved it for repeat reading though. Thanks for posting it.

what you're looking for is "medical qi gong." There's a few masters of it here, namely Ya Mu (instructor) and Master Sio. In the meantime, there's some stuff on youtube that might familiarize you with it a bit more http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1572962536605659291# A really good author on the subject is Yang Jwing Ming.

Probably not going to be a cure-all, but two herbs you could pick up to make tea with would be Plantain leaves and Marigold/Calendula. Plantain relieves infection, inflammation, and congestion in all parts of the body. It detoxifies tissues, dries, cools, and cleans passages, which is why it is also used to relieve prostate enlargement. It's also antiseptic and astringent, and diuretic. Native Americans used it for rattlesnake bites. It's also helpful as a wash on poison ivy blisters to dry and cool them. Marigold/Calendula (don't use if you take blood pressure pharamas, as it also helps circulation) is very good for the ovaries, especially if you are coming up to menopause as it has estrogenic properties that ease the transition of estrogen production moving from the ovaries to the adrenal glands. It is also anti-inflammatory. It's used for fighting pelvic, stomach lining, and bowel infections. You could sweeten the tea with fresh raw ginger. Best would be to find a herbal store that sells these in bulk organic.

Very interesting thread guys. Cutting through the overgrowth quite a bit here.. Everything, I would add here that there seems to be a bit of a common misunderstanding of the differences between ego and super-ego. Most writers, translators, and everyone else usually uses the word ego for both the ego and the super-ego. A helpful way to look at it is, again, with the I Ching trigrams for water and fire. Water is one solid yang line surrounded by two broken yin lines, while fire is one broken yin line surrounded by two solid yang lines. The ego (also called the true self) is like the water trigram. The outside is flexible, while the center does not change. When the ego is sure of itself, it can be flexible on the outside without being disturbed. It does not care what people think of it, and will let people have wrongly negative views of them without being disturbed at the center. When the center is weak, the super-ego tries to protect it with all the walls and turtle shells. The problem with this is that if the true ego is not strong, it can come to identify with the machinations and fantasies of the super-ego, creating an "ego ideal" which it may never rest in trying to maintain since it is not in touch with the true ego. I think this is why being in love with someone can be so liberating -- because the two people love each other for who they really are, and so the super-ego doesn't have to dance any more. The external world might try to pin it's projections on the person, but the ego just moves around it like water since the center is now solid and doesn't need the super-ego (2 outer lines) to keep it together. In fact, the super-ego is dropped so that the ego is free flowing. If the ego becomes weak, possibly from atrophy due to lack of expression or determination ie. not moving along when the false gets in the way, then the super-ego will have to protect it, but it is better for the ego to live with honesty and integrity so that the it does not have to become rigid externally. This is why "selflessness" (which is not really selflessness, but surrendering of the superficial/exterior super-ego self) is stronger, because it allows the true self to be itself, though it may have to continue running downstream so that the false doesn't trap it. This correllates with water in nature too, which becomes undrinkable when it's stuck, but fresh and healthy when it avoids obstructions and doesn't get caught in a basin. One manifestation of this that you might notice is that people who are very very successful will often seem very humble (with very notable exceptions of course) and not trying to prove anything. Their center has been allowed to solidify, and so they are happier to be humble and unassuming than engage in unnecessary identity battles. The other side of this are the people who's center has never been strong and their success is all fodder for the super-ego, in which case they don't reflect this type of person.

Like de_paradise said, he was awakened before trying sit in front of a wall for 9 years. It's the same with Milarepa.. he had his enlightenment and then chose his extreme asceticism. A lot of buddhas disappeared moved to the mountains and caves after their awakenings too. From what I've read of the documented moments of awakening, it was during instruction or a random realization that occurred during a very ordinary event. Buddha certainly didn't advocate extremes to reach enlightenment, but what you do after achieving it is a call best made by the individual.. ime. In the meantime, I think sitting meditation has to be taken out into the world. When the realizations of zazen do not leave while one is out in the world, then something greater has been attained. Achieving a heightened state while doing zazen is just the very beginning of successful meditation. Carrying it around with you is something else.

I don't know about everybody else, but I would rather see more of this type of stuff, however: in the off-topic forum. That forum is pretty dry and could be worth checking out if it had lots of interesting stuff like this in it. It also kind makes the Taoist forum feel too much like every activist truther type site since this stuff is everywhere else on the net. I am interested in all this historical type stuff, but I liked it better when the topics in the Taoist forum were not so stretched for a relation to Taoism. I understand that this is science related, and Taoism is related to science, as well as every other thing on God's green earth, but I would really rather read all about this stuff in the off topic section. Otherwise the Taoist forum loses it's Taoistness, imho. Again, I want this stuff to be available on the site, but would really prefer that the Taoist forum was only Taoist stuff. It makes it feel more like a practice area when it's all Taoist focused.

to quote myself from a similar recent topic (confusion with translation of the TTC, started by lienshan) "The thing with a lot of wisdom teachings is that they will be intentionally vague because you have to see the answer for yourself. If you understand it literally then you can get confused, but if they can lead you to find the answer on your own then you will have a much better understanding and you'll actually be learning something. The vagueness is to deter people who aren't looking to experience it for themself, while allowing others to experience their own meaning rather than being a copy-cat. To do this, you may have to abandon learned notions of wisdom and your expertise of language, which will confuse the understanding in these situations"

The translation I have actually says that the sage gains in faith by having faith in the unfaithful. The point is to gain more faith, since faith is necessary to accomplish things that Taoist sages, and other sages, are capable of which totally defy common logic. On the mundane level, this keeps people from being paranoid and pretentious when interacting with people, especially when diplomacy is necessary as is the case for traveling doctors -- a common vocation for Taoist sages.

