Yesterday I wrote that you are enlightened. Today I write that you are not enlightened. The decisive word in all of this is, of course, you.

How do we make sense of this?

You are enlightened when the personal identity in the personal Me/I ends and you are not enlightened, because it is realized that this word, you, is just a concept ... a projection.

When we believe in this concept, we have a story with a nice and neat beginning (birth) and an awful conclusion (death). Free of the Me/I concept the story is not taken very seriously. When we stop believing in the concept, the presence of this moment is, pretty much, everything. It is what is, free of resistance.

As Byron Katie is fond of saying, you can argue with reality, but you’ll be wrong only 100% of the time. So, go for it.

You as a concept is just an object, not all that different from the computer you’re looking at right now. An object can’t awaken from itself. It’s really that simple.

So you are both enlightened and not enlightened at the same time. How does it feel to be and not be all at once?

It reminds me of that Danish Prince who said, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” What’s your answer?

Download post here: YouAreNotEnlightened

Tags: Concepts

This post presents a gateway to your awakening that is rock solid. I am not going to waste time with all of the background and analytical elements that I normally include in my posts. I’m just going to shout out the truth without unnecessary elaboration.

Imagine that one day someone gave you the gift of happiness. How might that gift be wrapped? How would happiness be handed to you? If, over time, you grew tired of happiness, how might you improve it?

These question are absurd and we know they are absurd. Happiness is not an object. And because it’s not an object, then we need to ask ourselves, what is happiness?

If it’s not an object, then is happiness real? We can’t point to happiness. We can’t hold happiness. Yet we struggle to attain it day after day. What is really going on? Are we chasing a phantom?

Happiness is not an object. Rather, it’s just a word. At best, it’s a pointer to a quality of energy. But in and of itself, it’s just an idea - a concept. No matter how hard we search for it, no matter how diligent are methods, our attempts to attain it can never succeed.

Exactly the same reasoning applies to the idea of the self; you and me. You cannot hold yourself. You cannot give yourself away. You can’t point to anything and say, “this is me.” Like happiness, the self, you and I, is just an idea, a concept. The self is not real.

And just like happiness, you can’t improve the self. You can’t improve something that doesn’t exist. The instant we stop believing in the concept of the me, we are free. This is what Jesus meant when he said the truth will set you free. Psychological slavery is the mind’s predilection to assert a separate self that is never enough, that must always struggle in this life.

So this day forward, pledge that I will see through every form of conceptual reasoning that motivates us to get enlightened and to be a better me. I’ll say it again, you can’t change or improve something that doesn’t exist!

Now, if you see that the word self is just a concept, something that doesn’t actually exist in the universe, then you must realize that no other selves exist. Anytime you love or hate another, you, as an idea, are loving another as an idea. It’s simply the interplay of thought. Yes you might experience love or hate, but nothing is happening between two selves, because it can’t. It can only be the play of thought as thought. There is no self and there is no other.

Since there is no other, then there can never be anyone to blame or worship. No one is bad and no one is good. This doesn’t mean that you have to put up with annoyance, stupidity, or cruelty in your life. THIS will always provide a way out. This also doesn’t mean that pain will cease happening when we wake up from the conceptual. Pain is as much a part of life as pleasure. They are each happenings within THIS.

If you are ever to touch the truth of this moment, you must see through the error of establishing any concept as real. You, as a concept, do not exist in the universe. Even the universe does not exist as anything but a concept. The universe cannot be grasped, it cannot be seen - it is only a thought. There is no universe.

Nothing real exists as thought. Only thought exists as thought.

Where does that leave us, because, clearly, all kind of things are seen, felt, heard, and tasted. What is really going on?

This is where the wording gets really tricky. But we can see that there is just this ... with no you or me. There is only and always THIS. and this THIS is the Tao, or God, or Buddha mind or coca-cola. It can only be just this.

