deci belle

Power is what's powerful. You are only playing with drugs at this point— seeking to justify its use is self-importance perpetuating the false identity. When will you sweep it all away? When are you going to be done fooling yourself, mr b? Now that you have used your enlightening drugs, what now, hmmmm? You are holding out; hedging your bets. I keep telling you it's NOT the person. It's not the person who sees the Absolute. Drugs have never and will never take the person there, because it's not the person. It happens (if it does) of it's own accord, not yours. Audacity is just that. Audacity is daring to do NOTHING. Why? How else do you prove that it's already the who that's always been aglow? Doing nothing is having swept the field of perception right here right now, preserving the fundamental ,and maintaining clarity 24/7. Gautama buddha admitted that absolutely nothing is gained by complete perfect enlightenment, and it's true. An instant of the Absolute is just seeing essence in terms of essence for the first time. It doesn't change anything. That's the point. Immortality is expressing changelessness in everyday ordinary situations. If it changed anything, it wouldn't be enlightenment. If you've already gotten that much from drugs, then it's time to move on. You don't need drugs, you need purity and selfless sincerity to cultivate a gracious emptiness to make room for grace to alight. While you hide in plain sight, hoping Power takes you under its wing… hahhahahhahahhahhahahaahahahhahahahaaa As soon as you stop fooling yourself, it's as easy as turning over your hand. Hongzhi admonished students to simply accept the (nonpsychological) function, take the forward step, and share openly according to conditions. Drugs won't do that for you. Have you seen nonpsychological potential obviating the personal perspective in the midst of situations? If so, then why pimp drug use? If you haven't arrived at such functional certitude, you aught to ask yourself why you haven't. When you get the one, your work is done~ that is, when you know you're not fooling yourself anymore, or anyone else, for that matter, you know what you're waiting for. Taoism says to refine the self and await the time. What is the time? The time is the spontaneous arising of incipient celestial potential. I temporarily took a time-out from ignoring you lately, dear~ don't make me change my mind…❤︎ ed note: typo, 1st line; hahahahhaaa~ shorten my script to make it fit in one line

hahaha~ only because you are such a one, dear❤︎ Can you be natural about it? You're still justifying it because you're still too serious. Forget all seriousness and embrace sincerity… open sincerity. Sincere openness beckons the Virtue of Receptivity to alight naturally. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't you like to enter into its wonder, hmmm? Not to worry, not because you have room for doubt (I hope not) but because there's nothing you can do to help or hinder conditions. I only say that because I'm still not sure you have grasped that fact effectively. It's not about the person, and you haven't harmonized with that yet. I only make a point of it due to a self-reifying insistence and an impatient bearing. As beings, we are inconceivably insignificant to the way's Power. Either we resonate effectively with it or we don't. Can you open yourself to arrive in vulnerable submission to such subtle power virtuously— and without the use of drugs? Drugs are too crude for the exquisite field of nonorigination. Drugs are for blockheads, dear. Dismiss them entirely. Virtue, as such, is not to be gauged by literalistic connotations. It is discussed briefly in a chapter or two of the Tao te Ching. And, while you're at it, make a point of seeking out its elucidation on the Mysterious Female and the Valley Spirit. The Mysterious Female is its opening and the Valley Spirit is its function. Anyone would benefit greatly by entering into its secret, but you especially, would do well to find expression in its incipience, mr Breakingthewall. When one passes through the aperture of the Mysterious Female, one can then make use of water, fire, and the alchemic process. When you have succeeded in doing so, be sure not to tell anyone… not that Mother Nature won't know. You will then be a marked man.

No worries, Sugarcoat— now you know… there's not one bit of it to understand rationally. In the midst of everyday ordinary situations, it took me fifteen years to hone myself in the struggle, then another fifteen years after the inconceivable breakthrough to stabilize the "achievement." I never dared utter a word of it for thirty years. Now I hear those who immediately spray about every little supposed epiphany they have on this forum~ the Art of War refers to this kind of behavior as "the spoils of victory are lost in celebration." I've said it often enough on this forum, in an unrelated context, that the most difficult aspect of spiritual refinement is in the aftermath of experiencing authentic insight. In the context of alchemy, when one "takes over creation, and steals its potential— one must then withdraw the alchemical fire with haste, and seal the elixir in the empty vessel, void of intellectualism." If you really feel you have gotten it, be as if you had not. Otherwise you will have realized its potential in vain. Heed these words, because it happens to everyone, when they least expect it. I would not deign to fool anyone. The only way one benefits by absorption of spiritual potential is in NOT using it. So, mr Yimpa… Yale? As if you have a familiarity with its button-down culture, hmmmm? Ugghhh. I hope not! I had a free-ride at Harvard, only due to the fact that my family is one of the founding progenitors of that institution. I would have none of it. As a born and bred southern California native American (Juaneño Band of the Atahum tribe— Shoshone linguistic group), I opted for a much more casual experience at a Juliard-rated UC campus, majoring in dance and social science~ 3.00 GPA … by the skin of my ski-bum~ only because I defied the utterly childish dialecticism of the academic chair of my department (Princeton) pfffffff. He was the kind of person who could brag about his status as a psychiatric patient. I told him to give me a D; I didn't buy his emic/etic dialectic— like I needed a degree where I was headed. Otherwise, food for thought is precisely what the OP of this thread (and my content as a whole) is not. Being relieved (in more ways than one) of one's preponderant reliance on intellectualism and literally taking a break from one's overweening thought-provoked psychological apparatus to the exclusion of one's enlightening potential is the lifelong process and WORK of self-refinement. What is being refined away? The human mentality. It is only forgotten for an instant. The point of authentic self-refining enlightening activity is to learn to use the rational capacity sparingly, instead of exclusively. It's called liberation for a reason. The reason is MInd; it's not about the person. One must either meet the challenge of lifetimes as perception presents itself or else stumble on as before when having conceived a glimpse of open wonder. Only the audacious have the wherewithal to forego the conventions of complacency and opportunism after such an event spontaneously occurs. As for those who take it upon themselves to seek out such an event— and then artificially induce a deliberate interruption in conditioned consciousness by their own device with drugs because enlightenment isn't happening on its own fast enough? This kind of malpractice is to be pitied. It is much better to take really good recreational drugs (mushrooms and peyote, for example), recreationally— ask me how I know. The futility of ego. There is a name for this kind of relationship with one's life: it's called spiritual materialism. A few lines by Juan de la Cruz: Aspiring to this in the context of a life lived in the midst of ordinary delusional existence and then carrying it out effectively with unbending intent through thick and thin unbeknownst to anyone is an incomparably more powerful practice than endeavoring to be initiated into a fashionable lineage, build altars, wear robes, endure "retreats" and other intrigues while bobbing up and down awash in samsara, only to gather thirty years of dust on the meditation cushion. Don't get me started. ed note: typo 3rd paragraph; change "in" to "into" in penultimate sentence

I thought about how it is before seeing reality, when one is part of a relative continuum since birth, infancy and then childhood and one somehow endeavors to risk one's conditional (provided) identity to discover who one "really" is (in the larger social sense), and we become teenagers and identify with our adolescent rebellion (some never evolve from this stage)— brandishing our separateness that somehow rings truer than anything else …how it comes to work out with our peers and the looming dominant society is the story of many many lifetimes. But for some, in the midst of identifying as one of a totality of separatenesses, either the rawness of discovery dims, and many re-adjust the paradigm and pair off to create yet other separate unities to create yet other cycles of changing chains opening and closing again without end, or else discover a calling for the inconceivable. Various illuminates including the Buddha proclaim a way to freedom from these rounds of birth, suffering and death. When the great and ancient teachings referring to the Changeless source are tossed around by mouths that have never tasted the source of a changeless unity inspiring the classics themselves, how is it possible to open up the light of awareness as is? The truth is, It cannot be opened up because it is already shining as the unity of Mind neither ignorant nor enlightened simply so just as it has without beginning.. A huge problem is that indulgence in ignorance presumptuously assumes that differences (in thought) are arrived at by the same means, i.e.: thinking. Therefore if others would just think differently… hahahhahahhaa. Taoism teaches that people are completely good at birth, and following the natural course of development, their generative primal yang energies eventually peak and this initial phase is followed by the rising of complimentary (conditioned) yin energies. Alchemy is a stylized praxis encoded in Complete Reality taoism as a way to harness this natural cyclic process to wrest its inherent potential from karmic oblivion and restore it to its primordial prominence in one's own life. This is not a matter of belief, nor is it philosophy. Neither is it a religious movement based on social tenets or moral ethics to put people in lifelong holding patterns for their own good. The natural course (of yang peaking and yin arising) illustrates the chain being broken by "destructive" conditional energies for the first time in terms of one's initial primal generative energy from birth to adolescence. For most people this is simply necessary (and natural). It was for me, but then something went wrong. There are many instances in the hagiographies of the buddhist luminaries and taoist saints and teachers who never entered into the conventions of social spheres— that's not the course my life took though. I have a very bad reputation! A career in international fashion will do that if one isn't careful. I wasn't, but that's another scene. At a critical juncture (in taoist alchemical teaching), in terms of the virtual culmination of yin energies, it is said that if one can recognize it and somehow reverse the process and experience a reversion to what one was before one was born, one will accomplish the re-unification of one's potential within the matrix of reality. This is essentially a reference to the inner process resulting in authentic sudden illumination. Taoist alchemy's emphasis is this process, not its result. Why? The experience of complete perfect enlightening accord in reality is up to reality, not the person. Sudden illumination arrives on its terms alone. There is no way to "help it along." It cannot be reached by one's own mind, even though it is already one's own mind. The source is nonorigination itself. There is no thing, and one has never been separate. This is where the wagging mouths crap out. Conventional formulaic intellectualism's current rage is Nihilism and that's about it~ whereas its counterpart, Eternalism, is passé (only the god-fearing concern themselves with such trifles). So there's a bit of the inherited chain and the natural course of breaking it and then arriving at a unified selfless identity of the totality of being and nonbeing, unborn and undying. But not much in the way of its application is ever heard, for the most part. What about that?

