manitou

And yet it's all a bit cosmic soup, made out of the very same atoms. You and the chair, although the atomic building blocks are configured differently into different molecular structures. But the soup remains the same. I equate this to non-distinction of the 10,000 things; and looking at the non-separation of earthly items (including us, although we are sentient); just like that baby who is born and can't distinguish anything yet. I've read some masters (don't ask me who, I've read several but can't remember specifically) who will further go on to say that the chair has consciousness as well. That all items have a type of consciousness. If we merge the concept of everything actually being Here and Now and linear time being our illusion, then the chair is merely maintaining its own consciousness by holding its form. It's actually the Idea of the chair that remains. The inventor or producer of the chair may not be with us at this point in time - perhaps you have an old chair. But the idea he had to build the chair remains on, with its chair-consciousness. We have consciousness for a limited time within the constraints of our current life span, as does the chair. But the consciousness of the chair and the consciousness of Us has always been, is, and will always be. It is, as you stated earlier in the thread (I think it was this one) that all is stardust. Yes! All is stardust. And a star (our sun) is Light. We and the chair are Light, but in different densities and purpose. And to stardust, or Light, we shall return.

I FEEL THAT MY WORK HERE ON EARTH IS FINISHED!!!! I got Marbles to say the L-word!!!!

The Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao. And yet we try to circle around this and grasp for definition. Must be hardwired into us. I thought it would be interesting to see what word we're all currently using to refer to the un-referable-to. Sure, the Tao is a word that we all use, and we all know what we're talking about. But there are other words that contain little nuances that appeal to our individual experiences, outer and inner. I like The Void, and yet this word has no nuance of action or design. I think maybe my favorite word this week....is The Logos. (I just finished reading Marcus Aurelius Meditations, so that no doubt is a nuance I liked from that book). But my word seems to change weekly. Monthly, at least, lol. So mine is....The Logos. Today. How bout yours?

Hey. 'Great Freedom' is truly a masterful concept for what we're talking about. Yes, that vague sense that we know what the masters are talking about, because we all have the Knowledge within us, whether we've gotten down to it or not. Sometimes things resonate in harmonious vibration, and we don't quite know why. I think the mysterious resonations are our guideposts and lead us to continue inward. It just seems like once one has gotten to a certain point, there's no heading back. The lure is too great. It becomes as a gravitational attraction which pulls us to the center.

Yes. If we were all mutes with no fingers, we'd be a lot better off, I do believe (POTENTIALLY, at least)

Been thinking about the concept of The Potential vs. The Tendency. I see the tiniest of nuance of difference which I think makes a difference. The Tendency seems to have action built into it; as though whatever is moving or growing is tending in a particular direction. The Potential could be seen as having no action built into it. Yes, it's there to be used if one wanted to - but it would be possible to stay in one unmoving position within the realm of Potential and never doing or growing. Because this Maya we live in is the world of Action, I'm still preferring Tendency because of the action contained therein. But both are good concepts, IMO. There have been some great and simple concepts on this thread.

I'm not sure Truth is objective only. Compare Masters of all traditions, which I think is a terrific way to triangulate truth. All Masters I've ever read end up in the I Am consciousness, regardless of what word is used for it. It's because the Masters have shed their post-natal personalities (keeping within Daoism, as you requested, Sir!) The Truth is the glowing ember which abides at the bottom of our acquired personality and it is the same Truth, regardless of where in the world or which philosophical perspective was utilized to help get there. You are turning into a philosophical one in your old age, Mr. M. Head. I like it (despite the fact that I'm pretty sure you and I were entrapped in a horrible marriage in a prior incarnation, but our divorce was so awful that we both ended up doing 6 months behind bars for spousal abuse). LOL. Just kidding, friend. Love to you.

Me too, Mark. My shamanic side often speaks to the Great Spirit. In fact, that's why I chose the moniker of Manitou---which means in Algonquin, 'the spirit that underlies everything'.

Just in general, I see a huge difference between Beliefs, Truth, or Understanding. Beliefs are of the brain, a result of cogitation and 'deciding' which way one tries to understand. Like...one looks around for a philosophy that they like and then decide to become proficient in their knowledge. Beliefs are not Truth, because people around the world have different Beliefs. Each one thinks that their's is the correct one. Truth, as I see it, is that thing that requires elimination of framework of both our selves and our reactive and conditioned personalities, our beliefs, and the framework of any one particular religious structure. Understanding is borne of experience in one's own life - whether outer experience or inner experience. It is experiential knowledge, the knowledge that Knows, and often can't be put into words.

LOL. I am speechless. Ineffable, in fact.

What a predictable deterioration this thread has taken, lol. Tantric meditation is clearly effable as well...

That video is priceless - and I like the way the mom communicated with her 5 year old daughter - not condescending in any way, but giving her daughter full sway to express herself. The bond between the little girl and the cow was really heartwarming.

Another one I've been using currently is The Tendency. I think that the Tendency is contained within the Dao, as a type of blueprint. But it has a subtle reference to action, which is the apparent physical world we are born into - again, as the Tendency of a plant to find the light. But the action is impelled from within the object or person, not from without. (Soaring Crane - yes! I did search it! I found it in the Dictionary of the Ineffable. Right next to Wrqmzystpft).

LOL. Joe is watching something on TV. At the precise moment I read the first word of your post, some man hollered AMAZING! Funny how often stuff like that happens. I mean, what are the odds?

This is perhaps the most understandable of them all!!

I'm sort of awe-struck about this still, so I'd like to share it with my 'online family'. We went to breakfast at one of the local greasy spoons in town today. During breakfast, I noticed a young teenage girl fanning her mouth with her hand, at the opposite end of the restaurant. I assumed she had eaten a hot pepper or something. But then she started pounding on the table and her head was getting lower and lower and I knew instantly that she was choking. I got up and ran across the restaurant - her family sitting at the table, by that time, were yelling "She's choking!", although nobody seemed to know what to do about it. I pulled her up out of her chair, got behind her, and gave her the Heimlich maneuver. It took about 7 or 8 'tugs' to dislodge the piece of meat, but dislodge it finally did. She was a beautiful young blonde girl, maybe 15 - and she turned to me with tears in her eyes and thanked me profusely. I will never forget the look of fear on her face as she was choking, and then the look of gratitude when the meat was dislodged. It reminded me of how dear life is - my body still has the "body memory" of what she felt like as I was holding her tightly to me and doing the maneuver. I just can't get it out of my mind today. I can imagine what medical practitioners must feel like when they save a life. I don't know - maybe that feeling becomes less awesome as it's done over and over. But for a lay person to have that experience....Wow. For some reason, it's me that feels particularly grateful for being there for her. I'm so glad the Heimlich maneuver was figured out at some point in time. When I went through the police academy in 1969, there was no Heimlich maneuver. They taught us how to perform an emergency tracheotomy with the point of a pen, a knife, or whatever else sharp was at hand. Thankfully I didn't have to do that! That may have had an entirely different outcome. Anyone had a similar experience?

I hadn't had a review of the maneuver in years. But when the time is there, the memory is there. There was no doubt as to what to do, and when. I'm hoping I didn't break one of her ribs though - she was so young and fragile.

I think an interesting way of looking at it is to think of it as "the Tendency"

That thought has been with me all day. In just an instant everything can change so drastically. I'm guessing that young beauty is looking at things a lot different after her horrible experience. The thing that really surprised me is how everyone was either in a state of shock when it was happening, or they were panicking and hollering. And yet the Heimlich maneuver is so well known. I guess sometimes the panicking brain overrides the simple solution.

It feels just incredible. Almost like it makes me appreciate even more the 'life' part of our Life and Death cycle.

Seems like it's always a challenge to talk about the Dao - so many different ways of looking at that thing that impels us upward, to unearth our own truths. When I said the Eye of God above, it was to merge with what 3bob was saying. It seems, to me, that there is an Intent that is universal, and that it seems to be going somewhere. Whether we call it Dao, God, the Light, the Ineffable - so many different names for it. I'm with you, Marbles - calling it the Eye of God does seem to indicate a separation, a duality. But on the other hand I think it's a type of shorthand that we have to use for purposes of conversation here, and I think most everybody understands that non-duality reigns. Perhaps we could call it the Force? Or the Purpose? On our currency in the U.S. there is the pyramid contained thereon with the eye at the top of the pyramid. Folks traditionally call this the 'All-Seeing Eye', which is certainly an exercise in duality. Personally, I think that this eye on the top of the pyramid instead is a metaphor for the 'I Am' (Eye Am!), because if the picture on our currency is consistent with what the founders of this country intended, it was not based on Christianity at all, as many think. It was based on the principles of Freemasonry - and the 33rd degree of the Scottish Rites is the I Am consciousness. In fact, if one reads Morals and Dogma by (Albert?) Pike (sort of a Freemason bible, in a sense) one can follow in tremendous detail what each of the degrees, up to the 32nd, means. And what the individual must achieve in his character in order to advance to the next degree. But the funny thing is that when you get to the 33rd degree, there is no explanation at all. It is blank. It is the Ineffable, lol. No words.

vMarco - I am currently at about the 900th page of the 1600 page Avatamsaka Sutra. Your beautiful explanation above is totally concurrent with everything it says in that beautiful tome. Thank you for taking the time to explain your point. Love to you -

Your point is well taken. Yes, we are all the Eye of God expressing itself in different ways. My error on the slippery slope.

Well, I didn't watch all 85 minutes of it - but I love the way it started out. That we are a self-fulfilling prophecy because of the way we think. I didn't watch to the point where your point about calling it quits. All I know is my own experience, vMarco - becoming a positive thinker vs. the cynical person I had always been. Life has changed towards the magnificent because my thinking process is totally different. Does this differ with a point you are making? Am I a fool for going to the trouble of changing my thoughts? Was this past 33 years of recovery a waste of time for me? I have had to put a lot of work into it, but my manifestations today are a quantum leap from my manifestations 33 years ago, when I was a drunk. Please tell me what you mean by calling it quits, rather than me having to watch all 85 minutes, friend.

I love the idea of making space for love. Most of us aren't in a position to make huge differences in the grand scheme of things. All we can do is bring as much love to the day that we can - to let someone ahead of us in traffic, or standing in a line - to 'never be the first', as one translation of the TTC says - to be noncompetitive in our daily lives and try not to be judgmental. All we can do is what we can do - what we can afford to do. I will readily give money to a homeless person, and I support a Southern Baptist church in the ghetto part of town to the tune of $200 a month. What else can we do? And yes, to pick up that piece of trash. Maybe that's the Intent of the Dao - to morph to the point where individuals, a critical mass of individuals, find kindness and love for their fellow beings in their heart. And act that way. I am truly in agreement with you on the current state of Christianity. People hide behind the fact that their church (around here, anyway) will feed the homeless once or twice a month - and that seems to cover the 'unconditional love' aspect of Christianity in their lives; then they will go to work and step on their co-workers to get ahead. My very own aunt, who lives here in town, laughingly told me about how, during one of these homeless food giveaways at her church, she would spray the air with air freshener after an odoriferous person would leave with their bag. She said the church ladies didn't like the smell of the people. My aunt's a good woman, but I wish she had been a little more sensitive about how that made the recipients feel. Sub-human, I would think. Aaah. Human nature, our acquired personality, is something to be conquered, IMO.