Flowing with the Tao - how can you be sure?

[yabyum24]

I've heard that the Tao flows of itself and I suppose that the more 'in tune' we are with it, the better we flow too.

 

Life presents us with choices we must make. How can we know which choice is the right one from a Tao flowing perspective?

 

Is there a way of knowing?

[ChiDragon]

Learn to understand the principles in the Tao Te Ching.

Let Nature take its course......

Edited November 18, 2013 by ChiDragon

[Jetsun]

I've heard that the Tao flows of itself and I suppose that the more 'in tune' we are with it, the better we flow too.

 

Life presents us with choices we must make. How can we know which choice is the right one from a Tao flowing perspective?

 

Is there a way of knowing?

 

If the intellect is made a servant rather than the master then the information about how to make a choice is going to come from a wiser place than the mind, most probably the heart.

[dawei]

It is about inner seeing and inner sensing. Like Dao is the host and you are the servant. You simply 'know' what needs to be done at the banquet of life.

[thelerner]

Look to the fruits of your practice. Is your mind quiet, your life peaceful? Do you move through the day with a sense of flow?

I think getting closer to the Tao gives you those things.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

When life flows with neither passive acceptance nor conflict, with deliberation and spontaneity functioning in harmony, you are acting from the Tao.

[soaring crane]

 

Is there a way of knowing?

 

no

[dwai]

I've heard that the Tao flows of itself and I suppose that the more 'in tune' we are with it, the better we flow too.

 

Life presents us with choices we must make. How can we know which choice is the right one from a Tao flowing perspective?

 

Is there a way of knowing?

It's weird. We all have a "loud voice" and a "quiet voice" in our heads. The quiet voice knows what is in alignment with Dao and what is not. The loud voice is Ego and will do everything to silence the quiet voice/overshadow/overload our intellects with bombast and rhetoric or fear, uncertainty and doubt.

 

To be in alignment with Dao, we need to learn to listen to this quiet voice and ignore the loud voice. WIth time, the loud voice gets the message and stops bothering us. But it takes patience, practice and a detachment from results (but sincerity of effort).

[suninmyeyes]

A question to everyone from curious non Taoist about something I keep on reading on TTB and not quite getting ..

So when one is not in alignment with Tao what is one in alignment with ? What is opposite of flowing with Tao ? Is it possible ? How ?

[Jetsun]

A question to everyone from curious non Taoist about something I keep on reading on TTB and not quite getting ..

So when one is not in alignment with Tao what is one in alignment with ? What is opposite of flowing with Tao ? Is it possible ? How ?

 

In my experience I am going along with and in alignment with personal stories and tapes from my mind which are no longer relevant to the current situation, so its like trying to navigate a new situation with old programming which is long outdated. Which is more or less how I and just about everybody else operates the vast majority of the time (* Except the man with the gold plated shirt, he has it sorted)

[soaring crane]

There were two monks walking to a temple in a faraway city. They came to a river where a poor woman was standing at the bank, waiting for someone to help her cross. One of the monks let her climb on his back and he carried her across the river, letting her off at the other bank.

 

The monks continued walking.

 

After some time, the monk who did not carry the woman said to the other, 'We're not permitted to contact the female. Why did you carry that woman?'

 

The other replied, 'Hmmm? What? Oh her. I left her at the bank of the river. But I see you're still carrying her'.

Edited November 19, 2013 by soaring crane

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Flowing with Dao is like flowing with a river. It's easy, but you still need to keep yourself afloat. You can move left and right, and you can be more with flow and less with the flow. When you are connected to your own internal flow, you will better be able to sense the flow of the river, and flow with it, without losing your own flow which allows you feel it.

 

Like the trigram for water, one solid line between two broken lines - flexible without, while one within. When you realize that you will not be able to maintain oneness, you need to center yourself, since without the center, you will be like a person without a raft.

 

This reminds me of when I was canoeing in some rapids, and I realized that if I wanted to be in harmony with a wave, and not tip over, I needed to respect it, love it even, trust it, accept with gratitude what it pushes onto me and respond in kind with playful, loving, and confident force.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Harmonious Emptiness

[deci belle]

Life presents us with choices we must make. How can we know which choice is the right one from a Tao flowing perspective?

 

Is there a way of knowing?

 

Tao neither follows nor leads, but wells forth from incipience unknowing.

 

If in reference to tao meaning "a Tao-flowing-like perspective; Tao has no perspective. Emulation of inconceivability would be like clearly not-knowing in unity. So what choice is there to make?

 

In surety, there is no illusion of separateness, and so nothing to know in terms of choice. Therefore it is a matter of inevitability, then waiting for reality to catch up to inherent potential within the situation itself; not relying on one's own power. The process itself is karmic. This requires times, even types of time(s) within a cycle. This is the only reason I say waiting. Nevertheless, waiting is a type of time as well as a type of strategy predicated by the time, not the person.

 

If one is not up to this, then there is application of effort. If this stems from objectivity in assessment and impersonality in adaption, then one must strive for an advantageous position, if only to adopt a posture of equipoise— and then if only to find out what happened in terms of objectivity.

 

Now if we're talking about something that, in effect, amounts to a brawl— this is hardly the consideration of enlightening activity. Choices are like that. Deadlines happen. This then is completely within the realm of convention.

 

If you must act, then it behooves you to have a strategy and the ability to assess objectively and adapt impersonally.

 

Karmic emotions and conflicting rationales must be gotten rid of …and don't take them back.❤

[deci belle]

Thank you, thelerner.❤

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: ooops! I deleted the whole post when it turned into HTML somehow— pooh!!

Edited November 19, 2013 by deci belle

[Taomeow]

 

Edited November 19, 2013 by Taomeow

[mYTHmAKER]

When strangers smile at you and say hello

[deci belle]

And what about… "how can you be sure?"

 

You can be sure when there is not a hairsbreadth between inside and outside. When you have seen through a change and there is no discernible difference and no knowledge of before and after in terms of self and other, this is where one has followed potential outside of the influence of creation (karma). This is what following the Tao seems like in terms of inconceivability.

 

In terms of convention, the closest conventional example would be a very close call where nobody noticed. But in this example, you know self and other have a separateness and there is clearly "before and after", where you would be temped to look over your shoulder.

 

You know for sure when nothing happened and there is no sense of self and other, but the cycle has clearly been transcended and pristine awareness has refreshed itself without awakening reifying thought.

 

Since this is how it is, how can one function in terms of the inconceivable?

 

The original question is framed as a dilemma. Seeing reality and construing a dilemma is due to habit awareness of the nature of the mechanical mind: i.e., getting it right, not wrong. In reality, there is no answer or question— just what is.

 

If reality is seen as inconceivable, any resolution can then be carried out in terms of inconceivability. This can be viewed in terms of an algebraic equation because both sides of the equation are equal. There is no right or wrong, only equal.

 

First of all, the definition of delusion is ignorance of the deluded state. If you are aware of its functioning, and can freely adapt within deluded conditions, this then is enlightening activity. Dogen calls this being deluded within delusion. This is trusting the inherent potential of the situation itself; following desires without stepping over the line.

 

Secondly, trusting inherent potential is the same as the subtle spiritual operation of inconceivable nature, where radiant presence is impersonal. I don't say this to sound impressive (these are just w-o-r-d-s). Open sincerity is just trusting inherent potential by not entertaining views of self and other. The impersonal being of self/other is reality. If you can see with the unborn mind, just this is it. Since free adaption within inherent potential is no different than having the power to see potential inherent in the stultified energy of manifest energy (creation/karma), then enlightening activity is just seeing creation as inconceivability no different than the absolute of selfless nonorigination.

 

Thirdly, in order to be flowing with the Tao in surety one must indeed be seeing in terms of the nature of the ground of inconceivability. It is really as simple as activating the mind without dwelling on appearances. This is not formal sitting meditation. This is adapting to everyday ordinary situations like ordering a single wet breve ristretto without thinking anything while really seeing in a 360˚ focusless focus of observational presence of the entirety of space (merci, thelerner— haha!!). I swear, your eyes will not buG OuT. It is not the sense organ. It is simply not thinking, whereby the real knowledge of immediate perception operates naturally having been freed of habitual self-reflective mental patterns.

 

Fourthly, since it is a fact that the real knowledge of immediate impersonal awareness void of bias and inclination arises spontaneously in the absence of habitual mental contents, and seeing reality is seeing this inconceivable mind-ground naturally with no separation of self and other, knowledge and content are the inconceivability of sameness, neither ordinary or holy.

 

Obviously, there is no sense of opportunistic circumstantial speculative complacency abiding in this mind. When speaking of the root of delusion perpetuating karmic evolution, just this is it.

 

In spying this thief, it is essential that you do not confront it directly. Specifically, it is a matter of choosing not to choose. This is how to deal with the familiar characteristic of the mechanical mind.

 

In choosing not to choose, the human mentality, the master thief, is left with nothing to entertain in terms of orchestrating the facetious shimmering fascination of choice. It is a complete sham battle.

 

Now you know (but it doesn't). It is necessary to wait in order to see this exact moment in the course of affairs.

 

What you don't know is that seeing this sham battle is exactly where you step into the middle of it. When you get the pivot of creation, destiny is up to you. It's like stepping in to jump rope *girl-thing*.

 

This is the critical juncture of every karmic cycle. This is the heart of creative evolution where potential is stolen by adepts, immortals and buddhas. You go along to see this time; not-choosing is stealing the potential at its peak of ripeness.

 

In not-choosing, karma is left to its own device which is to helplessly maintain its kinetic momentum, and its neurotic speed without your involvement. This is the space of not going along with creation …seeya! …and eventually, the whole situation goes along without you. This is transcending a cycle. This is what certainty is. It is the certainty of not-knowing. It is inconceivable, after all.

 

This is precisely where Bodhidharma turned a flip with the emperor who asked, "Who is speaking?" The response~ "Don't know". Then he left the realm of the man who could not recognize nonempty emptiness.

 

The function of Tao is return. Transcending a cycle is return. This is following the flow of Tao, not the flow of creation. This is functioning inconceivably in which one recognizes the inconceivable nature of delusion/karma/creation and matches it with one's inherent potential imbedded in the unity of the situation itself, thereby to go through this and subsequent transformations endlessly.

 

It should be obvious that enlightening being is beyond the realm of conventional mores, while one influences creation secretly from within ordinary situations, for no reason at all.

 

Nevertheless, one must endeavor to provide Caesar his due in conventional terms in adapting to situations and not create dilemmas where there are none.

 

 

 

 

ed note: add to first paragraph, add paragraphs 6+7, add last paragraph

Edited November 20, 2013 by deci belle

[dawei]

And what about… "how can you be sure?"

 

You can be sure when there is not a hairsbreadth between inside and outside. When you have seen through a change and there is no discernible difference and no knowledge of before and after in terms of self and other, this is where one has followed potential outside of the influence of creation (karma). This is what following the Tao seems like in terms of inconceivability.

 

I was going to answer, when there is no 'you' to ask... but I see you answered that already

[nestentrie]

And what about… "how can you be sure?"

 

You can be sure when there is not a hairsbreadth between inside and outside.

 

Agreed.

 

As to the choices you mentioned; if it's a matter of should and shouldn't, what you do (with no hairsbreath, like deci belle pointed out) should be reflected in that choice; if it's a matter of what you will or won't do, what you can do should bear itself out too.

 

I'm not the expert is Tao vs Te, but ChiDragon is right too: you should let nature takes it's course.

 

What one one should do always follows with what you end up doing. What you will follows with what you can. A pretty flowy outlook if you ask me.

[thelerner]

There's always the Tao-o-Meter, but those things are expensive and run out of batteries quickly.

[yabyum24]

Hi deci belle,

Many thanks for the well though out and profound reply. I guess choices are all part of the 'rendering to Caesar' self-game.

 

I agree that within the un-become, unconditioned and non-dual, such considerations are without meaning.

 

With 'choice' I was concerned (with some reification I admit) at how much both options are Mara's bait, and whether - sometimes - albeit rarely - an intuitive non-choice (for want of a better description) could slip through the web with unusual results.

 

I think you answered that nicely.

 

Duality, co-dependent arising, is the complex unfolding underpinning the three bodies, (which we non-consensually conspire to not discover). Once we expand and shimmer within this process we are within Mara.

 

Our entire being is designed for feasting at the table of the dualistic senses - the whole rationale behind the movement from singularity, it seems. To push our faces hungrily against the window of the sweet shop - to keep coming back for more and more. What else is there?

 

I guess catching the Tao is like the eye of the hurricane, the still-point. Just in that moment. Then there would be stillness in movement, non-action in action.

[shanlung]

When you question if that is with the Tao or not with the Tao, you are not with the Tao.

 

Think less and question less , and you are with the Tao.

 

 

 

 

Idiotic Taoist

[Isimsiz Biri]

I've heard that the Tao flows of itself and I suppose that the more 'in tune' we are with it, the better we flow too.

 

Life presents us with choices we must make. How can we know which choice is the right one from a Tao flowing perspective?

 

Is there a way of knowing?

 

You have asked a question that nobody knows the answer but your heart. Listen to your heart. It is connected to God Almighty.

[shanlung]

Go with Wuwei, and you always go with the Tao

 

Further thoughts on wu wei

http://www.shanlung.com/oldwuwei.html

 

 

 

Taoistic Idiot

[Spotless]

What an exciting post - it has drawn everyone to a great space