noname wrote:
>Ummmmmmm nottony wrote:
>> noname wrote:
>>> Ummmmmmm nottony wrote:
>>>> noname wrote:
>>>>> Ummmmmmm tony wrote:
>>>>>> liaM wrote:
>>>>>>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>>>>>>
... excisions not included ...
>>>>>>>> Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -
>>>>>>>> means you don't give up until you've found it.
>>>>>>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>>>>>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.
If the best or highest are akin to water,
then flowing down may be how to let one's self go
as far as the TTC, in chapter 8, goes.
And yet, in cross-posts, maybe Taoism isn't the topic.
And pointing to some Taoist text is a no-no, for sum.
And yet, why post to a Taoist group,
if one does not care to see Taoist material presented,
discussed, nor mentioned, mites be a wonder.
>>> ... there's nothing I'm aware of that makes it impossible for a "recipe" to be used if
>>> the terminology is simple enough and common enough that the reader actually
>>> understands what was written. ...
Redding comprehend shuns matter.
>Anybody can hand around recipes.
Not all ovens are plugged in.
Some might not be plumbed, nor any fuel available.
>> Consider the Buddha as a compassionate person (Living Master) who met
>> someone dying of thirst in the desert. That person *might*, if he was
>> severely conditioned, have said "Please help me - I need a beer/cup of
>> tea/fanta/ cappucino . . . "
>>
>> Gautama said "You need water" (this his recipe for curing extreme thirst)
>> Then he hands him a jug of water. (transmits enlightenment).
>> The jug happens to be blue pottery with a yellow incised pattern of
>> sunflowers.
People tend not to be in dire need of knowing
what is defined as, enlightenment, below.
The picture painted on a straw-jug
does not hold water.
The light inside of people, most normal people, burns bright.
It is not dimmed by the world. Most people love life.
They don't have any major problem with it.
And they tend to make more life.
Naturally. Ziran. Tzu-jan.
People who seek enlightenment have lost their Way.
They are the few, as compared to the many who are okay.
Though many do complain about the world, they don't seek
to escape nor to transcend world-processes nor to evolve out
of being in the world, to reach some higher woo-woo high.
Eclectics and syncretists may. And many of those do.
They see similarities among all the so-called paths.
They might even conclude they're all the same.
That there is one Path. And spread their
own brand of woo in the world.
Taoism might call Tao, Wu.
Especially Neo-Taoism.
>> For the next three thousand years scholars debate the various ways in
>> which a sage might say "You need water" How can the recipe be
>> interpreted? What sort of water was involved. Or the appropriate way to
>> ask a sage for a beer or a coffee.
Those folks have time to spare. They aren't in dire need.
>> They also debate whether a yellow jug with a pattern of bluebells
>> might've worked as well, or better. Or whether the water would've cured
>> thirst if it had been in a tin mug, or a glass jar.
>>
>> No-one has the water.
Tao is available at all times.
Birds fly. Fish swim. People are as well.
Obscure references may mean something. Or not.
>> Only a living Master can provide that.
Tao cannot be given, so it may be said.
Yet Tao may be obtained, such has been written.
Cook Ting got it. The bugcatcher got it. The swimmer,
the woodsman, the wheelwright, none of them needed
some living Master to provide it to them.
The swimmer grew up around water.
I don't see Taoism as saying,
"Only a living Master can provide that."
Though there are a few Masters in Taoist texts.
>> How it is
>> delivered is entirely up to him/her. No recipes are required.
>> It's as simple as "You need water?" "I have water"
The living Master freely dispenses.
Few may be able to receive the Way it is, at a given time.
If it worked for all who thirst, none would thirst.
And they would not thirst for more.
It would be a quick-fix. Over and done with.
>Who knows, maybe you have a blue jug with yellow flowers.
Water is free at streams near to all.
It doesn't necessarily require someone to have a glass
in order for someone else to drink one's fill.
