Taoweblog

tortured by the world

Being opposed to teaching children about sex only alerts them to its existence. And this is a highly dangerous approach. Later, it leads to the perversions of immature sexuality. As yet, when no door has opened, when both the doors are shut, when the energy is still safe, either door can be pushed open -- but this constant harping against sex is like knocking on sex's door.

In the first place, man is not born with foreknowledge of the science of sex. Rare are those persons who, retaining the impressions of many past lives, are able to understand fully the art of sex, the strategy of sex or the knowledge of the intricacies of sex. These are souls who can attain to the stage of real celibacy. To a person who knows the complete reality of sex, the full implications of sex, sex becomes useless. He simply passes through it; he transcends it. But it is not in our tradition to discuss sex with those who have already attained transcendence. Besides, those who have attained to the purity of celibacy can tell of their previous births and lives only after enormous effort.

A self-styled celibate is as much imprisoned in the cell of sex as anyone else. The only difference between him and you is that he has a closed attitude whereas your eyes are open. What you do physically, he does mentally. Moreover, the physical act is natural, but the vicarious imagination of it is a perversion. So you should not to be against sex but you should try, sympathetically, to understand it. Give sex a sacred status in your life. The most important thing to remember is the attitude of your approach. At the time of coitus we are close to Tao. Tao exists in the act of creation that gives birth to a new life, and so one's attitude ought to be like that of a man going to a temple or to a church. At the time of orgasm we are closest to the Supreme. We become instruments: a new life could come into existence; we could create a child. How? In intercourse we are closest to creativity himself, and its shadow converts us into creators as well. If we approach sex with a pure mind and with a feeling of reverence, we can easily have a glimpse of him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmZolWdLMWQ

an egg-laying alien species

Action taken without thought is like giving an egg a navel. This kind of trashy, spurious, thoughtless, banal, ill-expressed 'universal truth' is a perfect example. In what way is it spurious, thoughtless, banal, or ill-expressed? It sounds perfectly at home among the lines of the Tao Te Ching. It is probably how Lao Tzu would have expressed the concept of Wu Wei (doing without doing) if he came from an egg-laying alien species. Our culture is marked by a radical infantilization of everything: public discourse, attention spans, concentration levels, education, and aspirations both personal and social, cultural output, everything. Most of those are about being childish not child-like. There is a difference. I'm being childish when I deal with a conflict by hiding in my room. It is a child-like thing to briefly forget the real world and rediscover real joy. There is some truth to it: When I see the price that you pay/ I don't wanna grow up/ I don't ever wanna be that way/ And I don't wanna grow up. Somehow though, we all pay that price and end up "being that way".

books must be included

Let me end this by sharing what the great teacher, Nitobe Inazo, taught us:

und es ist schmutzig

Wenn du anfängst, in dich hineinzuschauen, dann bist du natürlich verwirrt. Die Buddhas erzählen, dass man große Seligkeit findet, einen unbeschreiblichen Duft, dass man blühende Lotosblumen sieht und dass dieser Duft ewig ist. Und die Farben dieser Blumen sind immer frisch; sie verblassen nie. Sie erzählen von diesem Paradies, sie erzählen von diesem Reich Gottes, das du in dir hast. Aber wenn du nach innen schaust, siehst du nichts als die Hölle. Du siehst keine Buddha-Landschaften, du siehst Adolf Hitlers Konzentrationslager. Natürlich denkst du dann, dass dies alles Blödsinn ist – es ist besser, nicht nach innen zu schauen. Wozu immer wieder in deinen Wunden wühlen? Es tut nur weh. Und aus den Wunden quillt der Eiter und es ist schmutzig.

Doch Katharsis hilft. Wenn du eine Katharsis erlebst, wenn du chaotische Meditationen machst, vertreibst du all die Wolken und dunklen Löcher aus deinem Inneren und danach fällt es dir leichter, wach und bewusst zu sein. Anfangs aktive und später passive Meditationen. Du kannst erst dann in die Passivität gehen, wenn du dein inneres Gerümpel hinausgeworfen hast. Die Wut ist raus, die Gier ist raus… das alles war da, Schicht für Schicht. Aber wenn du das alles erst einmal hinausgeworfen hast, ist es leicht, nach innen zu gehen. Dann steht dir nichts mehr im Weg. Und dann erstrahlt plötzlich das Licht des Buddhalandes! Mit einem Mal bist du in einer ganz anderen Welt – in der Welt des Lotos-Gesetzes, der Welt des Dhamma, der Welt des Tao.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7169812605349250762&ei=dJ21SYabM4iQ2ALD4p2xDg&q=

