Blog Archives

11. Integrity's Dance of Co-Creation Sunrise/Afternoon June 30, 2015

6/30/2015

This is #11 (Tao #64) in a Series of Posts that share Synchronistically-Timely chapters from
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao

∞

PRIMAL REPOSE
<
ORIGINAL BEING SILENCE
<
DIRECTLY TRANSMITS TO ALL
<
DANCE OF CO-CREATION
ew
5:16 AM - 6/30/15

∞

Softly Pause/Gaze for shapes/forms/Transmissions from these clouds.....

#64

Integrity is our true nature;
arriving at integrity
is the work of a lifetime.

The person who has integrity
does the right thing without trying to,
understands the truth without thinking,
and naturally embodies the Tao.

Integrity is not only the fulfillment of our own being;
it is also the quality
through which all beings are fulfilled.

When we fulfill our own being,
we become truly human;
when we fulfill all being,
we arrive at true understanding.

Humanness and understanding
are inherent in our nature,
and by means of them
we unite the inner and the outer.

Thus, when we act with integrity
everything we do is right.

The Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell

COMMENTARY

Integrity is the bridge to the kingdom,
the kiss that wakes the dead princess,
the fingers that spin straw into gold.

When a person has integrity, she’s genuine;
you can always trust that her
yes is a yes and her no a no.

There’s no motive behind it,
no sweet sticky lure for approval.

We love integrity.
It feels like home.

It’s solid,
there’s no acting-out in it,
no backtracking,
no second-guessing.

When you act with integrity,
everything you do is right,
because there’s no separation
between doer and done.

Besides,
you realize that you’re not doing it in the first place.
You have let go into the nameless,
and it’s not even you who have let go.
It’s not even you who have been let go of.

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted
from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

May your soul be happy, journey joyfully.

You have escaped from the city full of fear and trembling;
If the body’s image has gone, await the image-maker; if the
body is utterly ruined, become all soul.

If your face has become saffron pale through death, become a
dweller among tulip beds and Judas trees.

If the doors of repose have been barred to you, come, depart
by way of the roof and the ladder.

If you have been secluded from water and bread, like bread
become the food of the souls, and so become!

–Rumi
http://deathdeconstructed.blogspot.com/2015/06/blessing.html

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10. "Unattached to Words or to Silence" - "The Golden Eternity" Sunrise/Afternoon June 29, 2015

6/29/2015

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This is #10 (Tao #41) in a Series of Posts that share Synchronistically-Timely chapters from
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao

12/25/14

Close your eyes,
let your hands and nerve-ends drop,
stop breathing for three seconds,
listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world,
and you will remember the lesson you forgot,
which was taught
in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago
and not even at all.
—Jack Kerouac
(see full Kerouac quote at end)

#41

In the beginning, there was nothing.
From nothing arose the One.
All things return to it.

Because it is without form,
there is no way to name it.

It doesn’t exist and doesn’t
not-exist. When we call it “the Tao,”
we define nothing as a something.

The Tao is beyond words.
The more you talk about it,
the farther away from it you get.

Only when you are truly unattached
to words or to silence
can you express the truth.

The Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell

O That which Exhales me into form,
Inhales me gently Home!
ew
Godseed
2003
(slight edit from original below)
O One that Exhaled me into form
Inhales me gently Home!

COMMENTARY

Ah, the Tao, the Tao.
When we talk about it, the vast isn’t vast enough,
and the subtle seems ludicrously crude.
The only way to approach it is through paradox:
to step out of the way until language bites its own tail.
And a little chutzpah doesn’t hurt.

Chutzpah is usually defined as “effrontery,” but it’s more than that.
It’s effrontery with a feather in its cap,
it’s the sound of three hands clapping,
it’s a garlic bagel crashing a party of champagne flutes.
It’s not a good thing or a bad thing,
but we tend to smile or gasp when we encounter it.
Though there’s no Chinese ideogram for chutzpah,
this chapter is a perfect case study.

So: if the more we talk about the Tao, the farther away from it we get,
why would we talk about it at all?
But okay, let’s talk.

We begin with the beginning, which equals zero,
a nice round number that is the absence of numbers.
From this absence, the One arises.
Are you reeling yet?

