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Posted by ButchO
on 4/30/2011, 7:35 am, in reply to "Re: Ego and Depression"
75.88.40.x
--Previous Message--
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: --Previous Message--
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: gar,
:
: I would offer to embrace josef but her
: husband has his eye's on me so I got to stay
: on the down low.
:
: That's amore.
:
: Compassion is the ticket. With ourselves,
: and with each other. Treat others the way
: you would have them treat you. Jesus. Smart
: man. Compassionate man. All man.
:
: Butcho
:
: Hi, Butcho,
:
: I'm always up for a good hug. :-)
:
: This morning reading here, I realized there
: are different things going on which probably
: contribute directly to crossed
: communications. Some people are talking
: about the ordinary adaptations people do in
: life to be well, feel well, be happy; others
: are referring to specific intent and purpose
: of Taoist teachings, "path",
: liberation, realization.
:
: People, always interesting.
:
: josef
:
:
:
josef,
Well, though we are all full of emptiness, each of us is at least as unique as a snowflake.
And, none of us are always in a serious mode. Except for me of course. All work and no play makes ButchO a dull boy.
The trick, it seems to me, is to learn not to embrace an extreme. To embrace the middle as it were. To embrace the underlying unity of this and that.
For me, Taoism, at least as Laozi put it, is about learning to be self-governed. De-conditioned. That until a person is self-governed they are not fit to be the governor of others. Until one is awakened to the essential nature of reality one is not in a position to help others do likewise.
Now, I do not know if one person is responsible for the entire DDJ or not. But I do believe someone wrote the first verse that was both a mystic and a sage. That everything that follows verse one is simply an elaboration of or on it. How the person that has come to realize and actualize verse one in their own lives might look upon the activities of day to day life.
That is, I see verse one as a prescription for how to become sagely. Recognize that no matter how erudite one is somethings simply cannot be encapsulated in or with words. Some aspects of reality are beyond the ability of words to fully convey to others. Even to oneself. Not fully.
That the way to becoming sagely starts within oneself. What Laozi called the Dark or Feminine Path. The Yin path. The Dark beyond dark path. The path that takes one beyond the limits of rational conception. Beyond symbolic reality. To the very core of existence. The Source of existence. What for lack of a better name the OldBoy called the eternal Tao.
In my opinion, the only part of the DDJ that warrants study is the first verse. All of the rest then becomes self-evident. And yet I am not saying that the other verses are not worth reading, contemplating, studying. It is just that once a person makes the journey to the interior that the sage would have us take the exterior becomes grounded in our own experience. The exterior becomes grounded in the interior. Within and without become one. Are realized as the one they have always ultimately been. A person's life will naturally become more consistent. More engaged. More effective. More practical. More spontaneous. More... natural.
This is not the more of the ego. This is not a selfish more. A narrow more. But a whole more. It is the more of an integrated life. The integrated life of a person that has realized his true being and is now in the process of manifesting his or her true nature in the day to day of becoming. Being and becoming are merging in the Adept. And, as a person grows in wisdom they become more and more sagely. But I doubt that the journey ever really comes to a complete end. I think there might always be something to learn. Which, for me is comforting. I hope I never know it all. It might go to my little head and then it might explode.
ButchO
151
"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
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