Nei Yeh Chapter 24 - Inner Cultivation

[manitou]

TWENTY FOUR

 

 

When you enlarge your mind and let go of it,

When you relax your vital breath and expand it,

When your body is calm and unmoving:

And you maintain the One and discard the myriad disturbances,

You will profit and not be enticed by it,

You will see harm and not be frightened by it.

Relaxed and unwound, yet acutely sensitive,

In solitude you delight in your own person.

This is called "revolving the vital breath";

Your thoughts and deeds seem heavenly.

[manitou]

Enlarging our mind and letting go of it would be the same as stopping the categorization of things into good and evil, good and bad, superior or inferior, first or last. It would be the ability to stop the discrimination of what we love and what we don't love. When we relax our vital breath and expand it, we are in consciousness becoming One with all of the 10,000 things.

 

The profit we receive, I believe, is control over our thoughts. Once our thoughts are tamed (no longer helter skelter) our lives straighten out into a nice pleasant path. We've spent a lifetime in meditation learning to concentrate on only the singular, or nothingness. Once this has been achieved (the ability to achieve the state of no-thought in our minds) this is when we truly see the profit in both our thinking and our lives. Our thinking becomes non-judgmental, we stop looking for things to profit us. It is in ceasing to look for profitable things for ourselves that we gain everything. When we're seeking profit we're eliminating possibility, as we have a pre-conceived mindset. If we 'make up our minds about something' we're eliminating 50% of our options. Making up our mind about an individual, for sure. To mentally discard an individual because we've 'made up our minds about him' is to deny our Oneness with that person and choose not to love him. If we choose not to love another, we're choosing not to love ourselves.

 

I think this is why healing of self seems to be more difficult than healing of another. Because lying at the bottom of our mental heap remains judgment of all sorts. And when judgment is allowed to creep in, we cease being the Lover. If the Lover can't find a way to love everyone, he cannot love himself. This is one of the 3 Treasures of the sage - Love.

 

I think the trick is to 'allow' the profit, because it will surely happen when the thoughts are aligned. We will no longer be enticed by disturbance of any sort, by the seeking of profit and pleasure.

 

As to delighting in our own person, this seems to be what's waiting at the trail's end for us. The ability to Be Here Now, to need nothing other than the awareness of the One - no need for entertainment by artificial means; it is the awareness of Joy that life has to offer, and the willingness to accept it in full measure. It's just not what we think it is after chasing after the illusive dreams for so many years. It's something much closer, much more immediate, and infused with love for nature, for our brothers, and for our self.

[strawdog65]

Enlarging our mind and letting go of it would be the same as stopping the categorization of things into good and evil, good and bad, superior or inferior, first or last. It would be the ability to stop the discrimination of what we love and what we don't love. When we relax our vital breath and expand it, we are in consciousness becoming One with all of the 10,000 things.

 

The profit we receive, I believe, is control over our thoughts. Once our thoughts are tamed (no longer helter skelter) our lives straighten out into a nice pleasant path. We've spent a lifetime in meditation learning to concentrate on only the singular, or nothingness. Once this has been achieved (the ability to achieve the state of no-thought in our minds) this is when we truly see the profit in both our thinking and our lives. Our thinking becomes non-judgmental, we stop looking for things to profit us. It is in ceasing to look for profitable things for ourselves that we gain everything. When we're seeking profit we're eliminating possibility, as we have a pre-conceived mindset. If we 'make up our minds about something' we're eliminating 50% of our options. Making up our mind about an individual, for sure. To mentally discard an individual because we've 'made up our minds about him' is to deny our Oneness with that person and choose not to love him. If we choose not to love another, we're choosing not to love ourselves.

 

I think this is why healing of self seems to be more difficult than healing of another. Because lying at the bottom of our mental heap remains judgment of all sorts. And when judgment is allowed to creep in, we cease being the Lover. If the Lover can't find a way to love everyone, he cannot love himself. This is one of the 3 Treasures of the sage - Love.

 

I think the trick is to 'allow' the profit, because it will surely happen when the thoughts are aligned. We will no longer be enticed by disturbance of any sort, by the seeking of profit and pleasure.

 

As to delighting in our own person, this seems to be what's waiting at the trail's end for us. The ability to Be Here Now, to need nothing other than the awareness of the One - no need for entertainment by artificial means; it is the awareness of Joy that life has to offer, and the willingness to accept it in full measure. It's just not what we think it is after chasing after the illusive dreams for so many years. It's something much closer, much more immediate, and infused with love for nature, for our brothers, and for our self.

 

 

Hi Manitou!

 

Very insightful, meaningful post.

 

I appreciate your follow through with post all of these important

verses from this work of philosophical art.

 

Judgment..... and expectation of others, there lies the road to ruin.

 

Our judgments and expectations are assinine in the grand scheme of things.

Like one gnat putting another down for buzzing too loudly.

 

Humans consider ourselves to be incredibly important, but does this pride

help or hurt? Does the indentification of the self saying "I" am this or

that do anymore that become another layer between us and true Tao?

 

Thanks again Barbara!

[manitou]

Thanks for the thanks, StrawDog - I'm coming to the end of it pretty soon - two more chapters. This has also been a bit of a journey into self.