On Suffering

Suffering is a mind state and is induced upon others by those who operate from the mind or ego. Suffering is ended by re-merging with the Tao and this comes in 3 ways. In wake, in sleep in death. Sleep is the most simple and we do it daily, wake is most beneficial as it can be used to help others, death is inevitable. It definitely being preferential to live absent of suffering than to hold out for death. But either way the cycle lives on.

Any re-merging is cyclic but separation and non-separation are in the mind. Separating and re-merging, or feeling in constant separation, are Samsara. Realizing non-separation is Nirvana. Yet Nirvana and Samsara are one and only given label and existence by the mind.

Slay mind, slay body, slay
The external: matter goes.
Then space remains; renew the pains!
Up! Front the final foes!

Slay space; then Naught abides.
Hold on thine holy hand!
When Naught gives back before the attack,
Serene thy Silence stand!

Ch'ing-ching Ching

This theatrical poem speaks of the act as if a battle. Yet no one is there to have the battle. Any battle with mind can be won with non-interaction. Ego and mind play their game and self simply has to hold true and they will give up.

You are deep asleep, then mind (little mind) comes on and gives rise to the ego. Ego will begin to paint pictures and play its game of shapes and forms. These are dreams. At a time you awaken when mind and ego are already in full flow. Ego paints the world for you and taints it to any presets the mind has. Bad morning or "oh so good to be alive" came from the presets mind had sitting in potential.

Meditation the night before, a particularly good sleep, absence of major mind issues or other factors can give you a nice start to the day but this day is owned by mind and ego. The practice now is to always uncover the true self before they get carried away.

Suffering is for those who allow the ego and mind to rule. Grand suffering of nations is because they allowed a leader to take guide of a ship, a ship of mind captained by a big ego.

The fear and limitations carried by ego make for a ship you would be best not sailing on.

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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

Freedom

For me to be truly free, I can not tell another how to be.

It is my not leaning on another in any way that truly justifies my position of freedom. Should I tell a friend that they are wrong to do such a thing or take a stand against a powerful corporation about their policy - I am in both cases asking for the same in return, that they can also do the same to me.

Only by not forcing on another, can I be just in my position of true freedom, and not have any force come upon myself.

How then do we take a stand and form the world if we can not act like that? There are those who will saw the branches off the tree. There are those more cunning who will tie the branches at a young age to have them grow a desired way. There are those, like me, who love a natural form no matter how it goes. Most people have grown up with wraps around them, they have restricted and deformed growth of their character that will take big work to even notice before it can be removed. From a restricted growth they look out and too wish to form the world around them by restricting, forming and shaping. They may even take out a saw to get their way.

The only way to go is allow others to have their way so you can live out your own natural form. Hopefully with time they will notice the constraints on them and reform themselves by inner desire than by extremal force.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

sick society?

You are not sick if you see sickness in life. You can not fix sickness in others by pointing at them and talking about them. Like you can not cure someone's illness by shouting at them "be cured" you also can not shout at a politician "be right" as in both cases the sickness is in that person.

A person doing bad is acting from a sick self, their true self is like yours and would not do evil but in sickness there it is.

How do we cure the world? We cure the self, we perfect the light and the mirror so that when we project and when we reflect we have most positive effect. Applying paint to the mirror to paint your version over the image you don't like is not going to work, so why apply more paint to fix it? it will be 6 inches thick in paint soon.

Politicians and the like are busy painting the world, trying to fix the fixes ..on and on..

Just stop and the world becomes natural and right. This can be the only way.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tensions

In yoga, Tai Chi and so on we stretch, relax, breathe, ...and we feel benefits.

Watch someone who is not using these techniques;

Wake feeling tired, smoke, eat something heavy, drink strong coffee, sit hunched up on the bus, arrive at work, smoke in a hunched up posture, furrowed brow, sucking the smoke in, hurriedly disposing of the butt, into the office, tapping their foot as the kettle boils, whisking the coffee off to their desk, hunching over the desk, hand cramped over the mouse, furrowed brow, squinting eyes at the in-box, shallow breathing, tapping the fingers and toes, grinding their teeth, rubbing their chin, .... it's only 9am ... Lunch comes, outside, smoke, buy greasy food or withered salad to justify the fat belly from last nights midnight pizza, grumbling over this and that, hunched back, tapping toes....

Yuck.

As we get in tune we find tensions all over the body but we remove them one by one with breath and posture, exercises, tuning. With time the body is flexible and comfy to be in, the body is not so apparent and we are light and free.

We..

Wake up, breath in, love the view out of the window either if it is rain bathing nature or sun hitting our eyes, out to the bus, looking at the trees, listening to the birds, on the bus, comfortable posture, breathing, blissful head, learning from the world in near silence, at work the pot of green tea is made for the morning run, sitting is comfortable, no tensions so the legs drop comfortably into a wide sitting stance, knees drop, no tension in the thighs, brow, or shoulders, mouth loose, eyes fresh, then the tasks are taken one by one with each deep full breath... it's only 9am...

Come lunch time, things are under control, tea pot needs refilling, ....

Tensions held in the body are the same tensions felt in the mind. Stretching out your inner thighs for a comfortable sitting position, a strong back for sitting and standing, good deep breathing, loose jaw, brow, neck, shoulders, no tension in the body means the mind is free to operate at its best on the task at hand.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The Importance of Satori

Satori is not the goal at the end, it is the begining of the path. I was on my bicycle nearly 4 years ago, riding through a forest with no other people and thinking how this was my forest, this was my earth, everyone was welcome to share in the pleasure of nature here but only I was choosing to. Most were obviously somewhere else, at home in front of the TV, doing things, perhaps working, shopping, driving, I was there with nature. My mind was opening up to the reality of life behind the curtain and I stopped under a particular set of trees that I can picture now, I looked at one very unimpressive tree, soaked with the rain from an hour before, some branches broken by snow or wind, no leaves, and I saw its perfection - I thought the very strange thought of "trees don't ask why". And then I had my most clear moment of Satori where I saw life as it really is, as one, in perfection.

After this time I took more and more interest in explaining the state, I had no idea it was Satori only that I could explain it to no one not even my self, but it was life changing, unique and very important to me. I felt noticeably different in my actions, body and mind. I had to find similar people and it was after that time that I came to find book after book of clarification of the event.

I bought a ticket to India, it would be my second visit and I was intending to take meagre funds just to meet a friend for a short trip. I bought 6 books all about New Physics, the mind, nature of reality and on arriving in India I sat in a hammock for 7 weeks reading and what turned out to be meditating. (I bought books, swapped old for new, constantly throughout the trip.) I decided I would not be rushing home and when my friend showed up we spent a little more time where I was, I realised I had spent 2 months in a pair of shorts, nothing else, not even foot ware and I had a very new perspective on life. I lent him my books and we set off with his girlfriend across India. I got very ill on a boat crossing to the Andamin Islands, it was a disgusting boat and we were on it for 3 days, I had not been wearing shoes still which was very stupid in India. We befriended an older Scottish guy who just happened to be very well read in the some of the authors that came up in my book list, my state of awareness was unlike the me of old, illness and all I was in states of minor hallucination and spending time in deep conversation and meditative states.

The Andamin Islands then were beauty beyond words, we became used to crystal clear seas, empty paradise beaches, fresh coconuts falling from trees. With little to do besides enjoy nature and snorkel the coral, we decided to fish one day. The only fish caught was on my friends hand made line, the hook was too big for the fish and on seeing the little fish struggle as I attempted to release it, I chopped of its head brutally with a coconut splitter. -- I decided to go vegetarian for 3 days to say sorry, but due to a further development in the way I see life I have not eaten meat since.

After the Andamin Islands we crossed back to India on the 3 day boat of poo with more friends and left some others behind, the friends recommended a Yoga Ashram - I disliked the idea. I disliked how people could structure a path to "god" and when I saw the Ashram had lots of money I disliked how they were profiteering from the same. But I settled in, it had a nice atmosphere, some very good teachers, good people and I was there over a month. I ignored all the god stuff, singing and praising but took a lot from the talks and the various levels of knowledge other people there had, in particular elements of the Hindu Vedanta and the path of Zen.

We ate pure vegetarian food, learned breathing techniques and did Yoga Assana's twice a day. The Ashram was in the middle of nowhere and the best place for Assana was by a large lake with a forest all around. I was in deep state of relaxation when a Lion, yes a Lion, in a far off reserve called out with a deep long roar - I had my second most incredible state of Satori, feeling the power and beauty of what I was coming into touch with, what I truly was.

After the Ashram my illness that had subsided began to return, we travelled a lot and were in place that is very very hot, a rock desert, I began to not be able to eat or even drink. I was unable to hold food or water for 2 weeks and in that time we moved out from the desert to the coast, We arrived at Om beach. We found a guy with a vat of pure LSD and he dropped a large drop on the back of each of our hands. As a token effort we licked our hands but the LSD was already soaked into our bodies, in not too long the sky drew in, the clouds illuminated in colour the sand took the texture of ..well it is too much to explain.. the sky darkened for night and the stars were all within reach, they were in a 3D pattern occupying my closed field of vision, I could touch them. Later I was in a ball, my empty stomach was reacting to the lack of food and the LSD combined with my poor state of health took me on a journey.

I was on Om beach, the very sacred place for Hindus. I met Krisna, Buddha, even Gaia, I traveled out of my body, experienced body death, ego death, death. I died. I ..can't explain.. It was magical and I wish I could sell it to you. Krisna, was an old man with his wife and he showed me some things he was carving from wood, Gaia complained about the plastic pollution in India but otherwise had little to say, and most importantly for me, Buddha and I just sat in silence, facing each other, and I knew that having nothing to say and no questions to ask was a very very clear indication of how correct this experience was. Plus I forgot to say, I also met the snakes and reptiles, they for a time made up all the solid matter around me, walls floors and items were made of writhing snakes. Magical only, not scary or negative at all. The rest of the experience was non-solid and made only of motion and distant light.

The next day I found I could eat and began a slow journey of recovery, feeding my thin body, we moved on and travelled north. On my journey I picked up a copy of the Tao Te Ching, a book I had until then only seen quoted in other books, I had found the closest written work to the truth to date and I study it still now. -- After some time in the mountains, feeling healthy and happy, 6 months in India had passed, and my visa was at an end. I still did not want to go home and I headed for Thailand.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Compulsory things to do before you live

Many have the list of things to do before they die, but I suggest 2 things to do before you live;

1) Go to places where life is rotten, with slums and disease.

2) Trip very very heavily. (not at the same time as 1)

When we meet people in life who have very narrow perspectives of what life is we can be taken aback by their outlook and self centred views.

"I'm getting a new phone this weekend as this one is old."
"The train journey was so boring it was 3 hours."
"We have a new TV now as the old one was not widescreen/thin enough/the right colour/the remote control broke/..."
"I hate people from countryX as they are all Y and Z" (insert country and xenophobic racist comments).
"Life is so hard for me I have NO money I mean like ZERO cash for getting pissed this weekend."

etc, etc,

None of them, not one, knows what life can be like, how lucky they are or what the world behind the visible universe consists of.

I suggest compulsory tripping for all and compulsory travel to places very very different to your own. Get an understanding for the universe behind the mask and see life as it can be.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Karma Police

Already by stepping out and thinking about this kind of thing you are good and going to be much better, quite likely even passed needing such pointers and you picked up the wrong book - in which case just set fire to it and go and hug a loved one and walk through a field.

The ones who are looking to cure the soul, to better themselves and the world are, no matter the apparent achievement, all on the side we call good. We can all recognise the bad, the selfish, the soulless, yet we can't draw good and bad for two reasons; 1) they depend on each other, 2) there is no judge. For the sake of this discussion I have to blur the boundaries and this is how:

Bad depends on good but bad does not have to be so bad. It would be beneficial to all if bad was slipping temporarily into an minor introspection and not the mass murder of millions. -- There is no judge as separate to you but the whole, of which you are, of which you feel a part, judges. Here I stand in contradiction but the whole does judge, it does it by the feedback mechanisms in life. We may take the obvious example of GWBush, that infamous puppet who lead the world into battle, as had his father, grandfather and relatives all the way back through history. They can be seen on the worm diagram of time as one of the threads of evil.

The way GWBush can be portrayed is that of 'a "leader" who brought about immense suffering as he sat back in great wealth, allowing wiser friends and puppeteers to profit financially, far more than he'. Did he stand in a great position? No. We all know his wealth was covered in blood and suffering, so how did he seem to not suffer, and if there is no judge, why not also be a bastard?

The above is a very tiny view, the above assumes that financial gain on mass suffering has a possible positive, it does not. Only on the very superficial, ego level can it be seen so and in reality the whole suffers - the position of a leader therein can only be low as it sits on top of a unfulfilled whole. As with a man selling ladies for sex, he benefits financially, egotistically he has ladies, money and power, on the grand scale he is a little germ in the system making the soul imperfect.

The solution is not out of reach here, it can come about as soon as each person awakens to it. What I aim to point out is that each person can receive positive feeding back to them from the ground of being if they connect themselves to that part of the circuit and align themselves with the natural flow of life. When this is happening more, the whole benefits and the living for all is lifted. We benefit and see that good is not to be done in fear of a judge or ego kick, but for the higher gain of all of us, all life, conciousness.

No one is there to judge, you are in a dangerous position assuming the role over anyone else too. There is no grand judge outside of you, watching over you, waiting "at the end" to rate you, this is a fantasy that does not exist on the grand plane of truth. The judge, the way you benefit or lose is by feeding into and back from the true flow of life that you can recognise but not pin down. Get right, be right, feel right, continue right is the way.

As we progress the whole comes to benefit, bad and good exist still as perspectives of our mind, but bad is pulled up into line so it is less bad than the extremes of this world, then with less extremes in mind, we all benefit. With more people joining together and amplifying correct seeing, then the notions of good an bad can both become redundant as people are so naturally in-tune that there is no longer need to delimit.

When you meditate to connect to the source, you connect with the flow of life, this benefits you and it also benefits the whole - you feed in the positive and help the whole being resonate to its optimum.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Where are we tring to get to?

When viewed from overhead there is the swarm of life here on the surface of earth, waves of motion, light and human traffic. If a bird is like a fish in the ocean of air then we are the crabs on the ocean bed, tied to the bottom, skittering about. We lay great claim to the thin layer we call ours and we attempt to spread to the skies and the seas in our little inventions, that do work, but you never see a flock of birds plummet to the floor because another bird with political agenda planted baking soda in the lead birds belly.

Our inventiveness, in fact the inventiveness of very few, gradually improved on by a few more, gets the rest of us around each day. Show any car to someone 200 years ago and it would be magic, a space vehicle, made of exotic materials they could neither find nor fashion - to the modern driver now it is nothing, no good, not fast enough, cool enough, ...

The animal is nature enjoying itself, breeding comes, offspring come, some die, some thrive. When we have babies we force nature with chemical additives to not allow babies to die or in other cases we force the baby to die with different chemicals. We live in mini palaces higher than Kings of old could dream of, even the TV in the modern home is a jewel that you could swap for a castle way back when.

We don't hunt for food or know what plant has; "a stalk that when chewed tastes of potato and fills the belly, the leaf can be rubbed on wounds and the root a medicinal tea." We harvest the exact same crops for the exact same purposes over and over on "market driven needs". We eat food packaged in such a way that it may have 10 ingredients, 5 of which are to make it the same as if you opened another package a year later, another 3 to make sure the flavour matches intent and then the actual food, pulverized so we could never recognise it. We could not say what over 90% of ingredients look like in nature (assuming they are natural) and as for natural foods we eat, who can draw a realistic cashew plant in flower?

So what is our intent from this life?

"To go on! To have a family, to carry the gift of life on to future generations, to improve life for them!"

I am sure I would hear that response from many people and I am taken aback by it, especially after me painting the picture of what we call life as the chemical rat race, that they could still give the answer. TRUE: A child to a loving couple is a gift, it is a wonder, they made this, they love it, it is the outcome and completion or ongoing motion of their love story. Yet -- A child to many, the majority of births, come from no such intent of love: The child may be born of accident, will to give meaning to life or relationship, what they thought they should do, a way to provide for themselves in old age, a school crush, the first meaningless sexual encounter of a young flitting couple of lustful boy and love struck girl, the outcome of a test tube coupling of sperm and egg to give the gift of life to the couple who could not have alone, the woman trying to find meaning and keep the man.... All magical, maybe, many may form good lives, but is this the intent of our being?

If a baby was a gift then blessings are handed out in large number to people who would no doubt prefer to be blessed with a new car, iPod or winning lottery ticket as the intent was to bolster ego not improve the world. It is true that babies bring great pleasure to many couples, it is essential for the human race to breed and some people make for great parents, but is it our goal in life to breed?

If it were our sole intent to breed then wouldn't we be made a little differently? Humans live way beyond practical breeding age, way way beyond in many cases. If we were here to breed and make the next generation, then what is the purpose of that next generation? The purpose seems a little futile if the sole intent is to keep it going. So is it then to move on but provide a better world for the next generation? Could be.. it could be, but if so I have to say that the ship has gone off course and why in that case are people pinning hopes on a future not relishing now?

I will not stand in the ridiculous position as to say that babies are no good for life, that we should on mass not breed! That would be crazy! And as I started out by saying, it is life, and we all do it, birds, badgers and buffaloes do it. But I will say it is not the purpose of life, it must be dropped down to its position of nature flowing, not magic, not a gift, just nature moving on, replacing the old with the new, the flow of life.

So then, it is not with purpose that we breed as that is to say that the purpose is the purpose and a 16 year old girl with 3 children is perfection indeed. Babies are part of the ongoing flow of life, as is death, eating, breathing, loving and enjoying.

So what do I see as the purpose? What are we here to do?

I see this as the emergent finding of our times, I see people getting this truth more and more all the time: We are here as representatives of the whole being of life itself, we are here to recognise our true nature, to recognise perfection in our seeing and what we see, to fully recognise the magic of what we are - This is what we are here to do. That has great meaning to future generations and to us right now. If the goal was baby, baby grows and has baby... NO. If the goal was baby, baby grows invents TV, has baby, grows to invent DVD, has baby... NO. The goal is we get fully in tune with our true nature, our true self and that magic is amplified the more who recognise it and we have a future worth bringing future generations into. And more importantly we have a now, a blissful perfected now that has people not striving on, but relishing life, holding on to nature, loving, enjoying, living! Having and enjoying the wonder of life here now and not striving to some goal, always just out of reach.

We are not a mechanism, who makes new parts, we are the reflection of the whole mind, we are not people who, as separate to the world, magically produce new people who do the same, we are a reflection of the magic that people take for granted. People see baby as magic but breathing as normal. Breathing is magic, seeing is magic, being is magic, life, living, tasting, touching, projecting reality, are all magic. This being that we put into the rat race, the work for the new car, the "ongoing fight until death" is like a horse stepping our of the meadow, applying blinkers to its own eyes, attaching a plough to its own back and pulling it until he dies.

Run through the fields!!!

The only thing required to fulfil this is for each person, one by one, to stop looking forward and just open their eyes to right now. I am not pinning my hopes on this change occuring, it has already occured here - I just ask those who are seeing the potential to too stop the searching, sit back and wow. There is no where to go, it's here.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Kymatica

Loads of good stuff here and I do see this as a good movie from the stance that it requires you to have already been out there looking and learning to get the full benefit from the film. This is not a video for all where you get a kindergarten level introduction to one tiny concept (e.g. The Secret), this is instead a movie talking to the seeker about concepts they will have encountered and helping to form a more unified perspective, one that will, when fully realized, fix the self and thereby the whole.

Kymatica means that pertaining to waves, in this case waves of energy that form life as we see it and often, much deeper, as we don't. I feel this a very good modern anthology of fine thought, not claiming to be an answer but a tug on the ropes; "hey, this way, and while you are waking up to possibility and realization, can you please take responsibility for yourself?".

The world is waking up to the fact that for 1000's of years we have been duped by our own ego, manipulated by groups who saw to expand the position of ego, had the ego massaged so it felt it could "get there" and now, with great apparence, the great fake illusion is falling apart.

The ego is a fake, you will never make it happy, society is ego based so it will never come to anything. The illusion is perpetuated by those who understand it, whipping the horse so it keeps driving the machine. You are acting the donkey here, it is time to wake up and re-connect to the source.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Meat and spirituality 3

Excluding the animals and nature, what are the benefits to the self of being vegetarian?

Imagine how the steak stays in the body so long and some fruit such a sort time. Different foods have differing demands on the body and deliver varying amounts of energy - they then go on to affect mood and more.

Anyone who has come across the Bhagavad Gita will know the Hindus and Yogis split food into 3 categories. For those of us who have not read the work then the categorizing is simple enough; Food that gives you fighting power, food that causes you to be lazy and the category that contains all the better more balanced foods.

Should you have an imbalanced diet then you could be aggressive or tired due to diet and then trying to combat that with other foods or medicines. Coffee is a good drink when needed but habitually consumed causes problems and may be a mask to a bad diet. Coffee can make you moody and the energy hit is not smooth. It may be just what you need occasionally in the morning but fruit is a better replacement. Fruit gives a longer smother energy burst that dissipates over a longer time avoiding the crave for another hit that coffee causes.

Green tea is a purifier and has many benefits to the body as does water. You should try to avoid (though not religiously to make it an inconvenience) mass produced drinks such as canned and packaged juices. All of the additives are giving the body odd unnatural hits and may just as likely be masking ill effects under their sugar hit. Drink is to hydrate and to nourish, not to pick you up or give "hits of vitamins" when a good diet contains natural and plentiful nutrients. Better pick ups than caffeinated drinks are good breathing and a good mind, craving drinks that provide vitamins and other things is evidence that your diet is not good. Meat eaters drinking vitamin drinks are common and fueling their own fire.

A vegetarian understands their body better. The food is used quicker, more efficiently and passed out of the body quicker. A vegetarian can tell the affect of food not long after eating it, knows what their body needs and what it doesn't. A steak eater may not know what is making them ill at anyone time as the amount of foods all being slowly digested at high expense to the bodies energy reserves is a mix of days, weeks and months of consuming.

Vegetarians, feel lighter, more healthy, positive and get ill less.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Meat and spirituality 2

Again, if you are hungry, eat. Don't let ethics get in the way of your health. The lion eats meat.

I could eat meat for a week more easily than a meat eater could give it up. I know meat eaters are not going to easily switch but I would like them to consider and cut back. For those of you on the verge, who are probably vegetarian by nature but meat eaters by habit, it is easy and beneficial to stop.

Where we see a difference between lion and human is in how the human has taken to breeding, rearing and killing animals for the purpose of food, and so my case draws in part on suffering. Humans also eat meat by habit. Come meal time the human will be choosing which meat to have mixed in with their meal, not what to eat, but what animal to have as part of it. You may ask me how in an illusionary conceived world of no-true-self that suffering can be a concern in my argument and that would be to miss the nature of the illusion and compassionate intent behind curing it. The illusion is as real as it is not real, it is our reality, just not the ultimate ground of all being. The animal suffers as you do when attached to the local I.

If you killed an animal from a group and the members of that group came to look at the body, then they understand themselves as separate beings and they understand the loss of another. Where some fish may just turn on the carcass and eat, most mammals would nudge the carcass of another and we can infer, feel loss.

The lifestyle of the animals we breed for food is unnatural. Even if their upbringing was good, they are still guaranteed an early unnatural death. Take time to imagine the animal not the heavily marinaded, packaged remains that form your meal. The argument than meat tastes good is funny when we look at the amount of preparation going into meat to make it edible, the cooking, the flavouring, the processing. Then the vegetables, if any, are boiled and thrown on the side. Put more effort into the preparation of vegetables, fruit, nuts, soy based alternatives and you have culinary joy that gives value and pleasure to the cook and those who eat it.

Cooking is a lost art form in the west where value is placed on the speedy consumption of carbon copy food and even "healthy alternatives" are packaged in a way that two bought in different years look exactly the same.

Humans make themselves aggressive, sloth-like and heavy in not finding alternatives to meat. The lion is in tune with nature. She does not over eat, over kill or waste any of her prey. Humans eat only very select parts of an animal and discard the rest with less care than they did the life in the first place. Man forces nature to be unnatural and scars the earth.

A very high percentage of people, nearly all, eat meat by a convenience. If in preparing a meal each person had to kill and prepare meat from a carcass, they would find an alternative. My Grandfather was a butcher from the age of 12 to his death at 89 (choosing to volunteer beyond retirement). He knew some things about meat and would never eat a sausage he didn't personally make. Now think of the processing going into meat products to make them palatable, especially for kids; The process is to make them less meat looking and in doing so the product is very unhealthy indeed.

Not loving yourself you are not loving nature and the world you see is yours to suffer. Put value in what you eat and love yourself.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Where realities clash

I promote the spiritual view of life, what it could be, should be, and is to some people. There is also the "real world" - which is entirely false and can kill you. The vast majority of humans live in an entirely false world that they are convinced is real, and in blindness, will fight for.



Israel, one example of the (fake) real world going mad.

We live in a dream world, an elite know this and are shaping that dream to their own. On a human level it is abhorrent but justified by many self delusions as "just the way things are".

Please, whilst correcting yourself spiritually, do not let our planet body and dreaming brothers and sisters allow life to become an invaluable fuel for a fire that consumes and burns them as they watch in passive ignorance.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Cycles & Circuits - An interconnected world

Watch someone playing a hand held game and you can see the circuit in place. The screen gives a display which is carried invisibly to the eyes, processed in the brain, signals sent down the arms, the fingers hit a button, the electronics process and on the screen either Mario lived or died, the signal is carried invisibly to the eyes a response is produced in the brain, signal down arms, etc etc..

Look at a tree. As you breathe the tree does too. What you pull in, it expelled. The bronchi in lungs resemble an inside-out tree. The process of breathing is not yours, you are in cycle with the lung of earth. I like to think the universe is 'a breathing'.

Chuang Tzu was challenged many times on the uselessness of his teaching and many times told stories of how uselessness is a great virtue. The huge gnarled tree that outlives the others was not fit for any purpose and so lived a grand long life. Chuang asked one of his opponents to tell him "of all the land, that beneath your feet or the rest of the earth, what is most useful?" The reply was "that beneath my feet" and Chuang said "if i remove all the rest of the land, leaving you on two foot shaped pillars and a gaping chasm around you, it won't be long until you understand the usefulness of the useless".

This debate is fun but my point is that there is no uselessness, Chuang too was saying that in saying useless is in fact useful. We have to see that all is interconnected, all exists because of the rest and so we find the unity in all things. We appreciate oneness.

By appreciating how you are not "that body" but the environment that you are in and your reaction to it - it will encourage people to make a better environment. Man's attempt to tame and control nature is completely over. Many still carry on in vain as they won't admit it or don't know how else to think but it can't last.

When we appreciate the circuits, the cycles, the interconnectedness and further when we see that this complete process is me! ..then we see that a chemical to make an apple grow bigger will affect the whole "I" and not just the apple.

We are, individually, each a very sensitive feeling element of the whole, something to stay mindful of in life is how you are constantly sensing; fluctuations in air flow, light, sound, a tiny waft of a smell can alter your complete train of thought, we are that, we are that special sense of the universe. We are inseparable, we are it, and our position is sense and feeling.

Most people seem void of both!

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Meat and spirituality

I can not tell you not to eat meat. It may be perfectly right for you to eat it.

If it is dead, and you are hungry then great. Go eat.

Yet. If you are not needy for food supplies, you have to breed the animal as food, kill it prematurely just for food, it's birth was only brought about so it could be food, and the result is you are bigger in body than health and nature would intend, then maybe think about it.

Not eating meat does not lead to spiritual insight. I can not say "do not eat meat for 3 days and you will receive insight" so that is all false.

Yet.. One developing yourself, you will one day receive insight and that will tell you not to eat meat. Until that day, do as you will, but I know that on development of the self it will occur.

So not eating meat is not a tool for the spiritual path, it is a result of the spiritual path. Like many suggested means, they are in fact ends.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Seriousness

The most contagious, man-made, terminal disease, is seriousness. I was going to go on at length about this but thought it wiser to to just end by saying Ffffert!

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao