For every act of evil, there is an act of beauty. You Can't Change the World, Only Your Attitude Towards It.

What is seeing? Zen.

To see the now we still have a duality. Much of this battle is with language - like who is having this battle?

Truly there is no one to be on the path to enlightenment. There can be no path, there can only be that which is. There can be no one to experience the now. There can be no now as what is now?

Now is a concept formed from concepts of past and future, so is as false a notion as either. Knowing now is a knower. Neither knower or now can exist as entities so we are bouncing around traps of language.

The aim is to summarize this oneness, timelessness, I-lessness without setting up a new trap in our dualist language.

The English language always has a noun doing a verb. It is next to impossible to escape this. But as long as we recognize that as what needs to be done then we can escape the duality; only we can not then speak of it.

But I will......

Mind, matter, "reality", I, world, space, time, are all mind.

The fact that you are an object to me, but you call yourself I, means that we are both the I. Both the I! Both the one I! Both the same one I!

There is only one I. I looking at object is split-mind but both I and object are I and are mind. There is no split only an idea, I splitting by focusing on bits.

That I can only exist in time means that I is an idea. Only the I absent of time can be enlightened. So no one can be enlightened as they are an idea cast through the idea of time. Enlightenment has no time or I only the recognition that all is.

The so called event of "I becoming enlightened" is naturally a false concept built on the false split mind ideas of I and time and being or not as separate things.

Enlightenment is not a state of extended bliss as what is extended, what is bliss and who experiences it? It is the direct recognition of what is. This takes no stages, is not had or had not and is instant as there is no time.

This mind, this world, these objects, these I's are all I and all the mind. Recognizing you as I, I as I, object as I, time as I, reality as I and all as mind; is the final recognition.

Zen.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Now is so much

This very now contains my birth and my death.

This very now is so vast as to contain the birth of consciousness, the age of the dinosaurs, a week last Thursday, and tomorrow.

This very now was with me when I was in the womb, this very now held my great-grandmother as she nursed my new born grandmother in her arms.

This very now shall see my end, this very now will go on and on.

Always, now.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

No thing is

"From the beginning not a thing is"
Hui Neng

There has never been such a thing as space or time or form. These are all concepts of the mind.

Without appearance of what seem to be "things", then we would not form this appearance of "time".

Things are formed from depth. Without a perception, idea, concoction as depth then there would be no forms.

From an absolutely flat image we project depth and time.

Take a second to see the flatness. The image in front of your eyes now has no depth or time. It is perfectly flat. You have done this from birth though so you will insist it has depth and duration. But they are not present and are being cast out there by you.

Also the flatness only has reality as you spread out a dot. You don't see the dot on your retina, you project the reality as being very much bigger than that dot. You project it "outside" of you to give it room to be as large as possible. You project this big flat area of colour, project it "out there" and then you map out the colours so they have depth and duration.

This dot of light on your retina. The photons are both at source and on your retina at the same time. The same photon is beaming out of the light bulb and being registered on your retina at the same time. One extremely small photon is in two places at once. You know this is false. It isn't false, but you "know" it to be false as you see the light "over there" - but you are forming that depth, space-time.

This is complete garbage until you register it as true. And at that point you see reality as what it truly is.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Food festival

This was lovely. My wife had been asked to help at a food festival on Hyde Park. It is a lovely sunny day and the park was very well laid out with a music tent and row up row of food and drink stalls.

We went to her stand where they were making simple yet delicious Thai snacks. I sat on the grass and read some snippets from "Transmission of the Light", "Tao Te Ching" and "Hua Hu Ching" but soon put them down realizing that there was too nice a thing going on around me to waste my attention on books. I was already sitting very comfortably, cross legged on the grass to took the chance to have an open eyed meditate, enjoying the view but with the main attention on the shape of my mind. It was very a peaceful and lovely experience.

After a while I was asked to help by peeling some papaya so I got on with the task but kept my inner state. I looked around at all the people enjoying their food and drinks. My wife leaned over and placed/squeezed something the size of an egg into my mouth. It was; coconut flesh, ginger, lemon, sweet and salt sauce, shredded onion and I'm sure more, all wrapped in a beetle leaf. -- Oooh was this delicious!

I decided to never ever eat one again as this memory would stay with me, it was delicious but I felt no need to be greedy. I finished the papaya shredding and went back to sit on the grass. The bar next door brought me a cocktail. The initial smell alone awoke my whole mind and senses and the first sip was delicious. Noticing how much I liked the beetle leaf some other staff brought more to me. This over did it and none matched the delight of the first one, I didn't want any more. I slowly drank the cocktail (I think lacking in alcohol as the idea Thai's have of vegetarians is; no alcohol, no smoking, no sex) but it was very nice.

We finished up and walked around the rest of the festival. We sampled a few other types of food and then made our way home. My wife fascinated by flavors and me getting lost in tree leaves and the depth of the sky.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Ego Elevator

Each day, often more than twice I ride the elevator, or lift as I call it, down from the 16th floor to street level.

On the ride, people get in and people get out. I stand with a smile that I feel welcomes people to either smile back or just take me as a harmless lift user. So far very few people have smiled back or even registered me instead often taking up the stare at the floor or the look into the mirror poses instead. This is ok, I don't mind that but I then watch what they do do.

They will very commonly turn to one of the mirrors in the lift and begin to preen themselves. So happy to look at themselves in the mirror but not to even look, let alone smile, at the other lift occupant. Preferring to check their outer appearance, flick hair, do little head tilts and vogues into the mirror than take one glance at the simple looking tall guy in the corner.

Maybe it is my fault, because I hardly ever look in a mirror, perhaps I have a big bogey on my face or a piece of carrot stuck to my chin. But I don't think so, I think instead that they are too tied up in little ego me world to want to run the risk of another person saying good day to them.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

If science got it right

The last scientist left on earth is in a cave with a scalpel. Determined to finally discover the core of all life he chops off a finger. Bleeding but still alive confirms that life does not originate from a finger, he chops off an arm..... ...[film cuts to] a dead scientist and lots of severed body parts lying on the cave floor.

If science worked it all out....
I think Douglas Adams touched on this with the super computer that given years to think of the ultimate answer to the ultimate question and it said the answer was 42.

It could only be deeply boring and like a bore taking stage at a comedy evening, completely kill the party.

Scientists do some great work, they do enough great work that we let them off all the horrible stuff that comes about. They are in the field because they are interested and this must come from the unknown. Studying life or the nature of reality is a fascinating art which seems to me to be spoiled by accuracy, measurement and laws.

Imagine the meaning of life was (insert equation here) - I'm sure that would even kill the scientists own party. There would be some back slapping and a little internal jealousy of peers but ultimately they and everyone else would soon just say, "hmm, so now what? 42 eh... ...hmm ... ...beer anyone?"

I truly do not think there can be an answer like that but these quests for the smallest particle, the core, the beginning, the plunges into deep space. (of which we have achieved the same as baby Sherpa Tenzing learning to crawl, if that) are random yet very exitable stabs in the dark.

The great mystery starts in us. How can we ever reach a goal where we set out to explore infinite space? How can we break something and expect the bits we are left with to be further indivisible? The mechanistic, materialistic views are to remove piece by piece a car in the hope if finding the one bit that makes it work and to not see that it is the parts in unison that make the car.

Exploring the limitless with the limited.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Meditation vs Relaxation

I've become quite habitual with my meditation again. I find it really pleasurable and a very good use of time. [I'm again disliking the English language for the ways we have to say things "Use of time" hmph]

I like to take little moments and bigger ones and it serves many purposes. I make a restful hand position as I stand waiting for the lift, kettle, computer to boot, phone call to connect, someone to serve me in a shop, and take the few seconds or minutes as time to reconnect to the deeper states I meet when I take more dedicated sittings in the evenings or odd mornings.

The longer sessions have no fixed time but I sometimes get a little hooked in there and don't want to snap out. Sometimes though just a couple of minutes is all I need.

Today I had a very physical day and am very tired in body and mind. My knee is a bit bad and does not like to let me sit half lotus. Rather than worry about a sitting position I just slouched back and noticed in my tired state that I was in a really sorry way. I was not aware, my mind was like a tired drunk leaning against a wall. I was not alert, instead my breathing was shallow and eyes drooping.

I thought how poor this state was but that this is what many people do after a hard day, or do in front of the TV, or even at work. They slouch, pay no attetion and their mind becomes vacant.

So I sat up and corrected it all, corrected the breathing, got the mind in tune and aware, and realized just how great meditation is; you are very relaxed and some say it is as beneficial as sleep, but you are in a very high sense of awareness.

Meditation really is a great gift and so much more than posh relaxation.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Pacifying the Australian public in readiness for takeover

If I showed a person a different dissected animal each few hours, over and over again, and said "do not panic" they would eventually, although still internally affected and shocked, become desensitized to the event.

Strangely in the city of Sydney and I would hazard a guess that this is global, please tell me if you've seen similar, they are placing Police on street corners and blasting out a very very loud alarm. The alarm has a voice along side it saying that this is a test of the city's warning system for terrorist or natural disasters and that everyone should calmly do as the police tell them to.

Along side this they have placed dot matrix readouts around the city that display a message "Disaster alarm No one should panic".

Is this to desensitize people? I'd say so, as that is the effect it has. The alarm is quite obnoxious, very loud, but people just go about their days.


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Yesterday I was at a very nice building, Macquarie University Sydney, and in reception they had a news channel on. As I have said in the past I have no TV so had not seen anything like this. It was super slick; a pretty lady and older looking respectable kind of man, repeated over and over, for the whole time I was there: Murder, death, stabbing, Al Qaeda, bombing, rape, kidnap - and when they got low on material, repeated the same stories as if they were new.

I felt very sorry for the staff there who have this pumping into them all day long. In fact I would not relish a conversation with any of them as what would they talk about?

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Physics is so mystical I almost like it

Which of these is Mysticism and which is Physics? 

There is no such thing as a particle - Things are at the very most a relationship to something else.

Something is only something if someone chooses to observe it, until the point of observation, it is not anything. 

There is no time and no solidity.

The only reality we have is that made by the brain. Different animal, different person, different reality.

Reality is entirely a projection.

This is no longer a philosophical quibble but a measurable, experimentally provable fact, there is nothing of any solidity anywhere.

Nothing, not one thing is separate, it only seems that way.

Your appearance and that around you is a mental projection.

There is no real, at most it is electrical signals represented to us by our brain.

The universe is an electrical event, waves of energy intercept to form the stars and heavenly bodies.

There is absolutely no I.

There is nothing finite, there is no size, infinity is it.

All of the above are Physics.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

How long would it take for your computer to work out ...

How long would it take for your computer to work out how big it was?

and what it was made of?

and who made it?

It would need sensors far outside of it self, and right near it. It would need to invent a unit of measure and a nervous system that could report back information of its surroundings.

It would not know, even if it worked out the size of its box, if it were huge or small. It would be unlikely to say it was the size of its box as it feels information coming through wires and over wifi and more.

A super smart computer may say "OK, i seem to be mainly this CPU, RAM and HD, I have a box too, which is very much me as it contains my core, also many important veins are attached here. But I sit on a table, and if that table were not there, then I would not be here, so that table is me too. So given this basic layout, I must be infinite." = Mystic computer.

A dumb computer would follow and measure each wire, out of the house, along to the energy sub-station, out to the power station. It would measure the distance that wifi signals came in, and then from the source to the next transmitter. It would follow an endless number of pathways out into the world and many that bounce off satellites over head. It would sit with many measurements and make grand predications over the layout of its surroundings, it would make assumptions about how it came to be this way. It would draw conclusions that are way above its station. = Science Computer.

Another may fearfully state that it can not be alone here and there must be others, it would wonder who made it and sit writing its ideas as to who made it and why. When it found its box it would build a fortress to keep other boxes out, it would dedicate resources to worshiping the creator of its programs and box. It would set up so many falsehoods that its quest for the answers would be forever hindered. = Religion Computer.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Taoism Tao and enjoying life

This is more of a note to myself than anything, but also for anyone new who has taken a car crash spin and tumble into this blog from a google malfunction or otherwise... This blog is supposed, most of the time, to be about Tao and all that stuff.

I have recently sailed a bit off topic, which is all well and good, but I'm hoping that Te redresses the Tai Chi and my Yin Yang get a bit more in balance so that I can Wu Wei a few more Tao related posts soonish.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Work in progress

Sorry about the mess, I got to messing with the blog layout and all I do is live to the world so all 3 of you will have to bear with me. *

Font is a little hard to read and the top picture means you have to scroll on every page load (on my small screen that was the case anyway with the old layout).

I'll probably revert the layout soon enough, but I'm just playing...

Credit for the picture goes to zastavki.

EDIT: Hey the new ability to make your "labels list" into a "Tag Cloud" on Blogger is nice (see top of blog).

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* If things look really messy then try "the Shift Key and F5" to "force refresh" the page - forcing the browser to reload all elements not just the stuff it thinks has changed. If it still looks really bad then please tell me in the comments section what browser you are using.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The Earth is not a hot cooling rock, it's just hot

The Electric Universe is both fascinating and accurate in predicting space activity.

