simple Tao

 
The flowing way
Tao is a simple way of naming the source
The subtle essence and mystery of nature      

Calm contemplation, meditation the quiet remedy
Simply not clinging to flowing thoughts
A flow of mind emptying

Relax into who you are 
Let go striving to be other
It is this simple
Already Tao

Peace...tranquility allows clarity
 
All things eventually return to source
Observe the world in turmoil, contemplate the return
Returning is serenity
Yielding to the flowing way

Reside in the center to see things as they are
Observe the world while trusting the inner vision
Realizing the greater picture brings great relief
Growing into appreciation and agreement with what is

Taking from where there is much, giving where there is less
Balance is a natural movement of Tao
The river returns to the sea, to try to push it is pointless
No need to hurt yourself trying to heal the world
Worthy works agree with the flow
Even amidst turbulent storms of change and much effort
there can be an ocean floor depth of peace

In the winds of change the stiff are broken, the flexible prevail
The world is not improved by remaining uptight
Water eroding stone, fluid overcoming hard
Water first seeks the lowest places, humble is the base of high

That which was previous comes to it’s end
Often there is no need to oppose, simply replace with what is next
In agreement with the motion of evolution, the flowing way of nature
When it is time to oppose you can do so centered in the greater picture
 
Creation / destruction,
the on-flowing of forms evolving fulfilled
Experiencing the whole, view all with compassion
Even the dark as part of the whole     
Trust even the suffering, though this is hard to see in the midst of pain,
trust that our essence knows what is needed

To see also in the dark is true vision
See light and dark as continuum, integral, not separate
Two sides of the same hand
Discretion is then free from mere reaction

Difficult times can be especially advantageous for practicing the way
Appreciate the flowing fullness of the moments

Allow Tao now
Present, welcoming what comes
Flowing with the way things are       
Meet vital events letting them unfold
Effective movement arising at the opportune moment

Did you think you could improve the universe?
Try to hold or push it as an object and you lose it
To tamper is only to muddle

Wait until the mud settles, the water will clear
Right action will reveal itself
In those moments when effective motion originates in stillness the restless lose touch 
Remaining centered in times of intense action  
In agreement with necessity

Expectation is the cause of much disappointment
Anxious desiring will unbalance
Not intent on arriving, experience remains fresh
Content, not hurrying completion
Intuition leads when and where it will

Sorrow or joy, jump or wait
Allow Tao to shape your natural responses
Flowing, open and centered
Genuine actions spring naturally from the core
True Self streams from source
"Trust the Force" and watch things move into place
Mastery gained by allowing

The simple pattern is clear
Simplifying is a practice of Tao

Hold ideas lightly, mind open to what is
Free from your own ideas, tolerant as the sky
Tolerance allows honesty
Journey lightly, allow things to come and go
Heart open as the sky
Discernment moving freely within the integral whole
Thus clarity in choice and action

That you don't lose the way, live with care
Like walking on thin ice, mediative, each step aware
Alert as a warrior, courteous as a guest
Fluid, shapeable, receptive as a valley

Trustworthy, few of words     
The wise don't need to push their point
(the wise ones have often said nothing;)
There is teaching without words
Truth will show

Content, no need to convince nor impose
Not needing approval, nothing to prove
Content to simply serve
Service without artifice, influence without interfering
The power of pure presence

No need to claim credit
Quietly leave the people to claim they did it themselves
Competing with no one, no one needs to compete with you

Blame others and there will be no end to the blaming
Mastering yourself is true power
Humbled in the recollection of our own mistakes
Those that show us our faults are our benevolent teachers
Look to see if an enemy is a shadow that you yourself have cast
To be actualized within correctness, to realize and restore to harmony,
first find peace in your own heart 

Excessive force is followed by loss
Know when to stop, know your place and endure
A life always too busy can get beyond hope
When you get wound up take care to also unwind
Take extra care around extremes
Avoid excess and complacency  

Simplicity, compassion and patience
We are all a work in progress
Content while not complacent
Accept yourself and the world will too
Dark and light, look inside yourself to know the world
Accepting the world you return to primal self    

Tao is self before all the stories
Recognize and outgrow patterns of pretense  
Illumination through elimination,
an ongoing process of refinement
True being is more than definitions
At ease in becoming, identity streaming from source
Existence is its own meaning

Rampant thoughts weaken the mind
Coax your mind from its wandering
Return awareness to the original oneness

Look to things for happiness and you will never be satisfied
Consuming desires wither the heart
Knowing the abundance of enough is wealth
 
Look to others for fulfillment
and you cannot be content within yourself
Embrace the place only you yourself can reach
No one else can do it for you
Full inner connection realizes seamless interface with the whole
Dissolving the illusion of an inner apart from all outer

Stubborn adherence to the concept of self as separate is the cause of much suffering

Separation is illusion
Waving your arms frantically and hopping about will not dispel the mirage
Be still, simply see through it
See through fear, our essence is safe
Fear and belief can both be phantoms
that arise from thinking of a separate self  

Idolized beliefs often devolve, worshiped words may grow stale
Superstition masquerading as tradition, colorful bait
Desperately seeking something way out there,
many will cling to an outer husk, missing the kernel within

Sacred can be described as dedicated, it can not be separate
What part of the tree is not the tree?
What part of existence is not the glorious chaotic cosmos?

The busy masses will assert their success,
while being lived by Tao may appear lacking
Utterly trusting, mind like space
Knowingly nourished by the Mother of nature
Childlike, this humbleness can appear as dim wit
The foolish laughing at you is an indication you are on this path
Being ostracized is sometimes the price of being authentic

Source created and existing through Mother    
Experiencing where we all come from is an essence of wisdom
Realizing our origins we become naturally tolerant and amused
Kind hearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king

Arising from Tao, nourished by the Mother
The things of nature seem to know just how to be
The very particles arrive from the void informed
Yet somehow this clarity seems hidden from us

If we could know everything would existence be any less magnificent?
Loss of awe can be disastrous
Logic, reason and especially experience are the necessary platforms
Then for the well grounded there is vast mysterious more

Elegant mystery embraces the mundane
Sublime in simple beauty
Mystery consciously embraced tends to go quietly ecstatic
 
Black matter is much more abundant than the galaxies it contains
The quantum field is described as the formless prior
Potential...not empty the void is fullness in seamless unity

Cut a window in the wall, the unfilled space lets the light in
The empty space within makes a house livable and the pot useful
Usefulness from what is not there
Use not-being to work with being
Naturally and readily experienced, contemplation calms to meditation
Subscribe to the stillness, quietly emptying into agreeing
   
Purposefully empty your cup, drink of essence
Refreshing and regenerative
Experiencing this openness is such a relief
Open to source, flowing free and formless
Yield to merge

To be fulfilled first be emptied
To be renewed let yourself die to what is finished
Simply let go, flowing, open to next

Original clarity restored, meet all of life fully
Then when death comes you are ready
Like sweet sleep after a good day's work
Return

Immersed in wonder, aware of the embrace
Evolving choice into conscious agreement  
Open, flowing, Source streaming
Being lived by Tao is natural self

               - Appreciate -

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ANATTA / NIRVNA
not self/true Self 
inclusive continuum        
      
All processes are impermanent and changing
All phenomena, including who you think you are,
are actually not-self - Anatta 
 
The empty, hollowness, Sunyata
All things, including one’s imagined self, 
only appear as thought forms 
Conceptual constructs 
     
Experiential analysis of this reality frees the mind and will from entanglement with things as they seem
Living this knowledge does not negate all things
This living knowledge liberates 

Watch suffering and clinging 
and how it is they cease
Awaken to things as they are
Coming home to a natural understanding and wonder in the unfolding stories

Bodies change from moment to moment, 
thoughts come and go 
Thoughts arise and subside, 
like waves in the oceanic potential
Thoughts are conceived, taken in
Who you think you are need not think 
that you are the "thinker" behind all the thoughts
...receive... 
And let go in flow

Mental processes are constantly changing, 
a flowing stream of evolving consciousness
Though the body dies, the incorporeal mental processes continue, reborn in a next existence, 
perhaps here in a new body
The new being is neither exactly the same as, nor completely different from the being that died

Identity streams
Clinging is suffering and futile
Being is a flowing process of becoming

Use well the mind and will  
Transformation is available through practices such as awareness, meditation and loving-kindness
Controlled and contained in authenticity
The changing empirical self is being actualized

Skill developed in experience experiments
Stretch skill capacity, 
lean toward transformation
The greater these developed skills, 
the greater the freedom of evolving choice 

Choice within opportunity - Skillful agreement

Then - letting go of the refining process when it becomes ultimately unnecessary

The originating self, the core of being becoming, is a radiant nucleus of awareness in the mind's luminous essence
The epitome of perfect goodness and virtue, the ultimate in spiritual happiness
Even here do not get stuck!!!
This originating self is the fundamental source 
anatta of attachment through all these rounds of birth and death

The room can never be truly empty, 
the space will not be clear until you depart
Here resides the original pure mind 
When you depart pure presence remains 
In truth is there is no departing,
only fullness remembered through emptying  

Ultimately an exclusive self-perspective 
is primary delusion
As the fundamental delusion disintegrates 
pure mind arises
No longer at the mercy of transient phenomena, 
inner or outer
 
The choice of refinement is on-flowing
At times it takes not easy anatta work
Not clinging eliminates self-centeredness
Not stuck in any point of view, 
relinquish grasping
Not limited by attachment, nor identification
Not-Self, these changing things are anatta
Evolve in awareness of the impermanence of things

Trying to think into these ideas, inventing some state of purity is just another form of grasping
There is no need for philosophical denial of any part of the process 
The illusions simply evaporate in the clarity of knowledge born of experiential awareness
...so...watch what’s happening 
 
Freedom is not a list of things 
you should or should not do
Liberation is being not stuck
Experiential awareness of anatta, of what is not true, naturally becomes letting go of things for good reason

For an enlightened being, there is neither 
self nor not-self
They disappear of themselves, there is no need to drive either of them out
No further duality
As the illusion of separateness disappears the undiminished full natural wonder is revealed 

      Enjoy ;]
                         
                                            
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