What is Tao

[Easy]

So what is there to discuss?

 

Why don't we discuss the observation that the Dao is a function of the human body. The human mind (and the Mind of Dao) emanate within the body to perceive and formalize this apparently all-encompassing and infinitely deep Dao-function. Thus when one experiences the Dao, they are experiencing the one-and-many aspects of the endlessly wondrous human body...nothing more.

 

Haven't we had enough metaphysics?

Edited March 22, 2011 by Easy

[zerostao]

Why don't we discuss the observation that the Dao is a function of the human body. The human mind (and the Mind of Dao) emanate within the body to perceive and formalize this apparently all-encompassing and infinitely deep Dao-function. Thus when one experiences the Dao, they are experiencing the one-and-many aspects of the endlessly wondrous human body...nothing more.

 

Haven't we had enough metaphysics?

good call!

it is possible to arrive at a complete understanding/realization of our innate capabilities.

this unfolding rests on the fact that we have innate capacity that resembles heaven and earth.

my IMA is dedicated to the cultivation of wisdom and skill. this is done by continous exploration of principles,characteristics,and transformations of energy.

thorough examination of nature, practice of natural movements, and the study of change and subtleties, one begins to see the bridge between philosophy and function.

[Stigweard]

Why don't we discuss the observation that the Dao is a function of the human body. The human mind (and the Mind of Dao) emanate within the body to perceive and formalize this apparently all-encompassing and infinitely deep Dao-function. Thus when one experiences the Dao, they are experiencing the one-and-many aspects of the endlessly wondrous human body...nothing more.

 

Haven't we had enough metaphysics?

Actually this is an excellent call. The fundamental first step I suggest to my students is to first discover the Dao of the body. In Taijiquan we spend endless hours liberating the body from tensions and conditioned postural habits. Through Song Gong we rediscover the natural resilience and fluidity of physicality ... we rediscover ziran, wu wei, and Dao in living action. This is the root, everything else flows and grows from there.

 

[Marblehead]

it is possible to arrive at a complete understanding/realization of our innate capabilities.

this unfolding rests on the fact that we have innate capacity that resembles heaven and earth.

 

I like this because you used two of my favorite words to use when I speak to the concept of self-actualization: That is, we need learn what our capabilities and capacities are so that we can live to the fullest without endangering our life.

[Marblehead]

... we rediscover ziran, wu wei, and Dao in living action.

 

And if we stop right there I think we will still have 'enough'.

[torus693]

Tao is a noun -an object.

 

It's a specific shape that may form within any three centered being.

The eye of the storm is the point of issuance of a surplus of what

has been called Od, Tao, ether and the like. In this dimension the tao

force is hidden in the spin of all bodies. There is just enough given

to unite polarities establishing form. When a storm becomes perfect

a superfluous quantity of the force of Tao come out and immediately

amplifies the energetic potential of all spinning bodies or levels of matter.

Basically it is immediately used for the purposes of maintaining form or duality.

Generally there is never more or less that required to maintain form or shape so it is hidden within body.

The qualities of Tao are recognized through sense ability of the psychic nervous system body of chakra as resonances issued from all or some of the different levels of matter. The resonant tones that manifest between the plasmas of each chakras note are regarded a perfection by god. These are our highest potentials and why we are here. There are great rewards given for those who achieve these Ojas. These rewards are called siddis. Each level of matter increased spin from the force of Tao flattens out like a perfect storm or torus. The energetic increase issued and are taken experientially through one, all or a combination of the three centers of man Tan Tian literally as "god"

The truly formless body of tao is not perceptible except by its manifestation as effect -the resonances of matter. When the Tao of human form opens-up all the levels of matter that are perceived as individual, or self are absolved. The boundary between one and all ends and the presence hidden at the core of individuality comes out. This is the only part of self that may reside in the formless, or perceive that primodial resonance as that tone and it's own are one in the same. This is death, to die and it is the path of Tao. Familiarity with crossing that field of emptiness is the key to the gate of eternity -immortality. That shape is the gate, therefor Tao as a path that leads to the experience of the formless is a noun.

