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deci belle

Celestial timing

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These are a couple comments I've transferred from a thread taowanderer started called, "So What does Tao say about attachment/desire".

 

Desire is a wonderful thing. Attachment to desire is something else altogether. Attachment to anything is conditioned and dependent. I would have to say either you are or you aren't mired by dependent habitual conditioned energies. But mostly it is a matter of gravity and degree. In terms of the most basic necessity, observing the disease of the mind means it entails suffering. This is an habitual relationship not with the world, but with oneself. It is neurosis. This neurosis is a mental crutch. This is the dependency one must acknowledge and cut away from one's life.

 

Don't be sidetracked by externals in this regard. One follows the heart's desire without stepping over the line. The most subtle veils are of your own making and must be swept away until there is nothing left of you. When you don't want, then self and other turn into mutual response because the situation becomes the context. Sure, no one else knows that— but when you do, you are not at issue with conditions. So when others are, you detach from their issue, not the situation. The situation may very well go on, but you don't.

 

Who can start and end here without further deliberations?

 

Not sidetracked by externals in this regard, one follows the heart's desire without stepping over the line. It is a most curious affair, because, lacking momentum, you do not go along with the world— and the world must have you at all costs. This is where Mara comes into play— she is relentless. She never goes away …she just backs off. Sudden enlightenment just severs the compulsion to follow conditions— but stopping is up to you, whether enlightened or not. Whereas creation is fecund— no end to manifestations material or mental. Enlightening activity is endless transformations according to the time without changing along with creation.

 

As it so often happens, something comes in from left field and one's flow is obstructed. That is stopping. Ordinarily, one might seek to push through the obstacle— or even seek definitions. That is stepping over the line— even entertaining intellectualism.

 

So one follows the heart's desire within unknowing (innocence, not ignorance or cunning). This is all made possible because self-refinement enables immediate acquiescence. The natural flow of the situation stops, it's not that you have to stop outside of stopping. You just have to see it. The physics involved is simply the lack of momentum, so one is not carried over into arbitrary action and one stays within the response-body. Enlightening being is a quality of responsitivity~ sudden realization is not a consideration in terms of effecting enlightened qualities. Why?

 

Enlightening being is the quality of being so— it's self-refining action in the world; using the world's situations for refinement of self, instead of self-gratification. This is also practice. Without thoughts of good or bad, enlightening activity is open and sincere unminding response in ordinary events. Sudden enlightenment is just waking up to the fact that you have a lovely tan …whereas all along you have been in the sun. Being in the sun is like enlightening activity which is the action of an enlightening being.

 

I've noticed a certain reluctance and trepidation in bums to actually write out the word enlightening. At the risk of appearing glib, I only mention it because people need to know that the sudden and gradual are two rails on the same track. They are one. Don't be mislead by the analogy of the two rails. The light is one substance and so are its inconceivable functions.

 

Getting back to momentum, or even further— back to Harmonious' comment on now. The exquisite realm of now is effortlessness. Arbitrary ideas come from nowhere to upset the balance and harmony of now. Self refinement is training the aware being to maintain autonomy in the midst of worldly situations. After a long time, reality is recognized, but one loses this again and again when seduced by phenomena. Unbending intent, will, centeredness, concentration; single-minded determination is employed to avoid following externals. One develops discipline first (symbolized by the 3rd hexagram, then deflects externals (symbolized by the 4th hexagram).

 

When secure in one's dedication to now, one stays here. It is ultimately natural. From this vantage, it is easy to see momentum (or conditioned potential) in other. That's why I say either one is or isn't attached to kinetic (karmic) momentum.

 

In many respects, desire is complete in and of itself. Attraction is mutual, not in the conventional sexual sense— but in terms of self and other. Desire and bliss are coeval. This is the direct relationship we have right now with the heart of nonorigination within your own selfless original face. When one follows desire with openness and sincerity now without anticipatory momentum, one is activating the tao in reality without intermediary. This is enlightening being.

 

The alchemical classics all tell us to refine the self and await the time. They also say neither rushing ahead nor lagging behind, like a cat watching a mouse-hole, ever vigilant, careful not to miss the timing. When the celestial time arrives, human energy is responsive. It's not a matter of helping the tao, it is just in responding to situations fearlessly, honestly and without cupidity.

 

The whole point of this kind of subtle intensity is to follow the breath of creation, waxing and waning in order to imitate the celestial design. It is the affair of immortality in that one does not have to go along with creation at all. One leaves the matrix and enters the mystery. It is so for no reason. It just is and no one knows why. But the ancients have left this teaching for those who have the affinity to follow in their footsteps, and go on …beyond.

 

In the final analysis, the benefit is this: taoism calls it stealing potential. It is as if the spiritually aware potential energy that makes manifestation possible is gathered by the individual not going along with the created manifestation. This gathering of potential is real, yet one doesn't actually gather anything. It goes back to following the heart's desire within unknowing: using innocence to follow the heart's desire without stepping over the line.

 

One last thing… it is like the story of the monkeys who do not want 3 nuts in the morning and 4 nuts at night. So the monkey feeder says, "Ok, I'll give you 4 in the morning and 3 at night"— at this the monkeys are very pleased. First of all, you adapt to the situation selflessly and respond impersonally to give the universe its arbitrary causeless requirement in each situation as it arises. Secondly, one uses this situation to master the 3rd and 4th hexagrams in order to transcend the conditional aspect. Since you don't speculate on the conditional manifestation, you naturally cull its essential potential and seal it away.

 

You see, the story illustrates that the world gets it all backwards— wants it backwards! Those of you who know the I Ching, know that the 3rd hexagram is Difficulty. This should be done before, i.e., in the morning. This is advancing the yang fire. This is effort. This is following desires. This is entering the tiger's lair. The 4th hexagram is Innocence. This should be done last. This is withdrawing the fire when the killing energy of the yin convergence first arises, in order to gather potential and seal it within innocence void of intellectualism. This is non-doing. This is not stepping over the line. This is stealing potential.

 

I am directly divulging the secret. Who can put it to use?

 

(ed note: spiced it up with italics, underlines and a few tawdry hooks)

Edited by deci belle

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That was quite thought provoking.

 

It reminds of another issue I had been thinking about. Some people think of emotions as a hindrance to spirituality and enlightening. But it is really just the attachment to them, allowing them to control you, that is the hindrance. If one is in control, in harmony with their inner being and center, and detached from emotions, I believe emotions are simply useful tools and useful channels. Even fear becomes a cautionary, warning sense. I remember reading an article one time about the difference between anger and "righteous indignation" as well.

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