Associates - Complete reality

[Suliman]

:)Hi im messaging with regard to complete reality taoism aswell as the book of balance and harmony which i hold very important to spiritual work but it wouldnt let me so im asking others aswell.

Im really trying to find others who study and read complete reality taoism - does anyone know of anyone or anywhere i can exchange ideas or learn.

I feel its essential for me to find people who know this field as although i have read extensively on this field i feel without help im just walking into walls.

Anyway hope this makes sense and if you would like to send me a message feel free to do so.

Kind wishes

[PGawley]

:)Hi im messaging with regard to complete reality taoism aswell as the book of balance and harmony which i hold very important to spiritual work but it wouldnt let me so im asking others aswell.

Im really trying to find others who study and read complete reality taoism - does anyone know of anyone or anywhere i can exchange ideas or learn.

I feel its essential for me to find people who know this field as although i have read extensively on this field i feel without help im just walking into walls.

Anyway hope this makes sense and if you would like to send me a message feel free to do so.

Kind wishes

 

Hi Suliman,

 

I have recently started studying Complete Reality taoism. I am particularly interesting in Inner Alchemy. I'd be happy to exchange ideas and learn with you.

 

Regards

 

Patrick

[manitou]

Could you explain in your own words what complete reality Taoism is? How does it differ from incomplete reality Taoism? I'm not saying this sarcastically - I'd really like to know.

[aridus]

As far as I know, it's the english name for a major sect that practices internal alchemy. It's just the name, even though I'm sure it was chosen for a reason, I don't think it's opposed to "incomplete reality" per se.

 

Don't know much about it other than that, since I'm not very sectarian.

[zerostao]

Could you explain in your own words what complete reality Taoism is? How does it differ from incomplete reality Taoism? I'm not saying this sarcastically - I'd really like to know.

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

[manitou]

Thanks for that, Zero - I read the article and I agreed with absolutely everything, down to the bone....until they got to the last paragraph about immortality and longevity. I've never quite understood the emphasis on that.

 

But that could be the shamanic component of my inner practice speaking. Death, as you well know, is an advisor to the shaman and the shaman is in intimate terms with death. Interesting that the focus changes slightly in both traditions, daoist and shamanic. The shaman is close to death, the Quanzhen apparently wants to stay as far away from it as possible.

[PGawley]

Thanks for that, Zero - I read the article and I agreed with absolutely everything, down to the bone....until they got to the last paragraph about immortality and longevity. I've never quite understood the emphasis on that.

 

But that could be the shamanic component of my inner practice speaking. Death, as you well know, is an advisor to the shaman and the shaman is in intimate terms with death. Interesting that the focus changes slightly in both traditions, daoist and shamanic. The shaman is close to death, the Quanzhen apparently wants to stay as far away from it as possible.

 

Thomas Cleary writes the following in the introduction to his translation of "Understanding Reality"...

 

In sum, the aim of Complete Reality Taoism is to be a "real human being" rather than a willy-nilly product of socio-cultural accident, to be fully awake, autonomous, capable of exercising free will and of perceiving reality directly rather than through artificial constructs

 

My understanding of Internal alchemy is the process of breaking down acquired conditioning (learnt behaviour/thought patterns) to see things as they really are (as much as that is possible).

 

P

[deci belle]

Hi Suliman— The Shamanism which was mentioned seems derivative of Don Juan Matus' teaching— is that true, manitou?

 

The Northern School of Complete Reality and the Southern School have slightly differing emphasis. A desciple of the southern branch's patriarch started the northern branch which is virtually the same as Chan. I would love to talk about aspects of this teaching with yourself and others.

 

My practice is steeped in the teaching of Don Juan Matus, who was known as a Yaqui sorcerer but called himself a Man of Knowledge. Only in the past few decades had I absorbed some of the Cao Dong Chan lore, the Flower Ornament Scripture, Alchemic works, the Yin Convergence Classic and Classics of the taoist canon that have thankfully been translated into the English language including I Ching studies and the Art of War. We owe Thomas Cleary dearly for his contributions. I know no Chinese languages.

 

I am glad I stumbled on your thread!

Edited April 25, 2011 by deci belle

[manitou]

I'm glad I stumbled upon you! I too hail from the Castaneda tradition; as don Juan says, at some point nature becomes the teacher, if we watch what's around us with awareness. Over the don Juan years, I happened upon a copy of the TTC at a yard sale, and I fell in love with it. The two paths have merged.

 

I love this 'room where all paths meet'. This seems to be the place.

[manitou]

 

In sum, the aim of Complete Reality Taoism is to be a "real human being" rather than a willy-nilly product of socio-cultural accident, to be fully awake, autonomous, capable of exercising free will and of perceiving reality directly rather than through artificial constructs

 

 

 

This is so very succinct. It goes back to being what we used to be, I guess. How very distorted we've probably become because of all the socio-cultural accidents. What wonderful critters we would be if we had the genuineness of the indigenous man combined with the knowledge and learned temperance of modern man.

[deci belle]

The last line of the Kuei ku tzu (Master of Demon Valley) states that "The reason that sages value the subtlety of the Way is truly because it can change peril into safety, rescue the ruined and enable them to survive."

 

I bring this up because the course of alchemy from the very beginning is one of subtlety. Finding the medicines, operating the firing process producing the elixir, the timing of intensity and ease without deviation or slip-up is all based on a profound subtlety. Each individual's situation is unique, but the elements of refinement are the same for both sexes. The requirement is a natural and intuitive affinity.

 

Please use the books and bring up comments and sticking points in order to clarify confusion.

Edited April 26, 2011 by deci belle

[PGawley]

The last line of the Kuei ku tzu (Master of Demon Valley) states that "The reason that sages value the subtlety of the Way is truly because it can change peril into safety, rescue the ruined and enable them to survive."

 

I bring this up because the course of alchemy from the very beginning is one of subtlety. Finding the medicines, operating the firing process producing the elixir, the timing of intensity and ease without deviation or slip-up is all based on a profound subtlety. Each individual's situation is unique, but the elements of refinement are the same for both sexes. The requirement is a natural and intuitive affinity.

 

Please use the books and bring up comments and sticking points in order to clarify confusion.

 

Thanks Deci belle, your point on subtlety is very helpful. The subtle by its very nature is easy to miss! I'm currently studying Understanding Reality. I've barely scratched the surface but I'm already noticing benefits. I'll post questions and comments as I come across them.

 

P

[deci belle]

Thanks for that, Zero - I read the article and I agreed with absolutely everything, down to the bone....until they got to the last paragraph about immortality and longevity. I've never quite understood the emphasis on that.

 

But that could be the shamanic component of my inner practice speaking. Death, as you well know, is an advisor to the shaman and the shaman is in intimate terms with death. Interesting that the focus changes slightly in both traditions, daoist and shamanic. The shaman is close to death, the Quanzhen apparently wants to stay as far away from it as possible.

 

Hi manitou~ In the sciences of Essence and Life, a student was once admonished thusly: "If you do not know death, how can you possibly know life?"

 

At the edge of Life and Death, the microcosm and macrocosm hangs in the balance— it is too late for regrets. One's life is short, don't waste time.

 

So the matter of life and death is central to the perspective of saints, sages, wizards, buddhas and savants of mysteries of mysteries. The dim incipience of what we can call taoism is shamanic. I hear there was once a land-bridge between asia and the americas… immortality is like something you don't see, until, suddenly you recognize its potential— and your obvious, intimate and natural affinity. Relationship material…?!!

Edited May 2, 2011 by deci belle

[deci belle]

This was posted on another thread in response to a comment Marblehead made. It is a crystalization of Complete Reality practice so I have included it here.

 

Finding the voice that waits to guide us… it's silent, but it's loud and clear when we cut the world off without cutting the world out. The world is all there is. The world is the whole of created energy. Appropriating this energy is what spiritual alchemy prescribes: working with the refined immaterial medicines.

 

But transformation doesn't need the world— just its potential. For me, this is enabled by not being afraid to miss out on anything— so the killing energy of created yin/yang cycles can then benefit. You know energy can't be destroyed; only changed. When you can see potential without habitually dealing with its nefarious forms, you can then steal it. That's changing it. YOU change it. That's taking over creation. That's the taoist term.

 

Really, all this accomplishes besides saving us relentless wear and tear, is that it seals one who can arrive here at a point, a pivot— whereby the polluted energy of everyday ordinary situations is somehow neutralized as oneself. One's immaterial body actually transforms it spiritually. The body knows what to do. The body is not the self. The body is the other. You set it up as the guest, and the inner self becomes the host.

 

You aren't doing it. It's like a state of grace. You can't help it along. You just trust your own open sincerity. Mostly you hold back. Occasionally, you let go, trusting: because it's time— not for a reason. All this alchemy stuff is the result of a kind of will. It has nothing to do with reason at all.

 

Cultivation is a matter of weeding out the compulsion to act. The habit of compulsively acting. Action as a result of true stillness is spontaneous action. Compulsive action is kinetic action. Karmic action. Created action. Selfish action. Confined action. Reified action. Ignorant action. Thoughts are acts.

 

Giving the world the slip without letting on is enlightening activity. Stepping over eternity, you leave the world and follow your own teacher. But when you see eternity, you recognize the glint of impersonal depth ~call it everything hitting and missing reflective personality~ and just let it go without renunciation or wondering what might become. It's your teacher waiting on the rise.

 

This is what I know from my own experience, but here is a corroboration by Chan master Hongren (c.602~675). It is in the opening statement of his "Treatise on the Supreme Vehicle".

 

"The basic essence of cultivating enlightenment should be discerned: it is the inherently complete and pure mind, in which there is no false discrimination, and body and mind are fundamentally pure, unborn, and undying. This is the basic teacher; this is better than invoking the Buddhas of the ten directions."

 

What is corroborated is the mind which has no mind for speculative capitalizing on self-generated illusion. One's own mind reverts to the state of selfless wisdom, which is the teacher within one's self.

Edited May 17, 2011 by deci belle