Imaginary friend

Who is your imaginary friend?

None?

Well you have an imaginary self!

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Any action you do is carried out by an actor. An imaginary center given a name and date of birth.

I wont hang around to discuss how we should get by without such labels. I wont take the ridiculous stance that language has no use. But I will say how nothing that is built from these ideas can have any more substance than the initial ideas. So none.

Self (the little one you think is you) is imagined. That same self is caught in the whirlpool of life and feels the ebbs and flows.

The true self is the flow.

Put the imaginary self away, cast it aside and grow up. Become what you were before your date of birth.

Pickup the plasticine person and squeeze them back with the rest of the dough, make a world and recognize yourself as that.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

I wave the flag

What must take place for me to walk to a flag pole and move the flag?

Too much to comprehend.

So what does it take for me to lift my hand and face the palm upwards?

Too much, far too much.

So what does it take for me to just sit here?

Even more!

The less I do then the more is done by the universe.

I am done by the universe.

If we sit Zazen in the same room and I fart. We both laugh.

Did the universe try to cheer us up or did I not chew my cabbage properly?

How egocentric it is to sit Zazen. What do I expect to gain?

I hope nothing. I can only sit to do less, to have less, to know less, to recognize how, in all of the vastness, I am being done as is the leaf falling from the tree.

So my ego would like to get. But my self is beyond such -ism. My ego would like to do, but my self does ALL.

My ego should get off the train and see how it still rolls. Ha, leave it behind!

The ego screams Fatalist!! so you feel you have no control? you are being done?!

No, I have no need to speak to the cast off ego but I will do it the favour of replying: I am not a fatalist, I would rather have the one self doing than to always have the ego getting inflated when it manages to do just as the self was already doing, or being deflated when it has a desire that is not in tune with the way.

Rather than attempt to follow Tao, I shall be.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Reality seeing itself

The image at the top of this blog (assuming I haven't changed it by the time you read) is how I may imagine reality looking back at itself.

Imagine a gloop or some energy just acting. A oneness just oneing. Then it sprouts an eye. A sensitive part of itself that registers light hitting it. Imagine then how easy it would be for this entity to decide that 'that with the eye' was "It" and 'that seen by the eye' was "Other".

We all do that all the time. Such Fools :D

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

A maze in life

Where a flat plate of glass means little to the touch of a blind person, a sheet of glass with well placed dots relieved from its surface suddenly tells a story. This braille texture can be mapped in a sequential pattern by the blind person that tells a tale. But the same sheet can be seen as one with the sense of sight.

Imagine then how we map out our path through the 3D maze of life but experience the 4th dimension sequentially. Like the blind person we get the map slowly, bit by bit. If instead though we saw the 4th dimension as a further spatial dimension then there would be no mystery to events unfolding.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Who sees what?

The only thing stopping direct seeing of the whole is the thing wishing to see it.

Vedanta says all these bits are one.

Zen says there are no bits all is one.

Tao says balance the bits to see one.


The one eyed man stared hard down his telescope in order to explore all of space. Eventually having mapped out the entirety of infinity found he was one I short.

If you meditate with the full knowledge that there is no time and what you are experiencing is the direct experience of the full power of the universe - it is a moving experience indeed. Empty of self you are full to burst.

With nowhere to put his bag the man was reminded that he had a bag and put it in there.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

What is seeing? Zen.

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

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

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

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

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

But I will......

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zen.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Now is so much

This very now contains my birth and my death.

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

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

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

Always, now.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

No thing is

"From the beginning not a thing is"
Hui Neng

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

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

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

From an absolutely flat image we project depth and time.

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

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

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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Food festival

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

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

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

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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Ego Elevator

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

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

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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

If science got it right

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exploring the limitless with the limited.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Meditation vs Relaxation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Pacifying the Australian public in readiness for takeover

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

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

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

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


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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Physics is so mystical I almost like it

Which of these is Mysticism and which is Physics? 

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

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

There is no time and no solidity.

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

Reality is entirely a projection.

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

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

Your appearance and that around you is a mental projection.

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

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

There is absolutely no I.

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

All of the above are Physics.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

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

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

and what it was made of?

and who made it?

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

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

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

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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Taoism Tao and enjoying life

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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Work in progress

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

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

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

Credit for the picture goes to zastavki.

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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

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

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

A movie explaining these findings

Lightening and Auroras and such effects are electrical in nature.

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

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

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

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

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

A movie explaining these findings

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao