manitou

This is a hazy thread, et! Not sure I'm understanding what you're getting at. Picking up on the concept of distinctions, which you stated at the end of your last post - I think distinctions are something we've learned since childhood, and they've gotten more refined over the years. Distinctions within distinctions. The distinctions are the very tool we use for duality. My concept of what 'real life' is has changed over a period of time. I honestly don't think my real life is all these things happening around me any more. My real life is a warm and comfortable place that my awareness sits within my chest, usually. I see life as a bunch of props and tools that spirit (Whatever) uses to forge us into what it wants. By nailing down distinctions, I think we're shutting off options of the here and now. It's like by choosing one friend over another, we're solidifying our own separateness; nailing down our own distinctiveness. But that may not be the point of all this. The point may be more of a flow; to accept all things and every One as One And The Same - just as in a Dogzhen meditation where the eyes remain fuzzy and all visibility is seen as one interweave. I think the perfect singularity we seek is to see all beings as Ourselves - to love our brother as ourself - Perhaps the yin/yang arose after the concept of the One; within the yin/yang the 10,000 things manifested. The yin/yang, by its very nature, was the causative factor for the 10,000 things. I'm just guessing.

I SO second the suggestion about the Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying - as luck would have it, I'm in the middle of it right now. It talks much of our ability to get to the point of mental singularity where there is no difference at all between living and dying - we ride the life stream through all events. The cyclical rhythm of the bardos makes imminent sense, and is comforting knowledge that all things rise and fall according to nature's plan.

The gangster dream is fun. In both the gangster dream and the dream where the white dog is looking in the window, both indicate that you're waiting or watching for something to come at you. Initially you were afraid, in both cases - both with the dog and with the gangsters. Your feelings of regret at not having been friendlier to the dog (perhaps alluding here to your relationship with your father?) are matched by your later willingness to go to McDonalds with the gangster, overcoming your fear to some degree. It sounds to me as if you have something coming up to deal with; perhaps something to do with your fear of mental instability in some way. I don't think the appearance of that particular friend with the mental illness was an accident. It's as though the fellow with the football is inviting you to 'play' the game - particularly with the special ball 'for indoor use'. This means that you will be playing on your inner field. I'd start with your relationship with your dad, if you're willing. Most likely, if you're like the rest of us, there is stuff there for you to look at, get angry over, forgive - and your dreams are bringing whatever it is imminently to the fore for your continued growth. It's helpful on the inner journey to remember that we're all Victims of Victims of Victims - so we needn't get too hung up in too much blame for very long

Aaaargh! Forget it. I can't figure out how to get the right size image onto this thread. I'm retarded when it comes to computer skills. Bummer.

I'm not a terribly good artist, but I've been tapping into something that's strange. The picture below: I knew I wanted to paint a native american woman weaving - I had seen a picture in a magazine and I liked the pose. I put her onto the canvas, and then started drawing squiggly lines all around her, thoughtlessly. Then I started mindlessly coloring within the lines of the squiggles, until some sort of a form started coming out at me. This is the result. I call it Preparing for the Skinwalkers. I see that a plant entity, a couple human entities (as of yet still unembodied, but waiting patiently for the skin forms she's weaving) and an animal entity in the form of the bird on the left. This theme was totally unintentional, the only thing intentional was the weaver and the loom. I do this in people's portraits, too. Place the portrait in there first, then do the squiggles; it turns into a story of their past and future, somehow; it seems to tap into the synchronicity of the moment and reveal dynamics that the mundane consciousness doesn't see. I just discovered you can click on the thumbnail and get a bigger picture. That seems to be the best I can do...

If he had two little black spots in his eyes, then that was god. You could always relate to folks like that with that in mind - treat him like god who's having a bad day. Smile, stay above it, observe...it's just Us on any other given day.

I think it's less a belief and more a discovery.

The reason I know that to be my Truth is because not only do I hear the assent of my own heart as I get closer and closer to the Essence within, I have read many recounts from the Masters of just about any tradition you can imagine - who have come to exactly the same conclusion. The more we peel the onion, the more experiential it gets on the inner layers. I don't even see it as good paths or bad paths any more. I was on a Bad path for so many years - the path of alcoholism. But it turned into the Good Path after all. All is so relative. They're only seemingly good or seemingly bad; they all go to the same place in the end, I think, because we all have the same question implanted within us: Who Am I?

I'm going out on a limb here and saying that the Right Way = Return to One's Self, once one sees the necessity for something other than the mere physical existence. I think the words of others, the sages, the buddas....these are the huge guideposts that we use to get to the inner Way. But nobody can do it for us, once the necessity is clear. Just like dying.

CT - I just wrote out a nice reply to this video, and of course lost the whole thing while trying to post it. Grrrrr... I loved the video, and I loved her. I believe I'll be buying a gong soon, I haven't had one in a while. The calm alignment of thoughts seems to be a wonderful way to remain in mindfulness; even carrying with us the memory of the sound of the chime is an instantaneous way of realignment when our thoughts get furled. After doing this for 40 years, I realize that it is possible to achieve the place of detatched hovering, a place of loving connection to everything. This certainly is a blissed-out state, but there is also a slightly less blissed-out state where we can actually function in the world by realizing our Oneness with everyone we come in contact with. This state comes and goes, depending on our adeptness at being in the here and now, and centering our heart in Love toward others (as, after all, they are Us). The sound of the gong is an undercurrent for this state, as I see it - and most likely a great aid to remaining in the 'loving hover' at all times, optimistically.

Someone on a recent thread said a really interesting thing: once enlightenment is reached, there is a path after enlightenment that must be walked. This resonates with me. I don't know what enlightenment is; I tend to agree with those that know it's there underlying all along, and it's there for us to find within. But what I do know, after walking my own metaphysical path for 40 years, is that we reach a place inside our psyche (or heart?) where we hover. It's a spaciousness, a hovering detatched feeling, nearly identical to meditation that remains with us during the day. It's easy enough to slip out of the awareness; perhaps being cut off in traffic, standing in a long line - an argument with a spouse - these things can bounce us out of awareness in an instant, and keep us furled up all day. But we always have the choice to transcend the situation with Love and see all others as merely an extension of ourselves. I AM You. We can keep the mindset of the Sage. Never be the first. Never too much. Love. (the 3 treasures) These three little concepts are ones I use daily to stay in the place of overview, the hovering state. When all persons are recognized as another phase of Me, it's easier to chuckle and buy out of the entangling circumstance. Or to see us all as the humorous talking monkeys that we are, each of us thinking we have the Answers.

When the Tao is lost, the concept of right and wrong, good and bad, arises. No moral code other than what's in our hearts, once we get there, as I see it. When we get to the depth that we seekers are looking for, the outreach in our souls is toward the light, by its own nature. No need to discern what is 'bad' or 'wrong'; it is all relative. Something which is bad for you might be oh so right for me. My guess is that Saddam Hussein thought he was a moral man too. In a rather odd way.

Hello theNerd - welcome! Nice to have you here - and looking forward to your participation.

I think we're individuals because we all have a separate set of lenses (of experience) through which to perceive the world. Like maybe we're all part of a huge wheel with spokes, each spoke being a different path of an indivual. And the Truth lies in the hub in the middle. We hang out on the rim until we take one of the spokes in. As to those who take on everyone else's problems, this can be eliminated by doing the inner work to remove the outsized ego - after all, it's the ego who is telling us that the person we're 'helping' can't possibly be okay without our input and our ego keeps us thrashing around there in the middle of the problem. It takes an extremely wise person to see what it is that another person needs, I've heard it said....

I align with this thought too. All Is One, to me, involves the removal of time from the equation. If all of time is relative to something else (as is space) that means that time in essence is an illusion, and for us to see the All-is-Oneness of the matter we must remove time. Everyone who has been born and died already, is here with us Now. Everyone who is here now, is Here Now. Everyone who is Yet To Be Born is Here Now, although this one is truly a mind boggler. But it's all relative, not fixed. As it says in the TTC, all things manifest from the One, then from the Two, then from the Three. It is only Time that makes the difference as to which phase of manifestation It is in. It's as though we can cover one palm with the other palm and see four fingers that appear separate. When we move our other hand away, we see that's not the case at all, we're all attached. We were attached at the point of the One, our spirit divided into 10,000 things, and here we are. But to remove Time and trace it back, we're back at the One again...and to trace back within our own character is to find the One within. It's from this One mindset that energy can be moved, healing can transpire, clarity can be had. IMO.

I thought I did too, Dragon. Hard to see the dynamic when it's my own life and it's been going on for so long. And I'm guessing even more will be revealed ---

Oh god, you're all wonderful. I did just tell him I was sorry, Seeker, as per your suggestion. For some reason I hadn't gotten to that yet; it hadn't occurred to me. He graciously accepted my apology just now. Chi Dragon - actually, the wood pieces are pretty perfect as they are - that wasn't quite it. What I was doing was running interference for his disappointment, which is what I've been doing for 27 years in varying degrees. A totally co-dependent thing, this pattern - I need to be staying in my own lane and stop trying to control his art, his life. This is one more in a series of attachments and co-dependencies that I must peel off myself. Stosh, I'm honored that you wrote that. What beautiful and heartfelt prose. Thank you. And your advice is sage -

That's quite a brain stretcher - so eloquently put. As I was reading this, the quantum physics phenomenon came to mind - where matter in its most minute form is both a particle and a wave at the same time. It seems to me that a particle takes up space, while a wave includes time to get from point a to point b. This seems to be a similar dichotemy to the point you just raised, Zero - that we are indeed individual lenses of experience; at the same time, we are part of the All. The first paragraph reminded me of our collective consciousness as it has grown upon the shoulders of our ancestors (and yes, we must include the collective consciousness of the plant, animal, and mineral world and their ancestors as well, I think!) We seem to be one huge growing collective consciousness; sometimes I think it's like a giant turtleneck sweater where the neck never ends; it just keeps knitting itself with the yarn of knowledge. (Perhaps the knowledge of 'good' and evil' before this duality is transcended?) I don't know - what a fertile area for food for thought. Certainly there is a cosmic glue that keeps collective consciousness on the upswing as a general trend, so that communal knowledge doesn't have to be reinvented with each new birth.

And to be in perfect harmony is to make nary a judgment about something being good or bad, right or wrong. I just realized how hard I've been pushing my partner to market his dremeled wood pieces - chairs, tables, etc. To the point of total frustration, mine and his. He wants to walk away from his art, he's so frustrated about marketing in this depressed area. I of course am a wealth of ideas: internet, auctions, etc. This is driving him up a wall. He wants to take a hatchet to his pieces and burn them out back in the firepit. I finally saw what I was doing, this morning. I retrieved the one beautiful little table from his inventory, the one I particularly love, and I'm turning my back on the rest of his stuff. I'm sure the hatchet's not far behind. It's his art. He can destroy it. My heart is heavy and there are tears in my eyes even now as I write this. But perfect harmony I want, I realize. Even more than for his art to succeed.

Huzzah! Does it get better than this?

I just noticed on my walk this morning that the honeybees drone in the key of B. Then, on top of that, the ring-necked pigeons were cooing in the key of B. Is there something about the key of B?

A couple days after this intial post, I took another walk around the ranch. I again found the B sound with the humming bees, but I THINK I noticed that if you can possibly assign notes to the other wild sounds you hear (possible if you've got a good ear) they seemed to make up a type of harmonious B chord. The jay's note was a third or a fifth away from the B, and the same with other things I heard. The point being, I didn't hear any dissonance within the chord. It all seemed to fit. It made me wonder if a little eco-system like the one in the pocket up in the hills at the ranch doesn't settle into its own chord of harmony? Why not? Just like indian flutes whose notes will find each other...

Hi Osalina - so glad you're here. Welcome; what a wonderful addition you are going to be. So nice to hear you mention the child's mind... As a child.

I for one really appreciate your bringing that up. Cannabis (indica) is important to me as well for PTSD. But I must also say that it has greatly expanded my thought process as well. The brain seems to establish pathways at a much more dynamic rate than when I'm not using it. I wish the liquor lobby would just go jump over a cliff and let us smoke what comes up out of the ground, for god's sake.

Dwai - When I started to read your post, I chuckled because I realized how very much like Carlos Casteneda and don Juan that sounded like. then, next paragraph, I realized it was Castaneda and don Juan.. Yes. Preconceptions. Looking at the shadows rather than the leaves. Staring into a pond with your eyes slightly fuzzied and making no judgments about what we're seeing. Placing no values on each item, each item is as important or unimportant as the next. It occured to me the other day as I was driving (I wish these things would happen when I was walking, it would be safer) just how much of what we think we see is our conclusion. I conclude that this tree is further than that tree, and that's why it appears higher on the horizon. right there I put a preconception on it; my prior experience as a human being (and as an artist) that distance is a fixed quantity in the linear world. But the world don Juan was trying to teach to Carlos was non-linear, the world where things don't follow logically. don Juan had a hard time with Carlos because of his extremely fine tuned and rigid left brain, the organizational anthropoligist. Copious quantities of drugs were used on Carlos at the beginning to shake that loose, to see exactly what it is that you're talking about; the ability to suspend prior knowledge of what we think we know in order to stop the march of (the illusion of) time and be here in the present. I find that the most wonderful thing is that all Masters, regardless of their tradition, seem to end up in the same place. Wu-wei, Power of Silence, Peace that Passeth Understanding, the Eagles' Eminations.....what a wonderful confirmation to those of us who take the path seriously that even though it seems crazy at times...even though people laugh constantly and don't understand why we live life as we do....in my case, even to the point of an alienated family who understands upward mobility but not inner peace. Our conversations are short and empty. The Tao, if it were not laughed at, wouldn't be the Tao. What a riotous cosmic joke this all is. When we get to the point where all we care about is merger with the One, or god, or brahma, or the Void....this is the point where the craziness really starts affecting our lives; where we find that we have to put our money where our mouth is; that it's not just a philosophical exercise after all, like it was in the beginning. It's something that we're supposed to wear...that's the point. And each of us has a garment of our own making, once we've assembled all the pattern pieces together. But this is the part where the rest of the world doesn't understand us, either. Maybe that's why this website is gold to people who really want to go the distance. Fellow souls doing the same. don Juan also reminded Carlos that shaman's (or masters of any sort, I would think)walk a very fine line between sanity and insanity. Boy, can I relate to that one