A letter to deci

[deci belle]

 

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.

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...though we never met.

Hi deci belle, I've been meaning to write you for some time. I kept noticing how much so what you described in your writing seems to point directly at what I was experiencing and which at first I called "gangstalking," but later saw was something else.

Your writings are much like an action plan or near that, even if they be non-action action plans. 

I'm still in [   ]. Living downtown in this condo up above [   ]. 

 I thought I might go crazy or something for a while. It seemed like everyone on the [   ] could read my mind and was responding to it in real time. Reminiscent of the "Influencing machine" and writings by James Tilly Matthews or Paul Schreber. Now I know that life is more bizarre than ever, will it multiply in that direction endlessly? I don't know. 

I'm fixing to leave [   ] soon. It's been about 4 years or so. I'm going to [   ], to visit my aunt and maybe stay a bit. You once said enlightenment was entry level, [only afterwards should one] then seek a teacher once that stream had been fully crossed. I no longer seek out the dharma gates, they march towards me endlessly and I don't need or want to do anything, as my hands are tied. The beatings will continue until morale improves, I guess. I wondered what else you might be able to recommend. You can lead a horse to water, and it could drink itself to death if it's been running too hard. I'm being killed by my own ego it seems. And they call it a soft kill, lol. 

Hit me back if you are still guiding like a celestial badass.

 

 

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

Edited May 4, 2023 by deci belle

[Breakingthewall]

Your friend is having a bad time stuck in a nightmare of confusion and to try to get out of it he goes deeper. what he should do to stop looking at the shapes his mind makes and concentrate on the experience that is happening, until the now opens like an infinite well and he realizes that he is existence existing

[deci belle]

according to who?

[deci belle]

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 ❤︎

 

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That psychic heat of the crucible, or so it appears, can be effected not only with everyday situations, but also [their] combinations [   ] which are possibly new, possibly old, but dressed in different clothing. It's hard to say. 

The physical reality of it "seeking" me is not only dharma gates hunting me down, it also resembles evil staring back at me, though its just me too. 

Interesting situation though, in its "real world" format. I should think of some kind of speech to describe it. I'll reply to what you said in a bit. Would you like to see some pictures of [   ] nowadays? Going all over the place [   ] today…

 

 

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.

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Forget words and guard it. That's a line straight from the Yin Convergence Classic— as short as it is ancient.

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.

 

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I feel you. It's been a while since I went there. I see all the idea wheels and words rotating in the background like an assembly or house of cards. They attach to symbol ideas, memories of frequency fields and associations that create feeling vibrations equivalent to organ energies that combine in collective ways. I'm operating in a level of the programming of the organs and faculties stuck in the programming phase living apart from the body as I make wars with ideas and theories and possibilities. It pisses me off. I feel like I'm stuck out of my real body and it's up to the right somewhere and I believe there is an aggregate of all bodies that I'm a little disconnected from, such that there is a shell reality I live in.

The thing is that I am now witnessing that the very fabric of reality seems to be getting hacked for me (maybe). Like I take pictures of clouds all the time, and now a lot of times the clouds have all kinds of shapes in them that look artificial. You might think that maybe it's just my phone getting hacked and the pictures changed but they are actually there, I can see then with my own eyes, film them and see the changes. Included an example with close up. Unless there are drones way up in the sky making cloud formations it seems sometimes that my actual mind has been hacked and someone has been penetrating into it and gets deeper as I get older. Weirder stuff than that though.

 

 

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

Edited May 10, 2023 by deci belle

[Breakingthewall]

The whole thing we're in is a game of confusion. reality is configured in such a way that it is impossible not to be confused. the basic confusion is the distinction between you and what is not you. the effect of falling into that confusion is encapsulation. your friend is encapsulated, like everyone else. each one manifests its encapsulation in a different way, but they all have something in common: an annoying, anxious feeling that something is wrong, constant, that never stops.

How do you solve the confusion? with understanding. about what? of everything, that is to say, of this exact moment, which is the absolute and is reality. How to do this, so difficult, since everything is configured to create an insurmountable confusion? rising to see the full picture from above causing the capsule to break and you realize what this really is, what you really are, that cause an energetic change: the flow without a capsule that bounces your energy back to yourself .

Observation, deconstruction of every idea, and drugs that bend the mind at Impossible angles, until de capsule get broken as often as it's possible

[deci belle]

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

Edited May 15, 2023 by deci belle

[deci belle]

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. 

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Seal the potential away in the empty vessel without letting so much as a spark leak out.

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

Edited May 24, 2023 by deci belle

[deci belle]

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."

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One just quietly sets things aright without changing anything before the fact

"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

Edited May 26, 2023 by deci belle