Vmarco

Yes,...there are many theories,...theories arise from personal, relative experiences. Instead of looking at Yin/Yang from personal, relative experiences, it is better to observe Yin/Yang from Yin/Yangs point of view. In tantric practices, yang is described as descending from above (compression, converging, imploding) and manifests the outward shape of the penis. Yin ascends from below (dissolution, diverging, exploding) and manifests the inward shape of the vagina. The propaganda of self-proclaimed, New Age visionaries continually accommodates the absurd misunderstandings of duality. One of these visionaries wrote that male yang is "explosive, centrifugal, warming, destructuring, and dissipating, while the female yin is implosive, centripetal, cooling, structuring, and integrative." Once again, these are ego statements, based on a human-centric viewpoint, not nature’s reality. How is dissipating or destructuring warming? How is implosiveness and structuring cooling? These people only encourage a world in which people consider non sequiturs meaningful. To understand the Tao and the nature of Light, there must be a metacognition of Who’s Who in Duality from duality’s point of view. The reality of duality is this: Yin is feminine, spiral-out, diverging, radiative, expansive, disintegrating, explosive, discharging, centrifugal, cooling, dissipating, exhaling, and ascending (notice how these are all complimentary terms). Yang is masculine, spiral-in, converging, generative, contractive, integrating, implosive, charged, centripetal, heating, accumulating, inhaling, and descending (again, all complimentary terms). Intermixing or attributing yin characteristics to yang or vice versa because someone feels that feminine energy should be structuring and masculine energy destructuring is disingenuous. Some may not want to hear this, but there can be no authentic understanding and application of Tao until the basics of Who’s Who in duality is understood. Most on this forum will disagree with this post because they have been indoctrinated to view Yin/Yang relatively. For example, water is not Yin because it's dark and cool,...Water is Yin because it's moving away from form, integration, pressure increase, converging, towards DARK/COOL of unforming, disintegration, pressure decrease, diverge. Many principles dogmatic to Daoism are discussing human perceptions of objects, and denying the Tao of that object. Fire does not seek a higher place,...there is no fire in the higher place,...fire is a process of the rhythmic balanced interchange of yang (heat) becoming Yin (cold). Yang is always known by is centripetal motion, while Yin is always known by its centrafugal motion. Yang and Yin are two aspects of the same moving thing. Yin vibration descends for an apple blossom to form, and that form is Yang, Yang winds crystallized light into an apple, the apple falls, hits you on the head, and one says, "Ah, gravity", and walks away telling everyone of his discovery. But, if one would have stayed under the tree, he would see Yin become predomenant, by decaying the apple, who expanded, unforming, disintegrating, pressure decrease rises up, to complete the cycle,...thus unveiling the Tao as the Tao. Fire does not naturally rise, the heat of the fire rises, expanding into cold. Water does not compress, it is in the process of diverging from compressed Yang form into Yin's vapor. Again, you're not seeing the rhythmic cyclical nature of the moving Tao. Dogmatic Daoist order of things may have been great for the times it was interpeted for,...but its missing a recognition of the Tao, from the Tao's point of view. The Tao's point of view must be the same as the Quantum view, or Light's point of view, or the Buddhist point of view, or the Tao would be untrue,...and the Tao is not untrue. "If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change" HH Dalai Lama So, if the Tao is not untrue, then there is something untrue or misguided about the current dogmatic interpretations of the Tao, because such interpretations are not harmoneous with the nature of nature. Although I understand that Daoist principles have evolved into a philosophy and religion, the Tao is neither a philososphy nor religion. Thus, whereas most argue for a philosophy or personal belief,.... I'm arguing Tao. Moving, incandescent objects are borne from moving, dark, objectless space. All incandescent Yang is surrounded by Yin's dark. Where is it ever true that light conquers dark? There is no amount of light that can illuminate all dark, for in Duality, darkness always surrounds it. Rudolph Steiner once said that light was the antipathic aspect of polarity, whereas darkness is its sympathic expression. The Patriarchy (cerebralcentric knowledge) wants to deny the rhythmic balanced interchange of nature, by indoctrinating ideas like light conquering dark. They don't want to know that all phenomena, through the nurturance of darkness, dies into light. Polarity's Yang light does not hold within itself the potential to birth, for it is a result already spawned through Yin's darkness. A prevalant human construct suggests that light is good and dark is evil,...not because it is, but because to understand the truth would wreck the fragile fabric of society's patriarchial brewed philosophical and religious beliefs they cling to for their identity. "If you wish to unite with the heart and mind of the Mysterious Mother, you must integrate yin and yang within and refine their fire upward." Lao-zu Who's Who in Duality yang...........................yin. centripetal....................centrafugal. integrating....................disintregating. spiral in......................spiral out. implosive......................explosive. converge.......................diverge. in...........................out generative.....................radiative. Gravity....................Levity inhalation.....................exhalation. sphere…………….................…….torus. Earth......................Heaven solid........................vaporous rotation decrease................rotation increase. quartz.........................calcite. heating........................cooling. charging.......................discharging. contraction....................expansion. Father Earth.....…….............Mother Sky particle………............………………..wave. Geb………...............……..……Nut. Father Time...................Mother Space induction......................conduction. winding light waves............unwinding light waves pressure increase.....................pressure decrease. infra-red..........................ultra-violet. low frequency..........................high frequency.

That which arises from the Heart is never personal. You're confusing New Age Cerebral-centricness with truth realization.

Christmas is Christian, and promotes the Christian delusion. Christian calendarics muddies our view and understanding of the nature of time and timelessness. The Gregorian calendar denies zero, whereas the much older and more accurate Maya calendar encourages a sapiential connection with the natural rhythms of time and those things upon which time effects its motion. To be connected with spirit is to flow with the spiritual without hesitation. Spirit is often associated with water, and water flows, as in a river. Martin Schulman pointed out that the river moves, floats, winds, and curves, yet as soon as we impose our predispositions and conditions on the nature of river, we lose our access to and our recognition of spirit. Religions such as Christianity, along with their instruments of propaganda, such as the Gregorian calendar, step between us and our direct experience of spirit. 　 Christianity wants us to think that spirit can only be accessed through accepting their Jesus. They want us to think that love can only be had through the conditions of bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring, as in their scriptures (such as 1 Cor. 13:7). That is not love; that is the submission, devotion, expectation, and suffering to the conditions of their beliefs. To establish peace, love, and a connection with spirituality in the world, we need a profound shift in our everyday consciousness that can be facilitated through a "natural calendar" one based on natural time. The CRFC (Calendar Reform for the Future of Civilization) pointed out that "by rational discourse and common sense, it has been determined that the Gregorian calendar does not represent a true or accurate standard of measure or belong to any systematic science of time, and hence, is worthy of reform." That is to say, as the sword is an anachronism in modern warfare, the Gregorian calendar is, as Rick McCarty says, "an anachronistic scheme serving the interests of men in a pre-scientific, theocratic society with a feudal economy." The Christian calendar encourages neither spirituality nor an awakening of who we are. It stimulates unrest, disempowerment, conflict, unrighteous intolerance, and violence. A natural calendar based on the natural rhythms of earth and our relationship within the universe would promptly change everything. Our activities would ensue through an atmosphere of connectivity, versus an environment that arose from spiritually limiting Aristotelian logic and dissynchronizing theocratic beliefs. We are where our attention is. If our attention functions within a religio-centric environment, there is an obscuring of our spiritual essence. It doesn’t matter whether we think that we are becoming more spiritual; we simply are not, and we cannot cultivate the sapientialness of spirituality upon a dogmatic sciential/sentient foundation. Christianity is a patriarchal, cerebrally invented religion whose intent is to perpetuate an inferior humanity.

I'm not a Christian. However, Merry Mithras to you,...The feast of Mithras was celebrated on the Gregorian equivalent of December 25, which was the first day following the Solstice when the light of the sun was seen returning. The birth of the sun was celebrated with lights, bells, stockings hung from hearths, holly wreaths (symbolizing the cycle of life), wassail, candles, and the mystery and joy of gift-giving. Befana, the goddess cult of Bari, was said to have traveled by wolf drawn sleigh to fill childrens stockings with gifts. Buddhists and serious Taoists are more into natures calendar. Many mandala gateways are based on the Cardinal points, while the corners represent mid-points or 15 degress of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarious. As a bodhisattva, my only wish is for the liberation of sentient being's clinging to the delusion of sentience for their identity,...as thousands of other's have done. "As soon as one sense-organ returns to the source, All the six are liberated." Avalokitesvara

The authentic Spiritual Teacher can be recognized by how they go about pointing to ways we can loosen our bindings, not their degree of humbleness, personal faith-based knowledge, or how much the majority admires them. In the film 'Words of My Perfect Teacher', a true spiritual teacher is likened to an assassin,...an assassin you hire to kill your ego. "humility is just a degree of pride." Wei Wu Wei (those who ridicule C&P usually have no interest in truth). All authentic bodhisattvas are assassins. They pledge their allegiance to the Spiritual Assassins Oath,...to liberate all sentient being from their delusion in sentience. Dr. Stanley Sobottka, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Virginia wrote: "The teachings of teachers (gurus) who have responsibility for managing and maintaining ashrams or spiritual centers are likely to be aimed at a larger audience than those who do not, because supporting an ashram requires large amounts of volunteer effort and substantial financial commitments from the disciples. Consequently, such teachings will generally be designed for maximum acceptability. Even teachers who have only small followings, but who depend on their contributions for survival, sometimes will color their teachings to avoid losing their followers." To me, that is dishonesty. A teacher who is not Truth Realized, is of little use in pointing the way to end our suffering. Dzongzar Rinpoche, who is seen as a God in Bhutan and a Buddha among his students in America, calls himself a sycophant (that is a self-seeking flatterer and fawning parasite) who always goes along with what people think. He says "if people think a teacher should shave their head, wear something maroon, walk gently, eat only vegetarian, and be so-called serene, then I'm very tempted to do that....I don't have the guts, the confidence...I'm like these police undercover cops who are sent into a Mafia family. What I'm supposed to do is really check out these people, but I fall in love with what they do, so I follow what they want....I think on both continents (Asia and North America) I have mastered the art of pretense." There are many sycophants who post on TTB. Dr. Stanley Sobottka suggests that "the purest teachings usually come from teachers who are not surrounded and supported by followers or an organization. A good example of such a teaching is Wei Wu Wei, whose books focus on one point and one point only--the absence of personal, individual "I". As a teacher, he led an obscure life, and his books have never had a wide audience." If Buddha, Avalokitesvara, or Tilopa were alive today, not only would their following be very small, but be under constant death threats from sycophant types attached to their beliefs for their identity. An easily accessible dialogue on Truth Realization can be heard from the book Spiritual Enlightenment:

The point should be that all personal experience is invalid,...a lie,...because the personal sentience is a delusion. Unlike several of TTB, I have no need of admiration or acclaim. If you seek the personal experience of self-professed masters, TTB is full them. Some have even realize the nature of emptiness,...of course their experience contradicts the Heart Sutra, Shantideva, HH Dalai Lama, Robert Thurman, Karl Brunnholzl, Tilopa, Shurangama Sutra, Taranatha, Wie Wu Wie....just to name a few of those I've quoted. Personal experience can never experience enlightenment. Personal experience can never access Heart-Mind. In other words, if you're interested in personal experience, it is likely that you not be seriously interested in enlightenment in this life time. For those who are seriously interested in enlightenment,...one of the first things to accept is that anyone who gives you a belief system or religion, is your enemy. Those who advocate human-ness, do want you to uncover the consciousness you had before you were born. They want you to be as asleep as they are. Since the 1920's, a statistic has been watched by those inclined towards the truth,... which sees that at any given moment, less than .04% of humanity have a sincere interest in enlightenment. Of course that doesn't jive very well with TTB, where there are many, many enlightened beings who have realized emptiness through their personal experience,...although full contradicting the Heart Sutra, Shantideva, HH Dalai Lama, Robert Thurman, Karl Brunnholzl, Tilopa, Shurangama Sutra, Taranatha, Wei Wu Wei, etc. Gurdjieff said, "...consider externally always, internally never." A Spiritual experience does not arise Personal experience,...but at the dissolution or shock of the personal. Personal experience is Ego experience. Ken Wilber had something interesting to say about Ego and the demand for Personal experience of today: "To dare to even speak about radical transformation, let alone call other people to a higher level, is against the unstated rules. And of course, one's definitely going to be put in one's place for doing something like that. But unless the possibility of genuine transformation is actually declared, unless one is willing to demonstrate it publicallyand to call other people to the same, no one is even going to know that it's possible. And than unknowingly, everybody's going to be participating in the conspiracy of mediocrity. The conspiracy of mediocrity is basically the conspiracy to express your own ego instead of transcending it or letting go of it. The idea has become "if I can really emote and express my self-contriction with sincerity, I'm somehow spiritual". Actually, people who are involved in this boomeritis even deny the importance of Enlightenment or Awakening, because that's saying some states are higher than others - and we shouldn't be so judgemental. But guess what? Some states are higher. And so the entire raison d'etre gets tossed out because it offends the pluralistist ego. The spiritual experience, which ideally should be a stepping stone to less ego and greater transparency, has become a victim of our therapeutic culture, where we don't make judgements because that would hurt egoic self-esteem, and so all we do is embrace, console, and celebrate the personal self. Spiritual practice has become nothing more than a form of therapy where self-acceptance rather than ego-transcendence is the goal. And the problem is that therapists are basically pimps for samsara. They want to hold onto the egoic self-contraction and make it feel good about itself. This conspiracy of mediocrity is very unfortunate. The great promise of the human potential movement was very straightforward - there are higher human potentials. Now, from the therapeutic culture, people say, "wait a minute. you're saying there are higher potentials, so does that mean I'm lower? because that can't be right". All of a sudden it implied a judgement, and nobody's allowed to be higher because that means someone else is going to be lower. And you're not allowed to call anybody lower; therefore nobody's allowed to be higher. So the Human Potential movement got derailed and was replaced by this therapeutic self-expression, self-acceptence movement, which catastrophically prevents higher transformation and mystical breakthroughs. What is missing in the New Age Community is real intellectual vigor. Under the therapeutic culture, if you feel good, you're enlightened. That is mediocrity, and a conspiracy toward mediocrity." In our current therapeutic society people don't want to see that what they thought was meaningful may actually be meaningless".

Such, as stated above, is a New Age fantasy,...that is, the suggestion that one's personal conditions can uncover Wholeness, while everyone elses conditions must become unconditioned. For those earnist enough, the real shift lies in this, that Wholeness is beyond the sum of opposites. Nothing of duality enters wholeness. The "beingness of ego," never has, and never will be part of Wholeness. An interesting note on being earnest,... "Handa dani bhikkhave amantayami vo: Vayadhamma sankhara appamadena sampadetha." Many consider that to be the last instruction of Shakyamuni Buddha. Some Western translations go like this, "And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!" However, to "strive with earnestness" does not necessarily point to the essence of appamada, but more to an ego concept. Appamada is synonymous with the Mind at the threshold of the gates of the Six Senses,...that is, our Unborn Consciousness or unindoctrinated Awareness,..not the sense organ of thinking. Appamada is primarily yin or feminine in nature, and as such can only be fully recognized through Heart-Mind. Pamada on the hand, is yang or masculine, and associated with form. Appamada means not pamada. Appamada is difficult to understand by way of the 6 senses.　 From a Short Path perspective (that is, those whose practice includes all 4 turnings of the Dharma, or Prajnaparamita), appamada is to yoni (empty), what pamada is to lingam (form). To understand appamada is to realize the message of the Heart sutra. In the Shurangama sutra Buddha said, "From beginningless time until now, all living beings have mistaken themselves for things and, having lost the original mind, are turned around by things." This is a clue to appamada; the Mind at the threshold of the gates of the Six Senses,...that is, our Unborn Awareness. Thus, when considered along with pamada, appamada, is pointing to a primal feminine aspect of nature that can only be recognized through Heart-Mind, which is beyond the 6 senses. Pamada is the masculine, or form (skandhas) based mind. The idea of some that appamada is as "earnest, mindful, energetic care" can be quite deceptive. When Aristotelian Greeks discussed "mind" they pointed to the chest and said Thymos. Today, the psyche is considered mind, and thymos relegated to needless atrophy. Even the definitions of thymos have been altered to reflection the superiorness of the pysche. Note: the double-lobed, butterfly-shaped thymus gland that overlaps the upper portion of the heart, was reported in ancient times to have been larger than the heart. In today's cerebral-centric cultures, the thymus atrophies around puberty to the size of a quarter, or less. Surely meditation is helpful to quiet the 6 senses; because the six senses cannot observe Stillness,...they can only observe motion or vibration (energy). All vibration is in the past. There is no present in time. When we look beyond the point of view of the Six Senses, we can observe what is being observed from the observed point of view. For example, the Six Senses observe the electrodynamic spectrum an exclaims that light travels at 186k mps,...however, from light's point of view, it travels no distance, in no time, and thus has no need of speed. Appamada is aware that humanity is the perception of a projection, 186k mps slower than the Stillness of Light. "All matter is frozen or slowed down light" David Bohm. Of course, as Charles Haanel said, "The mind cannot comprehend an entirely new idea until a corresponding vibratory brain cell has been prepared to receive it." PS,...an addition note to #54 above for those who take this subject seriously,...the 14th Century Treatise called The Mountain Doctrine can be quite helpful in determining if one's experiences are New Agey ego apparitions, or actually experiencing the profound. "Contradictions in perspective among those Seeing the profound do not occur" Taranatha

Yes,...there are obviously several TTBers who feel that they have experienced emptiness. This comment is not meant for them,...for they are obviously enlightened beings,...however, for those not enlightened, and interested in the subject of emptiness, I have attempted to keep this thread very synonymous with Karl Brunnholzl' The Heart Attack Sutra, which comments quite extensively on the subject. As for myself, emptiness has been a primary subject since 1974 since first reading Tilopa's Mahamudra. I can assure you, that loving others as you love your 6 senses will not bring one anywhere near to uncovering what is necessary to realize emptiness. This thread is an attempt to introduce the prajnaparamita view of emptiness,...not the imagined experiences of self-acclaimed enlightened ones. The summary of the whole of prajnaparamita is said to be the Heart Sutra. The best commentary I've even seen on the subject is the above Heart Attack Sutra. Not a single one of my 1357 posts have contradicted the Heart Sutra. "Contradictions in perspective among those Seeing the profound do not occur" Taranatha I also regularly use quotes from the Hua Hu Ching,...and do not contadict it. There is no reason to contradict it. Be very cautious however of those proselytizing about "others to come to their truth"...or coming to their own truth. Ego will never allow one to come to truth, for it would, from ego's point of view, kill ego. This leaves, as I've mentioned in the treads first post, about 20% (maybe 1 in 5 members) who can realize that experience born of belief, can only be experience through the condition of that belief. Those who claim enlightenment, or having had experienced emptiness, and yet are pushers of beliefs, conditions, and morals, do not want you reading and comprehending books like the Heart Attack Sutra. One of my favorite quote on morals came from a Zen Buddhist,..."Morality can only be imposed from without when we are asleep. It can only be pseudo, false, a façade, it cannot become your real being…morality is bound to be nothing but a deep suppression. You cannot do anything while asleep; you can only suppress. And through morality, you will become false. You will not be a person, but simply a "persona"—just a pseudo-entity. . . . Only a dishonest person can be moral."

1. Universal love or Oneness is still ego consciousness. Until emptiness is realized, all love is conditional. There is no "divinity." Divine compassion would be an oxymoron. Ponder on the bodhisattva vow. The wish for the liberation of all sentient beings. What sentient being wishes to be liberated from what they cling to the most? 2. "Normal light", that is, the light or eletrodynamic spectrum perceived by the 6 senses, cannot be understood without Undivided Light. Near all of the science haven't a clue about the nature of light. And yet,...from all I've read of Taoism and Buddhism from before the Great Terma (13th century CE), they understood the nature of Light from Light's point of view,....that is, that Light travels no distance, in no time, and has no need for speed. The thread on "Absolute Present" may be helpful: http://thetaobums.com/topic/25705-the-absolute-present/page__hl__vmarco#entry380363 As the nature of mind arises from energy, many say it is doubtful, some say impossible, for energy to guide one to anything meaningful. Energy is nothing but the consequence of the delusion of separation seeking source,...which it can never find, because energy is an illusion. 3. Like you blackboard analogy,...it's most about unlearning. Asians have called the process Neti-Neti,...not this, not that. That is, reducing everything,...all falsity.

How do you kill something that never existed?

Emptiness is not necessarily "about" residing in Heart-Mind, what serveral cultures called the Higher Mind, but is a consequence of the realization of Emptiness. According the actual Masters of this subject, compassion is only concept and spectulation, and in fact impossible, without the realization of emptiness. This suggests to me that the focus should be on emptiness, not New Agey ideas about compassion. As for energy,...it is as empty and impermanent as ego and relative compassion. I first came upon the nature of emptiness in 1974 by way of experiences with divided/Undivided Light. http://thetaobums.com/topic/19803-what-is-light/ "The Long Path is concerned with relative matters, but the Short one is concerned with the Absolute alone...Confucius' injunction to acquire specific virtues is Long Path, whereas Lao Tzu's counsel to let the mind become empty so that Tao may enter it is the Short Path." Paul Brunton In the above case, the "mind" appears related to the brain, the sense organ of thinking,...however, according to Avalokitesvara, "As soon as one sense-organ returns to the source, All the six are liberated."

"There is no wish in the Short Path man to be better than he is, no desire to improve his character or purify his mind, no sense of being obliged to rectify the distortions brought about by the ego in both thought and feeling....Ramana Maharshi was quite right. Pruning the ego of some faults will only be followed by the appearance and growth of new faults!" Paul Brunton

An example of a spoiler, as noted in the top post.

For the conversation,...perhaps we befriend the so-called subconscious, and see it as empty as everything else. Certainly, a main obstacle to full-spectrum consciousness is beliefs, not only the beliefs of the conscious mind, but also the beliefs of the larger subconscious mind. All of the programming of our learning, memories, emotions, and experiences is stored in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is the nonlogical, habit-oriented, resistant-to-change, deeper level of the individual-oriented conscious mind. Much of what we receive from outer circumstances is a reflection of what is given or projected through the subconscious. The subconsciousness alters perceptions, just as the film or celluloid medium alters the light between a bulb and the "silver screen." If your outer circumstances do not seem to match your so-called everyday consciousness, this arise from beliefs embedded in your subconscious mind. The conscious mind has been compared to the tip of an iceberg, and the subconscious mind to the larger mass of the iceberg under the surface. Full-spectrum consciousness is an awareness of the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the ocean that adjoins the subconscious mind. This ocean is often called the higher consciousness. The ocean of higher consciousness has an intimate interrelationship with all other icebergs, and in that context is often termed the collective unconscious. Considering this water-based analogy, imagine placing some of the fresh, higher-consciousness water that lies close to the iceberg in a twenty-cube freezer tray. Let’s analyze that water. All of the water is the same. However, when the tray is frozen and reanalyzed, there will be twenty individual, distinct, intricately latticed ice crystals, each one as different from the others as a snowflake or a fingerprint. The tip of the iceberg, which has no sensory, direct contact with the water, thinks that it is an individual, although it suspects the possibility of a subconscious. The subconscious, on the other hand, is connected not only to the conscious mind, but also to the higher consciousness, which is connected to the collective unconscious. Thus the subconscious is a vehicle to realize higher levels of evolutionary potential, as the physical body is the vehicle through which we interact with and experience nature. The subconscious, or consciousness of inductive reasoning, perceives reality differently than does deductive reasoning, which is the mental process of ego consciousness (the tip of the iceberg). The subconscious, as has been shown repeatedly by those who study it, is easily programmed or media-ted by cultural beliefs and groupthink, but also exhibits a resistance to change. The subconscious is not inaccessible to change, but needs a profound shift in beliefs from the conscious mind. If the conscious mind affirms that "poverty consciousness" is not a viable belief, then the subconscious may have to let go of its belief in "poverty consciousness," but this shift is not automatic. Many people are governed by their subconscious beliefs, which may be at odds with the New-Age affirmations they repeat. As in the example of poverty consciousness, they may remain trapped in struggling from paycheck to paycheck, until the beliefs are abated. The tip of the iceberg says, "I think, therefore I am." The purpose of full-spectrum consciousness is to shift the I am so it is before the I think, and thus to flow with the full stream of life, from the collective unconscious to the phenomenal consciousness. This requires relinquishing the perspective of an imagined individual looking outside its perceived self for connection and purpose.

Perhaps compassion could be seen in terms of relative and absolute: "Relative and absolute, These the two truths are declared to be. The absolute is not within the reach of intellect, For the intellect is grounded in the relative." Shantideva Relatively, we may see compassion as feelings for sympathy and sorrow for others,...however, the Heart sutra (dictated by the Bodhisattva of Compassion) says feeling is empty,...that real or absolute compassion, is effortlessly expressed through the seeing of things as they are,...that is, as empty. Thus, compassion isn't seeing through the illusion, but compassion is a consequence of seeing through the illusion. Lao-zu said, "To attain pure Tao (realization of emptiness) you must understand and integrate within yourself the three main energies of the universe: The first is the earth energy. Centered in the belly, itexpresses itself as sexuality. Those who cultivate and master the physical energy attain partial purity; Second is the heaven energy. Centered in the mind, it expresses itself as knowledge and wisdom. Those whose minds merge with the Universal Mind also attain partial purity. Third is the harmonized energy. Centered in the heart, it expresses itself as spiritual insight. Those who develop spiritual insight also attain partial purity. Only when you attain you achieve all three - mastery of physical energy, universal mindedness, and spiritual insight - and express them in a virturous integral life, can you attain pure Tao." The Heart Sutra is the Heart of Prajnaparamita. Prajnaparamita literally means the Perfection of Spiritual Insight. Heart-Mind in the absolute understanding is that which is aware of Full Spectrum Consciousness; it is uncovered, as Mahamudra says, when "the train of discursive and conceptual thought ends." Neither the cerebral-mind, nor the other senses, can gaze into Heart-Mind. The 6 senses can only know that of the 6 senses or consciousness'. Those consciousness; are often bound within a prison-like state called samsara ot the "conditioned experience." In Freethought Buddhism, the 7th and 8th consciousness' are as gateways for the Heart Center and Heart-Mind respectfully. However, we do not seek the 7th and 8th consciousness', we simply tag all that is the 6 senses as the 6 senses. We do that to ease the surrender process. It is easier to let go of what is false, than what we may believe to be meaningful. As Eckhart Tolle correctly said, "we need to draw our attention to what is false in us, for unless we learn to recognize the false as the false, there can be no lasting transformation, and you will always be drawn back into illusion, for that is how the false perpetuates itself" 　 Earth energy is the realization of the physical barycenter,...in Hapkido this is called the Danjun, whereas in T'ai chi it is termed the dantian. A barycenter is the balance point of two or more conditions. In astrology, one's Part of Fortune or Joy, is the barycenter of the natives Sun, Moon, and Ascendent. In astronomy, the barycenter of most planets is within it's sphere; unlike Pluto, whose barycenter or point of balance is between itself and largest moon, Charon, which is actually not a moon, but a slightly smaller binary planet. In other words, although seemingly small, the electrodynamic field produced from the Pluto and Charon dance may very well be larger than that of most single planets. The Danjun/Dantien is synonymous with the barycenter of the lower 3 chakras, whose long wavelengths, low frequency colors are red, orange, and yellow. 　 What Lao Tzu purportedly called Heaven energy is realized through the barycenter or balance point of the thyroid, pineal, and pituitary glands, or upper three chakras, whose short wavelengths, high frequency colors are blue, indigo, and violet. These can be symbolized through the David Star. The interlacing of triangles of fire and water manifests the yang (Earth) interlaced downward triangle, with the Yin (Heaven) interlaced upward triangle. Therefore, the yang of Heaven is Fire; and the yin of Earth is Water. The interlacing is the 7th point, or green ray, which is the one without a twin, where a Balanced Harmonic Interchange is realized at the Heart (thymos/Anahata,...whose physical aspect, that is the thymus gland, in today's society begins atrophying around puberty). This is the threshold of the Heart Center,... the transmutative doorway to Heart-Mind. In pre-christian Greece the butterfly-like thymus gland was said to have been larger than the heart. The Heart Mind is unobscured through direct cognizance of the harmonic balanced interchange of Earth (Yang) and Yin (Heaven). An unfortunate problem today is that very few understand Yang/Yin or Who's Who in Duality; and thus the nature of form is misinterpreted. Most contemporary Taoist are attached to relative, human-centric notions about duality. 　 Lao-zu said, "Because yin an yang are not complete within us as individuals, we pair up to integrate them, and bring new life. Although most people spend their entire lives following this biological impulse, it is only a tiny portion of our beings as well." 　 In bodhicitta's absolute viewpoint, yang descends from above (compressing, converging, imploding) and manifests the outward shape of the penis. Yin ascends from below (dissolution, diverging, exploding) and manifests the inward shape of the vagina. The propaganda of self-proclaimed visionaries however, continually accommodates absurd misunderstandings of duality. One of these visionaries wrote that male yang is "explosive, centrifugal, warming, destructuring, and dissipating, while the female yin is implosive, centripetal, cooling, structuring, and integrative." Once again, these are ego statements, based on a human-centric viewpoint, not nature’s reality. How is dissipating or destructuring warming? How is implosiveness and structuring cooling? These human-centric viewpoints only encourage a world in which people consider non sequiturs meaningful. To access Heart-Mind there must be cognition of who’s who in duality from the point of view of what is being observed. The reality of duality is this: yin is feminine, spiral-out, diverging, radiative, expansive, disintegrating, explosive, discharging, centrifugal, cooling, dissipating, exhaling, and ascending (notice how these are all complimentary terms). Yang is masculine, spiral-in, converging, generative, contractive, integrating, implosive, charged, centripetal, heating, accumulating, inhaling, and descending (again, all complimentary terms). Intermixing or attributing yin characteristics to yang or vice versa because someone feels that feminine energy should be structuring and masculine energy destructuring is disingenuous. Of course those on Long Paths will object, as they don't want to see that what they thought was meaningful may actually be meaningless. 　 However, from an absolute (that is, not relative) Tao point of view, dark yin initiates compression from cold, thus multiplying cold to create incandescence through yang’s heat. The compressed heat expands, thus dividing crystallized light and yang’s heat back to dark, yin cold. That is the pulse of the harmonic balanced interchange of duality. Through the Emptiness of yin, perceived creation dies into Form, but at no time is Form separate from Emptiness, or is Emptiness separate from Form. 　 The Heart-Center is not only the 7th point, or interlacing of the Magen David, but analogous with the 7th sense or consciousness. This 7th sense (which vibrates as the color of green light) is not the transcendental or 8th sense; however, the 7th sense (Heart Center) is the gate so-to-say to the 8th sense (Heart-Mind). The 8th sense vibrates as white light. If you spin green light (real emotion) with red light (the physical or Earth center) and violet light (the mental or Heaven center) it makes white light. Clear or "stainless" consciousness is the 9th consciousness. According to Short Path practioners through the ages, nothing is greater or less than nine,...a subject that can be discussed through the nine-pointed vajra; Gurdjieff's enneagram; the nature of light (that is, the nine optic planes through which spectra or photons multiply into form and divide back into emptiness); Mayan cosmology; the Nine Dakini Secrets; Nine Siddha perfections; the nine point unwinding swastika of the Bönpo through which they cultivated feminine path to Heart-Mind; correspondences with Egyptian and Vajrayana philosophies, etc. 　 Beate Stolte said, "to place yourself in unfabricated present awareness." Unfabricated means without predispositions, as from beliefs. Present awareness only arises beyond the 6 senses. This is not about a perceived or relative present. Thus perhaps why so many are content on Long Paths, where the laborous struggle to maintain object-ivity and separation make that world more palatable. The 6 senses (sight, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, and thinking) cannot observe the Present. The 6 senses can only observe motion. There is no Present in motion. To tap into the transcendental or meta-senses, where there is a coherence of gnowingness, the Short Pather welcomes the uncovering of Heart-Mind from the barriers built against it. Thus, such a shift necessitates a considerable letting go of beliefs. The Unconditional cannot be accessed through conditions.

