This is why life is so funny

I'm pretending to be a universe here!

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

hello universe

Maharishi was a fully realized individual who still asked people at his ashram to go easy on the trees. 'Don't over-pick, let them have their life too as they provide us food.'

It is always important to see who is talking. Maharishi speaking from the enlightened self would have no need to say this, or say anything at all - but in his role as guide he did say, as a human, and as a part of nature - 'hey, go easy'.

As stated in my post "I't's free but I'll give it to you for your soul" - a good Taoist would respect nature; this is them acting as a good balanced and rounded person, one who knows nature as our lifeblood. They may also say 'well, hey, this is the way' and watch as people carve the place up only to perish later.

My wife only recently commented how back home in Thailand it is near 40C all the time. People cut up the forests and use air conditioning all the time with no thought - obviously here the balance of nature is upset. OK in one way it will come right, nature will win back and men will fall for their errors, and in another way you can educate the families and people back there to respect nature.

As people we ask for others to act well. As a universe we can watch the show we make. Rather a show based on love.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Person and environment

Where is the separation between me and environment? It is solely in the mind, it does not exist in a place in space. There is no difference between me and environment, they are one divided only by ideas.

So part of me is running around lighting fires, splitting atoms, consuming - and another part of me is producing food, nutrients, air, cleansing water...

Divided only in mind, so I may say: 'Hey, less of that, more of that, please.' As this is just the mind construct saying what is seen when the one is divided to form a world, people and environment.

Together they are one, in parts they are yin yang interactions. Just a float in my boat and voicing opinion over what sights I'd wish to see.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

It's free, but I'll give it to you for your soul.

Why is it when you walk down a road in Laos (pronounced Lao) that you are constantly dodging potholes that drop down to open sewers, and when you walk down the road in Australia the road is smooth and well made?

Laos is the most bombed country in the world, bordering Vietnam it is 85% uncharted thick jungle and was bombed to hell during the war. The remaining 15% is mainly also jungle and the capital city Vientiane, bar the mopeds, is like a quiet village.

Australia is 82% desert/arid land and many towns are quite backward. The major cites though have incredible infrastructure, trams, trains, monorails, cycleways and are well signposted.

OK Australia is a near continent and Laos a tiny landlocked country but I just happen to have statistics handy and first hand travel experience of both places. The reason why one place has poverty and the other has affluence is all down to nature. We take what nature has as if it were free and infinite, we put a price on it and we get industrious in using these natural resources.

Where the best Taoist would be drawn to nature, to her upkeep and beauty, the typical 'developed' person lives off nature as if they were fire and she were coal. We draw and draw from her, and sit on top of this concrete jungle. Nature is a commodity, treated as free and sold for trillions. Pure profit.

Your country has rocks and bombs buried under the soil - you have potholed roads.

Your country has oil, uranium, metal, and carrots under the soil - you have a monorail.

No person is different but for the way their ancestors raped nature.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Book Giveaway

Due to incompetence, clerical errors and the position of the moon, I have needed to make 3 drafts of the Person of Tao book.

The first edition has a few spelling errors and some layout issues. It is also soiled by my mucky fingers. This will be first prize.

The 2nd edition has less spelling errors but I may have made the font too small.

The 3rd edition should be perfect, but of course I wont find the errors until I see it.

I will give away the books to the most worthy people.

Who are you?

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

pure voice

A lot has been said about breath, words, mind and so on but here is yet another way to imagine words.

You breathe in energy and you expel impurities. This is mentioned in Yoga amongst other things: In with the good energy, out with the old: Hindus seeing that we eat and shit, we drink and piss and we also expel waste air.

I got to thinking about words and how the good air that comes into any mouth is the same purity, but the expelled words have various flavours, some beautiful and some with a nasty stench. The air comes in and it mixes with the mind to form words, what is expelled from the mouth as words is the reflection of the mind that flavoured the air.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

great religions draw you not push

There was a man selling the Bhagavad Gita outside of the market today. When he attempted his sales routine I simply said that I had read it and I continued walking. My wife asked me what "sect" he was and I said he was a Krisna follower, part of Hinduism. She said 'why do people have to be this religion or that religion?' and I quipped that it allows them to know who to fight when the war comes.

I considered it as we walked on and as my wife went about buying the vegetables from the market I thought how good she was. She was born to a Buddhist family, but as the one family member who does not call herself a Buddhist, she certainly has the highest understanding of the Buddhas teachings. She has a firm understanding of the Dharma, the core message, but does not call herself Buddhist.

So one who truly understands Dharma is no Buddhist. No one who truly gets the Tao is a Taoist, no one who has grasped the teaching of Krisna would need to sell the Bhagavad Gita. All of these works and the teachings in them are of great importance, but the idea that one would need to carry the label once the teachings were understood is wrong.

For the Krisna seller, who sees suffering, he needs to re-read the book: To see that the deamons and the angels, the good and the bad are all Brahmans body seen through the mind and that to slay the mind, to reveal the non-changing, to see that we are that, would release him from his trap. The book he is trying to sell can set him free of the very need to save others.

The same for any religion I can think of, if you "get" the teachings, then there is no need, in fact it is a contradiction, to go about forcing it upon others.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Expounding the virtues of the supposedly lazy

There will be a new blog

Pyjama Dharma

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Out of Office Reply

Reading the Wen Tzu.

Back later....

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Daily Cup of Tao - The Book

Watch this post for updates.

# Update to overrule all previous updates...

Buy the e-book (very cheap if you ask me, can be read on your iPad, not that you have one)

Buy a paper back Will be available from Amazon in a few months, until then, this is the way to get hold of it. Over 370 pages pointing to the true self, enlightenment and Taoist ways.

Get it for free (someday - Just keep following the Daily Cup of Tao blog until it completes.)

I am testing the water with Lulu and publishing the book there. I made it as cheap as I could and I wonder if it will sell.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Stop being so happy you miserable git

A's opinion of himself is this. B's opinion of A is quite different.

A is A.

To B, A is also A.

Yet theses two A's, the one as depicted by A and the one as depicted by B are quite different.

Which is the correct A? Is it the A who A believes himself to be or is it the A who B sees?

i) If the the only correct version of A is the one A thinks he is then B is wrong and the only correct version of B is that known by B.

ii) If the only correct version of A is the one known by B then A is wrong about himself yet he knows the only correct version of B there is.

Version (ii) must be wrong as if the only correct version of someone is that known by others then the differing versions these others all hold invalidates the claim. The only possible truth from this is that every person has as many versions of himself as there are people who know him.

Version (i) says that no one can know anyone but themselves and so there are as many versions of a person as there are people they know and just one correct version.

Both ideas re-stress a conclusion many would guess if asked: that the C who is your friend can be the C who is another's enemy, can be the C who is Dad, can be the C who is boss, can be the C who is the cool guy and can be the C who is "that bastard".

So what use is the idea of self?

A -"My god this dress makes me look like the most wonderful woman on the earth."

B - "My god, that man is wearing a dress"

C - "Oh my Buddha must they blaspheme"

The idea of ego-self, the qualities you bestow upon yourself are fantasy that go no further than your own mind. You can be a bumbling fart yet be in a room who consider you to be the life of the party - or visa versa or nothing of the sort. You can consider yourself right most of the time and truly be very wrong. and so on.

What does come over in life is that if you know a person who is always complaining about others; that everyone they meet 'is an idiot', 'does stuff wrong', 'can't be trusted', 'is a complete pain in the proverbial...', then the one common factor is this miserable git doing all the looking and opinionating.

If you meet a person who just has the most wonderful life and has a good day when others don't and can't see what everyone is complaining about and just thinks that life is hunkey dory morning glory 10 story love story then the common factor is them.

Put both in a room and the miserable git will find much fault in Ms happy and will no doubt find them a miserable bore. Ms happy will find the best in Mr grumpy but would prefer it if he cheered up a little.

So Grumps opinion is that Happy is an idiot. But Grump thinks he is completely right. So Grumps opinion of Happy is wrong/right?

and so what?

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao