Otis

I accept this, and I do believe that great wisdom can arise from such "listening". I do think, however, when coming back to mind/brain, that it is very important not to start "knowing" what we had previously just been "listening" to. It is upon that "knowing" that we are encoding certainty into what had previously been utterly divorced from certainty (e.g. the nature of the Tao). This is why I push the word "metaphor" so much, because no matter how "right" the epiphany seems, no matter how "tuned/refined" my energy body is, it is still exactly an experience. Perhaps the cleanest brightest most wise experience of my life, but still just an experience. The knowledge that is derived from the experience is always a reification, always an ossification. The truth is living, but knowledge is just a dead thing, a shell of what it is supposed to represent. So yes, I agree that the experience can be had, which appears just like: "each individual is in fact a holographic replica of the entirety of Dao". And it may be a very useful metaphor to live by. But I maintain that there is no way to know the truth or falsity of that statement. There is no way to know the Tao, only to experience something, which feels like what I think Tao is. I can refine and refine, and thus get asymptotically closer to Truth, but I will never reach it (nor can I know how close I've gotten). "Absolute" is merely a concept, and has nothing to do with my life or my possible perception. Without that willingness to leave the Truth as a mystery, I consign myself to delusion (i.e. mistaking my view of the world for what is).

There is an opportunity, within crisis, to surrender self-image, as well. "I shouldn't be in this situation" is just self-image talk. It has nothing to do with the flow of life, which by necessity, includes ups and downs. The situation is what's real, not the "I", and certainly not the "should". The resistance to "what is" just robs energy, causes vertigo, and keeps the solutions obscured. Instead, the statement that is useful is: "here it is." This is the situation, now what I am I going to do about it?

He's a role model in the raping and pillaging department?

What do you mean by "pressure", in this context?

OK. This is my own experience of my consciousness: that I am composed of several sub-personalities. One is fearful, one analytical, one sentimental, etc. (these are over-generalizations, but roughly accurate). I spend some time in one mode, but then, at some point, without my input, some mechanism shifts me from one consciousness to another. It's like turning a corner. Sudden peace, sudden anxiety, whatever, it happens suddenly. If I'm mad (for example), and I wait, then eventually, I just shift. If I start to meditate on what made me angry, I may find myself back in the angry realm, but usually it's easier to get back out again, because the dominance has already moved on to a calmer "personality". There's even a small amnesia that happens at the point of gear-shifting. I think that's part of why, during a make-up session, the lovers seem to forget what they were fighting about, just minutes before. "Let's never fight again" they say, because they are in a different consciousness. Next time that they fight, of course, all those awful things the other one said, come flooding back, because they are back in that pathway of the brain. (In psychology, this is known as state-dependent memory). Shifting gears has historically been a troublesome place for me. My brain was not necessarily in the mode that the situation would require, and thus my responses arose from the wrong function. For example: I might be editing video at work, with my earphones on, and my attention fully in the project that I was working on, when someone would come up to me and tap on my shoulder. My response used to be irrational anger, because I was in project-focus consciousness, not social-focus consciousness. The experience felt like an intrusion, like being surprised with cold water, and I would be brittle in my reaction. I have trained myself away from much of that brittleness, by learning to trust flow. In the past, I would contract and be mad at myself for not being in the right mode, but as I've learned to accept it, it also has been kinder to me. The less I demand that I be in the right mode at the right time, the easier it is shift. Learning to trust my inner workings has been key, letting them be the boss, instead of me (my ego) trying to rule the organism. If I'm not feeling adventurous on my motorcycle, then I drive it like a car. If I am feeling it, then I go nuts, because I trust it. If I'm feeling loquacious at a party, I play, but I don't try to force it, when feeling subdued. Etc. Cut to: the science. My neuropsych prof dad's research suggests that there are at least 5 separate pathways in the brain (pathway = a flow of neurochemical and electrical information across various physical structures), that act as sub-personalities. Each pathway is responsible for major attributes of our personalities, and they seem to take turns dominating. An MRI scan will show one pathway at a time, lighting up, in correlation to these observable personality modes. He says there are also theories with 7 or more dominant pathways. (I won't try to go too deep into his model, because I would need him to confirm the details). Ironically, this model suggests something to me, very different than the "two wolves" conclusion. Yes, the "two wolves" story is true: feed the anger, and it will become dominant. However, to find real peace inside me, I don't think that it is "my" (i.e. my ego's) job to decide what is good or bad for the various functions of my brain. My ego just doesn't have the tools; it would be like the petals telling the stamen what is right for it. So instead, I say: let the stamen be a stamen. Let anger be anger. Let all the various parts of me be as they are. Don't feed or fight any of it, but allow every part of me to be "right" (or at least, just fine). It's all there for a reason; no part is an alien invader; so I will not pick and choose. Instead, I trust that through the development of every part of me, that a greater, more unified whole will emerge. So far, I have many experiences of (what seems like) that "unified whole emerging", but they are all temporary. My accepting and growing processes still have a long ways to go. Please let me know if I'm making this clearer.

