Where were you before Birth?

I was an ever ceaseless changing and I transformed to a peopling universing. In which changing form I changed form again and again and I seemed at times to be a separate person.

In this form I noted that all around changes, nothing remains the same. Weather, apparent forms, light becoming dark becoming light, always shifting.

So too this apparent viewer, always shifting, pulsating, vibrating and so it came to be seen: I was still as I'd always been, as before my birth, now as I will be after, an ever changing.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Being Pleasure

Just being there right now. Being, is precisely the Tao.

This is the ultimate realization, the ultimate place to be, the purest thing to see.

All action you hope and dream for, all the alternatives to now, all the future wishes and activities, be they for financial comfort or spiritual enlightenment. Not one of them can provide you a lasting state like that which is behind your nose as a result of that which is under your nose.

Being itself is wonder beyond any measure of pleasure.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

did you ever do a thing?

Did you decide to take up residence in your mothers womb?
Did you decide to open your eyes? Did you decide to see shape and form? Did you decide to hear?
Did you decide that sprouts would taste bad?
Did you decide when to start walking?
Did you decide that you'd be pulled towards earth and not repelled?
Did you decide when to have the best day of your life?
Did you decide when to have your most embarrassing moment?
Did you pick the right apples at the market?
Did you choose whether to pass or fail your test?
Did you know by the second when thunder would strike?
Did you decide which color would be your favorite?
Did you decide by the decimal place when to sleep?

Did you ever do a thing?

Do you have one example of where you ever dictated a single thing in your life?

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Watching Tao Dance

Two meditators faced each other and after periods of silence, occasionally spoke.

I see the happening that you call eyes are slightly open and occasionally flutter.

I see the happening that you call breath occasionally deepening and occasionally fading.

I see the happening that you call neck occasionally rolling under the weight of the head.

I see occasional movements at the waste and in the legs as you make for comfort.

It all seems to be happening, one big happening, all by itself. I can only note parts, parts I make with my mind.

I see the happening too, here it is, just presenting itself. Parts are fleeting ideas taken from the unbroken one dancing, the uni verse.

I see thoughts stirring you up.

I feel them, I'm relaxing now.

I see you attempting to relax.

[a long silence]

There for a while there was complete relaxation.

Still a movement though, the dance never stops!

Were I this relaxed at work I'd be as out of touch with Tao as a shark in a bath. And were I as crazy as I need to be at work when I dine with my wife then I'd soon be single.

Yes each move is the expression of Tao, the right one in each moment.

I see you still now but I know your heart is pumping, your lungs rising, your energy pulsing.

This is Tao, just as a savage dog fight is too.

May we remember that no matter our so called actions, it is only ever an appearance, a little abstracted happening, in the never ending dance of one.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Dogen, Chuang Tzu and Confucius entered a bar.

The bar tender asked them what they would like to drink and Confucius thought for a second as he was not sure he should drink. During these seconds of thought Dogen struck Confucius on the upper right arm with a stick and shouted "Your thoughts take out of line with Tao, wake up!". Chuang Tzu laughed and sipped on a glass of wine.

Dogan laughed at Chuang Tzu and wondered how he had a drink already and why he had not offered one to the others. Chuang Tzu explained that he was a regular in this bar and so the drink was placed in front of him almost before he took a seat most evenings. After getting more drinks for the three of them they moved to a table near a window, it was still light outside and there were activities to entertain them in the cold street.

Confucius noted some old people who appeared to be in love walking one way and in the opposite direction some local youths seemingly up to no good. He began to state how society would deteriorate if the youth did not take wisdom as their guide. Chuang Tzu laughed again and slid back in his seat. Dogan leaned over the table to the relaxed Chuang Tzu and said "Look here old boy. You're getting drunk too quickly, don't you see that your drink dulls your senses from the pure being within?". Chuang burped, stood up, turned towards the bar (and within the motion farted), then strode over to buy another round. When he got to the bar he asked for a large jug of wine. Heading back to the table he thumped the vessel down so that it splashed.

Dogan was sitting very still, his first drink was still barely touched and he appeared peaceful. Confucius appeared in deep thought still watching passers by. Chaung asked Dogan "Have you ever entered the forest at night and seen a tree which deserved a good spanking for not being right in the way it stood?", he turned to Confucius, "Have you even seen a group of rats around the rubbish cart and questioned their organization?". He poured his glass until it was brim full, swigged it back and settled in his seat awaiting answers.

Dogan was quick to reply and said "No twig is out of place in the forest and no bird song is wrong". Confucius was in deep thought, partly over what he had been asked but also still over the people he saw going by outside in the street. Chuang Tzu turned to Dogan "Quite" he said "No leaf out of place. Can we question man and say that one of them is out of line with Tao?". Dogan looked at Confucius and then back at Chuang "No, it seems no matter what we do, that is natures expression. We can feel sorry for some folk though." As both men smiled they looked back at Confucius.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Cause and Effect

Because and Defect

Have you ever taken an event you had an opinion over and traced the line of cause and effect back to the root cause? If you have then you've either decided; Tao is defective or cause and effect is a false model.

Case One: Tao is defective. Now this case was a bit of a joke but maybe you exist. (see later).

Case Two. Cause and effect is a false model.

What is causing me to write this? You need a me. So it's my Mum's fault!?

For any cause-effect relationship you assume two points, the cause and the effect, but all causes in this model are the effect of a previous cause. You must eventually conclude that there was some beginning to all of this and it made a mistake. Ah you see, you did fit Case Number One after all.

No ok, back to Case Two. There can not be a complete cause and effect model that does not have a creator and a defective one at that. Cause and effect is flawed as an explanation to anything. This being the case you can not blame anyone or anything for the way they are.

I've said in many ways and at many times that: Life just seems to happen, and you can't alter it one bit. The only thing you can alter, if even this, is your attitude to "what is".

Seems to be this, seems to be that... Love it it or hate it, seems to be the only choice you have.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Someone is Wrong!!

See more from XKCD


Time to write a letter to the editor to complain!

If someone seems to be wrong, they're not really, as everything and everyone is just an expression of the whole.

What perhaps is really meant is that "I'd feel wrong doing that".

(....and they'd probably feel out of place being you too..)

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The Tao that can be Taoed

The apple that can be told does not taste of apple.

Here's to the pointless activity of talking about Tao! We all love to do it.

No apple is the same, taste, texture, skin, form - We call them all by the same name though, apple.

No experience, no person, no act is ever the same. Even the supposedly rigid things in our lives like computer programs, clocks and machines don't repeat actions perfectly over and again.

"Windows error: it seems you were in the middle of something important. Whatever it was, it's gone and there is no going back. Click OK to lose all of your work and never see it again. OK."

We are determined that words have solid unchanging meanings, we label things, even processes, as if they were perfectly repeatable and only ever the same.

Your actual experience though is of an ever changing reality.

Are you a process or a thing?

The sun is seen as and named as a thing. On brief inspection though the raging furnace it is is seen to be a rapidly altering process. There is no difference between a lump of concrete or rock and the raging sun apart from relative speed of process.

Is summer a thing or process, is a storm a thing or process, is the battle between cobra and mongoose a thing or process, is your heart a thing or process, are you a thing or process?

It's all an ongoing flux with no fixed form. A process, indefinable. Not the name.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

"I think therefore I am", should just have been "I am"

"I think therefore I am."

There is an I who is in thought and an I who is am-ing. More grammatically there is an I who is in thought and a being (I am).

The I who is in thought is either: 'I being in thought' or 'I am thinking'. The I am or the beingness precedes the whole event.

The statement could be rightly reduced to "I am".

If it is not reduced to simply being or I am then it reads as follows:

"I am thinking therefore I am"

Which is circular, if not slightly backwards reasoning. After all who is the I am who is thinking if they are not the very same one being?

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Mind over (doesn't) matter

Terminology traps. Is it mind, is it brain, the grand Mind? Is it ego, is it anything else? Does mind come first or does the brain produce mind?

None of these are really problems, but for the dualistic nature of language.

There is simply thinking. Thinker and thought are not separate.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

There is only oneness, Tao.

Enlightenment is the acceptance that there is no one to be enlightened and as the seeker dissolves so too that which was sought is no longer separate.

There is only oneness, Tao.

• Biologically it could be the time delay that the front brain requires to perform its operations that causes humans to be so self conscious and to feel strong separation.
• Linguistically it could be that as we grew up everything we learned was in a language of duality and so we can not think in concepts or explain idea that are not dual.
• Culturally it could be that generations before us have lived in suffering believing they must fear an almighty, that life is preparation for afterlife, that choices are made and reward or punishment ensue.
• Socially it could be that we act in hierarchies, groups, pairs or alone and in all of these roles we reaffirm the false belief that we are a separate part in the greater whole.
• Philosophically it could be that we echo ideas that "I think therefore I am" but fail to question how there seem to be two I's in the same sentence. We trap ourselves in Noun does Verb even when the active and the passive are one.
• Politically we are told that you can drag a cart with two opposing horses and make valuable progress.

For whatever reason they feel it, feeling separate, people will seek reconnection.

There is only oneness, there is only Tao, appearing as whatever it appears to be and it is nothing more than an appearance seeming to happen. All that comes goes, nothing that arises in mind has any permanence or reality. All arising will dissolve as the the source is an apparent arising too.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Learning to speak in the non person tense

The being speaks absent of person. There is no personal pronoun, there is no action then attached as no doer. This seems to be the prime Wu Wei, non doing as there is no one to do.

Life living, being happening. No one alive, no happening to anyone. No personal story, no attachment to events or things, primarily as there is no one to produce a relative.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

being not trying

You were once a child with no expectations, no elsewhere, no if only. In time you became a slightly older child who had expectations, places you should be, wishes, desires and regrets.

You sought what was not and you sought reward.

Return to the presence, realize there is no where to be, no where to go, no thing to have. Returning to that which you were, dropping the habitual urges.

This reconnection, simple, effortless, not done. Completing yourself by receiving a gift not given, content of a meal not eaten, loved by the love of loving.

Being not trying to be.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The symbiosis of our Dolby Stereo brains.

Symbiosis is where two animals live together in such a way as their lives depend on one another. Birds and bees are a remote symbiosis but jellyfish are a very close symbiosis. In a jellyfish there are two animals, the animal which can float and digest food and the animal which can sting prey. There really are two animals living as one, biologists will tell you more but I'll have to move on to my next point.

Our brains have been thought to operate different sides of our bodies and have distinct functions. New discoveries now tell us that functions are in truth mixed over the hemispheres but distinctions do still remain. Einstein noted how we are ruled by the lesser good half of our brains, that which splits things into bits and groups and that we really should give more attention to the half of our brain which sees wholeness. Neuroscience is proving his little notion is near true, one side of our mind does work on splitting things into bits while the other does work on the wholeness, but we have a 3rd part. The two functions are very very immediate and reactionary, the 3rd part of our brain at the front operates by sitting back a little from the immediacy of things.

We have then a Dolby Stereo brain, and as we can place a sound in the room by spotting the difference in time it takes the sound to reach each ear so too we have stereoscopic thought.

Now all the brain is for is movement, things which don't move don't have brains. The sea squirt begins life with a brain and it moves about, later in life it finds one place to stay for the rest of its life where it lives more as a plant than an animal. As soon as it find the place to stay it digests its own brain as its first meal. This is really true, please again seek the advice of a biologist on the how's and the why's. Our brain is big and complex because it must move hands, a tongue and it must drive a big floppy gangly body through life. It is very very difficult to make a robot do any one task we can do, years of programming, but we can do many things at once and adjust for variables. Our brain is for movement and, it's pretty damn good at it.

When we look at the world then we use one half of our mind to break things into bits, one half to see the whole event, and the frontal section we use to step back and build possible futures and outcomes. We use another part of the brain (don't ask me which) to take these 3 views on the same event and decide our best move. This is Dolby Stereo thought.

With this new information in mind we can possibly see how different people see the world in different ways. A person who is "Part dominant" will have differing views over a person who is "Whole dominant". The part dominant will insist that things have strict order and can be organized and the whole dominant will be more aware of the symbiosis which the delicate natural balance of our planet depends upon. One with a very decent frontal section will be able to map out possible futures where the part dominant rules the planet or if the whole dominant were able to bring back the Yin Yang balance a little and move us towards the future Einstein and the Eastern Philosophers would have hoped for - a future where we think and operate as the whole and not as competing parts.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Have you ever seen an Ego?

Have you ever seen an ego?

Surely not but you have seen egoistical behaviour. Ego is a behaviour or thought pattern and not a thing in itself. Isn't it now more simple to see how to drop the ego? It is not a thing we're stuck with but a conditioned or untamed thought process.

"I'm not happy but if I got that X, then I'd be happy." - Says the egotistical mind pattern.

"I is nothing but happiness and this is only missed because of that egotistical mind pattern." - Says the true self.

The more we sit with inner peace the more we can observe that constantly lacking ego popping up demanding medication - and we can see it as what it is and let it go.

Following or answering each and every whim of the ego will lead to deep sadness as true peace is our true being, the ever present stillness within.

Luckily ego is not a thing you are stuck with but a behaviour pattern which can be unlearned.

This is a TRT echo post where I repost posts I have made on TRT back here on my home blog. See more: Index.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Free Will?

I was unable to alter the title of this post. I could easily edit it at any moment, but it seems I'm not about to. And who is this I who could or could not and who wrote?

Were free will the truth of the matter, then wouldn't millions wake up, late, tomorrow feeling great, skip work and go flying? Wouldn't they then return to their rich life and have superbly passionate sex with the partner of their dreams who never ever farted?

Most people wish or will for a life situation quite different from the one they have, do they then have free will? Can anyone reading this, have not have started reading it? Can you relive that last embarrassing moment and avoid the slip up? Why with free will did you make a complete tit of yourself last Tuesday?

Given that you can't change the past, or do anything other than what you're doing now, or shape the future, then is this "I" you say you are anything? Is there a separate agent there or if free will is not the case aren't "you" just one of trillions of illusions inferred by one indivisible wobble? To be continued (?)

This is a TRT echo post where I repost posts I have made on TRT back here on my home blog. See more: Index.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Common Potato

Are you the action or the replay?

Are you the light collected by the the iris or the prejudiced playback?

What is it to recite that which may have been before (in your opinion) and speak of it as it were a solid immutable truth, rather than to carve a unique path which is what it is?

Can you build an ego you're happy with on the works of others or would you rather stand alone right in your shoes?

This is a TRT echo post where I repost posts I have made on TRT back here on my home blog. See more: Index.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Normal is great

Enlightenment could be a thing of the past. By the old standards, most of us are probably enlightened or more. Smarter too.

I say this because children understand gravity and teenagers understand that E=m, maybe they don't understand the maths, but they intuitively know. Einstein got there by intuition, the maths came later. Lau Tzu got there by intuition (he never read a book on it), Buddha too. In those times, there were many people who didn't get these things, they thought that angry gods brought rain and famine, that the world was flat and things moved down.

Now we don't, we're generally more enlightened than before. We don't on the whole believe in gods, we do have more intelligent concepts for things than we used to. This is said even given that in a few years we will be exposed as dumb by new thinkers, for now though, we're good.

What is this enlightenment people seek, what is this perfection, this release? Just exposure or admission of an inner imbalance? Not to worry, that's being human.

This is a TRT echo post where I repost posts I have made on TRT back here on my home blog. See more: Index.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The Appeal of String Theory - It is Philosophical

String Theory has great appeal because it gets right to the core with little missing, no room for error, no room for god or mystery and is very philosophical nature. This philosophical leaning is what leads many scientists to dismiss it "unprovable, like philosophy" they say.

Strings are so minute you could never imagine, fantastically smaller than any particle you've ever been asked to imagine. Excellently for me string theory drops the old Newtonian idea of 'little balls spinning around one another' for good. Removing the conundrum of the infinite regression of splitting something only to remain with smaller parts you now wish to spilt.

Strings are either loops, like the one causing gravity and witnessed by school children who place iron filings near a magnet, or like open two ended strings. Strings vibrate, they vibrate in 11 dimensions and we see the result of 3, feel the result of 1 (gravity) and count our days in another, time. We are not sure we interact with the others, maybe we do but until then we'll say they are dark, unseeable, in nature.

The vibrations can ring on so many notes we'll never hear but some common vibration patterns will seem like standing waves to us and children will be able to rub some off a balloon and play with the static charge and scientists will be able to smash some waves and call the resulting burst of energy a particle. These waves have set amplitudes so lead to assumptions of a group of particles with repeatedly constant values.

There are no parts or particles in string theory though only a reason for why we think we see them. String theory is all about a vibration. My only remaining questions as I marvel at it are: what vibrating in what and what of awareness? How are we aware of all this? Are strings thought patterns in the great awareness? Does this now fall flat at yet another infinite regression? Maybe opening up those final dimensions we can answer these questions.

Unfortunately, I'm not that smart.

Fortunately, I'm not that smart... Maybe the mystery is much better than the answer.

This is a TRT echo post where I repost posts I have made on TRT back here on my home blog. See more: Index.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Chocolate Tzu

I was mulling over String Theory whilst eating some chocolate cake when I accidentally awoke to the enlightenment all around me. Nothing matters as nothing is matter. Everything matters as all Everything does is materialize.

I did spend probably slightly too much of last week thinking about New Physics as I came across so many great thinkers who set my mind rolling on possibilities of finding this one thing, this one indivisible that all came from - then I saw, as I chewed on my cake, that absolutely every single one of theses theories, bar none, were that particular scientists new religion. Each one of them, realizing it or not, even if speaking out against religion as they spoke, was pedaling a new god and a new path to realigning with that.

"This is beyond great!" I realized, this marks all off these grand theories as bunk and I need not waste another moments thought on any one of them aside from to say "no thanks!".

All these (very intelligent and very interesting) people were doing in their own way was speaking of what they believed to be, and could nearly but not quite prove, their own cause, or root, to our being. God. Religion. Did they miss this? They were denying religion then forming their own.

As I am quite firmly against religion, religiously against religion, you may say, I was happy to see that the extremely captivating arena of physics was just another set of systems and dogmas to be cast aside on the path of freedom, self authorship and simple happiness.

This is a TRT echo post where I repost posts I have made on TRT back here on my home blog. See more: Index.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao