manitou

This is interesting. Even though we aren't meditating in the archaic sense, have you ever noticed how many wonderful AHA's you have while doing something like driving? I suspect driving (freeway driving) enables us to focus our physicality on the driving and freeing the psyche for working out things, much like dreaming. It's just an interesting phenomenon. I am sure others here will know more about this and why it is so.....

The way I see dualities, it's everything that isn't the awareness of the Oneness. Non-dual awareness is the I AM awareness, as far as I see it. The sage would stay in the One and realize he wasn't really separate from anything or anybody. Or not.

The reason I suggest to do the writing about your memory is because we are so very good at fooling ourselves when we're just thinking about this stuff - this 'going in' stuff. Please do grab a pen and don't shortchange yourself on this important revelation. It's worth taking about a half hour and doing it. Things will magically come out of your pen (because you're committed to a sentence or finishing a thought), whereas if you're just cogitating this stuff, your brain will weave and bob around so it doesn't get too uncomfortable for you. Baloney. Get a pen. Write. You'll get deeper revelations. Then the imprint. The actual physical act, as I mentioned before: bury a Big Mac. Put it in a box along with a photo of some starving kids. Commend it to the earth, along with some words about offering this food up to those who have none. Do this from the heart; sit down on the earth and talk to it. Do this as a ceremony; perhaps someone else can do some drumming or rattling. First prepare the area, smudge with burning sage or sweetgrass - if you don't have those things, grab some pine needles or anything burnable that throws off a good clean scent. It's the Intent that you're dealing with, not worrying so much about the details. There's no 'magic way' to do this. Just ceremonialize it. Then, once you've finished, zip up the ceremony somehow - I'l usually walk around the outside of the circle with my staff and close the ceremony with gratitude for spirit, and the word "Washte", which pretty much has the same connotation as Namaste, only it's the indigenous word that the Native Americans would have used. Then the continual maintainance. That refers to the giving I was talking about earlier. On a long-term basis find a way to continually give back - it doesn't have to be a big deal, only something between you and your heart that makes things a little easier for someone else. Maybe a monthly donation to a charity you prefer - preferably one close to home that you can actually see some results. Or if a charity isn't down your alley, maybe a pledge to be a big brother or something - you know what I'm getting at. That'll be the grease that keeps your financial wheel turning. I too share your feeling that I'm worth nothing and would certainly never deserve anyone wonderful. There's a couple tricks here I would recommend too. Can you find a picture of yourself as a baby or a young boy? Can you frame it and place it on your nightstand? Can you say good morning to him each morning and tell him you're going to take care of him today? To feed him the best food, to find a nice mate for him? This sounds so hokey but I had to do it and it worked to some degree, at least to get me started. Again, you might have a childhood memory here that needs triangulating, but in reality on something like this you can change your mindset with Love. All that means is that it takes the focus off yourself and your perceived unworthiness and focus on the situations around you. What can you bring to them to elevate the situation? Is there someone you come in contact with daily that is rather off-putting, for example - but what if you were to take the time periodically to listen to what that person had to say? If they're off-putting to you, they're probably off-putting to everyone else too. Maybe nobody listens to them at all. There are so many ways we can find to love each other, just in simple kind ways. But it does involve taking the focus of self and/or self-pity (which you don't seem to have) and getting into LIFE in a different way. One day at a time. One person at a time. One situation at a time. There a way to infuse Love into every situation in our daily lives, even if we're waiting in a line at Walmart.

That would be my guess, that you came to associate money with something greedy and arrogant. Somehow I got that message too, early on. Yes, I do the triangulation for people. When you find the memory (I think you've found it with your McDonald's experience) I would get a piece of paper and write as much as you can about it. Just get it out. Try to see where it originated or at what moment you "saw" your father's lifestyle as obnoxious. Then the trick is to imprint to the "opposite". This would be to give something away. If you were here, I would conduct a ceremony for you, complete with rattles and drums. I would have you stand in a power circle that you drew on the ground. I would come up behind you and whisper in your ear to get your soul's attention. I would talk to your innards, the intelligence that gives your body the messages it gets. I would tell it that in a prior life you were one of those starving children, and in this life it's your turn to not starve and have a more comfortable life. That seems to be the only way my psyche can live with the inequities of life that we see. I would whisper that in this life, because you have more, you have to give more. I would then devise some sort of action for you to take wherein you "imprint" sharing what you have with the world. Perhaps something as simple as burying a McDonald's hamburger in the ground to "share" with others in the world. I'd have to give that some thought, but there would be an imprint for your soul. For your soul to feel comfortable with earning and accumulating money, you may need to do something similar. How about making a pledge to yourself that for every, say, $100 you earn, you will do something to put back into society - something small in your community, etc. Some sort of device where your soul feels like it's 'giving back' some of the booty you earn in the future. that way, you will be motivated to earn more so that you can give back more - which, if I'm reading you correctly, is really what blows your skirt up.

This is a remarkable statement IMO and goes directly to the wu-wei practice of Do Nothing and wait until the situation comes to you.

LOL. Well shut my mouth! That's so good it's hard to find things to comment on. It's more of a spiritual springboard than it is an excerpt.

What a great question and a great topic. I, myself, am one who cannot manage to rub two nickels together. By the grace of Whatever I live on a pension. Part of my identity is shamanic - a new age shaman with a developed third eye would triangulate this situation to determine why you are manifesting the things you are manifesting. If you are continuously manifesting lack, there is a reason your consciousness (actually, more like subconscious) has been given the signal to manifest continual lack. The shaman would put one end of the tripod in Truth (which is Love, and this is the eye that the shaman would use as a lens), the second leg of the tripod in the current manifestation of your life situation, and the third leg of the tripod would be placed at the base of a childhood memory that repeatedly comes to your mind. (It's up to you to supply the memory, but it might have something to do with being guilty for having too much, or the message that there are starving kids in the world, or perhaps a vision of The Ugly American) Or...a whole bunch of us here seem have really developed social consciences and I suspect that you're one of them...and it's hard for me to be truly happy and into "obtaining more and bigger stuff for myself" when we're already so very privileged, after all's said and done. At least we're sitting here with computers and not grubbing around for food in an alley somewhere. There is a small voice that reminds me of that continually, for some reason. I'd just as soon not have the voice at all at some level, life would be easier. Just like life would be easier if I weren't kundalini active and have crazy internal electrical happenings and ringing ears. But....here we are. On this path that seems to demand total devotion, no matter how often we stray or decide to walk away from it 'cuz it's too much trouble. Wow. I'm glad you're all here. I'm glad I'm not here alone.

This chapter is referred to in another translation as "The Rise of Relative Opposites". How often I've noticed that things in life are exactly opposite of what they first appear. And how often I've noticed that my opinions, as one who values and tries to live the Tao, are often exactly opposite of prevailing conventional wisdom. Therefore the Sage, knowing that everything is relative to the point of view and the vision of the beholder, manages the affairs without action - an allusion to Wu-Wei. Because nothing is absolute - everything is relative to the beholder - the Sage knows by allowing life to happen around him that things are unfolding as they are; when so motivated, the Sage will bend the light (or tweak a dynamic in its budding phase because he sees how the outcome is going to play out; he sees a higher outcome that can result from the smallest tweak). The shaman stands in this dynamic as well (referring to 4th cycle or new age shamans, as Castaneda or don Juan Mateus would call them). The beginning words of this chapter allude to a subject we've covered many times on this forum, non-judgment. Lin Yutang puts it slightly differently, for purposes of triangulation: "When the people of the Earth all know beauty as beauty, There arises (the recognition of) ugliness. When the people of the Earth all know the good as good, There arises (the recognition of) evil." I think this goes directly to non-judgment. Don't judge someone to be ugly. Don't judge a situation to be ugly. This is the hardest thing to do in the world....I go into a supermarket (particularly here in Ohio) and I'm surrounded by hoardes of very large people. If one pops around a corner and is suddenly standing in my aisle, my first natural thought is "fat guy". I can't help it. They're really fat here. Period. But I've taken to walking through the store and avoiding eye contact with others for this very purpose. It's not that I don't see them...it's just that I'm using my peripheral vision. If someone wishes to acknowledge me, then great, and I respond....but am I making any sense at all here? I'm not trying to NOT look at fluffy people, I'm trying to get my mind to Stop Labeling Them As Fluffy. This is all so very nuanced it's really difficult to communicate stuff like this. Or...I am surrounded by Tea Baggers here in these parts. This is just plain effing ugly as far as I'm concerned. On any given day I can get a good head of steam going just by stopping in at Tim Horton's for a cup of coffee; I'm in the midst of a WASP hive. I can choose to walk around like this all day, or I can get a handle on it and realize that Those People Are Me. And I am most comfortable by finding a way to love them. Not like them, but love them. The way I've found to 'love them' is to make sure our table is cleaned off and the chairs pushed in and the napkin holder right in the middle of the table before we leave. It's not much, but it's enough to keep my heart on the gentler side. So I sway between Sage and Sanctimonious A-hole on any given day. Whatever the powers that be had a fine laugh when we found ourselves living here 4 years ago.

Religion is bad. Period. And I don't even believe in good or bad. This is my one exception, LOL. The fact that the Tao can't be talked about seems to remove the dogma aspect from the Tao, as opposed to other religions who fill our heads with structure and fable. My guess is as far as 'religions' go (if someone insists on calling the Tao a religion) it is the most structureless and therefore very expedient for ultimate enlightenment. Seems to me atheism is closer to enlightenment than most religions because they don't have to undo the structure of anything. The essence of the Tao seems to be no-structure.

Very well said, Veejay. I look forward to seeing these qualities of the 4 immeasurables coming through in your posts.

I'm wondering how Buddhahood aligns with the three treasures of the Tao, once one has gotten to that point.The Three Treasures: The First is "Love", the second is "Never too much", the third is "Never be the first in the world". If one practices the Tao faithfully over an extended period of time, those would be our treasures. What does Never be the First in the World mean? My guess is that address ego directly; it's the feeling that if we are the "First" we feel that we are compelled to have all the answers. How does Buddhahood address this?

(Or as a retired cop would say, WILLIAM TANGO FRANK???) Please stick around, friend. We do seem inundated with smartasses right now. They'll be gone...

Absolutely nothing. I was making a further comment about Straw Dog's post from the TTC wherein you can know the ways of the world without going out of your door, a few comments back.

Lin Yutang's version of this chapter includes the paragraph about Nature, under the heading IDENTIFICATION WITH TAO. It is probably aligned somewhere else in your translation. But it makes sense to consider it as well. Nature says few words Hence it is that a squall lasts not a whole morning. A rainstorm continues not a whole day. Where do they come from? From Nature. Even Nature does not last long (in its utterances), How much less should human beings? (The next paragraph is 'Therefore it is that: He who follows the Tao is identified with the Tao...") What this seems to add is that not only does the Sage play things close to the vest and preserve his body and his essense whole, but that this should be true of our utterances as well. This perhaps equates to the idea of the concubines not piercing their ears or cutting their nails - to preserve their bodies 'whole'. Loving and trying to understand the Tao seems to lead to fewer words - probably because to utter them to anyone but a Taoist they come across a bit insane. What's a little confusing to me is the separation of He Who Follows the Tao is One with the Tao, separate from He Who Follows Character is one with Character. It seems to me that Character would be part and parcel with following the Tao if one takes it seriously. Maybe I'm wrong here. Maybe the inference is that Character is supported by choices, 'good' and 'bad,' or 'right and wrong', and that when Character is concentrated upon itself as an entity the Tao is actually lost.

Sun - I wish you were 'somewhere in Ohio' instead of 'somewhere in Balkan'. I think you would be a very nice person to have as a friend.

Because this is one of the few places where people understand me. The Tao (or my Castaneda leanings) are the most important things in my life. Without these two I can't imagine the mundane existence of how I used to think, the things I did. The Tao Bums is where I find like-minded people - they're not that easy to find in the middle of the bible belt. I truly am grateful that you're here. I love you, TB's.