While in the World

[JackSquat]

Goldisheavy, I believe that you and I are arguing mainly over semantics and phrasing. As I read your posts, I find myself thinking "I understand why he says this" even as I think of why I disagree on some small point.

I'm glad! I hope you remain your wild and wooly self! Good call! Good call!

No worries there .

 

 

 

Um, expressing opposing points of view and criticism isn't negative. It's free speech, and you will find it all over this forum and all others. No biggie. The negativity this thread has been referring to - as you know - has to do with something specific in relation to virtue. I'm not "spewing" (what a critical insult lol) energy. I am denying the proposition that the Tao is apart from virtue. I am expressing an opposing point of view.

Tao99, I agree, we are going in circles. Also, I apologize, I should not have been so derisive; as you said, you did not intend the implications I got from reading your posts. You and I have very different ways of reading things and (I realize now) very different definitions for certain terms, and so I misinterpreted your language. I guess it all started sounding very familiar and I thought I knew what I was looking at . No hard feelings?

[Tao99]

Goldisheavy, I believe that you and I are arguing mainly over semantics and phrasing. As I read your posts, I find myself thinking "I understand why he says this" even as I think of why I disagree on some small point.

 

No worries there .

Tao99, I agree, we are going in circles. Also, I apologize, I should not have been so derisive; as you said, you did not intend the implications I got from reading your posts. You and I have very different ways of reading things and (I realize now) very different definitions for certain terms, and so I misinterpreted your language. I guess it all started sounding very familiar and I thought I knew what I was looking at . No hard feelings?

 

No, not at all. Actually I personally find you to be sincere, objective, and well on your way. Have a good one.

[Ian]

Yes, boundary means a limit. I understand your concern. Unfortunately you cannot fly for a while longer yet because it would be waaay too jarring for your mindset. Let's see. But you should really dispute that boundary. For example, is your skin you? All of it? All the time? Think about it. Are your hair you? What about your hair follicles? Is an apple you? What if you are chewing it? Is it you then? What if it's in your stomach? What if your blood is carrying molecules of an apple through your body, is it you then? When is it you? And what about the helpful bacteria that live in your stomach and help you digest? Are they you? We each have a unique set of these, they are as unique as retinas or fingerprints, and can be used to identify individual people. Are they you? Are your parents you? What about when the semen was in your father's ball? Were you your father then?

 

What is you? Or who are you exactly? Where do you begin? Where do you end?

 

 

Thank you for that.

 

 

However what you reasonably can do is to understand the nature of your intent. This is a contemplative process where you ask yourself questions like these:

 

Does my intent have a beginning? Does it end? If yes, then when intent ends, are you in a state of unintentionality, and if intent begins again, is that beginning an intentional or an unintentional one? If intent starts unintentionally, how is it intentional, but if unintentionality can be entered into intentionally through relaxation how is it still unintentionality? If intent has no beginning and no end within a person, can we say that multiple people have multiple intents? If that were the case, how would they be resolved to one reality? Etc.

 

Asking questions like this would also be accompanies by actually doing experiments with your intent. You can make a hypothesis about your intent and then use your intent to test it. Etc.

 

After a long while of this the limiting ways in which we allow our minds to structure the intent begin to melt away (but don't take my word for it, you really have to investigate intent for yourself in order to have an authentic experience).

 

The last thing a questioning spiritual person will do is to use their intent to move some energy around. Instead, the first order of business is to investigate intent. Maybe after you investigate it you will realize that it just makes no sense to shuffle the energy around. It's like if you have some object and you pick it up and start hammering away. But what you should do is to take a look at it. Is it a hammer? Maybe it is a feather or scissors or maybe it's a pen, and if so, you are dumb to be hammering away in a hurry. Before you use a tool, examine the tool. Intent is a tool. Examine it. Don't just use it to shuffle energy this or that way. That is not wise.

 

And for that.