@Sugarcoat That was a good start, but having failed to gain entry by a hackneyed rationalism, you get impatient and miss what is right in front of your pointed nose. Enlightenment isn't an answer because there is no question. It's already your own mind right now— as in present accordance with reality as is. Meditation is an entry into inconceivability for some. It's not for everybody. I don't meditate. As for the point of meditation in the first place… it is to stop habitual reliance on rational explanations~ you might very well benefit from that. Therefore it is a provisional teaching for beginners who aren't in a hurry for an explanation dumbed down for a quick fix of intellectualism. My writing style is a device. There are some who like it— but then they aren't seeking to relieve a psychological itch as perhaps you are. As for the clip provided by you tube poster: really? At least you satisfied mr Sugarcoat. Yawn… I provide threads such as I do for those who already resonate with the content. For those who don't, there's nothing to explain because the subject is inconceivability itself. For those who do, no comment is necessary. Otherwise, as I have been doing for the last fifteen years on a number of perceptually resonant forums, I'll clue you in: I'm not here for the social scene. Hopefully that won't come as a shock or as an affront. bonjour❤︎

This is quite a long post~ I doubt many on this forum will want to wade through it… Someone wrote about Complete Reality taoist teaching and how it seemingly lends itself to the expression of true freedom: I'm referring to Chang-Po Tuan's 'Understanding Reality', translated by Thomas Cleary, with detailed commentary by Liu I Ming. Cleary's summary of the Complete Reality School's view of Yin Yang introduction (starting page 3) While this is definitely a brief summary by Cleary, it gives an idea of the sort of things that seem to relate to actual freedom. Liu I Ming's commentary in the main body of the text, is much more concerned with the process of its cultivation than in defining it categorically, that is, conceptually in a philosophical way. Or am I way off? Below are some some snippets: "stillness is not an ends but a means, and the practice of emptiness and stillness is supposed to have a definitive climax and outcome." "One advantage of being able to stand aside from the mundane and recover the awareness of the unconditioned primordial mind is that it allows a more objective assessment of the value or otherwise of particular habits or patterns of behavior; and it allows leeway within which to modify behavior." "What the Complete Reality Taoist strives for is to attain autonomy, the freedom to be or not to be, to do or not do, according to the needs of the situation at hand." “The effort here is to join sense and essence; this may be described as developing a sense of the real essence of mind, and sensing reality directly from the essence of consciousness rather than through the acquired psychological configurations of temperaments. This is said to involve keeping consciousness open and fluid while clearing sense of subjective feelings; this means transcendence of restrictive mental fixations through the greater perspective afforded by the mind of Tao.” Wow, I love your topic! For you to conjoin actual freedom and a profound and ancient perceptual tradition is a very powerful insight. Most people only grasp a rudimentary aspect of the more accessible proponent of provisional ethics couched in reformative and renunciatory practice which tends to “sugarcoat” the deeper import of the viable mind-only schools of buddhism and taoism. As for the points you have made, I would say that actual freedom is the state of wallowing in complete reality right now. Complete Reality taoist teaching calls this "jumping in and floating around in the center of the compass". "Jumping in" is realizing, acknowledging and accepting one's inherent enlightening function, and using its potential adaptively in the midst of conditions without relying on one's own power, unbeknownst to anyone. The Center is the immaterial incipience of one’s real body of awareness, which has no location. "No location" isn’t somewhere else; it's nowhere else. Just this is who you are before the first thought, no different than your own mind right now. It’s complete, perfect and transcendent. Conceptually, transcendent freedom can only be expressed functionally in terms of its relative, which is conditions. In terms of enlightening accord, one is free of conditions as is, by virtue of the potential inherent in situational conditions. That’s not a word-game, it’s just how it is. Enlightening accord is not a mental state separate from conditions. It is such that one is essentially coeval the unattributable nature of conditions, that is, the essence of creation— those who see reality see creation without involving karmically attributable awareness do not use ordinary psychological momentum to adapt. They avail themselves of nonpsychological awareness. Nonpsychological awareness is your own mind right now without endeavoring to to activate habit-energy in terms of one’s habitual use of enlightening qualities to create illusion relative to the personality. Using mind to reify the psychological apparatus of the being that is going to die is what I’m referring to. Using psychological/rational mental capacities to adapt to what essentially amounts to chaos is simply the wrong tool (in most cases). The overarching problem for humanity is that we are habituated to using only one limited aspect of mind (as inconceivable as it is) to deal with delusional attributes of creation, such as everyday ordinary situations, when it is usually sufficient to transcend (transform) delusion instead, using our endowment of enlightening qualities that have yet to be developed in the vast majority of people (not that I basically don’t talk to my mother, for example). Authentic self-refinement is a matter of using the world to refine the self. That means not talking to my mother is just part of the deal (for me). It’s not something that’s wrong relative to anyone or else something that bothers me and needs fixed. Ç'est la vie~ Complete Reality taoist tradition exemplifies the thrust of all authentic teachings based on reality extent on this planet from time immemorial and beyond. Reality, so to speak, is the substance of conditions, not the conditions themselves. Those who see reality see through the conditional and garner its potential as the means to adapt impersonally to situational energy-cycles whereby they are able to transform along with creation without experiencing Change unawares. Where does freedom come in? It's all about freedom from influences by karmic momentum. Karmic momentum is psychological. It's also relative to people’s ignorance of it’s true nature. Freedom is actualized by awakening to the nature of conditioned reality (karma), and to that end, one’s entry into complete reality. By doing so, one sees that it’s the same nature. By virtue of its functional (potential) aspect as worldly process comprising the eternity of creation and all karmic cycles, it eventually becomes possible for one to adapt in partnership with creation without being subject to changes wrought by karmically circumstantial process, and one gains access to a real freedom not dependent on karmic relativity. This is only possible because delusion and reality are essentially the same. Mind is one. Spiritual alchemy is using the pure from within the false by not being subject to the false: that's the relativity of freedom, expressed in terms of Complete Reality taoism. In terms of practice, it’s endeavoring to unify the disparate by means of their essential, in order to gain its unrefined potential for further spiritual (nonpsychological) development. In terms of the endless process of gradual practice whereby the world reverts to a perpetual state of wholeness by virtue of the enlightening potential of the individual, we have a practical protocol for absorption of microcosmic, macrocosmic and absolute orders of magnitude, for those with potential. Those who see reality, see that delusion is none other than complete reality, in terms of its potential. Those who see potential, see its essence, and work with it directly without intermediary. Spiritual alchemists absorb this karmically derived potential in its unrefined state and let it refine by itself naturally, void of intellectualization on the part of the adept. It is the aftermath of such insight (any true insight really), that is the most difficult aspect of transformation to manage. Even in terms of everyday ordinary situations, say you realize that breaking up with your loved one is necessary, and then you find it is (sometimes) extremely difficult, even unreasonably so, to continue on without entertaining second thoughts. This would be an illustration of NOT being able to seal away potential void of intellectualization. In real terms, no one else knows (not even you really know for sure). Nevertheless, for such a one who perseveres, the application is neither conditional nor absolute. Who are those who actually see it, and can act on its knowledge? In buddhism, a buddha is the embodiment of suchness, the buddhist term to denote reality as is, neither conditional nor absolute. Sages, saints, buddhas, wizards, all prior and present illuminates and all enlightening being(s) know the totality of the being that is going to die. If they didn’t know that in intimate terms, they would not (could not) be a buddha. They know it does not exist in real terms. It’s not simply a philosophical speculation. Real knowledge is the living potential of creation. Potential is the basis of working in terms of awareness with that which is not created. It’s not so strange when one realizes that awareness is itself nonoriginated— in fact, awareness is actually nonorigination itself. Beings are essentially just this, so we have a direct means of facilitating transcendence by means of our nature. This truth is the foundation of all authentic mind-only teaching from time immemorial and beyond. Transcendence is the way it is and no one knows why. Relative to unity, what is there to be free of? Enlightening beings are comprised of the Virtue of the Receptive. The world comes to them naturally without self-consciousness. Such is the nature of the Way, which is the nature of the true self which has no self. Freedom is a relative term denoting knowing better. "Better" is a relative term too. This is not philosophy. It is a description of the functional basis of adepts of complete reality by any other name. Complete Reality taoism is a teaching of realization of primordial unity and its manifestation by subtle means through those who can act on nonpsychological awareness. Seeing reality is seeing potential. Seeing potential is the reality of nondifferentiation. Those who know the essence of conditions operate in terms of essence while in the midst of the incremental, that is, temporal existence. Freedom is knowledge and actualization of selflessness (unity) adapted to ordinary situations unbeknownst to anyone for the purpose of enlightening accord in reality. Taoism calls those who are receptive to Virtue "real people". The Way has its Power, and those who carry it out do so without relying on personal volition— only seeing potential and adapting to it based on conditions themselves. This is how "the master carpenter does not cut." I have only responded to your opening line~ as for the "snippets" you provided by Thomas Cleary, those are sublimely self-evident. I’m so happy you saw fit to include those lines for others to see. Even so, arriving at the functional edification of the words you recognized as significant enough to include in your post, this is actually the purposeful expression of all authentic teaching. I really enjoyed the topic that you introduced. ed note: make quote box smaller

Awesome Yimpa!

