Tao of Silverstone

Alicia is a Taoist for sure!

'I think that the film Clueless was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness.'

- Alicia Silverstone, Actress

Ah yes, the Deep that is not Light is not the true Deep!

The Taoist Path

The Taoist Path

Taoism Page

More Tao-ey Goodness!

Tao of Stumbling Stupidity

Do any of you lot like to use Stumble Upon? I do - I like to stay up real late and leave completely inane psychadelic nonsense comments to freak people out or amuse them or whatever.

Here are some examples of comments I have left tonight...

'someone give me a sleeping pill before I eat more cheese on toast man...no ... really ... I'm freakin' out here .. got scabies in my brothers widget and that's not the half of it you pucker faced piece of greedo you puny little example of the biggest guy in the whole of the mall at two minutes to closing time you ...'

'flair doesnt help me to get sex it hurts my efforts. sixty seconds is plenty of time for flairing like a big red person with stupid looking fireworks for cheese on toast dont get me started bow down and beg.'

'... where's my cat? And who the hell are you - stop reading my brain! Purple feels Orange to me. Last week was Jelly (and scarabs don't like that...)'

'elephants are large grey mammals with silly looking eras. for example the 'upside down elephant' era. Or then there was the 'lets all be purple this era' era. My favourite however was the 'not eating peanuts until giraffes stop being such a bunch of long-necks' era (it got called off after about twelve years due to the incredible stubborness of the average Giraffe.)'

Of course sometimes I just like to sling abuse around, but that's a whole 'nother story. Like for instance today I left this one for (behind?)a photography website (or was it cooking - I forget - that's how enthralled I was.)

'God - I'm snoring so hard my freaking nose hurts man.'

Cos I think constructive critisicm is a good thing y'know? Besides nothing like handing out abuse that you can't get bashed up for!

Now ... go meditate or something Tao-boy/Zen-girl ...

Pope Celestine V - Taoist Pope?

Seems that way to me...

"When sent for, Morrone obstinately refused to accept the Papacy, and even, as Petrarch says, attempted flight, till he was at length persuaded by a deputation of cardinals accompanied by the kings of Naples and Hungary. Elected July 7, 1294, he was crowned at S. Maria di Collemaggio in the city of Aquila in the Abruzzi, August 29. He issued two decrees -- one confirming that of Gregory X, which orders the shutting of the cardinals in conclave; the second declaring the right of any Pope to abdicate the Papacy -- a right he, at the end of five months and eight days, proceeded himself to exercise at Naples on the December 13 1294."

Meditation Information

A few articles on my meditation website - please check them out!
Consciousness Expansion

Basic Meditation Instructions

Meditation and science: How it works.

8 Core concepts of meditation

Download free meditation music.

Save The Dugong - Stop The Airbase

"The Okinawa coral reef that the U.S. Department of Defense wants to pave over is home to more than 1,000 species of marine life, including the last population of dugongs in Japan and three kinds of endangered sea turtles. This is so clearly in violation of US law that even Donald Rumsfeld would never try something like this in our own waters,' - stated John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA."

Go here to send an email and/or donate money to stop the US Marines and the Japanese Government from ganging up together to bugger up the planet.

You can protect this beautiful coral reef off Henoko, Okinawa where
less than 50 individuals of the rare dugongs remain by supporting
Greenpeace Japan's "Save the Dugongs in Okinawa, Stop the Air Base"
campaign. Your valuable donation will be used to work with local
people to create a Marine Reserve to protect the dugong...forever.

Download My Meditation Soundtracks free!

Good day to you ...

I have just spent the afternoon here in sunny Melbourne, Australia updating my website Embrace Meditation. This website will now mostly focus on providing

A)Information about meditation and

B) Original Embrace Meditation Soundtracks some of which are available for free.

Soon there will be an entire CD available but for now just a few tracks (mind you at about 10 - 15 minutes each ... )

enjoy!

Oh and I am particulary interested to hear from anyone if you have any troubles with the music download page at lulu.com as I sometimes find their service to be a bit glitchy, (although otherwise it is an excellent thing, no mistake).

The Body of a Man

'The body of man is like a flicker of lightning
existing only to return to Nothingness.
Like the spring growth that shrivels in autumn.
Waste no thought on the process for it has no purpose,
Coming and going like dew.'

Van Hanh, 1018, Vietnamese Buddhist
Translated by W. S. Merwin

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

'Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.'

Notes on Contemporary Zen

"Remember Gautama's final words: 'Work out your own salvation with diligence.' We are fundamentally learners. Zen cannot be taught as there is no thing to teach. Zen can be learned. Learning can be facilitated by others, both living and dead. However, in the end, the responsibility is on the learner. Remember we are learning Zen, not 'Zen things' (history, philosophy, customs, protocols, chants, etc.). It is fortunate that Zen is not dependent on 'things' as our lives are already cluttered with things. Focus on an experiential answer to the question that can be verbalized: 'Who am I and what is going on?' Our learning is unique to each of us. Remember Soyu Matsuoka's saying 'My enlightenment is my enlightenment, and your enlightenment is your enlightenment.' We will find others learning from us as we are learning from them. We may even act as functionaries. However, our focus should be on learning, realizing that other roles are secondary."

by Fred Rossini

Zen Guitar

As a musician and a lover all things Zen, Tao and and well, I admit, of gimmikery, I kind of dig this - Zen Guitar

.... mmm .... gimmikery? or gimmickery? .... ???

Zen in the Art of Bookstores

fun list of books

True Self

"Only when you start to apply Tao, can you truly understand Tao."

"eliminate distinction, goodness or badness, comparison, likeness or unlikeness, and ... act according to one’s True Self."

"Heaven does not stop progressing. Inspired by it, a noble man will never stop advancing."

"There is no more the True-Self in a noble person, and there is no less the True-Self in an ordinary person. That is exactly what the Heart Sutra described: All dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are not produced nor stopped, not defiled nor immaculate, not deficient nor complete." Henry Chang

Knowing all this, I should probably stop giving Born Again Christians such a hard time!

P.S. I passed my first grading in Wing Chun! ... not that this means I'm any good ... bit of work to do there yet!

God.

Here is the rant I mentioned below.

Hopefully I am not ex-communicated from the family for this!!!

I probably need to edit it some - but later, the sun is shining out there!

Tao of Blind Bigotry

Born Again Christians are (generally) misguided, insensitive, idiot bigots. Sorry to be slightly hypocritical here but nothing gets me hot under the collar like a bunch of stupid self-righteous fundamentalist fools flapping around in an orgy of ego-fuelled destructiveness. I mean really, read on (from the article linked to above, a Christian rant against Buddhism ...)

"...if we worship idols, burn incense to other gods, turn prayer wheels, build vain sand mandalas and prayer monuments to false deities, He has promised to curse us. This is instructive to the Tibetan people who may wonder why God has judged their nation and to us if we do not turn away from our nation's present wickedness. God is long-suffering and yet His judgments are righteous and forthcoming."

For the love of Pete! They are talking about the Tibetans here - and suggesting that their fate (at the hands of Communist China) is Divine Punishment - DUDES! I thought yours was 'The God of Love'?

Sigh ... we all have our bugbear eh? I was dragged up through a Born Again church as a kid and to be honest, they rankle me still.

In fact, fuck it, I am shortly going to publish a satirical rave I wrote a little while back about my experiences as a teenager forced to attend the torture that is the Pentacostal Youth Group each Saturday night - stay tuned!

But first I am off to my first ever Wing Chun grading - wish me luck!

Tao of Ginsberg

Eternal Voice of the Sunflower Departed

The rest of the site is here.

Impossible Qi Frenzy!

If any of you Shaolin experts out there come up with any 'undefeatable' moves then you might want to use this Kung-Fu Name Generator to give your creation a suitably venerable title!

Tao of Post-Modernism

I wrote an essay on postmodernism once - the only one I ever handed up at Uni before dropping out (because i decided during the writing and research of the essay that Uni was an outmoded construct), I got a High Distinction, as it happens. Then I promptly lost it in the blaze of guts and glory that was my early adult life ... can't find the essay either ...

The Spiritual Athlete's Path to Enlightenment

An interesting tradition... - if a little ... err .. Japanese in it's harshness...

Wing Chun

Going for my first Wing Chun gradings on Saturday - wish me luck!

Revolution Tao

Coffee has been brewed, it is now in my stomach.

Revolution has been brewing for some time in my head.

Fired up on caffeine I must loudly proclaim -

BEWARE!

I will not put up with anything that pisses me off

but will walk away.

I will cease to even form opinions

but will walk away.

I will turn around and walk away.

Fuck it - this life is too short

If I cannot see any intrinsic value

then it is

OUT!

I will walk away.

(And I think I will have another coffee - it really does kick the old kaboose along when it's needed!)

What You'll Wish You'd Known

"Curiosity turns work into play. For Einstein, relativity wasn't a book full of hard stuff he had to learn for an exam. It was a mystery he was trying to solve. So it probably felt like less work to him to invent it than it would seem to someone now to learn it in a class.

One of the most dangerous illusions you get from school is the idea that doing great things requires a lot of discipline. Most subjects are taught in such a boring way that it's only by discipline that you can flog yourself through them. So I was surprised when, early in college, I read a quote by Wittgenstein saying that he had no self-discipline and had never been able to deny himself anything, not even a cup of coffee.
"

Great article.

Tao of Conflict

Mmmmmm .... Today I have been met with a strange and rare challenge to my beliefs and standards.

Without boring you all with the details, it will suffice to say that I have become embroiled in a falling out with a close friend.

Now this is something that very very rarely happens in my life - mainly because I go to great lengths to make sure it does not happen. I can actually only think of one other time in my adult life when I have had a problem with a close friend that has resulted in a parting of ways. And even then, it was all a lot more civilised and most likely the relationship would be at least partially redeemable if our paths were to cross again.

But in this instance I feel that I have been unjustifiably pushed and pushed to the brink by my so-called friend and his incredibly selfish, and now downright nasty behaviour. In fact I have never been so insulted in my life.

So that is that, I have tried and tried to make amends (even though - from my perspective of course - I have done nothing wrong), but the friendship is over - kuput. I will not speak to this man again.

But as a follower of the Way - how shall I otherwise respond? My belly is burning with fire and I straight up feel like hunting my stupid ex-mate down and confronting him... but I know this is not the way ...

So I consulted the I Ching. To the question of how I should deal with the situation - it gave me this response.

1) Qian - The Creative - The Emperor (Sublime success, potent Yang energy -
Comprises Heaven over Heaven)

I will not go into too much detail, but suffice to say that I saw in this reading an urging to use this situation to spur me on to great heights, to let my success in life be my revenge.

My changing lines gave me a second hexagram that warned me to go forth with caution and to conduct myself wisely and with dignity.

So be it.

I will not go and scream 'Fuck off you pathetic little maggot!' even though I would like to. Instead I know that one day he will regret his actions, long after I have put the affair out of my mind, and he out of my 'sublimely successful' life.

Flow Like Water, my friends, Around the Rocks...

Metaphysics, study of idealism, dualism, materialism, evil, cosmological, ontological argument, god, mind, body

Wisest are they who know they do not know.

Flow Like Water

A passing soul just directed my attention to this section of TCT

'if you were to push against the rocks of your life – how could you ever move them? You can’t - just like water can’t shift a huge boulder out of the stream. Best to flow on and save yourself a lot of bother. Relax – don’t take it on – it’s just not worth it!'

Which was helpful of them because I was sitting here feeling frustrated and impatient with the slow progress that seems to be my lot at the moment.

Thank you kind friend, you have reminded me to breath deep and take it easy on myself - there is no hurry to arrive, there is only a long and winding road to casually stroll along.

Ants

To the Tao people are but straw dogs ... umm ... or ...

ants

Taoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Taoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To Stink of Tao

A complete lack of thought for the Tao leads to true spontaneous accordance.

Each day I get up and do what I gotta do and as such I have very little to say about

Tao.

Forget Tao, Just Be.

Tai Chi & Qigong (chi kung) DVD, Book, FREE Lessons, Teachers Directory, Natural Health - Asian Lifestyle Products Home Page

Tai Chi & Qigong (chi kung) DVD, Book, FREE Lessons, Teachers Directory, Natural Health - Asian Lifestyle Products Home Page