Like I said, the sage does not see himself as either above or below people -- he does not see himself as above people -- this does not mean that he sees himself below them either. Because he is on the same level as them, he can sympathize and empathize. He does share emotions, he just doesn't get carried away by them. He feels emotions of joy and sadness, but they are wisely moderated. Unconditional compassion has, again, to do with not thinking we are above other people. Infatuation is clinging and involves un-moderated emotions. As an example, this forum is moderated, but that doesn't mean I can't say holy fuckin stupid shit. There is a ceiling, and things are kept within reasonable boundaries, liberally or conservatively...

The sage does not distinguish between himself and the world; The needs of other people are as his own. (this is understandable as Buddhist unity and compassion) He is good to those who are good; He is also good to those who are not good, Thereby he is good. (again, unconditional compassion) He trusts those who are trustworthy; He also trusts those who are not trustworthy, Thereby he is trustworthy. I've read this translated as having faith in the faithful as well as the unfaithful and by doing so he gains in good faith. Basically, always working towards the positive outcome, similar to how Jesus had faith in the worst sinners which allowed him to bring them into "the fold," seeing the good in everyone. ..edit... also relevant to this I think is that trust in the untrustworthy can make them more trustworthy. The thing with the sage, too, is that he doesn't really discriminate since his central integrity does not change, like the trigram of water -- solid yang line surrounded by two flexible yin lines = the center does not change though the outer is flexible. Next time you have to walk past a group of intimidation-addicts, hold "no-thought, no-mind" you'll probably find that they barely notice you. I think this is illustrative of the verse.) The sage lives in harmony with the world, And his mind is the world's mind. So he nurtures the worlds of others As a mother does her children. (the sage does not put himself above others and so he nurtures others as he would his own children, or himself. He does not see himself as above anyone so he sympathizes and empathizes with them. Reading other verses will show that the sage would not succumb to extremes of sorrow, joy, or any other emotion, partially because extreme emotions deplete the spirit, cloud the mind, etc...)

I didn't see much evidence there. Those mummies could have been as East Asian as they could have been white from what I can see. Where does it say the original civilizers were blonde with blue eyes? I've never heard of this. I don't really see more evidence of them being white than of being black

Do what you love and love what you do.

lol, yeah, he mentions right after that someone pointed that out to him..

Wow! I've heard of Ruthless Truth mentioned here before but never knew anything about them. That is some serious tactitioning man! It's great to be able to spot these tactics because people use them EVERYWHERE. There should be more laws against commercials that use these tatics. People should know better, but it's important to protect ones who haven't been educated on these tactics and may have had to suffer them all their lives under manipulative family members, friends, teachers, religious leaders, activist groups, fashion police, coaches, etc. Someone gave me the book "Futher Along The Road Less Travelled" which has a good list of warning signals for cults. "3 or 4 of these and some flags should go up": 1. Idolatry of a single charismatic leader 2. A revered inner circle 3. secrecy of management 4. financial evasiveness 5. Dependency (especially on the leader to tell you what to think or believe) 6. Conformity (age, dress, sex, ) 7. Special language 8. Dogmatic doctrine (unquestionable, etc.) 9. heresy (attributing God to things that are not God) 10. God in captivity (as if they are the only ones that "possess" God) (M. Scott Peck, M.D.)

It is saying that in a sense, but the thing is that Lao Tzu is talking about the Taoist way of the sage, rather than about fighting or painting or rhetoric. Can you understand how someone who is unconcerned with wisdom is wise? In regards to expertise, that was one of many translations of a word that has also been translated as cleverness. You should check out the Tao Te Ching forum on this site where chapter 19 is discussed. It goes into a lot of detail about this. In regards to martial skills, yes - expertise needs to be learned before it can be forgotten and thus naturalized to the practitioners reactions. In regards to sageliness -- focusing on expertise can constrict the mind and cloud the spontaneous connection with Tao. The thing with a lot of wisdom teachings is that they will be intentionally vague because you have to see the answer for yourself. If you understand it literally then you can get confused, but if they can lead you to find the answer on your own then you will have a much better understanding and you'll actually be learning something. The vagueness is to deter people who aren't looking to experience it for themself, while allowing others to experience their own meaning rather than being a copy-cat. To do this, you may have to abandon learned notions of wisdom and your expertise of language, which will confuse the understanding in these situations

I suspect that Shen Dao was also quoting Lao Tzu's ideas to make his own ideas more palatable and interesting to scholars who might say "oh look, another technique of dealing with wisdom, worthiness, etc... maybe Shen Dao has the answer." I would bet Confucius had something reflective of the same thing, which would bring Shen Dao to discuss and counter the ideas this way and vie for philosophical/political status.

That was probably me quoting Lao Tzu

"Terminate expertise" is just suggesting naturalness -- when you get into a fight you don't start doing a kata.. you forget what you learned and just act. [edit: well, if you are a master anyway. Bruce Lee put it: approximately "learn the techniques, then when you discard the technique you have all the techniques available to you in an instant"] Its the same with Taoist virtues -- you don't do them because they are the rules, you do them because you are naturally inclined to do them when you cultivate the sagely spirit. When naturalness is lost, then the rules are needed to keep people from being fearful and selfish, but when people are natural -- they are automatically benevolent as it is part of the nature of "naturalness." Thus, abandon technique and know naturalness. However, naturalness is also an approximation which is easily misunderstood when people see selfishness and every existing behavior as "human nature," but this is not the same meaning as the Taoist and Buddhist naturalness.