The transformation is all about seeing through the conceptual. Anytime we assert the objective reality of a concept, we enter the world of human-centric fantasy. This is being a slave to conditioned thinking.

What is the difference between a life lived conceptually and one lived awake? The difference is this: the struggle is over. There is nothing to attain and no one to attain anything. Can you see how incredibly amazing that is? Can you see the wonder in it? I truly hope so. There is, truly, no where to go. Only thoughts go places. There is THIS.

The problem in all such understanding is that we are attempting to capture the essence of real life and translate that into language. There is a great limitation in that. But just as we can see that happiness does not possess any objective reality, so we can see that the same understanding applies to “I”, “me”, and “other”.

This is not a matter of becoming silent, although it does happen that this profound understanding occurs in silence. But the silence referred to in these teachings is not an effort by the separate me. It couldn’t be, because there is no separate me. The silence refers to the din of thought that creates the universe of me and others. It is that which becomes silent.

Waking up means to see through the mind’s existence of thought which asserts reality to concepts. We move from delusional beliefs in the conceptual, to living the actual as the actual. Waking up means waking up from the dream of thought. Only thought can assert the objectivity of happiness, but this same objectivity can never be found in the actual world.

If you have questions about any of this, please contact me (eric@liberationfromthelie.com). I can help you through this.

When we wake up from the conceptual you and me, the opportunity to be passionate and creative explode. All of the energy we invested in making a better me or in struggling to change others ends. When that energy is freed up, a vast opening happens. It is so beautiful - Life just is and it is you and you are it.

Super Important Note: Don’t fall into the mind’s trap of spiritual and esoteric nihilism. When we talk about happiness, self, or other, we are talking about concepts. What we actually experience is the truth of THIS moment. It’s one thing to see through the illusionary nature of concepts and quite another to embrace the real. This is not a path of negation - it is the path of truth and what happens in your life, even thought, is the real of this moment. Don’t negate the beautiful tree or your incredible eyes, or that tick that’s sucking blood. That is the vivid, living truth of this moment. Even memories are real as memories. Love them. Have fun with them. Cry over them - but know them for what they are - the evanescent arising of THIS.

A very quick example: moments ago I walked my dog. The mind would have said that “I” was walking “my” “dog”. The mind translates the mystery of THIS into the quickly understandable domain of language. That’s how the mind works and it’s really great for that - but it is falling into the error of placing credence in concepts, if only for the sake of convenience. What really happened was THAT! It was the every-changing THIS happening. It was full of colors, sounds, encounters with other “dogs” - it all happened and now THIS is happening. When the concept of me and other (dog) is seen through as just the mode of the mind (of convenient communication), then there can never be a problem. Even if you don’t “get” THIS - your not getting it is also THIS.

Also, know that I write this for me. Don’t hear these words as coming from someone (a concept) who knows (another concept) to you who doesn’t know (yet another concept). I write these for my own clarity knowing that it is all dedicated to finding out what is false, so that the true shines, free of the obstruction of belief and psychological projection.
Download Post: TheGateway

Tags: Belief, Concepts

Joseph Stalin once said, on the occasion of ordering the immediate execution of any Soviet soldier who failed to march head-long into German fire, that “It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Soviet Army.”

Wisdom loves irony and the Dao De Jing is no exception. Nietzsche expressed contempt for what he called the “do-gooder” and this same contempt, based on the same reasoning, is expressed in the relatively large-scale Verse 38 which begins the “De Jing” section of the Dao De Jing (De is translated as integrity, virtue, or efficacy and Jing means “classic&rdquo.

Let’s dive right in with the David Hinton and the Addiss/Lombardo translations. We will start with the easier to “get” Hinton:

High Integrity (Te/De) never has Integrity
and so is indeed Integrity.

Let’s re-word this phrase just a little:

Doing good is not doing good
and so is, indeed, doing good.

Now the second sentence using Hinton:

Low Integrity never loses integrity
and so is not at all integrity.

Now in our relatively awkward construct:

Base doing good is not doing good
And so is, indeed, doing good.

When we plan to “do good”, to act with “integrity” we lack both goodness and integrity. Why? Because when we intend to do good or to act with integrity, we are operating from a subtly different motive. And what is that motive?

Anytime we act from motive, the self-defined “good” action serves another master and that master is the ego body (see: The 3 Bodies). Thus it is not doing good at all, but it appears to be the doing of good. It’s a show put on for others, as well as our own deficient/lacking self. Operating from motive, we are saying, “look at me - look at how wonderful I am.” Or we could be saying, “read my posts. See how spiritual I am.”

Lao Tse didn’t respect phonies, no matter how good their acts might appear. He saw through them. The Dao De Jing, if its words kill the fear-based you, does away with all standards. When we define ourselves through words and beliefs, we sustain the false “I”. We are using conceptual standards to produce an image of ourselves that validates our Fear-Self (Liberation from the Lie). The Dao De Jing is a plea for action and not the motive to define one’s self through one’s actions. It’s just action as action. The maintenance of a “good”, “loving”, “loyal” self is, in a word, bullshit - a fiction designed to compensate for the inner pain of identification with inadequacy and worthlessness - the very issue that we discussed in Verse 37.

One more key insight here. Integrity is not concerned with a definition of integrity. The word integrity and its many potential definitions are wholly conceptual. They are abstractions, coldly isolated from the immediacy of life. That’s why I say, forget goodness, Buddhism, love, charity, and all the other lovely sounding phrases that people resisting pain enjoy shouting to the world. For most of us they are merely public announcements designed to convince our suffering inner being that we aren’t as worthless and inadequate as it really believe ourselves to be.

This is about getting real and coming to the realization that these are just words and as words they are utterly without substance. Wake up to your own phoniness. I used to work in a prison and one thing many of the Black prisoners knew about so many of the white “do-gooders” that would visit the prison from time to time was just how vested they were in their words. They could smell their smarmy bullshit a mile away and would chuckle at their pious admonitions. The prisoners embraced their frailties, as well as the horrendous inequalities of the world in which they were raised. They saw through the facade of this moral civilization.

Now a look at how Addiss/Lombardo translate this same phrase:

Hi Te? No Te!
That’s what Te is.
Low Te doesn’t lack Te;
That’s what Te is not.

This stanza is not as forthright as the Hinton, but, for me, is a lot more powerful and that’s why I saved it for after the discussion. The remainder of the Verse follows this theme. Let’s be bold and use the Addiss/Lombardo translation.

Those highest in Te take no action
And don’t need to act.

Let’s stop there and see what is going on in that statement and in the larger stanza in which it resides. This is one of those very esoteric statements in the Dao that readers tend to gloss over, but is key to understanding not only this Verse, but the whole of the Dao.

First, we can see that how Lao Tse uses Te in this sentence is very much like the way he uses Tao going all the way back to Verse 1. He refers to the mystery of non-being. In enlightenment it is clearly seen that while there is doing, the heart beats, the fingers, type, there is no doer. The beating heart is real - it’s not conceptual. The fingers typing are real, they are not conceptual. But the mental projection of a doer is conceptual and not real. This is the very key to awakening. Until this is seen, directly, one will inhabit one of the lower rungs of Te (described below). That is the key delusion of the unawakened. All suffering, all struggle is in the projection of the doer, which is not real in the first place. It is, entirely, a psychological energy that is, essentially, an adaptation to suffering when we were just infants.

So when Lao Tse says that there is no one who takes action, he is speaking from an enlightened perspective. We read these words, but there is no reader present. The reading may link up with memories - but all of that is of the body and is not our essential selves, unattached to any belief.

Let’s move on.

The lowest in Te take action
And do need to act.

Lao Tse enjoyed hierarchies and enjoys them because they make what can be confusing clear. Verse 38 uses several hierarchies to elucidate the scale of Te. Seen as points on a continuum, we can see that there is a living evolution to the highest Te, where there is no Te at all. The remainder of this Verse is a structured hierarchy.

Those highest in benevolence take action (we are moving down the the Te continuum, rung by rung)
But don’t need to act.
Those highest in righteousness take action
And do need to act.
Those highest in propriety take action
And if people don’t reciprocate
Roll up their sleeves and throw them out.

How many of you can relate to the final reference? Unless you are honest with yourselves, you will always continue to live your life dishonestly.

Therefore,
Lose Tao
and Te follows.

We’ve defined Te (De) as meaning integrity, but other translators have also used the terms virtue and efficacy. The difference between Tao and Te is that Tao is entirely empty, but Te has substance. But its substance is not self-referential. It is, always, contextual. It is of the moment. Thus there is no such thing as a man (or woman) of integrity/virtue/efficacy. There are only happenings which would appear to possess those qualities relevant to the moment. Once we elevate the essence of context into a Rule, we debase life. We have created a concept that supersedes the immediacy of life. We have started the path that leads to authority and force. This is not a trivial distinction. Now we have produced a “standard” and we can measure the relative worth and value of people based on how well they compare with the standard. We have a basis for who receives the gold stars and who will not. This is, indeed, a primrose path.

Lose Te
And benevolence follows.
Lose benevolence
And righteousness follows.
Lose righteousness
And propriety follows.

Propriety dilutes loyalty and sincerity:
Confusion begins.
Foreknowledge glorifies the Tao:
Stupidity sets in.

The term “foreknowledge” refers to the codification of knowledge and observation. The term Tao (Dao) is used by both the Confucians and the Taoists. In this case, Lao Tse is attacking Confucian belief as conceptual by putting into place a “philosophy of life” that is divorced from the immediacy of living. He associates this rule-creation process with stupidity. The Tao (Way) of Confucianism can be taught. In contrast, Taoism can only be lived

Verse 38 concludes:

And so the ideal person dwells
In substance, not dilution (in reality as it presents itself and not in its “dilution” as concept)
In reality, not glory;
Accepts one, reject the other.

Rejecting conceptual knowledge is an immediate outcome of awakening and this is, exactly, what differentiates the awakened person from the ordinary one. Freed from conceptual thinking, we really are incredibly, indescribably free. There is no good and bad - there is just this. We could spend ten thousand lifetimes debating what is good and what is bad and it would never come to an agreement that would take us one step away from concept. The ultimate concept is that of the self. Freed from that, all the other expressions of false knowledge fall perfectly into place.

Download this post: Verse 38

Tags: Behavior, ego, Belief, Concepts

Most of us think of the Tao Te Ching consists of 81 separate chapters, but the earliest versions of this book had no chapter divisions. It was a single continuous document.
Ever since I first read the Tao, I couldn’t help but be struck by the disunity of several of the chapters (or verses). A single verse might possess two or even three seemingly disparate themes. So it appears with Verse Two. This verse takes on an epic journey by challening us with our attachment to our most heartfelt beliefs and finally returns us to the mysterious evanescent, yet changeless world of the Tao.
I think of this verse as having three discrete but closely related sections and will present my commentary based on this premise. While in the complex Verse One in which I presented all three of my favorite translations, for this commentary I’ll be using only the Lombardo version, which I tend to prefer to Hinton or Star. I have found that it’s most useful to have at least three translations of the Tao if only because the text offers such an array of interpretation and nuance. When putting together this commentary, I have relief on six different translations, but have settled upon the Hinton, Star, and Lombardo translations as the core source material for all of the quotes. When choosing your own version, don’t necessarily choose the most popular (which I believe is Stephen Mitchell’s), but choose the one that speaks to you most clearly and emotionally. If you’re wondering why I have decided not to use the Mitchell translation, it’s only because as much as I really love his perspective throughout the Tao, I find it just a little too filtered by his deep involvement in Buddhism. I have made every effort, in this commentary, to conform to those qualities of the Tao that are unique to it - although many, if not most, of the key perceptions and insights of the Tao have been incorporated into the teachings of Zen Buddhism.
Let’s move on to Verse Two.

The first section of Verse 2 consists of just two lines:

Recognize beauty and ugliness is born.
Recognize good and evil is born.

The idea expressed here is that when we define a concept, we also define its opposite. Thus when we share an understanding of what is good, we are, perforce, compelled to also define what is not good. Concepts are categories and since they are created by a particular culture at a particular time, they are defined by that culture and that place. For centuries in China it was thought good for husbands to bind the feet of women. At many times and in many lands it was thought good to own slaves and treat them as chattel. For much of human history love and intimacy between two people of the same sex was identified as evil and punishable by death. People have a tendency to see the “normative” conceptual understandings of their era as the “right” ones and those of the past as dated, if not ignorant. By supporting one norm against another, we create our own mental and emotional prisons.
Thus in this first stanza, when we live our lives by concepts, no matter how widely accepted they may be, we have created a world that is closed. This is, literally, one of the best ways of not going with the flow. We have, unwittingly, blinded ourselves by our beliefs. We have closed ourselves from the organic flow of the Way. We become hobbled by a dutiful loyalty to our beliefs and concepts about right and wrong, happiness and unhappiness, good and bad, and all the rest.

The second section of Verse 2 deals with the remarkable unity of opposites. While it continues the theme of the first section which seeks to goad us from our attachment to limited conceptual knowledge, the second section does away with our idea that opposing polarities are separate. The Tao says,

Is and Isn’t produce each other.
Hard depends on easy,
Long is tested by short,
High is determined by low,
Sound is harmonized by voice,
After is followed by before.

Our conceptual knowing rests on the false premise that polarities, whether they be about the “good” or the “low” are merely relative manifestations that fail to possess any quality that can persist as real or valid. What is very large will be very small compared to something else. Moreover, what is small to us, will be vast to an ant. Our conceptual notions, we discover, are based much more on convenient language than they are on any insight that can endure and be seen as true and valid through changing circumstances and perspectives. This section does away with a human or culture centric of experiencing the immediacy of this mysterious life.

Section 3 of Verse Two continues on the theme of action based on the insights garnered in Sections 1 and 2. It says,

Therefore the Sage is devoted to non-action (wu-wei),
Moves without teaching,
Creates ten thousand things without instruction,
Lives but does not own,
Acts but does not presume,
Accomplishes without taking credit.

Thus the Sage is nothing less than the Tao itself. For is it not the Tao that does nothing yet through it everything gets done? Is it not true that the Tao never sets out to teach? Does it not create the ten thousand things without instruction? Does it not live but owns not a thing?
The Sage is the Tao. When we are free of our conceptual shackles, no matter how elevated and spiritual they might appear to our ego and the aspiring egos of others, our compulsion to teach, to take credit, to own, disappears in an instant. We are Free. We need to claim nothing. Each moment provides us an opening and we are that opening.

The Verse concludes,

When no credit is taken,
Accomplishment endures.

If I seek to take credit, then the accomplishment that I claim is mine and mine alone will become not only a source of contention and dispute, but it will fail to survive the onslaught of time and attack. But when I am utterly free of any concept, what interest could I possibly have in taking credit for anything? Everything appears, but that which endures does not know the meaning of credit. Were I to take credit for something that I assert is “good” then I have elevated the “good” into a concept and thus have posited that which isn’t good. I have thus acted in a way that resists the Tao and thus must fail. How much more direct - more powerful - and more liberating it is to just let go and be free of any assertion of “mine”.
Verse 2 takes us on a journey from the social to the esoteric. In this way, it returns us to the mysterious Verse One, through which the portal to the Way opens wide.

Tags: Concepts, doing