deci belle Posted January 13, 2014 (edited) Who wants a pit digs a pit …(I doo the pole) heeheehee!!❤❤ Lez go over it again, men~ In terms of essence, THERE IS NO PERSON. In terms of potential, THERE IS NO CHANGE. In dealing directly with essence, potential is kept intact. If you do anything with it, IT'S NOT POTENTIAL ANYMORE. Everything else the stylist charges to props and wardrobe. If it's bolted down, It gets hosed off before the next show. That should cover it. Any questions? ed note: add some meat Edited January 13, 2014 by deci belle 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deci belle Posted January 13, 2014 (edited) Chi. Why use a concept in the first place? You yourself are the mystery. You cannot demystify yourself. It's not logical. (Spock) I know you are totally sincere. All that is required for people under these circumstances is to find the approach to suit their predilections. What do the enlightening teachers say? You have a tough row to hoe, mon ami…❤ Enlightenment is seeing the causeless mystery as you, not as a person, but as the homeland of nothing-whatsoever— this IS you even now. If you had already seen your nature, you would no longer try to fit entry into the inconceivable, the ineffable, into another explanation. There is no explanation. All the enlightened teachers and prior illuminates have left us various programs and taoism is no different. The science of essence and life is a device. JUST a device. Reality, complete reality is already your own nature. There is no other science, no other mind. It's you. And when you realize that for the first time, you won't be hanging around being it because of one simple fact… There is no thing, and it's not empty. Actualizing this is not just a matter of a single shining instant. It's not even enlightenment. Enlightenment is just an evidence of efficacy in terms of harmonization with the tao in reality. It only happens once, not twice. Why? It's your own mind. This mind of yours is already the world, and this world is already your own mind. The entire spectrum of gradual and sudden beyond distinctions is your mind without remainder. Mind isn't your thinking capacity. I have no idea what reality could possibly mean to you, in spite of all these years, Chi. ed note: add everything below first line; typo in 9th line; add penultimate line Edited January 14, 2014 by deci belle 5 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dawei Posted January 13, 2014 In terms of potential, THERE IS NO CHANGE. In dealing directly with essence, potential is kept intact. If you do anything with it, IT'S NOT POTENTIAL ANYMORE. ah... potential is perpetual... ever-lasting... never completely used up? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Songtsan Posted January 13, 2014 Who wants a pit digs a pit …(I doo the pole) heeheehee!!❤❤ Lez go over it again, men~ In terms of essence, THERE IS NO PERSON. In terms of potential, THERE IS NO CHANGE. In dealing directly with essence, potential is kept intact. If you do anything with it, IT'S NOT POTENTIAL ANYMORE. Everything else the stylist charges to props and wardrobe. If it's bolted down, It gets hosed off before the next show. That should cover it. Any questions? ed note: add some meat I totally get this and believe you Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Songtsan Posted January 13, 2014 ah... potential is perpetual... ever-lasting... never completely used up? I wondered this myself - wondered if potential could be expanded or contracted....I am still awaiting answers from elsewhere. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deci belle Posted January 13, 2014 dawei wrote: potential is perpetual... ever-lasting... never completely used up? It is the stuff of karmic evolution as it is used. It is the essence of transcendental partnership within creation yet not subject to changes as it is not-used. It is mind itself which changes potential into energy and mind itself which follows conditions it construes in terms of the personality. It is not really a matter of using up because there is nothing else but potential to begin with. Events, such as they are, exist in terms of conditions. Potential doesn't exist or not exist separately. It is oneself not going along with subjective views which revert energy back into potential In terms of the rest of the world. This is Mind. In terms of oneself activating enlightening being, it is potential to begin with, because enlightening being is living outside of the created to begin with, while observing and adapting to the conditional on its terms to begin with. Enlightening beings don't deal with energy as a matter of course, it is a matter of expedient means whether to do so or not in terms of response. The situation that dictates the course of one's matching potential to reality is never seen as real itself~ only the conditions under which reality is naturally abided in by the spiritual power inherent in enlightening beings' penetrating insight within situations are energies effectively uncloying. This does not affect oneself in terms of others, or others in terms of oneself; it is oneself in terms of creation. This is the virtue of Power and also the power of Virtue. Keeping potential intact is like the breath. it is just what enlightening being is. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dawei Posted January 13, 2014 It is not really a matter of using up because there is nothing else but potential to begin with. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stosh Posted January 13, 2014 (edited) One mans trash is another mans treasure, just because something has been given a form , which is to say, its character has become relatively defined , doesnt mean that it cant, in fact ,still represent potential. Energy and mass are convertible. A hammer can reveal its potential in the nailing together of a house...(which wouldnt get to exist without it ) the iron rusts,, energy if put back into the system , can burn off the O2 , the oxide returns to metallic iron. A man lives ,does things, dies and becomes fertilizer.. None of that, Im sure, is surprise to anyone , the point though is... that energies flux through the system so that things happen.,, Complete potential could be anything , but its NOT anything because it has to be something in particular. Same as money needing to be spent for its value to be manifest. It would be like claiming one has limitless choice in direction , but isnt actually free to choose to go in one. (trying to hoard potential) so living doing being whatever it is you do live be , makes things happen and represents an altered but undiminished state of potential. so theres some meat , DB Edited January 13, 2014 by Stosh 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Songtsan Posted January 13, 2014 A person standing on the top of a hill has the potential to roll down. If I feed that person lots of food and increase their mass, this person has now received an increase in the potential energy that will be actualized should they fall and roll. It therefore seems that one can feed ones own potential through various means.... 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BaguaKicksAss Posted January 13, 2014 No one has mentioned Taoist magic?! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Songtsan Posted January 13, 2014 No one has mentioned Taoist magic?! I am just now reading the Taoist magic thread...loving it! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
C T Posted January 13, 2014 A person standing on the top of a hill has the potential to roll down. If I feed that person lots of food and increase their mass, this person has now received an increase in the potential energy that will be actualized should they fall and roll. It therefore seems that one can feed ones own potential through various means.... it even has the potential to roll uphill i think. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deci belle Posted January 14, 2014 (edited) Stosh, please do not try to make too much sense in terms of this topic. You cannot argue the inconceivable. It has to have become you once, sometime after you are born, but sometime before you die, in order to even do the work to solidify the attainment. There is nothing to understand, reason, or mince. Your post trailed into a philosophical eddy. Enlightening beings don't do philosophy. You have to have been there yourself, to activate the knowledge of the real human within not-knowing in the aftermath of the sudden. Though subtle operation is not limited to the aftermath of one's singular selfless wonder, still, matching creation with the situation's inherent spiritual potential is not a matter of "energies flux[ing] through the system so that things happen". You want to talk about the phenomena of phenomena. I don't do that. Potential does not enter into the created even as it is the essence of phenomena itself, and neither does the Way. This is how immortalists operate in reverse— it is because they follow the Way in actuality (not in terms of philosophical interpretation). The function of the Way is in return. If it is not a function of return, it is not real (and neither is it selfless), because the real isn't created. The created is illusion. This is the false. Spiritual alchemy is gathering the real (potential) from within the false (creation). If it weren't for the false there would be no way to see the real. There is nothing wrong with creation, birth, and death: i.e., the energies flux[ing] through the system so that things happen— enlightening being just doesn't use it. That's not the Way, which is the source of our selfless unborn aware nature. The inversible Chan term "difference within sameness" is not philosophically attributable. It IS the working definition of the buddhist term Suchness and the taoist term Complete Reality. Enlightening being is matching one's inherent potential within gradual process to creation itself in order to subtly stand aside of karmic evolution (Change). That is immortality here and now, and the gathering of potential is endless as one enters the mystery that has no origination. This is called "sublimating oneself spiritually and physically, entering the tao in reality to plant lotuses in fire while going through endless transformations". It is not that one changes energy into potential, yet ordinary people turn potential into energy their entire lifetimes without ever realizing it. I do not talk about process or creation. I talk about not going along with (transcending) the cosmic rule of change. This is the inconceivable. It is not within anyone's grasp to consider potential in terms of a relativity to conventional notions of reality. Potential doesn't really turn into anything. People just see potential as energy, objects, situations, speculative concerns. Enlightening beings just see potential as …potential. Taoist practice in terms of the highest teaching is to steal it and seal it in the empty vessel of nonpsychological awareness, where it refines naturally into the elixir of immortality, which is a euphemism for living effectively outside the influence of birth and death while dealing impersonally within the midst of birth and death. Potential is already reality, but by not doing anything with it in terms of entertaining conventionally complacent concerns with speculative outcomes, however subtle these habitual thoughts may be, one eventually effects enlightening being by not-knowing in the first place, and consequently, not following such thoughts unawares, thereby to live freely invisible to and transcendently within the influences of the cycles of yin and yang without being limited by them. Who needs to choose? Only the lonely decide. The Tao has never made a singe decision. There is no thing. This is the gradual process of self-refinement leading to the natural subtle operation within potential which is beyond the reach of the karmic bonds of creative evolution (Change). Stosh said: …doesnt mean that it cant, in fact ,still represent potential. Represent? It is up to one's own virtue as to the level one effects subtle operation within potential. Potential is all there is if that is all one sees. It is up to oneself alone, not conditions. Conditions and the Absolute are the same. There is only one mind, one self, one reality, one time. Though creative evolution in terms of karmic process is places, times and things, reality is always all-at-once. Enlightening being has never moved from this nonoriginated unity. It is inconceivable, but presence is not beyond the essence of reality. The teaching of Complete Reality taoism is the Buddha's Great Vehicle within Suchness. The activation of enlightening being is turning the light around to see through phenomena without denying appearances in terms of impersonal adaption in the midst of everyday ordinary worldly affairs. The subject of this thread is potential in terms of taoist practice, so here we should be concerned with our own intimate impersonal function within Complete Reality which is entry into the inconceivability of potential in terms of taoist practice. Potential is not a word, nor is it a concept (much less your concept). It does not make sense, nor does it represent. It is everything already, including the absence of nothing. Nothing is something which needs to be taken into account because nothing is left out already as the absolute is the realm of the absence of even the thing we think of as nothing. Nothing does not exist even more than Creation does not exist. Nothing is a concept. I don't talk about concepts. The primordial void is not void. True emptiness is not empty. This is not within the realm of reason. I hope you can now affirm that potential does not have to be or not. Potential neither exists nor is nonexistent. Creation as well as the absolute are the same as potential if you are a Tathagata. DO YOU STILL HAVE A CHOICE? Reality is causeless. What would you choose? You are already enlightenment itself, so why don't you choose to see it? You are really reaching into a bag of conceptually free-associated tricks, Stosh. I won't entertain your last post any further. Is seeing reality a matter of choice? If it is, why don't people do it? People should find out.❤ ed note: add "energies flux[ing] through the system so that things happen" in 4th paragraph, fix word order in 7th+ 8th Edited January 14, 2014 by deci belle 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dawei Posted January 14, 2014 The function of the Way is in return. If it is not a function of return, it is not real (and neither is it selfless), because the real isn't created. The created is illusion. This is the false. Spiritual alchemy is gathering the real (potential) from within the false (creation). If it weren't for the false there would be no way to see the real. There is nothing wrong with creation, birth, and death: i.e., the energies flux[ing] through the system so that things happen— enlightening being just doesn't use it. That's not the Way, which is the source of our selfless unborn aware nature. Maybe you can do this as a new thread... The function of the Way is in return. I often think of this as more like restoring or waking up the dormant aspect which is always there. Because the phrase 'return' can have an idea of having been separated and now one is trying to get back to some place; but I think you cannot get back to a place you have never really left. This now makes me think of your point about 'potential'. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deci belle Posted January 14, 2014 (edited) I think you cannot get back to a place you have never really left. This now makes me think of your point about 'potential'. this makes deci do flips!! Maybe you can do this as a new thread... The function of the Way is in return. eeeewwwwwww!!! hahahahhaa!!❤❤ I swear I have~ somewhere!! ed note: add the second quote… Edited January 14, 2014 by deci belle 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Brian Posted January 14, 2014 "...And I can't find my way home." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deci belle Posted January 14, 2014 What's worse, I can't find my thread on the function of the Way is return!! 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stosh Posted January 14, 2014 (edited) Ooop too long, Ill have to add this post later. I went through point for point and had too many subdivisions of the quote I was responding to,, but retrospectively it was probably tedious anyway , we're just too far apart perspectively speaking at this point , since it seems to me your views reflect or promote a "mystical' worldview , whereas Im really just concerned with the more mundane stuff that CAN be explained ... so Ill leave it there for now , and if theres anything you really want to know specifically from the "other side of the fence" Ill address it then. hoping its not considered rude to leave such an extensive post unrebutted. Edited January 14, 2014 by Stosh 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Songtsan Posted January 14, 2014 (edited) All these definitions of potential are true and yet not true - they all depend on ones stance. I could say that I have the potential to be a good mixed martial arts fighter, but it depends on myriad factors, including age. If I am 50 years, my potential to become a good fighter is certainly different than my potential when I am 20 years old. Potential, like just about anything else, is relative to the time, as well as many other conditions - it is conditional. At least from my point of view (stance). If ones definition of potential differs from my definition, potential could very well stay the same no matter the conditions. So in order to effectively debate what potential is, we must first agree on what potential is before we debate We can engage in circular arguments to our hearts delight - but then its just a game in the word/concept maze. None of you come from exactly the place I come from, and the same with me! (don't worry I am just as confused as you lol)....very interesting, isn't it? Time/energy needlessly expended as we chase each other around. Good exercise though... So let us continue to try to condition each other as we speak of the unconditioned... Snake eats its own tail *Of course I have to remind myself that I did ask what potential was in terms of Taoist practice! It seems I must remind myself of this.... Edited January 15, 2014 by Songtsan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stosh Posted January 14, 2014 Potential as a prospect of what MAY be- but is not currently seems like a fair verbal description that might cover any of the points of view , Taoistically speaking ,or not. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Songtsan Posted January 14, 2014 Potential as a prospect of what MAY be- but is not currently seems like a fair verbal description that might cover any of the points of view , Taoistically speaking ,or not. I think that what we are discussing lately is whether potential is static or dynamic - changeless or changeable. I must defer to others with more experience in Taoist 'science' as I have hardly studied any Taoist materials, relatively speaking. So mainly I am just watching at this point. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Songtsan Posted January 14, 2014 (edited) Maybe you can do this as a new thread... The function of the Way is in return. I often think of this as more like restoring or waking up the dormant aspect which is always there. Because the phrase 'return' can have an idea of having been separated and now one is trying to get back to some place; but I think you cannot get back to a place you have never really left. This now makes me think of your point about 'potential'. It sure feels like going back to something you have left - like a remembrance of who you really are. So it is like you never left it, yet you have left it, by forgetting it...when awareness turns back to the source, focus leaves the 'unreal' and becomes the 'real' I don't know this for sure though. I recently have come to find that if I take the internal and exactly mirror the external - an act of superimposing the external over the internal, or vice versa, it becomes sameness. Focusing internally and externally on one reality destroys the concept of inside/outside, to make one side Then there is no going back, because there is no back or forward, just isness. What do you guys think? Edited January 14, 2014 by Songtsan 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Songtsan Posted January 15, 2014 (edited) I am now wondering if I even need to 'understand' what potential is. Really I just need a better understanding of what to do about it. Technique over knowledge of concepts. I should rephrase the topic of this thread to 'How to steal potential?' or somesuch. Understanding will be far greater in any event if I simply taste what it is through direct perception. So who can tell me how, and not what? I am finding that I am getting naturally tired of philosophizing about things...strengthening myself in the mental world of the Djinn is an addiction in and of itself. While building up a matrix of knowledge is exciting and beautiful, it is seemingly mere entertainment. Being a dilettante cannot grow me beyond a certain level. The conceptual maps I have stored are mirages. I aim to focus my time/energy on practice and being vs. wanting to be. Edited January 15, 2014 by Songtsan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deci belle Posted January 15, 2014 (edited) You cannot understand what potential is. What other word besides inconceivable do you need to see to believe that a mystery is just what it is and no one knows why. It is simply possible to awaken to your own mystery and you enter it, just like that. Then it is possible to activate subtle operation of enlightening being and move freely within creation without effecting karmic relationships where none existed to begin with. ed note: change "to" to "do" in 1st paragraph Edited January 15, 2014 by deci belle 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
joeblast Posted January 15, 2014 perchance even to grasp, only comes through the experience 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