Edited March 22, 2011 by torus693

[Marblehead]

Hi Twinner. Help me to understand why we are a necessary part of the universe.

 

Excellent question. There is a wonderful concept within that thought.

 

Aaron! Where are you???

[Marblehead]

Tao is a noun -an object.

 

And then you went on to describe Tao as an action verb. Hehehe.

 

But you are still right, Tao is both noun and verb.

 

However, to state that it is 'an object' is selling it short, I think and this is because I believe it is all objects, both the inner and the outer; both the eye and what is being seen.

[torus693]

That shape is the gate, therefor Tao as a path that leads to the experience of the formless is a noun.

[Marblehead]

That shape is the gate, therefor Tao as a path that leads to the experience of the formless is a noun.

 

'Tis difficult for me to talk about the concept of the "Gate". There are so many different understandings of the concept.

 

But I agree with you by rephrasing: Tao (verb) is the path to the experience of the formlessness (everything nondescript) of Tao (noun). (In my understanding, the Gate is the path of Tao, that is, the Way.)

Edited March 22, 2011 by Marblehead

[torus693]

without that shape there is no tao

it wont happen within human form and it wont happen

within human experience without that shape first forming. Otherwise "gate" can be taken as a concept.

I was being literal.

Edited March 22, 2011 by torus693

[Marblehead]

without that shape there is no tao

it wont happen within human for and it wont happen

within human experience without that shape first forming.

 

I don't understand what you are saying here. What "shape"?

 

Remember, Tao existed before form or shape existed and way, way, way before man existed.

[zerostao]

I don't understand what you are saying here. What "shape"?

 

Remember, Tao existed before form or shape existed and way, way, way before man existed.

the shape of chaos is my guess. somehow it is relating to chaos.

edit> i need to see a model of this torus in 4d

 

just when i thought we were gonna talk about taijiquan and baguazhang this torus693 shows up

 

imo why sentient beings are neccessary to the universe is, it(universe) is so remarkable/spectacular/mysterious that it wants sentient beings admiring it and wondering about it

Edited March 22, 2011 by zerostao

[Marblehead]

the shape of chaos is my guess. somehow it is relating to chaos.

 

Okay. I can work with this. I forget where it is written but somewhere it is stated that (I paraphrase) "Before the beginning all existed but there were no 'things'. All was chaos; All was One."

 

(Then the Big Bang happened. [That is my thought.])

[Easy]

 

Remember, Tao existed before form or shape existed and way, way, way before man existed.

 

MH,

 

How do you know that? Were you there?

 

After I wrote in a previous post, "Haven't we had enough metaphysics," I thought through it all and decided that I was being too hard on metaphysics and convinced myself that they are ok as exercises in metaphor. In these days metaphysics can work well as stories as long as all concerned recognize they are grounded only in the mind which is grounded only in the body. In this light metaphysics and statements like the quote above have to be seen as real, but only in the same sense that fantasy science fiction is real.

 

Protagoras wrote "Man is the measure of all things." Whether it is right or wrong is incidental to the fact that anyone who says differently will, at some point, be content to be a subordinate.

[mYTHmAKER]

Okay. I can work with this. I forget where it is written but somewhere it is stated that (I paraphrase) "Before the beginning all existed but there were no 'things'. All was chaos; All was One."

 

(Then the Big Bang happened. [That is my thought.])

 

IMHO

Before the beginning (a human concept) all existed but there were no things ( the things were no things as they were unnamed). All was chaos ( as we don't understand what it is / was). All was one (All is one)

[Marblehead]

IMHO

Before the beginning (a human concept) all existed but there were no things ( the things were no things as they were unnamed). All was chaos ( as we don't understand what it is / was). All was one (All is one)

 

Nice observation. I do like the way you worded that too.

[Marblehead]

MH,

 

How do you know that? Were you there?

 

After I wrote in a previous post, "Haven't we had enough metaphysics," I thought through it all and decided that I was being too hard on metaphysics and convinced myself that they are ok as exercises in metaphor. In these days metaphysics can work well as stories as long as all concerned recognize they are grounded only in the mind which is grounded only in the body. In this light metaphysics and statements like the quote above have to be seen as real, but only in the same sense that fantasy science fiction is real.

 

Protagoras wrote "Man is the measure of all things." Whether it is right or wrong is incidental to the fact that anyone who says differently will, at some point, be content to be a subordinate.

 

Hi Easy,

 

I don't know how I know this but I feel totally secure in say it.

 

I watch the scientific stuff on TV and look for the logic and reason in what is being presented. I have seen much that I feel is reasonable and logical and I have seen and heard others that defy reason and logic.

 

I will rarely go into the metaphysical when discussing Taoism. I base all my understandings on what I am capable of comparing with this Manifest reality of ours.

 

Of course, I was not there at the beginning. I was born in 1941. I can directly speak to only some of those things that have happened from that date to this. However,

 

I speak often of Tzujan and the process of Tao and nature. Seems to me that if the universe is expanding there was a time, just one minute ago, when it was smaller. If we accept the thought that it has always been expanding we would, if looking backward, imagine a point in time when All was One, the no-time time before the Big Bang. This is the point of Singularity. We cannot go backward beyond that point, IMO.

 

Yes, metaphysics is fine for presenting a concept that cannot otherwise be presented using words of the physical world. But I rarely speak of such matters.

 

I would argue that I am the measure of all my essence, all that I have been, thought and done, not of any other things in the universe. Similar to trying to compare an apple with an orange. "Judge the individual according to the individual."

[Aaron]

IMHO

Before the beginning (a human concept) all existed but there were no things ( the things were no things as they were unnamed). All was chaos ( as we don't understand what it is / was). All was one (All is one)

 

You've hit it on the nail. I think this is something that confuses many people. Consciousness itself doesn't name things, it's merely it's benefactor, in the sense that it is what creates and manages the universe. Yet with awareness and the eventual duality that came about, the idea of our separation from the physical realm by defining spiritual ideology, we began to explore what happened. This exploration doesn't deny that things existed before awareness, only that our understanding of the state of universe is skewed by our own inability to recognize the oneness that is still there. As long as we view spirituality, consciousness, as being separate from the physical world, we will never understand the totality that is "It".

 

Aaron

Edited March 23, 2011 by Twinner

[mYTHmAKER]

I speak often of Tzujan and the process of Tao and nature. Seems to me that if the universe is expanding there was a time, just one minute ago, when it was smaller. If we accept the thought that it has always been expanding we would, if looking backward, imagine a point in time when All was One, the no-time time before the Big Bang. This is the point of Singularity. We cannot go backward beyond that point, IMO.

 

Yes that is the mystery - the no time before the Big Bang when All appears to us to be one - just hanging out. Wuji

All was one, and all is one, and all will always be one. Different forms made of the same stuff - vibrating at different speeds.

Everything being cyclical, at some point the universe contracts and the cycle repeats itself ad infinitum.

[Aaron]

Why don't we discuss the observation that the Dao is a function of the human body. The human mind (and the Mind of Dao) emanate within the body to perceive and formalize this apparently all-encompassing and infinitely deep Dao-function. Thus when one experiences the Dao, they are experiencing the one-and-many aspects of the endlessly wondrous human body...nothing more.

 

Haven't we had enough metaphysics?

 

Hello Easy,

 

If we've had enough metaphysics, then we must have enough of Qi and other aspects that defy normal scientific definition. So my question is, are we only to have enough of those things you define as metaphysics, or those things that are defined by science as metaphysics?

 

With that said I wanted to touch on the idea of consciousness once more as it relates to Qi and other mystic philosophies. In the most ancient texts we find that during the creation of civilization people understood that something was at work within this universe, something that caused things to be born and die, gave us rain and famine. It couldn't be explained so what happened was we gave it metaphysical embodiment, something that existed outside the physical world.

 

Now as different cultures defined it, they also developed different rites to evoke or access this energy. Whether it was ancient schools of magic or the practice of Qi and cultivation, it all, in my opinion tapped into the same source, consciousness.

 

You remember I said that we cannot change the physical world by thought alone, well this is true, but what we can do is effect our bodies with our own consciousness. This isn't just psychosomatic either, it's an actual physical change. The use of placebos has proven this to be true. For me Qi is very much a placebo effect in the sense that there is nothing physical that is used to cause a physical change to occur within us.

 

To go one step further when we are learning about Qi we are asked to pay attention to the energy around us and when we practice long enough we can learn to detect this energy. Now science cannot detect this energy, because physically it doesn't exist, but ask anyone who practices an art that has to do with energy and they will tell you that this energy is very real.

 

For me this energy isn't consciousness, but it comes from consciousness, we can tap into the collective conscious and manifest it in certain ways. Since we are localized conscious beings, the effects are very much localized, in the sense that it only effects our bodies and those things we perceive. This is one of the reasons why we can be fooled into believing that our own energy is effecting others, when in fact it doesn't, rather we are convincing others that our energy is effecting their bodies, so they manifest the phenomena they believe we wish to manifest, either consciously or through a collective conscious connection that they pick up on.

 

In that sense consciousness can explain why Qi actually does benefit the body and allow things to happen that seem to defy science. There is a force that exists, that cannot be quantified by dimension, space, or time, that does effect everything in the universe.

 

I have experienced this consciousness and up until recently mistook it for Tao. It was this experience that ultimately changed my way of viewing the universe. When I first learned about it, I only had my previous knowledge of spiritual philosophies to use as a reference, so I tried to explain it using those things I knew, out of ignorance. In fact when one uses any previous ideology as a context for this consciousness they cannot adequately explain it. In fact in that sense one can understand the nature of it's existence, but never understand the actual purpose of its existence. We can presume it manages everything that is created and that it is the creation force, merely because we have deemed it so magnificent that it must be, but in no way can we every be completely certain of this assertion and perhaps by making this assertion, as others have said, we are treading dangerous ground.

 

In my own experience with this consciousness what I became aware of on a very intimate level is my connection to everything that exists and I have tried to explain this, but even intellectually accepting this does not adequately define exactly what this consciousness is, only those aspects of consciousness that can be explained.

 

I am certain that this collective consciousness does not work on the premise of compassion, but I know that I am connected to everything and through that connection I was instilled with a sincere sense of relation to all things. You are me and I am you. In that sense when I harm you I harm me. If I help you I help me. There's no requirement to do this, rather it springs naturally from within. Ironically this connection also tended to leave me a bit separate from others as well, because in understanding the nature of consciousness, I also understand that things happen and that life and death are equally a part of this, that suffering is also a part of it. I can see suffering and wish to do something about it, but at the same time I can witness it without feeling remorse for it and instead acting in a way I know I should.

 

This doesn't mean I don't feel sorrow, I am a localized conscious being after all, but what it does mean is that in understanding the nature of this universe I also understand that I, as a localized conscious being, am not responsible for those acts and becoming emotionally invested in them does not resolve the issue caused by them.

 

In the same way I can feel joy and wonder now on a scale I haven't experienced since I was a child. Before reaching this awareness I hadn't watched television for several years, aside from an hour or two a week. Now I watch quite a bit of television and all types of programs. I tend to watch documentaries the most, but I also find comedies immensely satisfying, if only because for me comedy defines the true nature of existence more than tragedy. This is perhaps the reason why Buddhism doesn't appeal to me on the whole.

 

Anyways, I'm making dinner and preparing for work tomorrow, so I will leave it with that. I will check back later to check for responses. When I have the time I will start a thread about the idea of collective conscious, because I do feel it deserves it's own independent examination without the worry of having to defend it as being Tao.

 

Aaron

Edited March 23, 2011 by Twinner

[Easy]

Hi Easy,

I don't know how I know this but I feel totally secure in say it.

 

MH,

 

Nice post, good clarification.

 

You are a man of apparent faithful belief in the abstract.

 

I was born in 1944. I spent the first 15 years of my professional life as an investigative journalist and after that another 18 years as a private investigator and after that I lived in Venezuela. Those three experiential stretches have taught me, and reinforced in me, that I would be insane and probably dead if I believed in anything other than what I can touch with my hands right here and right now. However I can entertain myself with the speculation that The Dao, as mankind imagined it, is a slightly more satisfying fantasy than mankind's imagination of god, but a fantasy in that very same vein nonetheless. It isn't as good as a story, but it makes a little more sense, at least to me as sensible stories go.

 

Different lives can agree to disagree, no?

[Aaron]

MH,

 

Nice post, good clarification.

 

You are a man of apparent faithful belief in the abstract.

 

I was born in 1944. I spent the first 15 years of my professional life as an investigative journalist and after that another 18 years as a private investigator and after that I lived in Venezuela. Those three experiential stretches have taught me, and reinforced in me, that I would be insane and probably dead if I believed in anything other than what I can touch with my hands right here and right now. However I can entertain myself with the speculation that The Dao, as mankind imagined it, is a slightly more satisfying fantasy than mankind's imagination of god, but a fantasy in that very same vein nonetheless. It isn't as good as a story, but it makes a little more sense, at least to me as sensible stories go.

 

Different lives can agree to disagree, no?

 

Hello Easy,

 

They've actually done quite a bit of scientific inquiry into much of what I'm talking about, especially in regards to people being able to perceive, if not on a conscious level, a subconscious level, what others are experiencing. They've repeated these experiment numerous times and duplicated the results. I can point you towards the results if you'd like. You don't have to believe anything on faith... you'd be an idiot if you did. What I experienced was very real, so there's no faith involved, it was an actual experience every bit as real as if I touched it. I mentioned this earlier and I'll mention it again, your thoughts are every bit as real as your body, just because you can't touch them doesn't make it not so. If you experience something and it has no physical basis, that doesn't mean that what you experienced wasn't real. If so then every emotion we feel isn't real. I'm not throwing my eggs in with religion, in fact I am throwing my eggs in with science, even if it might not seem like it.

 

But as you said, different lives can agree to disagree, but if you're going to say this at least try no to be disrespectful of someone else's beliefs, because when you do that, it really sounds quite hypocritical.

 

Aaron

 

edit- I would like to say that I understand what you're saying and I understand why you believe what you do and there's absolutely no need to agree with me about this, so if you want to just agree to disagree, I'm perfectly fine with that.

Edited March 23, 2011 by Twinner

[Otis]

So you are saying you are separate from Tao? I don't think so.

When you are in your mind you are Tao. It is a humans nature to think -intellectualize.

When you are beyond your mind you are Tao - only you are not thinking about it.

I'm not saying that I am separate from Tao, just that I cannot describe Tao, but only my experience of it. As a blind man explaining an elephant, I can describe the ear that I'm touching, but I do not pretend that the ear is the whole beast.

 

This is likewise 100% true when discussing myself. I cannot tell you "who I am". I can only give you my experiences of what I've noticed about myself, and how the world has responded to me. If that is true of myself, which I am absolutely not separate from, then why should I pretend that I can tell you "what Tao is"?

[mYTHmAKER]

I'm not saying that I am separate from Tao, just that I cannot describe Tao, but only my experience of it. As a blind man explaining an elephant, I can describe the ear that I'm touching, but I do not pretend that the ear is the whole beast.

 

This is likewise 100% true when discussing myself. I cannot tell you "who I am". I can only give you my experiences of what I've noticed about myself, and how the world has responded to me. If that is true of myself, which I am absolutely not separate from, then why should I pretend that I can tell you "what Tao is"?

 

We're on the same page:)

I can't tell anyone what Tao is but i know through experience i am not separate from Tao.

Interchanging God and Tao - Kashmir Shavism states - Everything is God, there is nothing that is not God -that cannot be God.Everything in this universe - the known and the unknown world is God. Therefore both you and i are God. Everything is made from the same stuff. - I took a few liberties:)