But there’s more.
If zero transmutes into one, zero equals one.
(So much for the foundations of mathematics.)

Then, from the One, after a fraction of a nano-instant,
with a bang, the infinitely many arise.
Ultimately infinity return to the One, which equals zero.

But the One doesn’t not-exist.
It doesn’t exist either; you can’t limit it to either category of mind.
So when we say, “All things are one,”
we’re lying through our teeth.
Since reality is beyond conception,
how can we dare to talk about it?

But we do.
And there’s something endearing about the daring of that.
If nothing else, it makes us think.

Even better, it makes us not-think,
which could be the point of it all.

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted
from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

It’s all like a dream.
Everything is ecstasy, inside.
We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds.
But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright
forever and forever and forever.

Close your eyes,
let your hands and nerve-ends drop,
stop breathing for three seconds,
listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world,
and you will remember the lesson you forgot,
which was taught
in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago
and not even at all.

It is all one vast awakened thing.
I call it the golden eternity.

It is perfect.
We were never really born, we will never really die.
It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self,
other selves, many selves everywhere:
Self is only an idea, a mortal idea.

That which passes into everything is one thing.
It’s a dream already ended.
There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about.

—Jack Kerouac
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-golden-eternity.html

All photos below are early evening 6/29/15

See Read More below for additional photos and all of Tao #41

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9. "Move with Freedom of the Wind" Sunrise/Afternoon June 28, 2015

6/28/2015

0 Comments

This is #9 (Tao #44) in a Series of Posts that share Synchronistically-Timely chapters from
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao

∞
IT
MATTERS NOT WHAT IT IS CALLED
IT IS ALL THAT IS

IT
NEVERBORN-NEVERDIE-COMMUNICATES
ANIMATES
SOURCES
IN ”ABSOLUTE REPOSE”
PERFECTION
ew
5:09 AM - 6/28/15

∞

∞

GLIDE WITH WINGS STILL AND SPREAD….
BE
RAREFIRED/RAREFIED OCTANE/ALTITUDE
WHERE ALL IS EFFORTLESS EASE.
ew
8:10 AM-6/28/15

∞

Photo from 5/3/15

#44

Chaff from the winnowing fan
cancels the eye’s natural vision;
the whine of a mosquito
can keep you awake all night;
trying to be benevolent
makes the mind a tangle or confusion.

If you want the world to stay simple,
you must move with the freedom of the wind.

Why keep making the effort
to figure out right and wrong?

Why all this huffing and puffing
as though you were beating a drum
searching for a lost child?

The snow goose doesn’t need
a daily bath to stay white,
nor does the crow stay black
by dipping itself in an inkwell.

When the springs dry up
and the fish are left on the shore,
they spew one another with moisture.

But how much better
if they could forget one another and swim off
into the lake’s vast freedom!

The Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell

COMMENTARY

The effort to be moral or benevolent is a disruption of our natural virtue.
What child would rather pray than play?

“Throw away morality,” Lao-tzu says,
“and you’ll be doing the world a big favor.”
Trying to figure out the right action does no one any good.
It’s better to keep moving, till the right action arises by itself.

When it’s genuine,
benevolence is the most beautiful quality in the world.
But when it has a motive, it feels like fish spittle,
not like clear water.

We recognize the genuine.
It’s what we all want.
It’s what we all are, when we are past our own thoughts.

Let the others comfort one another with slime:
that’s the best they can do under the circumstances.

But the instant any fish finds its way back to the lake,
it will swim off without a qualm.

“Thanks for the benevolence, muchachos,
but I’m out of here.”

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted
from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings,
for it destroys the world in which you live.
–Nisargadatta Maharaj

Above photo and Nisargadatta quote from:
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-most-dangerous-of-all-undertakings.html

0 Comments

8. "Always Enough" The Ultimate Antidote Sunrise/Afternoon June 27, 2015

6/27/2015

0 Comments

This is #8 (Tao #28) in a Series of Posts that share Synchronistically-Timely chapters from
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao

1) TOTAL ABSTINENCE FROM BEING BOTHERED BY ANYTHING/ANYONE
RESULTS IN
2) POSSESSION IN/OF/AS THE GREAT ORIGINAL CORE CALM.

