Taoist cuts god to size

"You say there can be no god within infinity because - well whatever silly reason you give... Yet there is a you. Why no god? "

"Choose the largest most ferocious animal on earth, in fact, invent one, give it the most voracious appetite - can it eat the world?"

"No to be in the world you can't then consume the entire world. Does this answer my question?"

"I think so yes. Can the sharpest blade, of the grandest knife, thrust with the greatest force, slice space?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Being at the birth of religion

Here's the trap - Religion is full of contradiction - yet - the universe is clearly magical - we can see exactly why religion would come to be.

The place to be would be the open awe, the recognition of the magic, but with no predefined way of explaining the mystery. And as soon as the urge to explain rise - it be instantly quashed.

An open mind taking in the universe, with no story, no justification, no rationale. Recognising a deep beauty and maintaining that beauty by refusing to taint it with even one thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Is there such a thing as nonduality?

After Nonduality comes Taoism. There is oneness, which is everything 'one with no two' but that - seems - to give rise to life and death, up and down, right and wrong. Nonduality commonly denies these elements but no human does. Taoism accepts the apparent duality and then points out that they arise together and so resolve back into oneness. [As described so perfectly, requiring no words, by the Tai Chi]

We can deny all dualities, we can aim to live in perpetual bliss - as that is we are told that non-dual masters have - but we won't. You may listen to the great 5 syllable mantra for hour upon hour, breathe deeply, eat the freshest new growth, relax your body and mind, have nothing to do with the mundane world at large - but shit will happen. You may detach from this and continue in your perfect state, you may, you may.... But you won't. Accept life just as it appears to be and, that's Taoism. Nonduality that accepts the apparent duality. [After all - nonduality itself is a dual concept in opposition to the term duality. Taoism resolves this via the Tai Chi back to one]

Enlightenment is accepting your nature [not trying to define it] …

For more deep questions and answers see whyhowdeep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

the answers to life's biggest questions

A new blog has begun. Why How Deep

Once a day for as long as it lasts one deep question will be answered.

I've noticed in life that many bonobo's and people alike concern themselves with mystifying questions so I've decided to answer each and every one that comes my way.

[First post will be April 2nd at some point]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Infinite consciousness... And stuff

A fear of death, a sense of self, a feeling of free will are valuable to encouraging an organism to avoid harm, and so live to pass on genes. Evolutionarily this makes complete sense.

All are though stories concocted as ways to make sense of a world produced by the same apparatus as that telling the stories. So then the feelings of; a fear of death, a sense of self and a feeling of free will are stories not reality. 

There is a oneness you see, moving in a way, changing in a way. No description of this is down right true. Perhaps the descriptions and stories are useful (scientific discoveries, genuine wisdom), often they're not (ignorance, superstition).

Am I in the universe or is the universe in my mind?

Is consciousness one in the universe and I am within that or does my brain have consciousness which sees the world?

Does my brain produce consciousness from its biology or does it tap an infinite consciousness like a modem with WiFi?

You could phrase this question many ways.... and whichever version you choose and whichever answer you take, none are right.

The material world is not produced in consciousness. Consciousness does not give rise to a material world.

Devoid of either quality, so called conscious or so called material, is this, nameless. Consciousness and materialness are mere fabrications an 'either or' made from none. A left and right when seen from center.

Questions of 'this or that' arise with relentless frequency in the mind and they have no resolution except Wu! Negation. Negation of even negation. No dual question of this or that has resolution.

When the mind is not telling stories, in stillness, that's it.

And in the end.... The reason these folk do this and those folk do that and we understand a little and we don't... Is that the one is infinite and so must by nature give rise to all possibility, not just the bit you like. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Maybe

The best way to realize the realization is to realize how little the realized people have realized.

~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Taoist and Buddhist Tweets

~

Life, the stream. The people, the bubbles.
Pop! goes one. And the stream still flow.

~


Of course this is all a dream with no dreamer. (The one you thought to be dreamer is in the dream too.)

~

If anything has an opposite, then it is a product of the mind.

~

You do not become a liberated being, but liberated from being.

~

You are reality, you do not experience reality.

~

You don't attain truth, you unattain false.
Bit by bit, one by one, cast the false aside.
What is left is.

~

When doubt or pain arise, alter focus.
When war and death seem widespread, broaden your horizons.
Never in the infinite is one matter so important that it deserves attention.
Attention only on the root of attention can bring you to touch the supreme self of birthless, deathless, timeless, bliss.
The mind then is unable to cast a false world of suffering, and so your universe reconfigures.

~

Suffering, stress, and hatred are man made human disease, terminal in nature.

~

You made the universe from your ideas.
It is your creation.
Why is it full of problems?
Well, it is not, but your universe contains problems because they are in your mind.
It will take time to be absent of problems in mind, but when you are, so too, your universe will shine perfectly.

~

be here now? ...
yet, they do something now, to achieve in the future.
Thus clouding the now they seek and waiting for something that never arrives.

~

Who is on the path to enlightenment?
When is it expected to take place?
It can only be, and it can only be now.
Not when and not by whom.

~

Ask the question internally then completely forget about it. The answer will come when it is ready, interaction will spoil the clarity of the reply.
Interaction is not useful as it splits the mind and generates new interference patterns. Clarity comes from the ability to leave alone.

~

In the world of mind there is reincarnation. It is this whole that reincarnates with every new moment, each new moment is creation and each new moment is the rebirth of the previous moment. All is change, that is all.

~

The mind is nothing without memory. Memories though are imperfect. The mind relies on the imperfect and unreal to formulate a now to which it likes or dislikes.
The mind in this way forms a body, a world and a person!
It forms others. We all share this mind-dream of a world people-ing when in truth this manifestation is built from false memories of past and future. This now is an idea.

~

The highest guru lives within. All other gurus are compared to this inner guru and in time the inner guru realizes its perfection.
So there is room for the imperfect guru. Room for all imperfection, all error, all the trials that may come your way - they are all encouraging the inner guru to realize its perfection.

~

To lose your mind is a true gift!
As long as it is not replaced by another one.

~

When you recognise inner peace, that is just the mind recognising peace. This is why it is seen as pleasant and why it can come and go.

~

How much more real is now, as compared to one hour from now?
And for the past hour?
Do we agree that now is vastly more real than any other time, past or future?
This is it.

~

The most advanced alien life, say a dolphin, lion, garden shrub, bacteria, fly, rat; all are actually as well advanced as every other. Only the human, feeling advanced with its tools, is in folly due to the wish to explain itself, where every other just is.

~

Nothing exists "of itself" but only in relation to everything other than itself.
Yet they are one. Impossible, to correctly conceive, alone.

~

You are essential. You exist in your role, because you are part of the whole;
And so exist forever.
So you were un-"born" for no "time" and will be "dead" for no "time".
Knowing you are witness to that entire process, and the reason for it, is mind-blowing.
But then as you are it, and it is you, so there is no mind to blow.

~

No one is apart from absolute perfection. They just become better and better at convincing themselves that they are not (absolute perfection)!

~

Pride is a flaw not a quality.
I say!
Pride is a flaw, not a quality and humility is controlled pride.

~

Embrace war and evil.
Sounds odd, yet to embrace them will aid in their removal. If you oppose them, you enforce them. Take them on board, consider them. It was someone who was against something who brought about war. So only those who embrace all can put an end to it.

~

Why?
About aged 2 you learned this word “why” and started using it.
It is time to stop asking why.
Never say or ask why again.
There is nothing to be explained, nothing that could be any other way.

~

“a book”
is already 5 letters too long in explaining anything.

~

I can’t fight against war – as then I’m at war.
I can’t make rules for politicians – as then I’m being political.
For peace the only action I may make is to be peaceful.
Note that these rules are for conceptual people as the true I is not split so in no position to act at all.

~

When two are at war and a 3rd enters the battle, what good can happen? Now 3 are wrong.
Peace is lived through peaceful action. Eat what was not killed, consume what is renewable, leave no trace.
The enlightened don’t need telling how to act, they don’t act.

~

There is no-thing outside of the conceptual universe as all things are conceptual.

~

When you think that “things should be different” then you are trapped by the mind. When you are here-now-present then you see things as they truly are.

~

In tough times, when things seem impossible; Remember who you are, that you move mountains with wind, support galaxies with space, and importantly – that life does itself.

~

You won’t ever understand until you see that understanding is limited.
Given all information until complete understanding, to have all so that infinity is mapped completely, and allowing for that new understanding to also be understood so that nothing, not even the current motion of now is missed, you’d see. This is how it is.

~

They always encourage you to be wary of the world “look out for yourself” they say.
Well no, I say: “look in for yourself”
Always keep focused on the within and you’ll never be without.

~

Do you see enlightenment as your desired destination or recognize it as the sweet ongoing path?

~

Whether there is terror or splendor in the world of mind, being itself is a mind blowing miracle.

~

stress is always rooted in mistaken identity.

~

That Illusive thing you seek, no matter what it may be, is always just behind the one looking.

~

Life * is a distraction.
(*as you know it)

~

For every act of evil, there is an act of beauty. You Can't Change the World, Only Your Attitude Towards It.

~

Drop the desire for enlightenment and then you are "not-I" and you regain your original face.
Anyone seeking enlightenment is of course not enlightened. Nor could anyone ever be enlightened, as on enlightenment, there is no I.
"I seeking enlightenment" is bound.
"Enlightened" is no-I, free.
So drop the idea you could ever achieve, as that achiever is not even possibly real. Drop the idea of an achieving entity so there is no longer a desirer; and then you reach the non-I, and there is enlightenment...

~

Don’t get any big ideas.

~

It isn’t what it was. It isn’t what you plan, it isn’t what you think, it isn’t what you have in mind.

~

The universe is ever perfect.
As look, see?
From a human perspective it may seem imperfect,
but this is because the human is not seeing the universe.
Only a small constructed abstraction.

~

I support the universe, the compression of sea beds, keep suns in space and mountains from crumbling.
Absolutely effortlessly.

~

I am.
..and by which..
The universe Hum.

~

What is the difference between enlightenment and happiness?
That you mind.

~

Aggression is often met with retaliation.
Reason more often met with understanding.

~

Memory is a painting and the mind is the painter. Comparing fresh paint to old paint is cognition.

~

It is bad luck to be superstitious.

~

The mere thought of changing a thing is bondage.

~

What came before both chicken and egg was someone to make that distinction.
Mind over matter?
Before both was the perceiver of these.
Space and time, require a knower.
World and life and death and a universe and an infinity, require, before them, the self who they happen in the awareness of.
Your body came of the world, you preceded both and all.

~

The desire to have happiness for all results in inevitable suffering when sadness is seen.
The desire to be well makes being unwell difficult.
The desire for enlightenment and release breeds constant anguish as the state of ignorance persists.
Free from desire, the perfect way, all happens yet is not suffered.

~

Practice is perfection.
As truth is non-dual;
You can only BE it,
..not have it.

~

I am complete without ideas.
Ideas break me into many.

~

To know anything, even truth, maybe especially truth, is false.
As knowledge requires knower.
Truth can only be,
and not be known.

~

I had a dream, in the dream, I was not free,
I had a dream, but that dream, was not me.
Now I come to see, the whole of reality,
Now I can see this is all that can be.

~

Don't take the road to Nirvana without realizing that the road is Nirvana.

~

There are only 3 things that spoil perfection:
Memories,
Plans
Concepts

~

Why do I see pain and suffering?
Because you seek pleasure.
Not seeking,
Not found.

~

Now. Awakened. And every moment, every action, every act, every sight of the eye, sound of the ear, sense of the heart, is only the truth.
Then you need no time, no place to be or go, nothing to seek and nothing missing.
The man at prayer, the woman singing praise, are not wrong in your eyes but as filled with truth as the moo of a cow and the wind in the trees, no more or less.
The grass under your feet is a great as the space above your head and both contain each other as the universe contains itself and you are all things.
Breathing, you are dead. Living you decay. As dust you feed life. As new life you return to life.

~

When I have perfect wisdom then all shall be released.
I can not achieve this any other time than now,
Therefore all beings are perfectly awake,
and I have perfect clarity.

~

We each step back from the infinite fractal of which we are one. And from each stance we naturally have a unique perspective. Some people have it all worked out, some have no idea, many see it in similar ways, many in complete contradiction.
And so it is, infinite, and one.
So when we read the words of another, one who has all the answers, we must remember, great or not, they offer only a perspective. No matter how true these words are to one, they will only ever point partially for another.
Each truth is unique, ultimately, beyond the words though, they are the same.

~

You know what was there? Right in the heart, right at the root, right there where it all began, that which envelops the infinite..
The answer: Something indefinable with words, incalculable, unimaginable, un-sayable.
It was the truth, and in meeting it: all further chatter, all attempts at definition, all mind-games that say this and that - were permanently, extinguished.
It was simple, it came before words.

~

Perhaps one of the nastiest snags on the path is to feel you "have it".
Then these people go about attempting to push their ideas on others.
Or sniggering at how wrong everyone else is.

~

The world does not owe you anything, can not give you anything.
The idea that the world should give you happiness, when the world does not have happiness as one of its constituent parts, is apparently false. The world is made of mind and mind can only recognise happy and sad, not produce them.
Happiness must emerge from the only true reality, that before mind.

~

Most of them are at work.
Making money.
To buy things.
That help them forget about work.

~

Here we both are.
Our lives have taken so many different twists and turns.
Your life so different to mine.
Yet, Here we are!

~

You can think "things are like this" (good or awful)
and be bound by that,
Or it may set you free.

~

You may watch something grow, you may watch something decay.
Yet in all of infinity, the essence did not shift one bit.
Remain focused on the essence.
Then, as you observe them again, growth and decay are not different.

~

What?

~

Like using a telescope to look for your eye.
You wont find truth.
If it did not already exist in you, how could you have looked at all?
You're looking for something,
That if you did not already have,
You'd be unable to begin in looking,
See ?

~

He was said to have the best memory of all.
It had nothing in it.

~

Not: "why this why that why me why why why?"
Just: "This that is and it is it is it is!"

~

If ego is seeking then truth will be kept at bay. If person is seeking for gratification, position, accumulation, then truth will be ever absent.

~

Every book you ever cherished will be ashes in your fire when truth burns through.

~

The big wave who wanted to be as vast as the ocean - eventually gave up trying to get bigger and bigger - it dropped down, forgot itself and became.

~

Always replying spontaneously with the truth, never needing to lie, you have to rely less on memory.
Relying less on memory or cunning keeps you in the present and living spontaneously.
Fresh and free and true.

~

No action, such as trying to become 'not the doer', trying to achieve oneness, attempting meditation, doing yoga, is in itself useful and it can even be detrimental.
These actions are only of use when the result is unity.
More likely they occur when unity is already the case:
"Ah, this is it! I sit!"
and not:
"I must sit and act what I am not."

~

There is nothing to talk about, say or do.
All action and talk should be simplified, not built upon.
Able to simplify, and simplify, and simplify, and reduce to none.
Is the wisest person of all.

~

Seeking happiness, is sadness.
Seeking pleasure, is suffering.
Can we now see what the Buddha said?
Living (for most people) is suffering.

~

Where you go is the way.
When you map it out it makes no sense, and those who follow those maps are lost forever.

~

If you have a bad finger, then later in the day you will hit it again.
If you have a bad outlook, then things will come to frustrate you.

~

There will come a day when [insert item here] is no longer important.

~

A wise person once said "I don't know" and he was so so so right that everyone ignored him and went to find something more complicated instead.

~

Philosophy: When you settle on a label, you loose your suppleness. You stiffen up and wait for the world to consume you.

~

Was the best thing, at the best time, the most excellent fun time, just the greatest part of the most wonderful great thing that ever happened to you… planned?

~

As soon as we are talking about them and us, peace can only deteriorate.

~

I asked my dog what she'd like to do for her birthday and she said she had nothing to wear and no money but wanted to have a nice run by the river and chew a stick or two.
I thought this was a great idea.
I asked my sister and she said her husband had exams, they were moving house soon, work was stressful and she may not get home in time to even have a rest before her birthday was out.
I thought "and you, human, are the smart one?"

~

Anyone recognising the truth could not bear for someone to act as if inferior, would laugh at someone acting superior, and would respect all in nature from fly to fish as a living equal in Tao.

~

The cat or dog is given a mirror and they become fascinated by the reflection, scratching at the mirror, jumping around, running to the back of the mirror, seeing nothing they return to the front, nudge it, on and on..
So it is also with the person when they first see the world.
With time they may realise the world is a reflection of themselves and smile.

~

It seems so unhealthy and alien to seek truth when it has already become apparent. Suddenly looking makes no sense whatsoever and instead one is drawn to view the life around them and be in a sustained state of awe and wonder.

~

You believe "I am unawakened" because you believe in "I".

~

Hanging the washing out to dry.
Painting birds onto the sky.
Drawing images with my mind.
That in a moments time,
I'll no longer find.

~

Greed is infinitely empty. Unfulfillable.

~

Those with a little, yet enough, are content.
Rich rarely so.
Wealth does not buy freedom from attachment.
And true riches are immaterial.

~

When desire opposes the situation then conflict appears.

~

It turned out all along that water buffalo were in charge of philosophy and man was on cake duty.

~

The great ones sip from the cup with an empty mind.

~

Those who seek enlightenment as something for them to have and hold are attempting to force duality to be real.

~

Not desiring to awaken to truth, is to awaken to truth.
(Are you trying to not try now?)

~

No concept of now is truly now.
Present is absent of the idea.

~

Are you trying to make yourself completely happy?
This is the action of the ego!
Strive only to hold onto the one.
Ego gone, no longer identified with – is the true state.

~

Wishing for riches or material things is a sure sign of depression and imbalance.
When all is well these are the last of your concerns.
True wealth is not something that can be gained or lost.
It can only be ignored or embraced.
And is ever present.

~

It is not to become the whole.
It is to stop identifying with parts.

~

At rest, with the sky as a blanket and the land as bed.
Bliss and fulfilment.

~

Rivers and weather can be explained in words and so can spiritual ideas.
The more words used the less the description resembles the truth of just sitting, by the river, in the moon light.

~

Truth penetrates stone, fits between rays of light, encompasses universes and swallows your mind.

~

Sun and a cool breeze, A clap of thunder and a torrent of rain.
Same Sky.
So too you. Often Calm, can blow up, react!
Here too, be like the sky; open and empty, never holding on, not lingering.

~

Nothing to say, nothing to think, nothing to do.
Ah, you have it!

~

The flower turns to the light. The tree grows towards the sky.
So too you act perfectly well.

~

When they can take space and make it emptier by adding.
When they can take clear waters and make them clearer by stirring.
When they can speak and make silence quieter: they have spoken truth.

~

To make sure of a good trip, check for calm seas.
For a wise decision, allow the mind to settle first.

~

The loss of self and the finding of the one true self in a motion: the discovery of infinite bliss.

~

Why am I in bondage?
That thought.

~

So you think you are analytical - I think you are staring at the wall.
So you think you are spiritual - I think you speak mumbo-jumbo.
So you think you are religious - I think you have a closed off mind.
So you think you are happy - I say stop thinking and you will be.
So you think I have it all worked out - I know for sure you can't.
And this is why I exist in bliss,
   knowing the only certainty,
     is this.

~

Follow leaders and be forever in the shade of stupidity and greed.
Follow the learned and be forever confused.

~

The eyes do not look, they absorb. The mind is responsible for looking.
The failure here is how it divides information from a limited sensory input into values good and bad.
Here is the illusion.

~

Some are lost in life. Some seek spiritual solace.
Some admirable people just live!

~

It is only an argument if you take part.

~

The big mouth causes fear and panic.
In times of fear and panic, people huddle around a leader with a big mouth.

~

Did you see the 200 year old turtle apply wrinkle cream?
Did you see the Lion condition his mane?
Did you see the bird plan her journey?
All trust Nature.

~

Water is always at water level, a persons legs go from ground to hip.
Tea tastes of tea and smells do not enter the ear.
When there is work to do, you can complain, you can rejoice.
Either way, when it is done, it is done.
Did thinking ever change a thing?
It was always going to be this way.

~

You can't force out a government without it being replaced by another.
An ant can't push down a large tree. But he can, with a team, remove its foundation and witness it tumble.

~

Peace is gained by forgetting conflicts.

~

Is it a delight to win, to get your way?
Is victory in war great?
Only from the view of ego can this be good.
On the other side were people too.
People on borders are similar and good friends.
Their remote leaders keep themselves separate.
War is between those who keep separations at heart.
Peace is at the border where men shake hands and children mix freely.

~

A leader with a big mouth makes all the wrong moves.
Govern your life from within. Tell no one of your achievements, tell no one of your failures.
Accept both as the way things are.

~

You'd trust water to evaporate.
So sit until thoughts subside.
Adding water does not aid evaporation.
So no need to help the mind.

~

If one leader had true wisdom.
They'd quit.

~

The mystery so powerful as to form the world.
The thoughts of the mind so limited.
When enough dew has collected, it drips.
When thoughts are dispersed, awakening.

~

By offering 'yourself' to one higher, you are offering something fake (your idea of separate self) to something equally fake, as it has its conceptual reality based on your initial false premise: that idea of a separate self which may be offered.




Yet, to give yourself up...

~

Worry not. - This can be the only way!

~

Layers and realms of the universe and heavens, levels of spiritual mastery or achievement, exist only as pointers to that which is in you.
The truth is never really 'out-there', to be reached for, or so on. All of that, and the truth itself, exist by one root. Being.
All such ideas are mere pointing to ways of uncovering the mystery who's clearest answer is in your own being.

~

Feeling like you don't know, you seek knowledge.
Knowledge from others is not complete and not your own.
So you feel even more like you don't know.
The wise at this point say “I can't know” and shift their attentions to perfecting this wisdom.

~

So now you have seen truth. You have achieved nothing!
Well done! As if you had something you could lose it.
So be safe in the absence and dwell in the bliss of it!

~

That something (call it a universe or any other name) has come about and produced forms, some of which feel separate and the various emotions, you can only feel a deep compassion. Most of all to yourself, as you too are as illusory conceived as the rest.
Any negative must be put aside as to attempt to form a better way whilst being a suffering part can neither benefit you or the whole.
Never make a choice whilst sad. All decisions must arise from happiness and so the future will be based on this.

~

The hardest part of the journey is the beginning as it is a journey..
..the end is a shock as you realise it was not.

~

Don't hold onto bad memories, don't hold on to ideas.
The more you learn that then the less you need.

~

Sit in the shade,
take off your mask,
there is nothing here but infinite bliss.

~

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

~

The only unrest in the universe is on the minds of some humans.

~

There has been a stream of wisdom passing down the ages and at every turn man has attempted to collect the water into a container so that he can wrap his mind around it.
Those containers don't flow, they stagnate, the flow continues in the stream.
Let go of your stagnation and let it back into the stream to flow.

~

It is enough to accept that all is bliss and that anything else is a misinterpretation.

~

Seeking truth is like stepping forward to achieve standing still.
An impossible method.

~

Guided by the groin they live in endless lustful seeking.
Those guided by the belly suffer unhealthy short days.
Those who take the heart for guide are some of the best people we know, but may often follow false whims and suffer these.
Guided by the mind are the most dangerous; thinking they are right, letting ego dictate ideas, wants and needs. Our common man.
Only they who have the empty cap, the guide in the crown of the head, can truly be seen as balanced. This spiritual perspective is the one who rules them all. No other guide can lead astray when this master has the helm.

~

In just the same way as a lake acts in settling dirt, nourishing life and floating logs - Without doing a thing; always in balance and remaining calm – manage your life.

~

Bliss is: not wanting to change a thing.

~

When you meet normal people they tell you all about themselves.
When you meet the wise they teach you about your self.
For the master, there is nothing but the self.

~

It is not possible to die, only suffer.
It is not possible to die (as you are infinite), only suffer (not knowing this).

~

How, separate, will you see truth, unity?

~

A light reflects, refracts, rebounds.
The resulting refracted light, reflections and so on each too do the same.
The self is similar in the way she refracts to form the appearance of many.
To a point even where separation from source can feel concrete.
Looking back on other reflections this one can feel them wrong, can see in another the enemy.
Draw back to the source, this problem is not there.

~

Why seek happiness?
When the quest only defines sadness!
Breathe deep and sit,
For this is it!

~

All conversations end in silence.

~

Attempting perfection, you show all your faults.
Accepting your faults, is perfection.
Aiming to please, failure.
Being, easy.

~

Governing well is to put away the books and inhale once between each exhale.

~

The fool has a goal.
The gifted person of bliss has no aims.

~

i did metaphysics until I realized there was no me to do it.

~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Drunken Taoist

Are you listening to these podcasts? http://thedrunkentaoist.com/episodes/archive

Great fun.

Check episode 1 with Duncan Trussell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Of course:

Plants and insects communicate in ways we can not quite imagine. We may comprehend or attempt to explain how they murmur signals to one another but that is their world.

That our future ancestors may wonder how we failed to see how planets, suns and comets communicate... well, so too they shall fall to a similar prejudiced focalism of their time.

Yet none shall be so wise as they who die - seeing that there are not two. just this Dao.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Forget what is, was, could or should be

Forget what is, was, could or should be. There are great philosophies and science is in progress. Lie down. Be dead.

Lying with your skeleton as it would be if only for gravity and with no resistance from muscle or tissue, die away peacefully to the emptiness. In as great a contrast now as possible to your dead body and mind the universe produces infinite power, deafening noise, blinding light. What is this? No science, no philosophising, no naming.

And untold number of storylines may be given for what is but none true. We can fool ourselves that there are stories that explain, nearly explain, or will just about do but we have no real and true storyline  Any story and the constituent language is human. Even the most mystical, even the most mathematical, can only paint a limited tale.

Empty of thoughts, all you have is thoughts. In the greatest stillness, there is nothing but movement. - - So this movement, in mind, in universe, in energy, in body, in life is it. Unexplained from this corpse like pose. This is.

This is the peace, the perfection, what you were missing, what you were seeking, what you were looking for but in so doing were blind to. Imperfectable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Enlightenment demystified

Perhaps, rather than planning your escape, or dreaming of the release - instead describe and clearly map your prison.

When, by such inspection, it is seen that there is no prison - the natural, preexisting freedom, will become apparent.

What we seek in seeking is arrived at by one means and one means only. Not seeking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

A cartoon on enlightenment.

1) (Normal person, getting on with life. Walking through a park, care free, whistling. Bird flying out from near by tree).

2) (Person continues walking) (Appearing in shot - A 'Guru' sitting) "You know there is a way called the enlightened way" says the Guru.

"What does that mean?" asks the person.

3) (person, now standing near the sitting Guru). Guru says "It means that you are asleep, you are in bondage - I am enlightened"

4) (person now sitting, book in hand) Thinks - "It seems I must now look hard and work to become enlightened too. Now I know I'm a separate, unawakened being - I have to get there."

5) (time has passed, person now has beard)

6) (Normal person, getting on with life. Walking through a park (with beard), care free, whistling. Bird flying out from near by tree). "Finally I'm free from this quest for enlightenment - I'm awakened!"

7) (Person continues walking) (Appearing in shot - A 'Guru' sitting) "You know there is a way called the enlightened way" says the Guru.

"Yes, thanks" (continues walking)

8) (and walking...)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

How to align with Tao or become enlightened

How many people in the world are looking to align with Tao? Not so many but enough for an industry. How many people seek an awakening or spiritual enlightenment? Quite a large number, enough for a multi million dollar industry. How many people are looking to be right with God? Millions. Enough for a billion dollar industry.

To align with Tao. To become enlightened. To be right in God's eyes are different enough but the same in a way. A mind made transformation in a time other than now.

One can not be wrong with God, unenlightened or out of line with Tao. Perhaps the works of man in the name of God are most demanding when they say "all is God's way but man chooses to do right or wrong" but if, to save lengthy debate, we say that this also is God's way then we can move forward to the marrow.

The three cases I've raised are a human journey of the mind.

For the sake of my typing, your reading and the blog I'm speaking on I'll now speak of Tao and perhaps enlightenment (as Zen is so commonly spoken of alongside Tao). When I say though that one can not be out of line with Tao, unenlightened or so on, I will be equally and as correctly referring to God, Allah, spirit, nature, the ocean of being, or any other name for the absolute.

The absolute, the all, the everything, in most people's eyes includes them. In truth though there is no 'it and them' but 'it' only. You're it. One can only convince themselves that they are apart or separate by the use of the mischievous mind.

The mind, on hearing of enlightenment or Tao, creates a split. It then sets about trying to resolve the split. Alike to the quest for selflessness which is an entirely selfish act so too the quest for aligning or becoming exist also. As with all tricks on the mind from anxiety to stress, from fear to remorse, they exist in a time other than now. That is, they don't exist, except in the mind.

What is aimed for in the future that can already be nothing but the case already. Our example being: aiming for awakening tomorrow when it can only be the case now - these are insoluble mind tricks. These are the tricks that the million and billion dollar industries play off, are fueled by.

It was already the case before your birth that nature, the universe, Tao was one. At birth, also one. In times of mind made turmoil, also one. Death and after, also one. The mere concept of there being something to get right with produces the seed of separation.

We can not be blamed though. (Why we should be blamed at all is a joke to me but seems it must be addressed.) - long before humans were here, nature had come to have self and other. Even by close example our ape cousins or beloved pets have self and other in their nature. We though, we named and labeled. We took names, labels and concepts to have concrete reality. Years later in our history this ingrained trait is want for abuse as it runs wild unchecked.

The nature of how we can be fooled into taking labels for forms and also labels for nebulous concepts and imbuing them substance is covered in other posts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Just this unknowable way

This way ...is best only as a way to realizing and being, wishing for no other way to be the way, than it is looking for what you would otherwise desire to become.

~ ~ ~

Perhaps..

There is 'where you are' and 'where you wish to be'. If these are different then you're unhappy.

Happiness is when 'where you are' and 'where you wish to be' are the same.

It is not though to change where you are or what you think, but realize that wishing to be anywhere else causes unhappiness.

Where you are, right now, is unchangeable, so accept where you are and you'll be happy.

Then the future lives on in this happiness.

When you're not looking to be happy, you can only be happy.

Consequently and apparently - happiness is only sought for by the unhappy. A goal of happiness makes the present location, by definition, unhappiness.

~ ~

Then, there is no chooser, no actor to act, to wish for another way or to accept the current way - there is only the way - no actor, no acted..

Just this unknowable way.

What is. Not what would, could or should be.

~

The apparent solution to all concern is an awakening, enlightenment. Yet it is the very projection of this 'other way/state' that turns the present perfection into imperfection that must be escaped.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Ice decides to melt

Try this claim for size:

"I allowed myself to break free from the false idea of free will and live now truly free."

No matter the verb following the pronoun "I" at the beginning of the sentence there is conflict. One can not bring about any action if free will is not the case. Then free will exists? Well, no, it does not. What we have is an exposure of how our given language, grammar and vocabularies shape our explanations.

Should I have two children in their first couple of years of life and encourage each to say a different word than one another when they see a dog then they will, in later life, internally voice these sounds when they think of or see a dog. This experiment is proven by two children who grow up in countries where different languages are spoken.

So called consciousness - being conscious of a dog in this case - requires a learned label. No label, no internal voice, we are said to be unconscious of that phenomena. You can prove this true by attempting to hold in your awareness any one thing that you've never seen before and have no label for. Impossible as this is it is great for us that we have nebulous container words and place holders in our language (such as "thing", "stuff" and so on) to allow us to wriggle free of certain death.

Then, if we have a set vocabulary and grammar structure, our descriptive, conscious worlds are fictions and very barren. The world you "consciously think" about is not as colourful as you had once thought, it is far from accurate, and is very unreal. Nothing said in words by a "conscious being" relates at all to what's out there in reality.

A dog watching his owner play chess may well recognize his owner, may even sense the owners mood, but has no consciousness of the progress of the game. A human watching grass grow can tell many stories about the event but is unconscious of the underlying mechanism of growth. When the science explaining the quantum mechanical effects underlying photosynthesis are understood, well enough to be rendered in language, then the person may believe they are now conscious of the system but, as vocabulary and language structure do not fit the quantum world - they're not.

There are many cases in which we can see that the learned world of labels, which is also the world we are apparently conscious of, is not reality. The description or storyline that we attach to the world is subjective, unique and of miniscule resolution. The true reality is an indefinable movement of uncaused being, of which no one can be separate. No one is doing anything, but in that movement of oneness, there can be constructed inner worlds. - Conscious worlds mapped by low resolution bits. Consciousness says the world is bits, primarily "I" and other key players.

Truth sees itself, unformed, shifting. Nebulous.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Science answered by the G word. No strings attached.

No strings attached. No complex string theory. No branes. No magical forces. No Higgs mechanism. None of the old physics.

The answer is the g word. Capital G.

God? Nooooo. The Grid!

Interested in science? Check out theoryofsomething.com for incredible insights and simplifications in science. All tied up with equations to suit those who need and an elegant wonderful depiction of how the theory of something works.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Happiness, Life, etc..

To explain the human story, why we are here and our answer to happiness it is necessary to walk a path through physics, cosmology, neuroscience and philosophy. At the outset a little must be said as to how this, the best we can offer, is limited by language.

Cosmologies, sciences and philosophies of the past have stated a quite natural and seemingly obvious claim that "there was nothing and by some event/magic/intervention/unknown/unknowable there came to be something". Leading physics today though says that there is no such thing as nothing and no true idea of something. That there is a quantum state which is impossible to fit into our language, causal or mechanical frameworks. This can seem limiting but it is also wonderfully magical. Perhaps this start point appears as a knife to the throat of any attempt to describe our world and place in it but this very same sharp edge is what we need to cut right through to the truth of the matter. Nothing is doing anything, acting on anything, causing anything. At root, in the quantum fabric there is the possibility of something and nothing appearing, always as a unity and - here at the introduction - that attempts too much with language.

From the above "something/nothing" quantum state of nothing/something came an appearance of something floating around in nothing. That took time and so something, nothing, spatial and temporal dimensions, apparent forces and so on appeared to come about at once. These terms are attempts to describe facets of this quantum nothing/something and so we must never take one of them as having an objective reality or consider one without all of the rest. One can not consider time without space or matter without space. Also then not consider time without matter or any of the above without the seeming forces at play. The apparent first case of this quantum occurrence, at least the one measurable and so meaningful to us, we know of was The Big Bang. There may have been more bangs, there may not have even been one. We measure the first significant event by tracing back all that we can see and measure now to, not a point in space and time, but the occurrence of space and time. (It is clear how language fails as the very rules for constructing a sentence demand apparent cause, effect and temporality of which "then" there were none).

Be it through entirely reductional means or by more holistic means where new "emergent" qualities arise from increasingly complex arrangements of networking "parts" then the quantum dance wiggled and became increasingly huge and complex. In truth this is beyond huge as it is infinite and beyond complex as such as it is the entirety of everything bar none. This quantum dance, which as said has no meaningful language to describe it, from our perspective and in our language, interacted with itself. [from now onwards I will just use English words without quotations or explanation and let you remind yourself of their inadequacy for describing that outside of our sensory world. These words are all we have after all so lets progress without the inertia of caveats]. Certain parts took on certain qualities providing them the abilities to interact and this appeared to happen along a causal and temporal, linear dimension. Invisible to us but known to our minds as time.

Within this story ever more complex wiggles appeared to 14 billion year old scientists (as that is how old we are in this story) as various constituent parts. This is after all how our mind has evolved to describe our macro world, we insist that wholes are made of parts. These parts however are not parts but aspects of this self interacting dance of one, infinite, nothing. For a time these parts were atoms, for a time they were protons and electrons (protons and electrons we found made up atoms), for a time they were electrons and quarks (3 quarks we found made up a proton), for a time they were known as strings (strings were theorized to be the fundamental wiggles which made up anything known before them), for a time strings became more complex "branes" and for a time all of these ideas were embraced, cast aside, loved and even dismissed. We met limits in our abilities to test theories but what we had come to know in a brief magical time in science was so great and so accurate in describing our world that in the wake of the revolution came GPS, Wi-Fi, CPU's, Lasers and a whole host of magical and powerful things depending on the, as yet unseen, quantum universe behind all of reality.

As these wiggles took on complex forms, be they described as strings, quarks, atoms or anything else then the force we all know as gravity acted also. This stuff coalesced and, as it did, even more complex forms came to be. In time gravity and the other forces present in these (truly) nuclear furnaces in space could balance no more and huge explosions ripped thorough space scattering what we know as chemical elements into space. Carbon, lithium, helium and anything up to the weight of iron spilled out into the universe and they all too felt gravity. New, second generation stars, of which our Sun is one, took form and matter, which was not grabbed by the gravity of these stars and sucked into them, floated around in volatile elliptical orbits sustaining collisions. In time the larger bits pulled in the smaller and planets of very complex mixtures of chemicals took shape.

The indescribable quantum wiggle grew more in complexity and in our story became chemical compounds and, not forgetting the possibilities on offer in infinity, some, you can imagine it happening, animated.

At first two complex compounds would both do well to react with another compound. When one did it went static but when the other did it became larger and was left fit to continue. Within liquids certain reactions went well and those compounds which generated bubbles grew to protect or isolate themselves. An interplay went ahead where many possibilities were tried and by no method whatsoever besides having all the time they wanted and any means available to them, reactions went on in whatever way they did. As growing compounds took on mass they split apart and these parts continued. In time these subdividing parts came together and, not forgetting the time scales involved, billions of years, and how long you have to read this story, much less, some mixtures were successful and others not. Successful compounds grew more complex and at some time, still billions of years ago, there were chemical compounds so adept to duplication that they were carrying with them instruction manuals, protection, and things we may now recognise as cells were living. The quantum universe, from our perspective, was alive. Although it would be simple to state and accept that aliveness is the natural state of the universe I'm only now looking at the animated life which contrasts, in our macro world, with the inanimate dead.

The most complex collection of cells we know of are the ones collectively known as human beings and the most complex part of them is their brains. Until very recently brains were thought to be made of neurons and useless goo. It turned out with time that there are many hundreds of kinds of neuron, the eye has over a hundred kinds of its own, the heart has neurons, your stomach (gut feelings) has neurons and your brain has billions. The largest collection of neurons is in the brain and each neuron has thousands of linkages which may reconfigure at any moment. Your brain is said to be plastic as it can, and it does, reconfigure moment by moment. It is said that there are more connections in the brain than stars in the known universe. The complexity here is, as you know by being there right now and considering all of this, quite incredible.

Not only are the connections in the brain vast but they do not operate as switches, on or off, and in circuits, nothing so simple as that! They operate in networks with many kinds of signalling media available to them. The specific skills of our brain, and the reason we did not evolve a language suited to the quantum world, were honed by our need for survival in a world that seems to us to be made of big and small things operating in a causal manner. Lion runs at human, human will be eaten, human attempts evasive action. The resulting complexity of our brains though is a very powerful tool and, as said, plastic and highly adaptable. While certain parts of the brain do seem to be commonly wired one way for most of us, say the part for vision is almost certainly at the back of your head, other parts of the brain can be involved in many tasks and parts can alter purpose and many features will be unique to individuals.

During the evolution of the brain the increasing complexities of, what are ultimately quantum wiggles, dressed as chemicals, being successful or not in replication, took on increasingly more complex roles. Brains for some animals are only a means to navigate relatively simple landscapes, finding food, partners and so on. Brains for other animals developed apparent skills like the ones you are using now and along side the near visible features such as these the invisible world of genes operated unseen.

Seeing as we did that successful chemical interactions multiplied then so too successful genes will lead to duplication of certain traits. If two sisters are born and they move to different sides of the same river and one caries a gene that makes her snore at night then given the same nocturnal predators the snoring sister may have more chance of scaring away nocturnal animals from her babies as, even unaware of the threat, she slept at night. This outcome is deemed successful and, as unimpressed as you are at snoring, nature deemed it a successful adaptation. Variations of this speculative example can be from two tree seedlings dropped by a tree. They happen to be indigestible by birds but eaten all the same. Both seeds drop in the birds droppings onto different fields. One field is prone to flooding and the other not. Both seeds carry a gene that allows them to cope well with excess water but as the trees have offspring in their respective fields the gene degenerates in both families. In the flooded field only those offspring carrying the gene survive, the others don't but in the dry field all saplings survive with or without the gene. Within not too many generations the gene is strengthened in one strain and diluted or lost forever in the other. These related trees, given enough time and variation become different species with different appearances and qualities which can no longer interbreed.

The brain then underwent internal evolution in ways so far and beyond the complexities of the above examples that they would take pages to even theorise over but we do not need to attempt to rewrite what Charles Darwin and all who have followed him have already stated and proven so well. Certain qualities, even seen as quite horrible, such as feeling pain or being depressed flourished for their ability to lead to successful duplication and nothing else. Two people cut their hands, one feels pain and is drawn to act the other does not feel pain, great for them!, but they do not react, become infected and die with no offspring, not so great for them. The qualities we have have been successful to date so you do not have a single relative in your direct family tree who has failed to duplicate itself since the beginning of time. We are one big family.

We are one big family though where it has been good for our genes as a collective whole for some of us to be subservient and others dominant, for some to be creative and others dogmatic, for some to be so fond of their recent heritage that they will kill in its name and for some to be so taken by our interrelatedness that they are drawn to question all apparent division. We have evolved with dangerous and complex contradictory drives inside one brain. We have genes that know success is from having one steady life partner and via complexities in community have attempted to legislate that this must be the way for all. We have genes that know success by having many partners and have successfully duplicated these genes by doing just that. We have dominant brain organizations which infer parts out there in the world and we have dominant brain organisations that see wholeness. With such wildly separate examples and so much else in our mix it can be no surprise that in the 9 billion versions of the human alive today that we are so different to one another even given our striking similarities. There may well be 9 billion completely correct views on some subjects, or exactly what shade of green is the real green.

Along with the complexities in our brains we have the external world where interactions between us are just as important and just as complex as the interactions of neurons and transmitters in our heads. As our genes move to duplicate and for duplicated genes to reattempt their successes, our complex brains have gone to shape the world in which we live. Now our world is only this way for us. A bird will fly from one area of land to another but we will display a passport to cross the very same land mass. We have labelled and split our world in the way our brain has evolved to label and split what we sense around us. When a child is born then the universe for them is completely at one. Just as soon as we can though we have them label parts. We have them say dog when they see a dog and we repeat it until they repeat it and then we congratulate them for saying it on their own and then we ask them to please stop saying things out loud and to internalize the labelling. This learned labelling, while very useful and and purposeful, is then taken to new levels as we have children apply labels to things which are not even things. We have them label good and bad, consciousness, east, west, China, India, space, life and death. We have them treat concepts as things as real to them as doggy and Mum and Dad.

From this labelling tool that was deemed so useful and successful to organisms that successfully replicate, a method by which we could pick the right food, give directions and avoid danger, we have moved to increased complexity where we label areas of land, animals and misty concepts such as consciousness with the same language. We have killed one another over these labels. I say this is called X, he says it is Y, I say that X has the qualities of goodness and love and he says that X is unreal and those qualities must be applied to Y instead. We fight to the death.

Not only do we fight to the death over concepts but we fight intellectually over labels. The very contents of this writing up to now and likely to the end will upset people who don't like the use of certain labels. I said early on how we don't have the language to describe the quantum world and later how our language evolved in the large scale world - yet people will fill debates with hours of airy talk over just what labels should be used for such things. To avoid expanding this writing by pages I'll lump religion into one basket as a form of philosophy, a way of carrying ideas suited to some genes surviving certain times and places down through generations. Philosophy has been about as long as humans I'd confidently guess and due to this it is apparent that the philosophies of past generations can only survive if they follow the examples of the genes that carry them and adapt, casting the weak aside and moving forward with those that suit the current climate. A revolution which took flight from the shoulders of philosophy was that of science.

Science has a unique quality that religion did not display and only the better philosophies did, it is willing and even flourishes by throwing off all that is proven wrong. Science refuses the unprovable and only maintains the proven if it remains testably true. As new tools come about or new measurements, findings or so on science, and what it deems to be truth, adapts. As great a mind as Isaac Newton had, formidable in fact, we only moved with his ideas for so long. We did not think we must keep them going for eternity because they are old and we did not think that we should keep them once more accurate methods came about. Our ideas of what goes on in the brain are only as good as our tools and current investigations allow for, we do not deem them fact but part of an ongoing discovery.

Science is the complex universe, the indescribable quantum wiggle, attempting to explain itself - which leads to a discussion on happiness.

Happiness.
Due to the successful duplications over the past billions of years since the universe seems to have gone from the potential to the seemingly actual, and following our story version which is restricted by language and the way our brains formed, we have exactly this to go on. By this I mean that sense you have there of being someone who can sit back and think of being someone and think about being someone thinking about being someone - self aware and conscious. That is what we have and that is our tool and we are the universe looking back on itself and attempting explanation, even given the faults that came with it, this is it.

We have minds that insist on there being parts that operate by cause and effect (as false as this is from what we do know about the quantum thread our life’s tapestry is woven from then cause and effect are illusions true only for our brains and not the universe writ large). We have qualities such as brains which have us writhe in agony when something goes wrong like toothache or a poke in the eye. We have imbalances which have us kill, hurt one another, hurt the ones we love. We have finite lives and we die, we suffer the deaths of others and we are guaranteed nothing more certainly from the moment we are born that we will die one unknown day.

Along with these weaknesses that evolution has provided us we have daily fluctuations in our brains too. We have been provided by evolution a sense of self, feelings of happiness and sadness and a sense of agency in the world. It just happens that these qualities, good or bad, weak or strong were the ones that can trace a family tree back as far as we have yet managed to see. Perhaps we had ancestors who were only ever happy, but they did not replicate. We can be happy or sad. [Note that philosophically it would be impossible to be only happy as happiness is only know by contrasting it with sadness so to know happiness one must know sadness.]

So here we are, we have this set-up and we have our complex drives, we have this sense of agency in the world and we have this desire to explain or be explained, to find purpose in this universe. This universe is what we are though, we are the universe, we are the magical, inexplicable quantum dance. One thing that can not be proven false and is ever there to be in awe of and take great fulfilment from is that we are the universe. Confused as we are by our make-up into thinking we are an individual -in- the universe, we are in fact, the universe.

This individual self, that we are confused into thinking we are, and have learned to believe that we are, seems by the readings of any culture yet to leave its mark in writing to have one true desire - happiness.

We want to be happy and we want our offspring to be happier than we were. This has been found by every researcher who has enquired to date, humans want to be happy. As I have pointed out though, happiness is only known because of its opposite, but let's not be put off by that. We can always redefine, after all, language is only labelling gone mad. It's not real.

Many fine and informative pieces of research have been made available by people researching this quest and happiness comes about from some things and is taken away by others.

Happiness is taken away by; the unknown, excessive money, a lack of money, spending money on only yourself and not others, loneliness, being too far in the past or projecting too much into the future, being too lost in thought, being sick, having a wandering mind, ...

Happiness comes when; we share experiences, share food, money, forget the past, are unconcerned by the future, have health, love, ... and many more things.

As seen, happiness can come and go, it can be brought about and taken away. Love can be lost, money, health, things which provide security and meaning such as a house and family, can be themselves great potential sources of sorrow. Happiness is, unfortunately, as said, a relative state but one method for happiness that has been passed down through many generations of successful dividing humans is the appreciation of the moment.

Sit comfortably, relax your shoulders, let the strain drop from your brow, and your jaw, and your back and your legs, let your body rest. Breath in slowly and deeply and pull yourself up straight. Focus on that vacant clarity that emerged just then in your head or heart. That's nice, happy peace. That is the appreciation of the moment - a moment with no labels attached to it, no story, no explanations, just a universe being its wonderful self.

A unique thing about that happiness is, while transient, for many of you it is probably gone already as your mind is wandering, it can be re-achieved very simply. You can do it again right now and any time you choose. That happiness is unconditional happiness as it is just happy with the simple, unlabelled emptiness.

Happiness due to something, money, house, love, friendship, can go and be replaced by unhappiness. Happiness due to simple emptiness and recognizing the universe with no labels or storyline - that is an unconditional happiness. Literally requiring no conditions.

A quantum dance is taking place. We know it is because the great scientist who worked hard and diligently to discover and measure it, who only accepted a scientific approach, have proven it. The fact you have a device with GPS, Wi-Fi, a CPU, Lasers and so on prove that there is a quantum world hidden from the large world senses we evolved to sense the natural world. That quantum world, which for now is indescribable - but even a description of it will not change the truth of this only uphold it more - is the dancing universe. And that is what you are.

Sitting empty of storyline and labels you are the universe in the highest evolved state to date - a human feeling unconditional happiness.

When thoughts wander back in, as they will, you are whatever story you believe.

Wandering thoughts.
The above findings of a true and content simple happiness that can be experienced by anyone, from a child to a person on their deathbed is the most important conclusion of this writing and to any human to ever live. Relative paths to happiness can not fulfil us or sustain like the simple resting can and so nothing more need be said. There are though two big outstanding questions that wandering minds like to wrestle with. Beyond unconditional happiness they are Consciousness and Free Will.

Consciousness and Free Will.
The fact of the matter is that you only -think- you are you and in truth you are the universe, the quantum dance, no more, no less. In this way any ideas of consciousness and free will can be simply discounted as stories within the language unfit for the threads which make up the tapestry. The universe as a whole is not consciousness as it can not meaningfully be said to be conscious or unconscious. We don't benefit at all by applying relative terms to the absolute. Things within the story, the story that appears on the tapestry of life can be said to be conscious or unconscious as they are useful terms in our life and language but an important boundary exists. As we enter the world described by language and the story we apply to reality then we must not infer the reality of the things we label. They are just useful labels. No more.

Equally, as we label things within the story then there is no actual entity outside of the story to have free will. There are no agents, no actors to act and no things to be acted upon. In the story, yes, sure, useful. In reality, not at all. The universe is, by convention of language, changing and living out some kind of temporal, causal story. Within that story there are apparent people seeming to make choices but also within that story there is, as mentioned before, the scientific method.

The scientific method as touched upon earlier does not just make claims and hold onto them, it measures, tests, retests, checks and when better tools come about, we recheck afresh. When it comes to ideas of free will and the vivid sensation that we are choosing our actions then the tools and investigations at the disposal of science right now are very powerful, very deep and very accurate. We have learned things that we could never have gotten to by any other method, we have watched the brain at work and the body and we have done this with people just like you and me who have been aware, present, convinced they are free agents, perfectly sane people in test after test have sat with researches and the results are consistent. In test after test and under all degrees of scrutiny researchers had watched the brains of volunteers and have known the forthcoming action the person will make even before the person thinks they have consciously willed the action.

That is: A person will say they have willed an action at a certain point in time but in test after test the researchers watching the brain at work have already known, seconds before, what the person will do. The workings of the brain take place. The "choice" is made. The researches see this occur in the images they are seeing of the brain and can clearly see what is about to happen. A few seconds later the person thinks they have made a choice and then almost straight away they make their move. Supposed free will is an illusion which comes after the event. Naturally evolution would favour people who think they have free will as, take this example. Two people punch you in the face. One cares less and walks away. The other appears to be apologetic and appears to feel responsibility for their actions. Given that neither had free will in either case, even for their reaction after the event, the one who appeared sorry would survive apparent society better.

At the very best all we are doing is justifying whatever took place and as the best outcome we are fooled into thinking we were the agent. In truth no agent even exists.

Sad? Not at all! You are the universe! Relax, breath, sit in the moment, drop the storyline. Happiness is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Uniting forces and dimensions

I was watching a ton of physics lectures and while I love the conceptual side I can not meet the demands of the maths. The following idea that came to me then can have no proof, like anything else it is just and idea but I'll share it:

"When gravity splits from the other forces I feel that this moment would be where 11 dimensions unite into 4. So there are 11 dimensions and there is one force, but as the forces divide and manifest as more so too the dimensions unite. You may visualize the 11 dimensions warping together into a 4 dimensional space-time torus at the moment that gravity becomes manifest as a force separate to the other fundamental forces."

I'd love to have the maths to define this idea as then I'd see it in the language it deserves (and likely see it is invalid :))

Without the maths, all of these ideas are farts in the wind unfortunately. Still I love the lectures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao