the Way (Buddhism, eternal, Buddhism, Zen, taoism)

[the_Unknown]

Effortless skill springs forth from nothingness.

Without intention,
actions are free to carry out themselves.

Lost within indifference,
unlimited virtue manifests.

Remember, not acting is more powerful then acting can ever be.

The greatest warrior will always be less virtuous
then the man who need not ever concern himself with battle.

Contentment.

All things naturally seem to balance out and fall into harmony.
This harmony is the true way things are.

All things are balanced - nothing can be destroyed or created.

See beyond yourself and accept reality.

Then, the fruits of contentment will be yours.

==================================

All miseries to which I attribute to myself are fruits of my confusion.

The tao is experienced in every way of life.

All things descend from one.
And so, all skills too descend from one.

The skill by which you may master reality.

And with it,
all things therein.

But to sit and dream of the Tao.
Is the same to sit and dream of anything else.

You may imagine yourself doing many things in life.
To actually take action is another matter.

But here, we must first shed our intents and expectations.

For this is not truly an action.

It is letting go.

Let go, and do not seek refuge.

If you displace your desire to hold,
from one thing to another,
then you are still acting.

------------------------------------------------------------
This is the significance of breathing exercise.

If practiced properly, it is the simplest form of balancing ying and yang.

Your greatest obstacle is your logical mind - it wishes to complicate the matter further.

Do not give it reason or doubt.

Do not attempt to find ways to improve or make it more powerful.

Accept it as is.

Breathe in - ying.

Breathe out - yang.

Balance breathing in with breathing out.

Ease into holding your breath inbetween.

Ying forms into yang .

Yang into ying.

Between them, nothingness.

Naturally, effortlessly.

Your mind will put forth the illusion of improvement.

You may think yourself to have better breath controls, or awarenes, or power and stive for this.

But none of this matters because you have not realized the Tao.

Your thoughts betray you.

If you were to truly realize the Tao,
your breathing would cease.

Time and space will vanish.

Ying and yang reveal themselves to you as illusions.

There is no longer a need to indulge in them.

For balance has finally been met.

The self is discarded.

Eternity emerges.

The true power of the Tao.

Unity with perfection.

[Scarlett Wampus]

Hah! Unknown that was a great post, great poetic clarity. You're obviously finding your feet here.

ChrisP dual-mind can be division between heart & mind yeah. Also mind & body, individual & collective, personal and impersonal, good & evil, etc. When we think we conceptualise the world by discriminating between things. While useful, extremely useful even, it has a tendency to escalate in a kind of closed feed-back loop that dominates perception. So, we make models of reality then end up mistaking those models for reality itself, thus trapping ourselves in them like oblivious prisoners to our own artificial confinement.

Although haunted by a deep sense that there is some underlying reality that is now somehow separate from us, trying to get back to that fundamental unity of things becomes neigh on impossible since the mind is so habitually lost in its own machinations. It goes round and round in circles trying to get back what it is missing, imagining it might be found in all sorts of things that seem real but are themselves distorted reflections. i.e. ideas of God, Tao, Buddha, utopia, perfection, happily ever after, etc.

When all one can see are reflections then to give them up (it must be all of them) can feel like the very thing we are trying to avoid - like losing the few shattered shards we have of what is worth living for! This is the great tragic mother of human anguish. Unknown's post alludes to the way to liberate her. What the mind really needs is to stop, cease its mania. Then dual-mind falls away and original nature is revealed. In my opinion the heart of Chan Taoism is composed of strategies/techniques to return to this, to keep doing so, and slowly make it the basis for living.

I'm running out of time again so I'll just quote something regarding emotion:-

"Zen does not teach to destroy all the impulses, instincts, and affective factors that make up the human heart; it only teaches to clear up our intellectual insight from erroneous discriminations and unjustifiable assertions; for when this is done, the heart knows by itself how to work out its native virtues." - D.T.Suzuki

Sorry to keep throwing Zen stuff at the Tao section here.

[PureX]

The Tao isn't something we can or need to learn. It just is. But it is something we can practice embodying.

Perhaps begin by letting go of everything else, and just practice sitting and breathing. Breathing is part of the Tao of Man. We don't have to learn how to breath. We do it automatically. Yet we can practice consciously finding the joy inherent of breathing.

Each breath is a gift of life, and can be the source of very real and honestly experienced joy. All it takes is for you to practice at sitting quiet, and at consciously enjoying the pleasure of breathing in, and then out. Do this each day for 10 minutes for two weeks, and I will gaurantee that by the end of those two weeks you will find yourself enjoying just being human, automatically, at various points throughout the day.

Then try practicing at enjoying other aspects of the "Tao of Man", like yawning, or stretching. You'll be amazed at how wonderful it feels to yawn a great big yawn, or to stretch your body's muscles out in the morning, once you begin to pay attention to these actions.

If you are reading the Tao te Ching, and understand what you're reading, then you must recognize that the Tao isn't about knowing, or doing, it's about being.

51

Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao.

The Tao gives birth to all beings,
nourishes them, maintains them,
cares for them, comforts them, protects them,
takes them back to itself,
creating without possessing,
acting without expecting,
guiding without interfering.
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things.

- from the Tao te Ching

[the_Unknown]

The Tao is reality.

Reality is simple.

Complexities are not real.

All apparent complexities are made of simplicity.

Call it the tao, zen, or whatever you wish to call reality.

Giving it a name misleads the entirety of its nature.

All things are beings.

But to truly see and accept ourselves as beings,
we must see ourselves as not being.

The only point of knowledge or learning,
is to realize how pointless it is.

Contentment and indifference are the key.

Tao of Man, Tao of Duck, Tao of Rock?

I only see the Tao.