manitou

It's all happening Now.

Like a baby before it learns to smile.

I'm ready.

Salvation from what?

so beautiful

It's all subjective. Right and wrong, good and evil, are from one's own perspective. When the true self is found, there is no question. Looking to holy books or holy people for answers is no longer viable. It's intrinsic and it comes naturally.

LOL. How excellent! The beginner's mind!

I love Lin Yutang's translation. What is, is. Nature is kind and unkind, depending on the beholder. We all share the same entity within. Only our conditioning separates us. That Thing inside us that Knows, that exists as awareness, is not affected by kind or unkind. It sits at the base of our being. It wants to Experience. It wants to experience seemingly good and seemingly bad. Our conditioned selves are the straw dogs. The essence we share is the true self. I've been in some nasty depressions in my life. And as depressed as I would get, there was always an awareness at the bottom of it that knew that I was choosing to be depressed. Ego chooses to be depressed. And as to murder and things like that - does it really matter on which day we die? It's going to happen one way or the other. Our bodies are the straw dogs, not our essence. It goes on. It always has been, and always will be. I've heard it said that death is like slipping out of a tight shoe. To do 'good' may be the very same as doing harm. I'm very familiar with alcoholism, and this is a case in point. One thinks they may be being kind to the alcoholic; perhaps a wiser person would see it as enabling the alcoholic to remain sick. No, I don't think there's good and evil. Just Is-ness. Enlightenment, in the final run, is the elimination of making that judgment. Of making any judgments at all.

I'm not real sure the author of that Wikipedia article is a self realized one. But they did get it on this paragraph: Individuals are encouraged to practice self-cultivation by detaching themselves from their desires and ego, and attain a mindful awareness of the non-self. Chán and Zen Buddhist scholars emphasise that the key in self-cultivation is a "beginner's mind" which can allow the uncovering of the "luminous mind" and the realisation of innate Buddha-nature through the experience of sudden enlightenment.[5]

Hi Mig, All I know about Daoism is that which is written in the DDJ, and I've studied maybe 5 or 6 different translations. The translations are only as good, IMO, as the spiritual understanding of the translator. In other words, to what degree have they gone within themselves to arrive at self realization? Your observation about wanting to discuss more of the cultural aspect of Daoism is valid. And this is why I always post in General Discussion instead of the Daoist or Buddhist categories. In my experience, all paths lead to the same place, and it is from this place that I try to stay in consciousness. I came across the DDJ at a yard sale in 1981, and it changed my life and my limited dogmatic view from that of Jesus Loves Me This I Know, to the Oneness of all paths. From the One, the dynamics of any path can be discussed, although as you say, the cultural aspect is missing. As far as I can see, they pretty much all end up being an exposition on the Nature of Matter. I am in full accord with @Nungali when he says that the essence is found in cross reference. I think this is also why it's important to study the DDJ from different translators, too. Translators are trying to convey that which can't be conveyed in words, and the most functional way I have found to comprehending it is by reading between the lines - i.e. finding the commonality between the translations. Every translator has different backgrounds, and will of course see things according to their conditioning. So I think triangulation is the very best tool to understanding something as abstract and profound as the DDJ. And Nungers, when he mentions the cross reference of all paths, is pointing to looking for the essence. I think it can be applied in both situations. Personally, I think that too much dogma makes Jack a dull boy.

The Dao is a bellows. We are patterned after the Dao. We are the Dao. You may have gone about as far as one can go intellectually on all this. Now the bellows wants to go in the opposite direction. It wants to go inside you, to examine your conditioning, to penetrate the egoic self, to remove the old beliefs. The reverse geyser, as Nungers would say. This is where self realization will be found.

By saying god will do anything, are you inferring that there is a right and a wrong?

The intelligence is either everything or it is nothing. You're still seeing it as something separate.

My take is that we are the intelligence. The same intelligence that tells all the identical cells in the embryo how to line up differently so that they will be different organs. The cells are all the same. But a fingernail cells lines up differently than the cells in an eyeball. What is evolution if not the supreme intelligence you speak of? It's not separate from us. It's within us, pushing outward. It's the intelligence that enables matter to retain its form.

Thank you so much, Michael.

@steve, This says it for me, exactly. I guess I felt that I had to write something because my attendance has been so spotty over the past months. But it's because of you, and Nungers, and Dwai, and the others I mentioned, that I wanted to write 'something' to explain my absence. We've known each other soul to soul for too many years to just drop off the planet. I remember when Songs of Distant Earth did the same thing - I was so sorry to see him go, it almost made me cry. But when it gets harder and harder to sign on, for some strange reason, it just seems like 'pushing it' isn't a viable answer. I too started deleting my posts before posting them. What is it? Not ennui. I don't know. Maybe when certain consciousness is reached, it's too repetitive or something. But I appreciate the fact that you hang in here anyway and shine your light for us. As we all do. I suspect that I'll be around. I've got lots of art works to do now, and maybe an art hiatus is what I need. I probably couldn't stay away from my loved ones here for very long. Maybe I'll just turn into Marbles and wisecrack (as though I don't already). Love you!

And this affirms that all systems, all paths, all religions end up in the same place. I watched Gandhi again a few weeks ago. At one point, a reporter asks him if he is Hindu. Gandhi replied, Yes. I am Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian.... There is one thing I would like to ask you, Nungers. Reverse geyser? Does it have to do with character traits you are eliminating, rather than expressing? Or does it have more to do with your toilet flushing in the opposite direction than mine?

There is another component that is needed. Inner work. There is much in the steps of recovery that parallels the first 32 degrees. Those of us who finally get it are called Cosmic Masons, according to Manley Hall - even if we didn't take the exact same path. Many masters can be found within the halls of recovery.

ovary

That's the key.

Your dreams come to you because your higher self is pointing you in a direction; it is always working to give you the experiences and dreams that you need to achieve what it wants; it wants to fully express the Consciousness in your being. Your dreams don't give you wrong information, they are interpreted wrong.

Something else just came to me. In both cases, these people are offering you knowledge. The fact that the first person was a comedian is worthy of inspection on its own. I won't try to interpret that, you would know best. But he was handing you knowledge, and it's knowledge about yourself. The girl from school is handing you your work tools, to implement your self-examination. I really do think your higher self is telling you not to feel any better or any worse than anyone else. The character defect to look for here would be a certain type of arrogance, in which people judge themselves to be better or worse than others. To continue in this mindset will be a detriment to the enlightenment you seek.

Maybe it doesn't matter what the items are. Maybe the darkness, the black, is an indication that you shouldn't look down on people. We are all the same entity. To look down on anyone is to look down on ourselves. In that sense, it may very well be a gift, if you use the information to your betterment.

The Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao.

My roommate is a self-saboteur. Tomorrow he is going into a detox. Only for one week, I don't think it will do a thing for him. I am the last house on the block for him. He has nowhere else to go. He was great for a long time - 2 years, in fact - but the old 'saboteur' has come back to haunt him. He has been doing absolutely everything he can do to get kicked out of this house. He is abusing his prescription meds, (snorting them, in fact), spends all day sleeping, and when he is awake he is a zombie and slurs his words. I do have a Plan B, and that will go into effect if there is not a serious change after this next week. Which I don't think there will be. There's no detox in the world that can fix him if he doesn't really want to be fixed. Because one week is not long enough to find the self-saboteur. He doesn't have the inner honesty to find him at this point. When he was a kid, he got no attention at all from his dad. He was a weird kid. He rode a unicycle to school, for god's sake. In order to get any attention at all, he had to act out in contrary ways - and this trend has apparently shown up his whole life. Just when things are going great, he has to mess it up. To prove to himself one more time that he is a real piece of work. This is the same dynamic that my husband had, although through lengthy recovery (30 years in the AA program) he took an inventory of his personality disorders, tying them to memories that would emerge, and was able to conquer this beast, a little at a time. He died an Enlightened one. The only suggestion I can possibly make for anyone who has to act out like this, is to notice any little memory that may emerge into the consciousness at the time that this anger, and acting out, is happening. I would guess that there is a little mental picture there - and it doesn't have to be anything big at all. Sometimes the strangest little snippets of memory will appear, and it's actually strange that that particular snippet will have lasted so long, to make its continual appearance so much later in life. But no doubt this little memory has reappeared over and over frequently, and it's for good reason. That's when the snowball started rolling down the hill. And now it's huge. Once the memory is seen, it can be re-imprinted. To the opposite direction. My roommate's (Steve) memory always has to do with his dad ignoring him, or pushing him away. If I were to do an imprint 'to the opposite' on him, I would have him picture me as his dad, and he would repeatedly run up to me (as a child) and I would hug him. I would do this repeatedly until he felt the softening of his own heart. I haven't done this because it hasn't been needed up to this point. But now it is. And that won't even work until he is willing to look at himself as he really is today. He needs to SURRENDER. A week in detox just isn't going to get it, I'm afraid. And of course he found the shortest possible detox to stay in; and even at that, he was supposed to check in today, but argued with them about what time he should get there. He still wants everything on his terms; obviously, he's not going to be able to grow under those conditions. And the strange thing is that he has worked in the Betty Ford detox out here in the desert. As a counselor. He knows full well that no detox is going to let you come in willy-nilly at your own convenience. That sets the stage for an unproductive week, right there. So a friend and I are taking him tomorrow. He can try this, but my hopes aren't high. It takes a lot of courage to try and see ourselves as we really are. None of us wants to think we're defective. But we are. It's just a question of degree. When I first got sober 40 years ago, my sponsor told me to assume I had every character defect in the world. That actually made it easy. I wrote down every character defect I could think of (pride, jealousy, greed, arrogance, on and on....) and from that, I looked within - with fearless honesty - to see how much of it I had. What an experience! It did more for me than any spiritual book I've read over the years. I got lighter and lighter as the years went on, and without having to react in a certain way (in my case, it was rebellion against every single thing someone told me - you couldn't tell me nuthin'. And this is a practice that will last an entire lifetime, if we're serious about this. Enlightenment can't be had unless and until we go within and remove these obstacles. It's by removal of these things that the Real is found. Not through the words of anyone else. It's just an inside job, that's all. As to Plan B, I will do it with as much kindness as I possibly can. I will rent him a motel room for a month, paid in advance. I will rent a storage room for a month, and hire someone to take his furniture and personal belongings there. I will change the locks. I will give him a couple hundred bucks, as he has none. No more unemployment checks coming. I will not be responding to calls or texts. But this will give him a full month to figure out his situation. I'm just not his mom, that's all. The man is 65. Oh, I'll attract 'em. I've finally surrendered to the fact that I apparently have a savior complex and the really needy ones land on me like lint on a little black dress. I'm 74, and if I haven't been able to lose this by now, I don't suppose it'll ever be different. So...I have to have Plan B's. That keeps me sane and on course.