William Douglas Horden

No one knows your name Peace follows the natural Best to leave no trace

(with apologies to zenyogi--didn't see your post until i'd already posted....)

while i brew the tea... a lightning bolt cracks the night now comes the steeping

dying breed of truth old pine on far peak passing another winter

she has no rival autumn lays bare her chill limbs spring clothes her in fire

two friends bow, in peace..... the full moon rises at dusk the sun waits to set

Why Taoism is different. Paradoxically. It is a lifeway of learning the lesson of water: be yielding, flow around rigid places, let time do the work of eroding, nurture everything you touch. Yang within, Yin without. Firmness of purpose within, unconditional flexibility without. I find in Taoism a lifeway of absolute nonresistance. It seems to me that it constantly teaches to let everything pass through me without my setting up thoughts, emotions, memories or reactions that create friction. Kind of like a conduit made of absolutely the finest material that lets a rush of water jet through with no resistance whatsoever. On a conceptual level, it teaches through the principle of non-differentiation, especially via the identification of appearance and reality. The Gold Lion, for example: its form is a lion and its substance is gold. They cannot be distinguished. It doesn't seek differentiation. It seeks sameness. It is a spiritual strategy of not wasting energy. It raises my gaze so that, once I stop wasting energy, I might ask "What do I do with this energy I have accumulated?" What a path that leads to sublime art, poetry, truth, beauty, music, architecture and, most of all, laughter. At least that's what I think this week. William

My Fellow Wayfarers-- I've spent several productive hours reading the some 26 pages of posts to this discussion that seems to have begun well over a year ago and covered a remarkable range of thoughts and, yes, a fair bit of emotion, as well. In what I've read, I haven't come across the main thing that makes Taoism different to me, so I will stick my toe in the shallow end of the pool and mention the difference which, on a day-to-day level of practice, makes the biggest difference to me. Taoism is the only major religion that still holds to the two-soul model of human being. The p'o, the bodily soul, associated with yin. The hun, the spiritual soul, associated with yang. These collaborate in relative balance within each individual until her/his death, at which time the p'o returns to the earthly sphere and the hun returns to the celestial sphere. Unless, of course, there is some validity to the idea that the two souls can be married during one's lifetime so that they do not separate at death but return together to the celestial sphere. All My Best Thoughts and Wishes, William

Birch Tree, you wrote: William Douglas Horden: Yes, definitely a happy coincidence! After reading the excerpt that you quoted, I couldn't help but think about the method of "turning the light around" mentioned in the Secrets of the Golden Flower. Do you suppose that the "the mind within the mind" referenced in the Original Tao is what is to be found when the light of consciousness is turned around on itself (turning the light around)? I'd be curious to know if you think these are the same thing. If this "mind within the mind" is something similar to our spiritual essence (for lack of a better term), do you suppose this is the part of us that existed before language? My reply: My understanding of turning the light around (and I would say "light" is "awareness", not consciousness, which is usually used to refer to "conditioned awareness") is that awareness first begins by watching thoughts coming and going, something like fireworks, not following them, not interested in their content, just watching them arise and die away, like birds flying across the sky, like they were someone else's thoughts. This quiets the mind so that it feels as if it has actually turned around and is watching the place from which thoughts arise. Using mind to find the mind. This state brings us to still point, a spatial awareness outside the linearity of time-flow, where we cease identifying with "this body's" sense of "me" or "the sum of all my body's experiences"--and, rather, identify with (actually: merge with)...... and here I feel that trying to use language beyond this point really violates the entire principle of what we're *not* talking about. but i do feel that I've answered your question as best I know how. I hope it's of no hindrance to you on your tao.

....and this issue of language is interesting. Consider the hypothesis that, in the beginning, human beings created language but now language creates human beings. After all, we are born into a world that is already fully described for us. We are born into a universe of language. We treat the world according to the words (and their relationships) attached to things. As others have noted, "categories" do not "exist". There is, for example, no such thing as "tree". There is that particular organic entity outside your window-- but there is no such thing as "tree"..... If there were, the same "sound-word" would exist in every language. It wouldn't be an arbitrary thing. The linearity of language (go ahead and try to say every word in a sentence all at the same time) is equivalent to the linearity of time. Nature is different. Stand there beside the sea, in a forest, up to your waist in a river. Listen. Fall into it. Merge with it. Not time. Space. Let go of describing it to yourself in words. "Calm the senses" as Original Tao says. Find the mind within the mind that exists before language. Before time. The Unchanging. Anyway, that's what I think this week.....

Birch Tree, I believe you mentioned that you'd picked up a copy of "Original Tao" by Roth and were about to start it. What a happy coincidence, no? And after finishing Cleary's "Secret of the Golden Flower". Two of the most instructive books around imho. Here is an interesting line of thought from Original Tao. Verse XIV The Way fills the entire world. It is everywhere that people are, But people are unable to understand this. When you are released by this one word: You reach up to the heavens above, You stretch down to the earth below; You pervade the nine inhabited regions. What does it mean to be released by it? The answer resides in the calmness of the mind. When your mind is well ordered, your senses are well ordered. When your mind id calm, your senses are calmed. What makes them well ordered is the mind; What makes them calm is the mind. By means of the mind you store mind: Within the mind there is another mind. That mind within the mind: it is an awareness that precedes words. ......... footnote 55 on page 221 clarifies that this "one word" is "Way". There is resides within the calm and well-ordered mind in a special place called "the mind within the mind". Therefore, this oldest of Taoist texts seems to recommend a practice of sitting calmly, breathing regularly, "squaring up" the limbs, and holding the word "Way" in "the mind within the mind". In this manner, we "make a lodging place for the vital essence" (jing: which is interesting because in this ancient text, jing is given cosmological status and repeatedly identified with Tao itself). It is also interesting to note that this mind within the mind "precedes words". It is axiomatic that it's essential to quiet discursive inner speech. But this statement points to something even deeper--not just quieting "words" but finding the place within you that exists before language....

Permit me a short excursion before returning to the subject at hand, please. A Rabbi of the mystical persuasion some centuries ago was asked for the secret of life, to which he replied: "Everything is God. Live well. Die easy." I see there's a new book out by Jay Michaelson entitled, "God Is Everything: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism". I doubt that any of the early spiritual traditions of the Old World grew up without being influenced by the others. Any more than the same could be said of those of the New World. (In both cases, the exchange of traditions seems to have followed well-established trade routes.) Even then, the migration of early explorers from the Old World into the New means that that the ancients of Northern Asia and the Americas must have shared a common mother culture. Which was indisputably one of the animistic/shamanic/mystical world view, and which holds that all matter has a spiritual counterpart, just as material human beings do. It is no surprise, then, that all these great mystical teachings have a profound rapport with nature. The Sufis openly proclaim, "Form Itself is the Beloved". Once, when I was 19 years old and just stepping onto the path, I had a dream that a small coiled "serpent" with drooping mustaches was trying to bite me. It leapt repeatedly at me (I was, of course, somehow back in my parents' living room), trying to kill me with its venom. I danced and whirled around the room, trying to dodge it and then, picking up huge, heavy, weighty, thick, massive, books and throwing them at the spry, lively, quick, leaping serpent. Which of course, had no trouble avoiding being crushed. At last, it leapt a perfectly executed leap and managed to bite me on the little finger of one hand. I shook and shook my hand violently until it let go and raced off toward the bathroom. I followed and watched it disappear back underground, down the drain of the bathtub. I slumped against the wall, sat down, realizing I was going numb and that paralysis was about to set in before I died. Forty years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. Within a year, I came to recognize the serpent with the mustaches as a dragon, of course. Another year and the rest of the symbolism became clearer. My reliance on books was a necessary evil: I was raised in a culture without the master-teacher tradition. But it held the inevitable risk that I would miss the living reality and become enamored with the dead description. It was the transition point: the "me" before Taoism confronting the "me" in Taoism. So like a true Wayfarer (I mean, Tao Bum), I started to travel. Eventually getting to the Galapagos, to see the place where animals have no fear of people. It was true. You could walk right up to the animals and they looked at you like, "Yes, can I help you?" Blue-footed boobies doing their courtship dance on the top of your hiking boots. Etc. I, personally, have never had any motivation other than a burning curiosity and an insatiable addiction to nature. Which is why I love Taoism above and beyond all the other traditions I have encountered. Because it loves Nature.

Thanks, Marblehead, for the kind thoughts. Looking forward to exchanging views, William

hello, trailmaker-- thanx for making me feel welcome! looking forward, wdh Yoda-- Many thanks for the warm welcome. It feels like home already.... wm