The impossibility of resolving the duality is the magic

The impossible trap.

Languages carry the trap, but how could they not? Who would invent a language if they were not first under the impression that there were others to converse with?

Yin Yang

Brilliantly we have this concept of the Tai Chi, where the dual ideas are brought back to unity by the logic that everything must carry an anti, and for that pair to demonstrate completion and harmony.

Magic

The magic then is for us, who for the majority of life exist in time and space, to see unity and harmony in all we do. This actual act is magical.

Infinite regression powers true being.

As we can not meet an end to any negation we are left with some factor that is always beyond explanation. We can feel this but not convey it. The very act of conveying it instantly taints our gift to others with the ripe smell of fresh manure.

You can't discount other as who then is doing the discounting? Any acceptance of other is reaffirmation of self. Accepting all as one, who accepts it? Who is writing and who is reading? Should the one true self spend time trying to inform the one true self that it is the one true self?

No, the one true self simply manifests as an ocean and opens itself to rivers. The one true self describes harmony by being in harmony. The one true self describes peace by being at peace.

Negate negate negate, to prove nothing is but a relationship to what it is not.

Searching for truth is instant failure as it sets up seeker and falsehood. The basic premise of chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching. We won't do well if we can't get past chapter 2!

Yet the act of failure is quite magical. The part where brain and intellect cancel themselves out of the equation; blow up, cease, explode - boom - and with all negated, and no functioning reason left, we are still left with the mystery. This mystery can't be much else than the Tao itself.

..and as long as there is someone alive to witness the magic of all that they are not, then there is a show here and front row tickets are for the taking of anyone with eyes wide enough to absorb and an intellect wise enough to shut the fuck up.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Te

Te sounds pretty much like the little letter D so "d"

We can disagree on that and we can go on to disagree over what the little word means - Te is the virtue of the Tao. What does that mean? It means that we can't pronounce it or say what it means either. Brilliant.

The latter half of the Tao Te Ching is all about Te. Some say it was pinned on by the Confucians and is the order we should imagine from people who don't get Tao. Some say there were two great works, the Te Ching and the Tao Ching and they were joined together. Some say that 3 arms would be more useful than a second nose.

Te is actually most of what is said about Tao. Tao is of course by definition the unnameable, and Te is probably what we are referring to every time we speak of Tao. Te is like the action, the motion, the cause, the effect, we wrongly attribute to Tao.

So a statement like "The Tao redresses the balance" is truly about Te. Tao does nothing, as it's nature. Probably each time we speak of Tao we mean Te. So that is what Te is.

So what is Tao?

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Need for a new word

As you'll get from the intro to most books on the Tao, the word was a bit of a fluff, an "ah, bugger it". The idea being that you can't name this "   ".

As you'll get from reading further into the intro or from chapter 2, labels delimit and form apparent separation and opposition. It reminds you that these seeming separations are only in language and the true reality has no separation.

I was playing with the idea of the infinite today while staring into the middle distance, over some trees and into the sky and was reminded of a point made well in the Hua Hu Ching 'the tiny parts are not tiny and the vast universe not vast' - this same situation where it is our mini mind breaking things into manageable bits and then being convinced that they have reality.

The core error being that you see your self as real, so from this perspective the universe is vast and the bits tiny - but this separation is fallacy.

Scientists have "nasty infinity" they have an infinity they can handle, but then a nasty infinity they can't - dualistic infinities, funny. We'll skip getting into that pointless mind game and go with infinity being the same thing no matter which direction you look, small or big, we can do this as we have read the Hua Hu Ching recently, meditated, farted, and reminded ourselves, unlike the scientists, that this dual big/small is based of a fake reference point.

So there is the infinite, 'a-happening'. It is not infinitely big as in vast beyond measure, and it is not made of infinitely small bits. no no no, it is an infinite a-happening. The trees budding, coming forth, the wind blowing, my beating heart and metabolizing cells are this infinite a-happening.

Not old, no beginning, as there is no true point of reference to base those ideas from. Just Thus.

And for the meditative, take note, nature is alive, always in flow. You may have been searching for an inner stillness, trying to kill the rampant mind, and the universe is ultimately at rest, but your efforts to realize inner calm have a greater goal and that is to truly comprehend the real action.

As when you have either stilled OR you have embraced the vastness (opposite routes to the same place) then you have removed the fake point of reference and just left the whole action.

When you have stepped back from 'all things based from this viewpoint', then you are left apperseeing that you are this.

The seeing and the seen are not separate AT ALL. This a-seeing is the universe and - you're it.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Ch'ing-ching Ching (Crowley)

Alister Crowley: Many things have been said and written about him but his translation of the Ch'ing-ching Ching to an English poem is a serious piece of art, and paints the Tao beautifully.


~~~

I

Lao-chun the Master said:
Tao is, devoid of form;
Yet Heaven and Earth are brought to birth,
And nurtured by Its norm.

Tao hath no Will to Work;
Yet by its Way of Heaven
The Moon and Sun rejoice to run
Among the Starry Seven.

Tao hath no Name; Its Word
Is Growth, and Sustenance
To all; I aim to give It Name:
Tao (Heaven prosper Chance!)

Tao hath twin phase, with Te:
The Silent and the Stressed.
Of Motion, those; of these, Repose
Sublimely manifest.

Heaven moves, pure Silence He;
Earth rests, beneath the Strain;
Shuttle and Loom, as Word and Womb,
Their Mystery sustain.

Pure Motion maketh Rest
As Silence maketh Stress.
If man were still, then Heaven should thrill
With Earth to Nothingness.

Self loveth Silence. Yea,
But Mind distracteth it.
Mind loveth Rest; but Passions' Pest
Allures the trembling Wit.

If man restrain desire
His mind will cease to roll,
And mind's release allow pure peace
Of Silence to the Soul.

The senses will not soil;
The thought will not upstress;
Nor poisons (Greed, Wrath, Dulness) breed
Their triform deadliness.

Men earn not ease of Tao
For their desires' disease;
Because their mind is not refined
Of thought by killing these.

If one should slay desires,
His mind and body seem
No longer his; but phantasies
Danced in a wanton's dream.

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

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

All's rest, devoid of mark;
How should desires fix tooth?
When they are past, thou surely hast
The Silence of the Truth.

Flawless that Truth and Fixed,
Yet apt to each appeal
Nature and Sense to influence-
The magnet to the steel!

Oh! This true Touch with all
Elastic and exact
That yet abides above their tides-
The Silence free from Act!

He that hath this shall come
Little by little, a breath,
So floweth he now, to Truth of Tao,
Wherein he vanisheth.

Men style him Lord of Tao
Yet He hath none to lord.
His motive He of all that be:
Enough for His reward!

He that can comprehend
This Doctrine may transmit
This Sacred Tao to men that vow
Themselves to fathom It.


II

Lao-chun the Master said:
The adept in skill of soul
Hath never an aim; the bungler's shame
Is that he gropes a goal.

Who most possess the Te
Conceal their magick power;
Who least possess exert their Stress
Seven times in every hour.

These, who cling fast to Powers,
Who guard them, and display
Their magick Art-they are not part
Of Tao nor yet of Te.

Men win not Truth of Tao
Beacause their minds are wried.
The mind uncurbed, the self's perturbed,
And loses tune of tide.

Lost, the external lures;
They turn to seek it: then
All things perplex, confuse, and vex
Those miserable men.

Disordered thoughts arise;
Body and mind grow sick.
Disgrace and fear grow year by year
To their climacteric.

Wild, they are tossed about
Through Life and Death; they quiver,
Sunk in sea-stress of Bitterness,
And lose the Tao for ever.

The true, the abiding Tao!
Who understandeth hath;
Who hath the Tao is Here and Now
In Silence of the Path

~~~~~~


And that is quite something if you take the time to grasp every meaning, on surface and in depth.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Patriotic narcotic

The only thing I like on my iGoogle page is the random TTC passage... Here is today's;

When people lose touch with Tao,
they start talking about
"righteousness" and "sanctity."

When people forget what's true,
they start talking about
"self-evident truths."

When people have no respect
for one another,
they start talking about
"political correctness"
and "family values."

When the nation is unstable,
people start talking about "patriotism."

from Ron Hogan

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

More Tao Te Ching quotes

One more:

Tao te Ching Chapter 37

True happiness and a content life comes from simplicity, again we are asked to see this point.

"If leaders and people could just act by not acting (the concept of Wu Wei) then life would regain its balance, the natural course would take place, and the world would be right with Tao."

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Revisiting the Tao Te Ching

I've done some rubbish posts recently, I've deleted a few but let some remain. As I was spending the long weekend with my wife my meditation and silent times with nature were swapped for holding hands in the park, talking about life and enjoying food together. That was wonderful but it came over in my posts as rushed out rubbish.

So after someone commented on my Meaning of Tao Te Ching blog I have decided to revisit some of those posts, edit out typos, clarify them and mainly to enjoy reading the TTC all over again.

I will take my books down to the lake (hopefully I won't be so distracted as to read them when nature is all around me, but I may take a quick peak at different chapters)

From Tao te Ching Chapter 20

"How can you see me as a simple man as having it all so right? If you see the man of gold as the leader for you then what can I say? I will not chose to guide you, nor will I take any habit from you. You see what you will as good, I will see it my way, for any following of any way is foolish for anyone not going that way."

"I would rather be simple, a tree is perfect no matter its form, it will never ask questions and is always right. A baby is happy without being told to smile, can get an erection without the knowledge of union, it knows no measure or value in any of this."

From Meaning of Tao Te Ching Chapter 16

"the old grass that dies to form food for the new, the mistake you made that lead you to the success."

It's all just one flowing thing, if you get hung up on any aspect you are trying to grab a tree branch to stop your raft. You may slow it, you may fall, but more importantly you will miss what is coming. And almost without fail, good follows bad. Hanging on to the bad amplifies it, yet the coming good washes it away with no effort.

This is often taken right to the limit in many translations and asks you to see death in the same way "Did you fear birth?" It is change and your prejudice will not help unless you see it as such. Change, the butterfly may not remember it was a caterpillar, the caterpillar may have feared its end.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tao of the Internet

Tao is everywhere so where should someone new to the idea of Tao look for Tao?

They have learned that this exists, they have interest, they wish to learn. The following list is ways to go about finding Tao, the list is in a deliberate order with the best at the top.

1) Go out somewhere nice, sit down, relax.
2) Have a nice cup of tea, don't think too much, but don't worry if you do.
3) Have a nice day not doing anything, just watch with an empty head.
4) Read one chapter of the Tao Te Ching (don't read the whole thing as a book), then meditate briefly on that chapter.
5) Read a Chuang Tzu story and see if you laugh.
6) Look at the Hua Hu Ching, but don't take it seriously or literally.
.
.
.
99) Books explaining Tao
100) The internet

I place books explaining Tao and the internet very low on the list. You don't look for Tao on the internet. You can not be told by a book what Tao is. Anyone saying what Tao is does not know, as if they knew they would know it was not possible to say.

The Tao Te Ching does not define Tao or tell you what Tao is, in fact it begins by saying that is not possible.

That is why numbers one, two and three on my list do not even involve any writings on Tao.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

School time

I am concerned and a little perplexed when I see people follow Jesus figures, gurus and others. It may be said that I have too much of leaning to Lau Tzu or Chunag Tzu but in both cases I am let off the hook by my feeling that I am not reading their words. I am reading words of wisdom which have been passed on many times, through many people, meditated on by many and myself, they were collated into written works and that is how we have the books. To say one person is responsible for either work is a rarely held view. Also I am not tied to the words, I find great simple clarity to many of the lines but do not see them as infallible or exclusive, just nice pointers to the way.

I am my guru, my teacher is nature and life. I see my way, meditate to my way, act my way. The ego you meet when you meet me is mine, similar to the child I was, the adult I have been and am, it is not affected too much by haves or have nots. The spiritual me is like the ego me but operates best without other people. Spiritual me is here when I am alone, when I meditate, read, write, walk, stand, work, and so on. It is my way until I have to interact with others and then ego me adds life and humour to the situation as required.

Spiritual me learns from nearly every act of ego me, life, nature and others. A shadow may be my teacher, a sound, an insect. It could well be a book, a guru type figure, a wise friend or even a dumb one, anything. I take the experience and it becomes the teaching.

So while I would advise others not to have someone between them and the wow, I also would advise them very strongly not to see me as anything more than a passing reflection in their own being. We are the answer to our quest, each one of us holds the key to the very thing sought. So teacher is in the way, give him a kick, show him who is the boss - and move on.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The Importance of Satori

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Wei Wu Wei - the concept

The concept of Wei Wu Wei begins with Wei, which is action, and Wu which is negation, or without. So wei wu wei is action without action, doing without doing.

This is the supreme action of Tao, nature and man, yet man is the one who does not follow his nature but his desire. When man flows to the natural way, he follows nature, which follows Tao, he will never be wrong or out of place.

Move when it is time and the movement is easy, try ahead of time to shape the world to your desires and it will be work. Do things when they are easy to do. A little comes to a lot.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Tao Te Ching Audio Book

Stephen Mitchell's Spoken Tao Te Ching so very good.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Consciousness drives the universe (movie)

Consciousness drives the universe (movie)

This movie covers a lot of ground that emerged with physics some years ago and made a strong link to the findings of ancient wisdom. Covered very well in such books as "The Tao of Physics" and others, this movie has many good facts to help you enter this fascinating field of thought.

Link, watch the movie

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

New Tao Te Ching

It is outside of knowing,
and is simply right there;
so obvious it is,
too simple to bear.

Know by not knowing, Wu know,
See by not seeing, Wu see;
Only in admitting knowing is dual,
can you be without trying to be.

It is all that is and is not,
no concept or attempt to be got;
We can only grasp nothing is there,
as a clock can not tick on a tock.

Right there when you are within,
unapparent when you try to hold on;
Do not let another attempt to explain,
their moving lips are admission its gone.

Though we are part of Tao,
we can act as the worst kind of fake;
Seeing your breath does not help the wind,
let a swamp in your mind be a lake.

Our viewpoints are relative see?
Tao has no intention just play;
Extremes in our mind are waves on the lake,
and just our nature sway.

Should you be high or low,
you will always remain in Tao;
There is no need to hold on either way,
as if going up hill and not down.

Where there is nothing in mind,
the greatest power is there to see;
Where we find nothing we are truly at one,
one and nothing have equality.

Here we sit with not one idea,
no-thought and your life are one kind;
The solid reality that you can touch,
is one with the ungraspable mind.

Like a ripe fruit decays,
to continue new life;
We see a seed is not birth,
and no one ever really dies.

To have destination,
makes the journey too tough;
Be going nowhere,
here is more than enough.

Nothing has to go,
just give everything up;
Bound to nothing,
you have a full cup.

Free people require no leader,
and Tao has nothing to lose;
A leader makes fear to interfere with here,
people you know what to choose.

Now just simplify your mind and self,
that's all there is so just sit;
Be balance and unknowing flow,
Natures truth is here that's it.


~~~~

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao