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Ah, this is the Max I know and loveFrom: Michael Winn
Subject: General
Date/Time 2005-04-08 08:11:07
Remote IP: 66.32.110.160
MessageMax,
I am not sure if you are Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, you flip so quickly between the devoutly religious, deeply intelligent contemplative and the naughty boy with dirty pictures.
At any rate, this aspect of you is most welcome to post here. Dr. Jekyll is on probation and banned from the site until some deeper resolution within the two sides occurs.....you say you"hate it", but apparently Dr. Jekyll does love it or he wouldn't keep popping out and demanding expression.
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I agree with most of what you've posted, beautifully expressed with exquisite equanimity. Evidence your meditation is working.
With the following exceptions:
<< 1. It keeps the meditator more heart-centered.
<<< This becomes increasingly important as the adept progresses to realize
<<< their role as mediator between Heaven and Earth.
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>Buddhist view is you don't need to attach yourself with any role or a thought form- even as high as this, because of a danger of falling into spiritual stagnation or torpor.
This raises the questioin of individual will, which in my opinion is the core difference between the Buddhist and Taoist alchemical view. Immortality is the extension of individual will into multiple dimensions and timezones. There is little dange of stagnation when you are on the cutting edge between the forces of Form and Formless. Immortality is the point (or series of points, depending on one's attainment) of maximum leverage, the point from which an individual can most easily change the whole.
The whole/collective NEEDS the feedback of the individual - it does not evolve without it. Immortality just means the feedback is consciously and directly delivered to a greater aspect of the whole, rather than unconsciously, as is the case with most humans focused on a very narrow band of reality.
The buddhist notion of "getting off the wheel of incarnation" by focusing on the most absolute levels of emptiness possible - as proof of their non-attachment to any aspect of the physical plane or any human role/will - is an illusory achievement.
Why? Because you cannot "get off" the Whole. So "getting off the wheel of incarnation" and landing in absolute emptiness is essentially a rejection of the action of the Whole, which initiated and continues to regulate the process of incarnation. RE-incarnation is the illusion as seen from the human viewpoint; from the Whole's viewpoint, it is simply continuous, fresh creation that includes INcarnation of human soul patterns as a part of its creative process.
The most that the individual can do is shift their will/focus to other aspects of the Whole, of which earth and humanity are a tiny (yet still supremely significant aspect). So an ordinary human sees physical reality as 99% of their reality; an immortal might view it as 1% of their reality that they might choose to interface with as needed.
But you do not obliterate the process of incarnation by getting off the wheel. It is simply a vote against it, a statement that you believe humanity in physical form was a mistake that you intend to end as quickly as you can.
The buddhist view that annihilation of the individual will and indivudal existence is the highest good (or that it never existed in the first place) is going against the action of the Whole, which is to continuously birth and individuate itself into billions of life forms.
Yes, of course we can play semantics and say that those billions of forms are all ultimately part of the same Whole, and therefore not really individual, but that denies the reality of free will being given to them to have their own uniqiue experience.
In certain esoteric schools this is known as the principle of "Ring Pass Not": once consciousness has been created within a certain form, it has the right to continue existing. You've passed from the core inner ring of the Primordial into the outer ring of manifestation. The Whole cannot take away the right of that individual to continue existing and re-birthing itself if so designed.
The most generous interpretation I can give to this Buddhist quest for absolute emptienss is that they are seeking to have an experience of return to and merging with the Source. That's fine and normal, but doesn't have to be accompanied by a denial of relationship to creation or humanity or to individual human will.
What I question most about this Buddhist process of seeking emptiness is whether it resolves the core issue of the split in the jing and loss of Original Substance -yuan jing- that occurred during separation into male and female bodies.
This missing aspect of the primordial needs to be recovered consciously by the human process of inicarnation. I don't see how seeking emptiness recovers it, it appers to me to be avoiding it or denying that the problem even exists. So Buddhists may be showing up in the higher heavens empty-handed. In which case the Whole has no choice but to recycle them.....back into sexed bodies.
> Your last comment about "If someone wants continuous emptiness from the life force and can get it, that's fine too" puzzles me. Are you saying it is your understanding that if one practices Emptiness meditation, he empties himself out of the life force literally? Please be so kind to explain this.
The life force will deliver to you whatever you request, if you are sincere; its sole function is to serve the need of creation. So it will deliver you the experience of emptiness if you deeply desire it. But that emptiness is just being created for you.
The Buddhist attempt to get around this by stopping thought or concept or desire is initially only working on the mental or emotioinal body. At a higher level of practice its an attempt to merge with the primordial level of Tao mind, which is pre-creation of yin-yang and five phase cycles. But attaining that will just throw you into the experience of Primordial Presence, which now includes the entire process of creatioin. So you always end back up where you started, in the present moment. Yes, you are witnessing your physical self from a different perspective. But there is still content, however "open" your inner space is.
The point is that there is no absolute or permanent state of emptiness to attain, you will always be in some Process. This is the viewpoint of the Taoist school, that its always and only process, there is no excaping that process of Change. If you can embrace a larger field of change and function from that level of expanded awareness, you are called immortal.
Love, chi, and Blessings to your journey of Integration,
michael
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