Yet some, for whatever factors are involved, need glasses.
And they need the hands of a living Master to hand it to them.
Then they may see, and drink, and be satisfied.
Perhaps one glass does it for them.
Yet others are more thirsty. Or, maybe the water was
not enough proof in its spirit-content. Eighty-six percent
might be more than 3.5 or 6. Yet the pure stuff might kill
if a whole glass was consumed all at once. Cud be.
>>>> A secret which is transmitted from one living human heart to another can't
>>>> survive being modulated into written words or dead formulae.
Esoteric transmissions survive easily enough.
Those who have ears, hear them, naturally.
>>>>> ... what "Heaven" means is something an individual might profit from
>>>>> considering. ...
Semantics loves two play.
>>>> But the space of light & peace inside of me - that's a different story.
>>>> I'm rather fond of going there.
That can be exactly what the word, Heaven, means,
if that's what the word means, and one uses it as such.
>>> That kind of thing, plus the human-heart thing, gacks me to perceive you as
>>> one of those touchy-feely-know-nothings who talk about Universal Love and
>>> other angelic dogshit; pardon my bluntesty, I'm easily confused.
>>
>> A matter of taste. ...
Words, as Tang likes to reiterate, are mere.
Except, obviously, they aren't mere.
A word, Heaven, or a phrase, light & peace, gaks.
A matter of semantics.
If words were mere-words, there'd be no gakking.
Nor would there be any grokking.
Words work. But not always.
Words might very well enlighten very well. But not always.
>>>>> Sometimes we think we need to disclaim all desire, rather than just
>>>>> attachment to desire, and in those places it might be quite sufficient to
>>>>> suffer-less as a long-term-prelude to enjoying-more. Freedom from desire
>>>>> doesn't mean you don't desire, it just means you've learned to listen
>>>>> instead of just talk.
>>>>>
>>>>>> But they all lead you out, away from your essential self, not in towards it.
>>>>>> There may be a path that leads inwards, towards your true being.
>>>>>
>>>>> If there was no true path, nobody would have been able to find it.
There are as many true paths as there are those who walk them.
To suppose there is only one, or they are all the same,
can be what one supposes at times.
>>>>> Occasionally some at least seem to have found it. From that one might
>>>>> conclude that it exists.
Many have found what works for them.
A line of least resistance for one can be said to be
the same line as for someone else.
When someone is in the Zone, it could be called
the same Zone as when anyone else is in, the Zone.
Or it could be said to be different, in various Ways.
Tao can be singular or plural.
>>>>>> And it may be that the experience of who you really are is more
>>>>>> enchanting and engrossing - more fun, in other words, - than all the
>>>>>> other paths put together.
Sat, chit, ananda has been said to be.
>>>>> I find that it isn't so much about what I really am, as about what that
>>>>> which I really am gets to do, in partnership with what I am not. When we
>>>>> are so busily involved with what we are not, that we forget what we are,
>>>>> there's an edge there, between self and other, and when one stands there on
>>>>> that edge, seeing both sides at once, cool shit is the order of the day.
>>>>>
>>>>>> To put it another way - instead of following a whole lot of pursuits in
>>>>>> the outer world, in order to find happiness, why not first find
>>>>>> happiness in the inner world?
My inside and my outside plus a fine line
are sometimes seen as being all of me.
To think my outer-world isn't me
and that I am only what's inside of my full-of-holes skin,
tends to be a normal frame-of-reference as wells.
Full of holes, being holy, can be what skin is, for some.
It's the sacred line between one and not-one.
Some are think. Others thin.
>>>>>> Then you can still have all the other things if you want to pursue them
Holding fast to the center does not preclude bumps in the road.
>>>>>> - but because your happiness isn't dependent on them, it doesn't matter
>>>>>> if your friends die, or your lover leaves, or your children grow up, or
>>>>>> your taste buds get too old to appreciate gourmet cooking. Everything
>>>>>> 'out there' changes, all the time.
My happiness changes quite often, ziran. Tzu-jan.
Usually it floats above glass-half-full, naturally.
Yet that might just be me.
To presume anyone else or everyone else
need not be as he/she is or they are, can be presumptuous.
>>> If people weren't just naturally sloppy in our communication, the
>>> original-original-guy who first awakened and tried to write it down would
>>> have succeeded and we'd have reached the state of universal awakening eons
>>> ago.
>>
>> The original-original guy *didn't* try to write it down. He wasn't that
>> stupid.
>
>You're talking out your ass. The first guy to awaken and try to write it
>down, tried to write it down. If there was no such guy, there was no such
>guy; if there was, he tried to write it down. It's that simple, read the
>words.
The original-original guy who knew that those who know don't say,
didn't say, cuz he knew how saying goes and sayings go.
>> Words/concepts have always been too blunt. Transmission of
>> awakening is extremely precise.
When someone gets a point, he/she gets it.
It doesn't matter how it's gotten.
There is no one and only one, one way to get it.
Yet it could be said it's all the same.
Semantics enters into play. Again and again.
>> Some who didn't quite get it, tried to write down what they thought was
>> happening to others.
There can be plenty of that going on, and/or appearing to.
People speak/write from where they're at.
People hear/listen/receive from where they are at as wells.
>> Then later wise guys memorised what the failures had recorded, and set
>> themselves up as Masters. When they met thirsty people in the desert
>> they offered them a choice of recipe books and dry drinking utensils.
>> For a fee. Thus a religion was born.
Religion has left a bad taste in lots of people's mouths.
Religion has left a good taste in lots of people's mouths.
Some people have a bad experience and generalize it.
Some have a good experience and generalize it.
Some want everyone else to get on a band-wagon.
The same band-wagon. Why they want that can be psychological.
>>>>>> There is something inside you that is constant, untouched by time. To be
>>>>>> in touch with that is 'liberation'.
With Taoism, that might be called the center, axis, pivot, hub, etc.
I don't know the Pinyin or Wade-Giles Romanization.
If I can remember, I'd like to remember, to know it.
First I'd need to find it. Hence, a quest.
>>>>>> There is a light inside of you - to see it is 'enlightenment'
Using the light is mentioned in a Taoist text. I've seen that.
It's best to use clarity. Walking two roads can also be seen.
>>>>>> There is clarity and peace inside of you - to bathe in it is 'samadhi'
>>>>>> To realise that this is true is 'satori'.
Lao Tzu was muddled.
Lieh Tzu fed the pigs and washed dishes.
Chuang Tzu laughed at least once.
Having Tao, knowing Tao, using Tao,
being able to do, to not do, to do with ease, effortlessly,
spontaneously, there might be joy of various sorts found in Tao.
Being at the center and being at peace
might differ from ecstatic boundless joy found in being.
>>>> We're born free. That freedom stays at the core of us all our lives - we
>>>> just need to shovel away all the shit that's been piled on it.
To know freedom requires knowing what is not-freedom.
Children are free. Newborns are cared for. Figuratively speaking.
Yet neither might appreciate being free.
It can be said, they don't know it. Or, that they
know it without knowing it.
After being weighed down, after releasing what holds them, they
may float up, and know that they know, in various Ways.
Forgetting about both, free and not-free, can also be a Way.
>>> That's what we're here for, to shovel the shit. I sometimes feel like the
>>> little guy in the Rocky And Bullwinkle cartoons, the guy at the end of the
>>> parade, shoveling up the elephant shit. Mindless repetitious work like
>>> shoveling up shit is fantastic as a form of meditation
I regurgitate quite often, here.
Some people don't like the looks of it,
or the smell. After taking in food for thought, at times,
and digesting it, there is a kind of waste product that emerges.
Garbage in, garbage out. Another figure of speech
gone for a skate on thin ice