THE SOURCE WHICH MOVES CREATION THRU ALL FORMS
THE ULTIMATE ANTIDOTE

(or does this happen the other way around?
doesn't matter! as long as it's Happening)
ew
4:12 AM - 6/27/15

#28
The Second Book of The Tao

Don’t chase after people’s approval.
Don’t depend on your plans.
Don’t make decisions;
let decisions make themselves.

Free yourself of concepts;
don’t believe what you think.
Embody the inexhaustible.
Wander beyond all paths.

Receive what you have been given
and know that
it is always enough.

The Master’s mind is like a mirror;
it responds but doesn’t store,
contains nothing, excludes nothing,
and reflects things exactly as they are.

Thus she has what she wants
and wants only what she has.

#28
The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

COMMENTARY

This is a chapter of good advice.
You could do a lot worse than follow it.
But all advice is dispensable.
Here’s what I mean.

It’s morning again. You open your eyes.
There’s a you, there’s a world.
There’s even a woman lying in bed beside you,
the radiant one, whom you fell in love with the very first moments.
The gratitude you feel is one drop in the vast ocean of gratitude that surrounds you.
It’s unnecessary to feel more than that single drop.

There’s a musician at the foot of the bed.
His hands look like oak leaves.
He is leaning back with his arms raised in a gesture of what might seem
(if you didn’t know any better)
like despair.

A skull sits on your nightstand,
giving you its long-in-the-tooth, memento-mori grin.
Flowers drift through the air in Brownian motion.
Inevitably, there’s a guitar in your hands.
You don’t know how to play, but you’re a fast learner.
It must be time for “La tristesse du roi” or “Amor, la vida es sueno.”
Your fingers touch the strings.
Already you’re moved to tears.

Now the sun taps at your window,
your bladder needs emptying,
the children have dissolved into peals of laughter,
and as your feet touch the floor,
yet again the spirit of life and death has not a word to say.

Do you see things exactly as they are?
How would you know?
Yet things are so good that they couldn’t get much better.

All that you ever wanted is here, right in front of you;
all that you ever wanted is instantly, irrecoverably, gone.

#28
The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

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7. "It's better just to leave things alone." Sunrise/Afternoon June 26, 2015

6/26/2015

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This is #7 in a Series of Posts that share Synchronistically-Timely chapters from
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao

∞

NO SEPARATE VOICE, BEING OR DIMENSION
TO LEAN UPON, LISTEN TO, OR TALK ABOUT
JUST
IS
THE ‘OLDER THAN GOD’ CONDITION
ew
4:25 AM - 6/26/15

∞

A person blended into God does not disappear.
He or she is just completely soaked in God's qualities

Rumi

Second Book of The TAO #7

Nothing in the world is bigger
than the tip of an autumn hair,
and Mount Everest is tiny.

No one in the world has lived longer
than a stillborn child,
and Methuselah died young.

The universe came into being
the moment that I was born,
and all things are one with me.

Since all things are one,
how can I put that into words?
But since I just said they are one,
how can my words mean nothing?

Sisyphus - Faint Hue on Ocean

Sisyphus, Ocean Golden Hue, 3 Gulls Gliding

The one plus my words make two,
and the two plus the one make three.
If we continue in this way,
even the greatest mathematician
couldn’t calculate where it will end.

Above: Photos are with camera settings either "vivid" or "auto"

It's better just to leave things alone.

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

COMMENTARY

There are paradoxes born of wit and paradoxes born of insight.
No thought is true,
but some thoughts are so much truer than the ones we’re used to
that they seem absurd at first glance.
It’s all a question of perspective.

Down at the level of the micro, there is no macro.
If you get small enough, you see that the world isn’t solid
and that uncertainty is the only thing that’s certain, perhaps.
Thus, everything the electron meets is electronal.
Ditto a galaxy: its consciousness, if it has one, is as little aware of a planet
as you are of a corpuscle.

We can’t stand outside the system and point to what’s real,
because what’s real is defined by the system.
This is relativity writ large.
The fastest thing in the universe isn’t light:
it’s mind.

All things may be one with me, but am I one with them?
That’s the issue.
And once I am one, what then?

Even the one is excessive for anyone who wants to be meticulous.
Look where it leads, after all—to two, to three, to infinity,
to an infinity of infinities and beyond:
always the unattainable, unassuageable beyond.

Of course, the nothing is out of the question as well,
since there’s already a word for it.
Not one?
Not nothing?

This leaves you in an ideal position: speechless, delighted,
and ready to say the most nonsensical things,
if only they make sense.

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
Rumi

I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I’m going to say.
I don’t plan it.
When I’m outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
–Rumi
Coleman Barks version
full writing here:
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/06/question_25.html

At end of the afternoon beach stroll, while Resting on chair, this bird hovered and circled over me and landed only a few feet from my chair....stayed for the longest....then moved towards ocean as i went towards her with camera....what Confirmation/Reminder of so much that Happened today.

Words create words, reality is silent.

–Nisargadatta

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6. - Pivot of the Tao - Cessation of Affirmation and Denial Sunrise/Afternoon June 25, 2015

6/25/2015

0 Comments

This is #6 in a Series of Posts that will eventually include all the main aspects
of
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao

∞

REALIZE THERE IS NOTHING TO AVOID

WHEN IN TRUE BEING EVERSHINING
ALL THAT USED TO BE AVOIDED
IS IN THE REALM OF
‘LET THE DEAD BURY THE DEAD’
&
BEYOND
ew
4:10 AM - 6/25/15

∞

∞

WALK QUIETLY
CONTAINED ONLY IN THE
INVISIBLE WORLD OF DIVINE VOID
WHICH IS BEYOND
THOUGHTS AND AWARENESS
ew
Transcending Possession
1992

∞

TAO #6

Everything can be seen as a this;
everything can be seen as a that.
The that depends on the this;
the this mirrors the that.

One follows from the other;
each is inseparable from both.
You can’t have right without wrong,
life without death,
the true without the false.
The Master is not trapped in opposites.
His this is also a that.

He sees that life becomes death
and death becomes life, that right
has a kernel of wrong within it
and wrong a kernel of right,
that the true turns into the false
and the false into the true.

He understands that nothing is absolute,
that since every point of view
depends on the viewer,
affirmation and denial
are equally beside the point.

The place where the this and the that
are not opposed to each other
is called “the pivot of the Tao.”

When we find this pivot, we find ourselves
at the center of the circle,
and here we sit, serene,
while Yes and No keep chasing each other
around the circumference, endlessly.

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

COMMENTARY
by Stephen Mitchell

Mind can only create the qualities of good and bad by comparing.
Remove the comparison, and there go the qualities.
What remains is the pure unknown:
ungraspable object, ungraspable subject,
and the clear light of awareness streaming through.

The pivot of the Tao is the mind free of its thoughts.
It doesn’t believe that this is a this
or that that is a that.

Let Yes and No sprint around
the circumference toward a finish line that doesn’t exist.

How can they stop trying to win the argument of life until YOU stop?
When you do, you realize that you were the only one running.

Yes was you.
No was you,
the whole circumference, with its colored banners, its pom-pom girls
and frenzied crowds--
that was you as well.

At the center,
the eyes open and again it’s the sweet morning of the world.
There’s nothing here to limit you,
no one here to draw a circumference.

In fact, there’s no one here--
--not even you.

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

See Read More below for additional photos and wordings.....

0 Comments

5. "Nothing to Understand" "Nothing left but Gratitude and Laughter" Sunrise/Afternoon June 24. 2015

6/24/2015

0 Comments

This is #5 in a Series of Posts that will eventually include all the main aspects
of
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
THE SECOND BOOK OF THE TAO

∞

IN THE NAMING OF
WHATEVER SEEMING DESTRUCTION IS OCCURING
IS THE POOFING!
<
WHEN YOU ARE WHO YOU REALLY ARE
NAMING IS INSTANT FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE.

WHEN YOU ARE NOT WHO YOU REALLY ARE
NAMING/OBSESSING/RESISTANCE IS AS CRAZY GLUE WITH HORRORS.

ew
5:31 AM - 6/24/15

∞

#5

The ancient Masters saw deeply.
How deep was their insight?

They realized that nothing exists.
This is perfect understanding.

Those at the next stage
thought that things existed
but saw no boundaries between them.

Next came those who saw boundaries
but didn’t judge things as good or bad.

When judgments arose, understanding was damaged;
when understanding was damaged,
preferences became ingrained.

But is there really such a thing
as damage or wholeness?

See Read More at end for "how" this photo Happened.

The Master understands
that there is nothing to understand.

S. Mitchell
THE SECOND BOOK OF THE TAO
#5

COMMENTARY
by
Stephen Mitchell

The ancient Masters saw deeply indeed.
They realized that since nothing lasts longer than the untraceable instant,
nothing ultimately exists.
They also realized that “nothing” is something,
and that the opposite of a profound truth
is another profound truth.

Nothing exists.
Something exists.
“All Cretans are liars,” said the Cretan.
It’s better to keep your mouth shut.

Still, these old fellows were on to something.
If nothing exists as we know it,
if time and space are intellectual categories,
there’s nothing we can actually grasp,
to arrange or disarrange.
This leaves us free.

It leaves us at play in the cosmic theater of the mind.
All the world’s a stage, and we are the non-actors.
Can life be as simple as that?

It went downhill from there,
to the next stage,
then the next.
Boundaries! Preferences! Attachments!!!
And before we knew it,
our days filled up with screaming babies,
mortgage payments,
nasty messages in the mailbox.

Damage and wholeness are in the eyes of the beholder, of course.
If you’re a child,
there’s nothing more fun that going downhill.

A tragedy is comedy misunderstood.
Once you realize what you are,
there’s nothing left but gratitude and laughter.

THE SECOND BOOK OF THE TAO
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

The soul has been given its own ears
to hear things the mind does not understand.

—Jalalud’din Rumi

See Read More below:

0 Comments

4. "Neither Coming or Going" "Walking Two Paths at Once" Sunrise/Afternoon June 23, 2015

6/23/2015

1 Comment

This is #4 in a Series of Posts that will eventually include all the main aspects
of
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao

∞

FROM THE VAST VOID…
THE INFINITE ”OLDER THAN GOD” CALM WITHIN….
SURFACES ALL TRUTH!

BE STILL AND NO-MINDING MIND KNOW
<
REMAIN STILL

ew
3:29 AM - 6/23/15

∞

#4

When we exhaust our minds
by clinging to a particular side of reality
without realizing the underlying oneness,
it’s called “three in the morning.”
What does that mean?

A monkey trainer, handing out acorns, said:
Each of you, will get three in the morning and four in the afternoon.”
The monkeys were outraged.
So he said,
“All right, then: you’ll get four in the morning and three in the afternoon.”
The monkeys were delighted.

Nothing essential had changed,
yet one statement produced anger, and the other, joy.
The trainer simply knew how to adapt to reality and he lost nothing by it.

Thus the Master uses his skill to harmonize with both sides,
and rests in the Tao,
which makes all things equal.
This is called “walking on two paths at once.”
#4
Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell

COMMENTARY

The whole human condition is present in this tricky little tale,
which would be sad if it weren’t so ridiculous.
Although from the standpoint of the monkeys
it’s about the power of righteous indignation,
from the standpoint of the monkey trainer,
behind the scenes,
it’s about skillful management.
You have to admire his one-two punch;
he’s both bad cop and good cop.
But what is the trainer training the monkeys in, anyway?
Discernment?
If so, he’s being made a monkey of.

Whenever we cling to a particular side of reality,
it’s we who are the monkeys,
losing ourselves in outrage or partial delight.
If we look more carefully, though,
we can see that reality has only one side,
like a Mobius strip.
Stars or raindrops,
acorns or ashes,
apparent blessings,
apparent disasters--
--when the mind is clear, each is an occasion for rejoicing.
That’s what discernment is about.

Once our mind-monkeys are fully trained, it’s all good.
In the mathematics of mental peace, three equals four, one equals zero.
Adapting to reality means recognizing that nothing underlies or overlays it.
The Master can travel on two paths at once,
like a photon,
because his mind is free.
He’s subatomic and supererogatory.
He knows that all ways are the Way and that ultimately
he is neither coming nor going.

Stephen Mitchell

Photos in Slideshow below taken during evening sun on beach
6 p.m. 6/23/15
Again.....beyond words!!!

