Daoism & Adyashanti

[cloud recluse]

Now here is something that interests me.Somewhere I recall reading a parable of Confucius coming across Lao Tzu sitting in ,apparently,meditation.From being totally still,reminding Confucius of a stiff,long dead tree,Lao Tzu suddenly becomes totally present & engaged with Confucius,happily chatting with him.When Confucius asks him what he was doing that allowed him to appear so withdrawn & then so outgoing,he says "I was letting my mind wander at the Beginning of Things".This brings to mind Adyashantis Sitting Without Manipulation,not being driven to lock awareness onto anyone thing,letting it rest deeply intself,or flow from event to event without contrivance.All of which presumes some faith in,or even experience of,the flow of things,the 'Beginning' of things.Does anyone else see a possible similarity here ? Regards,Cloud.

Edited April 24, 2006 by cloud recluse

[cloud recluse]

And another thing too Adya pretty much says that the Direct Path will only be undertaken by those with a real passionate thirst for it.Guilt & morality wont succesfully motivate you,Awakening cant be legislated! I get a similair feel from Daoism.Awakening is not motivated by a fear of karmic punishment or world weariness,but rather from a natural development of our passions,a pure passion for uncompromised contact that only the nondual can satisfy.If,until then,you are content to splash around dualistically in the flow of the Dao,fine.Its not a "sin".The nature of your splashing can still orintate you 'towards' awakening without a direct assault on your dualism,participation in flow can be deep whils still dualistic.And Adya doesnt seem fazed by the dualistic self that persists until Direct Awakening,its just a fact of life.His position is interesting here as he actually comes from a Buddhist background,an ideology that I do associate with a compusive-moralistic take on Awakening. Regards,Cloud.

[sean]

Yeah, Adyashanti totally has a California vibe about the whole thing. He shows up to satsang in short sleeve Hawaiian shirts and sandals. It kind of goes with the whole Advaitic theme of emphasizing everpresent perfection. Personally, I can groove with it and I also get along fine with the greater sense of urgency promoted in other schools (with the exclusion of paranoid fundamentalist impending apocalypse cults ). Gangaji has a background as a political activist and will often speak with more urgency about the situation, speaking of how the world we are creating from our positions of delusion continues to escalate war and environmental destruction.

 

Sean

[Cameron]

Adya is great. I am glad someone like him is around and definetly interested to see him in a couple months. Yoda brought something interesting up in a convo awhile ago. I was talking about how Cohen really specifies how many minutes to do different practices..basically a qigong cookbook, while Adya doesn't do all that and I think is trying to get you to wake up to your true nature which is beyond practicing for X amount of time or whatever.

 

 

Anyway, Yoda said how he really needs that cookbook..which teachers like Cohen provide. I tend to agree with Yoda even though Adya, as well as a teacher I study with live, basically focus on the non manipulation thing.

 

Actually, from what little I know, Dennis has a more comprehensive approach(though he may not be as enlightened as Adya..atleast from what level people say Adya is at).

 

Dennis combines the Adveta, non dual stuff with qigong. I like it. It's really where it as at for me. So although Adya may be a Master of this path and BK Franzis may be a Master of dissolving/water method Michael Winn of interior alchemy etc. I think it's great to have the freedom to learn and practice all of these ways.

 

But I am a novice..I could easily have a different view in 1 year...

Edited April 25, 2006 by Cameron

[cloud recluse]

 

..Actually, from what little I know, Dennis has a more comprehensive approach(though he may not be as enlightened as Adya..atleast from what level people say Adya is at).

 

Dennis combines the Adveta, non dual stuff with qigong. I like it..

Im assuing 'Dennis' is Dennis Lewis,yeah?I think Ive got a couple of his breathwork books stashed away somewhere,but I wasnt aware of the Advaita aspect,sounds COOL.

 

Anyhow,I certainly agree that I wouldnt go to Adya for Chi gung,but his overall perspective brought a lot together for me.Until Ive dropped all ego & am totally flowing with the Dao,as we all will ,Im going to need technical Chi Gung to embody my energy more succesfully( to which end Ive actually just started a Chi Gung & Yang Tai Chi course,taught at a local Buddhist temple ,5 minutes walk from my house no less.Going to structure training around that & Ken Cohens book. ).But its Adya thats really enlivened the nondual 'issue' for me,& led me to speculate about nondualism in Daoism Regards,Cloud.

Edited April 26, 2006 by cloud recluse

[cloud recluse]

Freeform,its more like resources were dropped in my lap!Talk about luck.This Saturday im going to class halfahour early to get basic instruction in Chineses Tea Ceremony for free!And yes,I feel it should be a play of Chi Kung,but a very comitted play for me ,at least initially.A musician needs comittment to master an instrument before they can cut loose with a really creative tune,but its not a burden.Its too inspiring to be a burden Regards,Cloud.

[cloud recluse]

If Id had my wits about me by the way,I would have called this thread the Dao of Adya

[cloud recluse]

Yeah, Adyashanti totally has a California vibe about the whole thing. He shows up to satsang in short sleeve Hawaiian shirts and sandals. It kind of goes with the whole Advaitic theme of emphasizing everpresent perfection. Personally, I can groove with it and I also get along fine with the greater sense of urgency promoted in other schools (with the exclusion of paranoid fundamentalist impending apocalypse cults ). Gangaji has a background as a political activist and will often speak with more urgency about the situation, speaking of how the world we are creating from our positions of delusion continues to escalate war and environmental destruction.

 

Sean

[cloud recluse]

Yeah, Adyashanti totally has a California vibe about the whole thing. He shows up to satsang in short sleeve Hawaiian shirts and sandals. It kind of goes with the whole Advaitic theme of emphasizing everpresent perfection. Personally, I can groove with it and I also get along fine with the greater sense of urgency promoted in other schools (with the exclusion of paranoid fundamentalist impending apocalypse cults ). Gangaji has a background as a political activist and will often speak with more urgency about the situation, speaking of how the world we are creating from our positions of delusion continues to escalate war and environmental destruction.

 

Sean

 

My perspective on this comes from a distintion between ethical practice & nondual experince.Neither guarantees the other,but each enhaces the other,NEEDS the other.Im wary of waiting for Insight BEFORE you embrace ethics.Ethics start at any moment you ackowledge value,even if that acknowledgement come from an 'unenlightened mind'.Im only vaguely familiar with Gangaji,but if shes suggesting that ethics cant begin without nonduality,I strongly disagree.Nonduality makes ethical action far more effective & effortless,but Im not sure it in itself generates ethical ACTION,as distinct from a lot of benign feelings.

 

"The personality of the adept is,to be sure,oriented toward self-transcendence rather than self-fulfillment.However,it is charachteristically not on a self-actualizing trajectory.I understand "self-actualization" here in a more restricted sense than it was intended by Abraham Maslow:as the intention toward realizing psychic wholeness based on the intergration of the shadow into consciousness.The shadow,in Jungian terms,is the dark aspect of the personality,the aggregate of repressed materials.The individual shadow is ineluctably tied up with the collective shadow.The intergration of the shadow into consciousness is not a once-and-for-all event but a lifelong process.Intergration can occur either prior to enlightenment or subsequently.If intergration is not a conscious program of the preenlightened personality,it is also unlikely to form part of the postenlightened personality ,because of the relative stability of the psychic structures.'-HOLY MADNESS,Georg Feuerstein,pp243-244.

 

For me,ethics is thus the conscious program prior to enlightenment,which then facilitates the endless 'deepening' of postenlightenment.Ive now forgotten the point I was trying to raise with all this,and am very tired,so I will bid you goodnight Regards,Cloud.