LOL! Is that like a koan, a problem without a solution?

The "how to find out" is exactly what Taoist neigong practice reveals. I accept that neigong helps one clearly see what has not been previously available. However, the statement: "each individual is in fact a holographic replica of the entirety of Dao" is dependent on having knowledge of the "entirety of Dao", in order to confirm the metaphor as fact. Whereas, even my experiences with neigong are still just my experiences. Every time I try to describe the Tao, I am just describing my experience of the Tao. I am always in the equation. I can extrapolate that my local tao reveals the greater Tao, but since I can only experience from my own point of view (no matter how enlightened I am), I don't see how I would ever feel secure in claiming that extrapolation as truth.

Amen to that. Comical and yet, dangerous.

Dunno about enlightenment, but I do think there is a very important role for sound in stilling the thoughts. I witness that my thinking brain likes to keep prattling away, but it will sometimes quiet, if there is something similar to language, but without meaning, taking up the same portion of the brain. So mantras, chanting, or even gibberish can help to still the language brain, merely by occupying it with meaningless sound. Lyric-less trance music can also serve that purpose well. In dance, music goes a long way to opening up flow, largely by arresting my thought. At Contact Improv, which is usually done to silence, I often find myself making sound effects during the dance. I don't do it consciously, but I think it's just another form of keeping that language portion busy, and out of the way.

I must submit!

I think this all relates closely to the "Be as One Being" thread. We have cognitive dissonance, because our various forms of consciousness are each aligned in different directions. One part is seeking to define, another part to escape definition. One part is seeking to belong; another to differentiate itself. I don't think that any of the various elements of my self are inherently wrong or right. Instead, they are there to balance each other out. Just as the body is composed of hundreds of muscles that are designed to easily and instantly balance each other out, so too IMO the various functions of the self are evolved to act as one unit. Boundaries are a good stop-gap method, of satisfying the various parts of my brain, without necessarily upsetting the other parts. However, eventually, I think that to find freedom and balance, I need to stop being the manager of the other parts of my brain, and instead let them be on their own. Let them contest and pull with each other, without me deciding which is more virtuous. Allow the various parts to come into balance with each other, precisely by me, the ego, loosening my grip on choices.

Likewise this, as well. The full organism is probably not impartial; it chooses food over poison. But it is only "I", the ego, which needs to surrender intent. If I get rid of the "I want to _________", then I have done a good deal of the surrendering of the "I". Habits form the "I" in two ways: it shapes how we perceive (input) and how we act (output). "I don't know" surrenders the bonds of perception and losing intent surrenders the bonds of action.

This is my take on that: It's not necessarily that the organism needs to act like a baby; it is only the ego which needs that. When the ego resumes its wide-eyed curiosity, its innocent relationship to phenomena, it's "I don't know", then the ego returns to its original shape and function, as a conduit for awareness. IME, when the ego goes back into that baby state, then the organism (the whole body) continues on in its own direction. What is the organism's mind, it's direction? I do not know. I do not know what is good for it, or why it chooses what it chooses. I only know, that I've grown to trust it, more than I trust myself. So I see none of the traditional recommendations as being suggestions for how my full self should behave; they are instead for me, the ego, to teach me how to get out of the way. At that point, my job is done, and the organism itself has to learn how to exist in this world, without me.