Click Read More Below for "More"

1 Comment

3. "Inexhaustible Treasury" "Every ism is a wasm" Sunrise/Afternoon June 22, 2015

6/22/2015

1 Comment

This is #3 in a Series of Posts that will eventually include all the main aspects
of
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao

See Read More at end for further information.

The great Tao cannot be named,
great discernment cannot be seen,
great benevolence is not gentle,
great modesty is not meek,
great courage is not aggressive.

When you truly understand
the Tao that cannot be named,
you become rooted in not-knowing.

This is called “inner-radiance".

Add to it, it is never full;
take from it, it is never depleted.
Who can tell where it comes from?

It is the inexhaustible treasury.
#3
The Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell

COMMENTARY
Who named it “the Tao” in the first place?

I would like to talk to that fellow.
I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.

The Tao.
The Way.
Imagine naming the unnamable!
This may have seemed like a clever idea at the time,
but it led to endless complications.

Before long, people were watching everywhere for the way.
Intellectuals began to wear themselves out
debating whether it existed or not,
or whether perhaps it both existed and didn’t exist,
or whether indeed it neither existed nor didn’t exist.

Scholars wrote tomes,
with characters brushed in the blackest of ink,
to prove that the Way goes this way or that.

Moralists determined what is on the Way
and what is off,
discerning, down to the minutest particulars,
exactly what we must do never to stray from the Way.

Thus Taoism was born.

But every ism is a wasm.
It’s already old news:
an exoskeleton
from which the living truth has moved on.
S Mitchell

Religions arise to address
The sense of being separate and apart.

Once this sense is seen to be erroneous,
Where is the need for religion?

–The Lost Writings of Wu Hsin
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/06/question_22.html

See Read More Below

1 Comment

2. "Center Everywhere - Circumference Nowhere" Sunrise/Afternoon June 21, 2015

6/21/2015

0 Comments

This is #2 in a Series of Posts that will eventually include all the main aspects
of
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao
so Perfectly Timely !
See Read More at end for further information.

∞

How to BE more SILENT?

SIMPLY STOP ALL MOVEMENT
(EVEN IF CONTINUING TO BE MOVED)

INSTANTLY
BE BREATH
THAT IS
BEYOND THE MINDING MIND

ew
5:07 AM - 6/21/15

∞

The above Scribed predawn and BEFORE we read Tao #2 this morning.

#2
Before sorrow, anger,
longing, or fear have arisen,
you are in the center.

When these emotions appear
and you know how to see through them,
you are in harmony.

That center is the root of the universe;
that harmony is the Tao,
which reaches out to all things.

Once you find the center
and achieve harmony,
heaven and earth take their proper places
and all things are fully nourished.

Stephen Mitchell
The Second Book of The Tao
#2

COMMENTARY
for #2 above
by
Stephen Mitchell

This chapter is about saving the world.
You save the world when you save yourself.
(There’s no one else you can save.)
Returning to the center is thus an act of infinite kindness.

There’s nothing wrong with sorrow, anger, longing, or fear;
a painful emotion is just a signal
that you’ve left the center.

When you are at peace,
everything is at peace.

What seemed like cacophony
becomes the music of the spheres:
a suite for unaccompanied mind.

Living in harmony with the way things are,
the mind finds its center everywhere,
its circumference nowhere.
The part becomes the whole;
what is becomes what should be.

Heaven takes its proper, its only place:
on earth.

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

See Read More below for additional Wording/Photos

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1 "The Vast Mind Empty of Meaning" -Second Book of The Tao Sunrise/Afternoon June 20, 2015

6/20/2015

0 Comments

This is #1 in a Series of Posts that will eventually include all the main aspects
of
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao
so Perfectly Timely !
See Read More at end for further information.

1
What is bestowed on us at birth
is called human nature.
The fulfillment of human nature
is called the Tao.

The cultivation of the Tao
is the deepest form of learning.

The Tao is the way things are,
which you can’t depart from
even for one instant.

If you could depart from it,
it wouldn’t be the Tao.

Therefore the Master
looks into her own heart
and respects what is unseen and unheard.

