Immortality - the various views

[picnic]

Chapter 7 Tao Te Ching

 

"By having no finite self, it is infinite" "When man can see himself as not just the body that he lives in, then he too is infinite and deathless."

 

That is how I see that I am infinite, deathless, have lived forever and will live forever. There is no "I" as separate form the world, there is no world and no I as separate from Tao. So I am Tao, I am infinite, immortal.

 

I know the words of Taoists differs quite a lot from the original Tao in the Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, so.. What do you all think?

 

I feel there will be many interpretations!

[Pietro]

Chapter 7 Tao Te Ching

That is how I see that I am infinite, deathless, have lived forever and will live forever. There is no "I" as separate form the world, there is no world and no I as separate from Tao. So I am Tao, I am infinite, immortal.

 

I know the words of Taoists differs quite a lot from the original Tao in the Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, so.. What do you all think?

 

I feel there will be many interpretations!

Many people in contemporary new age take the phrase, I am already an enlightened, I just need to realise it, in a too litteral sense. So once they understand the words, they assume the understand the meaning. And they say, now I am an enlightened.

 

Last time I was at a workshop with Bruce, he made the following example. He told us that the example is not his, but a common one from India. If you take sesame seeds, you know that inside there is oil. And you could say that once you have some seeds in your hand you also have the oil. But it takes a lot of effort to go from the seed to the oil.

[rain]

Many people in contemporary new age take the phrase, I am already an enlightened, I just need to realise it, in a too litteral sense. So once they understand the words, they assume the understand the meaning. And they say, now I am an enlightened.

 

Last time I was at a workshop with Bruce, he made the following example. He told us that the example is not his, but a common one from India. If you take sesame seeds, you know that inside there is oil. And you could say that once you have some seeds in your hand you also have the oil. But it takes a lot of effort to go from the seed to the oil.

 

.........! mmm !

Edited November 16, 2008 by rain

[mat black]

QUOTE

"By having no finite self, it is infinite" "When man can see himself as not just the body that he lives in, then he too is infinite and deathless."

I think we need to be careful with the statement as it may be interpreted too simplisticly.

Just being free of the body does not result in becomming infinite. I think it's about more than just non identificatin with the body. There needs to be a total elimination of all views, opinions, afflictions etc. One needs to become infinitley compassionate and have complete wisdom etc etc.

 

Many people in contemporary new age take the phrase, I am already an enlightened, I just need to realise it, in a too litteral sense. So once they understand the words, they assume the understand the meaning. And they say, now I am an enlightened.

Yes, seems a typical trap these days, we must be careful not to fool ourselves.

 

If you take sesame seeds, you know that inside there is oil. And you could say that once you have some seeds in your hand you also have the oil. But it takes a lot of effort to go from the seed to the oil.

Excellent!! Great analogy.

 

Master Xuan Hua said that Buddhahood is our fundamental nature, but, he also warned that to claim to be a Buddha without be free from every affliction is the height of stupidity.

Sri Ramana Maharshi was aware of the trap of mere intellectual acceptance of enlightenement and potential for subsequent ego claiming that it did not need to practice. So he said this on the matter:

" There is a state beyond effort and effortlessness. Until it is realised, efort is necessary."

"Effortlessness and choisless awareness is our real nature. But one cannot reach it withouteffort, the deliberate effort of meditation."

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showtopic=5227&hl=

Edited November 16, 2008 by mat black

[Pietro]

I think we need to be careful with the statement as it may be interpreted too simplisticly.

Just being free of the body does not result in becomming infinite. I think it's about more than just non identificatin with the body. There needs to be a total elimination of all views, opinions, afflictions etc. One needs to become infinitley compassionate and have complete wisdom etc etc.

Interesting! I don't know enough to say if it is true or not, but it surely fits correctly with my limited experience.

Excellent!! Great analogy.

Yes, this is why it keeps on being passed from school to school. After I heard it from Bruce I have a vague memonry of stumbling on it somwhere else, too.

 

Master Xuan Hua said that Buddhahood is our fundamental nature, but, he also warned that to claim to be a Buddha without be free from every affliction is the height of stupidity.

The height of stupidity; haha, very nice.

Can I quote him:

"Buddhahood is our fundamental nature, but claiming to be a Buddha without be free from every affliction is the height of stupidity."

Master Xuan Hua

?

 

I wonder what father Paul would have said.

 

[mat black]

Interesting! I don't know enough to say if it is true or not, but it surely fits correctly with my limited experience.

 

Sorry Pietro, I should have included this disclaimer at the begining of my statement:

"the following is at best a cautious guess, should any of it be wrong, may any wise advisor offer correction"

....actually, i feel that i should say that as a preface to everything i say.

 

http://itallstarted.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/bowing.jpg

Edited November 17, 2008 by mat black

[picnic]

We have no choice but to be infinity. If there is infinity, and there must be, then there is no allowance for infinity plus "John".

 

The whole toil for "I" to become enlightened is false as enlightenment is to see there is no "I" who could possibly be. If no I can be then there is no I to become enlightened.

[Aetherous]

Truly deeply realizing that and living it is enlightenment...but intellectually grasping it is the opposite.

[doc benway]

We have no choice but to be infinity. If there is infinity, and there must be, then there is no allowance for infinity plus "John".

 

The whole toil for "I" to become enlightened is false as enlightenment is to see there is no "I" who could possibly be. If no I can be then there is no I to become enlightened.

Yup

[Mak_Tin_Si]

It is a very good start witth reading the Tao Te Ching, it is a very important thing to read what the grandmasters said in taoism before. Tao Te Ching is a book that never outdate, because it only tell you how the nature works and the laws of nature, so it never outdate because nature runs the same way forever just in a cycle system.

 

In Taoism training, you will notice that this phrase here means something different but I do not know how to share what I learn with you because it is all wordless and you cannot put it on paper, it is something you get and you cannot explain, because you must feel through out the trianing process.

 

Here I can only try my best to explain what an "immortal" is in Taoism.

 

Grandmasters who are Taoism branch founders in the old days all became immortals after their trainings. This means that they have trained themself to live with and without their body. When they are with their body, they learn how to live healthy and in good shape. When their body dies out, they learn to live with total control with their soul and energy combined together so that they do travels through dimensions to achieve higher level of trianing in the universe to go out of the universe we are in now. That is their goal in the highest stage of Taoism. In the outer universe, they got out of the cycling system and so they go back into the nature, and became their most original form. Just like the three pure god in Taoism who were trained to achieve this stage and now we all the taoist worship and recieve energy from them with different methods. Ex; chantings, meditation, doing rituals, ceremonies etc,. You will know if you do it.

 

By training under an official Taoism master, you will learn how to communicate with the energy of these immortals and gain knowledge from them wihle you practise. Their body dies but their energy and souls still alive in the universe, they could come back to this world anytime, anywhere to teach and bring message to those who have the ability to inherit their wisdom. Just like the Taoist Jeung Dao Ling, his knowledge of Taoism was taught by LaoZi when LaoZi came back down from the outter universer to pass on the knowledge of taoism to him in 220BC.

 

We could not be immortals here because we are still very polluted and affected by all these technologies. If one want to go this route in training, they will first go through all the things they have to do in a normal life like go to school, graduate, live, work, marriage while they are learning Taoism under a master. Then to a stage of practise where they will choose to give up everything and go into the mountain to train and isolate themselve from the society to find the wisdom of tao. There on, it is the beginning of immortal training.

 

Electricity is something that will distrube our training in Taoism for sure. Therefore, no immortals could go immortal in this internet filled world. they all hide away from us. Because it is just too polluted here.

 

 

Mak Tin si

 

 

 

Chapter 7 Tao Te Ching

That is how I see that I am infinite, deathless, have lived forever and will live forever. There is no "I" as separate form the world, there is no world and no I as separate from Tao. So I am Tao, I am infinite, immortal.

 

I know the words of Taoists differs quite a lot from the original Tao in the Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, so.. What do you all think?

 

I feel there will be many interpretations!

[picnic]

In Taoism training, you will notice that this phrase here means something different ...

Thanks Mark that is one of a few Taoist views that I would expect to hear. It is the reason that I will say I have no religion, not even taoism if anyone asks me. I say that I know Tao is the supreme principal but I am not a Taoist.

 

It is interesting to hear the Taoist words as they contain some of the original pointing to the Tao (of course, that which can not be directly known) and then veer off to more typical religious notions of hierarchies, musts and must nots; which are in my view against Tao by their strict nature.

 

How can the way of water, the way of Tao, or any natural way have strict rules ?

 

EDIT: spelling

Edited November 17, 2008 by picnic

[exorcist_1699]

Before proving the possibility of physical immortality , why not first proving whether stopping of aging is possible ? If stopping of aging is possible, then probably immortality is somehow realistic . Besides, it only requires you spending 2-3 years to prove it ; so the worst situation is that you would only be cheated by the "Neo-Taoist" for just 2-3 years , which is far better than stuck at the words of LaoTsz for whole life .

Edited November 17, 2008 by exorcist_1699

[Taiji Bum]

I am a believer in physical immortality. I think it is the cultivation stage of red blood turns to milk which if you do stop there and become immortal then your settling for the boobie prize. At this stage I think the age progression process stops but you can still be killed. The true goal in my opinion is ascension at which point you are a true immortal.

[picnic]

Thanks for that addition we now have 3 versions of Immortality;

 

1) You are (an aspect of) the immortal Tao so do and have lived forever

 

2) You can train your spirit to live on forever, choosing a new body if you wish

 

3) You can train your existing body to not age, and not die

 

nice, i'd say that's it, any more?

[hyok]

I am a believer in physical immortality. I think it is the cultivation stage of red blood turns to milk which if you do stop there and become immortal then your settling for the boobie prize. At this stage I think the age progression process stops but you can still be killed. The true goal in my opinion is ascension at which point you are a true immortal.

 

Agreed on physical immortality, but can you expand on the "red blood turns to milk"? I've never heard of this before.

[Taiji Bum]

Agreed on physical immortality, but can you expand on the "red blood turns to milk"? I've never heard of this before.

I first came across it in THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER as one of the confirmatory signs and here is the entire chapter and my take on it.

http://www.thetaobums.com/CONFIRMATORY-EXP...IGHT-t4248.html

 

There are several Zen monks and a Patriarch that had white blood as well as several Catholic saints including St Paul. Unfortunately, finding this out usually takes their heads getting chopped off.

[goldisheavy]

Many people in contemporary new age take the phrase, I am already an enlightened, I just need to realise it, in a too litteral sense. So once they understand the words, they assume the understand the meaning. And they say, now I am an enlightened.

 

Last time I was at a workshop with Bruce, he made the following example. He told us that the example is not his, but a common one from India. If you take sesame seeds, you know that inside there is oil. And you could say that once you have some seeds in your hand you also have the oil. But it takes a lot of effort to go from the seed to the oil.

 

But if you don't actually need the oil for anything, there is no problem with claiming you have the oil.

 

It's the people that really want or really need the oil that have to step up to the plate. But not everyone has that wish. I don't think we should denigrate the people who maintain a correct conceptual framework with regard to Tao. Even if they don't realize 1/100th of the wisdom implication from what they claim, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. When those people feel that it's no longer enough to just claim certain things and that now the time has come to manifest, they will move on without all the denigration and shaming.

[goldisheavy]

Chapter 7 Tao Te Ching

That is how I see that I am infinite, deathless, have lived forever and will live forever. There is no "I" as separate form the world, there is no world and no I as separate from Tao. So I am Tao, I am infinite, immortal.

 

I know the words of Taoists differs quite a lot from the original Tao in the Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, so.. What do you all think?

 

I feel there will be many interpretations!

 

I would say that's it. What you said there includes everything. For example, as an unrestrained Tao, intent is directly fulfilled at all times, since there is no mental framework that would impose a separation or a limit on it. Therefore to have a visceral and clear experience of a body that lasts indefinitely, in accordance to intent, is just natural. In that state of mind, when this body disappears it's never "against your will"; simply because intent itself is unstable (do you always want the same thing?) things change also, but there is no death in a sense that something is taken away from you against your wish (like your body dies even though you want your body not to die). This experience of having events go against your wishes is due to the core beliefs in separation. If you believe that me is fundamentally separate from not-me, and that not-me works according to some well defined rules, then it's no wonder that not-me will always do things that me doesn't like. The solution is not to hammer the not-me part into compliance by following all the proper rules (this is what the scientists do). The solution is to realize that me/not-me divide is purely mind-made first, and second, to transcend it, to take it as purely ornamental if there at all. This will restore wholeness to intent. When the scope of intent returns to unlimited wholeness, there will no longer be an experience of "against will".

 

This change happens from a level that is you beyond your idea of you. In other words, what you think is you is not what will perform exercises and meditation and then transcend. There is a you beyond your idea of you, and that genuine you will do the job by simply relaxing and by simply ceasing from taking certain beliefs seriously. This means embracing any and all experience as a visionary experience. So if you have a horrible sickness you might as well laugh and enjoy it as you might heal it, because your mind will see purity in sickness as well as in health. In other words, you will not have an ordinary idea of health at that point. If your arms fall off, that's health too. If you understand this, there is nothing that can bring you sorrow.

 

The experiences that follow this cannot be described adequately because they do not fit any frameworks. They go beyond points of reference.

Edited November 18, 2008 by goldisheavy

[hyok]

I first came across it in THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER as one of the confirmatory signs and here is the entire chapter and my take on it.

http://www.thetaobums.com/CONFIRMATORY-EXP...IGHT-t4248.html

 

There are several Zen monks and a Patriarch that had white blood as well as several Catholic saints including St Paul. Unfortunately, finding this out usually takes their heads getting chopped off.

 

Fascinating stuff. Thank you very much, Darin. Your posts resonate very much with my own thoughts and experiences.

[goldisheavy]

Electricity is something that will distrube our training in Taoism for sure. Therefore, no immortals could go immortal in this internet filled world. they all hide away from us. Because it is just too polluted here.

 

I don't buy this at all. All of experience is just pure vision. The only thing that's dirty about it is your belief system. Question your beliefs. Proceed toward the root concerns and continue questioning. Eventually when the beliefs start to dissolve under the light of examination, what remains is pure wisdom. From within pure wisdom nothing is dirty or polluted. On the contrary -- everything is included in Tao. Nothing is excluded. And enlightenment itself is a remainderless realization -- meaning you do not conceive that you've left something behind to be where you are now. Nothing is left behind or left over. That's what is meant by "remainderless" -- there is nothing left over. Everything is redeemed.

[picnic]

The only thing that's dirty about it is your belief system. .... From within pure wisdom nothing is dirty or polluted. On the contrary -- everything is included in Tao.

i clipped the quote down but like it all. I hold to that notion.

[exorcist_1699]

It is said that our blood looks red only because we are breathing and living with air ; at certain stage of our cultivation, no matter we follow taoist, Buddhist even Catholic, the phenomena of stop breathing will definitely appear, making our blood look white /milk.

 

There are lot of records about it in old Taoist texts ;

 

As a Monism of qi ( Jing and Shen are its different expressions only ), the crucial point of Taoist theory , which differentiates it from others , is that the highest achievement of our cultivation is going to be the ability of freely de-composing and re-composing our body (qi) at our free will ( just like chemists who do it on molecules , unfortunately relying on apparatus and other means ; but in Taoist case , we do it at the qi level directly .)

Edited November 18, 2008 by exorcist_1699

[exorcist_1699]

We can't become god/Immortal /God because we are entangled in a physical body ,only by getting rid of the needs of eating, sex, breathing ,sleeping , thinking....step by step, can we free ourselves from those physical limitations and transform ourselves to near- immortal/ god...

 

Yet , Taoism does not advocate the leave of our body and search for spiritual immortality , quite the contrary , it advocates the unity of body and spirit , the immortality of both physical and spiritual life . In fact, from the viewpoint of Taoist theory of qi, there is no absolute gap between physical and spiritual things , both are different faces of qi only ( Similar to Computing science ,there is no absolute boundary between software and hardware, the basic elements are only 1 and 0 ( yang and yin ) , and how we express them ).

Edited November 18, 2008 by exorcist_1699

[h.uriahr]

Immortality is freedom from reincarnation.

[picnic]

Immortality is freedom from reincarnation.

That's a good one and i think it goes with my definition. So we still have 3 distinct definitions;

 

1) You are (an aspect of) the immortal Tao so do and have lived forever ..and/or you do not reincarnate as any new form, having escaped the need (escaping being part of Tao is impossible).

 

2) You can train your spirit to live on forever, choosing a new body if you wish

 

3) You can train your existing body to not age, and not die