adept

GARDEN Blinding heat divides day from night, Brands short shadows into fecund soil. Green tendrils, heavy with beans, Coil around rustic bamboo racks. Violet flowers gape erotically among velvet leaves : A single gourd contains the entire world's dream. There is a great comfort in growing your own food. You are close to the soil. You use the basic elements -- water, sunlight, earth, air, and plants -- for your work, your sustenance, and your pleasure. You nurture your garden from seedlings to mature plants, tending, pruning, weeding. Year after year, you see cycles come and go, from sprouting to harvest to withering, to seeding again. You eat your plants to live. You don't mind and they don't mind. Some day, you will fall back to this earth, back into the sun-baked dirt, and you will become food for the plants. It's the way of all life, and it's all very agreeable. Those who follow Tao say that all reality is like a series of nesting circles : microcosms within macrocosms. What is close at hand is a microcosm of what is far away. Why search all over for Tao? It is all contained in the seeds of the gourd growing in your garden.

FARMERS Plain country folk with rounded bodies, Skin turning to bronze in the valley heat. Why talk to them about Tao? They eat when they are hungry, They sleep when they are sleepy. Even a sage with infinite permutations Could not match their simplicity. Do you want to know about simplicity? Go live with farmers. Their daily activities are coordinated with the seasons, they are close to the earth, and they do not spend their time figuring out how to attain status. They are honest and plain. They make no distinction between who they are as individuals and who they are as farmers. Those of us who live in cities would be hard pressed to equal the farmer in simplicity. Simplicity, after all, is what Tao most celebrates. Who needs to know all the digits of pi? Who needs to engineer a new monetary policy? Who needs to strive for political office? None of these things is necessary to be a human being. Give up unnecessary things.

DIALOGUE I still talk in my sleep. I still dream. How can there be perfect stillness When my brain's so noisy? We carry on a constant dialogue within ourselves. This is the origin of our problems. The very word 'dialogue' means talking between two sides. We could not have an inner dialogue unless there was a split in our minds. We all have two sides; as long as they are not united, we cannot attain the wholeness that spirituality requires. Even with years of self-cultivation, it is not easy to tame the wild mind. One might appear to have attained perfect control in all waking situations, only to find endless turbulence during meditation and sleep. This is a sign of incomplete attainment. Perfection must be total. The process of perfection is long and must be methodical. Although our efforts must be to the utmost, we must never risk repressing ourselves. Indeed, rather than shutting away the unpleasant or unruly aspects of ourselves, we must take them all out and examine them. Daily introspection brings harmony to all our facets. Those aspects that are bad can be dissolved. Those that are of advantage can be cultivated. This effort will take many years, but in this gradual way, we resolve ourselves with our subconscious mind and free ourselves from the struggle and conflict.

:lol:

Oh dear ! This sounds exactly like fundamentalist christianity. The historical Buddha was a normal guy who discovered the cause of anguish and the way to extinguish it. So much BS has been added since.

HEART Imagine your heart as an opening lotus. From its center comes a crimson child, Pure, virginal, and innocent. One meditation gives this instruction : Imagine your heart opening into a red lotus. From its center comes a crimson child. Bring this child out of your body and imagine him or her floating above your head. You, as a child, are holding a sun in each hand while each foot stands on a moon. Hold this image as long as you can. It is hard to bring out this child. When you try, you realize how many defenses you have built around yourself. You also realize how the experiences of adolescence and adulthood have stained you. Sometimes, you may even doubt that you have a pure and innocent self to bring out anymore. But each of us does. Each of us must find that crimson child within us and bring him or her out. For this child represents the time when our energies were whole and our hearts were untroubled by the duplicity of the world and ourselves.

Yes, thanks Marblehead. Some quality time with my wife and children.

UTOPIA Chant one million times for world peace, they told me. Pray three times a day to end all wars. Practice austerities to liberate all living beings. But the world's miseries have never diminished. Periodically, some religious group proclaims that if everyone would just do something like chant, some fundamental social problem would be solved. Claims have been made that spiritual devotion could affect wars, famine, disease, the economy, and overpopulation. Only personal endeavors can be spiritual. What you do with your daily devotions is purely for your own sake. Once you put ideals on a grand scale, they are compromised by the contradictions of life. There is no utopia. There never will be. There is only the valiant attempt of each person to live spiritually in a world where spirituality is almost impossible.

I'm going on holiday (vacation, for you americans ) for a week. 365 Tao will return in a week's time. Take care.

LABELS Don't call me a follower of Tao. Following Tao is an intensely personal endeavor in which you spend each minute of your life with the universal pulse. You follow the fluid and infinitely shifting Tao and experience its myriad wonders. You will want nothing more than to be empty before it -- a perfect mirror, open to every nuance. If you put labels on who you are, there is separation from Tao. As soon as you accept the designations of race, gender, name, or fellowship, you define yourself in contrast to Tao. That is why those who follow Tao never identify themselves with the name Tao. They do not care for labels, for status, or for rank. We all have an equal chance to be with Tao. Reject labels. Reject identities. Reject conformity. Reject convention. Reject definitions. Reject names.

3 things I would recommend. 1. A moving neigong/qigong routine. (8 brocades, xing yi nei gong , bagua, taiji, xingyi etc etc) 2. Zhan Zhuang. 3. A sitting meditation practice such as vipassana or zazen. These are what I consider core practices. I only learned this through trial and error and lots of dead ends. Good luck

ORDER Build your life brick upon brick. Live a life of truth, And you will look back on a life of truth. Live a life of fantasy, And you will look back on delusion. The good of today is based upon the good of yesterday. That is why we should constantly be attentive to our actions. Take frugal people as an example. They recycle the scraps from their cooking into compost piles. They eat at home rather than in restaurants. They do not waste water. They shop carefully. They do not spend their money on frivolities. This is exactly the type of care that we need for spirituality. We should not fritter our efforts away on amusements; rather, we should concentrate on endeavors most important to us. We should not randomly gather information; rather, we should try to order it into a comprehensive whole, thereby compounding our abilities to our own advantage. We should not carelessly tell lies, because we will then be divorced from the truth that we seek. Whether our lives are magnificent or wretched depends upon our ordering of daily details. We must organize the details into a composition that pleases us. Only then will be have meaning in our lives.

PERFECTION The hero comes down from the mountain, Radiant with the power. Yet one tussle with a dusty old man Quickly tumbles him into the dirt. In olden times, young men and women who wanted to be extraordinary trained in the mountains with a famous master. Away from all the distractions of society, isolated in the cleanliness, they remained on a high peak and did not come down until they had attained great ability. Such people were heroes, the pinnacle of cultivation. However, in their subsequent wanderings in the world, such heroes would often come upon some oldster who could quickly best them. Whether in philosophical debate or physical skill, there was always some obscure wanderer who could outshine even the greatest of heroes. Why? Because the hero only had perfection, the strength of youth, and courage. The oldsters had the advantage of experience and wisdom. There will always be people in the world better than yourself. Learn to recognize those elders who are wiser than you, and respect them. Know that you yourself will not be great until you have lived a long time. To perfect oneself is difficult but not rare. To have perfect wisdom is rare indeed.

DEPTH Morning light illuminates the meditating wrestler. In his mind, even a wooden temple is washed away. Who could challenge an ocean's depth? There once was a wrestler who, in spite of his great physical stature, lost most of his matches. He consulted coach after coach, but no one could show him how to win. Although he lacked neither might nor skill, he did lack concentration and confidence. Finally, he went to consult a meditation master who agreed to help. "Your name means 'Vast Ocean,'" observed the master. "Therefore, I will give you this meditation to practice." That night, the wrestler sat alone in the shrine and first visualized himself as waves. Gradually, the waves increased in size. Soon, he became a flood. Then the flood became a deluge, and finally a tidal wave. In his mind, everything was swept before him : Even the gods on the altar and the timbers of the temple were consumed in his surge. Near dawn, the water settled into a vast and endless sea. That morning, the master came to check on the wrestler's progress and was delighted. He knew that the wrestler would not lose again. For each of us, it is only depth of character that determines the profundity with which we face life. We can either add to our character each day, or we can fritter away our energies in distractions. Those who learn how to accumulate character each day achieve a depth that cannot be successfully opposed.

CONSISTENCY Without too much trouble, One can keep to the main road. But people love to be distracted, And perspective is difficult. People constantly declare that they want to walk the road of Tao. They say that all they want is to reach realization. But this is not true. If it were, they would simply walk their road and attain enlightenment right away. Instant realization doesn't happen very often because people become distracted. It is not given to every person to pursue Tao with the utmost consistency. Not every one even wants immediate realization. When enlightenment comes, the world becomes completely insignificant. Some of us still want to explore, be involved, amuse ourselves. That is all right, as long as you know that you are making up games and intrigues. In the final analysis, it is all right to be sidetracked a little bit, but one must always be cautious and come back to the main road without losing too much time or ground. That is why a strong perspective is at the root of wisdom. One who follows Tao may appear to be going away from the goal, but such a person knows exactly when to pull back.

Excellent post ! We must talk more on this. I'll PM you.

PREJUDICE No mother thinks her child ugly. No one is indifferent to themselves. We are all familiar with prejudice. It comes in many forms : nationalism, chauvinism, provincialism, racism. Many of us undoubtedly cry out against these injustices. As long as there is prejudice, we declare, we are never able to fairly know one another. And yet, it is exactly a type of prejudice that also keeps us from knowing ourselves. If we think about it, we ourselves are the ones we most favor. We cater to all our bodily needs, our sensual indulgences, our intellectual curiosities, and our lustful ambitions. When we are sick or disadvantaged, no one feels our pain more or wails more loudly. When we are satisfied, no one rejoices with greater satisfaction. When we are on the verge of death, no one clings with such vehemence. As long as we are slaves to our appetites, then we cannot have the attention for spirituality. As long as we value comfort over effort, then we shall never have the fortitude for a spiritual quest. As long as we adhere to intellectual ideas over experience, then we can never have a genuine perception of Tao. As long as we insist that we are separate, individual entities apart from the rest of the universe, then we shall never realize oneness. No mother thinks her child ugly, because that child is her own creation. In the same way, we are inevitably partial to ourselves : We create ourselves. If we are to reach any sort of spiritual realization, we must confront and resolve this prejudice.

INDIFFERENCE For a true master, Sitting on a throne Is no different than Sitting on dirt. A true master is indifferent to the ways of society. Ambition, knowledge, and religion are equally uninteresting. Why? Because all these things are in the realm of human definition. The holy person transcends all identity. Therefore, wealth or poverty, good or bad, violence or peace makes no difference. Dichotomies are no longer valid to such a person. Do you find this hard to believe? The degree that you find this difficult to accept indicates the degree to which you are shackled by dualism. True enlightenment comes from understanding the oneness of all reality. Such a realization leads to a perception that all things are truly equal. A master sees nutrition and disease as the same, life and death as the same, morality and immorality as the same. If you give the masters something to eat, they will eat. If they have nothing to eat, they forget that there ever was such an activity. There is no polarity in their lives. We ordinary people cannot do this. We make distinctions, defend ourselves and our territories. We feel safe only inside declared boundaries. This is the way we define ourselves, but our identities are also our prisons. Only a master knows the meaning of liberation and has complete freedom.

Then you have a head start over most people who come to Tao. Follow your natural instincts and the advice of some good folks on the forum and you'll be fine.

No light pollution ? Awesome. You'll be able to see thousands of stars with the naked eye.

The good thing about this forum is that there is so much FREE information. You don't need to go out and buy a load of books. As others have said, check out my 365 Tao thread. I believe it to be the ultimate in layman's Tao, and very applicable to modern life. Take some time and browse through the whole forum and pick which topics take your fancy. There are also lots of online translations of the TTC. Something I would also suggest is to try and find some solitary time to either meditate or to just sit and observe nature. Look up at the sky on a clear night and marvel at how the same force that runs through your body and keeps you alive, is responsible for the continuos movement of the cosmos. It truly is a wonderfully humbling experience. Good luck.

CHARLATANS He sits on a throne with smug confidence. Skin in bright gold, eyes are reptilian marbles. Lips are smeared with honey, tongue is virile red. He exhorts his followers to purge inhibitions. "Whatever you feel is Tao, and should be indulged." They scream, they sob, they dance madly. "Yes! Yes!" he exclaims. "Whatever you do is Tao!" There are all too many charlatans in spirituality these days. If you meet such self-proclaimed masters, you must be wary. If the way they present to you seems easy, it is probably false. Why should spirituality be any different than any other endeavor? Can you become a ballet dancer easily? Did you learn your job easily? Was it simple to graduate from school? Everything takes effort. It does not stand to reason that spirituality will be established simply by sitting in the presence of a master. Yet people continue to fall victim to this logic. In mass gatherings, a mild hysteria and a herd mentality are cleverly exploited. A teacher will tell you that whatever you do is holy. Whatever is said, though, the teacher cannot claim to give you Tao. Tao is only gained by the self. Masters are hard to find, and following the road takes solitary discipline. It takes daily work, so how could you get it at a rally? Indulgence is not Tao. True Tao cannot be gained without understanding and strength.

A lovely down to earth explanation of Tao. It would be good for all newcomers to Taoist philosophy to read this.

BE Tao is within us; Tao surrounds us. Part of it may be sensed, And is called manifestation. Part of it is unseen, And is called void. To be with Tao is harmony. To separate from Tao is disaster. To act with Tao, observe and follow. To know Tao, be still and look within. Tao is within us; we are Tao. It is also outside of us; it is all the known universe. All that we can know of ourselves and our universe cannot account for all that is Tao. What we know is merely the outer manifestation of Tao. The ultimate Tao is called absolute. We cannot know it directly because it has no definitions, references, or names. Our normal minds are incapable of perceiving where there is no contrast. Yet it is precisely this colorless infinity that is the underlying reality to this life. The only way to fathom it is to remove our sense of division from it. In essence, we must plunge into the mystery itself. Only then will we know peace.

This is one of the most straight forward articles I've read in a long time. Enjoy