Is there a Me inside me?

Apparently it's weird to ask these kind of things - I though only feel there is no local me.

Follow this guys talk and ask yourself...

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

no life to lose

I just saw a snail stretching its body up over a wall, shell following. If we pollute and kill this world and take other life with us, nature is intelligence, she'll have a way back. The way of nature may be not in our favour, she may use what we deem ours and take from us to move herself forwards. She does not love us, she does not hate us, she gives rise to us and provides all we've ever needed, not for love though and not taken in spite. A great provider and the intelligence behind all life she'll let us go as needed.

I saw the intelligence of nature outside of the snail, outside of me, the moving bushes, the active insects, the birds gobbling up nectar, seeds and berries. Nature animates us all by her following Tao. Tao does not love or hate nature it is her, unmanifest.

Meditating all of this as I walked I moved absent of thought. Awareness saw me arrive at my destination and do as I needed to do. My intelligence as with the snail, the bushes, insects and birds surrounded me. As I felt my limbs, as I felt thoughts in my head, as I felt love in my heart, I knew I was not these. No little man sat behind any of this watching it, I lived at one, the same I as behind all in nature.

I'm aware from the work of science and medicine that I have an intricate nervous system rooted in my head. It is no wonder that I sense and feel so much that happens around me and to my body, in my head. But no me lives in my head. Science can find no me there and as "I" am aware of these feelings so then they are not me, not the me who knows them. My heart feels electrical, buzzing with power and love, I feel a connection up from my heart as if it is powering my head, as magical as this is I know that I'm not my heart. I can only be beyond, I can only be beyond my body but feeling local due to being attuned to this nervous system and sensory system.

Years ago I had my death experience after a sickness where I could not eat or drink without regurgitating for two weeks. I was so thin and malnourished that when circumstance lead that way I just let go of life and moved with the possibility of death. In this difficult to describe situation too I was made very aware of my not being the body, the body was very easy to leave and live without. I came back though. The next day I ate heartily, the illness was gone.

The senses have me feel local connection to this body but the intelligence is not held here. Intelligence is all of nature and Tao, one for us all, animating snail, human, bush, insect and bird. That's who I am and that is how a taoist survives death, there is no life here to lose.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

all is well

Now I can't speak for Scott Bradley or for anyone even else but I have always striven for a philosophy where the slogan, the synopsis and the conclusion are "all is well" or similar - to reach this point then frees us to get to other matters. I do not think we can even concider such things as education, law, boarders and territory, or any matter for that matter until we have laid a clean mat. It is likely with a good clean start point, one that does not need lengthy explanation or deep intellectual understanding but one that is clean and simple, would leave us free of the need to argue over land, resources, health, education or other such matters.

We know humanities commonly perceived position is precarious. We have energy crises, pollution, poverty and not the resources to balance rich and poor. We have wars caused by greed over resources and difference of opinion, we have borders closed to the needy and feelings of disharmony and disconnection from our own species. We've treated our life source as a throw away resource.

If people live on in this way we think, it's going to get worse, and it's already shocking.

Now I'm not sure if we can draw others towards a common good way with any other method than by setting a good example. The only way is to just do what you believe is best and as long as that follows the golden rule of not negatively affecting anyone else, and it has added benefit also, then it should flourish. Forcing a way, or directing a way with policies or rule only bring about exactly what we already have. Force necessarily brings about resistence.

It is right then that "all is well" be the slogan and that each step of the way keeps that in mind. Decisions made in reaction or forced from seemingly bad situations will yield results still tainted in negativity. Decisions made when all is well, with the intention of all still being well, and in no way ever negatively affecting anyone else, when they take ground will rest on fertile soil.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

imagine John Lennon - always at peace?

I just had a bit of a YouTube indulgence watching various things about John Lennon and related stuff. I realized I'd been quite influenced by his words during my life, perhaps a little by hearing him talk, but more by my Dad being a huge fan and my hearing his lyrics daily all my life. Many of the things I say, he used to say, but of course he said some rubbish and I write nearly 98% rubbish, so we differ a little.

I just got to thinking about his 'Give Peace a Chance' idea and how he, as an Idealist sort of philosopher, said [roughly] "Hey, you're all pushing for peace or some other goal in the future and it's not working, why don't we just have peace now?"

Of course this is brilliant and I thought, 'you know, I agree 100%, I'm going to get active and do some art and street protests, humorously hopefully...' and then I stopped in my tracks.

I realized the obvious, I just looked at myself, and at him, and at the world - we are not entirely peaceful beings. If I am occasionally terse, irritable, or so on, but accept that as the way things are, then I can't really ask any more of the world than I do of myself. At any one time with our vast population, someone at some time, nay someone all of the time, will be quite grumpy - we may say billions at a time.

I'm not a murder or a rapist, nor do I fight or carry weapons. I am a pacifist vegetarian, peace loving hippy; a monk by comparison to those who wager war or brawl in the street. Yet people like that of course exist, so at any one time terrible stuff can be going on. Now I offer my philosophies on life about how 'life is this and that and we need not fight or have trouble' but how many people do you know who outright share your own personal philosophies? Zero - if we count word for word agreement. People like things just their way, friends may be similar, but not identical. So as I Idealize over a world of peace and occasional grumps (just for the necessary contrast), then I can not be too surprised that someone wishes for a world where they can do exactly as they please, even if that be murder.

Of course the slogan comes off as a little less catchy now:

"Give peace a chance, and give murder a chance too if you're so inclined"

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

idealism and Taoism

I never studied philosophy but in finding out where my ideas fit and also in trying to shave away ideas I thought were mine but turned out to be constructs of the time I have often been drawn to read about conventional philosophies as I sometimes am drawn to science or other sources of explanation. When someone seems to have the answers of course there is a draw to check it out - constantly for me though it is quite the realization that we can't know that brings peace. Here I've been looking at idealism.

As Taoism begins with Tao, which then gives rise to all, it is idealist in nature. Idealism is that a mind is primary and that all we have rises out of that. Idealism comes in various flavours but they all stand in opposition to materialist views. Materialism says roughly that some unknown "nothing much" can randomly come to be some stuff, that the stuff can mix and gain complexity, that in time the complexity can give rise to life and consciousness. The mind or consciousness for materialists is a product. Idealist philosophies say that consciousness (or other name) is primary and from this we get the stuff, the space and the duration.

Taoism is idealist as it says: One (Tao) becomes two (Yin/Yang), which make 3 (perhaps the arrangements of 3 Gua lines) and then the ten thousand things. For idealists 3 is a concept only and they really don't allow for much at all to have any reality alone. We can have the ever important Me (1) what I think or see (2) and we can only conceptualize from then onwards over such ideas as (3) or anything else for that matter. Idealists will all draw a line in the sand quite close to their own nose and it seems the closer they draw the line the better they are at being an idealist. Many will not even allow for 2 and the most pure idealist views do not even split the one into two at all.

Several of the Eastern Philosophies are idealistic in this way but the idealist formulation itself is European with roots back to Ancient Greece and the wonderful Heraclitus (who's name alone would remove his ideas from Christian discussion groups). Heraclitus was culturally and time separate from Taoism and European idealism but said that there was one all pervading substance all was change and that things were defined by their opposites so he was Tao-ish indeed. Science, Christianity and many religions and cosmologies will give answers to life, either fully complete or close which say - life is like this because, it came from this because and it is going like that because. Taoism and idealism know life is unknowable and find wonder in that very mystery.

Wonder in the mystery is the seat of the sage. Shit can and does happen, hot and cold happen, illness and health, there is no permanent bliss state but for to bathe in the ever present mystery. Idealists if firm in their standing never need be caught up in too much worldly debate or seeking for big answers. The quest for such answers seems very human and we are almost unanimous in our wish for explanations on where we came from and so where we are going but unlike most stances, and perhaps why Tao stands the test of time and change is that the model has no foundations which could then be rocked. It is not standing on concepts with the unease of them altering, like science and god based religions, it is more of a one who refracts to display many than some parts that then build to a one.

Science and philosophy have "hard questions" such as "why are we even conscious, what is the benefit and reason for a determined and automated universe to produce consciousness?". Religions are often concerned with saying exactly what we should and should not do in the light of our free will. Idealism does not need to get into these debates, even though it commonly does, because in a oneness (mind or Tao or consciousness) there is no room for a split of doer and done and no need to explain how consciousness came to be.

We don't need to theorize over the notes A to G to discover a taut string, the string gives us infinite notes, just silence the thinking mind and listen.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

What else is on your mind?

You want to be enlightened - You're unhappy with your mess.

You wish to align with Tao - You feel strongly you are a separate ego.

You strive to be happy - You are admitting sadness.

You would like a life of balance - You focus mainly on one set of information.

The simple life is appealing - Your mess seems complex.

You see peace of mind as something to work for - Inner turmoil is yours.

The story of you, known as "My Life, I" Starring 'My Me Me Mine' has a constructed past and a predicted or desired future, and it has a now. This now is not different for any one person on this planet, only the past and future IDEAS are what separates one person from another. Added to this now is the forming, the potential, the inertia of past and future, but they do not exist, they emerge from this now which is shared by each human, in pleasure, in suffering, in balance, in sleep, in enlightenment, in anguish. These labels live in potential, in the mind.

You may well say that the situation of one bereaving a loss, being directly tortured, or in some other position would be genuinely suffering in the present and they are different to one lounging in some material pleasure zone, but I'm pointing back from that which is produced in the mind. I'm pointing to the mind of the Sage. Absolute presence, perhaps the mind-less, one who has deterred-mind.

That people seek alignment with Tao or other releases and this is in truth a self definition of "not being that" then they must have some conceptualization as what the mind of a Sage is, they must, in forming this mental image, in contrast to their own life story, have decided the mind of the Sage is X and they are Y, and they want for Y = X.

Yet Y is defining X as hot contributes to defining cold.

The true Sage then is not enlightened or seeking enlightenment (or truth, completeness, wisdom, ... of Tao), they have not defined themselves as Seer or Seeker, Sage or not, they have surely just made a startling and simple realization that there is oneness and there are ideas and stories of infinite multiplicity. To be caught by the ideas is to move from "=" to "X and Y" (Where X and Y can be; happy and sad, Enlightened and not, aligned with Tao or not, right and wrong.... etc). There seems to be your only choice; The story of I Me Me Mine or the simple presence where the potential energy with its nature of moving the mind is not stirred up.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

a thought or two

Other people are infinity's way of being everything that l am not being.

For every act of evil, there is an act of beauty.

And so we sustain.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Vinegar

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the story of the vinegar tasters, but what I'm about to say may be a more barefaced. In my vaguely Taoist ramblings, I do commonly refer to Zen quite fondly and sometimes fondly towards Buddhism, on the whole, though I'm not too into Buddhism. Philosophically, I lean that way but as for the religion and the methodology then, no, not for me.

Honestly, and this just occurred again to raise my count to many+1, I find a lot of Buddhism rinsed out. As an example, when Buddhist teachers or commentators speak along these lines "the world is messed up [for sighted reason] meditate to make yourself better" it grates against the grain of my Taoist flow.

Some may well say, and have, that if you find the state of things to be unpleasant, then it is you at fault and the very teaching of "the world is messed up [for sighted reason] meditate to make yourself better" is for your benefit but - I don't dig it, and here's why.

My view is that the world is just perfect, each moment is magical. The dwelling in some negative place (even defined as positive) really just goes to make for the illness that Buddhism prescribes the cure for, the cure brings the issue it cures (in a fantastically simplified way that I'm too lazy to flesh out). Ironically, introspection goes to emphasizing the root of all suffering, the I-dea and so from that the false seeing of just some small aspect of reality to then blame or be upset over.

This trimmed down view I have is from reading numerous Buddhist texts and thinking that they commonly get bogged down in things that the purer, but less spoken of texts, do not. The purer ones would be, for example, the heart and diamond sutras where the Buddha says over and over to be free of the first calamity, the belief in I, and to then in the whole and enlightened way, be free. The newer texts, sects, schools, commentaries, offshoots, self-declared awakened masters and monks who write for pleasure or donated treasure, get so tied to medicines that they make themselves and their readers sick and dependent when all they need is a simple realization for freedom. One that I see only in some Buddhist texts, a fair bit of Zen and much more in Taoism.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Hello Mr Nailed Together Wood

I stole the basic gist of this idea from Alan Watts who judging by the rest of his career stole it from someone else (polite joke).

Two folks begin teaching in nothing more than a large hut in a small village. Children come to their school and the school gets a name. In time as new youngsters come and the older children leave, new teachers come too, the school is expanded with a new building along side the old. Years later some of the older teachers begin to leave and more new ones come, each year the ongoing flow of students, young coming in, older ones leaving, even at some point old students returning to be teachers or as parents bringing their own children to school. At some time the newer building is extended and at another time the original hut changes purpose and then later is demolished and replaced by an even newer building. - This school is a process, not a thing. It has a name but none of its original parts are there.

A person is very similar to this process. Consider how your clothes, your ideas, your cells, the inflow of food and the replacing of all that makes you up goes on in just the same way as the school above. What makes you up now is not what made you up before, you're an ongoing flow. You have the same name (probably) and you have maintained an ongoing thread of self identity but nothing solid remains here that was there when the name was given or the 'me' claimed residence.

You're part of the process, the flow of Tao.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Speculative reasons evolution would be against free will.

Experimentation proves that humans cannot make random decisions. More often than not, humans form patterns of most difference than random patterns. When asked to scatter randomly in a room, people will fill out to positions but will not, for example, all move to one corner or another act of true randomness.

Evolution would favor a predetermined pattern filling most options than true randomness. Teenage rebellion is an example of this, seeming free will, that is actually determined difference. Randomness would say we could be in a world with 100% the population freely choosing to be carpenters, predetermined choosing of patterns of difference gives us a world where we are all different -- and the belief we think we chose that.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Sensitive to Free Will

Taoism by nature of Wu Wei and other ideas, perhaps especially those put forward by Chuang Tzu, leans more in favour of there not being actual free will. In many texts Taoism though does commonly say that we "Should" do this, "Should Not" do that so discount this claim unless we alter "Should" (/not) to "Ought" (/not).



Fatalism is the commonly inferred antithesis to free will and so people nearly always reject views on there being no free will as they fear and dislike the idea of fatalism. This need not be the case however as clearer alternatives exist. Fatalism still believes that something causes events and this half cause/effect relationship, which is still ultimately cause/effect brings us to a position not really answering anything. It is not only unsatisfactory to most is it also not a strong antithesis.

What I have seen in my own personal endevours to answer these questions and in my readings of Taoism and Zen as they venture into these realms is that we are sensitive to events, that is all. This is a very magical and privileged vantage point on reality as we witness this unfolding show but do not direct it. It is an important place for anyone standing tight with a philosophy of Oneness such as Taoism to not allow for cause/effect, doer/done situations to enter their descriptions on reality as it is reiterated over and over that Tao does not lord over anything. If Tao does not, and we're all one, then we'd better accept that free will and cause and effect are not in perfect compatibility with Taoism.

That this universe, nature, these other people and all else appears around us and that we feel ourselves as something within all of that we are naturally in some uneasy predicament when we attempt to rectify this prickly subject. The answer though, for me at least and I don't know many who can relate their views on the subject to me, is one of magical wonder. Quite the same magic I believe Chuang Tzu and others felt when they viewed the world. We are little else than a sensitive spot in the universe. Imagining the universe as it is, large expanses of space, lumps of rock, voluminous fire balls, more space, places where chemicals mix and react, places where life dances, then we seem to be little tiny and very sensitive cells in the universal entity. We have our senses where we can touch things, touch compressions in air, touch chemical traces in the air, touch light as it bounces off things. We are also very sensitive to energy changes, emotional flows in our bodies and minds and I see that we are sensitive to Tao's flow, be that Chi or Te.

That is in fact all I believe we are and we are not entities with volition but entities who amongst sensing things that do appear to happen we are sensitive to what could happen or could have happened and in this we could, quite by comical inevitable accident be lead to believe that we are the fatalistic bystander or the doer of the acts - when we are neither.

We are a sensitive spot in the universe and we sense and feel its apparent movements. By privilege of our position we also get to seem to see and seem to interact with other sensitive entities as they too do the same.

~

* I'm attempting to differentiate between "should" inferring you; 'must, if possible, choose (not) to' and "ought" inferring that; 'it would be best if possible, but what can we do?'.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Nothing To Say on the Subject

Nothing To Say on the Subject

We wish to know things, we follow; news, gossip, sport, science, philosophies, and in these subjective pursuits we maintain our minds, as with foods we maintain our bellies - that is that we forever top-up something that we know will become empty again.

What we need to know is the subject. This is a very unique form of knowledge as it is not known by our subjective self but by that which is also the answer to the inquiry. This knowledge will not become empty again, it will fulfill.

That which we seek is infinite and unchanging. We know this to be the case as that which is complete truth can not alter with the tides, weather or fashions, but it can, does and forever will be rendered differently by each and every person who comes to know it. Take a friend, enemy and someone you don't know and you'll find that you are not alike. You may have more similarities with the stranger than the friend, or not, but for sure you will not be precisely alike anyone who is here now, has lived or will live. It is right then that while we have one true similarity, that we are all Tao dancing, we will never all sing to the same tune, hold hands and live in peace. A man knowing Tao can love animals while his neighbor, also a person of Tao, eats flesh. A woman of Tao can have babies while her friend, a person of Tao also, can not. A child of Tao can be in love and at peace with the world while her friend, also dancing Tao, can scream all day in suffering of illness incurable.

All may know the absolute truth and even if they do not they can be nothing but its expression. In this way we as people can, in knowing truth, realize that our explanations will never be 100% shared. Two Taoists can draw blood over differences, a man on a mountain can argue with a man on an island over best diet, an educated person may interpret something quite differently to even their closest peers on the very same subject. Embracing the one truth we share is the same as truly accepting that we will never unify its description and we will never be able, nor should we wish to, have even our closest neighbor accept our version.

Difference is our unity, we will never be anything but that which we seek.

~

I just happened over a quote but I can't source it:

"accepting differences is compassion and seeing oneness is wisdom"

I'd add to that though that neither compassion or wisdom are anything without the other.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao