Nikolai1

But not to the ordinary people, the enchanted ones! Because they think their work is so important, anyone not doing work is lazy. They certainly wouldn't recognise what is actually going on - that the sage has earned his rest through the effort of gaining wisdom. There will come a point where the sage could not find work, even if he wanted it. But for the time being, where our work is..so is our ignorance.

I sometimes get this intuition - I can't get a handle on it intellectually - but an intuition that latitude effects the spiritual experience of those that live there. For example, high latitudes have very pronounced differences between summer and winter. Anybody got any theories on this?

Hi all, Over the last 10 years the I Ching has become more and more helpful to me. Why is this? Am I getting better at interpreting it? Or does the I Ching only 'work' for those who are also cultivating themselves through spiritual practice? I'm really interested to hear your thoughts!

Bringing it back to the OP... We all learn from birth the view that we are individuals living in time and space, amongst other things that also exist independently of us. All these people and things exist for a while and then dissolve or die. This is the original viewpoint. ALL the religious traditions in the world try to persuade us that it is an illusion. These teachers fail to persuade 99.999% of the population. The rare few become intellectually enlightened. The first thing they notice is that the above viewpoint can be complemented by a second viewpoint. That all we see is a horizontal tree in the forest and there is no grounds to suppose that it fell, or indeed even existed before this moment. Indeed, speculation about the tree annihilates the tree and ensures that the tree is no more. TaoMaster, the author of this thread, is one of the rare few who has seen the indubitable intellectual validity of the second viewpoint. He has understood the truly radical and shocking teaching of the spiritual masters So often these rare few, still attached to the notion of truth, swap the first view for the second. They think that 99.99% of the populace are in illusion and that they, with this new perspective, have attained reality. But this is called 'being trapped in emptiness'. They are still relating to reality through the intellect and not directly in the raw sense. Eventually they see that the tree can be understood either as an independent entity in time and space or, as a present moment event without history or meaning. This is the second massive shock. Everything can be viewed to exist and, if we like, to not exist. This is a massive mortification. It is the end of philosophy. The end of discussion. The end of being 'right' about anything. Whether we are materialists like Marblehead, or subjective idealists like Tao Master, neither hits the mark. Talk about stuff seems very futile. This mortification is also the end of trying to approach reality through the mind. From now on we have no choice but to simply BE the moment itself, directly and without mediation by anything. This process is indescribable. The spiritual teachers try to shake us out of the first viewpoint by telling us about the second; but to shake us out the second they have no way other than to tell us that their own teachings are worthless. It takes a leap of immense daring to leave the intellect behind and with it the ego. It is an act of suicide, and I'm not speaking figuratively. It's no surprise that so few are willing.

Thanks I found this on google and I'm with spotless, i think it's great http://thetaobums.com/topic/35910-recognizing-reality/

Hi decibelle or anyone, Could anyone please post a link to a classic decibelle thread - am very intrigued to read it?

Aasin I think you're still in an auspicious situation because it seems like you are basically motivated to the do the job you are doing, to do at well, to be recognised for what you are doing and rewarded as you see is fair. All these values mean that you are managing to run the rat race pretty well, and if you are as competent as you think you are, it won't go unnoticed for long. Those who are always desperate to get all the credit sooner or later slip up - usually their need to get the credit leaves them to make lapses of judgement, enemies etc. The rat race becomes a much harder place when the goals of your organisation and the fruits of your collective labour no longer motivate you. Or, when you no longer see the meaning or sense of what you do because it belongs to a mindset that you no longer hold. If you ever start to feel lukewarm about whether 'the shareholders are rewarded' or not...if you no longer care about the broad aims - then your days in the rat race are numbered. It is a brutal truth that this collapse of mainstream values is one of the occupational hazards of spiritual cultivation. It is VERY common for quite drastic changes to occur in a person's working life- whether we like it or not. It's very easy to feel guilty about this - we feel that we aren't living up to the ideal of the 'sage amongst the butchers and wine bibbers'. We feel like we should be at home anywhere - even in the boardroom. But when our motivation goes, its gone...and it won't come back. So much of the world's work is based on all too human fears and passions - our fear of privation, our need for status, our boredom and need for stimuation,..I could go on. The spiritually developed person quite simply ceases to feel this. Any work whose raison d'etre is to meet these imaginary needs should be undertaken by those who feel the fears and the passions. The sage's work is of a different nature.

The I Ching is probably the biggest mystery in my life. It never ceases to amaze me the way it works.

A thought is a thing in itself - a moment of reality no less real than a perception, although equally as unreal and fleeting. The same is the case for words, which are at the same time both symbols of other realities, and present moments pregnant with their own power. The word 'Fire!' shouted carries a powerful emotional charge. The task is not to belittle words by reducing them to be mere symbols. Try and live always in the present moment impact of the word. This way we shall discover the immense depths in the event that is a word. The word will teach us more about reality than it ever can should we reduce it to be a mere symbol of something else. We imagine that the word is a symbol because the word inspires mental imagery. These images are also their own reality, but because they are dimly perceived by the mind's eye we imagine that these images are also symbols of other time, places and things. Al this is a vicious circle. The more we believe in the existence other times and places, the more we reduce the living word to be a symbol of other things. Focus on the word. Feel it deeply. Concentrate on the word that is Now and do not belittle it. All words are sacred. They have their legitimate place in the flow of reality. The connection between things, thoughts and words is not arbitrary. The word 'rose' is as inviolably linked to the flower as is the thorn and the perfume. The name is a physical trait of that which is named. Language is the sixth sense of mankind. A word is a smell and a vision. in some people this sense is deficient, in others very strong. The names for things are not accidental. The poet coins the name, and the people know and feel that the name is the correct one and that there could be no other. The bards of related tribes come up with the same word, or close words without converse with other bards. In modern times a true neologism is a rare thing, such bards are not needed now. For our new creations we give old names already accepted. A new thing to mankind will remain unnameable, at first. This has always been the case for the mystic who cannot express what they have found. Words and thoughts are not always harmful to the spiritual seeker. They are only harmful to that type of consciousness that insists as understanding the word only as a symbol. Words therefore perpetuate their division between self and world which is itself the life of sin. But when we view the word directly, in itself...this is the consciousness of the liberated.

I think trying to understand more than a couple of changing lines can be very confusing. Best just to focus on the general texts for the two hexagrams as a whole to begin with...then with the passage of time the individual lines make more more sense. Normally the primary hexagram is the most salient... but the more changing lines there are, the more you must look at the secondary hexagram

Hi Manitou The Seth Material talks about what you've discovered at some length. The universe exists in the mode of time and space; the Body exists in the mode of the Present. Our bodies have the whole depth of the universe which we discover once we learn to be present. And yes, the 'past' can be re-written through the point of power that is the present. All we have to do is to stop feeding past stories and replace them with different explanations for our present situation. The changes will follow suit in the very cells of our bodies. We change our ancestry!

I think once our spiritual life deepens and starts to bear early fruit we can get held back by a kind of guilt. We have a bad conscience about the wonderful things that are happening because we see that they aren't happening to those around us. It is really hard not to feel like we have 'moved on', yet we also have the idea that we should be totally unelitist, and able to move and mix with whoever comes our way. This all stems from insufficient confidence in what we are becoming. Our desire to be egalitarian is actually the fear of standing out and setting a positive example. We think that being our wonderful selves would be a tacit condemnation of others' 'backwardness' As our practice deepens we realise that our increasing love and respect for others enables to totally be ourselves AND love and respect others wherever they are and whatever they are doing. Apparently the Buddha went through this immediately after his realisation. He felt uncomfortable that he was the lotus in bloom and all those around him are only just budding. Then he thought: 'the unopened bud is just as beautiful and perfect in its own way as the the opened flower.'

I couldn't agree more with this - and I've experienced the same thing. And surprisingly, the same goes for pain, which when you really accept it and go into it, becomes a particular rich and textured form of pleasure. I guess what I questioned was when you called this 'yin and yang of the heart centre' - this overall view - as being contraction, the term we associate with the negative pole. What you call 'the crowning acheivement of the Mind' is clearly a positive state. Impossible to describe in itself, we can try using the vocabulary of the emotions (even though they have been trasncended). And when we do, we cannot help but use the word bliss, even though it is the 'bliss above bliss'. I think this is why Capital letters at the front of words like Bliss get used so often. We need to indicate when we are talking about the transcendent. Anyway, I for one think you've done a good job with this thread and been as clear as you can be.

If this were true then I think you would be right to try and focus on the 'outward facing' senses. But the truth is that the 'perfection' that you rightly identify as being beyond judgement, is mediated through the emotions and is experienced as intense bliss. The emotional realm as a whole mustn't therefore be considered as something to switch away from. Not all emotion is contraction. Contracting emotions are those which are associated with thoughts and behaviours that make sense within the egoic worldview: the world of individuals living in time and space. Anything that is interpreted as a threat to our physical or psychological well-being will result in contraction. Physical contraction emphasises and exaggerates our finiteness. Thoughts and behaviours that are associated with our spiritual worldview produce emotions that are expansive and blissful. A person who has a well-developed sense of their spiritual identity will therefore be able to feel expansion and bliss even when their individual well-being is under threat. This is because such a person understands that their individual sense of self is the main barrier to consciousness of the spiritual self. Threat to the ego is bliss to the spirit. The spiritually developed person of all ages, cultures and religions have all testified to the bliss that may be felt in situations where normal people would see pain and suffering. Don't try and switch off your emotions. You will only be temporarily successful anyway. The secret is to be a winner in all situations. Gear your practice towards realisation of your true self, and your emotions will be nothing other than joy to you. And after all, what is all this about except joy?

Hi all, I've started to write a commentary on each verse of the Tao Te Ching and I would love you all to read it. I've done 2 chapters so far but my aim is to work steadily on it over the coming weeks and months. Enjoy! http://taotechingcommentary.blogspot.fi/ Best wishes, Nick

Hi marblehead Thanks for a great answer - I really liked this: It really reminds me of some of those old Roman stoics - Seneca, Marcus Aurelius. Rather than seeking to transcend the ten thousand things, it seems you would rather find, accept and endorse your place amongst them. A kind of self-surrender to the realities of existence. And this includes an intellectual endorsement of the prevailing modern worldview of materialism. The old stoics talk about the peace this brings. Has the Tao Te Ching brought peace to you? For me, I have to say that I've found this road way too hard - in fact I haven't really attempted. Even though I was raised an atheist at age 18 I was already seeking to dismantle the materialism I was brought up with. For me self-surrender was not about humbly accepting my place in conventional reality. It was about trying to realise that the ego is an illusion and then trying to function in the world with this worldview. So, yes, quite Buddhistic really. I have been completely unable to get myself to fit anybody else's agenda accept my own. Was always terrible at being subordinate (or superordinate) to anyone. My hell was hierarchy. I think if I had to join the army with its culture of obedience and surrender of individual aim I think I would have shot myself. I used to have nightmares about being in the army, even though there has never been the remotest threat of it. But now, at 37 years old, I'm able to see how much I've had to suffer for my own need for freedom from obedience, how it holds you back. And I can see the spiritual merit, sorry to use that word, but it is the spiritual merit of just being happy as one tiny thing amongst the ten thousand. If I've read you wrongly and I'm on the wrong track with you, let me know...but this is what your post made me think.

Hi marblehead When the thought is no longer viewed as a internal symbol of an external event then it is no longer thought - it just becomes another mode of reality. And because it is not a thought then neither is there a thinker in this perspective. What is this mode of reality? It is simply the mode of time and space. what we once called thought we no see as the shadowy mode of reality which is structured by time and space. What we used to call perception is the brightly lit 'here and now' which is out of time. Reality flits between the light and the shade, between time and timelessness. That is it! Yes totally agree. This radical materialism is the direct opposite of the Buddhist doctrine of anatta - or not-self. But as often happens, the soteriological potential of these seemingly opposite doctrines is equal and actually identical. But all this aside...you describe yourself as an atheist and a materialist, a person who not only believes in evil but thinks we should take a stand against it. You also seem happy to accept theories like Darwinism and the Big Bang. in every respect you're a thoroughly modern thinker. So what does the Tao Te Ching do for you? What does it bring to your table?

Hi marblehead To understand the slightly misleading term 'collective' it helps if we think about thought from a different perspective. Rather than a thought being an inner representation or symbol of something on the outisde, let's view thought as being an object in its own right. The thought is therefore not a symbol but the thing that symbols normally symbolise. It is thing with its own living objective reality. And when it is out of awareness it continues to endure, just like a car does that has turned a corner out of sight to us. When we view thought this way, which is of course perfectly valid, we soon see that there is no private ownership of the thought because it is a thing in its own right. it is not a subjective symbol but a thing in itself which exists independently of the observer. To take this second, logically valid perspective, is to adopt the eyes not of an individual ego, but of an impersonal egoic set of eyes. Our consciousness is not 'egoic' but the opposite of 'egoic' and the word that gets used is collective. This 'collective view is also the spiritual perspective. It is the perspective that goes hand in hand with our normal egoic perspective, just the other side of the coin. We usually see thought as symbol, now we see thought as the symbolised. This second perspective is not the truth any more than the first. it is simply the completion of our understanding, and having recourse to both is what I call realisation.

Yes I agree with this. Nietzsche clearly saw that his understanding couldn't be captured by any system of thought whatsoever. Christinaity was not only this, but a system that gave rise to certain stereotyped codes of behaviour in the form of morals. And the system engendered fear in people whenever those codes were breached. A herd of half-asleep slaves is the result. In this Nietzsche was no different to lots of mystics who can't fit their vision into a system. But these figures are the true religious geniuses nevertheless, and the systems they inspire are always attempts made by the less-inspired to emulate and then formulate what the prophet said. Nietzsche was a prophet -. as true a prophet as ever lived - and he knew this of himself. If he feared to be considered Holy it is the fear that he will be held up as some kind of teacher to superficially emulate; when what he wanted was to people to BE for themselves. Remember from Zarathustra: "One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil." Nietzsche's thorough perspectivism was utterly revolutionary for a western philosopher, and left him intellectually isolated. But he would have been perfectly at home and comfortable with the sages of India and China. Chuang-tzu is very like Nietzsche

Hi Marblehead, I mentioned Jung earlier because he represents for me how materialism, when taken to its logical conclusion, becomes what others call spiritual. What do you think of this from Man and his Symbols? Do you agree with this statement? For Jung the mental and the physical behave in exactly the same way. They both arise in consciousness...and when they disappear they continue to endure until the next time we are conscious of them. There is therefore no difference in nature between thought and perception. Both behave identically and it becomes impossible to make a distinction between them. For most people it is the belief that we have both private subjective thoughts and perceptions of a shared objective realm that is the basis of a sense of individual selfhood. And we imagine they are different because they behave differently: thoughts are fleeting and ethereal, whereas objects endure and have substance. Jung denies this difference in the nature of thought and perception. He therefore denies the possibility selfhood, and consciousness must therefore be collective which is also the same as saying it is solipsistic.

From Ecce Homo 'Why I am a Destiny' Section 1

I consider pure materialism to be the same as what I call spiritual. By denying the ideal realm, the pure materialist has transcended the dichotomy between idea and matter. They have unified the very illusion that divides the individual subject from the external object. What else is spirituality if not this? This is why I consider that line of though that started with Nietzsche and proceeded through Freud to Jung as being about spiritual realisation. Yes, to me Nietszche is a true religious mystic, a jnani, a holy man! He feared people would think this about him and he was right to.

In everyday life we must be stood still to see change. Or, if we are the moving ones, what we see must be still if our view of it is to change. When two trains move together at the same time, both appear stationary and change is not seen. To observe the impermanence of the world, there must be a still point at our centre. That still point is a void, all our thoughts, perceptions are all part of the changing landscape - not the stillness itself. With time that still point can be sensed in a very deep way. It is very solid and immense and it is always there. But it is invisible to anything but our spiritual faculties of perception. It is pointless trying to talk about this to those who don't know it for themselves. That's why I agree that change is the thing that must be emphasised first. But even this gets misunderstood. Too many people think that change is something about transformation over time - we have spring, then summer, then all that grows starts to decay and in winter it dies. This is the shallowest view of change, and has no potential for spiritual transformation. People already know it, and yet this is still the commonest way of explaining change - both in Taoism and Buddhism. The vision of impermanence becomes transformative when we see it in its most radical sense. Every single moment is change. Every single moment is a moment of birth and then death. Every single thing that appears in our awareness exists for only the briefest hint of a moment, before being annihilated forever. That is how to see change!

Thankfully we don't need all that complicated maths and those million dollar instruments to see that all is happening here and now. Seeing the fact directly through the development of our own spiritual wisdom is a much better way. And we don't fall under the illusion, as the physicists do, that entanglement only occurs with very small particles. In fact we don't fall under the illusion that there is any difference at all between the sub-atomic and the planetary. But that said, it is good that high science and high spirituality start to approach each other and I think there are many people whose interest in the spiritual life started with quantum physics.

To be honest, because the Tao is the one thing that can't be defined I find myself being quite lenient at others' attempts! Certainly, the Tao made manifest, the Tao that we perceive is totally and thoroughly dynamic. It is nothing other than change itself. So from this perspective the 'Constant' seems a very strange choice of words. But as we learn to stand back from this change and to observe it happening there arises a state - it seems like a feeling - but it is a state of bliss and unity that is there regardless of anything that is occurring in the manifest realm. It is immense, solid and unchangable and we feel it wherever we go, whatever we do. For this hidden, unmanifest aspect of the Tao the term Constant is highly appropriate, and like Manitou said, it is really the perfect word. When we talk of the Tao we therefore have four choices: 1) to use terms that pertain to the manifest e.g. dynamic 2) to use terms that pertain to the unmanifest e.g. Constant 3) to use both in the form of a deliberate paradox e.g. Changeless change 4) to say nothing Each of these approaches has their merits, but I think most of us find ourselves tending to use one more than the others. I find that seeing that dynamism of the Tao comes easiest, and so it is most helpful to emphasise this to beginners - who most likely tend to see the world as a collection of things that endure in time and space and need to be reminded of the radical impermanence of things. The unmanifest perspective can only be understood by those who are spiritually developed. Indeed, the realisation of the unmanifest is probably the single biggest breakthrough we make. Ironically, there are many who allow the vision of the unmanifest to eclipse their old vision of the manifest. They find it hard to hold the two truths in mind. These must therefore be reminded of the dynamism of the world just as the beginners are! Eventually they will understand the two truths and be able to cope with silence and paradox as viable descriptions of the Tao.