三江源

Going after that rogue corgi of hers again I expect

Refine, notice, and relate to.

Smile at, care for, respect, contain.

Neither allow supremacy, nor repress, nor control.

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. I just don't understand why if two girls are both pretty, smart, and have similar personalities and interests, why I would have desire for one and not the other??

Why would you?!

Because real desire isnt about box ticking attributes, it's about a shen alignment. It's invisible to your ego.

It seems we are on the same note here. What I immediately feel is that the issue of intent is a tricky one, atleast for me. The ego uses all these subtle and cunning strategies to gain back control from what comes from a different source. Most times I have a hard time with it as I "try" as you say. How do we set up an intent, so that something deeper is able to express itself?

 

Letting go of control is scary. Mostly because it leaves us out there. And it often times runs counter to our familiar preferences, desires, dreams and plans. Letting go, atleast for me started a sort of grieving process, seeing alot of things I identified with go; old identities, habits, self conceptions, even things I really love to do. As a consequence, it made me backtrack abit =)

 

What you say about letting the Shen up I can connect to, but what did you mean by heating temperature?

 

h

Great question - "How do we set up an intent, so that something deeper is able to express itself?" and in conjunction with the 'scary' and the 'temperature' thing you picked up on , my sense is that 'trying' and all the associate repercussions are on the 'hot' side of the scale.. there is a rising energy in there, a yang 'doingness' which signals to the ego to get involved.

The intent is cool energy. It comes from a more neutral space, both the neutrality and the space both being key. You know how if you sit further back in your seat instead of forward, you have a different set of responses. The hotseat literally being 'on the edge of my seat'.

You know the qigong injunction 'sink' also in a stance when you 'sit'.. the different quality of energy that comes from those adjustments.

There is less self at the front, less self rising.Self is let off, doesnt have to be alert and running the show.

I think we have talked about the grief before. I know what you are talking about. The thing is, the other side of the less attachment is more space. It's personal Feng Shui. It's like moving into a new house. How long do you miss the old house for.. you could potentially miss it for ever,nostalgia, or you could radically shift so that you realise fully, "I lived there then, I dont live there now, I couldnt, me now is not me then." I use this analogy because of the house of our body, the house of our pysche, the house of our being, but also because I went to see my old flat recently, the building, and always in the past I would get nostalgia, and it was like a tongue feeling for a missing tooth.. it'd gone. No nostalgia. A full and complete moving on. As a very deep attacher, that's quite something for me to experience. and I didnt feel grief for the missing nostalgia, which also surprised me. It was gone, gone, gone, and instead there was space. And to my surprise there was no loss or panic at the opening up of a really quite sizeable space, it was, instead, calm. A relief. And again, a release from some 'hot' energy in my being, now released to be cooler.

The cool space that opens up isnt 'cold'. it's the space for the cascading when it needs to, and otherwise just space, in which occurances can take place, or not, according to circumstanced. This makes responses more current and clear.

Such is my understanding, in this moment.

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I see what you mean. But please elaborate on what you mean by "cascade".

Well, when that word 'cascade' appeared I considered it momentarily, and then decided to let it stand, and see how it survived out there on it's own. I never used it before in this context, I wondered how you would respond to it. It suggest to me an elegant outflow, neither a deluge nor a trickle, something with it's own momentum which is fitting.

 

What I did meant above dictates a different perception of where authentic action springs from.

In all cultivation there lies some degree of duality, of separation from our true nature. In this respect, we should of all attempt to let go of egoic needs and act as selflessly as possible. What I'm pointing to is the fact that most of our striving towards being good is denying the very truth of what is allready in fruition in us.

 

So we end up in this constant struggle with our baser emotions, needs and desires. In trying to be good, we'll never get there. Much in the same way that trying to meditate well will never get you there. I see many practitioners, including myself, really doing harm to themselves by not affirming their real needs or emotions, due to their unwanted or base qualities. A whole array of agendas hides under the cloak of "spiritual" activity, like meditation: supressing emotion, compensating for lack of self esteem, feeling special, wanting recognition, seeking bliss and pleasure, running away from uncomfortable life situations. What they really should use their precious time doing was to be honest. Many would then stop cultivation. I did at times.

OK so what is coming out at me from here is the 'trying' aspect. it is the 'trying' that is the issue. Because that is not as refined as 'intent'. Do you feel that distinction? I think 'trying to be good' and 'intent to be good' come from quite different places in us. One has a 'should' in it and an 'aspiration' which immediately sets up a resistance within the psyche. The other is free from parental injunction and is a 'setting' - imagine a dial perhaps, that the shen can set, as we set a heating temperature.

 

Being authentic does not mean free expression. "Free" meaning unleashing all bottled up emotion or impulse. That's just action out your conditioning, and very unfree. Authentic action is letting another intelligence take over, guiding our actions. When this happens, we are not in the driver seat anymore. Its actually very lonely and scary. And sometimes it can hurt, sometimes it can be irrational, sometimes boring, sometimes brilliant, even stupid. But all these labels are based on the social context it is placed in. Not the truth of the action. Most of the time, I am unable to rest in that space. But when I do, it takes on strange forms.

 

On a retreat once, I really hurt a lady that was struggling with chronic illness, and was constantly talking about how she was not able to get better. I suddenly blurted out: "Maybe you should just give up". It just came out, and I saw how hurt she became. She confided in me and I stepped all over her. But it was the truth; only giving up would help her. It was not my intention to be bad or good. It just happened.

I laughed when I read your example. I would have said the same thing. That's not why I laughed. I laughed because you just gave a perfect example of what I meant by 'cascade'.

 

Almost like the truth uses you to express itself. Is it good in the conventional sense?

Sometimes not. Is it in alignment with the Dao? Only the effect will indicate it.

"Almost like the truth uses you to express itself" Yes, that's it. If your setting is in the certain spot, the truth cascades through. I dont know what "good in the conventional sense" is, really.

I just read through what you wrote and what I wrote and think I just said the same thing as you.

You didnt step all over her, not at all. You just showed her she could open the door of her cage. Who knows what she would do,once she stepped out.

xxx

Ya Mu is 100% correct.

If you are going to use terms sloppily, subjectively and of course therefore innaccurately, that is your choice.

But it does matter that language usage is deteriorating into approximations. The resulting confusion is not helpful to anyone.

Blurriness of thought, inability to distinguish, a mish mash of gloop .... not acceptable to anyone with clarity of mind.

The most obvious point here is that there are 78 million Reiki masters who are able to offer imperceptible healings, and 93 million Reiki GrandMasters who are the same.

The higher level healing that Ya Mu is referring to is not the same, either in fact, or by association.

Hi Ralis. You can take this up with Sunya if you want to know what was going on, he'll tell you if he wants to. He and I dont have any beef with each other. Not even chicken, nor veggie burgers.

I havent figured out your sense of humour yet Ralis.

My joke 'therapy can help' was in response to your comment about 1984 having an affected you, if you recall.

I didnt want to censor my humour. That would be evil.

Cat has been at it again. She censored Sunya's post and the reason is an exclamation point. What the hell is going on here! If she is truly a teacher, then she should know better. Yesterday she implied therapy might help me. When I questioned that, there was no reply.

I second Twinner here.

 

On the same note, my own experience has taught me that its impossible to try to be a good person and be honest at the same time. Its just not so.

 

Beyond the relativistic notions of good and bad, actually being "good" is not being good. Its sometimes being "bad" and sometimes your conditioning is so strong it really doesn't matter what you percieve yourself to be.

 

99% of the actions we perform in life are pro survival or procreation. Or explained within the Buddhist paradigm; seeking pleasure and happiness and avoiding pain and death. These forces are just a reaction to having a body. So we suffer.

 

A Norwegian philospher stated that a good action is good only when it is done based on the inherent natural urge to do it; it has to come from a different place than our contidioning. So if you look at a flower, remembering that stepping on something beautiful is bad, you are not far from the person who just steps on it without a thought. And closer to the act of destroying the flower by stepping on it intentionally than you might believe.

If you spontaneously avoid the flower because you percieve directly, without thought of gain or loss, good or bad, your action is good in the true sense.

 

Bottom line is, honestly acting from our deepest heart, with complete sincerity should be the goal. That forces us to let go of control, of others opinion and our own judgement.

The consequence is that we are forced to not know what our next action would be. Then we could say we are acting in accordance with the Dao.

 

But to live like that? Nearly impossible, no?

 

h

Interesting.How so impossible? To be connected with your deepest heart.

To be authentic.

If actions cannot be in accord with what one feels to be one's full authenticity due to the endless concatenation of events that create our circumstances.. if one knows and feels the authentic, yet by force of circumstance chooses that one cannot be, in action, fully authentic, this is just being human, in the best possible way. This is refinement.

Embodying authenticity does not equate to acting it out regardless of others sensibilities.

Authenticity is an inner process.

It is really only those starting out and feeling their way in the world that need to foist their authenticity on others innoportunely and lack the skill to know when to show compassion, when to navigate and when to cascade.

How is it not possible to be a good person and be honest at the same time... if you are honest with yourself and honest to the degree life can accommodate at any given time.

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