manitou

Maybe a far cry, but it sure merges pretty seamlessly. The Sage is a shaman, as far as I can see.

I couldn't agree more. We are working something out here. One day it will synthesize, but not until the various egos get out of the way.

Letting go is not difficult if you know what you're letting go to. If we see It all as One, then there is nothing to be frightened of. You're already there, and It is friendly. Even looking at the current world situation, things changing so fast. There is a contingent of folks who are really scared by all this, thinks the caliphates are setting up now even as we speak. But when we truly let go and step way back, we can see that there is truly a rhyme and reason to everything that's happening; looking at anything historical in hindsight shows that the evolution occurs each and every time. The same with us individually. We change, we evolve, we leave things behind, we find that our emotions don't hold as much sway over us as they used to; this is the tendency. It isn't to be feared; we come out of it much stronger, not buffeted around by conditions any more.

What an interesting discussion. Yes, thanks Devoid, for going to all the trouble and introducing this. I remember reading this many years ago, but its essence was lost on me at that time. It looks to me now like it's the Tao Te Ching on steroids. I notice the fact that all the listed qualities under Heaven are those things which actually happen 'in the heavens', or above the horizon of earth and sky. Night passes to day, the phenomenon of heat and cold occur, and this is where time lays out day after day into seasons. Earth, however, contains those things which are innate to the earth. Distances, dangers and securities, and ultimately the power of life and death over us. The Commander would equate to the Sage, of course. A being of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage, strictness (necessarily a military quality). It seems that the Commander would have to have mastered the art of wu-wei to have at his disposal all the options between doing and not-doing; when to stay, when to move; to not rule from a place of ego, but a place of compassion. An exquisite thread.

Twinner, I recognize a channel when I hear one. That was one awesome moment you must have had. I don't think there's goodness or badness to it at all. Just is-ness. If we want perfect clarity, we have the choice as to how much internal houseclearing we want to do. I liken it to barnacles growing inside a glass tube - a light wouldn't be able to shine down the tube without casting shadows. It is a process of elimination, in the end; an elimination of character defects that distort our view. The choice is ours, always.

That's interesting. I've wondered about that too. When I was a little girl I had a horribly painful experience when I landed on the bar of a boy's bike. I can remember the cringing pain to this day. My own sexual history was one of violence and pain. I've found myself remembering that bike memory from time to time over the years; certainly there is a connection. I think there is something to what you're saying. And 'what we think of sex' is totally formed by the adults around us. I have two awful memories there too. Once the mean Scotch lady on the corner caught me and my friend Harold looking down each other's pants. I think we were 5. She marched me home and told my mother. I was humiliated. And then there was the time in posture class when I forgot to wear a t-shirt and all the other girls wore bras and they laughed at me. That was humiliating. That memory remains to this day. Or the time I was scolded while bathing with Mom and noticing that she had a vagina. I asked 'what's that?' and she got mad and that's the last time we ever bathed together. So maybe what happens to us as children is actually a manifestation of our sexual karma from a previous existence, as you say. And needless to say it's a no-brainer that our childhood experiences would certainly affect the rest of our lives. It does seem to reason that if a person experiences a quantity of the same type of experiences, as mine above, that we are somehow manifesting the tendency carried over from another time. Interesting thought.

I've got to get the book you're all talking about. This is right down my alley and up my street. If you know what I mean.

This is one of my favorite chapters; it is the essence of wu-wei, as far as I can see. This chapter is the instruction manual for Do-Nothing. First of all, it engenders the understanding of the rule of opposites, right off the bat. (To be hollow is to be filled...) Lin Yutang's interpretation is similar enough to not bother to write it here; however, he does title his chapter "FUTILITY OF CONTENTION". This seems to be a very good synopsis for the content of the chapter, to me. To contend is really not to understand at all. If we contend in any way it is because we lack surety within ourselves. The ones that contend the most have their ego riding the highest. Wu-wei, as it presents, presents humbly. They never see the Sage coming. He does not announce himself shouting his wisdom. Because he doesn't shout his own praises he may become well known and is a natural leader. For practice of wu-wei, which is actually the sorcery of the Tao, is to find answers within the silence. To remain still while others are doing the acting. One way of looking at it is to 'stop juggling'. To stop our participation in a dynamic, so that all the pieces fall on to the ground. From this position, one can see exactly what one has to work with. This is the onset of wu-wei. To continue from this position of gentle firmness, to allow the pieces to come together of their own volition and with their own intelligence; this is the essence of wu-wei. It is achieving by Not-Doing. From the point of stillness, to then take the minimum action required of your participation throughout the dynamic, and to have the wisdom of how to do so. How to obtain the wisdom? By becoming humble, as the above Sage. How to become humble? By doing the inner work. Self-realization. Getting to know who you actually Are. The Sage knows.

My darling Veejay, It just isn't fair to tell someone they don't have deep insight into the true nature of things, just because they haven't walked your Buddhist path. This is the height of arrogance, my friend. Please join us in the Tao Te Ching book studies so you can understand more of what is really happening here. I am afraid, at this point in time, you are clueless.... Love, Barb

A shamanic mindset closely allies with what we're talking about here. The shaman uses death as 'his advisor', a presence we're aware of to the left and a little behind us. To become on speaking terms with death is for death to lose its power over us. I've said this before in another thread and I know it's gross, but I do actually pick up small road kill (it has to be good looking, none of the ugly stuff) , for the purpose of putting it somewhere off the road where it can be recycled into the stream of life. To do this with the intent of befriending death is the thing. It seems to work at different levels.

The soul. I couldn't define this if I tried. Yes, there are countless layers and various levels of manifestation. I haven't put words or a structure to them, I don't see the need to. I am speaking merely of that Thing that hasn't aged since the day it was born into this body. It's the same today as when I was a little child. It is the thing that dwells inside me, which is the same entity as the Thing that lives inside you. I spent my entire life in a left brain construct. I've been a detective since 1983; structure was my middle name, always has been. This is why Buddhism is too structured for my tastes, although I can understand someone coming from a different perspective grasping at it. The Tao's beauty is in its formlessness, to me. It's just a personal thing. I think these arguments are silly and I don't like participating because they're mental masturbation for the most part. We'll never stop arguing over it until we find the merging piece, the piece that satisfies all of us, and we hear the clicking of the tumblers falling into place. I'm gratified to see other recovered alcoholics or druggies here - the clearing out process of the 12 steps is probably very much akin to a Buddhist meditating on non-attachment, if I'm understanding these discussions correctly. The degree of impeccability we utilize our own personal house-cleaning is the very thing that enables spirit (?) to manifest. I think the clearer we make our channels, the more solidly we can manifest with intent.

(applause)

i've heard it said that when a soul is not in body, it craves being in body. To "feel", I guess. To experience sensation. So, even when times are bad the spirit is delighted to be playing out this little part. that just helps me keep it all in perspective. Even when the seemingly bad hits, we can be reminded that all we're really doing is showing a movie to Spirit, or whatever we call it. Somehow I find that very comforting and it reinforces that it's all illusion anyway.

Personally, I've reconciled the God thing by coming to the understanding that it's all God. The Tao is everything there is. We are God, we are the point of the spear as to 'God's' manifestation in this reality, at least. The closer we can get down to our original self, by clearing out the psychic barnacles we've been carrying around, the more we are able to manifest the true intent. The I Am consciousness.

I just heard an interview with Madelaine Albright, and she said 'Don't forget, people have been telling Mubarak he's great, every day of his life for 30 years'. I wonder if Mr. Mubarak, at 82, doesn't have a touch of dementia? It almost seems like he's showing the signs for it, and it would sure explain his inability to step down. Combined with the above scenario, I'm actually starting to feel a little compassion for the old bird. It appears that the new VP, Suleimann, is talking with the Islamic Brotherhood. Maybe they're triangulating Mr. Mubarek out? If that were the case, do you think the protesters would have any compassion for him and let him play out his term as fairy-tale president? In a fairy book world, I think this would be the ending.

I've sort of come to the conclusion that all this is, is spirit (or the creative urge) wanting to experience itself. No good, no bad, no nuthin'.

No, the kitty is still fine. I'm more liberal with the word 'love' than Marbles is; he prefers compassion. I've started using both in my posts, because I love the feel of the word compassion as well. But I also like 'love', in the agape love sense, because it seems to be self-originating. Compassion to me indicates more of a reflex to stimulus, but that's probably just my experience... It's more of a friendly jibing than a disagreement -

Certainly Buddhism teaches more than just getting out of suffering? This is a pretty one-way mindset. There must be more. It just feels to me like we're always going up the same hill on different sides. Both disciplines go so very deeply into self; the Sage can't be a Sage unless he's become self realized. And I see that the non-attachment disciplines of Buddhism would do the same, would find the I Am within. The thing which differentiates us who care about such things is, how self-honest are we each capable of being? There's can't be two separate truths standing alone. There is one truth. Maybe we're still evolving in this respect. Maybe our challenge is to find the connections between these two so they can merge. I just know that if we put the yang in front of the yin, or reversed the black and white on the tao symbol, or something....that the joinder would be made clear. The ego involvement only gets in the way of this.

I love the way negative turns to positive in life. These very things we fear happening are the very things that push us forward on the path. This is the beauty of recovery meetings of any sort - the seemingly bad is not bad at all. It's all good.

What a wonderful topic. I look at it this way. Eternity has no beginning, it has no end. We are here, we will always be here, we have always been here. People tend to think of eternity as 'the future', but it's also 'the past'. I think when somebody has a near-death experience or a personal experience where the One is reached, this seems to take the fear out of the equation. Personally, one night when my husband and I were having a sexual encounter, we both ended up in Tantra-land. That changed everything. The place was a golden, warm, humming envelope of beingness - I had a definite immediate knowledge that this was the collective of souls. My intuition tells me this is the collective place where souls rest, and where my soul will go return. It is a wonderful place where time does not pass. It is all Now. If this is what death is, I'll be happy to return there. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant to me; it took many fears away, and it gave me something to look forward to. I go along with the lucid dream idea too. I'll bet that a Christian may envision Jesus upon death, a Buddhist may envision the Buddha. I think death will be whatever our life has conditioned it to be, as to what our lucid dream will show.

I couldn't agree more, Aaron. I worked the 12 steps for my alcoholism many years ago, never suspecting that they would lead to the road to enlightenment. I just thought I was clearing out my personality defects so I wouldn't drink any more. Surprise, Surprise. The wonderful little junkets Life takes us on so it can get the results it wants.

I'm so darn liberal on this, I'd like to see basic needs distributed to everyone on the planet.

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It seems to me that we're almost talking about apples and oranges. My guess is that the meditative journey that takes one to separate realities, such as the scenario Veejay refers to, is more a phenomenon of seeking. That dynamic is from the inside to the outside. Yes, there are separate realities; they can also be accessed through shamanic techniques. I'm not sure Buddha had the only handle on it, I think the indigenous were well aware of the separate realities as well. The other journey is the journey from the outside to the inside. This is where the Personality gets edited, and this is the path that ends up at the One. It's the journey of self-awareness, the series of internal gulps of 'Aha!' that ties together that which we have learned on the outside with what we are on the inside. If done over a long period of time and with great impeccability, it brings us to the source; hence the term 'sorcery'?. It's entirely different than the inside to the outside; rather, this is the clearing process that brings us to the One (or, if the Buddhists prefer, the space between the matter). It seems to me that the Middle Way is the perfect blend of the two. The Middle Way brings us into balance so we don't get too far out in either direction.

To reconcile the straw dog question? That seems irreconcilable if you take the passage on its own, in its own context. But to put it in alignment with the rest of the Tao, I would say that fortune and misfortune falls on everyone equally, without favor. I don't think the intent of the straw dog reference shows in any way that the Tao is unloving. I see it more as a well we can tap into, if we get down there far enough in our own self realization to use it. The Sage is able to love (or feel compassion for) all varieties of sentient beings, without distinction; if the Tao treats all men as straw dogs, apparently so does the Sage. I've read that straw dogs were used as ceremonial proxys in certain situations. I don't think the term 'straw dogs' is used in an arrogant sense, like the Tao or the Sage wipes his feet on people or anything. I think it's used more to indicate the Sage's compassion extends to everyone equally, rich, poor, kind, mean.