This is so god. So what I left the "o" out.

Bravo …~ may you sustain TOTAL CONTROL of yourself until such time as naturalness pervades the proper limits of your concentration ably~ I never made it a "thing" to do for myself (I just kind of flitted low to the ground like a reptile growing wings). Awakening to this aspect of self-refining gamesmanship really is a game-changer! Taoist alchemy has two profound admonitions that may apply in certain instances… perhaps in this one, as well. The first one is to be very careful in not relying on one's own power (or at least to continuously reflect subtly with open sincerity on the nature of this very fortunate developmental state of affairs), kind of like a de-briefing warm-down of sorts in the midst of generalizing further assessments concerning the next… The other is closely related, in that authentic practice can result in breakthroughs such as that which you have been experiencing after periods that are reminiscent of "dragging a boat through mud and water" before reaching temporary highly navigable conditions. In view of your current state of mind, there is an ancient saying that relates to the psychology's ever-anticipatory grasping nature. It is couched in alchemical terms of the firing process: neither rushing ahead nor lagging behind, advance the fire of insight only to the point of sufficiency; at the critical instant when sufficiency is reached, withdraw the fire and temper the elixir by "bathing" it with the water of concentration. No doubt you have been doing so naturally— but the the alternations of effective concentration and insight (stopping and seeing) are endless. The "alchemic" technique is to always be mindful of the aspect of sufficiency, and withdraw the "fire" before it's too late so the great good fortune is not damaged in any way, and the next developmental "operation" can proceed spontaneously (not relative to terrestrial time, mind you)❤︎!! I hope you won't mind my saying as much though…

StarStruck says that consciousness trumps Mind— as long as one is habituated to following thought unawares, I might add. Authentic self-refining practice is accomplished by subtly observing consciousness mindfully 24/7. Done so effectively, the mind-monkey is now and again subdued in fits and starts without harm to beneficial psychological processes. Eventually, habit-awareness cannot withstand the unbending intent of such scrutiny. Eventually, it will crap out on its own. Formal meditation regimens are only an introductory lesson on basic approaches to mental discipline in terms of meeting the requirements of what is called for, in order to recognize and nurture formless potential alighting in the midst of psychological pattern-consciousness. It must be made clear that t is not necessarily beneficial to "help" speed up inevitability by taking fashionable drugs to artificially interrupt consciousness before the time one's cultivated accord in reality has properly and naturally reached maturation. I liked the title of your thread, Chives. Your last sentence included a poignant kernel, "The sense of control is needing things…" I would encourage you to reflect on this excellent observation you've brought to bear for a few lifetimes! It's a real gem. Mind alone is the authentic teacher.

My correspondent has added material I have endeavored to meet with direct response: I'm seeing that your way shortcuts through all of the b.s. in my life. Well, it doesn’t shortcut it so much as much as obviate it. The term "closure" can be very messy (in seeking avoidance, escaping to cut one's losses, etc.,so to speak), being indicative of an "unfinished business" affair. When energy is lost to the "bandits" of incremental creative process, it's already too late. Obviation is in the spirit and purpose of enlightening accord with creation itself, so there is less and less effort in "bypassing" the falsity, impurity and resultant karmic energy as much as effort in minimizing ones "footprint" validating such shenanigans, a priori. One just quietly sets things aright without changing anything before the fact, in terms of nonorigination. The critical aspect is in one's orientation, and therefore, one's seminal approach to creation, at the onset, with respect to "adapting enlightenment to delusion." "Setting things aright …before the fact" refers to the lifelong process of self-refinement. Taoism tell us to "refine the self, then await the time." "I could create a secret path to avoid the quicker death, which is just dumb strategy mainly, but I am afraid to "miss out" (I know your thoughts on that) …is it just a matter of 1% ruthless mind, 99% female heart?" 1% ruthless heart (ruthless compassion), 99% female (open) mind; cutting all the way through in one slice without attachment to outcome. With no ruler behind, no enemy in front, there is no secret path to entertain— only the knowledge of potential. If you know the ground of death, you await inevitability in relative ease, while inevitability "expends" its effort finding you as you simply save (gather) its energy (potential) in the meantime. The “ground of death” is a term straight out of the Art of War and the accompanying analysis of Thomas Cleary’s treatment of the related material found in the ancient taoist canon. If you can be such a one, who is there to entertain "escape"? At such a time, what isn't you? As it's you, and you aren't it, the perpetual result, as is, is all there is to work with. Everything obliterated, who else could fathom such gathering and releasing? What would constitute "moving on" in terms of closure's avoidance strategies vis-à-vis all the b.s. heretofore comprising incrementality. There's nothing wrong with the b.s., (as it's unavoidable anyway), if the truly inevitable is guiding one's effective adaption. Spiritual adaption is keyed to inevitability and its strategic parameters defining one's gathering and releasing according to the time. There are no survivors. Somehow you don't seem the type to not have made use of strategies following desire to create motivation. So whether or not thought was attached, you had a light to follow based on something. Maybe it's my misunderstanding, but how do you reconcile the need to seek ascendancy over those somethings you wanted without becoming a slave to their egoic fascination? Very good question! In terms of enlightening activity (authentic self-refinement), one doesn't follow desire to create motivation, because desire (knowledge) already constitutes following (nonresistance). The knowledge of "following" is the working definition of desire. Enlightening activity is found in not following thought unawares. One "follows" mindfully in order to introduce "guidance." Following, then, is strategic use of selfless (objective) impersonal knowledge of the time to introduce guidance (wisdom). In the context of taoism's directive, "following desires without stepping over the line" this is "naturally following the laws of god without even knowing it." It's just as natural as can be. Obviously, applying wisdom is implicit and inherently ready-made for the time of acknowledging the arising of potential (non-compulsive "motivational" desire), because only in seeing potential in the first place is there true wisdom naturally applied by virtue of seeing reality. Seeing (potential) isn't some strange and wonderful attribute of other-worldy accomplishment. It's just a matter of awakening to the nature of your own mind right now, which implies having forgotten to entertain self-reifying thought long enough to see what's already before your pointed nose in terms of itself, not the person. Therefore, turning the light of consciousness around on the spot is already what constitutes your own mind right now. Only now that you know it, benefit to yourself and others without trying is the natural course without any intention to do so. When such a time (suggesting desire-based action) comes to a head, it doesn't "go" anywhere, because you see "its" potential. Having seen it, as such, you absorb "its" potential without intellectualization. The critical aspect of dealing with potential is in not using it. Things don't really "have" potential. Things ARE potential for those who don't use mind to create illusion, ie: not using consciousness to see things as relative to the person. Potential is the manifest essence of reality acknowledged wordlessly in any given situational context when the critical juncture arises. That is, when potential, as such, has reached its peak in terms of its creative context, and is hovering, as it were, at the cusp of devolving into the killing energy phase of every creative cycle, you don't assume ascendancy over anything (in terms of complacent socially speculative privateering). In forgetting all such contextual relationships, just this is the scenario for potential absorption. Why? Every moron who ever lived did nothing from birth to death but turn potential into karma. It is the method of enlightening activity by all prior illuminates to turn (potential) karma back into reality (nonorigination). In essence, this is the practical application of immortality. It's not about the person, its about reality. This is because reality is a selflessly open and boundless transcendent functionality. Why not fathom yourself and thus assume its wondrous expression? How? By not doing anything with it. "Absorbing" potential is a lot like ordinary digestive processes. When you eat something, intellectualization doesn't help anything. Digestion occurs naturally without thinking. Having seen and absorbed potential at its peak of development, one seals it away void of intellectualization. Eventually, it goes through a natural refinement process and reverts to refined potential (essence). That which one absorbs is temporally "unrefined" potential (even in terms of real knowledge), whereby a period defined as "ten months of incubation" ensues, sealed away safely by psychological fasting. It is said that the accomplishment is a model for the work. Ultimately, such knowledge is discarded as well, otherwise the accomplishment is wasted in vain. Taoism says, "water produces metal." Water is in the province of sense. Alchemically, sense is called lead. Lead is hard, dense, and sinks easily. Having gathered lead, this is termed "real knowledge." After having used lead to stabilize mercury (fire/temperament), one gets rid of the lead as well, because it, too, is polluted. This is because, in terms of the absolute, there is no thing. The medicinal elements are fused, alchemically speaking, to produce the elixir (the fetus or seed of buddhahood), then they are discarded. The elixir is ingested "absorbed" and one awaits the natural process of "incubation", as the medicines have done their work. When you catch fish, you don't eat the net (or the hook). You "get rid of it." As for egoic fascinations that ultimately "leak" inevitable karmic (re)actions, by virtue of its nature, nonorigination has never acted. The tao doesn't decide. Buddhas don't entertain ideas because knowledge is immediate. Action is the working definition of "karma." Clearly, enlightening response by subtle spiritual accord in (nonpsychological) adaptivity isn't a matter of blithe passivity. It's all wrapped up in seeing potential and then not compulsively thinking or acting relative to the person. There are a number of poignant treatises in the buddhist and taoist canon titled along the lines of Stopping and Seeing. Now, that being said, I know that what you say is the means to avoid self-created dilemmas, facilitating "passing through" thoughts objectifying attachment in terms of my egoic culpability, but I may have to use the poison to create the medicine, I don't know. I am not certain what would happen if I made no plans, but it seems that there are plans in other minds that will dominate if I don't choose. haha! This is the heart of the matter involving "following desires without stepping over the line." As for avoidance, there is "neither seeking honor nor avoiding ignominy." What is to be avoided is abandoning oneself to one's habitual indulgences in pattern-awareness. So, in the way of "passing through" inner and outer realms of thought which hook and arrest; what isn't egoic culpability, hmmmm? And yes, "other" minds DO plan domination whether you choose or not. In the same way, some plan ways of submission, being a reversal of sorts in terms of deliberate power transfer practiced and adhered to in BDSM. The key here is to see those plans in silence. In fact, such domination is Creation's plan for you! Taking over Creation and stealing its potential is bound to evoke mother Nature's ire until a certain point is reached and "nobody" doubts your resolve. As for those who have yet to cross that raging river, do not doubt it for an instant. I assure you, I don't use the word audacity lightly. If you see, then your work is not necessarily to make plans yourself so much as to know what is in accordance with the time and situation. Knowledge is the key to coordinating with inevitability. When you know the place of battle, the "ground of death" is easily discerned. Positioning yourself on the ground of death, you gain the ground of life. "When you know the one, your work is done." When you know, you save energy (gathering its potential). Knowing the ground of death is pairing with inevitability to such an extent that there is no room for escape. Now the question is, who also has the heart to take hearts? By the way, it does not matter a whit whether or not you do so, as having the heart to do so already seals your affinity with Power. Passing through is accomplished according to the timing of the arising of (celestial) potential. This is why all provisional schools of self-reformation stress continuous subtle observation. Formal meditation regimens, per se, are simply practice practice. Real practice is really sustaining 24/7 subtle continuous observation of mind by mind in order to recognise and see potential when it arises in the midst of everyday ordinary situuations. This is real practice, because it is immediately applicable in terms of instantaneous situational evolution. Situations are the breeding-ground of potential. Potential is inherent in the situation itself. There is no other place to find it. Only within the false is the true naturally there to be found and absorbed by the audacious. But first, one must realize an independent posture which does not rely on anything— one must truly access acute vulnerability without peer. In the context of lifeless formal meditation techniques, this would be contra-indicative of the artificially cloistered "personal liberation" afforded by formal zazen "cushion practice." Not that you do that— I never have. I don't even know how to meditate. ed note: saw a couple typos… fix quote box

