Personal Tao Musings

Faith Part 2

2009-11-29T10:55:00.000-08:00

I have had several deep conversations about faith this week, so I am sharing the conversations. Sometimes, it's useful to repeat such talks from several angles.

Faith is of the heart and of life... Never found outside as a story or an ideal someone else may project out so perfectly...

Faith is beholden within having acceptance of oneself wholly...

With billion's of people projecting billions of expressions of faith to behold... It's so easy to get lost within so many variations when looking for faith as if it is to be had in some market place wholesale. And many people get lost in this manner listening to pulpits or buying into outside stories to fill gaps like fingers trying to plug up the broken dam...

So faith is a journey also, a journey on a bridge we build over the unknowns of the universe and that bridge is...

our life

Addendum:

Someone just emailed stating.. Don't make faith harder than it is... They say faith is simply "belief" . They were upset I was making faith too intellectual...

I just want to respond... I am saying in my own manner:

If you dont believe in yourself, you won't find faith as we teach it in Taoism.

Addendum 2:

Some people look for faith outside of themselves. It is a different path. Not the one we approach in Taoism. And a topic for a different conversation.

me

Namaste

Faith

2009-11-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

Faith is problematic for many people for a simple reason: by its very nature it's not absolutely definable.

Faith is a process of acceptance to resolve the unknown.

As faith is about resolving the unknown, the undefinable, its very nature in reflection leaves it with no absolutes in terms of facts. Every time a person nails it down... a little aspect of it slips off to the side and slips away.

Doubt destroys faith, doubt slips in the cracks to loosen a person's acceptance. Doubt shifts how you see the world... and before you know it... a little doubt can destroy entire faith systems under the right conditions... It's the primary reason many organized religions go out of their way to either convert or destroy doubters, to remove skeptics.

Organized religion has a single flaw, a weak point:

In the end, each person must have a true faith in themselves: in their own view and acceptance of the world. A one size fits all faith will always have some seed of doubt in it, some aspect that just doesn't quite fit right, just due to the variations we each possess in how we perceive the world in how we live and explore life.

Faith is important, I teach faith, how to help people discover their own personal faith to explore and behold life within. This is the practice I call A Personal Tao. A Personal Tao is not about some master vision, instead it's all about polishing up your own personal faith.

Without faith, the unknown consumes and drives people to do crazy things. Buts it's all towards resolving the unknown...

People use facts like light to explore the dark of unknown to push the boundaries of the unknown away.
People use faith systems, like maps to feel comfortable in thinking they know what lies ahead.
People get into conflict to prove "faith" since the fear of the unknown is so great so they try to force their faith to be true....
Yada, yada yada and so many more examples

In the end, faith can be made very simple. Faith doesn't require conflict, It doesn't require any complicated "truths" or fancy , or elegant answers from some wise teacher.

In the end faith just requires acceptance of who you are: living fully in your life. One step at a time. Poking about the unknown with a smile, becuase we ourselves are unknown until we live out our life. Once you have yourself, you can dispel all doubts of your nature, since you live it.

Once we have lived our life, we cannot help but behold our selves in fullness... and in our life, we have our faith since ... we lived it.

Peace

Namaste

Judgement

2009-11-26T11:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a video about Judgement.

I spend lots and lots of time teaching people how to release judgment and discover a freer more open life style.

Releasing Judgement is often the first step to personal freedom for many people.

Namaste

Helping the Partners of those in Crisis: Part 2

2009-11-25T12:42:00.000-08:00

Here is Part two: A follow up four step Video discussion on how to work with a person in your life that is working through Mid Life crisis.

Be Kind

Not only help your partner... but take care of yourself. If you lose yourself while helping another person... You have also failed.
Patience

This is process that takes time. To rush the process is to break your relationship, by not allowing time for a new relationship to evolve.
Do not force another person's change to be your change.

Don't force a person to fit your life better. Mid Life transformation is about discovering personal truth... Never impose your own personal truth over another person's heart. To do so is to force them away from you.
Release

It's hard to help another person in transformation when not releasing your own views on who you believe they are.

We use people like mirrors, to see ourselves. If you only hold onto old views of your partner that creates a problem since they are actively trying to run away from who they were. Chances are you will force them away with such reflections.

Namaste

Helping the Partners of those in Crisis

2009-11-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

When helping close friends or partners in crisis. It's important to know such a drastic change in someone loved can have drastic impacts to your own heart and how you live.

All too many people base their heart on another person. When that other person changes, it hurts and forces change in your own life and heart.

Many times, the best advice at this stage is to start a process of examining your own heart and values in life. Not to assume the best thing is to stick it out. In other words it's a time to re-examine your own life to be able to stand on your own and on your own terms. To do so ironically frees up your partner to begin finding themselves in a less constrained manner. Releasing yourself of your partner's ties ironically is often the the most efficient manner to re-create a new relationship later with a partner after they change.

But also know: just becuase a person was something wonderful in the past doesn't mean they will transform into a person you will want to be with either. Most surprising, in opening up your own heart, in rediscovering personal kindness to your own life, you may discover it is time to restart a new and better life yourself.

So it's critical you begin to discover how to stand on your own, to discover the best position is to be centered in your own life (not based on another person) so it is possible to move on no matter how your partner changes later.

Mid life crisis is a time of change, and that change ripples and touches everything around your partner, most especially you.

All of this means it's very important for partners of those in Mid Life crisis relearn and rediscover their own heart. To make choices that are centered and wholesome over being out of reach and based on a moving target.

Namaste

Stories Part 3: Honesty

2009-11-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

Part one : Teaching Stories

Part two : History of Stories

Everyone has stories... every person has stories that comprise and assesmble up as a collage to represent their life.

The collage like nature of pasting stories together can create a beautiful tapestry to behold... So much so, we value story tellers very highly. However, these tapestries often blind the beholder, trap people to think such a collage can represent an absolute truth.

(or at times the collage like nature of stories can have so many holes that the collective story cannot stand on it's own)

Due to this nature of how people assemble their life story, no two people can ever perfectly match up their stories... If emphasis is placed in the conflicts between stories, then this sets up the dynamics for interpersonal conflict. So then people seek some form of outside truth to resolve such differences...

People seek Honesty, Value honesty since people define honesty to represent truth. Just becuase many times we can use "facts" to stand in for "truth", people assume honesty represents the ability to stay to the facts. The deeper problem is often truth is subjective, facts shift to perception and create a huge problem for honesty.. Since in all too many cases no "exact perfect" truthful answer exists between conflicting stories...

Honestly, honesty cannot always represent truth... it also represents the ability to relate your story in manner that matches to other peoples stories in a harmonious manner.

In other words the deeper definition of honesty is this:

Honesty represents is the ability to reconcile stories...

So here is a truth,

When a person is unable to shed their story to fit "facts", and most people hold onto to stories as facts beyond question... that creates a vastly difficult problem to overcome when resolving interpersonal conflict of different stories.

When this is case, it's time to embrace the larger definition of honesty

Honesty represents is the ability to reconcile stories...

This requires acceptance, learning to understand stories from many angles, to bridge the gap of faith itself, in order to reconcile such story conflicts.

We are one, and as one, we have countless stories of how to express our oneness. Enjoy each story as is, and discover the honesty of each story for each person to relate to their world.

If you do this, chances are you can teach other people to open up and to also then discover more than one story to explore the full world. So a person won't have to defend one story to the exclusion of all else, but rather with honesty it becomes possible to bridge the gap between stories and discover new meanings and new ways to view the world.

Namaste

History Lessons

2009-11-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

I once wrote: the facts of history are not as important as the lessons of how we relate to the stories of history.

Any and all conflict based on history... is a conflict based on lies and is a huge waste of time.

All history has lies within it, To base life purely upon historical context is to live ass backwards.

A very basic lesson of Taoism is : Life now and History then are two separate stories.

Generally speaking when within conflict and a person/leader/media brings up history to cite and justify a cause: Then with 100% certainty this is done to stir up emotions and perceptions to purposefully use history to create conflict for personal gain.

To gain inner peace, To promote world peace... then a quick history lesson is this:

Drop the history lessons and make life now what it needs to be

However, as most people desire some history... then discover a personal history, hold it close to the heart... but you dont need to validate it by pushing it outward for some universal recognition of truth. The universe doesn't care as the universe has already moved onward to the next event. The real universal truth is once you share any history... chances are you will also discover conflict due to differences in the story...

This is the base reason why so many people in academia are always fighting...

Human History is a personal choice of values to embrace, not some universal truth of what happened.

So learn to value life for life rather than stories that fade with time.

Namaste

The nature of impossible

2009-11-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

Once you figure out the trick of doing one impossible thing...

all else becomes potentially possible...

more importantly

No tricks are ever required to explore potential.

Namaste

Formless Practice of "Pu"

2009-11-18T10:31:00.001-08:00

Practice is a very very interesting topic. More so than people give it credit for.

When I started the Awakening Dragon Taoism School I had a Dilemma of how to teach Practices.

Most people when they teach a practice: you start with a form and you practice within the form over and over again until you get the form perfect and then you can move on ...

I find that to be too restrictive. TO concentrate so much on forms... can blind a person to variations and personal angles that could be of greater benefit...

Instead I teach practices in a "meta" sense. I teach everything that goes around the practice but not the form. Hence I teach a formless practice. I work with each student and I use their own life as the form to fit the practice within.

Do you see the difference?

Most people learn a practice so they can change their shape to fit the practice

I teach Taoist practices to fit within the shape and form of each student!

It's a vastly different way of teaching. Yet when teaching a student it always fits like a glove as then the practice will always fit to their life fully.

Now this isn't for everyone. In fact more people than not do better with form based practices. Its less work and keeps a person very busy. Formless practice doesn't work for very literal people needing precise and very sharp definitions.

But formless practices are great for rebels, for people that don't fit in anywhere else becuase they are so strongly their own person, or for those seeking how everything connects together but in a non literal and relaxed manner.

It took me years to ponder and develop a very simple concept of how to embrace practice... not as practice but simple as "________" or "Pu", formless yet full, that is enough to assist students discover and fill the empty space which defines us each. To teach a practice that enhances a person's form but doesnt define them as the practice.

That is Formless Practice. How to implement "Pu" "the uncarved block" as a full practice

To be within full potential and explore all potentials that as a person we each can represent.

Namaste

Expectation Lost

2009-11-15T22:40:00.001-08:00

A point to ponder is this:

People project way too much expectation

Free yourself, project out hope nary any expectation

If this is done, then life becomes freedom

Ok what I say above will make sense to some and not sense to others. Let me add this following bit to give an angle towards what this can mean. (several distinct results exist, but I will show only one tonight)

Having reviewed countless paths. I have no intention of going down what is tired, bored and done: way over done already.

That is the problem many face when building up their business or life. That it becomes a process of pandering to expectation to get support. The trouble is all the support comes with the price tag of expectations and how it's been done already. Which then leads a person in turn to being shaped by that very same expectation and end results...

In terms of potential... that's a very limited path.

For instance when I walked the streets I saw countless street preachers, people trying to literally become Jesus to save others. In doing so, they sacrificed themselves to make that dream come true. The expectations shaped them and then destroyed them in the same fell swoop.

If this sounds extreme, I use it to make a point. Countless other examples exist. Look around to find other examples you have seen and compare results (and towards both good and bad endings).

The point... don't follow a path, make a path free of expectation. If you do this then it does open up new potential, and more importantly in being fresh... defines new hope.

So many people are losing hope right now... when right now I see more hope than ever before. Because now is the time to be new :) becuase so much potential is to be had... once you shake loose the expectation shackles...

Namaste

The Impossible

2009-11-15T01:48:00.000-08:00

For a few students, here is something to chew upon...

In Taoism

Once you learn your first impossible trick.

All else becomes possible

However, Lewis Carol sums it up nicely:

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Back to basics. Everything you need is present.

Just be
open to potential
work your form into the possibility
you accept yourself to be.

Namaste

The Absurdity of Fox News

2009-11-14T10:06:00.001-08:00

It seems that

Fox news is what people would call UnAmerican, since it seems to be against free speech

On the surface it might seem strange that people waste their time watching Fox news... but then again seemingly some human behavior isn't about what makes sense, but rather about exploring what can be best call: the absurdity of life.

In my opinion, very little is more absurd than Fox news, so I guess they will be around for a long long time since no one currently does absurd better than Fox News. They are meeting market demand of what people ask to see. Fox News could be called the News flagship of capitalism at work... Don't report the news, report what it's controllers want to sell...

“There's a sucker born every minute”. P.T. Barnum

Funny! What a circus Fox News really is in the finest tradition of PT Barnum.

To those who watch the circus of Fox News, I wonder if they ever ask:

What is the price of admission to Fox News?

I would opine that it's:

Giving up your freedom of belief

Namaste

PS

I should add

My opinion about Fox also covers CNN, CNBC and every major news outlet right now. It's just that Fox defines absurd better than any other news outlet.

Sayings that Follow you over Time.

2009-11-12T01:44:00.000-08:00

I am curious

Post in the Comments your favorite saying or words of wisdom you use in your life day to day

Or something someone said to you which has stuck in your life over the years

Thanks!

Namaste

Happily & Unhappily in Love

2009-11-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

Finding a partner to share life with is a challenge.

Until taking the time to be with yourself and be happy with yourself.. focusing in on the inability to find another person to be happy with... is just an excuse to not to work on yourself...

This topic is a broken record.

The basic truth here is this:

Many people are happy at being unhappy.

It's a personal choice. No one can magically fix this.

Either be happy with who you are...
and then you find partners that match your nature.
Or be happy at being unhappy and always be in a shitty relationship.

Many people think they are working towards #1 but instead just focus at living in #2.

As Yoda said ”There is no try, just do” Pick 1 or 2 and work at being in the zone you want to hold... Of course people at #2 never will admit they are happy ... since they are unhappy.. It's the perfect catch-22.

nough said.

Plenty of people dwell and make their business in this zone of unhappiness. I don't spend any of my time propping up unhappiness. Oh it's possible to spend lots of money going to counselors and psychologists propping up such bad behavior. But its a waste of relationship (time) to do so...

No one can save a person not ready to be save... and likewise no cure exists for those stuck at being unhappy for their happiness... Which is why Taoism is so effective helping people since Taoism teaches how to release such behavior...

But only if a person is ready to release...

Namaste

Heartfelt Transformations

2009-11-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

I receive many touching heart felt emails. I received one today from India and I want to share my answer with a larger audience today. This answer echos a few other posts I recently made.

Here are two common themes within mid life transformation.

First Common Truth:

A person in midlife transformation will feel isolated and alone.

The reason for this feeling of being isolated, alone: is that the mid life transformation is often the first time a person is "truly" and fully connected to themselves. But more importantly it's within a new awareness of what life means in personal terms.

This is a very very overpowering place to be.

Know when feeling in this manner.

You are not alone, many are experiencing the very same process and that countless others are in the same place you are.

Guides who teach from your heart rather than from some outside truth exist. But for each true guide, hundreds of other guides pushing "outside truths" also abound. The trouble when chasing outside truth is that people end up going many different religions or spiritual paths that makes this all the more confusing of a process. Discover that outside truth will not fully answer questions regarding personal truth.

But it is OK to be "Alone" since this process is all about coming to terms with personal truth.

The Second Common Truth

The people who come to me, also often have a deep desire to reach out , to aid others and help people who are down in their luck. (this is also one of the reasons so many people are trying to help you with their "One" outside truth as I stated earlier)

But here is the secret that must be embraced:

No matter how many other people you are kind to, no matter how many people you might save or help discover "harmony" you will never discover balance, never resolve out your midlife transformation

Until you balance it out by being kind to yourself in even terms.

So to seekers in Transformation I also make sure they discover this before they go out to help others

A simple truth of:

Be kind to yourself also.

Namaste

Morning

2009-11-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

It's a fresh morning.

Waking up into: blue sky, sun

Waking up into: chores, commitments from the past that linger into the now.

Waking up into: sending out awareness. Feeling my heart.

Waking up into: family, connections , shuffling about to fit together

Waking up into:

questions... what is it that ...
questions, I leave open ended...
questions I dismiss to not matter...
since...

I am Waking up into myself. That can never be a question.

Answers are not that which matter in this mix. I dont want any ideas of what to make this into yet.

I am still yawning, still feeling and taking the time, the relationships that time represents to just be present.

Namaste

Finding Place and Discovering Home

2009-11-04T12:43:00.001-08:00

How do you find place? How to find the place which is truly called home?

It's fun to explore...

But finding a home, a place that supports your nature, is more than just exploring.

Discover how to taste potential. Feel out what it would mean to live there. Listen to the tenor of the people, chat to strangers in cafes, gas stations, libraries, main squares. Sit down and poke about the area and parks to get the feeling of the beat of any place you explore.

When imagining what a place is like, you also create a fantasy of what the best it can be. ( and miss the parts that get you in trouble later) Instead feel potentials, compare the potentials to your own life. Examine this relative to how it would be supportive to letting you unfold as a person. Talk to others to get the perspective you miss, reach out and connect to those who live it every day to get the normal day to day aspects of life.

If you can't connect to the people when visiting... then you won't connect if you live there later. Feel your own senses of how you release. If you feel tense in a place then it isn't a place to live, but if you breathe easier.. then follow that and look for the elements that make you breathe easier.

Over time you will find the conditions that match your nature and then when accidentally stumbling across your true home, it will become clear as the potential home it represents

A Taoist in training will wander the world to discover their nature. In this wandering you taste the potential of the world around you, and when you find the place that matches the needs of your own potential...

You discover

Home

Namaste

Prayer Stones

2009-11-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

I only have / (Had) one prayer stone. A beautiful Oval Amber / Jasper I found on the beach many years ago. The stone was carved with white whorls that swirled on the surface. It was a nice stone to meditate with and trace out the intricate paths on the surface.

It normally sat on my desk quietly. Today it called out for some reason. I picked it up and it was as if it said to me, today is the day you pass me onward. It had been called to be taken to a different place. I never question whims, so I placed it into my pocket.

We went up to Kapa' au today. Julie was teaching class and we go to the beach for a hour or so before class and take a break from our normal schedule. It was a nice day. Julie had a beautiful class. On the way home to Hilo we needed gas in Waimea. Instead of my normal gas stop I felt the urge that I should go to the other station... So again I know better and just followed that whim as the best path.

As I pull into the gas station, the fellow next to us started to pull out. He noticed my Personal Tao retreat sign on the car, He stopped his truck in mid flow, literally jumped out and excitedly started to talk to me. He began to ask me some questions about the Tao... But then strangely he jumped straight into a question about prayer stones...

I just smiled a big grin and thought to myself.. Oh so you were the one who called to my prayer stone!

I pull out the stone and gave it to him as a gift. He was very surprised. I said it was his stone to use towards his journey now. I explained briefly how to use the stone.

In 45 years I never had a stranger jump out at me and start talking about prayer stones... So as far as signs go, it doesn't get any easier that that to spot when and where to pass on a gift of connection.

He went off and I hope for his dreams the best of luck as he works towards a better life also. These are tough times and I got enough of his story in our quick passing to know he was in the middle of an important juncture of his own life that the gift would make a difference.

The universe is a far larger and more interconnected place than most people give it credit towards. If you want to change the world: just live kindly and listen to the whims of life when they speak up...

It are often the smallest whims which shift the winds of fate the greatest.

Listen with a open heart, and the connections that need to happen... will happen.

Namaste

Shape Shifting

2009-11-03T09:46:00.000-08:00

I am going to be the beach later today. To be one with sand and family.

Our form isn't just the shape of our body, Our form includes the movement of life and the shape that we create with our movement.

Today is a good day to practice shifting form in how to live life... As is each day. Yesterday I talked a bit about using awareness to look at one's larger form. Today, the follow on thought is:

Within your actions to live fully to your form!

But again action is more than just Body, it includes actions on many levels to compliment your entire essence.

Namaste

Lilies

2009-11-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

Picture of the night lilies out back.

We so blind ourselves paying attention on how we should appear. As example the lily glares out in the light here. Too bright to even see details

It often over overshadows the reflection of our soul clearly to be seen in the water below (but all too often faintly as this picture illustrates if you look), as our life flows.

It is in this fashion how meditation opens up our awareness to see our full nature. It isn't becuase our nature isn't to be seen, but more to the point in our focus of self.. We lose sight of the larger essence we project out as our nature. Meditation practices let us extend our awareness around us and deeply into ourselves, over just seeing what is at the surface.

Namaste

Trust

2009-10-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Trust to dreams tonight

enjoy Samhain

and respect elder ancestors if they happen to pass by while crossing borders tonight. One never knows on such a night.

Namaste

The Children

2009-10-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

In helping couples navigate broken relationships. A statement I hear often is:

I feel sad when I think about the kids.

If you are going through this: Then consider:

This is a time to teach your children how to handle the situation for their own future life.

To hold onto a broken relationship, is to teach the children how to have and hold onto broken relationships.

If you live wisely, making sure you resolve your problems with kindness (by leaving or by resolution), it teaches the children how to be true to the heart.

(Staying in a broken relationship is never true to heart)

The truth:

More than ever this is a time to be personally strong, to live more truly to the heart and inner truth of being. To stand up and live life without regrets.

The children are learning important lessons of how to embrace and work to life in a growing manner.

Be kind so they learn kindness
Be strong and support your nature so they know how to stay true to themselves if they get caught in a bad relationship
Be wise in discovering an understanding that you are indeed a teacher for your family!

So teach lessons not to lose yourself but to live truly to your life.

Times like this can be far better than what is feared, if you take the time to truly be a teacher! This is a time and a chance to show the children how to fully live life: Not to expectations of others nor society...

Is there a perfect way to protect the children no! But the best answer is to always show by example how to fully be. So why not make this an opportunity to teach...

How to Live and to hold oneself to heart and personal truth.

Namaste

Wisdom

2009-10-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

Wisdom

So many seek what is already in reach

Go ahead to make it hard... We all love a challenge... wait not everyone

I am off to curl up and enjoy a quiet moment, everyone in the house is sleeping, the cat at my feet and I will just enjoy the sounds of the night chirping. Watching from the sliding door as stars as clouds play games of cat and mouse on a quiet autumn night...

Namaste

Teaching Stories

2009-10-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

All my students know of how I teach the way people view their life as stories.

I teach how to shift the way we view stories: to hold stories lightly and embrace stories from many angles in order to see the world in a more complete way. To see stories from angles of truth and falseness both.

I came across this Video today and it made me smile!

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Keep in mind the News system only projects single stories from an elite point of view. If you truly want to discover the world. Turn the mainstream news off: begin to share stories, both your own story (not the stories others give to you to think as being you!) and other people's stories.

This also means not to only project out a single story of your own life, since to do so likewise limits your own nature.

Discover life is not a single story... but rather all stories combined to represent a world of Humanity. Not as a single merging as our stories but as a collage of humanity to represent the hopes of billions of people working to become something greater.

Namaste

Poetry

2009-10-26T10:05:00.001-07:00

This morning I was transcribing my pocket notebook into a fresh new book. I re-looked at a poem I wrote in a plane a few years ago

Dancing with Clouds
is not a matter of flight
rather
discovering all
by letting go to fall...
Life's reign

Namaste