Our everyday state would optimally be one where we see everything the way it is. This is why Sakyamuni implied that suffering is a consequence of the desire for things to be other than they are,...the way things are, are not the way they appear. Everything that appears, is through the illusion of yin/yang, which is born of One,...and yet One, which is born from the Tao, is also empty. Lao-zu correctly said, "The Tao gives birth to One. One gives birth to yin and yang. Yin and yang give birth to all things....The Tao gives rise to all form, yet is has no form of its own." All form (feeling, etc) is empty (according to the Heart sutra),...however, I concur with the implications in the Mountain Doctrine, that the Tao is not empty, as form is empty. Many seek something of permanence. In much of mundane Buddhism, there is only discussion on impermanence. The Mahaparanirvana sutra pointed to another Empty,...realized beyond nirvana. Such a discussion is often frowned upon,...however, IMO such discussion can move an aspirant further,...into a state of non-meditation. "The state of non-meditation is born in the heart...." Jigme Lingpa "The practice of meditation is represented by the three monkeys, who cover their eyes, ears and mouths so as to avoid the phenomenal world. The practice of non-meditation is ceasing to be the see-er, hearer or speaker while eyes, ears and mouths are fulfilling their function in daily life." - Wei Wu Wei "We teach meditation, or quieting the mind, because it is really easier to teach you to have no thoughts, than to teach you to have pure, positive thought. We would rather you be in a state of appreciation, than in a state of meditation, because in appreciation you uncover Source." Esther Hicks Appreciation arises from Non-meditation. "Do you think you can clear your mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not clear." Lao-zu

No,...The Heart Sutra implies that when the 5 skandhas are seen as the emptiness they are, phenomena is seen subjectively for what it is (that is empty), yet the object does not dissolve. This does not mean that the object ever existed,...it is merely empty,...always was, always will be. In a lucid dream, we can see that the objects in the dream are empty, although to the 6 senses, the objects appear to exist. Emptiness is the real nature of all phenomena. Our liberation from sentient beingness is not in its dissolution, but the realization that sentient beingness is empty of any nature of its own. As the Heart Sutra implies,...empty and form are not separate,...nor is empty separate from feeling, discrimination,formation, and consciousness,...all are empty. Karl Brunnholzl wrote, "Emptiness is not some kind of spiritual atom bomb that destroys everything that we know, though it may seem that way sometimes because it crashes the hard drive of our ego-mind with all its stored belief systems." This is why the first Absolute Bodhicitta lojong says, "Look at everything you preceive as a dream." When you do,...that is, can perceive everything as a dream, it uncovers absolute bodhicitta or realization of prajnaparamita. To understand the 4 Noble Truths is to appreciate emptiness. To understand Dependent Origination is to appreciate emptiness.

People are still hyrocritical,...but now use their personal theism, and other beliefs, to justify their hypocracy. To realize the Tao, all belief must be dissolved,...when all beliefs are dissolved, the Tao is realized.

Hey Cow,..you feeling a little warn, cozzy, and excited,...gee,..hope that shower was cold enough. I do love your thoughtful, Buddhist inspired posts however,...never once adding anything meaningful to the conversation,...nothing thought provoking,...no transformational triggers. "For most, two people have been living in them all their life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating, neurotic – the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of prajna they have only rarely heard or attended to..." Sogyal Rinpoche Nevertheless,...experience, such as the many mindless posts on TTB, leads me to wonder if everyone actually has a spiritual being.

"Religion is an extraordinarily harmful force. Anyone with half a brain would run like hell from religion, but, once it has caught them, they very seldom have half a brain." Richard G Rieben

"The word "belief" is a difficult thing for me. I don’t believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it -- I don’t need to believe it." Carl Jung

"There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to Christianity as a human being." James Joyce

"Whoever has the blood of theism in his veins, stands from the start in a false and dishonest position to all things." Friedrich Nietzsche

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands. Friedrich Nietzsche

"Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in "another" or "better" life." Friedrich Nietzsche