LOL! And I always thought it was so neutral.

Cool music. Thanks for the share.

Good stuff, Leon. Thanks for sharing. And I very much like the message!

Nice idea for a thread, mewtwo. Otis is actually an old joke. My ex-girlfriend, who is Finnish, is named Outi, which is pronounced O-T. I told her once that if I ever wrote anything about my path and exploration, I'd do it under the name Otis Urrender, for Outi, I surrender. Once I started blogging, I just picked up the name, and have stuck with it, ever since. Outi and I are still good friends. The pig is just a photo I took at someone else's garage sale. I liked it as a profile pic, precisely because it made no claims. I used to post on the Myspace Taoism group, until Myspace just closed all their groups, without warning. I've kept the same name and avatar, just in case someone I used to know might find me here.

Hi Aaron, I don't have advice for you, only sympathy. I've had a harder time financially this year, than in the recent past, and it's shook up my confidence, as well. All I can say is: you will be even greater, because of this. You are already seeing more of yourself, that only shows up during crisis. That's good, because there's no way to practice being in crisis, except by going through crisis. So every step in front of you, as awkward and humiliating as it may sometimes feel, is there to serve you on your path. The awkwardness and humiliation are great teachers, as is the sense of helplessness. None of it is fun, and I'm sorry that you have to experience it, but I know you will do great, and you will grow from this. Best of luck along (this portion of) the path! -otis

Sweet! I love being in conversation with some of my favorite Bums! Thanks, y'all, for being so cool!

Of course, here is it where it gets a little crazy. If indeed, there are several different parts of me, with several different points of view, then how do I "speak my truth"? Because I clearly have several different "truths", each which belongs to a different sub-self. So, my solution in this case is to wait, to let the various parts of me have their say, within the confines of my head. Once I am in a centered place, then I can look over my various potential responses, and figure out which one is the most useful one. That way, I am still speaking a truth, just not necessarily the one that arose first, nor the one with the most emotional weight attached to it.

Excellent quote and post, Songs, thank you for that. As I've written here several times before: it is not "I" in my head, so much as it is "we". The trick is: learning to humble the "I", so that the other parts of the "we" can come together and work as a team.

I don't, right off hand. I've been hoping to get my dad to guest-post here, since he knows more about the science of consciousness than anybody else I know. I have his psych paper, but it's almost unreadable, because the jargon is so thick. I'll bug him; see if I can't get a little more info to post.

I have thought about it, and the idea of helping to create such a curriculum excites me. Maybe in the future. My present path is in the film and TV industry, rather than education, so I'd probably have to do a lot of groundwork and going back to school, before any educators would even listen to my ideas. Instead, I've been promoting (what I think of as) a Taoist approach to fitness and grown-up play, through the videos I post on my YouTube channel. Maybe I'll generate media, to help get the movement started.

It's a great philosophy, and I'm glad someone's helping others learn to be mindful with their bodies. What I'd really love to see are classes in school, that don't teach technique, but rather just guide kids' exploration of their own physical awareness. Play, listen, learn. Injury so often comes from just not knowing how to pay attention, or from putting goals ahead of what's real. So learning to pay attention to the real, to the feedback of the body, seems like a foundation for a lifetime of ease and growth.

Yes! That is the practice goal that I see as really worthwhile, finding inner unity. The rest, I believe will take care of itself from that. My dad is a professor of the neuropsychology of consciousness. One of his major papers is on the current theory that there are at least 5 separate major structures/pathways in the brain, each which serve as a different form of consciousness. They actually take turns, being in the lead, partially depending upon the need of the moment. In this model, we can see that Multiple Personality Disorder is just an exaggeration of what we already suffer from. One of my favorite internal unity analogies is that of the pup tent. Pup tents are surprisingly robust structures that maintain their shape with little mechanical effort; they're all about balance of forces. However, all you have to do is pull one pole out of place, or rip a seam, and the whole structure buckles and lists to the side. The elegance and power is lost, when unity is lost. So, too, I think our brains were evolved to serve as a self-balancing mechanism of extreme precision and elegance. But, because the ego and language-based areas of the brain have taken precedence, they have thrown the rest of the pup tent out of whack.