Round 3: EGO/SELF & MEMORY IN LIFE FORCE PROCESS (long essay)

Thanks for the reply Golden Sun,

Let me say as Alan Watts puts it, “the non-mindedness is a state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.” So basically, let the mind thinks what it wants without a separate thinker or ego. Good, but the ego will keep thinking if you don’t do anything about it. If you do something about it, then you will remain in a state of peace and tranquility known as wu-wei (non-effort). There are many paths, they may all lead to the top of the mountain, but what sets them apart is how effortlessly they got there. The choice is yours my friend.

Fajin

Are you talking about practices? I do qigong every day along with mediation and have done some of Michael Winns meditations.

I find them all interesting and useful but you can’t do everything so I settle on qigong.

But I think there is a very powerful teaching in letting everything AS IS rather than manipulate or attempt to get the so called ego out of the way in some manner.

Whatever works for you, good luck.

***You know, I really hope you will be able to get to that point.

Are you saying that my mind is polluted because I am not in agreement with you?

To make up for it, I won’t sign this time!

So then why did you say that you hope I will get up to that point?

Thanks Fajin. I was amazed that the Rinpoches and Dzogchen teacher(s) that Michael has met didn’t clarify this with him. Prehaps they did and I just pedantically latched onto a dialectic. Best, Rex

Just to look at a few parts of this blitzkrieg:

MW:”Once God divides its original nature of One into Many, it BECOMES the Many. The One no longer exists apart from the Many. The One has become a collective process, and IT CANNOT KILL ITSELF, i.e. end the process of creation, without the consensus of every aspect of the Many. God’s free will, i.e. its creativity, has been re-distributed to the Many…… So I cannot personally stop my “self” from existing, because it belongs the collective/whole.”

Just because you personally cannot end the process of creation, what has that got to do with what you can do about your self? That’s like saying I can’t burn this twig because there will always be trees.

MW-“There is no pyramid, nobody on top who can issue the command to “cease existing”. No God or divine agent running the Tao. There is now a central meeting place, the hub of many spokes, the consensus point of the Many at the center of the multiple nested spheres of reality. This meeting point we can say is neutral, or empty of content controlled by any one individual being, but that space is not a void as long as it is “collectively owned” by the Many as their center.”

Just because people can find this space, it certainly doesn’t follow that they own it, or affect it in any way. This seems to be an assertion without evidence.

MW – “The desire to stay in neutral is essentially taking the religious position, “I am one of God’s Children, and if I let go of my limited sinful ego-self stuck in desire, then God-Daddy-Creator-Tao will make all the right creative decisions FOR ME or THROUGH ME”. Then I won’t actually have any responsibility for the outcome.”

If we were to be as patronising about the taoist alchemist’s position, we might say:

“The desire to become a spiritual immortal is essentially taking the religious position,”Even though I am clearly imperfect, I shall adjust such parts of me as my imperfect self sees fit, and no others, which will leave me so groovy, so utterly right, that I will be suitable to merge with everything and last forever.”

And really, Michael, are you so sure that you are in a position to say what the only two possible outcomes of Chan cultivation are? Are you quite sure there are no possibilities out there you haven’t spotted?

When I first heard, that you were going to be more active on this forum, I was delighted that you would be sharing your knowledge. But now it really seems as if you want to stifle debate by launching huge unanswerable tracts of assertion at anyone who dares to differ. I do remember that you had to defend yourself, and taoist alchemy in general, against a great deal of vitriolic attack from the bodri camp, but it really seems like you’re overcompensating now.

P.S.

As a debating champion, you should be ashamed of this paragraph:

“To keep this really practical, let’s bring in the consequences of having sexual power to create new realties/beings: If I get a woman pregnant (speaking as a man), and she gives birth to a child, can I just neutrally witness that child and expect that the Tao or Buddha will raise the kid? Or is the creative burden put on the level of micro-ego-self that created the kid, i.e. ME, to feed and clothe and love the kid and mature its new micro-ego reality?”

“To keep this really practical, let’s bring in the consequences of having sexual power to create new realties/beings: If I get a woman pregnant (speaking as a man), and she gives birth to a child, can I just neutrally witness that child and expect that the Tao or Buddha will raise the kid? Or is the creative burden put on the level of micro-ego-self that created the kid, i.e. ME, to feed and clothe and love the kid and mature its new micro-ego reality?”

***Michael is just saying that there needs to be some self-responsibility and not just to merely observe and be aware of the moment. It requires a concsious act on your part. Buddhism doesn’t only observe, but Michael was just saying that you can’t have just observation. It requires the self.

Fajin