True mastery?

[bindo]

Moderator's note:

 

I gather Sri Nisargadatta is a Hindu, not a Buddhist then? Perhaps a Moslem? Maybe a sufi mystic? Beats me. What's so funny about someone not into any of the above and trying to discuss taoist sources not knowing who the heck he is? I don't know who he is either. "Spare you my ignorance" I can't, I don't know who he is, but I can assure you that "spare me your ignorance" is entirely without merit and barely within insult policy margins that are stretching under its pressure. Please try to talk to people instead of belittling them for not being into your thing.

 

-- Sword of tao sheathed

Try telling this to Tao99, not me. He's the one jumping to all kinds of incorrect conclusions. If you guys don't know who he is, why would you automatically assume he is a Buddhist? Ever hear of google?

 

Did I make multiple postings in an attempt to hijack this thread? No.

Is Sri Nisargadatta a Buddhist? No.

Did he mention anything about Buddha or Buddhism? No.

 

Not to mention I know slightly more than nothing about Buddhism and have little, if any, interest in it.

 

I don't appreciate your condescending tone, Taomeow. Tao99 was clearly the aggressor.

 

Excuse me for trying to help the OP out. We can't have any of that around here.

[hagar]

Hey there, n thanks for your reply. I've also discussed this on my other topic about the spiritual value of the Tao. Yes, I know very well that I must find a place for Tao in my heart, but I know not how one goes about doing this... I cannot just put the Tao in my heart, first and foremost, if I don't know what the tao is. Secondly, I cannot do it if my heart is distracted, maybe overwhelmed even, by so much bad thoughts and negative feelings connected to these thoughts. I must surely practice to focus on the Tao trough on going meditation or present minded. But exactly how can one go about inspiring one self to carry the Tao in the heart? Even if one wants to carry words on his heart, its not always possible to do that. "The world is perfect" When I say that, I don't feel them in my heart. How can I place them on my heart? How did you? Do you remember how they got there? Overtime ofcourse.

 

First of all, the Dao does not have any value. It is beyond value, even beyond spirituality. This always gets very complicated, but the Dao is here, now, as you read this. No need for words. When I said see the video with your heart I just meant take in the information without thinking too much, just watch and feel without judging. Something else is informing the heart than words. At best, words point towards something. So you're right.

 

I haven't gotten there , and will not get there over time either.

 

h

[SFJane]

Wait... I don't understand what meditation is. I don't even know how meditation would benefit me. Being present minded is not a problem for me, I'm good at that. Meditation is not a term I'm familiar with.

 

I already knew that learning only is not the answer to succes. One must also experience. Together they form your intelect and you can be succesful. Ok, but this verse says to go meditate as a form of experience? Being present minded is often the way to have new experiences, play, go mine the intellect of others, etc. For some require more experience and others require more education. It is like a spectrum, no one is perfectly in the middle, in balance.

 

How can meditation be part of that? It teaches you present mindednes. The play part of intellect is where Tao comes in, here in this verse. "By doing nothing, nothing is left undone." You're just going about, doing nothing, letting it all happen. Nothing is left undone, thus you can relax into the present moment and experience it fully to provide you with valuable lessons or new insights. Then, and only then does diminishing get you results and more things to accumulate. This is all very paradoxical, oddly explained in the tao. I don't see how this verse can be interpreted anyway else, but as a poem. It communicates clearly a state of play and experience, where nothing is left undone.

 

 

Your cup already overfloweth a little bit.

 

You have a number of choices on how to approach Taoism. None of them inherently 'right' or 'wrong.' You can be a religious Taoist and keep a shrine and do devotionals to the Immortals. You can try your hand at understanding the 'philosophical' aspects of what you read in the TTC. There is nothing wrong with that at all. A lot of people here seem to have a lot of fun with that doing a Marcus Aurelius -like 'meditation' on the meanings of the chapters and verses.

 

There is another way to explore Taoism and that is experientially. You go and live Taoism and try to reproduce for yourself the little accidents and observations the ancients experienced by immersing yourself into a more esoteric more 'occult'-like method of inquiry and that amounts to, stop thinking about it and start meditating.

 

Meditation is both the process and achievement of stillness of the mind. If you are not doing something that is gradually creating that 'bacteria-like' growth of stillness inside you, something that transforms your inner worries, stress, wonderings, fixations, personal demons and spiritual suffering then I don't know what you are doing, but it sure isn't meditation.

 

Pick one technique. Not astral projection or angel meditation or contemplation of a lotus. Choose a technique that involves turning your awareness inward and letting go of the 'stuff' that is churning round and round in your heart-mind and let go and relax. Go practice. Forget you ever heard of a place called Tao Bums for a year. Trial and error just like the ancients did it. One day you will realize you have 'experienced' or solved in a very real way, the answers to many of your questions.

 

If you intend on an ontological inquiry into what living Taoism can really mean, if you want to find out in your soul what the teaching in the TTC are talking about, than this is the verse that should concern you the most:

 

"Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?"

 

You can either waste budget some time intellectually analyzing to death the semantics of some ancient Chinese philosopher with people, some of whom would rather read about it, than actually practice. Or you can find a teacher, learn a technique, get a sense of what right and wrong practice is, get a critique on your progress, then go practice the heck out of it.

 

Then you will come back and read Tao Te Ching for the lulz, and suddenly everything that seemed all weird and mystical and arcane will appear to be totally obvious, common sense. That is all there is to it. In the process of cultivating that patience and that settling you will naturally stop daily accumulating and interfering with your own development through expectation and projection. You will slowly gain the much vaunted 'mastery' sooner or later. Mastery really just means, being centered, being happy, being content, not being destroyed when your life changes. It means understanding the process underlying every single thought and emotion that moves across your inner landscape. It not anything more exotic or complex than that.

 

But you have to be willing to A: accumulate a little more. Just enough to get an 'ontological device' ie meditation practice technique, then, B: STOP accumulating anything else and go sit until the mud settles. The TTC reads like muddy water just as a much as your own mind can be. But that water will become clearer if you go sit and do it.

Edited August 15, 2010 by SFJane

[Tao99]

Try telling this to Tao99, not me. He's the one jumping to all kinds of incorrect conclusions. If you guys don't know who he is, why would you automatically assume he is a Buddhist? Ever hear of google?

 

Did I make multiple postings in an attempt to hijack this thread? No.

Is Sri Nisargadatta a Buddhist? No.

Did he mention anything about Buddha or Buddhism? No.

 

Not to mention I know slightly more than nothing about Buddhism and have little, if any, interest in it.

 

I don't appreciate your condescending tone, Taomeow. Tao99 was clearly the aggressor.

 

Excuse me for trying to help the OP out. We can't have any of that around here.

 

Are you being serious? The only point is it wasn't Taoist as is this thread. So it's highjacking a Taoist thread off to another school. And it's confusing because it doesn't disclaim that it is a whole new subject, not Taoism. That's dishonest. It makes no difference if it was buddha, hundu, sufi, or whatever.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Tao99

[SFJane]

I was talking to OP. Who cares if you heard it before or not? Is it all about you? Are you the arbiter of what can or should be said here? Christ.

 

No, you were talking to me, see here in this screenshot? This is you, quoting me and my posts and replying to me. You haven't added anything all that nifty. Then I added some real world practice anecdotes to the discussion and all you can come up with is NO U!

 

Fail.

Edited August 15, 2010 by SFJane

[Tao99]

You have yet to contribute something I haven't heard before so what is your excuse for your post just now?

 

Sounds to me this says in the thread, not in a post to you. You are now just trying to be insulting with your

 

"You haven't added anything but a pile of pathetic pseudointellectual bullshit".

 

That's not debating a point with counter evidence. That's just spitting out an insult.

 

 

right back at ya

Edited August 15, 2010 by Tao99

[SFJane]

Moderator's note:

 

 

 

Jane, mind editing

 

Done. My apologies. I have been away for awhile and missed you guys too. Troll and counter-troll rules vary widely in some places and I've recently come from sites that have very few rules of engagement. >.>

Edited August 15, 2010 by SFJane

[Taomeow]

Done.

 

Thank you, Jane!

[bindo]

Are you being serious? The only point is it wasn't Taoist as is this thread. So it's highjacking a Taoist thread off to another school. And it's confusing because it doesn't disclaim that it is a whole new subject, not Taoism. That's dishonest. It makes no difference if it was buddha, hundu, sufi, or whatever.

Are you being serious? Let me remind you of something. This isn't your thread. To you, he asked a question about Taoism. To me, he is seeking a spiritual understanding.

 

The only other "school" brought into this thread has been the school of spiritual truth that exists in all schools since the beginning of time.

 

Why don't we leave it up to Everything to decide, since it's his thread.

Edited August 15, 2010 by bindo

[nac]

Philosopher catfight. lol

 

See why it's a better idea to relax in the shade than discuss it to death? Analysis paralysis. Experiences are subjective and incommunicable through natural, non-technical language. For all we know, everyone in this thread and even Sri Nisargadatta experienced the same thing, but chose different words to express themselves. Not that it matters either way. The question is, what would YOU experience when you meditate? No one else can answer that question for you.

[Tao99]

That's because he was asking a question about Taoism, specifically chapter 48 of TTC. That's about as specifically Taoist a question as it gets. The OP:

 

Hey, all! I am kinda new to Tao, or noob, whatever you might call it. I would like to ask something about the 48th verse, where I'm kinda stuck. Perhaps you guys can correct me on my learning of Tao.

 

What I read (I don't know if this translation is correct or not):

Learning consist of daily accumulating.

The practice of the Tao consist of daily diminishing;

decreasing and deacreasing, untill doing nothing.

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

 

True mastery can be gained

by letting things go their own way.

It cannot be gained by interfering.

_______

 

So thats the 48th verse I read. What is meant by "True mastery" ? And how can fulfillment be reached by doing nothing? I thought being passive will do the opposite... I'm confused about this whole verse. Actually in all of my thinking about the Tao, because these teachings seems wise and paradoxical, but I cannot seem to relate it to anything else in the world.

 

 

Feel free to comment on any of my words here. Thanks

 

 

And you brought up Sri Nisargadatta, who is not a Taoist and is from another school:

 

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (birth name: Maruti Shivrampant Kambli) (April 17, 1897[1] – September 8, 1981) was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher of Advaita (Nondualism), and a Guru, belonging to the Inchgiri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj

 

 

So you did hijack an obviously Taoist thread with another school's point of view. Thus the moderator was correct. BTW Taoist doctrine disagrees with a lot of your quote.

 

back to topic (I hope) ...

Edited August 15, 2010 by Tao99

[bindo]

Philosopher catfight.lol

haha

[Aetherous]

The only other "school" brought into this thread has been the school of spiritual truth that exists in all schools since the beginning of time.

 

Yup.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Scotty

[Everything]

Your cup already overfloweth a little bit.

 

You have a number of choices ...

 

... But that water will become clearer if you go sit and do it.

 

Well, guess I should definitely try become aware of my inner landscape, that sounds like a good thing. I can see that translating itself into other areas of ones life in a positive way. I just didn't know what meditation really ment and how it translates onto mastery. Or how it affected individuals.

 

Thanks.

 

And thanks to everyone! Got so many posts here, I appreciate all perspectives and read them all ofcourse. Living beyond judgement, every person has good intentions. You guys are all great!

Edited August 15, 2010 by Everything