Stealing Yabyum's "Flowing with the Tao+being sure"

[deci belle]

Yabyum started a thread titled "Flowing with the Tao - how can you be sure?"

 

 

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?

 

I subsequently "edited in" everything below the first paragraph of my second post there, so I just went ahead and blatantly spun-off his thread to start this one. i sso evil!!❤

 

Below, I really get into "stealing" anyway, so it's par for this course…

 

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. (This would be when one seals up tightly in terms of the Yin Convergence, which I have discussed elsewhere).

 

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 here in terms of algebra, only a differential equation. In terms of the Unborn, nothing is unresolved. It is the human mentality of dilemma overflowing.

 

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 deciding. 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 unminding just to see this time; not-choosing is stealing the potential at its peak of ripeness. Not afraid to miss out, you miss out on polluted energy; dismissing energy, you absorb immaterial essence. It all depends on the situation. The Art of War states, "Victory depends on the opponent". In this case, opponent consists of the ground of conscious awareness— the realm of karmic evolution.

 

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 comment re: Yin Convergence in 6th paragraph, "only a differential equation" in 8th, "Not afraid to miss out, you miss out on polluted energy; dismissing energy, you absorb immaterial essence" added to paragraph 19. Add last paragraph.

Edited November 20, 2013 by deci belle

[deci belle]

hi BD!!❤

[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 relativebalance 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.

[deci belle]

Kadesdes said:

 

 

So moving beyond duality are we not in a way still instinctively moving towards what is "good" so how do we define "good"?

 

may I rephrase that to …moving within duality are we not still moving naturally within what defines good?

 

 

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.