manitou

The Tao includes temporality, but it also includes yesterday and tomorrow, just as the colliding hadrons in the bubble chamber. Maybe we're not talking about the Nature of Matter at all - maybe we're really talking about the Nature of Thought., To look at the TTC as the book of changes happening in a sequence of point A to point B may be self limiting. I wonder if there's a way to relook at mathematical ideas with perhaps Time equating to Zero, or something along those lines. There is definitely a synthesis of Western and Eastern thought occurring through philosophy and mathematics and they must certainly end in a synthesis of philosophy (thought) and matter (the measure being mathematics). How could it be otherwise? The reversion of the Dao is back to the Dao. Everything must follow suit. I just noticed your reference to the I Ching unfolding in time. Is it really about predicting the future, as much as extending the pole of synchronicity of the moment to show a probability, given the past direction and the present question at hand? From what I've read about the I Ching (the operative word being about, as I no virtually nothing about it itself. Only 'about' it. So I am limited). But I am a seer, which may account for something, if I have the points of triangulation from which to work. Right now I'm triangulating from what I collected (and can remember) from Capra's book. I can't help but notice the incredible similarities that he himself was impressed with. It's as though quantum physics is up against a barrier that is inherent in the nature of matter: that either the measured atomic particle can be measured as a 'particle', which takes up space; or, alternatively, it can be measured as a wave of probability as to where the particle actually is in orbit around the nucleus - which to me connotates an inherent measure of Time, on this measurement. Time needed to measure the wave length between point A and point B. But the thing is, both measurements can't be taken simultaneously. It's like the Dao - it's sort of ineffable! They know the other measurement is there, they've measured it before - but it cannot be done at the same time. It's only one or the other. Astrology, as you mention, was first accounted for through linear time, whereas we now know, since Einstein, that time is not linear at all, but curved. Getting back to the I Ching - it just seems to me - given what mathematics is now capable of measuring - that it works by collecting the synchronicity of the past, present, and future (which it of course knows because time is curved and can fold back on itself) and, like quantum physics, triangulates the moment of "where most likely that darn nucleon is now", as opposed to pretending to a hard and fast rule about the future. I wish one of you brilliant Tao Bums mathmaticians or physicists could come up with the connecting rod between the mysterious workings of the I Ching (or perhaps not so mysterious, if we allow for instantaneous triangulation within the space-time dimension) and the very close proximity to the current state of quantum physics and the nature of thought.

The only illuminating thought I have on this is that Time is all Here and Now - and looking at it in a temporal way would be limiting. Any way you can superimpose the thought of timelessness over the numbers?

I Like that x 10, CT. Add to your last sentence - the void between the breaths. Actually, my very favorite metaphor is the moment when the conductor's wand is raised, anticipation is at its apex, and not one sound has yet eliminated the field of potentiality. When the master encourages the student to mind the 'field', as you say - this too brings quantum physics back to mind. The scientific realization that matter can only be seen as a part of an electromagnetic field, not as an individual entity. It all acts as one, simultaneously, in a non temporal fashion. As I said previously, atomic smashing occurs into the past, present and future in their collision chambers. I think you're right to mention the various offshoots from The Way. I remember reading in one translation that 'the Path is Wide, but few take it' - the inference being that it's way too easy to explore the dark and mysterious - the various gifts that the Path may yield. And yet, it must be taken as a whole, not one dark and mysterious little path. My bet is that ego plays a part in beckoning us to indulge our gifts to the exclusion of the Whole. When we discover that we have second sight, or healing abilities, or the ability to move natural forces around - ego invites us to stay there so that we can show off our skills. To return to the Great Way is to subjugate the ego, to only use those skills when they are required of us, and to seek Self Realization by shedding the unnecessary and unneeded parts of our character.

(I don't think the 'Quote' button works with Windows 8.1 - at least not on my twitterbox) Gerard - your first post - I followed the link and what wonderful information that was. It was almost an instructional on how to develop the witness state - especially with all the 'ings' - i.e. wondering, contemplating, hurting, etc. That in itself is worth its weight in gold.

As my mind is still in a quantum physics state after just reading Capra - I still think the phenomenon is connected to the particle and wave phenomenon and transcendent of the observer state. The observer state ruins it. It surely seems like science and philosophy are meeting at the top of the hill with quantum physics, or at least my lay understanding of it. CT - what a great metaphor for the unquiet mind - the black market. And what an accomplishment it is to have taken the many years of work to choose to indulge it or not. The choice is ours, of course. And how the cause and effect - the karma - the 'what comes around goes around' - aspect of this shows up dramatically in our lives. We're no longer putting out the negative - instead, we reap the rewards of our quieted thoughts. We have more control over not doing stupid stuff.

Okay. When does this stop, lol? I'm currently reading Daoist Internal Alchemy by Prof. Jerry Alan Johnson. Right underneath that is The Flower Ornament Scripture, a translation of The Avatamsaka Sutra by Thomas Cleary - a 1600 page opus. Now I have to add to that the Taoist I Ching and apparently Joseph Wu/Elisabeth Moran's Guide to the I Ching. On one hand, the Sage says banish learning, put the books down. On the other hand, not being able to spend part of my days with these incredible minds would be too painful to consider. I look forward to knowing more about how to utilize the I Ching and add it to my vision. Thanks for the thread!

My god, Daeluin - that is The Tao of Physics, the cosmic Dance of Shiva that you have so adequately communicated. I don't know squat about the I Ching, but the analogies that Capra makes with the negative and positive polarities of yang and yin respectively sets up an intuitive understanding within me of what you're talking about.

Such wonderful and elusive questions. Exquisite, really.... I am at a point in my meditations - not even formal ones, necessarily - but even those pictures that may be on our mind first thing in the morning when we awake - where I realize that I am in a separate reality and have 'colored in' the scene with my own mind. And yet, once I realize that I am observing such a thing, it disappears! It is so very frustrating, that once I realize i'm in Awareness of the phenomena it goes away, whereas I would love to just ride the phenomena and see where it goes. It's like transcending the relativity of everything is when it happens - and yet when I return to the relativity to describe it to myself the pictures disappear. Does anyone else experience this? It reminds me of the quantum phenomena where things are both a particle and a wave of probability. And the observer is a crucial and undeniable part of the equation. When I realize I'm the observer, it's gone. If anyone has a suggestion for getting around this particular phenomena...please cough it up. Like a cat with a hairball.

Yes. To become the task.

It's possible to have the empty mind in chaos as well. It's as though there are two strands aligned right next to each other, representing our mind. One strand is aware of everything that's going on, inviting us to buy into it emotionally. The other strand invites us to detach from the chaos and merely observe it as a witness, without evaluation, judgment, or emotion. To wear the world as a loose garment, as the Nazarene would say. My husband will often have the TV on during the day - in addition to something happening on his computer - in addition to maybe a musical CD playing elsewhere in the house. I've found that it is indeed possible to transcend all this and remain in a transcendent state although much is going on around me. We merely select the strand that we wish to be present in - as it says in the DDJ, we can understand something either by transcending it and seeing it in its entirety, or we can entrench ourselves into the emotional responses - we can observe it from the inside or the outside, whichever we choose. When I choose the strand of transcension, I can hear the words, I can see the images on the TV as I walk by - and yet they do not come together in an understandable way. Because my mind is shutting them out, the words have no relevance one to the other - they are merely sound. The images do not connect in a linear sense on the TV - because my mind has stopped giving them consequence or meaning. They just ARE. I'm pretty sure this is making no sense whatsoever. This to me describes the witness state. This state is also used to describe the ability to observe our own actions and responses without emotionality or judgment of self or others. It just is, that's all.

Empty mind could perhaps be described as the witness state.

I just finished a reread of The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. He has a very complicated chapter wherein he equates the movements as seen within quantum physics to the I Ching. He tries to answer the same questions you have posed, I believe. Once you've become real familiar with the I Ching, it might be 'fun' to see how Capra makes the comparison to the nature of matter and probability. Of course, he's using quarks, neutrinos, and hadrons as an explanation, but the analogies are certainly there. Be prepared to have your mind blown, seeing as when an atom is exploded by collision, the particles not only explode into the present, but the future and past as well. Go figure - it's absolutely proof that All is Now, as I see it. Which explains how the I Ching taps into the synchronicity of the moment in a very scientific framework. His book is a synthesis of quantum physics with the Eastern mystical mindset of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. Not one to be missed!

3bob - I'm hoping that one day you experience the Oneness of all paths. You will.

I woke up with a concept on my mind this morning. When we develop as fetuses, the input we receive - other than our issuance of a perfectly enlightened spirit - is that of heredity, of genetics. Of course our perfectly enlightened spirit starts deteriorating the moment we start getting less-than-enlightened input from our well-meaning parents and teachers. But it occurs to me that the hereditary traits are nothing more than crystallized karma from our ancestors. This, to me, explains how everything is actually Here and Now. Our ancestors are physically within us all the time - or the essence of their lives, the concentration of their experiences. This is passed to us through the genes. Each generation has an opportunity to change the karma of not only themselves, but also the (seemingly) past actions of our ancestors. I've certainly read this before in books, but never actually had the Aha! until this morning. Must've been a dream I don't remember. What an odd and yet wonderful system this is. And how very brilliant. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?

Deci said: "Stepping off the cliff and accepting one's function who would dare to act on one's own behalf?" This seems somewhat aligned with the verse in the DDJ (Yutang, ch. 20): "That which men fear Is indeed to be feared; But, alas, distant yet is the dawn (of awakening)" And this is why the sage comes to no harm; because he knows no fear because he is aware of the delusion. Agreed - seeing delusion as delusion is reality. And yet this is our biggest challenge. Until there is enlightenment, there is always the voice that says "Yeah, but what if?...." Once the fear of death has been transcended there is truly nothing to fear. Once we experience the golden current of the past, present, and future, we know that our consciousness remains, in body or out, and it matters not which state we are in. Once we discover the consciousness of knowing who We Really Are, what is there to fear? As humans, how much of our conscious time is spent in this consciousness? For those of us who have evolved to seek the answers to these questions, this ultimately becomes the Practice, after everything is said and done. And as Deci said, the gradual refinement of the human mentality becomes the abode of the Dao.

Maybe it's a yang energy vs. yin energy sort of thing. One of the things I'm working on within myself is to decrease my sensitivity to comments made sometimes on this forum. I can use my own sensitivity (or hurt feelings) as a gauge to see my own progress. I've found that not getting engaged in argument involves bypassing my own ego, sometimes - which is always good practice. Let the other person have the point, that's all. We're really not contending here, we're all trying to grow toward the light. I think we also need to keep in mind that we don't know each other's ages. There are young ones here who are like young bucks, always looking for a fight. What's the purpose of engaging them? It only ends in bad feelings. Better to walk away. Yang cannot do without yin - and the more enlightened male members here are very respectful of women. But sometimes I have to remind myself that there are many young male Buddhist types who come from a tradition of arguing - that's how they learn. I think to make rules regarding what should be said and not said here only serves to deepen the divide. Better to let it out and let karma deal with it. A good parallel to this is the repressed racism within this country - there are certain words in our culture that are absolutely taboo - and yet sometimes I think this is to further deepen the divide as well - the racism remains lurking within one's heart and is not allowed to be expressed. Sometimes things just have to explode to get fixed. When rules are necessary, the Dao is lost.

The School of Letting all Hell Break Loose. I love that. My personal version of this is 'letting the chips fall where they may'. I'm not sure the passage in Lao Tzu refers only to our personal expansion and deflation as to character, although that is certainly its most imminent usage for us individually. It seems to apply to communal trends as well. Take for example the Tea Party - it certainly had its expansion; but what has it done but to split the republican party in two, thereby deflating it. I think this can be seen when situations are viewed with a long lens. We are the manifester of our lives. Communally, we manifest world behavior. I can't imagine that the dynamic would stop at the individual. I know plenty of folks who are fragmented from their gadgets, but I don't think it's always out of wanting to be hip. I think they really believe they are connecting with others - like those older folks who are always showing pictures of their grandkids, etc. So sure, maybe they are actually connecting better with their own families. Maybe they're even making more and more friends on Facebook and connecting with them too, expanding their universe. But that universe is virtual, lol. They ignore the person sitting across from them at the lunch table, and they opt instead for their virtual universe, ignoring the one in front of them. I do have several friends who do this; I no longer wish to sit across the table when they're doing this, it's a waste of time for me. I mean - they're polite and all and will always say 'Excuse me' when the darn thing buzzes. But damn, lol.

Re: the scattered mind. It seems like the trend is getting worse, not better. It's hard to find someone not twittering on their cell phones now. So many people are no longer in the here and now in any sense; their consciousness is focused instead on reacting to the tweet or text they just got. How much more fragmented can it get? Focus is becoming a thing of the past in the general populous. I keep remembering that in the DDJ there is reference to 'things must be inflated before they can be deflated', or words to that effect. The idea is the same. I can't help but think that the whole enchilada will indeed end up in a collective consciousness that understands Unity - however, before that can come to pass, we must go through this fractal phenomena. Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

(Why isn't the cut and paste function working on my brand new computer??) "Somebody once said that 'Any religion that requires you to learn a foreign language isn't the religion for you.' " I so understand this. We may find entry to the path in a foreign religion or line of thought, but in order to come full circle we seem to have to go back and readdress that which we were brought up with - if only to remove the resentment toward it. Does that make sense? The spokes of a wheel that meet in the void in the center.

GMP - that was one fine treatise. I don't know that I've ever seen so much (what I consider to be) enlightened material in a relatively small space. It just seems to have it all. Reminds me greatly of a book I have read probably six times - and every time I read it, my eyes see something different because I am different with each reading: "Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism" by Yogi Ramacharaka. Thank you so much for the link. The onion peels.

I think shining mind refers to the glow of the manifestation from the inside to the outside.

Wow.

I wouldn't have thought you'd have a problem with metaphors, 3bob?

I would say that the I Am of me is the same as the I Am of you. It's just a question of choosing to get down to it - the pony under the manure pile.

Yes. It's all One. Time is an illusion too - it's all here and now. We are all each other, including Jesus and Buddha. Not all of us are in awareness of it, though. Jesus was, so was the Buddha. The whole thing is just Awareness.