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Showing posts with label Taoism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taoism. Show all posts

Thursday, October 28, 2010

THE TREATISE ON T'AI CHI CH'UAN Attributed to Wang Tsung-yueh [Wang Zongyue] (18th Century)

T'ai Chi [Supreme Ultimate] comes from Wu Chi [Formless Void] and is the mother of yin and yang. In motion T'ai Chi separates; in stillness yin and yang fuse and return to Wu Chi.

It is not excessive or deficient; it follows a bending, adheres to an extension.

When the opponent is hard and I am soft, it is called tsou [yielding].

When I follow the opponent and he becomes backed up, it is called nien [adhering/sticking].

If the opponent's movement is quick, then quickly respond; if his movement is slow, then follow slowly.

Although there are innumerable variations, the principles that pervades them remain the same.

From familiarity with the correct touch, one gradually comprehends chin [intrinsic strength]; from the comprehension of chin one can reach wisdom.

Without long practice one cannot suddenly understand T'ai Chi.

Effortlessly the chin reaches the headtop.

Let the ch'i [vital life energy] sink to the tan-t'ien [field of elixir].

Don't lean in any direction; suddenly appear, suddenly disappear.

Empty the left wherever a pressure appears, and similarly the right.

If the opponent raises up, I seem taller; if he sinks down, then I seem lower; advancing, he finds the distance seems incredibly long; retreating, the distance seems exasperatingly short.

A feather cannot be placed, and a fly cannot alight on any part of the body.

The opponent does not know me; I alone know him.

To become a peerless boxer results from this.

There are many boxing arts.

Although they use different forms, for the most part they don't go beyond the strong dominating the weak, and the slow resigning to the swift.

The strong defeating the weak and the slow hands ceding to the swift hands are all the results of natural abilities and not of well-trained techniques.

From the sentence "A force of four ounces deflects a thousand pounds" we know that the technique is not accomplished with strength.

The spectacle of an old person defeating a group of young people, how can it be due to swiftness?

Stand like a perfectly balanced scale and move like a turning wheel.

Sinking to one side allows movement to flow; being double-weighted is sluggish.

Anyone who has spent years of practice and still cannot neutralize, and is always controlled by his opponent, has not apprehended the fault of double-weightedness.

To avoid this fault one must distinguish yin from yang.

To adhere means to yield. To yield means to adhere.

Within yin there is yang. Within yang there is yin.

Yin and yang mutually aid and change each other.

Understanding this you can say you understand chin. After you understand chin, the more you practice, the more skill.

Silently treasure knowledge and turn it over in the mind. Gradually you can do as you like.

Fundamentally, it is giving up yourself to follow others. Most people mistakenly give up the near to seek the far. It is said, "Missing it by a little will lead many miles astray."

The practitioner must carefully study.

This is the Treatise

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Existence

A look at the fundamental root of existence based upon many different schools of thought:

Quantum Physics
1. Universal Vacuum (Void/Emptiness) (0)
2. Boson Energy Field (Infinite Potential) (1)
3. Universal Holarchy Of Systems (All/Everything/Infinite Complexity) (∞)
4. Individual Consciousness (Subjective, Relative Ego-manufactured) (-)

Stochastic Electrodynamics
1. Universal Vacuum (Void/Emptiness) (0)
2. Zero Point Field (Infinite Potential) (1)
3. Universal Holarchy Of Systems (All/Everything/Infinite Complexity) (∞)
4. Individual Consciousness (-)

Hinduism
1. Brahman (Void/Emptiness) (0)
2. Ishvara (Infinite Potential) (1)
3. Trimurti (All/Everything/Infinite Complexity) (∞)
4. Atman (Individual Consciousness) (-)

Buddhism
1. Shunyata (Void/Emptiness) (0)
2. Dharmakaya (Infinite Potential) (1)
3. Trikaya (All/Everything/Infinite Complexity) (∞)
4. Individual Consciousness (-)

Taoism
1. Wu Chi (Void/Emptiness) (0)
2. Yin & Yang (Infinite Potential) (1)
3. Tai Chi (All/Everything/Infinite Complexity) (∞)
4. Individual Consciousness (-)

Kabbalah
1. Ein-Sof (Void/Emptiness) (0)
2. Kether (Infinite Potential) (1)
3. Tree Of Life (All/Everything/Infinite Complexity) (∞)
4. Individual Conscioussness (-)

Gnosticism
1. The Root (Void/Emptiness) (0)
2. Pleroma (Infinite Potential) (1)
3. Aeons (All/Everything/Infinite Complexity) (∞)
4. Individual Consciousness (-)

Christian Mysticism
1. Abysal Sea (Void/Emptiness) (0)
2. God (Infinite Potential) (1)
3. The Trinity (All/Everything/Infinite Complexity) (∞)
4. Individual Consciousness (-)

Hopi
1. Tawa OR Taiowa
2. Sotuknang
3. Four Worlds
4. Individual Consciousness

Yoruba
1. Oludumare
2. Odu & Amulu
3. Orisha & Ajogun
4. Individual Consciousness

Egyptian
1. Tum (0)
2. Atum-Khephrer-Ra (1)
3. Neters (∞)
4. Individual Consciousness



Individual consciousness is operationally inseparable from reality because we are limited in our knowledge of either to our self-referential experiences.



"Noumenal reality (i.e. objective reality) is unknowable. Only phenomenal reality, subjective reality is knowable. Consciousness is structured from this subject/object relationship."
~ Kant

"Reality is understood only through our self-referential consciousness-of-experience. “Ego-cogitum-cogitatum” I (ego) have volition/knowledge of (cogitum) an object (cogitatum)."
~ Husserl

"objective reality is a self-referential picture of something the existence of which we cannot possess. “reality and …experience are one.”"
~ James

"we have no more reason to posit the existence of matter than suggest that reality existed entirely as an idea in the mind of god."
~ Berkeley

"We are biased in favor of physical existence."
~ Merleau-Ponty

"we only know what we experience – fundamental premise for empiricism."
~ Hume



As consciousness and reality are operationally inseparable and as consensual evidence suggests that individual consciousness is a product of reality’s cosmic differentiation process, we can further suggest that they reflect a single self-directed process at different orders of magnitude. In mathematics a complex process that is self-directed and self-similar at multiple orders of magnitude is called a fractal.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Wu Wei

One is by nature neither good nor evil. Selfish, non-contrived action is what makes one good or evil. Both "good" and "evil" are but CONCEPTS; a concept, not an objective. If one is naturally good, then he or she must also be naturally evil. If good exists then too must evil; they arise mutually through relative distinctions that we create. Good is no "better" than evil, and so is evil no "better" than good.

Happiness is a state of mind that we experience from time to time; it is an integral part of certain situations, such as being with a friend or eating a good dinner. To mentally abstract this condition of happiness, as if it were something in itself, and then make it an object of desire is a fatal mistake. BUT THAT'S WHAT WE HUMANS DO ALL THE TIME. "Happiness" thus becomes an external object, as it were - somethjing to be attained - just as "unhappiness" is a thing to be avoided.

The problem with seeking to be the prefect, ideal person is in the very seeking itself. One can only seek that which is external to oneself. Fullfillment in life is not to be found by SEEKING it or trying to GRASP it. The result of an ongoing effort to control one's environment is ultimately DOOMED to failure. The effort to grasp and control life creates a kind of bondage to one's concepts of what the "good" is, and the desire to achieve it. Fulfillment is to be found, not through seeking it, but through NOT-SEEKING, through letting go of the SELF (ego) altogether. Only by letting go of our precious, but fake/phony, conceptual world do we discover real freedom.

All of us acquire a set of values as we grow up. Ordinarily, these are the "conventional values" of the society in which we live, values that were first taught to us when we were children. Having such values seems to be an important part of a successful life; our values shape our goals. HOWEVER, these are CONCEPTS only; they have no corresponding reality in nature. What is bad is only bad because we recognize it as such. Something is "bad" and therefore makes us unhappy not because it really is bad in some objective sense, but rather because we have decided that it is bad.

If, at some deep level, we decide that having lots of money is good, then it must follow that having very little money is bad. Of course, neither one is objectively good or bad (nothing is objectively good or bad!). But once the decision is made and the concept is formed, it follows that we will SEEK to achieve the concpetual reality that WE have defined as "good" and thus, hopefully, be happy.

Ills are only ills because one recognizes them as such. If one would once forsake his or her habit of labeling things good or bad, desireable or undesirerable, then the SELF-MADE ills would disappear and no longer be seen as ills.

Not attempting to control one's world, one can relax and allow himself or herself to be a FREE and spontaneous EXPRESSION of the movement of the natural world. In doing this, one will intuitively come to see the magnificent unity of nature. "Things" have no independent existence or meaning, including the "thing" I call "myself".

There is no special relationship between person and nature. We have to liberate ourselves from the self imposed isolation of being some kind of god-like VISITOR in the universe, surrounded by the natural world, and essentially not part of it. In freeing oneself, one doesn't have to prove anything. One is free to live simply and modestly and has nothing more to prove than does the grass. Each is splendid just as it is.

Inspired by one's vision of the unity of nature, one is thus free to live as a natural human being. Nature is so beautifully regulated, that once in accord with it, essentially one doesn't have to do anything, in the sense of pushing it around. Just go with it, like the grass grows. Of course, the nature of grass is very different from the nature of human beings, and therefore this "non-action" is expressed differently in human beings.

The movement of water reveals the way of nature. Water is powerful, yet it is also the most yielding thing in nature. Water is a wonderful example of "non-action". It flows and accomplishes all within it's very nature yet ultimately does not ACT.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Awakening: 2012

Emphasize my rhymes till the time I rise
to higher levels of consciousness.
Aware of this conglomerate, conscious shift
towards ego dis-solution (auspicious, awesome bliss)
Awareness of brahman, the source, allah kin.
Of course impossible when self is tossed in.

The roster begins with monsterous men.
The Annunaki, from far beyond the moon in the sky.

Who am I? Lucid mind, apprehension when rapping.
Inevitable network of flows yet to be tapped into.
Imagine the possible void of unstoppable,
Infinite potential blessed upon instrumentals.

There's a war goin on inside in the mental.
To let go the mind has been thought detrimental.
Yet terrestrial knowledge, extraterrestrial caucus.
Pay homage to great men, sages, druids and shamans.

Lost in space. Lost in consciousness.
Lost in taste, touch, sight, sound and scent...
Dharmaless... Incense spark a mist,
Bodhidharma with hard to it infantry.
The bodhi tree's lotus leaves opens thee chakra system,
glistening in virtuous awe...
Birth of the God like. Prana strikes meridians.
...calmed insight. A kid again...