"embodying the Tao"

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Dualistic thinking is a sickness.Religion is a distortion.Materialism

is cruel.Blind spirituality is unreal.Chanting is no more holy than

listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more

sacred than simply breathing,religious robes no more spiritual than

work clothes.If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get

caught up in spiritual superficialities.Instead, live a quiet and

simple life free from ideas and concepts.Find contentment in the

practice of undiscriminating virtue, the only true power.Giving to

others selflessly and anonymously, radiating light throughout the

world, illuminating your own darkness, your virtue becomes a

sanctuary for yourself and all beings.This is what is meant by

embodying the Tao.

from the Hua Hu Ching

http://www.yakrider.com/the_daily_yak.htm

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" When we in the West speak of "basic facts of existence" we tend

immediately to conceive these facts as reducible to certain austere

and foolproof propositions--logical statements that are guaranteed to

have meaning because they are empirically verifiable. These are what

Bertrand Russel called "atomic facts." Now for Zen it is

inconceivable that the basic facts of existence should be able to be

stated in any proposition however atomic. For Zen, from the moment

fact is transferred to a statement it is falsified. One ceases to

grasp the naked reality of experience, and one grasps a form of words

instead.... The whole aim of Zen is not to make foolproof statements

about experience, but to come to direct grips with reality without

the mediation of logical verbalizing. " - Thomas Merton, in

the introduction to John C.H. Wu's - The Golden Age of Zen

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Tao Te Ching

Can you hold fast your crescent soul and not let it wandercan you make

your breath as soft as a baby'scan you wipe your Dark Mirror free of

dustcan you serve and govern without effortcan you be the female at

Heaven's Gatecan you light up the world without knowledgebeget things

and keep thembut beget without possessingkeep without controllingthis

is Dark Virtue [10]

-- as translated by Red Pine

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God is a pure no-thing concealed in now and here:the less you

reach for Him the more He will appear.

(Angelus Selesius)

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If you want to describe its essence,The best you can say is

"Not-two."In this "Not-two" nothing is separate,And nothing in the

world is excluded.The enlightened of all times and placesHave entered

into this truth.In it there is no gain or loss;One instant is ten

thousand years.There is no here, no there;Infinity is right before

your eyes.~Seng T'san