Complete Reality and Actual Freedom

[deci belle]

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:

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My buddhist related knowledge is fairly restricted. I have however spent years wading through much of the taoist information that is available in English (although, truth be told, the constant use of metaphor in alchemical texts, and the various possible/Schools' interpretations makes it quite difficult to profess any solid understanding).

Real freedom has stood out, reminding me of much of what I've read in Taoist texts through the years. Now, it could easily be the case that, Taoist texts being as vague/metaphorical as they are, I am reading in freedom conceptually, but I thought it would be worth the discussion nevertheless.

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

Edited June 11, 2023 by deci belle