What is the TTC trying to communicate to me

[Hereandnow]

So i've lately become alot more interested in taoism, i've read the tao te ching a few times now and i've been wondering if i should just down deep and try to really understand or meditate on what the tao te ching is trying to communicate or is there more works further explaining it, i don't want them to stem too much off source, it's hard trying to describe what i'm out after but maybe there's some kind of english translation that explains or makes it more understandable. (Cause i'm assuming lao tsu didnt speak english) xD

 

Appreciate any help or recommendation, also maybe i shouldnt reply here? but it felt wrong to start a new thread just for some more personal help or clarification for me.

 

 

 

EDIT:  ADMIN Split here and titled.

[dawei]

So i've lately become alot more interested in taoism, i've read the tao te ching a few times now and i've been wondering if i should just down deep and try to really understand or meditate on what the tao te ching is trying to communicate or is there more works further explaining it, i don't want them to stem too much off source, it's hard trying to describe what i'm out after but maybe there's some kind of english translation that explains or makes it more understandable. (Cause i'm assuming lao tsu didnt speak english) xD

 

Appreciate any help or recommendation, also maybe i shouldnt reply here? but it felt wrong to start a new thread just for some more personal help or clarification for me.

 

My advise...  find a translate that seems to speak something, however small.. and then stick with it for now:

 

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html

 

Then just read and repeat and mull certain passages...  

 

but no need to stop life to meditate on it...  ponder as you live.  Find applications of the meaning in real life.

 

Carry one with living and find the applications as you arise and fall (wake up and go to sleep)  

[Hereandnow]

My advise...  find a translate that seems to speak something, however small.. and then stick with it for now:

 

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html

 

Then just read and repeat and mull certain passages...  

 

but no need to stop life to meditate on it...  ponder as you live.  Find applications of the meaning in real life.

 

Carry one with living and find the applications as you arise and fall (wake up and go to sleep)  

Thanks for the advise, what is that website you linked? You don't think i should devote time to meditate/ meditate on the tao te ching? i mean i don't stop my life for that, i just know that meditation brings alot of benefit to my life. Find the applications literally in the morning and evening or just as the day goes on? 

 

You write in a funny way

[dawei]

Thanks for the advise, what is that website you linked? You don't think i should devote time to meditate/ meditate on the tao te ching? i mean i don't stop my life for that, i just know that meditation brings alot of benefit to my life. Find the applications literally in the morning and evening or just as the day goes on? 

 

You write in a funny way

 

Follow where you are lead... not where you are leading...

 

If you feel lead to devote time to meditation on the TTC.. then that is where you are lead... but at some point you'll realize that you don't have to meditate on it as it is in everything around you.    That is sometimes something for this lifetime or another.

 

Just follow as natural a way as possible... just my advice

[Hereandnow]

Thanks again, so feeling more what i want to do with my life is the right way?I mean like haha pretty paradoxically it feels like it would be a sound thing to do xD. Right now i'm working in a factory to get some cash for travels and also living, and i've been feeling a pull towards making music.

 

If i haven't read or even heard of the tao or taoism, is the tao also inside me? if it is is there any difference in the tao in me if i know and follow it or if i know and do not follow it? or are you always following the tao cause it's the natural path of life?

 

I feel that everyone has something to teach and therefore i'm very grateful for your responses.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Hereandnow

[dawei]

Thanks again, so feeling more what i want to do with my life is the right way?I mean like haha pretty paradoxically it feels like it would be a sound thing to do xD. Right now i'm working in a factory to get some cash for travels and also living, and i've been feeling a pull towards making music.

 

If i haven't read or even heard of the tao or taoism, is the tao also inside me? if it is is there any difference in the tao in me if i know and follow it or if i know and do not follow it? or are you always following the tao cause it's the natural path of life?

 

I feel that everyone has something to teach and therefore i'm very grateful for your responses.

 

One's path is simple and doesn't require words; just follow or flow.   Follow/flow with (ie: listen/accept/integrate) that light/beacon/inner-direction.  

 

Words and Talking makes it messy.

 

I am not following anything... it is more like flowing in what is already moving.

 

This is different from awareness where you may see and experience things differently.   

[Hereandnow]

Is flowing with with life like being in a meditative state all the time? or atleast when you know you don't need to be thinking? 

 

I've been wondering lately what the difference is in being in a meditative state and a trance or autopilot. Are any of these something we are in when we flow?

Cause getting my brain to get into a trance or meditative state (something like that atleast) is relatively easy and time flies and the day moves on but i'm not sure if i'm really aware how i'm breathing and if i'm aware of my own body.

As i said i work in a factory and the job there is repatitive and it's easy to do cause it's inprinted in my mind so i can do it while listening to books, or just in complete silence. but when i'm working i do not know if it's really me doing the work or just my autopilot, do i want to go into a kind of autopilot or trance or a state of no mind but with some awareness still in my body (feeling and watching)?

 

These are questions i've been wondering about for a while since i'm also interested in zen buddhism where meditation is a practice to be done at all times everywhere.

 

If there is no bad or good then isn't like changing jobs saying that it's a bad work? i mean i can't really do the work in a calm and peaceful pace on the outside but on the inside i'm atleast at times calm. Does it matter or not? i feel sorry for all the people working there having to slave through years of that until theyre old, is it just a means to an end?

If it's not then am i not just supposed to stay there and be happy with what i have?

 

Alot of questions, greatly appreciate your answers!

Edited April 15, 2017 by Hereandnow

[dawei]

Is flowing with with life like being in a meditative state all the time? or atleast when you know you don't need to be thinking? 

 

Or using another phrase, living non-dual in real-time.  

 

But once there is a subject vs object, it is dual thinking going on.

 

 

I've been wondering lately what the difference is in being in a meditative state and a trance or autopilot. Are any of these something we are in when we flow?

Cause getting my brain to get into a trance or meditative state (something like that atleast) is relatively easy and time flies and the day moves on but i'm not sure if i'm really aware how i'm breathing and if i'm aware of my own body.

As i said i work in a factory and the job there is repatitive and it's easy to do cause it's inprinted in my mind so i can do it while listening to books, or just in complete silence. but when i'm working i do not know if it's really me doing the work or just my autopilot, do i want to go into a kind of autopilot or trance or a state of no mind but with some awareness still in my body (feeling and watching)?

 

These are questions i've been wondering about for a while since i'm also interested in zen buddhism where meditation is a practice to be done at all times everywhere.

 

I'm not into meditation...   But the caveat is that we should deal with where we are and where we are lead or are most non-dual.  For some that will be contemplating on meditative practices and so that is a phase to pass through.

 

I might only say:  If you are 'trying', 'forcing', 'wanting', 'seeking', or 'attaining' is within the mind... then your path traveling a terrain it has to eventually overcome, in this life or another.    

 

When I turned my thoughts to figure out what was nagging me, internally, I first found Buddhism but knew to keep moving on... found Zen Buddhism and laughed for a while but knew to keep moving on... found the TTC and understood something immediately.  While most of my last several decades have been appreciating Taoism, it is still but a finger pointing onward.

 

Books, silences, autopilot, trance...  these are all grasping on objects with you as subject.  You alone can only resolve where to go, where it leads, and realize subject=object. 

 

If there is no bad or good then isn't like changing jobs saying that it's a bad work? i mean i can't really do the work in a calm and peaceful pace on the outside but on the inside i'm atleast at times calm. Does it matter or not? i feel sorry for all the people working there having to slave through years of that until theyre old, is it just a means to an end?

If it's not then am i not just supposed to stay there and be happy with what i have?

 

 

There is good and bad as long as we use words... The place of no more good and bad doesn't use words.   Think of your intuition.  When you follow it, you are on a kind of cruise control beyond the sense.  It is like a meta-sense.  

 

What you experience in work is your experience, perception, and emotional response.  What actions you take are yours.  They define you within society as a person.

 

You feel sorry based on your vantage point but it might be different from their vantage point.  Can you adopt theirs to see them? 

 

In your search to understand yourself, I also hear there is room to understand others. 

[Hereandnow]

Or using another phrase, living non-dual in real-time.   

 

But once there is a subject vs object, it is dual thinking going on.

 

 

- Non dual as in i'm not obsessed with thinking, meaning i can stop thinking if i want to and also don't identify with my thoughts, more like the perciever or the observer of my thoughts and don't feel the need to act out any thought but choose what thought to follow or act on?

 

Subject vs object: Because everything is in relation to yourself since the world is percieved through your brains filtered lens of viewing life?

 

 

 

I'm not into meditation...   But the caveat is that we should deal with where we are and where we are lead or are most non-dual.  For some that will be contemplating on meditative practices and so that is a phase to pass through.

 

I feel that  meditation gives me more time to react to how i want to respond to my thoughts instead of just reacting, giving me more inner peace or quietness or space or how you want to call it. I'm not sure but when i stop meditating i loose that more i atleast believe myself to.

 

 

 

I might only say:  If you are 'trying', 'forcing', 'wanting', 'seeking', or 'attaining' is within the mind... then your path traveling a terrain it has to eventually overcome, in this life or another.    

 

But i think that's a thing that needs to be finely defined, right now i just don't know what is "forcing" and what is just flowing, my dilemma is you need to do something in life to live, eat, drink, sleep and excrete and the balance of non doing and doing is a hard balance for me.

Any tips or tricks or should i just more like try and find my own balance? It feels weird speaking the words when you say that's what i shouldnt do but i don't know if we're trying to convey the same meaning from these words.

 

 

 

When I turned my thoughts to figure out what was nagging me, internally, I first found Buddhism but knew to keep moving on... found Zen Buddhism and laughed for a while but knew to keep moving on... found the TTC and understood something immediately.  While most of my last several decades have been appreciating Taoism, it is still but a finger pointing onward.

 

Yeah but it's like deep down every religion is one true religion but it doesnt really matter but as i find religions now, it's that they often atleast have some profound wisdom in them based on it and that they're a good source for useful stuff in life. Good ways of viewing life or new ways atleast. I don't believe everything i hear because i don't believe that's how you learn, that's how you get stuck in life i believe and if you don't question yourself is this reasonable or is it anyway this could be true or possible or any like that.

 

Books, silences, autopilot, trance...  these are all grasping on objects with you as subject.  You alone can only resolve where to go, where it leads, and realize subject=object. 

 

With me as subject? hmm i'm not quite sure i understand but is it like i am as i said before the one that chooses how to view or percieve this book and therefore i'm as much the book as i am me or that we are a relation. I can't exist without the book or otherwise i would be the universe or if there was only book then it would be the universe so in relation we are the universe.

 

 

 

There is good and bad as long as we use words... The place of no more good and bad doesn't use words.   Think of your intuition.  When you follow it, you are on a kind of cruise control beyond the sense.  It is like a meta-sense.  

 

Yes but pain will always be there even if you choose not to think or label is at that, is it not?

I know you can get rid of a lot of emotional pain and mental time but that doesnt mean you get rid of all suffering or change.

 

 

 

What you experience in work is your experience, perception, and emotional response.  What actions you take are yours.  They define you within society as a person.

 

But how do i take action while still flowing or are you getting what i'm trying to say? Yes so it's nothing about my thoughts is more what i do and how i feel, if i know i can get a better life for myself is that selfish? or atleast what i think would be a more enjoyable life.

 

You feel sorry based on your vantage point but it might be different from their vantage point.  Can you adopt theirs to see them? 

 

I will try, maybe they don't have the proper education to work at a better place, maybe they don't want to work somewhere else, maybe they have to work their because of their kids, maybe they need the safety of the work or atleast find comfort in it, maybe they like the money it gives, maybe they actually enjoy it (who am i to judge or think i know), maybe they feel that it's too late to change carreers, maybe they have gotten stuck in a pattern. I don't know but when i'm working there i don't feel good most of the time  and most people who work there don't always seem to have a great time, eventhough i really appreciate the times we laugh and talk about everything but of course those moments are rarer than bad or the ones i quess i label as bad.

 

In your search to understand yourself, I also hear there is room to understand others. 

 

I'm trying and i've been better at it before, i guess i might have become a more selfcentered person, i really like caring for others but sometimes it's hard and i slack off or don't really have the energy for it. i want to help people but i've also heard there's really no one you can help they must do their on work and therefore it's never me doing any helping.

 

 

I believe there are some questions in life you don't need to think about cause they're irrelevant but how do i know which ones are actually things worth or i don't know how to explain but that you should or would be helpful if you think about them.

I don't know i'm very confused but i guess for now i'll just have to accept that, Thanks once again for taking time to respond. 

Edited April 17, 2017 by Hereandnow