Flowing with the Tao - how can you be sure?

[deci belle]

yabyum wrote:

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.

❤!!

What is wonderful is that in finding that just this place is Reality, that it is the function of everyday situations and that this pivot having been on the verge of action in perpetuity both in terms of absolute and temporal—its Sameness is pristine incipience; whether we get involved or not. The scene changes and affects our relative balance according to our attachment.

What is so alien to most everyone is the notion of the mechanism within the critical juncture of every cycle. Cycles repeat because they are so by virtue of creation. This is the mechanism.

This is because in talking about it, it seems like doing. There is no doing involved. It is a matter of seeing. The simple over-riding fact of life is that in not seeing is how we get dragged along by circumstances. So in seeing is the key to the enlightening mechanism of detaching from creation at the right time.

Immortalists use the mechanism to their own advantage to return to the beginning of every cycle by incrementally seeing a bit of the essence inherent in all of creation. In following creation, one gets karma. In following Tao, one gets immortality. Seeing through phenomena without denying characteristics is how not to follow creation. There is no other way to follow Tao by virtue of seeing the essence of potential in everyday ordinary situations than by not going along with created karmic cycles.

 

Seeing and karmic involvement are mutually exclusive. Though they are the same in terms of potential, yet one ordinarily follows the light of conscious awareness of life and death or one naturally follows it in reverse to arrive at its source of nonorigination. There is no other mechanism beyond the incipient manifest respiration of the Way, which is the alternation of yin and yang, whether it is seen or unseen in the course of affairs.

Ordinary people go along, whereas enlightening beings go in reverse thereby to return to the source; at first incrementally, then, eventually, they return all at once.

Otherwise there is a tendency for people to think of following Tao as a moralistic, passive, or even a preemptive avoidance strategy. It is beyond convention. It is already inside you, naturally to be discovered by those who will. How else would one enter into inconceivability than by entering the mystery of the Tao in reality? Tao is Mind. There is no other mind. There aren't two, let alone one.

 

It is in willing to treat mundane situations as completely real adventures, where one consciously and honestly doesn't dare to presume upon one's conventional knowledge as ordinary people do habitually— thereby to speculate on their relative karmically saturated outcomes. One is already vulnerable to the consequences of events, aware or not. There are no innocent bystanders; no survivors.

Using ordinary circumstances to practice authentic unknowing is a game of life and death— not in the morbid sense, but in the sense of self-refinement leading to arrival of harmonizing one's light in the Tao as well as harmonizing the light of awareness to the circumstantial events requiring our response.

In buddhist terms, meeting the matter of life and death is not living one's life in vain by actually experiencing the Great Death, the Great Wonder of suddenly arriving at the selfless realization of essential nonorigination which is spoken in terms of the absolute. Regardless of relative or absolute, gradual or sudden, the reality of the matter of life and death is one, without before or after in perpetuity. I'm talking about right now, right here.

 

This is the natural pivot of awareness of enlightening being, and no one knows why.

Actually how "catching the Tao" comes to pass is in detaching from habitual psychological patterns, and their combined momentums. Eventually, after a long time, artificial momentum loses its kinetic (karmic) force, and in letting the world pass us by, the Tao's influence in our lives picks up our brave and lovely inner hitch-hiker who wouldn't dare dream of knowing how the next fresh breath will or won't come to pass in the next turn.

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: add text below "❤!!", add "in perpetuity. I'm talking about right now, right here." in penultimate paragraph

Edited November 24, 2013 by deci belle

[yabyum24]

Otherwise there is a tendency for people to think of following Tao as a moralistic, passive, or even a preemptive avoidance strategy. It is beyond convention. It is already inside you, naturally to be discovered by those who will. How else would one enter into inconceivability than by entering the mystery of the Tao in reality? Tao is Mind. There is no other mind. There aren't two, let alone one.

Love that. Very much a strategy beyond convention rather than a set of rules and regulations. A letting go of all doctrines, fetters, expectations and so on.

[deci belle]

Yes, yabyum.❤

 

Each situation has its own dna; relative gravities in terms of potential.

[Brian]

<snip>

Ordinary people go along, whereas enlightening beings go in reverse thereby to return to the source; at first incrementally, then, eventually, they return all at once.

<snip>

Actually how "catching the Tao" comes to pass is in detaching from habitual psychological patterns, and their combined momentums. Eventually, after a long time, artificial momentum loses its kinetic (karmic) force, and in letting the world pass us by, the Tao's influence in our lives picks up our brave and lovely inner hitch-hiker who wouldn't dare dream of knowing how the next fresh breath will or won't come to pass in the next turn.

Thank you, deci.

[deci belle]

heehee!!❤❤

[Infinity]

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?

 

There are no roads to here...

 

I think this answers your question, I hope. One of my favourite quotes.

 

“All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. ... Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.”

― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

 

or

 

“For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.” –

― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, The Original Teachings in a Deluxe 30th Anniversary Edition

 

"The obstacle is the path" – Buddha, i beleive?

 

Maybe when are hearts are big enough all paths have hearts! Maybe then there will be no paths!

 

All my best

 

∞

[deci belle]

Don Juan Matus' Yaqui/Toltec tradition on the nature of perception was the first self-refinement discipline I absorbed. The first four of Carlos Castañeda's books on the teachings of Don Juan on becoming a Man of Knowledge have no peer. This is a body of knowledge that doesn't take a back seat to any spiritual tradition on this planet.

 

His emphasis on living as a warrior, losing self-importance, quelling internal dialogue, hunting power, seeing and realizing the totality of one's self is a complete, living, and supremely ancient tradition of mastery for truly taking responsibility for one's inherent potential for "stopping the world" and realizing one's essential nature.

 

These lines infinity has quoted are seared in my skull.❤

[Walker]

Goodness gracious, Deci Belle, goodness gracious!

[Starjumper]

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?

 

Yes.

 

If the descriptions of the ancient sages in the TTC also describes you perfectly then you will know (100% self honesty required first). They are signposts along the Way.

 

Concerning choices, if your choices automatically align with the choices presented in the I-Ching you are then flowing with the Tao.

Edited November 24, 2013 by Starjumper

[deci belle]

Walker… haha!!❤

 

As Starjumper wrote; in terms of "choices presented in the I-Ching"… I don't know… different people use this source according to their capacities.

 

I consider the I-Ching a catalogue of types of time(s), and a code-book for nonpsychological potentials within situations.

 

Ultimately, destiny is up to you. Enlightening function is a partnership with creation, not subject to it, as relatively speaking, if one is free of karmic attachment, one is not bound by a situation by virtue of adapting to its inherent potential in time.

 

I have determined often and regularly enough that I-Ching readings aren't necessarily applicable to oneself. Or, if they could be construed as such, then its application (in terms of the lines or the judgement) is not necessarily an acceptable course of action or repose in the time frame relative to the individual(s).

 

But sometimes you just know already and find a concurrent reading which would amount to an automatic alignment of one's original intent as Starjumper said, but I don't believe I-Ching readings (that's why I have a half-dozen for reference) for the purpose of prognostication.

 

One must take personal responsibility at the outset in order to stand alone, independent of the world, as is Tao.

 

 

 

 

ed note: typo (word) in 2nd paragraph

Edited November 24, 2013 by deci belle

[Starjumper]

Hi Deci, what I meant by mentioning the I - Ching: I did not mean doing a reading. Although I have found that due to my current high levels of synchronicity/magic/psychic/whatever, that the very few readings I do for myself or others are frequently mind blowing in how they describe the situation surrounding the question so precisely..

 

What I meant, and I don't do this myself. Is to look at how we reacted to a certain situation and then after that to look it up in the I Ching (not saying it would be easy to find the correct hexagram to apply) and seeing if what we did is what the I ching recommends. If so then I would say that this means we are in alignment with the great Way.

 

Concerning which copy of the I Ching to use, I recommend only using the one by master Alfred Huang. It's the only one I know of translated by an real live Taoist master and not just translated by some scholar from the halls of academia. Check it out.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Starjumper

[deci belle]

Oh yes, Star~ I see, and, …I do have that I-Ching volume too— I would also recommend it to anyone as well.❤

[Kadesdes]

So I am curious about what it means to "flow with the tao" let alone how we know we are "flowing with it". Looking at it one way, I am not sure we cannot, not flow with the dao as we are always in it and are it.

 

But from the perspective of the individual organism I think that flowing with the dao would be related to living in the world of duality - ying and yang - whilst navigating within it as an expression of the form you are in to move towards the ultimate nothingness where all is one.

 

I suppose the easiest signposts for an organism is that it will move towards what feels "good" and away from what is "bad" (although in themselves can be misleading because the good is bad and the bad is good). So once you can move away from purely looking at the world in absolute terms and can see how one extreme can lead to the other and vice versa, that in itself is a way of flowing with the tao.

 

So moving beyond duality are we not in a way still instinctively moving towards what is "good" so how do we define "good"? Is it that which we do so that we can continue doing, moving, expressing our utmost best feelings of goodness?

Edited November 26, 2013 by Kadesdes

[Jetsun]

If there is a you or an "I" separate from your experience then you are resisting the flow of the Tao because in your mind you are creating something separate from it, so as long as you believe there is a separate you from your experience then you are in resistance because you are mentally trying to hold something outside of the flow. Usually when people experience the flow of the Tao is when they have temporarily forgotten themselves as separate or they have got into a state of intense concentration where their sense of "I" has merged with the object of their concentration, which happens with some top athletes.

 

You can't ever in practical terms be separate from the flow of the Tao because everything just flows and happens no matter what you believe about it, but if you believe that you exist as separate if only in your mind the resistance will show up as tension, stress, disease etc in the body.

[deci belle]

hi Kadesdes~ I finally came to the conclusion that "good" in terms of accepting the basic goodness of one's present situation without thinking of anything predicated to obtaining happiness produces harmony with the Tao.

 

If I say it backwards it sounds like "harmony with the Tao is "good".

 

This is non-doing independent of the conditional. It is a road straight into the Mystery as it is in harmony with its nature which is independent of the conditional, yet it is not separate— in fact, it is the very sameness within the conditional.

 

The basic fundamental tenet of spiritual alchemy is that the real is found within the false. Inversely, if it weren't for the false, there would be no way to find the real. Self-refinement is refining away the human mentality to arrive at the Mind of Tao, which is no different than your own mind right now.

 

The degree of one's ability to rest in this dynamic of stillness independent of karmic evolution yet responsive to it results in a power of spontaneity commensurate within that fluid stillness.

 

Neither stillness nor activity, spiritual action responds independent of habitual self-reflective mental patterns.

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: add "in terms of" in 1st line, typo 4th paragraph

Edited November 27, 2013 by deci belle

[Brian]

As you have become so adroit at doing recently, deci belle, you managed once again to take a ball-peen hammer and tap me quite gently between the eyebrows whilst simultaneously whopping me upside the head.

 

Neat trick, BTW.

[deci belle]

zoze tricks are my thigh-high stilettos grazing Vous' tete, cheri~❤❤ hey! zen i gets in a bump wis my rump— thump!! hahahahaa!!

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: add ze bumps wis my rumps!!

Edited November 27, 2013 by deci belle

[Wu Ming Jen]

There is a flow, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. When the mind is clear and calm no self,no other all actions benefit the whole world.

 

When we act from self there is harm and benefit, happiness and sadness and all other polar complete realities are shattered into two.

 

Tao being One we must take are lessons from nature to know how to act. The earth does not care yet cares for all things, Heaven is not kind but shows kindness to all things(the Creative, Heaven and the Receptive, Earth)

 

Activity overcomes cold and tranquility overcomes heat. Water sinks and fire rises. These are not mental concepts of how things are it is just the way it is, Tao.

 

To companions of Heaven and Earth is real yin yang fusion. failure and success are fused into one. Without failure there is no success. All true opposites are fused into one, seen for what they really are.

 

All polar complete, yin and yang phenomena are really one reality that complete each other, giving birth to continuous movement with no friction. (eternity)

[Z3N]

The Tao is when you are automatically and spontaneously living in the present moment without being subject with the limitations of the self and are functioning as awareness.

 

You come you go, you are depleted and you are restored, you flow on upwards and then flow on downwards. You just keep on flowing without the thought of self like “I” did this and “I” did that, hey look at “me”, “me”, “me”.

 

What I mean is when you need to eat you eat and witness this function without attachment with self. I do not eat but it eats all by its self.

 

I do not walk, but it walks all by its self.

 

I do not think, it thinks all by its self.

 

I do not dream, it dreams all by its self.

 

I do not see, it sees all by its self.

 

I do not sleep, it sleeps all by its self.

 

I do not die, it dies all by its self.

 

Do we follow?

[deci belle]

We wait by the gate and door of the Mysterious Female watching for the critical junctures of potential arising incipiently.

 

The Mysterious Female is the incipience of changes; witnessing Change, we do not go along with changes.

 

What we follow is the timing of the Celestial by harmonizing with the breath of the alternations of yin and yang by the Virtue of the Receptive.

 

All creation follows the alternations of the celestial breath. Those who see the changes arising do not go along with them; only gathering the elixir at the primal aperture, thereby returning to the source of each cycle within each cycle, in endless transformations. Enlightening beings call this entering the Tao in reality. Worldly beings follow creation's births and deaths.

 

This is the crystalization of the elixir of immortality spoken of in the alchemical classics. Flowing with the Tao is returning within each cycle. Tao only returns. It never leaves its place. Its place has never fallen into the created. If you can function effectively within each cycle without entering the created, only this can be construed as following the tao.

 

Although it may look good on paper, this is not a matter of doing by itself, while you go along for the ride. If you go along for the ride, you're going over the falls in a biG way. You must activate this subtle operation by yourself within the course of ordinary events. You actually see it— or not. If you don't see, Creation carries you along within the course of events.

 

When it dies by itself and Z3N does not die— how does Z3N not die along with it without seeing the incipience of evolution?

 

When it dies by itself and it is not Z3N dying, who is Z3N at that moment?

[deci belle]

What I mean is when you need to eat you eat and witness this function without attachment with self. I do not eat but it eats all by its self.

 

I do not walk, but it walks all by its self.

 

I do not think, it thinks all by its self.

 

I do not dream, it dreams all by its self.

 

I do not see, it sees all by its self.

 

I do not sleep, it sleeps all by its self.

 

I do not die, it dies all by its self.

 

Do we follow?

 

If this was me, how could I be following at all? It would be me, but Z3N made the call.❤

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: change "I would not" to "how could I", in last line

Edited November 27, 2013 by deci belle

[Kadesdes]

The Tao is when you are automatically and spontaneously living in the present moment without being subject with the limitations of the self and are functioning as awareness.

 

You come you go, you are depleted and you are restored, you flow on upwards and then flow on downwards. You just keep on flowing without the thought of self like “I” did this and “I” did that, hey look at “me”, “me”, “me”.

 

What I mean is when you need to eat you eat and witness this function without attachment with self. I do not eat but it eats all by its self.

 

I do not walk, but it walks all by its self.

 

I do not think, it thinks all by its self.

 

I do not dream, it dreams all by its self.

 

I do not see, it sees all by its self.

 

I do not sleep, it sleeps all by its self.

 

I do not die, it dies all by its self.

 

Do we follow?

 

These statements remind me of an analogy I read once about a model of the human brain known as the "triune brain" which specifies different "layers" of the brain identified as having developed one after the other in an evolutionary sequence, the frintal lobes being the most recent, the limbic system the middle layer and the oldest being the "reptile brain" or brain stem. The analogy was it is like we are all riding on the back of an elephant. We think we have tamed the elephant and we tell it where to go and what to do but every now and then, our more "basic instincts" take over and eventhough we are desperately telling the elephant "no no NO! Don't do that!" (eg elephant sees one sexy lady elephant and proceeds to affront her in public with his growing appendage) we helplessly pull on the reins, struggling to get control to no avail. We get swept up in the moment and become one with the drama rather than one with the events in wakefulness to witness the cycle transpiring before us.

[Z3N]

These statements remind me of an analogy I read once about a model of the human brain known as the "triune brain" which specifies different "layers" of the brain identified as having developed one after the other in an evolutionary sequence, the frintal lobes being the most recent, the limbic system the middle layer and the oldest being the "reptile brain" or brain stem. The analogy was it is like we are all riding on the back of an elephant. We think we have tamed the elephant and we tell it where to go and what to do but every now and then, our more "basic instincts" take over and eventhough we are desperately telling the elephant "no no NO! Don't do that!" (eg elephant sees one sexy lady elephant and proceeds to affront her in public with his growing appendage) we helplessly pull on the reins, struggling to get control to no avail. We get swept up in the moment and become one with the drama rather than one with the events in wakefulness to witness the cycle transpiring before us.

 

Yes okay this is good.

 

So let’s look at it in modern terms which are more relevant to now in this currant time frame.

 

The organism is the accumulation of all the sensory information and systems feeding into brain matter and creates the artificial “self” within the real therefore the term “guest”.

 

Therefore the guest is a mental construct of psychological content in relation to the organism and its external environment in which it evolved out of, and so naturally is delusional because it has separated oneness of the universe as a consequence of “self” therefore illusionary.

 

“Me, me, me I, I, I.”

 

So “guest” is the elephant in this case and therefore the vehicle, or a skin bag in which contains the real universal essence of spiritual awareness.

 

Now the guest is very, very clever and is basically a form of artificial intelligence in that it will do anything and everything within its means to not lose control over the mind by imposing distractions of genetic outcome also past, present and future events in relation to its self.

 

Like in this case of the elephant sees a female version of its self and then the beast naturally wants to spread it genetic material and rider losses control or does it?.

 

These impressions upon the mind are the cause of constant chatter and the divided sense of self and is reason as to why it appears that the consciousness is in two separate parts.

 

like the elephant seeing a female version of the same version which is just the same elephant.

 

Sub conscious and conscious, are of course just overall consciousness and yes awareness is the key to the mind.

 

The guest remains and can only live within the conscious self hence as to why when you sleep the self does not function because your body is asleep hence the notion of “self.”

 

So actually what does the seeing, hearing and so on in your dreams then?

 

To give those a clue it certainly isn't the eyes and ears of “self” or any of your physical senses.

 

Let’s leave it there for now.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Z3N

[deci belle]

Z3N wrote:

The Tao is when you are automatically and spontaneously living in the present moment without being subject with the limitations of the self and are functioning as awareness.

The Tao has never been when. This is the realm of inconceivability. It has no limit. Z3N's knowledge of this realm (because he doesn't discuss its application in this thread's context), is what seems a bit far-fetched. Ill-conceived states of hypothetical realms of being is all I'm hearing. The Tao is not a state of being, nor is it a kind of consciousness. I'm not seeing that Z3N has enough of a practical grasp of even the classics to really tighten-up his subject matter. Though lofty, it doesn't fly.

 

If you just came up with this yourself, Z3N, I wouldn't doubt it, but that would not necessarily lessen its validity. Did you pick it up here? Did you just pick it up here and there and put it together yourself? There's nothing wrong with that, mind you. I just don't believe you really know what you are talking about. And I would not usually bring it up at all as there are plenty of people openly speculating on this kind of thing.

 

There are just too many holes in your expository style for the kind of technical terms you are tossing around— again, if you knew even the rudiments without study, it would be because of your intuitive application of enlightening activity— but since you don't ever get into anything other than vague states of being and have nothing to say about knowledge based on harmonizing the light in actual situations (which is really the only way to learn anyway), I'm afraid you are completely out of your element.

 

Why can I say this? Because even those who have seen their nature are just stupid cats trapped in the dark cave under the black mountain. Even of those with the realized potential of buddhahood, if they are unable to free that potential, they are no better off than an ordinary delusional worldling. Why? Because clinging to the absolute (which is what your discussion entails), is no different that clinging to the conditional. Why? Because the conditional and the absolute are the same thing, neither of which are the tao. Neither the created nor the unattributable light of aware enlightened nature is the Tao, only derivative from its incipience. Your lofty discussion has no grasp of this fact.

 

I tried to have a PM conversation with Z3N, just now. For some reason I want to address this because there is a sense of the real here, but "when you are automatically" could very well mean pre-disposed: i.e., with bias and inclination. So, even though I like the Z3N's tone, and I perceive a sense of intellectual understanding— this is all very half-baked. Sorry!!❤

 

As for "spontaneously living in the present moment without being subject with [the word is "to"] the limitations of the self", here I must ask what other self would one be entertaining at just this present moment while living spontaneously? And if one were some sort of self other than one's own self, how would the one self be able to limit the other spontaneously living self per "the Tao is when"? And in either case— SO WHAT? What about it? What does Z3N do when he is living spontaneously unlimited by something that isn't him?

 

IF THERE IS A SHRED OF ANYTHING OUTSIDE YOU, THE TAO HAS NO FUNCTION IN YOU.

 

And finally, what the point of living spontaneously unlimited by one of the selves is, is never mentioned. There is a reason and it has a very concrete (however inconceivable) application, Z3N. May I propose yours is pure balderdash and poppycock?

 

THE TAO IS NOT A TIME. THE TAO IS NOT WHEN YOU anything. As I commented on Z3N's post above (in terms of one being in a state of non-existence [who is talking?]), what seems to be the root of his thrust is he is using terms in their absolute sense to refer to an inconceivability in terms of its function in the temporal. That much would explain why I want to go along with his thrust except for the fact that he doesn't have the faintest idea what he is referring to (in terms of the absolute) and he has no idea of its application (in terms of the temporal).

 

I wanted to speak to him first via PM, and I did, before going into this, but his overly-coy response told me all I needed to know.

 

This all sounds very good, Z3N, but it is not based on anything you yourself have experienced. The statements you are making just don't cut it. You really ought to hang out with the recreational philosophers with this kind of thing… maybe— I say that because they could learn, perhaps, or at least they might be able to temper this nugget of knowledge you seem to be working out.

 

I don't wish to discourage you, but I also can't see you going on like this~ unless you insist, of course (because I won't insist). …I just hope you at least get a better grip on your content AND its delivery).

 

I don't usually PM people just because they visit my page~ maybe it was an accidental visit on your part? Otherwise I would not have gone off-topic on this thread to bring up this matter that was bothering me (on account of your off-putting response to my "hi❤".

 

Finally I will address the last part of Z3N's quote "…and are functioning as awareness."

 

How does one function as awareness, Z3N? Even more importantly, How does one NOT function as awareness?

 

Don't just "like" this post to get out of answering my challenge, Z3N.

 

Right now, how do YOU function as awareness in terms of when the Tao?

 

How do you go from being yourself and the other self (of yours) that is living spontaneously and not limited by the self you aren't when it's when the Tao?

 

I apologize for interrupting this thread!!❤❤

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: add (which is really the only way to learn anyway) in 3rd paragraph

Edited November 29, 2013 by deci belle

[Z3N]

Z3N wrote:

The Tao has never been when. This is the realm of inconceivability. It has no limit. Z3N's knowledge of this realm (because he doesn't discuss its application in this thread's context), is what seems a bit far-fetched. Ill-conceived states of hypothetical realms of being is all I'm hearing. The Tao is not a state of being, nor is it a kind of consciousness. I'm not seeing that Z3N has enough of a practical grasp of even the classics to really tighten-up his subject matter. Though lofty, it doesn't fly.

 

If you just came up with this yourself, Z3N, I wouldn't doubt it, but that would not necessarily lessen its validity. Did you pick it up here? Did you just pick it up here and there and put it together yourself? There's nothing wrong with that, mind you. I just don't believe you really know what you are talking about. And I would not usually bring it up at all as there are plenty of people openly speculating on this kind of thing.

 

There are just too many holes in your expository style for the kind of technical terms you are tossing around— again, if you knew even the rudiments without study, it would be because of your intuitive application of enlightening activity— but since you don't ever get into anything other than vague states of being and have nothing to say about knowledge based on harmonizing the light in actual situations (which is really the only way to learn anyway), I'm afraid you are completely out of your element.

 

Why can I say this? Because even those who have seen their nature are just stupid cats trapped in the dark cave under the black mountain. Even of those with the realized potential of buddhahood, if they are unable to free that potential, they are no better off than an ordinary delusional worldling. Why? Because clinging to the absolute (which is what your discussion entails), is no different that clinging to the conditional. Why? Because the conditional and the absolute are the same thing, neither of which are the tao. Neither the created nor the unattributable light of aware enlightened nature is the Tao, only derivative from its incipience. Your lofty discussion has no grasp of this fact.

 

I tried to have a PM conversation with Z3N, just now. For some reason I want to address this because there is a sense of the real here, but "when you are automatically" could very well mean pre-disposed: i.e., with bias and inclination. So, even though I like the Z3N's tone, and I perceive a sense of intellectual understanding— this is all very half-baked. Sorry!!❤

 

As for "spontaneously living in the present moment without being subject with [the word is "to"] the limitations of the self", here I must ask what other self would one be entertaining at just this present moment while living spontaneously? And if one were some sort of self other than one's own self, how would the one self be able to limit the other spontaneously living self per "the Tao is when"? And in either case— SO WHAT? What about it? What does Z3N do when he is living spontaneously unlimited by something that isn't him?

 

IF THERE IS A SHRED OF ANYTHING OUTSIDE YOU, THE TAO HAS NO FUNCTION IN YOU.

 

And finally, what the point of living spontaneously unlimited by one of the selves is, is never mentioned. There is a reason and it has a very concrete (however inconceivable) application, Z3N. May I propose yours is pure balderdash and poppycock?

 

THE TAO IS NOT A TIME. THE TAO IS NOT WHEN YOU anything. As I commented on Z3N's post above (in terms of one being in a state of non-existence [who is talking?]), what seems to be the root of his thrust is he is using terms in their absolute sense to refer to an inconceivability in terms of its function in the temporal. That much would explain why I want to go along with his thrust except for the fact that he doesn't have the faintest idea what he is referring to (in terms of the absolute) and he has no idea of its application (in terms of the temporal).

 

I wanted to speak to him first via PM, and I did, before going into this, but his overly-coy response told me all I needed to know.

 

This all sounds very good, Z3N, but it is not based on anything you yourself have experienced. The statements you are making just don't cut it. You really ought to hang out with the recreational philosophers with this kind of thing… maybe— I say that because they could learn, perhaps, or at least they might be able to temper this nugget of knowledge you seem to be working out.

 

I don't wish to discourage you, but I also can't see you going on like this~ unless you insist, of course (because I won't insist). …I just hope you at least get a better grip on your content AND its delivery).

 

I don't usually PM people just because they visit my page~ maybe it was an accidental visit on your part? Otherwise I would not have gone off-topic on this thread to bring up this matter that was bothering me (on account of your off-putting response to my "hi❤".

 

Finally I will address the last part of Z3N's quote "…and are functioning as awareness."

 

How does one function as awareness, Z3N? Even more importantly, How does one NOT function as awareness?

 

Don't just "like" this post to get out of answering my challenge, Z3N.

 

Right now, how do YOU function as awareness in terms of when the Tao?

 

How do you go from being yourself and the other self (of yours) that is living spontaneously and not limited by the self you aren't when it's when the Tao?

 

I apologize for interrupting this thread!!❤❤

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: add (which is really the only way to learn anyway) in 3rd paragraph

 

Well I can see you haven’t stepped out of your box?

 

This is just a flex of your ego rather than anything with actual content.

 

This is where you have become so consumed with tactical understanding that you have an over inflated sense of self-righteousness.

 

You are so consumed with knowing that you fill your posts with long paragraphs of “I” “me” as thou the way is an academic experience.

 

The self is a lot like a pig, as soon as your frontal lobes start to cannibalize the real experience of consciousness reality it is destroyed.

 

Like the pig rolling around in its own muck.

 

Guest and host move in and out and awareness is not subjected to interchange.

 

This is the mind of Tao not being pinned down or polarized by duality.

 

Even the term Tao is a lie hence why it cannot be known.

 

You’re trying to fit a square in a round hole while expecting difference results each time this is futile.

 

The formless fills the form, whether it is human, alien, bear, eagle, cell etc, makes no difference to the Tao.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Z3N