This is an excerpt from a letter I recently received from a member of the dao bums forum. I had put this one on my "ignore" list over ten years ago: I haven't been to that forum since 2015. bonjour cheri, Stream-entry is one thing. Seeing your nature by having crossed over completely with the help of a dimension beyond conceivability which arrives of its own accord on its own conditions is another matter entirely. If and when that occurs will be a point where a new set of parameters/challenges will ensue, without horizon. Hopefully, if you are truly capable of authentically "not seeking the dharma gates" as they march to meet you, I give a cautionary "thumbs up." Do be careful of total reliance on "the hands being tied" in terms of the means to meeting conditions (as you forgo habitual ego-perpetuation), because this too changes. For now, just this seems appropriate, yet do not become complacent in its effective means of transportation in experiencing endless (situational) transformations. There is always the critical juncture when the generative energy of every given situational cycle switches over to the natural killing-energy of its "yin convergence" in terms of the law of creative evolution. For now, observation of mind by mind and not relying on one's personally motivated power (to act) as situational potential kills ego, seems to be in order. You seem to be adapting to the requirements of the time in a circumspect manner (I hope). You seem to be aware of the insight that the situation is you in terms of "being killed by my own ego", if I am sensing what you are saying in a correct fashion. I mention this because in reality, the situation IS you. This is because it is so in reference to absolute terms as well. Why? Potential is only found in other. This means that potential (the naturally transcendent function inherent in created situational evolution as well as in the absolute) is manifestly un-manifest in terms of any given situation. Being that the situation is not oneself, it is technically termed other. So actually, other is yourself in real terms (as you come to realize it, such being the case), and yes, it IS you, but, nevertheless, you are not it. When other becomes you in reality, you begin taking on the qualities of selfless enlightening activity as a natural course. That it is you, isn't about you. Some people come to believe that the absolute, in terms of some "enlightenment realm" is other than the scene before one's eyes. Whereas the scene itself, including one's eyeballs, is sheer illusion and the whole mass of creation in its karmic momentum from time immemorial and beyond is just simply nonorigination whether it be the absolute or in created incremental formality. Both are extremes, and clinging to one or the other are both forms of delusion. The "middle way" in Buddhist terminology is in reference to "not being both nor neither extreme." This is the truth of suchness. The term does not refer to some sort of provisional directive of "moderation" relative to things. On the contrary, awakening to suchness is the skillful means by which one actualizes subtle spiritual adaption to conditions. This is possible because one sees situations as the transcendent itself. Seeing potential is called the dharma eye, suchness being the supreme vehicle of all prior illuminates. Nonorigination isn't empty. Suchness, being the functional fact of the matter that reality (the nature of nonorigination), and delusion (being the incremental quality of momentum), are not separate. The process of self-disollution, otherwise termed self-refinement, likewise, is not a separate reality from sudden realization of essence. The gradual and the sudden are a seamless continuum. You seem to be awakening in fits and starts to reality. It's not a thing to witness separate from your own mind right now. Why? The seeing is itself is all there is. It's not the person, nor the image, nor the functional sense, nor the organ; awareness itself void of content is your own mind right now without beginning. Just this is what I refer to as nonorigination. Why? Utterly unattributable; unbegotten is the nonoriginated quality of awake. So yes, absolutely, you are being killed by your own ego, and it's not you, to boot. It's just that ego, being the face of death-energy, when it gets done with you, your attachment to its perpetuation of an illusory absolute selfhood dies with it. In terms of creation, the function is called ego. As pure function alone it cannot die because it doesn't exist as such. In terms of suchness, it is called enlightening being. In its purity of function, it cannot die because it is the face of nonorigination since it is neither relative nor subject to creation. Mind is one: neither ego nor enlightenment. How wonderful that ego is doing the work of killing you, and you don’t even have to do anything. When one naturally awakens to the natural process of self refinement, it's like Grace. In suspension, beyond the person's motivationally identifiable projections, aspirations and influences attached to outcomes, hoping for morale to improve, a lack is sensed. The way is near. That’s how it is. Fortunately, there's no hope. So let that go too. heehee❤︎ ed note: separate paragraphs 13 and 14