A movie explaining these findings

Lightening and Auroras and such effects are electrical in nature.

The Moon, other planets and other moons have a surface topology not set by geology but by electrical activity over their surface.

The Sun is "a huge ball of lightening" and is an "electrical anode" It can not die and is not nuclear. It is part of a circuit - and perhaps shaped the moon and much else. It influences weather and earthquake activity.

Venus is a Comet and comets move and emit tails due to electric charge, repulsion and attraction:

"In mid-1997, the Soho satellite detected a plasma structure issuing from Venus and almost reaching the surface of Earth. The report described the structure as "stringy." Such a structure could only remain intact if a current were continuously flowing from Venus to the surrounding space via the plasma tail"

The Sun is not a nuclear event that will end as that is simply the nuclear model we made in our nuclear age, it's not a God, not a ball of fire, not a nuclear reaction - it is electrical in nature. Earth is most probably not a hot and cooling rock but, as it is full of iron, it is constantly heated by it passing through the electrical plasmas in space.

A movie explaining these findings

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tao Wow finally photographed in public.


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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

random clips

Shown a picture of 100 people, 50 smiling and 50 frowning, a sad person will see the frowns and a happy person will see the smiles - both will tell you that the picture is happy or sad based on their prejudice and so the picture has two moods even though it never changes.

This seemingly obvious experimental result can be read about in depth in various spiritual philosophies, Sutras and works that date back to civilizations who had no email. Walk into a room with a happy outlook and (unless you also have a shotgun) you will experience a happy room.

"Honk if you're happy" is really a modern day mantra of the "Unaware, Average Man, Atheist Who is Actually a Yogi". UAMAWAY is a title rarely used, the person you meet who seems to be quite average and normal but unflustered by life they announce little sayings that get them by.

"Things always work out in the end, unless they dun't" is almost the finest philosophy ever and was announced by a friend of mine when he was as drunk as the vodka he just drank.

"The world is blue and mainly inhabited by fish and dead chickens" was the epiphany I had after one particular evening on LSD.

Famously God said: "let there be light, whoa hang on a minute, who put all those other things in space and why is it still dark on the other side even though I've turned the light on?, Me Dammit I'm gonna have to wait for Edison to incarnate and invent that funky light bulb thang".

"Yesterday is always easier to plan for"- Dave.

"The only issues I have with what you said are; the words, the order of those words, and the tone" - John of Dark.

"All the action of the infinite universe through all of time has lead me to have this piss." Is what a friend of mine said whilst urinating off a cliff over a beach about 1 hour after the magic mushrooms kicked in.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Google Tip - Define

Not sure if you know it but I use this a lot. Very useful.

With no spaces type this into Google

define:word

The word define followed by a colon followed by the word you want defined - with no spaces between the words and the colon - you'll end up with a screen like this:


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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Big Bang

Did you ever meet a more flaky theory than the Big Bang? Well yes, you met the Creation theory which is just plain fairytale, but the Big Bang theory is scientific make believe too.

"We are certain of this fact" "We have no idea of this bit" "We are sure that X" "and X supports the Big Bang"

Unfortunately I was not sold on the God idea and have not been sold on the Big Bang one either. Where, in either case was the G or the BB? Religion says don't ask and science says don't know.

Where was the singularity?
Well they say it was not anywhere as it contained time, space, all matter and so on.
Well what is anti to all of that?
Well it contained that too..
And anti to that?
No there was no anti to that, it contained it all.
Contained? So it has size and other such qualities?
No, it was a singularity, they have no such qualities, they contain them all, this is the science of the singularity.
Where?
There was no where, the where is inside, well not inside as in contained in, but a quality of, well not a quality of - it all came from it, it was the source.
So made of what?
No not made of anything.
Can I go home now I'm bored.
Yes piss off.

So the singularity is something even they can't explain, it is just an idea to fill a problem area. This is how I define God also:

"A label for the limit of your imagination"

Where imagination ceases, then people call that God, God is the name for the limit of imagination. Big Bang is the name for the limit of Sciences imagination.

Is Tao the name for the limit to my imagination? No. Ha.

Because I don't see any linearity. I have no need for Big Bang or Creation and I therefore have no need for a label for the limit of my imagination, as I don't have a limit. As I have no linear or dualistic fantasy to play out, I don't meet that trap.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

I woke up when

I'm curious. Please tell me in the comment section.

When, how fast and so on did you notice that:

"Hey I now think and feel completely differently than I did before"

What sparked the event? What changed?

For me I would like to think I was always open minded but I was not. A friend played Bill Hicks to me in 1994 and I sort of got some points but just thought it was a comedian. When the twin towers fell I had no idea what they were or where they were. Some time after that a friend gave me the book "The Tao of Physics" and I was so blown away by the various spiritual views on life, that religion was not this strict crap of God and sinners but was instead full of useful, positive, deep seated philosophy and wisdom, that the atom was in fact an idea and the more physicists looked the less they saw and the stranger things got. - That I sat in a bar, looking into a beer glass and said "This is not even real, there is nothing even there" I went home and booked a ticket to India.

Yet to go home. Many books read. Many experiences had. Completely new view on life.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Te

Te sounds pretty much like the little letter D so "d"

We can disagree on that and we can go on to disagree over what the little word means - Te is the virtue of the Tao. What does that mean? It means that we can't pronounce it or say what it means either. Brilliant.

The latter half of the Tao Te Ching is all about Te. Some say it was pinned on by the Confucians and is the order we should imagine from people who don't get Tao. Some say there were two great works, the Te Ching and the Tao Ching and they were joined together. Some say that 3 arms would be more useful than a second nose.

Te is actually most of what is said about Tao. Tao is of course by definition the unnameable, and Te is probably what we are referring to every time we speak of Tao. Te is like the action, the motion, the cause, the effect, we wrongly attribute to Tao.

So a statement like "The Tao redresses the balance" is truly about Te. Tao does nothing, as it's nature. Probably each time we speak of Tao we mean Te. So that is what Te is.

So what is Tao?

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

"Shut up! You're supposed to be all Enlightened and shit."

If it were the job of awakened people to sit on the side of a mountain then there would be no such thing as Taoism, Buddhism, or many other isms. If the Buddha sat by the tree and said "Oh my me, everything is just perfect, I think I'll just sit here a while longer" and if Lau Tzu had got on his water buffalo and wandered off to whittle a stick or two by a stream there would be no teachings for us to spend our time trying to take on board.

Both these characters and others have realized something quite profound, quite perfect but have always said "But... "

"But if you lot keep fighting each other you're really going to kill my buzz, y'know?"

"If you government and Kings keep oppressing people then it's going to make everyone miserable."

"If you good people keep competing and not cooperating with each other and with nature then how will it end?"

So they instead took a group aside and spoke to them..

"Hey yous lots, yous listens tos mes - I's gots a message."

And then went on for a while that: "hey, you see, life can be sweet, so sweet. We got a little flustered when we were down the food chain, we had to scurry about and run from bears but now we're ok, we are, we are. You see we don't have to keep the fear and paranoia, we can move on. Chill Winston. We can, with a little practice all see what I saw, we can see the unity of all things, we can cooperate as one and just have a reaaaaaly nice time. - You get it?"

And most of them started fist fighting over a word or two they misunderestimated [sic].

The awakened have a job to do. Ok all is one, life can be sweet as fresh rain, we can just enjoy that and say "well to hell with it, people starve, people get oppressed but I have a nice cushion, I like meditation and green tea so I'll just sit and ignore it until it rights itself" or we can occasionally stand up, speak, write some words and make some actions that help those around us see.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Water use - The right thing to do

Of all the tips on saving water the final one I found on the list was

"Conserve water because it’s the right thing to do


This is my reasoning but hey, What is the right thing to do?

Are environmentalists just having us worry over nothing? Does the vast use of industry make our water use pail into insignificance? Well yes no and maybe.

There are billions of us, many of whom do not have access to a tap. Many of us do have water and live in a country where the use is not a huge issue. Thai people can run water all day at no cost or concern - but they can't drink it without filtration. The rainy country of England can not provide enough water for its residence in summer due to population crowding in certain areas and poor infrastructure. Australia does not have enough water for its residents most of whom live in the same street.



You can see that it is mainly the equatorial countries plus the highly populated section of Australia that put most strain on their environment when it comes to water use over supply. That red blob on Australia is where I live and it is a High Stress area.

My issue is not that people use water but abuse. I have traveled Australia and seen in every state and many towns, many hotels, camping grounds and hostels, signs reminding people about water use. "Don't let the tap run as you clean your teeth." Fountains with "Recirculated water in use". It is also illegal to wash your car, you must instead go to a place designed for the job where they have efficient means, recycling and so on.

Maybe my housemates don't care but I think in this case, they just "don't know". They have not seen the signs, the posters, they do not have good English so have not heard the reminders on Radio and TV so they bring their habits from home and carry on the same here.

My idea is to stand in the kitchen with 20 or 40 2 liter bottles of spring water and stand pouring it down the drain as they watch. They would probably just laugh at the funny foreigner so this demonstration would be at a loss but I may get the opportunity to say "See? See? Do you see? Do you get it now? Do you? You get it? You get it now? Now? Now do you get it?"

Anyway, My efforts to be angry are making me laugh so I'll go back to life and let this ride out however it goes.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Share and share unlike

No one should read this, I'm venting some steam. 

I left it too late but after 3 months of hearing "PHhheeeuuuuuuuuuuuuush" as a house mate used the tap on full power to wash anything from a fork to a plate, and he washes a lot of stuff all together...

I walked up to him and looked on, as he noticed me he turned (leaving the tap running on full power) he gawped at me.

I said we can drink that. You are wasting a valuable resource that this country does not have a lot of. I'm not trying to say anything bad (Thai's lose face easily and you must be very polite to them) but please take care with the water.

He has not spoken to me for a week, 3 nights he did not come home and stayed with a friend instead, and we feel he is probably in the motions of moving out.

I wonder if it helped at all. We now have a bad vibe in the house and he will just move his bad habit to a house where they don't complain.

Each morning my not so random act of kindness is to put away all the washing up that people leave draining, empty the bins they leave overflowing, my wife cleans the bathroom and folds up clothes they put out to dry and forget about.

Kindness that goes consistently unnoticed or a voice of reason? Perhaps the kind acts of no reward are best as speaking upsets the nest.

I want to find someone/thing to blame as this is not the first time. Allow me to rant - feel free to close this page and go and read something more rewarding instead.

[Note that these people are "good Buddhists" they have pictures of Buddha, pray at night and are very polite in normal conversation] We have had a burned rice cooker - no one, not even those who last used it knew who did it. Things go missing, no one knew who or where. The shower is the type that sucks on to the tap with a rubber wazzit and it falls off, they leave it and the resulting gush of water and go about their day. Two members of the house enjoy cooking deserts and this involves (with not one ounce of exaggeration) 3 gas hobs, 3 pans and over 3 hours of slow cooking. Admittedly they can be cooking curry and other things along side but the fact remains, long drawn out cooking time.

We pointed out that if you boil just enough water in a kettle, then place it in the pan, with a pan lid, that cooking is both quick and efficient. They cook with no lid and do not use the kettle. We pointed out that boiling a full kettle for a cup of tea is silly for many reasons, your time being one that may relate to the selfish minded, but of course, the kettle is often found half full of tepid water. We have a sign over the rice cooker that says to turn it off when not in use (yes this actually had to be said)...

The list unfortunately does go on and gets no more interesting. The basic premise being absolute wasteful, mindless behavior.

Ok, one more. They shower, extendedly, then blow dry their hair. The girls who have a larger room and its own bathroom used to have the bathroom lights on all the time, simply closing the bathroom door to shut out the light from their bedroom. When my wife saw this happening one day she asked. They replied with a smile that 'yes, what a good idea it was as the light was always on when they needed it'.

This level of, can I say, stupi.. lack of awareness, selfishness, is just so shocking to the greenie in me who would like to see us care for the planet.

I can't take them to the depths of my philosophical reasoning on any one point but even on the simple level of "if we all did that, then what?" I feel would go over their heads.

My wife has overheard conversations in Thai that say how we, especially me, are tight, Australia is a rich country and they all pay their rent so should be free to do as they like. And this would be lovely if water was made from money and gas and electricity broke down after use to form rice and cake - but the harsh reality is that, while we all love the idea of getting on, freely enjoying our life, that man is at war with nature.

Man's prime weapon is selling power to those with no education and importantly no gumption.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Soap Box

While we are cultivating and recognizing this spiritual truth within us and without us all there are very important shifts taking place.

As we break our shells and realize true oneness with the infinite, so too the veils, the oppression, the manipulative big business and oppressive governments, and more importantly than ever the true hidden ones behind those tools of control are starting to feel the foundations crumble beneath them.

We have powerful straight forward human activism against Flu vaccines, corporate greed and all else in the form of powerful Youtube videos.

We have recognition of the awakening in podcasts.

Deathbed confessions including admission of being involved in the plot to kill JFK (audio) (article). 

And we have blogs and free ebooks chronicling the increasing weight of information now available to us.

Spiritual awakening is important to cultivate and is happening to more and more people each day - and along side this are the new responsibilities we have in standing up for those of us who can not stand up for themselves.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Verses 48 and 51 Hua Hu Ching - living

The Rambling Taoist posting frequently on the Hua Hu Ching has lead me to re-read my copy again.

I was really hit by this final line to chapter 48

"Once you arrive there [spontaneous awareness of the Great Oneness], remember: it isn't necessary to struggle to maintain unity with it. All you have to do is participate in it." 

Which really struck a chord with me as once we have our realization then it is simply a matter of remaining there in the center. Once you have recognized the true unity then you know you can not be separate from it and feeling so is a glitch, an error in perception or mind. If anything in life seems to be out of balance then just a simple self reminder should be enough to regain perspective and see things as they really are. Without this then it is easy in this world to lose touch with the truth and get whipped up by the seeming importance of minor aspects. Having once recognized your absolute unity with all things then it should not be work or effort to maintain it as it 'just is' so the tool is a long breath from the heels, a centering hand gesture, body motion or thought and to reaffirm unity.

So the master of Tao sees all but with the mind centered is not caught up in conflict with any passing action or emotion. A Hindu may compare a little act of selfishness that came there way to the motions of planets over several Kalpas, a Buddhist may say "nothing lasts" as recognition that this event is nothing to carry with you and will too pass. A Tao master would collect good from the bad by opening to the true balance of the situation. All very valid ways of remaining centered in truth as life bubbles away on her own path with you as the camera operator, afloat your boat, taking in the view.



Then this chapter 51:

"Those who want to know the truth of the universe should practice the four cardinal virtues. The first is reverence for all life; this manifests as unconditional love and respect for oneself and all other beings. The Second is natural sincerity; this manifests as honesty, simplicity, and faithfulness. The third is gentleness; this manifests as kindness, consideration for others, and sensitivity to spiritual truth. The fourth is supportiveness; this manifests as service to others without expectation of reward. The four virtues are not an external dogma but a part of your original nature. When practiced, they give birth to wisdom and evoke the five blessings: health, wealth, happiness, longevity, and peace."

This sort of language can have you feeling a bit like you're being told how to act with empty phrases such as "be virtuous" "be sincere" it may sound like religious dogma, but it is not at all. The idea is instead that "manifests as" and "not an external dogma but a part of your original nature

Our original nature is that of the Tao, the mother of all of this, and that original nature is of course supportive to all life with no expectation of reward, of course it is kind and simple, of course she gives and gives with no prejudice to receiver, if tao were not like this she could not be infinitely creative and the source of all.

Taking that as our model shows us that when we give ourselves in line with that original nature we are right and when we hold back and allow reason to enter the equation we are instantly out of the flow. But why reason this? Just go with it, as when we do just flow then life is so perfect it needs no words to describe it, it is just magical and we all live blissfully in a way it was always supposed to be.

Acting naturally we are "blessed" with wealth, wisdom and so on. Of course we are not blessed in any materialistic "The Secret" way or blessed by any external source in quantifiable degrees of wisdom or finance but truly blessed with correct, simple, straightforward recognition of our true nature - that of Tao.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Recognising integral oneness. Do less Be more

There you are under a tree, you are highly conscious but making no concepts of what is in your ear, mind, nose or eye, you are there in integral oneness.

Oneness absent of any two. Infinity absent of any division. Nothing absent of emptiness. Presence absent of I.

To carry this with you as you walk from the tree to the river bank, as you act as one with nature, she as the river and you as the valley accepting her flow. She as the lake and you as the basin. She as the bird and you as the sky.

To carry this with you, drawing no concept, is perhaps how it should always have been. To pluck fruit from the tree and enjoy how it came from the same source as you, will nourish you as you flow back, not doing but being.

Being the action of all of this, wasting no thoughts on the why and how.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Hi from a completely new part of the universe

Hi! This post will appear automatically on the 22nd October 2009.

It is set to post automatically as I am away from posting for a short time.

Today I have just completed my 34th lap of the Sun so am at a completely new part of the universe - the view does look incredibly similar to the view before now, mostly things just seem a little smaller due to my being taller. I don't remember too much about my first few laps of the Sun but I have been lead to believe that the sky was still one of 3 colours, blue, grey or black and that ice cream was still best served cold.

So, apart from being 83 seconds older than when I began writing this post I am also one whole year older than I was a day ago.

As I don't like stuff I will be celebrating my birthday by going out and buying my wife something she likes.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Welcome the 50th follower of this blog just as I take a short break

I'm done with blogging again for a short while, going to have a little go at riding the horse not talking about it.

This blog nearly has 50 followers, one is me, not sure how that happened, but it's genuine as I do read it, 2 are the same person (Hi Leon) and many who I've never once seen comment from, so maybe there are 3 real followers and 40 or so people who accidentally clicked the follow button - maybe "follow" means "close" in some languages?

So I'll be back when the wind changes direction and post a little more.

Maybe tomorrow, or

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

UpUpUpDated book

I keep making edits to the Tao Stories by Wu Wu book. The link, top right of the blog, will always take you to the latest version.

Sometimes I make edits to the text, I have also dropped whole pages and added new ones.

The current layout is unlikely to change too much now. There are still bits that don't flow as I'd like, still bits I would layout or write differently but all in all it's close to a readable book.

As I've pointed out a few times, I'm no writer so it's a bit thrown together.

Hopefully you can get my ideas from reading it and as it is free you can suffer the bad bits.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The person of Tao

The 'real' person, the person of Tao - truly a Tao master - Is someone you have met and had no idea of their views, wants, needs, likes or dislikes.

Religion never came up in conversation, they were good to you but never made out they were being good. They were calm and collected but never felt the need to tell you how easy going they were. They fitted in and blended with the crowd without any loss of individuality. They were good at all things that came their way, did there best and had no bashfulness over their poor performance or ego over their greater achievements. They shone with an inner brightness and radiated a deep seated warmth but wore no label, no jewels, no robe, no dog collar, no stripes on their arms, no marks of distinction.

Fitting in and getting along they were solid and dependable - you could miss them for a day or a year and be greeted the same on meeting again. Always fit for a good laugh and a joke, they could be told your inner woes and neither give you advice or break your trust. If you asked for advice on life they'd tell you something about death, if you asked for advice on colours they'd play you a song, if you wanted fine food they'd make you some tea. On every occasion meeting your needs in the most simplistic, unassuming yet well chosen responses.

They appeared in your life without you noticing them, and disappeared softly without a trace. They were your greatest masters and never asked for thanks. You probably owe them your heartfelt gratitude but their reward is that you treated them like a completely normal person.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Translating the Tao from Chinese

This is a great way to put it: (from the book of tea)


"Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade,--all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design. But, after all, what great doctrine is there which is easy to expound? The ancient sages never put their teachings in systematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, for they were afraid of uttering half-truths." 




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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The nature of reality - It's a Doughnut


(The "You" does not move, you are the still point, the doughnut rotates in on itself as the arrow shows. The "You" remains that center point no matter what goes on around)

I remember standing by a bus shelter in Thailand and encouraging my mind to go beyond the 4th dimension.

This is a stupid task as we only form images and they are 2D and as we give them depth and continuity they are 4 dimensional space-time 'things'.

BUT - I kept returning to the doughnut. Basically you fold a line and get 2D, fold a sheet and get 3D, the only way to bend our apparent 4D spherical space-time is to wrap it around to form a doughnut.

Now, today I was out on my BMX, rushing at steps and flying off them, doing jumps, taking in the fine view of the harbour, feeling the air, the yin-yang of the peddling motion.. When it struck me to be like this..

That ever present bit, the center point of you that never changes, the stillness that all else goes on around is a point. Surround that point with a doughnut and allow the doughnut to rotate in on itself as the arrows above show.

Things go "into the past" by decaying and following the lower faded line, forming a new moment they reoccur "in the immediate future" on the darker top line, appearing as "now" just a fraction after they happen - that fraction being the time it takes us to perceive things. And that fraction also being the cause of the illusion of time.

The doughnut in truth would not be this 3D doughnut but instead infinitely flat, the upper and lower halves only present for a 3D map for this explanation.


(The "You" is the tiny central point. Reality happens just above, through you, and out the bottom. The moving doughnut is a highly enlarged 3D representation of how the past recycles to form the future) 

So there you are, now. Past and future are thought of now. There is only now. Linearity is an illusion based on fasle ideas and now is recreated, moment by moment by a flat doughnut collapsing in on itself.

mmmmm


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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Monk Mojo

I was walking past a shop that had a Coldplay song booming out from a set of not-quite-powerful-enough speakers - and I imagined a short cartoon of the same happening with a peaceful looking monk in my position instead of me.

The monk would walk over to the shop, pick up the amplifier and throw it into the ground smashing it to pieces, then calmly recollect his pose and walk on.

I got two ideas from this; That cartoons I made would not be that funny, but secondly that it would be great all the same to have cartoons about this sort of thing.

I came home to find an email from Leaf Dharma (of buddhisttorrents) and he had mailed me a link to Monk Mojo and his funny comics on Zen and all that stuff.

Now I'm supposed to pick one and place it here for you to see but instead I'll let you go there and view them all yourself. (if you have a self).

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Need for a new word

As you'll get from the intro to most books on the Tao, the word was a bit of a fluff, an "ah, bugger it". The idea being that you can't name this "   ".

As you'll get from reading further into the intro or from chapter 2, labels delimit and form apparent separation and opposition. It reminds you that these seeming separations are only in language and the true reality has no separation.

I was playing with the idea of the infinite today while staring into the middle distance, over some trees and into the sky and was reminded of a point made well in the Hua Hu Ching 'the tiny parts are not tiny and the vast universe not vast' - this same situation where it is our mini mind breaking things into manageable bits and then being convinced that they have reality.

The core error being that you see your self as real, so from this perspective the universe is vast and the bits tiny - but this separation is fallacy.

Scientists have "nasty infinity" they have an infinity they can handle, but then a nasty infinity they can't - dualistic infinities, funny. We'll skip getting into that pointless mind game and go with infinity being the same thing no matter which direction you look, small or big, we can do this as we have read the Hua Hu Ching recently, meditated, farted, and reminded ourselves, unlike the scientists, that this dual big/small is based of a fake reference point.

So there is the infinite, 'a-happening'. It is not infinitely big as in vast beyond measure, and it is not made of infinitely small bits. no no no, it is an infinite a-happening. The trees budding, coming forth, the wind blowing, my beating heart and metabolizing cells are this infinite a-happening.

Not old, no beginning, as there is no true point of reference to base those ideas from. Just Thus.

And for the meditative, take note, nature is alive, always in flow. You may have been searching for an inner stillness, trying to kill the rampant mind, and the universe is ultimately at rest, but your efforts to realize inner calm have a greater goal and that is to truly comprehend the real action.

As when you have either stilled OR you have embraced the vastness (opposite routes to the same place) then you have removed the fake point of reference and just left the whole action.

When you have stepped back from 'all things based from this viewpoint', then you are left apperseeing that you are this.

The seeing and the seen are not separate AT ALL. This a-seeing is the universe and - you're it.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Quote Myself

"Where Zen and Buddhism will say the truth, enlightenment, and so on can be reached through dedicated meditation and practice, a Tao master may sip some wine, fart, and go to sleep."

There I was innocently surfing the web, hoping to find some pictures of boobs on a Taoist website, and I happened across someone quoting me(!) - I googled the quote and found that 2 people have quoted it on separate occasions so I dug out the old quote that was hidden in a long waffley piece I wrote some time ago and have placed it here for the benefit of my ego. The piece ended with this:

"So look and learn but don't force anything, don't try to adopt things that just don't fit together with you. Don't get so tied to one shore that you miss the next beach. Don't get too comfy under one tree. Don't carry a pile of books around where there is loving living and dancing to be done."

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Jesus. All about Life!

This is great. The local churches are all doing this "Jesus. All about Life!" campaign to promote God. Even the almighty needs to advertise it seems and he has employed many many people in the role of 'going out and pestering people who were happily getting on with their day but for the person waving a big sign in their face'.

A group of 6 or 7, young, seemingly smart kids, came up to me singing with their sign and they shouted "Jesus. All about Life! - why don't you celebrate with us?"

I smiled as, well, it is rather amusing. I said: "Jesus, a fictional character who given even a minor level of historical inquest was not even called Jesus, is famous for many things - but LIFE is not one of them. He is dead, he died, younger than me, over 2000 years ago, and people have been going on about it ever since. If your campaign is 'all about life' then maybe choose a better mascot, like maybe someone who is ALIVE and not famous for being DEAD, at a young age."

It is the most stupid of all slogans. Like "Mcdonalds, It's all about animals"

Oh maybe the deal is that he saved us all or some rubbish like that? "Hey the wise don't judge, they seek to understand" - you may point at me some way of seeing this powerful message of 'hope' and call me a cynic for missing it, but until I go around with a billboard in your face that says "you are not even real" then I'm not in the same league as these kids.

If I was good at graffiti I'd alter their sign to...
"Jesus, he's dead, but don't worry, it's just a story like Santa and the Easter Bunnies, no one really got hurt (except a few million deaths in religious war, but what's a few murders in the name of peace anyway?)"

Ha ha, is it bad to laugh at this, I hope so.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Maybe I state the obvious here

Maybe I state the obvious here but could it be that politicians are the most depraved of all people?

I heard a Knock, followed by a "Ugh, Ow!" as my wife walked up behind me then she said "Hey be careful, I keep hitting my arm on this set of drawers".

I laughed and asked her; 'why if she kept hitting her arm, she was telling me to be careful?'

And that made me think of all these laws politicians spend so much time making. "Hey don't kill anyone, be cruel, mug, rape, solicit sex from strangers, take drugs..."

And thought 'ahhaa, they're just like my wife, protecting me from her hitting her own arm.'

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

I eat babies

I just did day one in my new job as an English teacher (oh the irony if you read my last post) - and I'm now teaching Koreans to pass their speaking examinations.

During the chat the student said how many Koreans eat dogs and I replied "hey why not? I eat babies."

The student was a little taken back but rather than get all deep and philosophical on the poor girl I asked her if she knew of the sweet "Jelly Babies".

I got away with it but would have quite enjoyed it if the lesson was philosophy or some other subject where I could delve into the rules of who eats what but had to move onto the next question on the official list.

Would it be so so wrong if I ate babies?

I'm vegetarian but my wife eats absolutely anything from the sea. I'm sure that much of the food she eats is too young to vote, much of it too young for school. She can eat babies of other species it seems and she gets a nice Fishetarian label.

My parents love lamb, lamb must be below the age to get a driving license. Certainly too young to drink or smoke but they chop it up and eat various bits with wine and sauce. Are they so bad?

I'm vegetarian because I feel more healthy this way. I have certain issues over killing if there is no need for that killing (and I think the need to kill is something for the animals to decide between themselves and not something humans should be deciding) but if someone likes dog then I'm not going to stand up and complain about it, especially if it is already dead and the ketchup bottle is already open.

Maybe peoples eating decisions and needs are best left to them. If I got on my moralistic high horse, assuming no one had eaten it from under me, then I'd say that all life is best left living if possible. I do not even swat mosquitoes. But, you want dog? eat dog, you want babies, eat them I guess.. can we draw a line?

Nature does seem to eat herself.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Wot I rote is no gud

I am dyslexic. I had no idea as a kid and was just always aware I could understand stuff above my station but not communicate it. I would hurriedly write short answers with a tiny vocabulary I could spell and give it to the teacher.

I can only write now because of word processing as I can just hack in the words and fix them later. Most words here have a red squiggle under them and I will have to go back over all this to fix it.

Anyway - I wrote one short response in an English class, aged about 12. I said that the boy in the story would just die as he had no reason to fear death. Only those he left behind would feel it, not him. He would like to tell them how death was no big deal but knew they all saw it differently.

The teacher slapped a big red line through my effort and wrote "No one would think this".

Which made me laugh then and does now as; Obviously someone would think it, I did for one, I wrote it down.

That was my concept and I wonder with a supportive teacher I could have written 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead' but with him in charge and having authority over what people think or do not, I just sat in silence until class ended and failed the lesson.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

What if nice people had their way?

From my experience nice people are the majority but they are too nice to make their case. The minority, the ones who want things their way and no other, are motivated to have their way and they have no qualms in having it for the reason that they don't care for others.

Nice people then, very very unfortunately, facilitate the bad in their ways. By either not opposing or by just doing their bit for the system.

I'm not sure we can change that. I'm not sure we can eradicate selfish behaviour, but what would it be like if nice people had their way?

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Wu Wu Tao Stories eBook

A 15 page eBook. Tao Stories. (updated)

Some of my little stories put together with some pictures. It's nothing much but maybe something to someone.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tao Thusness

For something to be up, we must have first established down.

For something to be right, we must first have established what is wrong.

('first have' but more like 'also')

Embracing these opposites as complimentary. Independent. Is Tao.

Then though we still have ideas of time and space which are also just ideas based off a start point: future and past complement each other, left compliments right.. We hold these ideas as meaningful but they are too just interdependent, complimentary, inseparable ideas.

Dissolving all concepts to that from which they are born we have the infinite. Infinity can have no time. No linear idea of time can exist in infinity. So any idea based on linearity, say big bang or God's creation are falsehoods. In infinity there is no possibility of time, space, past or future as by containing every possibility it can have no specific qualities.

Embracing this is Thusness.

Things are thus. Things are just like this, like so. There was no Lego set, no start, no creator, no creation even. Nothing ever started, nothing will end - it is just thus.

I'm sorry but any nagging doubts you have or calls to argue this point will be based only on ideas, 2nd hand ones, that all exist in interdependence of a greater infinity. No ones solutions or answers, science, religion, anything are able to reach the infinite and still exist. Come infinity they have been burned.

Once infinity is seen, then things are thus.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tao Designs 1


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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tao Designs 5


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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tao Designs 7


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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tao Designs 8


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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

103's company

The busker was playing out of tune blues rock on an old guitar with a string missing, but all the same it had a kind of a groove.

A 3 year old girl walked up and faced him and rocked her body, jumping, clapping and looking back at the onlookers for reaction.

A 13 year old girl hid her face in shame of being in the same solar system as this noise.

A 31 year old woman clapped and tapped her foot, encouraging the 3 year old.

A 103 year old lady stood up, danced with the child, threw various dance shapes, a couple of high kicks, hollered, did the moon walk and dropped to her death smiling.

We are born with nothing and die with nothing, you can take none of your pride or your belongings with you. What happens between ages 6 and 12 where people become cool is that they get so hooked up on themselves that they miss out on life. This can be shaken off and by the 40's someone can dance as badly as any child with less care of who's looking.

People are better with wrinkles.

They have no one to impress only the increased realization that; I was born with nothing but the smile on my face and if I don't dance soon then it may not be long until the music stops.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

My dogs best jacket

I asked my dog what she'd like to do for her birthday and she said she had nothing to wear and no money but wanted to have a nice run by the river and chew a stick or two.

I thought this was a great idea.

I asked my sister and she said her husband had exams, they were moving house soon, work was stressful and she may not get home in time to even have a rest before her birthday was out.

I thought "and you, human, are the smart one?"

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

In two different worlds on the same planet

My friend lives in a terrible world. I spoke to her and she lives in a world of rape war and hunger. Fear to live. I live in a world of intrigue and wonder so I was naturally curious how her world was so so bad.

We are near neighbors in the same city, how can my world be so so different to hers? I asked her; 'Where is all this happening?' 'Where do you get your information?' Well - she gets it from the news and on TV. "That is the real world, so full of bad people!" She informed me of this with a saddened tremble in her voice.

I wonder though as her "real world" is on TV and mine is by the waterside where I name the fish.. Which world is the real one?

Peoples real world consists of nothing remotely real and they import fear and anguish into it.

The bad people it seems produce TV shows! And may I suggest that if it has not happened yet, you put your TV on ebay and use the proceeds to buy, well, nothing springs to mind.. with no adverts telling me what I need to buy to better my life I'm a little at loss to find what I need money for.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The wave who wanted to be the ocean

The big wave who wanted to be as vast as the ocean - eventually gave up trying to get bigger and bigger - it dropped down, forgot itself and became.

~~~

Only an ego searches for enlightenment as an ego is the only thing that is not enlightened. The only fake in reality is this idea of self.

When ego finds what it selfishly seeks it finds the absence of ego. Realizing itself as nothing but an idea, it renders itself Extinguished.

What reality finds when it is rid of ego is that ..

You can not become what you already are.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

so far in that it is out

the world
objects
your body
idea of self
the one asking

that one asking, behind the layer of the idea of self, right back at the core, at the outset - with no name, no nameable qualities, the one allowing the asking, the source to the flame.. is reality.

That reality is equal among us all and is the fabric to the river that streams down the mountain. It is the vastness of the void, it is all, and it rests in you.

~~

go back far enough, not so far, just back behind the idea of self, it is there. And it is all you see and can ever hope to.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

ID

"Oh he is amazing," "oh she is amazing," "oh this child is so clever," "oh this monkey so mischievous."

None of the above.

The reality is amazing, not the ego laying claim to the body and the actions. That is a fake.

Reality is all these forms at once. Lay no claim to what you believe to be your own qualities or failures, they are not yours as 'you' are nothing more than a case of mistaken identity.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

now

Paraphrasing * "With no desire and no fear. There is no future."

Brilliant! The future as we know is just this idea, as is the past, not remotely real. Only now, the "u" between the bu-bum of a heart is real and the rest we make up. You see only the center of your vision, the rest we make up. Why did the Buddha constantly remind monks to remove desire? Well it lead to a whole load of nonsense where people try to be desireless and virtuous but the point behind the removal of desire is to eliminate the idea of a future. The reason to let things go is to not live in the idea of a past. These practices when correctly lived are to draw 100% of your being to now, the only reality.

* "If there were no memory there would be no Past. If there were no desire or fear there would be no Future. The Present, renewed every instant, alone would remain, and it would be eternity for there could be no Time." Wei Wu Wei

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

infinity

The Hindus say of anything "It is all Brahman" meaning nothing, no matter how amazing, or horrible, or stupid, obscene, annoying or wonderful, is all the infinite.

It is a great way to see the world. How can anything surprise you, a "bad" person, good this, bad that, if you reflect on the fact that this is infinity? In an infinite universe of course there are bad drivers!

So how can we be upset by any woe or only attach to the happy times? Why should we desire what they have next door or wish for any certain thing to occur? All has to exist, to look for similarity, sameness, consistency is mans error and what leads to feelings of not being in control. The most well planned acts end in amusing unexpected ways, the ugliest creatures find a mate and the worst things happen to the nicest people, yet, all of things can also produce the opposite result. Life has to be a bit woohaaaa as it is infinity, being infinite. How can a universe be infinite if it contains only shopping trolleys that go in straight lines?

In contrast to this, man makes straight lines to "develop" nature. "This town is very well developed" - meaning they put straight concrete lines through it. "The process has been streamlined" - meaning it is now deadly boring.

The wind that helped you home can swoop around and rip your hat off. We can have no surprise that there is evil in the world, that a powerful nation can be run by the village idiot or by a hidden elite, that a group can come together and better the lives of many in a few kind gestures and someone can invent landmines. This mix of "good" and "bad" is no such thing as those simplistic, dualistic, notions. It is the greatest magic show before your eyes. You bang your head - laugh! Laugh your head off. You find a penny, laugh! you lose a pound, laugh! You see the cutest puppy and a second later it poops on your carpet .. All has to happen because we live in, we are, i n f i n i t y being infinite.

Infinity is ..infinite.. have no surprise when it burns your finger or pleases your ear.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Too much sun and a storm will come.

It is very important to always accept change, cycles, bobs and waves. Ebbs and flows, ups and downs. Perhaps this is the understanding that we have already in our nature that causes the philosophies in the Tao Te Ching to ring true and resonate with us on first contact.

By contrast the idea some people form is that they can always be at rest, attain a lasting and perfect inner peace, they may call this enlightenment or perhaps not such a big name, perhaps just contentment or happiness - whatever label these people give it the idea is that it lasts permanently.

We only need to look at nature though to see how nothing is ever in such a state of rest and this is how the Taoists first came to their realizations. There is a balance to nature but it is in constant flux. Too much sun and a storm will come. Too much rain and it floods. One cycle is a part of another and these interactions form new patterns of their own. We have no say in this.

I recently heard a quote, perhaps old to you, perhaps new. Attributed to Penn Jillette "Luck is probability taken personally" and it is a fun quote. The person who wants for a permanent state of being will not find it here in life and may actually go about feeling lucky or unlucky, sometimes the fly, sometimes the windshield. Only those with the acceptance of flow and change will be able to adapt so as to always be ok. This is the way of the Taoist and how the master gets along. They will bob up when it is time to go up, bend their knees in readiness to take the down. Duck for cover in a storm and have a nice sit down in the sun. Simple as that. Like a surfer takes a wave or a eagle rides the thermals. Effortlessly having the work done for them.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

In response to myself

My post on how time and life can pass up by in the post "1, 2, 365 grab life by the balls and live it" could be seen to be in opposition to the idea of always living in the now moment.

From the viewpoint of the now mind, oneness, then the passing of days is nothing.

But not one enlightened master would tell you to ignore the linear illusion we move along. As that idea of linearity, where we experience and move from wrinkly newborn to old and wrinkly, is where we are gifted a unique perspective to view the infinity through the eyes of a human.

It is where these notions find balance and harmony enough to cancel out and not perturb the mind that that half a step back from now to wow occurs and we are timeless and blissful.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

1, 2, 365, grab life by the balls and live it.

After 3,650 days a new born baby is a 10 year old child. 10 years!

3,000 is hardly a big number and days as a kid fly by.

After 36,500 you're a 100 years old. Or more likely you're dust.

30,000 is not a big number!

What did you do today?

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Immortality achieved

You will die. That you there, that ego self with the wet skin bag, will expire, rot, and become dust.

You can instead accept your immortality and live forever.

You should already know how this is done.

Do you?

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao