What am I?

[tsuki]

The other thing about slavery is that few benefit from many and they reign with power.
What is power? It is the possibility to influence the actions of another. Power leverages attachments.
Low forms of power threaten basic needs, such as the operation of the body.
High forms of power threaten high needs such as belonging, or self-esteem.

[tsuki]

So, the basic dichotomy of self and other comes from believing in symmetry.
I believe that this egoic structure is multiplied across entities, each of which have their own personal stories that are rooted in ignorance.
My aversion to conscious use of power stems from my belief that other people avoid suffering like I do.
The conflict comes from the need to use power to satisfy my needs/desires. 

If I were to own this belief of symmetry, I would have to admit that in my everyday experience:

• I suffer in place of other people. I am their suffering.
• I want to use power to satisfy my needs that stem from the attachments that I am ultimately responsible for.

The other important insight is about suffering itself. It is simply unwillingness to face whatever is occurring in the present moment.
The mind, the chatty thing that keeps making plans to avoid suffering is the suffering itself. 

I need power to secure my attachments.
My attachments are what I use to avoid things that occur in the present moment.
If I were to resolve my striving, I need to be present.

The mind is a self-sustaining structure that perpetuates suffering by avoiding suffering.
How blind can I be? How deep will this rabbit hole go?

[tsuki]

The only fruitful application of the mind is deconstruction of the past to prevent identity from forming.

Edited March 12, 2019 by tsuki

[tsuki]

Today you must be perfectly calm and restored, because you are going to learn not-doing in spite of the fact that there is no way to talk about it, because it is the body that does it.
      That rock over there is a rock because of doing. You say that you don't understand what I mean. Your saying that is doing. Doing is what makes that rock a rock and that bush a bush. Doing is what makes you yourself and me myself. Take that rock for instance. To look at it is doing, but to see it is not-doing. You say my words are not making sense to you. Oh yes they do. But you are convinced that they don't because that is your doing. That is the way you act towards me and the world.
      That rock is a rock because of all the things you know how to do to it. I call that doing. A man of knowledge, for instance, knows that the rock is a rock only because of doing, so if he doesn't want the rock to be a rock all he has to do is not-doing.
      The world is the world because you know the doing involved in making it so. If you didn't know its doing, the world would be different. Without that certain doing there would be nothing familiar in the surroundings. This is a pebble because you know the doing involved in making it into a pebble. Now, in order to stop the world you must stop doing. In the case of this little rock, the first thing which doing does to it is to shrink it to this size. So the proper thing to do, which a warrior does if he wants to stop the world, is to enlarge a little rock, or any other thing, by not-doing.
      Look at the holes and depressions in the pebble and try to pick out the minute detail in them. If you can pick out the detail, the holes and depressions will disappear and you will understand what not-doing means.
      Doing makes you separate the pebble from the larger boulder. If you want to learn not-doing, let's say that you have to join them. See the small shadow that the pebble cast on the boulder. It is not a shadow but a glue which binds them together. A warrior can tell all kinds of things from the shadows.
      A warrior always tries to affect the force of doing by changing it into not-doing. Doing would be to leave the pebble lying around because it is merely a small rock. Not-doing would be to proceed with that pebble as if it were something far beyond a mere rock.
      Is all this true? To say yes or no to that question is doing. But since you are learning not-doing I have to tell you that it really doesn't matter whether or not all this is true. It is here that a warrior has a point of advantage over the average man.

[Zigzag Idiot]

This points to the value of Leo's do nothing meditation which is a not-doing contrasted with the doing and the momentum of the ordinary world and the sleep of the Cultural consensus.

[tsuki]

A beautiful idea came by to visit yesterday, so I drew a mandala on my kitchen wall.
The worst part is that I feel all important now and I want to share it.
Let's settle on not translating it to English to keep things interesting.

The lesson is that in order to speak the truth, you have to give it enough ambiguity to let it slip through your hands.
Oh, and sorry for the morning mess.

Edited March 14, 2019 by tsuki

[Zigzag Idiot]

A few months ago I was compelled to rip the wall paper off my bathroom wall and give expression on the more writable Sheetrock.

 

[tsuki]

@Zigzag Idiot Is there a place you haven't been?

[Zigzag Idiot]

??????Don't want to go here????

????????

????????

[Zigzag Idiot]

48 minutes ago, tsuki said:

@Zigzag Idiot Is there a place you haven't been?

Continuity with complete acceptance,,,,,,

[now is forever]

On 14.3.2019 at 9:27 PM, tsuki said:

A beautiful idea came by to visit yesterday, so I drew a mandala on my kitchen wall.
The worst part is that I feel all important now and I want to share it.
Let's settle on not translating it to English to keep things interesting.

The lesson is that in order to speak the truth, you have to give it enough ambiguity to let it slip through your hands.
Oh, and sorry for the morning mess.

neither understand the writing nor what you where cooking! but i love wall writing - best is to store information exactly where you need it - well i don’t know what the ego has to do in the kitchen though.... the bathroom wall is a good idea. 

well a long wall can be filled with plenty of drawings don’t even need paper for it...although toiletpaper can also do the trick, instead of a looooooooong wall. (and now don‘t think mandala toiletpaper would be a good business idea - people would never leave the toilet again)

Edited March 16, 2019 by now is forever

[tsuki]

I just finished studying body types here. It's so fitting that I'm somewhere around the lunar type.

• Lunar
• Solar-Lunar
• Lunar-Venus
• Jovial-Lunar

Probably lunar, or solar-lunar though.

Edited March 15, 2019 by tsuki

[tsuki]

 

[tsuki]

Returning to the root - Tao Te Ching ("translation" by Ursula Le Guinn)

Be completely empty. Be perfectly serene.
The ten thousand things arise together;
in their arising is their return.
Now they flower,
and flowering
sink homeward,
returning to the root.

The return to the root
is peace.
Peace: to accept what must be,
to know what endures.
In that knowledge is wisdom.
Without it, ruin, disorder.

To know what endures
is to be openhearted,
magnanimous,
regal,
blessed,
following the Tao,
the way that endures forever.
The body comes to its ending,
but there is nothing to fear

----------------------

(To those who will not admit morality without a deity to validate it, or spirituality of which man is not the measure, the firmness of Lao Tzu’s morality and the sweetness of his spiritual counsel must seem incomprehensible, or illegitimate, or very troubling indeed.)

Edited March 19, 2019 by tsuki

[tsuki]

I've been bored out of my mind for the past two days and it's bugging me.
Why can't I just enjoy life without problems? Nothing to do? Just sit flat on your ass and enjoy yourself for fucks sake.

NO, I NEED TO COME UP WITH A GREAT SCHEME OF HOW I WILL IMPROVE MY LIFE. I'M WASTING MY TIME. i SHOULD CONTRIBUTE TO THE WORLD. I HAVE SO MUCH UNFULFILLED POTENTIAL THAT I NEED TO ACTUALIZE. 

Well, the only reason I work is that I want money. It's not like I want luxury, if I had more I would probably save it. It's just that I think that I should earn more given what I think that I'm capable of. I think that this company does not give me any opportunity for growth, so I can't prove myself to be more productive and useful. Is that really the case? Well... Kind of yes, but no. We need money to do stuff which seems to be the bottleneck for the time being. Of course, it is always the case for management and I can't really count on their reliability.

I could try to coerce them into giving me a raise if I had a counter-offer from another company, but in order to negotiate I would have to be willing to leave. I'm not. I would probably have to reallocate and sell/rent my apartment and it's just too much of a hassle to do. Or is it? Am I too comfy in my current lifestyle? I kind of am. Is it bad? Not really - things are stable and reliable here. So, am I really just bored and try to find some problems to solve? It seems that way.

If I were to entertain the idea of changing a job, I would probably have to pick my alternative career as a programmer. I could make much more money, but it would probably not be as comfy as it is right now. I could clean up my life a little and my wife could get a better job in another city, so that's an opportunity. On the other hand, I've never worked as a programmer before, so it's risky.

So, is it just a self-esteem problem? It's not like I have a social life to boast about my career. I tend to stick around simple minded people and connect with them. Am I just curing my grandiose self-image that I've been cultivating in my early 20s? Is it just a backlash from a set of beliefs about my intelligence and potential?

If I were to ask myself: "What do I want to accomplish in life?", then I would probably say that nothing is worth spending my life on more than simply enjoying it. People are a very potent canvas to express myself in, but I have that covered by my marriage.

Having children is something that intrigues me. There are many benefits to them, practically speaking, but I'm hesitant to indulge in this pleasure out of egotistic reasons. Are there any other reasons though? I want to create the world, that's how grandiose my ego is, and I suppose that children are very potent vessel for that purpose. On the other hand - how do I not succumb to the temptation of molding them into a shape that simply pleases me? Obedient, sweet children are great children, but they make terrible adults. After all, people that crave power are the ones that should stay away from it, and what is less vulnerable than a blank slate?

[now is forever]

@tsuki  blank slate? you don’t talk about toilet paper, do you? 

maybe you need to read astrid lindgren before you consider having children. you can always teach them to talk back at you.

Edited March 20, 2019 by now is forever

[tsuki]

7 hours ago, now is forever said:

@tsuki  blank slate? you don’t talk about toilet paper, do you? 

@now is forever I guess that I do. Serves me right for projecting how I feel about my childhood onto my hypothetical children.
On the other hand, it gives me chills to imagine that I could have a son as cheeky as I was. Or maybe, that I wouldn't and I would have to constantly watch my steps to not squish a small silly human.

Anyways, my boredom is fixed now that I have this:

This book spits fire on every page. Thanks @Zigzag Idiot!

Edited March 20, 2019 by tsuki

[Zigzag Idiot]

37 minutes ago, tsuki said:

This book spits fire on every page. Thanks @Zigzag Idiot!

Cool!!! ?? Good way to put it. I'm tickled you picked one up. Lots of good to be found also in the Appendices including a Glossary.

My copy is beginning to show a little bit of wear.

[now is forever]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

@now is forever I guess that I do. Serves me right for projecting how I feel about my childhood onto my hypothetical children.
On the other hand, it gives me chills to imagine that I could have a son as cheeky as I was. Or maybe, that I wouldn't and I would have to constantly watch my steps to not squish a small silly human.

Anyways, my boredom is fixed now that I have this:

This book spits fire on every page. Thanks @Zigzag Idiot!

what about the knife??? is it there to show that you are really ruthless?

i had a “butterfly” when i was 12 just for playing, didn’t even realize i was playing with a real weapon it was just because it looked cool on a friend of mine. i don’t even know how i got it anymore and who sold it to me. my mom took it away and told me i could have it again when i was older - but it was out of fashion then as my school and friends had changed.

by the way is it itching?

they forgot the t.

Edited March 20, 2019 by now is forever
am i getting too brazen? you don’t use that thing do you? so why keeping it anyways?

[now is forever]

and why is it dark where you are at?