Nothing is more manifest than the hidden;
nothing is more obvious than the unseen.

Therefore the Master
pays attention to what is happening
within her innermost self.

∞
Stephen Mitchell
The Second Book of The Tao
#1

∞

SILENT’S SONG OF VAST INNER CORE SILENCE
POSSESSES
<
THE GREATEST FREEDOM
<
ORIGINAL BEING
ew
4:22 AM - 6/20/15

∞

Above: View from bottom of sand dunes path to the ocean beach.
Below: First gaze of the ocean from top of sand dunes path.

COMMENTARY
for #1 Tao
Stephen Mitchell

We think that we know what human nature is,
but what if our most cherished assumptions are wrong?
What if all suffering is the result of confused thoughts?
That would change our paradigm a bit.

We’re born into the open, into the vast mind empty of meaning.
Beyond thought, beyond things, reality just is.
Human nature doesn’t need to be fulfilled,
nor do we need to cultivate what is already perfect.
Once we recognize this, we return to the origin of all things.
There is never a movement toward or away.
We remain where we have always been,
but now we know it,
as if for the first time.

Departing from the Tao can happen only in the mind;
it’s an illusion that becomes our reality.
Though we actually live in what is,
we think ourselves into what isn’t.
Though every apparent detour is the path,
we get lost in our imagined wanderings.
That’s why, if we’re interested in freedom,
there is nothing sweeter than to cultivate, cultivate:
to get down, with trowel and hoe,
into the thought-rich soil of the mind.

It’s all about paying attention to what is happening within our innermost self,
until the unseen, the unquestioned,
is as obvious as the seen.

When the mind is free of its thoughts,
it becomes its own fulfillment.

The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

Rest in peace.
You are the unchangeable
Awareness in which all activity takes place.
Always rest in peace.

You are eternal
Being, unbounded and undivided.
Just keep
Quiet.
All is well.
Keep Quiet
Here and Now.

You are Happiness, you are
Peace, you are
Freedom.
Do not entertain any
notions that you are in trouble.

Be kind to yourself.
Open to your Heart and simply
Be.

Those who know
This know
Everything.
If not,
even the most learned know nothing at all.

–Papaji

See Read More below

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The Vast Unnameable Sunrise/Afternoon June 19, 2015

6/19/2015

0 Comments

THE VAST UNNAMEABLE
DOES NOT THINK, PROCESS OR LABEL.
BE THAT!
<
INSTANT PEACE BEYOND EARTHLY MEASURE
ew
4:13 AM - 6/19/15

p e a c e

palpable as the presence of a Presence

yet utterly ineffable

a benediction without diction

beyond the grope of thought

a blessedness without symbol

not experienced as other but

immanent

– inescapably so –

oh!

silence

from miriam louisa
http://echoesfromemptiness.com/2015/06/20/early-this-morning/
read by ew 9:10 p.m.
6/19/15

(miriam resides in a different geographic time zone)

IF YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND THIS SOUL'S
SILENT’S SONG....

ALL WORDS ARE
CONFUSING,
CACOPHONOUS LIES.

ew
9:39 PM
6/19/15

See Read More below for
'THE POWER OF SILENCE"

0 Comments

"Transparent to the Depths" - Primal Light's Evershining Sunrise/Afternoon June 18, 2015

6/18/2015

0 Comments

∞

JUST BE

MOVED BY
CENTERED IN/OF/AS
VAST ORIGINAL CORE BEING
THAT HAS NO NAME OR EXPLANATION

JUST
IS.

ew
4:52 AM - 6/18/15

∞

Below: Am standing in these waters to take the above photos....until a huge wave came in and i got wet nearly up to my waist....it was.time to "fly" to shore again!!!
......immediately after "flying" to shore we see the extra Big Bird
in the distance...Reminding me to keep Altitude!!!!!

Additional Sunrise Photos on Read More at end

The Book of Songs says,
Though the fish sinks to the bottom,
it still can clearly be seen.

Thus the Master
examines her innermost self.

She notices even the smallest
sign of discord, and corrects it
before it can do any harm.

When your mind is transparent to the depths
and your words and actions are one,
the whole world becomes transparent.
#63.- p.126
Stephen Mitchell
The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell

COMMENT