I hope I can tie things together in general terms (for those who are able), by saying that since mind is one, psychological anomalies that act up when one begins awakening to nonpsychological potential, is evidence of the underlying unity transcending duality in all its guises, without changing anything. No one else knows, and as for you yourself, there is nothing to know. The "difference" is but a hairsbreadth. But it's REAL. In other words, duality (creation) and non-duality (unity/nonorigination) are only seen as "difference" by those who do not yet recognize enlightening potential. As for the fact of psychological anomalies, they ARE potential if one has the insight and power to treat them as such. How is this? In terms of reality, before and after have no power over nonorigination. It is a matter of seeing alone. There is no doing. As for subtle spiritual accord, this is the meaning of the taoist directive to "gather" the potential at its peak (just before it falls into the creative, as psychological activity), and seal it away VOID OF INTELLECTUALISM. Taoism calls this "taking over Creation and stealing its potential." This is the audacity of spiritual alchemy. That is to say, it is by seeing alone, that one experiences potential (sensing that which turns into psychological activity by virtue of psychological activity before it changes). Those who see Change are able to avoid changing along with Creation. And this is the living reality constituting transcendent or enlightening activity . At this critical juncture of potential falling into the creative, it is imperative to "seal it away in the empty vessel without letting so much as a spark leak out" because words, conceptual labels and psychological referencing ruin potential on the spot. As for the "empty vessel" of which taoism refers to, all that can be said about it is that one's living body of awareness has no location. In terms of its function, it is another name for the aperture of the mysterious female or the characteristics of the "maiden" spoken of in the taoist alchemic classics of the school of Complete Reality as well as in one or two chapters of the Tao te Ching. The critical juncture is characteristic of EVERY created cycle. Taoism treats creation in terms of scientific observation. There is a very ancient taoist document (very short, really) called the Yin Convergence Classic, which speaks directly in terms of this universally critical juncture, which all alchemists can manipulate, at will, according to the time. If you are able to begin "preserving the fundamental" without ruining its potential, all manner of wonderful manifestations of stability in liberation begin to come to the fore in terms of one's non-resistance to what is, without so much as conceiving notions relative to the personality. This, in turn, begins to save quantum amounts of mental energy, like a snowball growing in size as it rolls down a snow-slope. The journey is endless. This is extremely subtle stuff. Buddhism calls this the gateless gate. It's not a riddle, not a conundrum. It's not a product of formal meditative routine. It cannot be figured out. It is not remotely a matter of sudden mystic realization. Just this is simply your own mind right now. When you finally see it, you see that it has been there all along. Isn't this just what all prior illuminates have always said? edit note: quote "seal the potential away in the empty vessel without letting so much as a spark leak out."; add to paragraph 3; typo, last sentence

The poor person who has begun writing me after so many years is dealing with what has come to be called the waterfall… Since we've been acquainted for over ten years, I know there is a degree of histrionics and a tendency for indulging. Nothing new here. I've chosen to spare the details, because they don't matter. But, in general terms, it is imperative to ignore visions, visitations and the like. When people begin effectively struggling with the lifelong process of self-refinement, some of the beneficial aspects of ego function are understandably weakened somewhat to the extent that the underlying "storehouse" consciousness begins to surface in the most inconvenient manner, manifesting as benign, disconcerting, amusing, horrific, or seemingly transcendent scenes all converging within the matrix of the psychological apparatus of the being that is going to die. This just means that the normally urbane stability of universal human consensus facilitated by the natural properties of pattern-consciousness over millennia become relatively overwhelmed in the individual human mentality. That is why the insight to the fact that "it's just me" can be relatively helpful in maintaining composure in the midst of bouts of perceptive anomalies. It's not out there. It's just you. Chill, and don't give it a place of importance in your life, either by indulgence or denial. The process and challenge of authentic spiritual refinement requires a subtle but unbending degree of sobriety to maintain equipoise in the midst of these seismic shifts in psychologically-based perception. This is because, as mentioned above, if one gives credence to such psychological anomalies, either by indulging them or by denying them, the human mentality is strengthened in its most aberrant characteristics. It is the goal of all authentic teachings of spiritual refinement to dissolve the psychologically aberrant, while simultaneously shoring up the psychologically beneficial. Authentic spiritual practice is not at all about ambitions relative to the person to experience "sudden enlightenment", by any means. The "sudden" is always a natural, spontaneous event, symbiotic within and resultant of, an efficacious gradual approach of subtle intensity without shortcuts. The practice of subtle spiritual observation is non-judgemental, in that the notion of "spiritual" simply means that one is employing the nonpsychological in the midst of the psychological. Mind is one. There are no two minds. The spiritual is the nonpsychological, selfless awareness in the midst of, and underlying, the psychological pattern-consciousness facilitating the personal aspect of the being that has a body. The physical and the psychological manifestation of the being constitutes karmic "birth and death" only. Most people live out their lives completely within this limited capacity of being. That's why it's called "bondage." It's not the absolute identity of the being, but it takes more than a bit of gumption and effort and a life lived in subtle, psychologically hygienic sobriety to begin to enter into the realms of that which is perpetuated by the traditions that have kept the secrets of reality alive in their culturally adaptive capacities. Nevertheless, transcendent adaption within the world of birth and death in all its guises can never ultimately be attributable to any culture, teaching or teacher. Why? Reality is mind alone, whether that be of relative or absolute nature. The true teacher is your own mind right now. It is by the grace of an unattributable source with which one learns to resonate within, by assuming a completely natural countenance found within oneself alone. The spiritual (nonpsychological) function of the being is the expression of innate enlightening qualities, in terms of their selfless nonoriginated source being mind. The spiritual isn't "out there" somewhere. It's you, right now, but you (the personality) are not it. In fact, it's already your own mind right now, which is why sober practice naturally enables employment of the innate spiritual capacity of the being that is going to die. All beings die. The spiritual is nonoriginated. That's awareness— it's already your own mind right now. That mind isn't thought. In fact, thought is a personal aberration perpetually obstructing perception of reality. The thinker, knower and liver of life is the seat of the psychological aspect of the being. Just this is what is refined. When it is refined to the point that it is forgotten for an instant, it is forgotten forever. But forever means nothing to the nonoriginated. When you forget to perpetually "think" yourself into existence for an instant, you "drop off" and see your nature. When you see it, you see yourself. Who you see isn't the person. It's not the person seeing, and you see that it has never been the person seeing. You see that who is seeing and has always been the nexus of perception in your life is just the unattributable quality of awake. That is the true meaning of selflessness. It's the nature of awareness. You are ultimately the totality of unattributable awareness, not the person. The person is just the mystery of the totality of its lifetime. Those who understand this know the meaning of the taoist phrase, "the world is the sage." edit note: typo, end of paragraph 3

I would welcome Breakingthewall's comments in the context of my responses, which is the whole point of risking the confidentiality of the correspondence I'm sharing. Otherwise, please try to keep comments limited to the heart of the matter, without glibly drifting off into conjecture relative to what amounts to circumstantial terrain. This is only done in hopes of giving a modicum of credence to the perennial aim of keeping the knowledge alive, and only for the benefit of those who truly resonate insight by profound enlightening processes. I've received a few more messages, which I will recount below: I appreciate your understanding ❤︎ I remember the knowing that it's all "just me." That realization really created a lot of space for me when I was getting nailed and cooked in the cauldron. No need formatting words at this stage. If you are caught in the grace of god, just forget words and guard it. You won't need words should you arrive. Whether before or after, or even now, just start forgetting cleverness in terms of pattern consciousness by way of labeling. Words are the impediment to seeing reality here and now: both in terms of seeing and adapting potential by way of situational evolution as well as in terms of the absolute. Words are literally what hold one's psychological clusters together, and that alone is the barrier constituting karmic bondage. Words. Forget words and descriptions. Labels as such only serve to perpetuate ego identification, now and forever. Really! Let your mouth (thoughts) turn moldy from lack of use. Let the camera go. Just gaze at the happening. The moment is all there appears to be. I say it that way because there is really nothing to hang on to. Words and pictures facilitate the clinging mentality. I remember events in which there were tremendous energy shifts taking place inside my body, organ-wise. I had and still have no idea what was going on. I also had strange visitations that I disregarded with all due respect, even in the midst of those moments. I successfully employed the strategic insight that it's juuuust me!! The same visitor arrived unannounced, as it were, twenty years later. I dismissed whatever it is (I hope that was the correct thing to do). I mean, it never introduced itself! As for the clouds, gaze into the empyrean. Clouds are very good ephemeral objects on which to study (to clothe) the present without introducing clinging mentalities (pattern consciousness) and thus experience dealing with creation nonpsychologically. Ultimately, you may find yourself gradually experiencing open impersonal attention within ordinary situational evolution. It’s this exercising the nonpsychological in a subtle continuous fashion that dissolves the creative sphere’s dominance over one’s selflessly spontaneous transformations in the midst of situations unbeknownst to anyone. Just this is the point of my anonymous writings since 2008. ed note: separate paragraphs 11 and 12

according to who?

I put this into a style of traditional taoist "song" form, but it's actually just prose, it you want to read it that way. On forgetting the relative perspective in the midst of ordinary situations, Moksha, inherently aglow and quickened by psychological quiescence, Is your own mind seeing through the two extremes and the three times. Who knows this to be other than one’s open wisdom by nonorigination? Spontaneity has its aftermath, alternating without loss or gain. Its perpetual result, ever-ready and awake, is already your own dharma eye. Yet the model for self-refining work must be ascertained Through the gradual and seamless process of reversal. Transcending before and after has never been Some other time or some other place; Just this being the dusty path of gradual practice Where the highest good is seeing incipient potential plain as day. The situation as is, before venturing the first thought, Is the point of departure where one either goes along with creation Or else rests delusion in the homeland of nothing whatsoever. On preserving the fundamental, the nexus of karmic sintering is void. Before the first thought, where is the person Who garners psychological momentum? Whereafter conceiving self-reifying presumptions, Potential has already fallen into the vortex of subsuming viscosities. Subject to expressions of delusional entrapment as endless karmic cycles, Attachment to enlightening potential and aversion to obsessive compulsion Already constitutes clinging habituation to psychological perspectives. This is why effective practice is a matter of awakening in the nonpsychological. The nonpsychological perspective is your own mind before the first thought. This is why cloistered formal meditative routines effect observation of mind by mind. The deluded conceive this to be pursuit of abstract trance-states, rather than just seeing Ordinary scenes without conceiving relative notions reifying the thinker, knower and liver of life. Mind is one. The provisional and authentic teachings’ source teacher is mind alone. Actualizing inherent enlightening function constituting your own mind right now Is a matter of sustaining sincere open intent void of cause or result in perpetuity. Turning the light around is just this perspective obviating personalistic referencing. This is the transcendent function of awake without remainder, being suchness without views. Just this beyond microcosmic, macrocosmic and absolute hierarchies is primal resonance: Nonorigination as is, without objectifying or denying one’s psychological extremism. Selfless potential unattributable immediate knowledge, open and clear, Neither subject nor object, not both nor neither, Is the gate and door to all wonder without remainder: just this Transcending all compulsion constitutes the Virtue of the Receptive. When the psychological is seen through without being obscured, objectivity is possible. Potential is preserved by seeing the situation without projecting personalistic relativities. Therefore compulsive assumptions relative to the person cease to exist incrementally, and Extirpated psychological and volitional phenomenon relative to the person fail to perpetuate.

Does Someone here also wait for this? I see that Someone here is following this. Why do I ask? If following this is preferable, there is movement. Waiting for the alternation of potential is not movement, because the ultimate has never moved, even now. In order to actualize the suchness of one's authentic being, following must cease without remainder. The totality of all reality isn't real~ only seeing is real. Even now, the seer isn't real. We can arrive at applying seeing to situations, where Someone here doesn't know. I say that because seeing itself has no knowledge. It's just awake.

Hi— mr Kalo wrote: Yes, "even a three year old knows as much, but why can't an eighty year old put it into practice?

The following passages are totally derived from William Grosnick’s paper, Nonorigination and Nirvana in the Early Tathagatagarbha Literature. The point of presenting this here is to introduce the practical buddhist origin of the terms I use extensively throughout my threads’ topical thrust, being the nature of true reality and subtle spiritual adaption of enlightening potential to conditions. I had not laid eyes on these ancient texts nor William Grosnick’s article before now. I googled the word “nonorigination” and found this in a couple sources. https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8547/2454 excerpts from his text… This interpretation of nirvana in terms of nonorigination is of considerable importance in understanding the early tathagatagarbha teaching, for it clarifies certain notions frequently associated with the tathagatagarbha like the "natural purity of mind” (cittaprakrtivisuddhi)—notions which have been hotly debated [by those who had not or have not seen their nature] ever since the [teaching] doctrine's inception. It may also tell us something about the conceptual issues which divided the schools of early Buddhism and so hold clues for understanding the origin of Mahayana (mind only) Buddhism. One of the most interesting notions found in the early tathagatagarbha literature is the idea that nirvana should be understood as nonorigination (anutpada). This idea is explicitly formulated in two texts, the Ratnagotravibhaga, the only sastra extant in Sanskrit which is completely devoted to the tathdgatagarbha and Buddha-nature teachings, and the Jnanalokalankarasutra, the sutra upon which the Ratnagotravibhaga bases its exposition of nonorigination. In the Anunativapurnatvanirdesa, the title of which means the “sutra which expounds neither increase nor decrease," the Buddha responds to the questions of whether there is any increase or decrease in the number of beings transmigrating through the triple world first by rejecting the questions as ill-conceived, and then by explicitly attacking both the idea that nirvana represents a kind of severance, destruction, or non-being (the view of "decrease"), and the idea that it represents a reality over and above the phenomenal life that arises suddenly without cause (the view of “increase”). The text goes on to say that these two erroneous views of nirvana would not arise if beings understood the one dharmadhdtu (reality, being that which comprises Suchness or taoist Complete Reality). The view of nirvana brought forward in the early tathdgatagarbha texts as an alternative to the idea of extinction was the rather remarkable notion of nonorigination. The authors of the Ratnagotravibhaga and Jnanalokalankarasutra (and perhaps the other tathagatagarbha sutras), seemed to believe that true attainment is to be found not in the extinguishing of ignorance and passion, but in their nonorigination. This rather ingenious notion is clearly brought forward in the Jnanalokalankarasutra where it is said that: The idea seems to be that correct practice consists of not generating those mental activities by which illusory realities are conceived. Correct thought seems to be thought which does not originate those notions of "me" and "mine" that in turn give rise to desire, craving, hatred, and the other passions that plague human existence. Correct thought is the nonorigination of any false and foolish conceptions of reality (prapanca). And the Jnanalokalankarasutra clearly associates this nonorigination with nirvana, the liberation from samsara: As I have repeated continuously in my articles on this forum (in terms of before and after), reality and powerful enlightening activity do not depend on sudden enlightenment because enlightenment and delusion are not different. It is simply a matter of seeing reality as is independent of the perspective of self-reifying thought, "the notions of “me” and “mine” that plague human existence." ed note: typo, 1st sentence; add "not" in 2nd paragraph; add "…reality, being that which comprises…" in 5th paragraph; typos dispersed throughout the italicized text as pasted from the original article.

Breakingthewall wrote: Without delving into speculative reasoning bordering on philosophy; absolutely. Conceptualization is movement of Mind. Mind that moves relative to thought is delusion because its movement is based on relativity— unless it's not. Spontaneous movement arising from within open stillness is true action, not relative action. Spontaneous nonoriginated movement is based on true stillness (nonoriginated), and such movement is called reality. Spontaneous accord in reality is not relative to momentum, psychological or otherwise, Whereas momentum (karma) is relative to before and after. When knowledge accrues, there is an evidential change. But in seeing change without harboring thought-movement, knowledge is itself reality and one has absorbed its potential by virtue of the knowledge itself. Taoism groups potential and real knowledge in the elemental and psychological categories of water and sense. The alchemic phrases "water produces metal" and "seek the treasure in the palace of water" bear this out. In terms of the I Ching, three stacked yang lines represent moving water: danger! Even in terms of action relative to military or mountaineering travel, movement is dangerous. The analogy is simply that in observational (empirical) scientific terms, movement is perilous and stillness is security. The human mentality is perilous because it is operative in terms of its functional aspect as psychological momentum— conditioned movement. The nonpsychological function is stable in terms of its nonoriginated stillness (or acquired, in terms of effective enlightening practice based on stillness). Like water, mind compelled by movement can be productive of relative obscurity, and its stillness results in relative clarity. Just making the simplistic analogy. Who knew? When you see the light and the movement of the light is selfless, your fluid selfless accord in the light of selfless realization itself doesn't involve the psychological, it involves the nonpsychological, therefore the light is immediate knowledge. I'm not referring to the sudden. When you recognize knowledge as such, it's not that you didn't know it before, it's that you now know that such has always been the case, whether you knew it or not— so the fact doesn't involve the person. Such being nonorigination on the spot doesn't involve any change in you other than you knowing better instantaneously. Your immediate knowledge has no involvement with intellectual deliberations or self-reifying discriminatory consciousness. I won't go into the aspects of "sudden", "self-reifying", "making things simpler" or introducing "depth." It seems you may be questioning my mode of expression relative to my questioning your mode of arriving at sudden realization, perhaps. That's understandable, but I'm not moved to respond further, in terms of your post. Bankei was criticized by his peers throughout his tenure as a teacher of all classes of Japanese society for only saying one thing: "Awaken to your Unborn mind." All things resolve in the Unborn." What is this if not the teaching of nonorigination coming from within the realm of delusion?"

It is said that a great military general has the breadth of heart to take hearts. Enlightening being is having the heart to take the heart of creation, according to the time. The heart is not taken in terms of a motivational desire. The heart of Creation is taken over in terms of the situation. The heart of creation is the heart of heaven and earth; essence is total, yet it is accessed by one's own "heart of heaven and earth" via an initial breakthrough called the aperture of the Mysterious Female. From then on, all the elements and processes of alchemy are found therein. Desire is the phenomenal aspect of compassion leading one along precisely, in a commitment to seeing the inevitable end (of each particular energy cycle), which is karmic. No, there is no end, ultimately, as situations are the stuff of eternity …meanwhile all sorts of things keep popping up and fading out. So what does one's commitment to inevitability depend on? It is up to the time, which is a very peculiar thing. It is not linear, and it is repeatable. It can be compressed. It turns over on itself. And it has gaps. It is really a strange thing, to write about changing or not changing in the midst of whatever is changing or not changing as if it matters. It’s not called subtle adaption by mistake. In the final analysis, one’s freshness of potential, ongoing, through thick and thin, is what passes through, or, rather, essence is the fundamental expression of Unity without remainder. In terms of abiding in unity, arrival is perpetual. To say one resides in the highest good is the same as saying, in perpetuity, the result is nonoriginated. Just this abiding in the pivot of aware presence, neither coming nor going, is resting in the highest good. When you go along with changes, it’s a new old thing; in not going along with changes, the same fresh energy abides. Actually, it’s the same energy either way, yet in seeing potential, there is actually something to this bit about immortalism, after all. To speak of it in terms of reversal is just a device. Actually, there are no words. Adaption is an unchanging process of alternations, yin to yang, until you die. Circumstances themselves are literally a random inert agent. Pure selfless open sincere desire is the motivation for compassion seeing through each cycle. What takes the heart is the knowledge of timing, and the timing is such only by virtue of one’s access to the impersonal awakened real knowledge I refer to as seeing. The Dharma Eye sees through cause without destroying its momentum, or, rather transforming psychological momentum into potential. It's not that seeing changes anything, one just sees reality as is without originating the personality's habitual pattern-awareness perspective. This means that one’s active duty to inevitability is determined by the celestial timing visible through the course of events by one’s awakened Dharma eye. This is another meaning of using the false to arrive at the true. Situationally karmic cycles are the means by which one discerns the real by increments in the situational context. This is the gradual path en total. We use the gradual aspect of incremental temporality to gather the potential reality of the sudden in order to first, see eternity, then step over it, and continue on in the endless path of refining the immaterial energy body naturally. Eventually each one’s karmic momentum is worn out like an old shoe. For example, in theory, as one's situational involvement starts out, one is barefooted. Otherwise, If you're not barefooted, it's not a new energy cycle, or you are wearing shoes where bare-feet are appropriate, and your basis for spontaneous interaction is cloyed— further compounding falsity. Old polluted energy (psychological/karmic momentum) concretized by the fallacious personality, is perpetuating ignorance of reality by virtue of habituation to carrying the burden of cause from created cycle to created cycle. The point is that being barefoot doesn't depend on thoughts or actions; it depends on reality— and that cannot be forced. By pure acceptance in selfless wonder, without enabling clinging energy or concepts of cessation, through a long process of self-refinement, conditioned psychological energy can be seen to slow down naturally and without accruing additional momentum. Eventually, what's left is… bare feet. The allusion to innocence is not accidental. What ultimately needs to be accepted is that the personality is only a circumstantial element, insignificant in and of itself, permitting facilitation of process within the context of nefarious realms of compounded incremental existence. Accepting it in terms of its function, not in terms of one's identity is most advantageous. Why then is it necessary to be able to see the nature of creation as eternity? Because it is a monumental error to conceive of eternity as being of the nature of the celestial, the immortal, the inconceivable. Eternity is the whole of creation. Creation is ultimately the dregs. When people can see creation as it is and know that its essential nature as eternal is not celestial, then they might hesitate to get bogged down in its particular aspects and ramifications relative to the person. Karma is eternal. Yet one must never forget that it is, above all else, created— so enlightening beings do not work with eternity, they just see it for what it is, and without entertaining self-reflective fascinations, they step over it, without rushing ahead. Continuing on, in terms of presence, is not relative to conditions. It is, rather, that eternity moves on by its own conditional momentum. Awareness in itself, has never moved. Reality is neither relative nor absolute~ this being the raison d'être of enlightening activity. Enlightening beings are whole in the midst of karmic cycles coming and going. This is what I mean by continuing on. It is not that one “moves on” and gains “closure”, in terms of situations. “Closure” is the phenomenon of people successfully rationalizing their denial when they cannot rely on the power of ignorance to forget. Earlier I wrote (in another thread), “Closure is for wimps”. What is the basis of continuing on? Although it is the intent of inherent essential nature presently functioning transcendently in the midst of conditions, it is habitual perspectives of the human mentality hopelessly lost in particular aspects of eternity bound to endless karmic rounds of suffering that stultify the spirit of one’s natural transcendent function. As such, the psychological posture of "continuing on" is evidence of karmic bondage, not innocence. The point of penetrating, activating, and then eventually realizing one’s essential nature is that Eternity can only be transcended by the awake, practiced and developed knowledge of the beginningless, of the causeless. One can simply fall into this realization and benefit by it instantaneously for no reason. No reason is what open sincere intent is. Camping out in one's inherent unborn mind results in seeing. Yet one must learn to act on this knowledge or the memory of sudden illumination itself becomes a barrier, no different than eternity, to advance enlightening practice. How can that be? It is mind alone. Holding the absolute in referential terms to the facetious knower, thinker and liver of life, liberation reverts to bondage on the spot. It is unborn mind. In order to be it, one must continuously see it. And that, alone, is authentic self-refining practice of subtle continuous concentration observing mind. This your own mind right now, as is. This is just your own functional awareness right now. It is not a matter of philosophy because there is nothing whatsoever to understand. Your real identity is Unborn Mind. It's not the experiential absolute— that's just interruption of consciousness. Your own mind right now is the unborn, as such, void of self-reifying pattern awareness. Just see reality as is without thinking right or wrong, good and bad; leaving out personal values for all time. Of course that means nothing to anyone on an intellectual level. And it also has no power for people who are habituated to using awareness in the most limited ways imaginable. Due to habituation solely to the personality’s center of reason/talking that conceives sensuality to be the only means of perceiving and relating to particulars, people cannot awaken to the power and freedom that nothing to understand is something literally and figuratively beyond reason. The beauty of unbending impersonal intent is that it can be used powerfully to facilitate the very (dis)function that reason craps out in the first place. To do that, one must first penetrate causelessness, and set up camp in terms of nonorigination, so to speak. This is the place where one can begin to see. Anyone can understand understanding, yet only a sage can understand not-understanding. Delusion and enlightenment is the same mind whereby the enlightening function can operate freely within delusion, yet delusion is already deluded within delusion, and cannot fathom enlightening perspective in its midst. Truth be told, enlightening perspective has no perspective, as it is the nature of no-mind. When someone doesn’t mind (in the conventional sense), it is not necessarily that they don’t care, it is that there is nothing to understand (relative to their personal habits, whims or perceived vulnerabilities). This is understanding not-understanding perfectly, as knowledge is a matter of nothing to know. That’s really how it is. It’s “What’s to know?” Penetrating perception based on this what’s to know is reality perceived without bias or inclination in the midst of affairs. Mind is the ever-awakening nature of no-mind aware of its unborn, natural inconceivability functioning beginninglessly and presently in perpetuity. Intellectually biased ignorance must be stripped away in order to see this mind by a long long process of correctly oriented self-refinement. It’s not the equivalent of ego as you might know it, or anti-ego as you might imagine it. If you knew that the real aspect of ego is just a function facilitating the personality of the being that is going to die, you might be able to intuit that the function of your real identity is equally selfless and nonexistent. Perpetuation of ego depends on reason, whereas awakening to and penetrating the function of nonoriginated selflessness depends open sincere intent. Intent’s intent is openly sincere open sincerity. This intent is already inherently in a state of potential until the moment you permanently drop your selfish habitual antics perpetuating the false self and awaken to presence as authentic impersonal spiritual function. "Awakening" to this does not depend on sudden enlightenment. It is simply "nonoriginating" delusion by awakening to the Unborn mind. Nevertheless, stabilizing this awakening comes by fits and starts, the very reason for self-refinement. Ego-consciousness fixating of accomplishing "sudden realization" is to be pitied— even should it succeed. Why? It is analogous to picking a fruit too early. It's not ripe. It's not edible, or if it is, it won't beneficial or as beneficial to the being as if it had been left alone until it "dropped off" naturally. Ask me why I know. Please don’t be hung-up on the personality as you’re stuck with it (mine and yours)!! I’m living proof of that for those of you who are hung up on my supposed narcissism. The personality doesn’t go anywhere. In effectively realized individuals, it just takes up its position in service of the autonomous illumined being within, which has never entered the sphere of the created. Nothing changes except a little swap, like musical chairs whereby the personality permanently attains balance naturally, and continues on by not clinging to situations, places, people and things— because finally, much less is invested in ego function's perpetuation. So, the world at large is not created, while the self-observer (awakened to one’s own unborn awareness) isn’t created as well— and one proves it in everyday ordinary affairs again and again and again. It’s an all-at-once, all-or-nothing proposition (not to discount ones inexorable fits and starts). It is seeing that all things are the nature of awareness, which is unborn. Stabilizing this perspective is the gradual work of self-refinement before and after (in the case of the sudden, should that happen). It’s called work because the world doesn’t know… Creation is a bitch. Do you think she’d go along with you, if she knew? If she knew, she’d get your ass AND whatever’s going along with it too. That’s what she already got your ego to do. Ya gotta give that bitch the slip (without its knowing) and steal back your inherent presence. AND THAT’S NO JOKE. It is called inconceivable spiritual adaption taking over creation and stealing its potential without admitting one’s own power for a reason, it seems. ed note: typo 12 paragraph

Yipee, for Breakingthewall!! Awayfarer wrote: Yes, yes, yes. These are one and the same in terms of situational evolutionary adaption. In turning the light around, potential is made obvious, because seeing isn't relative to the person, therefore one's subsequent accord in reality is real. When one uses self-reifying consciousness in accordance with reality, the result is delusion, because psychological awareness is relative. Seeing potential is itself freeing potential from the karmic matrix of creation, which enables one's adaptive accord to be guided without personal (relative) views. This is the only aspect of consciousness which makes transcendent activity possible at all. This is the open secret of the gateless gate. As for starting to do the work of refinement in the aftermath of the sudden— absolutely(!!), The0Self, but the work itself is what results in the sudden in the first place. Naturally so, the sudden is simply an evidence of efficacy of gradual enlightening practice in "ordinary" transcendent circumstances. To trigger the event on the basis of some kind of drive, is dubious (but what do I know). I'm not discounting it altogether, but the possibility of malpractice is unavoidably acute. One still has to do the work— and the better prepared one is in the onset, the better it is for on'e's success in setting up advance practice in the aftermath of transcendent experience. It's too late for you~ ❤︎❤︎ heehee!! But others must not be shown that the way you entered into this affair is necessarily the best way. I just entered into inconceivability by seeing potential somehow in the midst of situations and it all gathered (eventually) into a critical mass which naturally found its way through the front of my face and left "me", creation all time forgotten forever. Gone. Gone. Beyond gone. Gone beyond. In ancient times, students weren't even ALLOWED to enter into basic formal meditation until completing years of study in both academic and psychological training. The thing is, essence cannot be taught. It's already your own mind right now. That is the reason why formal meditation even exists— to have people practice "just sitting". That is, just watching their own mental activity. Why? For two reasons. Firstly, because the Celestial arises spontaneously and subtly. One has to be awake, i.e.: present, to witness it in order to recognize it before it sinks back into the ocean of deep knowledge (inconceivability). Seeing the Celestial is key to recognizing it. Secondly, because the psychological apparatus cannot stand up to continuous subtle scrutiny underlying its relative functions, it must be scrutinized for that very reason until it craps out. Why? Because its spiritually obscurant psychological functionality is relative, based on that which is properly conceived of as pattern-awareness. In other words, it's not reality. Pattern-consciousness is fine for the species, but not for our nature as potentiates of enlightening being— which is immaterial. ALL BEINGS have this potential— not just people. Obviously, by your own enlightening experience, the relative is delusional because it's not absolute. That's ok, but, in turn, the nature of the absolute is awareness. That is, being is awareness and nonbeing is awareness too. Therefore operational effectiveness based on reality as opposed to relative delusion is transcendental. It's just the way it is and no one knows why. Fortunately, this open secret has been left behind by all prior illuminates. ed note: typo 3rd paragraph

I so appreciate your comment/question, Awayfarer. Only because I never knew chasing the experiential event (of the sudden) was a thing that people could/would/should deliberately pursue. I never had any ideas at all about sudden enlightenment. It just never entered my mind to conceive ambitions to "accomplish" such a thing. For me, it never was a thing, period. Neither Chan buddhism nor the classic and Quanzhen taoism I unwittingly entered into over an initial period of eight years and the subsequent practice that that particular range of study garnered espouse any kind of vehemence concerning personally experiencing one's nature in mystical abstraction other than to say that it happens~ and also to say that spending decades on the zazen cushion without "dropping off" the skin-bag is evidence of dubious practice. To me, that much said more about the small vehicle of "formal meditation regimens" than it did about the importance of seeing your "original face." I did take drugs; good drugs. But not for any reason as pointed as "deconstructing the psychological apparatus." I knew that don Juan had Carlos Castañeda take various organic concoctions for that very purpose, and I ate psychedelics and psychotropics as well— but I never ventured to employ the kind of spiritual materialism that combines specific dosages of specific drugs to achieve a specific result in terms of deliberately interrupting consciousness. I only took these drugs socially around the time during and after I graduated from high school in the context of southern Californian and Mexican "surfing safaris." My drug-use only lasted a few years. International travel, academic study in Asian culture and western Dance burgeoned two concurrent careers in alpinism and international commercial photography— hardly fields of endeavor I'd construe into "deconstructing my personality." Nevertheless, that's exactly what the universe conspired to accomplish for me "naturally", without drugs by the end of the 80s. After consuming and internalizing the first four of Carlos Castañeda's books over a period of ten years, I was eventually introduced to the situationally analytical workings of the I Ching, and the psychologically analytical basis of the Art of War. Good thing too. The energy required to parlay successes in relationships and freelance commercial photography in Hollywood into a cinematography career was devastating to say the least. But such is the stuff of transformation, and I used the world to refine myself right out of existence~ poofsez!! Buddhism says to use the disease as the medicine; taoism says to start with the incipience of the situation. These signposts of deep psychological practice are gems of wisdom for those with the will to enlightenment. So what I know is that conceiving of the fruit of enlightenment and ripping it off the tree of life as soon as possible isn't necessarily the way to go. I'm not here (on this planet or this forum) to make friends or convince anyone of anything. What was attributable to my realization is the important thing— not the event itself. Simply interrupting consciousness without the proper psychological and NONPSYCHOLOGICAL development is a mistake. It's not the end of the world, but to do so is simply the working definition of malpractice. I do not recommend it. Why? Under the best of circumstances, "gathering" the potential through straight up enlightening activity then "incubating" the foregone accomplishment is a critical affair, fraught with risk. I had the luxury of a perfectly natural (financially, socially, psychologically and emotionally devastating) spiritual evolution resulting in sudden illumination without even ever wanting or imagining such a thing, and I had the security of NO POSSIBILITY of leaking its potential unawares simply because I had no one to ask or tell for fifteen years before or fifteen years after the event. So the thirty year process of refining myself into the acknowledgement of personal psychological cessation and subsequently following the process of maturing and advancing enlightening practice was a done deal (relatively speaking) long before I ever ventured to open my big mouth about it. Writing on this forum is not for the purpose of social intercourse for me. The only reason I deliberately chose to write about my subject matter is because NO ONE ELSE DOES. So all I talk about is what specifically constitutes self-refinement, which is none other than one's nonpsychologically (that means selfless) activated enlightening activity taking over creation and stealing its potential in the context of everyday ordinary situations BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I KNOW. That is specifically what resulted in the spontaneous interruption of consciousness in my personal experience and that is what all the treatises of authentic teaching point to. I would not dare fool anyone. ed note: typo 8th paragraph

Good observation by The0Self. Taoism calls the experience of the sudden "interrupting" consciousness, because, as The0Self says, it's a gap. The problem with the above observation is that nirvana is not limited to "cessation" in terms of the absolute. Nirvana is itself nonorigination in terms of the nature of Mind. Your mind. Your mind right now. Nonorigination, if The0Self would have actually read and understood the OP, is that nonorigination is expressed as enlightening activity in that, IN TERMS OF ENLIGHTENING ACTIVITY, one's deluded mentality of self-reflected psychological patterning IN THE MIDST OF CREATION is "nonoriginated" in real time, not merely in terms of the absolute during an instantaneous mystical glimpse of one's abstracted nature of awareness. PEOPLE— ENLIGHTENING BEING IS NOT THE ABSOLUTE. FORGET THE ABSOLUTE. YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO EXPRESS THE FUNCTION OF NONORIGINATION IN THE MIDST OF DELUSIONAL REALMS OR ENLIGHTENMENT IS POINTLESS. NIRVANA DEFINED AS CESSATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT WORTH MENTIONING. It's like your enlightening potential is a muscle. First, you need to realize you "have" it. Then, you actually have to exercise it!! You have to do the work or the foregone "accomplishment" is in VAIN. It must now be obvious that there are plenty of so-called enlightened individuals sloshing around who have absolutely no idea of the actual application of enlightenment to conditions void of self-reifying pattern awareness. Why do I say that? Because NO ONE talks about that. This is the meaning of the saying "if you know but can't act on that knowledge, it is the same as not knowing." And if you don't act on that knowledge, you can't describe it the way I have been doing since 2008. I was silent about such knowledge for 15 years BEFORE I actually started describing it— so that means I've been sitting on this since 1992. No internet to dilute and aggrandize imagined said accomplishment. I never had anyone to tell, much less ask. What an amazing bit of good fortune. Who can just sit on any kind of experiential event nowadays? hahahahhahhaaaa!! All anyone ever chimes in about is a glimpse of the absolute. No one (except me) ever ventures to express the reality of transcendent REALITY in terms of actually adapting potential to conditions. It's not that big a deal, really— but no one else writes about it. No one ever mentions transcendent functioning defined by Suchness, because no one seems to actually know about subtle spiritual adaption which simply does not depend on sudden realization. In my case, such subtle spiritual adaption to conditions was just how I carried out situational accord in reality for years before the sudden occurred. I didn't have ambitions or even any idea of "triggering" transcendent experience outside the body. I never knew it was a thing. What do I know? ed note: add "It's like your enlightening potential is a muscle. First, you need to realize you "have" it. Then, you actually have to exercise it!! You have to do the work or the foregone "accomplishment" is in VAIN." 4th paragraph