he commits rape

In a crowd, in a group, a man finds the opportunity to throw off his adopted garb of humanity and to forget himself. In a crowd, he develops the courage to forget himself, to forget the real identity he has been restraining. The animal is released. As an individual, no man has committed as many sins as he has in a crowd. A solitary man is a bit afraid someone may recognize him; he worries about what he is wearing. A solitary man will think first about what he is going to do; he is afraid others may call him an animal. But in the midst of a big crowd of people a man loses his identity; he is not worried about being spotted at all. Then he is part and parcel of the mass; then he does what the people around him are doing. And what does he do? He hurls stones, he starts fires, he commits rape. As part of the mob, he seizes the opportunity to set his animal free. And that is why, every five to ten years, man is anxious for war, why he is always lying in wait, hoping for a riot to break out.  He needs an excuse, any excuse, to free the insatiable beast within. The animal in man is frustrated by constant bondage; it is howling to get out. But unless this animal is vanquished, destroyed, man's consciousness can never rise above bestiality. Our nature, our life-force, our energy, has only one easy outlet, and that outlet is sex. Sealing that channel will create problems, so before sealing it, it is very important to throw open a new door so that the energy can be diverted in a new direction. This is possible, but it has not yet happened for the simple reason that repression is much easier than transformation.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7519449927218912048&ei=lTBQSf6NEpfE2AKY3YT1Cg&q=

it was a slave country

There was a conspiracy between the disciples of Jesus and Pontius Pilate, who was not a Jew. The land of Jesus, Judea, was under the Roman Empire; it was a slave country. Pontius Pilate was the governor, the Roman governor. He had no interest in killing Jesus. In fact, he could not conceive why Jews were so insistent to kill this innocent young man who had not committed any crime at all. He was a politician; he could not arouse the whole of Judea against the Roman Empire just because of a young man. But he managed an agreement with the disciples that Jesus would be crucified on Friday -- as late as possible, because as the sun sets on Friday, Jews stop every kind of work. Certainly Jesus would have to be taken down from the cross before sunset. He was only on the cross for six hours, and then he was put in a cave which was guarded by Roman soldiers. The conspiracy worked perfectly well. In the night, Jesus was removed and as he became healed, he was taken out of Judea. Because the Jews would have crucified him again. The only place where he could find people who would understand his language, people who belonged to his race, was Kashmir. Kashmir is basically Jewish, and you will be surprised to know that when Moses had taken the Jews out of Egypt, one of the tribes of the Jews got lost in the desert. It took forty years for Moses to find the promised land, which is nothing but a desert land and Jews have never been able to forgive Moses. He gave them Israel, which is not in any way like the promise he made to them. They were torturing him continuously -- "Where have you brought us?" In forty years of wandering in the desert, almost ninety percent of the original people had died -- the third generation was now with Moses. And Moses had lost every contact with his own people, because these new people had no idea what Moses had done. They had only complaints against him. Somehow he managed to convince them: "This is the promised land. You remain here and I will go back to find the tribe that has been lost in the desert." That tribe reached Kashmir... and Kashmir seems to be far closer to the promised land Moses was talking about, because there is no place on the earth which is more beautiful than Kashmir. And Kashmir has both the graves of Moses and Jesus, because Moses came in search of the tribe and found it in Kashmir, and after Judea, there was only one place -- Kashmir -- where Jesus could have been welcome.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3580640556717653181&ei=MVzQSJmqJ5HS2gLvxtXAAg&q=

THE BUDDHA SAID:

THE BUDDHA SAID:
THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO PERCEIVE THE WAY, FOR IT IS LIKE STIRRING UP CLEAR WATER WITH HANDS. PEOPLE MAY COME THERE WISHING TO FIND A REFLECTION OF THEIR FACES WHICH HOWEVER THEY WILL NEVER SEE. A MIND TROUBLED AND VEXED WITH PASSIONS IS IMPURE, AND ON THAT ACCOUNT IT NEVER SEES THE WAY.
O MONKS, DO AWAY WITH PASSIONS. WHEN THE DIRT OF PASSION IS REMOVED THE WAY WILL MANIFEST ITSELF.
THE BUDDHA SAID:
SEEING THE WAY IS LIKE GOING INTO A DARK ROOM WITH A TORCH. THE DARKNESS INSTANTLY DEPARTS WHILE THE LIGHT ALONE REMAINS. WHEN THE WAY IS ATTAINED AND THE TRUTH IS SEEN, IGNORANCE VANISHES AND ENLIGHTENMENT ABIDES FOREVER.
Who is a buddha? Or what is buddhahood? Unless you have a clear concept about it, it will be difficult to understand the sayings of Buddha.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=to3ObP0PBqU