introduction

[kipster]

My name is John. After meditating and the like for over 30 years, I realized the hard truth that meditating to improve or fix an illusional self is a recipe for increased neuroses, fear, unfortunate health and an ever greater sense of separation. Still, I continue to be blessed by family, community and life. The fortunate thing now is to realize the difference between living and meditating from a faith in wholeness instead of a belief in separation. I define faith as what is left after my beliefs have been burned away. It is not dialogue; it is the silent pressing in my heart.

 

Though I love the Taoist aesthetic and the techniques that spring from it, I do not currently practice Taoist techniques. I love to engage in dialogue with those who have (perhaps long since) realized that allowing pursuit to enter one's practice has the effect of keeping their goal of unity outside their experience. I love learning how they experience life and their practices after they have deeply grasped the notion that they are what they seek, that they are not their personality (which they have to constantly struggle to maintain, defend, and improve or fix) but rather are the unfolding perfection of life which reveals itself moment by moment by moment. I thank those participating in this forum for the intent with which they participate in it.

[sean]

Method is an impediment to love,

a postponement of freedom, and an insult to peace.

Use no methods, simply identify as That.

Many methods may take you to Anandamayakosha,

and end at this subtlest of veils, yet there is an enjoyer of bliss.

Pre-dawn light is not the Sun,

bliss is not the totality of Understanding,

it is the turning toward your own Face

and is the direct 'practice' to know your Self.

 

There is no attainment

and no cultivation of original nature,

You are Consciousness, not a farmer!

Why work for that which you already are?

Do not mentate, do not stir a thought,

Trying to get out of superimposed bondage,

which is the notion that you are separate from Existence,

you will land in superimposed freedom.

 

---Sri H.W.L Poonja

 

Welcome to The Tao Bums, John.

 

Sean.