Tao as Consciousness

Discussion in 'Religion, Beliefs and Spirituality' started by Wild Strawberries, Feb 15, 2015.

  1. Through the text of the Tao we are presented with many dualistic notions of our perception and how it affects not only the outside world but ourselves within it as well.
     
    Such examples throughout the text include:
    Everyone recognizes beauty
           only because of uglyness
    Everyone recognizes virtue
           only because of sin
    Life and death are born together
    Difficult and easy
    Long and short
    High and low
            all these exist together
     
    This preface to the idea of Tao being Consciousness outlines the importance of perception and reveals the true nature of what perception really is, much like a different face to the same coin, but where or how did we get this coin?
     
    Nameless:
    With our perception we act as an origination point to everything that exists, and what we see and/or experience. This relates to just how we truly are our own God, through us we create what we perceive.
     
    Named:
    As we identify what we encounter/experience, we essentially give birth to everything there is.
     
    Using the coin as an example,
     
    Without needing to identify a coin as a coin we see it and are able to interact with it, this is the first step of our consciousness experiencing something new. Only through the step after experiencing something new which is identifying what we are seeing/experiencing it is cemented as being real. Yet it needs our Name to identify it, but does it exist without knowing or identifying something we do not know about? This is the true question/essence of the teaching.
     
    Attributing all of this creation to the Tao and relating it to ourselves and our own consciousness we can examine ourselves and our surroundings as being an origin of ourselves, which in part connects us as a part of everything that exists, for without you there is no world.
     
    This topic is a tricky one and please be patient as i will help explain this more in a later installment post, the main idea being presented with all of what I have shared is to look at yourself and realize just how you and I are both creators and that this moment right now and ourselves as well are The Tao, Heaven, Nirvana, bliss..
     
    So just sit down, relax, and let yourself sink into the universe for we are the universe itself.
     
    Thank you for taking the time to read this and hope to see you again soon!

     
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  2. well never know what consciousness is, its more than us
     
  3.  
    it is you, it is me, it is that, it is this, it is all, and all are you. What are you not? Nothing.
     
  4. Read "The Tao of Pooh" ...changed my life.
     
  5.  
    Will do
     
    ---
     
    Next installment will be of the similarities between Buddhism and Taoism in relation to their views of consciousness in order to expand the topic into a bit more of a broader type of answer, to make it easier for more to understand that is.
     
  6. Tao and Buddhism  
     
    (the relation made easier by using the koan: Do Not Think Good, Do Not Think Not-Good)
    <blockquote>When he became emancipated the sixth patriach received from the fifth patriach the bowl and robe given from the Buddha to his successors, generation after generation.A monk named E-myo out of envy pursued the patriach to take this great treasure away from him. The sixth patriach placed the bowl and robe on a stone in the road and told E-myo: `These objects just symbolize the faith. There is no use fighting over them. If you desire to take them, take them now.'
    When E-myo went to move the bowl and robe they were as heavy as mountains. He could not budge them. Trembling for shame he said: `I came wanting the teaching, not the material treasures. Please teach me.'
    The sixth patriach said: `When you do not think good and when you do not think not-good, what is your true self?'
    At these words E-myo was illumined. Perspiration broke out all over his body. He cried and bowed, saying: `You have given me the secret words and meanings. Is there yet a deeper part of the teaching?'
    The sixth patriach replied: `What I have told you is no secret at all. When you realize your true self the secret belongs to you.'
    E-myo said: `I was under the fifth patriach for many years but could not realize my true self until now. Through your teaching I find the source. A person drinks water and knows himself whether it is cold or warm. May I call you my teacher?'
    The sixth patriach replied: `We studied together under the fifth patriach. Call him your teacher, but just treasure what you have attained.'
    </blockquote>Mumon's Comment: The sixth patriach certainly was kind in such an emergency. If was as if he removed the skin and seeds from the fruit and then, opening the pupil's mouth, let him eat.
    \n<blockquote>You cannot describe it, you cannot picture it,
    You cannot admire it, you cannot sense it.
    It is your true self, it has nowhere to hide.
    When the world is destroyed, it will no be destroyed.
    </blockquote> 
    “What was your original face before your parents were born?” 
    \nAt the end of the Heart Sutra is the line; Gaté Gaté, Para Gaté, Parasam Gaté, Bodhi Swaha. Gaté means gone; gone beyond, gone even further than beyond. Bodhi Swaha has a meaning like Amen or hallelujah. It points towards life being a journey. The poet T. S. Eliot puts it nicely: 
    We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
    \n---
    \nYour original face is this very moment we all experience, in essence the experience of this moment itself is your face before you were born, your original face. Your face is life, the universe, there is not getting rid of your original face.
    \nJust look into a mirror and see your true face for what it is!
    \nWhat was wind before it was wind? What was a sunflower before it was a sunflower?
    \nIt has always been.
    \nI love those moments of insight that come in which I can finally word an essence of a teaching to people, but yet it is still a bit hard of a thing to do as what I am typing has no way to be typed or shown. But let us try!
     
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