A wee bit of guidance on the Way

Over on my other blog, HinesSight, Joshua left a Taoism related comment on a DSL-themed post. Go figure, especially since some of the sentiments I expressed in the post were just a tad on the egocentric side.

Many of my neighbors are deeply grateful that I've brought the potential of DSL to some 240 homes in our area. Quite a few are trying to run businesses out of their homes. That's tough to do with a dial-up connection, and satellite is expensive.

I've been thinking that a bronze statue of me, commemorating my DSL triumph, would be a nice addition to one of our local streets. Which could be renamed after me also.

Regardless, in his comment Joshua asked for a wee bit of guidance about following the Way of Tao.

When I was younger I was incarcerated. The crimes although petty and debateable are of no matter here. But, one day I came across a pocket sized version of the Tao Te Ching. Even at my fairly young age I was intrigued. I loved how overwhelming the message was.

Ever since, although inconsistently, I have pursued these teachings. I carry the Tao te Ching with me practically every where I go. I have also started reading the Basic Writings of Chuang Tzu and have tried unsuccesfully many times to utilize that oracle of fortune we call the Book of Change(I ching).

I really feel as though I will never turn back and totally abandon the Way but I have a lot to "unlearn". Maybe you could refer me to some sources or give me a wee bit of guidance, because it feels as though I'm lost.

Figured that I might as well reply to Joshua in a Church of the Churchless blog post.

And a "wee bit" of guidance it will be, since I'm a lot better at coaxing Qwest to install DSL in our neighborhood than cajoling Taoist wisdom to reveal itself in my consciousness.

But for what it's worth, Joshua, here's a story and a suggestion.

My wife left for a trip to Florida today. Last night Laurel was having a tender moment with someone she's going to miss terribly. Our dog. (Not that she won't miss me also, but I'm not nearly as cute as Serena).

Serena and Laurel were having a cuddle-fest on the living room floor in front of some bookcases. I joined them. In the course of scratching a furry ear (not Laurel's, I hasten to add), something drew me to look at a bottom shelf that held a row of books on tape belonging to Laurel.

One item looked like it didn't belong. Which, it didn't. Because it was a real book. And not a book of Laurel's, but one of mine.

A book that I'd been trying to find for quite a while. A book that I'd remembered enjoying a lot, yet couldn't put my hands on, because it was somewhere I'd never thought of looking.

In short, a book that I'd lost. Much as you feel that you've lost the Way, Joshua. Except a book isn't the Way, one of the basic precepts of Taoism.

Nothing is. The Way is just the Way. And that happens to be a central theme of the book that I found last night, "Buddhism Without Beliefs" by Stephen Bachelor.

It's a terrific book, one of my all-time spiritual favorites. I suggest you read it, Joshua, if you haven't already. Heck, even if you have, read it again.

That's what I did this morning. Skimmed it at least, focusing on the passages that I'd highlighted in the slim book's 115 pages.

Bachelor says that Buddhism isn't a belief, but action. It's being fully alive and aware, right here, right now. His chapter on awareness starts with a quote.

And further, a monk knows when he is going, "I am going." He knows when he is standing, "I am standing." He knows when he is sitting. "I am sitting." He knows when he is lying down. "I am lying down."
-- The Buddha

The Buddha and Bachelor know a lot more about the Way than I do, Joshua. But what little I know, or rather, suspect, is in line with that starkly simple premise: the path is here and now, not there and then.

This is disconcerting, because we're used to orienting ourselves by structuring the real present within an imaginary past and future.

That locks us into a conceptual framework – yesterday was such and such; tomorrow will be such and such – which seemingly offers stability. But actually it constricts reality unnaturally, leaving us wanting more: the real thing.

And that lacks the boundaries we're accustomed to. Hence, we can feel lost just when we've found the Way.

To know emptiness is not just to understand the concept. It is more like stumbling into a clearing in the forest, where suddenly you can move freely and see clearly. To experience emptiness is to experience the shocking absence of what normally determines the sense of who you are and the kind of reality you inhabit.

It may last only a moment before the habits of a lifetime reassert themselves and close in once more. But for that moment, we witness ourselves and the world as open and vulnerable.

…As mindful awareness become stiller and clearer, experience becomes not only more vivid but simultaneously more baffling. The more deeply we know something in this way, the more deeply we don't know it.

Joshua, I'm not saying that your feeling of being lost is what you're looking for. Maybe it is; maybe it isn't.

But it sure seems to me that it's better for someone to feel genuinely spiritually lost than to imagine that they've found their self, when they really haven't.

The self may not be something, but neither is it nothing. It is simply ungraspable, unfindable. I am who I am not because of an essential self hidden away in the core of my being but because of the unprecedented and unrepeatable matrix of conditions that have formed me.

…This perplexed questioning is the central path itself.

…Like life itself, it just keeps going, free from the need to hold to any fixed positions – including those of Buddhism.

…Questioning is the track on which the centered person moves.

There's your Way, Joshua. Perplexed questioning.

Relax. You're on it.

Comments

[tAo]

Brian and all,

Check this out. You may find this to be quite intersting...

The Universe Solved:

http://www.theuniversesolved.com/index.htm

http://www.theuniversesolved.com/reality.htm

http://www.theuniversesolved.com/food.htm

Listen about "The Universe Solved" on Coast to Coast AM tonight Saturday Feb 2, 2008:

http://www.theuniversesolved.com/news.htm

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/02/02.html

Brian Whitworth's paper "The Physical World as a Virtual Reality":

http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.0337

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf

Nick Bostrom's Computer Simulation Argument:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

[Tucson]

There may be a moment when it is seen there is neither this nor that. Thisness and thatness are seen as a deception. At what point do we begin and end? Where is the boundary of 'me' when there is no subject to have any objects?

Without this or that there is neither..no "thing" at all. There has never been anything. No beginning, no end. Just this that isn't. That's it.

How could it be any other way?

Who would live? Who would die?

There has never been a phenomenal subject.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Tucson Bob,

You object?

Robert Paul Howard

[poohbear]

I also enjoyed reading 'Buddhism without Beliefs' - at least the first 2 or 3 chapters. I seem to remember him covering his primary ideas and then waffling a bit in the remaining chapters.

Like most books about a religion, it accepts the basic axioms of that religion, and then expresses views. The question is not asked, did the Buddha set out to start a religion? The answer is probably, No.

"Buddhism" is a word invented by the Germans in the 19th Century to describe the teachings of the 'Way' of the Buddha.
However, I agree that belief is generally unhelpful in any search for 'meaning' outside of the everyday senses - intellect feedback loop.

[Deepak Kamat]

Tucson,

Are you enlightened? You talk like one? Wanna be a new Guru?

[tucson]

Deepak,

No one has ever been enlightened. Where could this enlightened entity be?

So, the answer is no to both questions.

Let's say someone finds themselves sitting as a guru in front of a group. This "guru" would be completely helpless. The only thing someone could do in such a role would be to reinforce the listeners' idea that they are not yet what they already are.

Existence doesn't need some sort of phenomena to realize what it is. Drop the idea of enlightenment as some sort of thing to be attained. Drop the idea of an "I" that seeks or needs it.

You can never exist as an enlightened one, because that one, that "I", will emerge again and again. Hence, the fall of many gurus. It's a merry-go-round.

Ironically it is this seeking for enlightenment, to get rid of this "I" concept, which reinforces the very thing you are trying to get rid of. On the other hand, maybe this seeking is helpful, because sometimes it creates a tension that eventually comes to a head, bursts and goes away for good.

Just exist as existence without thought about it and be always at peace.

[Deepak Kamat]

My only question is: Are you in the natural state (U G Krishnamurthy's calamity which happens just like that)

[tucson]

Assuming you are asking me, I don't know. What is this natural state which is a calamity which happens just like that?

Just guessing here. I think there is a moment(s) when certain constraints fall away and things are seen more clearly. This could be said to be a sort of calamity for the sense of "I" or the illusion of a separate self. I think this could be a single "aha" moment or it could be seen gradually or intermittently.

I like Brian's rising moon shining on the treetops. Very Zen-like.

Good night.

[Rozanne]

Hello,
Nice site btw....I see you say "just exist without thought and be at peace"....
that is something I find very hard to do because my mind wants explanation for why I am here and why life involves suffering...why it seems we are biosurvival machines unless we are satisfied in that department and can "get on with life as it is">...so I live in perpetual fantasy about how strange life is...when it could be so much easier to say....well that original self is somewhere, who cares...I can't lose myself. The only loss is the egoic-I. So the thing I fear's already happened, what else is there to lose? A spiritual teacher whose name I forget says to submit to the mystery of existance, and that - the hardest thing to do - also sounds amazing. Which is the part which must submit? Or is it rather that it must align with that life that already exists and dances to the rhythm of infinity, freely, outside of usual conscious awareness?

[Rozanne]

Ironically the thing which one feels the need to submit is the sheer anger that things are the way they are,....and suffering is the way it is....no explaination, no justification, no justice in the sense that all must eventually be let go, on the emotional and spiritual level. That anger comes from the same place that first emerged as a kid "it's not fair! it's not fair!"...sorry to bombard with these comments about anger. It's just a genuine thing I've come up against. I do not seek to live in anger but release that attachment. Hate, anger and regret seem the deepest wounds/ attachment to let go of. As those consciousnesses are absolutely sure of the ego's cause. How does one deal with these issues? Release them to Spirit? Mother Julian of Norwich said all pain/suffering was rewarded with an equal amount of joy...that nothing was wasted and it would all be rewarded in the end. Even that the pain of sinning was ultimately restored to wholeness/joy and therefore itself not the end of life in the highest spiritual sense.

[Brian]

Rozanne, a belated response to your comment. I understand your anger at all of the suffering in the world. It's entirely justified if there is a god who could alleviate it, or who created the cosmos in such a fashion that suffering is inevitable.

I spend a lot more time cursing god than praising god. Just seems like there's much more reason to do the former than the latter. If god doesn't like it, he or she can complain to me. So far, haven't gotten a response.

Don't know what the answer is. As you implied, if we didn't have egos, I suppose we wouldn't be bothered by suffering. Of course, then we probably wouldn't be alive, as it's difficult to imagine being human without having an ego (being a formless blob of oneness isn't really human-like).

Maybe accepting the anger, embracing it, is a way to defuse it. Being angry at having anger seemingly just adds to the problem. For me, cursing god more rather than less seems to help. When I see some seemingly senseless suffering I tell god off in profanity-laced language.

Makes me feel better, and god doesn't seem to mind. The SOB doesn't even have the courtesy to respond to my complaints.

[Komposer]

Hi rozanne,
Brian's comment reminded me that I wanted to comment about your post as well. I know what you mean. It is crazy to wake up to being here, only to find ourselves emotionally investing in relationships we know will one day end, to find ourselves in a society that really gives us very few choices if we want to survive, and finally, simply that we are a part of life and death, and know virtually nothing about where we came from or where we are going.
It's CRAZY!
and SCARY! sometimes. sometimes it's boring, dull slow.
For me, I am just starting to see the wounding you are talking about as an opportunity for connection to others. After all, we all want intimacy, and accepting our wounds allows us to open more freely to loving and accepting love from others. But that's a slow process for me. I deeply understand the anger and hurt part.