More is less

[steve]

In my reading and studies, I frequently come back to a feeling that I'd like to share. I don't know if I can capture it well in words but I'll try. As I work on cultivation, I find more and more that the nature of consciousness/awareness/self-ness is so amazing, so elusive, and so beautiful. Yet, there are so many traditions and people out there who seem so focused on something more than that. Simple being and experiencing is not enough. We look for magic, supernatural abilities, short-cuts, pomp and circumstance, secrets, costumes, rituals - anything to make us feel that we have found something special. Yet all of that simply distracts us from simply being and getting closer to the source. It's almost as if we're afraid of the truth or purposefully (if subconsciously) trying to distract ourselves from the simple and plain. As if the showy stuff is some sort of proof that there is something more out there or that we're closer to the answer. Yet the "more out there" and "the answer" is inside and can best be seen when the all the extras are let go, through the simple and the quiet...

Anyway, it's funny, sad, frustrating but mostly fascinating to see the human machinations which do very little more than take us further away from our true nature. And don't think for a minute that I'm immune to it. I guess it's the awareness of that very tendency in myself that has sensitized me to what I see around me.

Thanks for listening... sometimes I learn something from trying to express these feelings and hopefully this is a good place to do just that.

[Todd]

When I saw the title of this thread I thought, "Is he going to say that more is the way to less, and hence is better for us?"

 

I guess the whole less being better thing is that ingrained in me. But maybe there is some truth to your title?

[VeeCee]

Interesting post. I too believe in the "less is more" philosophy and am working to focus more on internals, less on externals. I agree that externals can actually take you further away from what you are trying to achieve. I am so new to taoism that I hold back on expressing my opinion, but I find that your post resonates with me. Thanks for sharing.

 

V.

[beancurdturtle]

Yet, there are so many traditions and people out there who seem so focused on something more than that. Simple being and experiencing is not enough. We look for magic, supernatural abilities, short-cuts, pomp and circumstance, secrets, costumes, rituals - anything to make us feel that we have found something special. Yet all of that simply distracts us from simply being and getting closer to the source. It's almost as if we're afraid of the truth or purposefully (if subconsciously) trying to distract ourselves from the simple and plain. As if the showy stuff is some sort of proof that there is something more out there or that we're closer to the answer. Yet the "more out there" and "the answer" is inside and can best be seen when the all the extras are let go, through the simple and the quiet...

I love you man.

[mat black]

It's only because of ignorance of ones' true nature that powers are sought.

 

Unconditional love surpasses all.

 

In the opening, it can be known.

Edited September 13, 2007 by mat black

[林愛偉]

It's only because of ignorance of ones' true nature that powers are sought.

 

Unconditional love surpasses all.

 

In the opening, it can be known.

 

 

And that is all the power one will actually ever need.