Selflessness as Vulnerability

[deci belle]

Roger commented recently in a thread, that the ironic thing is that you become LESS “vulnerable” when you penetrate into the light, and I am hoping to delve into this place of a selfless, sincere, open vulnerability which allows one to enter into the heart of evolving situations simply because one has seen the potential for response, not for any purpose of conventional speculation— much less motivated by habitual patterns of contention based on ideas of one's comparative reifications of self and other.

 

Certainly, in my experience, that nobody else feels less vulnerable when I act in terms of selfless adaption in response to events should be obvious. So I have found that when clamping and hooking people in situations by using insight into potential, people become verrry vulnerable, and that this then makes me vulnerable to further reactions following judgements, even sanctions~ as I often experience new arenas of influence inasmuch as situations themselves evolve through their changes following the incipience of the upwelling flow of the source of evolution.

 

Even for those who take evolution for granted in terms of a passive/reactive relationship with karmic processes, it is because they do not see that the inherent potential actually shapes enlightening response— so it’s not that one seeks influence in new situations outside of currently evolving response to conventional affairs.

 

Situations themselves transform seamlessly, it is sentient beings experiencing the changes as long as they do not have insight into freeing potential from its karmic matrix.

 

Roger Daltrey, expresses this wonderfully in The Who’s Pete Townsend 1967 hit, I Can See for Miles, when he sings “…’cause there’s magic in my eyes.” So insight arises spontaneously, but unless one has solidified the unification of one’s potential in the ocean of the absolute, this arising of lucid insight is a haphazard event dependent on conditions.

 

The lyrics go on to describe that someone is “…going to choke on it too”. This is describing being a one subject to change by virtue of not sporting magic eyes.

 

I understand exactly what Roger (the TaoBum) has stated, but if it is a case of operating within one’s personal shiny bit of enlightenment, that just won’t do for the purpose of harmonizing one’s light by freely entering the world with hands open to discover one’s enlightening function within the fluid characteristics of karmic evolution in terms of the conditional mutual arising of host and guest.

 

In my experience, the “irony” of less personal vulnerability in terms of enlightening activity in the midst of situations amounts to a type of time where conditions allow— make that require selfless audacity~ not that there won’t be opposing as well as sympathetic response mutually arising.

 

It all sounds like a conventional consequence of action— to those who lack insight into selfless response unattached to outcomes. The fact is that enlightening response being effortless for those who see potential is due to spontaneity, not because one comes to know invulnerability by virtue of penetrating the light. The hard part is in its aftermath, when one needs withdraw within incipience itself, in order to nurture potential in concentration after sealing insight completely during the time dictated by the Yin Convergence portion of each created cycle.

 

The vulnerability of selfless adaption to situations is absolutely vulnerable …ever heard of a guy named Jesus, hmmmmm? Sure, his passing through the situation was a transcendent affair~ but essentially no different than anyone who sees reality experiences endless transformations, albeit on a much less apocryphal level.

 

I cannot pass up this opportunity to note how this example of the god-man (and who isn't?), whose so-called supreme sacrifice serves to illustrate the exact process that is the alchemical firing process described by the Taoist classics of immortalism where one enters the situation unassumingly honored (per the donkey), yet glowing with potential; does not avoid clashes with temporal authority of the Word; knows, a priori, the set-up; becomes subject to the impersonal political (yin convergence); experiences seemingly excruciating passages; exits glowing with transcendent potential.

 

Here the cycle is unified by potential coming and going; yet it really doesn't go anywhere, because unrefined potential becomes the elixir of immortality by virtue of following the hermetically sealed process of adapting selflessly as pure vulnerability to the time-cycle has entered the light, as stated by Roger. All that remains for adepts is to wait for the ripening of the potential before withdrawing the fire.

 

Unless one is absolutely vulnerable, there is no entry into the inconceivable~ as even if one has penetrated the light oneself, unless one can act on that knowledge, it is as if one had no knowledge …whereby the elixir goes stale after having gathered it.

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: add "— make that require selfless audacity" in 8th paragraph; add "[time]-cycle has entered the light, as stated by Roger" in penultimate paragraph; "whereby the elixir goes stale after having gathered it" in last sentence

Edited December 2, 2013 by deci belle

[dawei]

Unless one is absolutely vulnerable, there is no entry into the inconceivable~ as even if one has penetrated the light oneself, unless one can act on that knowledge, it is as if one had no knowledge …whereby the elixir goes stale after having gathered it.

 

I have to admit that this idea of 'vulnerable' does not register... I have looked up the definition a few times to make sure I get the meaning here but not sure I get it.

 

In my own world... why would I care about this. This seems to make an intentional distinction between subject and object, or other. I am vulnerable to who or what? The inconceivable?

[deci belle]

ok~ I'll try to address it, dawei… no doubt, I may do a bit of rambling. So do forgive me, in advance.❤

Bodhidharma blew off the emperor of China by responding to the emperor's question, "Who is speaking to me?". "Don't know" was the response. He was saying, "I don't know who is speaking to you"; "You (the emperor) don't know what I'm saying, even now"; as well— telling the emperor to "stop (knowing) thinking". Bodhidharma had no protected status at the time and is still known as "the blue-eyed foreigner". Do you think that perhaps the sage was risking his life to be so sharp in his response to the ignorant emperor of China? Yet he was answering spontaneously and with the necessary vulnerability of penetrating insight. He is said to have left at once to the south. Smart man, under the circumstances.

Vulnerability is in not knowing yet recognizing potential according to the time. Let's say vulnerability is in considering the loss of combatants in a single day's engagement to the tune of 10, 20, up to 40 thousand troops. Is that a sickeningly vulnerable enough position (as a commanding general) for you? It is if you feel responsible for the potential represented by even one wasted life. Warriors do not relish killing. Even so, a great general has the heart to take hearts.

Vulnerability is risking one's purpose, whatever that may be. For myself, vulnerability is conducting my purpose outside of convention within the sphere of conventionality— not to spite convention, but to practice harmonizing the inconceivable light in the midst of ordinary situations in order to recognize, cultivate and follow potential until it is perfectly ripe for transmission. I risk believability at every turn~ not to sound unbelievably precocious, but to convey the mystery transmitted outside of doctrine. Does that not incite trouble? I'd call that risk.

As an aside, all spontaneity is, really, is just responding to the time of recognizing potential and letting the subtle spiritual power flow unimpeded. It is you who "let". It is entirely up to you to act or not. Response is not acting too. That can get you in trouble too with femme, non? hahaha!!❤ I myself deliberately allowed a situation to fester for a calender year before fulfilling the potential I recognized and stored void of intellectualism. As long as a situation can withstand the tension, and it is also advantageous (in terms of potential), I give the world what it wants, but I only release when it is ripe. The more powerful the stillness is in abstracting the potential of a situation, the more powerful the potential becomes when it is released— like releasing a catapult. I am referring to inner and outer results in the process of holding and releasing.

Spontaneity does not dictate the timing; only the mind that sees the potential (hence the quote of the victor of Waterloo). So what this could play out as is (in terms of the battle at Waterloo), and I apologize for being awkward here, as I cannot recall who's quote this is (most likely the Duke of Wellington or the Prussian general, Gebhard von Blücher), but it goes like this, "…I had that bit of land in my pocket for many years." So in this case a general had recognized the potential of the place of battle. Period. Forty-thousand lives were destroyed in a single day on account of that bit of insight— and that was the winner who had the ground of death in his pocket.

So what I'm trying to illustrate is that vulnerability represents real risk in terms of one's relationship to who or whatever is set up as the ground or host of potential, (in this case the host could also represent an entire international military force)— and this is why enlightening activity is not attached to outcomes in terms of seeking honor or avoiding censure. This is because, it is dedicated to the time of potential, not the person.

No enemy in front
No ruler behind
No heaven above
No earth below.

These are the words traditionally uttered by a Chinese general in ancient times when entrusted to lead an army to indicate that the purpose and course of victory was beyond the limitations of convention, though not strategy, which was at the service of potential, not rulers or enemies or rules dictated by terrain or season.

Why do you fight? Obviously something is vulnerable, otherwise there would be no time of fighting. I would wager that you fight because it is time without necessarily regarding outcomes of struggle. Outcomes are moot. Only the ability to let the spirit flow freely according to the necessities of the time matters in terms of life or death.

What is critical to vulnerability is that when one acts, or not, the situation changes, or not. Strategy is a flux. Sometimes the change is smooth, but sometimes the process is not smooth and creates real challenges in terms of one's viability and even ability to persevere.

 

"It is better to cheat than repeat." It is better to retreat than be beat."

As far as caring about vulnerability in terms of self and other goes, vulnerability is a window that is framed in time. As long as that time is viable, one can store that potential in one's pocket. Whether or not one is personally vulnerable is immaterial— as Roger may have been alluding to. Vulnerability is potential itself clothed in the situation. You are not separate from anything in terms of enlightening activity. One does not go along nor avoid going along with changes to save oneself. One follows potential to absorb it at its peak of ripeness. This is one's affair with Power.

 

The Power of Tao is its Virtue. We absorb the immaterial energy of uncreated potential, which is the Virtue of the Tao. So, in essence, what we absorb as immortalists is a Power of spiritual potential by being vulnerable to that which is inherent in, and gathered within ordinary situations if we can see.

Basically, when you sense vulnerability it is because you are recognizing potential. What is at risk when then endeavoring to match one's potential to the Colossus of Creation at critical junctures? — And then with masterful faena of a matador …tres sexy, dawei~ that's what!! hahahah!!❤❤ It's not a lust for power, it is a lust for presence. For me, it is a matter of being dedicated to now.

Only one who skillfully risks selflessly without rushing nor tarrying can arrive at the transcendental properties of absolute vulnerability …and as I have said before~ there are no survivors, much less innocent bystanders in this world. Only an impeccable warrior can hone his spirit and, in the words of Hongzhi, "hold fast, then release" the spirit to freely transport the entire situation.




ed note: typo in 1st sentence; change last line of 1st paragraph; add "As long as that time is viable, one can store that potential in one's pocket" to 12th paragraph

Edited December 4, 2013 by deci belle

[dawei]

You had me at Bodhidharma

 

And I get it now... does that count for being dedicated to now

 

But I see a kind of playfulness in this; two sides of a coin, if you will.

 

One is operating naturally so as to not let the mind impede action. Yet one is mindful of the implications of the action, although whether really consciously or subconsciously could be debated. In either case, the 'vulnerability' aspect is there.

[deci belle]

dawei said:

 

One is operating naturally so as to not let the mind impede action.

 

Yes. I consider operating naturally as having a subtle enough presence in the situation so as to be able to find out what happened in the end (of each cycle) as if one had not been there (in terms of not influencing (impeding) the evolution of the situation from the perspective of circumstantial speculative intent, i.e.: the human mentality). So subtle operation is not necessarily limited to cautious consideration of action comprising the situation or even one's own action, or not, relative to it.

 

Getting vulnerability is important. Even so, selfless adaption is not for the purpose of doing anything other than facilitating the gathering of potential~ as that is the most natural thing there is. Selfless adaption IS gathering potential already, as one is not transforming potential into energy. Just this is turning the light around oneself to follow it to its source immediately where it is stored naturally to repletion.

 

So then when one penetrates the secret of vulnerability to the degree that one can gather the elixir freely grain by grain by oneself according to the time, the source of all the authentic traditions of the world are one's glinting talisman.❤

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: fix quote

Edited December 4, 2013 by deci belle

[dawei]

This if from the other thread:

 

When this celestial process reaches maturity, the immortal is born, and our gradually refined potential is freed all-at-once. This is sudden realization. As you can surmise, the sudden is an indicator of potential (the seed of buddhahood) being planted in the homeland of nothing-whatsoever. So it is not even close to what most people consider it to be. At this stage, it must still be "incubated", to use the taoist alchemical terminology, until it reaches maturity and one then shatters space, spiritually and physically sublimated to enter the Tao in Reality.

 

So knowing vulnerability is to see the potential... or maybe as you say "gathering of potential".

 

I was equating this as the intangible but had intellectualized that it was not realized and thus remained intangible... but it seems that in fact this intangible IS the realization, as "one is not transforming potential into energy" but simply seeing it is all that is needed?

[deci belle]

Yes. Seeing potential is gathering. At that point there is still no idea. Not doing anything with it (speculating, intellectualizing) is sealing it in the empty vessel where it matures naturally.

 

There is simply nothing to know. The situation defines itself in time as there are cycles within cycles.

 

In a post about the "Meaning of Lezboyenne", I said that enlightening being is just being girlfriends with oneself and everyone else. By that I mean we are just intimate with the situation on its terms, sympathetic to response, not initiating anything.

 

Response is mostly a matter of seeing, as the capacity of pure awareness is being. Sudden realization is proof of this fact. There is no need to construct views pertaining to past experience— experience being strictly the sensing of stimulus in multifarious aspects of levels.

 

As for the general who "kept that bit of land in [his] pocket", this is a matter of potential reaching a critical mass in terms of power, whereby "the situation defines itself in time as there are cycles within cycles". There is an ancient school of thought discussed in the Kuei-ku-tzu, by the name of Tsung-heng hsueh (Zongheng xue), which is possible to be read as "the science of letting all hell break loose". It can also be called "the learning of freedom of thoughts and actions" (I say freedom from thoughts and actions). This from the introduction of Thomas Cleary's translation of the Kuei-ku-tzu called Thunder in the Sky.

 

So it is the situation itself which determines one's degree of response in terms of releasing potential to meet the mutual arising of (karma) creation. Simply put, it becomes the time of release— of freeing potential in terms of response. This is also a way of matching creation where evolution is dictated by the situation itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ed note: add "within" in 2nd sentence; add last three paragraphs

Edited December 4, 2013 by deci belle

[deci belle]

One might ask, "So what?"

 

It is very simple to address this valid question. When, and as long as we are turning the light around by following the light in reverse by enlightening activity, we are not going along with creation, that's all. In this respect, there is nothing else to do.

 

But unless people have reached a level of refinement whereby they can abide in a state of serenity and not be seduced unawares from the centerpoint of the pivot of awareness that infuses one's open vulnerability with impersonal sincerity by the vagaries of cloying karmic evolution, they cannot sustain the purpose and development of enlightened qualities.

[Brian]

Disinterest in the fulcrum, which is the present moment, while simultaneously remaining in the moment?

[deci belle]

Hi Brian❤

 

Well, that's kinda it, because (equanimity is the technical term) nonattachment has the effect of allowing us the full focus of our involvement in the situation (therefore vulnerability) yet simultaneously, in terms of the selfless aspect, facilitates full absorption of event-energies into our enlightening space without implying clinging or rejection (or the nullity implied by the conventional usage of the term "indifferent") because energy reverts to nonpsychological space.

 

It is really a big part of what constitutes compassion in terms of there being nothing considered outside oneself. It's not that we choose or not to accept event energies, it is our own skill in subtle operation (due to clarity of self-refinement) that determines to what degree, or not, there is sticking in terms of event energies.

 

Ultimately, it doesn't matter as we then store the experience as potential in silence void of intellectualism where it transforms naturally into elixir. The saying is that before emotion arises, there is balance; afterwards there is harmony. This is one's practical technique in terms of the firing process whereby we go through endless transformations.

 

In the course of situations, personalistic judgements aren't activated because in our fleetingly continuous impersonal perspective comprising space, everything is contacted in innocence. Not only is nothing wrong, nothing is right, because your center suspends everything. Enlightening being is up to oneself alone.

 

In this environment, everything is present. As the criticality of certain junctures evolve more or less temporarily, we watch creation pass us by without our having to go along with its circumstantial elements or assume their implications— unless we consciously in subtle terms assume their continuance for the time being~ namely to find out what happened in the end. It depends on the situation and inherent cycles of timing what we go along with, and when, what we let go, and what we retain.

 

This is an overview of selfless response in the most simple terms. Worldlings have no say in whether they go along or not, while enlightening beings send it off in its time, which they alone are able to see.

[Brian]

Thank you. I think this was largely where my thoughts were as I wrote that -- by letting go of desires to either "go with the flow" or to control it, we find the nonattachment makes it possible to observe from within & without and to passively absorb & assimilate and to explore as we choose, with disinterest for outcomes because expectations melt away along with the attachments -- but you helped to clarify & complete it for me.

 

Or have I misunderstood?

Edited December 6, 2013 by Brian

[ChiDragon]

I believe from a religious point of view, selflessness is above all and vulnerability is not an issue. The truth must reveal itself without fear.

Edited December 6, 2013 by ChiDragon

[deci belle]

In terms of exploration, which is probably the most delicate matter, I would say we recognize potential, because the word choose seems a bit strong— but in terms of desire, we do follow it, yes, without stepping over the line. Once we know, it is a matter of observation, as you say, and the disinterest in outcomes prevents bias and inclination from diminishing the power of impersonal adaption.

 

I guess the distinction of what is let go is our speculative perspective— we let go of our desire for our desires, which guide us through the ground of the general situation. But desires don't necessarily pop-up so regularly. One has to be camped out in a situation for a while for things to develop. Just doing that much is practice because karma is a constant flow we must neutralize in ourselves in terms of the situation to maintain clarity, but practice makes perfect for when the biG FiSh arrive!! haha!!❤

 

In fact, the real reason for not acting to influence the evolution of general situations is that we don't know what is going to pop-up next. So by not acting compulsively as is the norm (in terms of acting on our ideas based on a speculative perspective), we come to find out what happened in increments.

 

Of course, the inevitability factor must be considered in terms of what one's responsibility is in terms of potential. This is the bit of land one keeps in one's pocket until the situation is ripe.

 

Often, desires just serve as an overall point of reference (for me). My inaction in regard to compulsion allows desires to shimmer and fade without my delving into "picking and choosing" in a flippant, fickle and inconsiderate way.

 

 

 

 

ed note: add "but practice makes perfect for when the biG FiSh arrive!" at the end of 2nd paragraph

Edited December 6, 2013 by deci belle

[deci belle]

Dear Chi darling, fear is not a factor in the vulnerability of selflessness because our fears are based on the selfish perspective of dependence on outcomes.

 

This may be what Roger was referring to when he said that when one penetrates the [selfless] light, one is ironically LESS vulnerable.

 

Actually, vulnerability is the proof of open sincerity which is the prerequisite of calling alchemical sense back to essence by virtue the Center, represented by earth. Selfless vulnerability is another way of saying open sincerity.

 

Furthermore, we don't discuss religion on my threads, ok? We talk about realizing the source of religion.❤

 

 

 

 

ed note: add second part of first sentence

Edited December 6, 2013 by deci belle