“I hate quotations.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology Newsletter

JANUARY 9, 2008

FreeWillAstrology.com

“You have everything you need in the present situation to work with impeccability. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work toward manifesting additional resources and opportunities. It does mean that the present situation supplies you with everything you need to take the next step.”

– Jonathan Zap, “A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler”

My book

“PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:

How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings”

is available for sale at

tinyurl.com/qaj62 and

tinyurl.com/3dsx6q

Here’s an excerpt:

ART LESSONS

French Impressionist painter Henri Matisse wanted his art to be “free from unsettling or disturbing subjects . . . soothing, a cerebral sedative as relaxing as a comfortable armchair.”

Spanish painter Pablo Picasso had a different opinion. “Art is offensive,” he asserted. “At least, art should be allowed to be offensive. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous.”

As you practice the art of pronoia, you will probably get best results if you swing back and forth between Matisse’s and Picasso’s approaches.

Every once in a while, try out William Butler Yeats’ idea, too: “Art that doesn’t attempt the impossible is not performing its function.”

To read news and features from my book, go here:

tinyurl.com/lhwx2

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OTHER PRONOIA RESOURCES:

This week I’m featuring the work of JONATHAN ZAP.

He’s putting together a collection of his writings in book form. For the moment, we have to be satisfied with reading his insights on his website at zaporacle.com.

Here are some of my favorite essays:

“The Glorified Body: Metamorphosis of the Body and the Crisis Phase of Human Evolution”

tinyurl.com/2bg6ag

“Suffering associated with body image has reached such epidemic proportions in our culture that it must be counted as one of the greatest spiritual plagues ever to be visited upon mankind.”

“Resource Fluctuations Happen–Working with Scarcity and Abundance”

tinyurl.com/yq96pq

“The Taoist assumption is that the universe is unfolding as it should. Resources fluctuate, and fluctuation is the heartbeat of life, an essential part of the dynamic aliveness and interest of incarnation. And it takes times of both abundance and scarcity, along with every other sort of fluctuation, for there to be development.”

“Projection: The Enemy of Peace and Justice”

tinyurl.com/28etdr

“Environmental destruction, racism, violence, injustice, war derive from a single source — the human psyche. An activist who is not interested in psychological underpinnings is analogous to a botanist who is not interested in biology.”

“Dynamic Paradoxicalism”

tinyurl.com/2djg56

“The greatest of life skills is the ability to live with ambiguity, ambivalence, and paradox without trying to regularize these uncertainties into finished, absolute truths.”

“Kill the Time Grid and Fire up your Life: A Lesson in Practical Magic”

tinyurl.com/yutjyd

“The test of a big dream is to ask yourself, ‘Will I remember this well on my death bed?’ If you have a big dream you will probably find that to accomplish it will require a minimum of two hours of devoted activity per day.”

“The Path of the Numinous: Living and Working with the Creative Muse”

or “The Muse: Ego Can’t Live with Her, Creative Fulfillment Can’t Happen without Her”

tinyurl.com/yvcwls

“A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler”

tinyurl.com/2vn7a7

To find out about Jonathan’s DREAM INTERPRETATION service and other counseling services, go to zaporacle.com and click on the blue-green sphere. I have personally benefited greatly from doing dream work with him.

To use Jonathan’s ORACLE, go to zaporacle.com and click on the gold sphere at the top. Here are some quotes from the Oracle cards:

1. “The core of your relationships to people, sex, time, money, power, eating, politics, career, health, and spirituality is your relationship to yourself. Get that relationship right (a moment-by-moment challenge of epic proportions) and all those other relationships will be as good as they possibly can be. Omit, neglect, or distort any part of your relationship to yourself and all those other relationships will accordingly be diminished and distorted.”

2. “Find your spirit medicine and remember that what works for someone else, may not work for you (and vice-versa). Also what works for you when used consciously, sparingly, in just right the circumstances, might be disastrous as a habit.”

3. “The Warrior must be aware that the psyche is conservative in nature, preferring old, self-destructive neurotic patterns to the unknown. The Warrior must have the insight and determination to break those patterns, particularly those created by early childhood situations.”

4. “The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One’s sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed — a situation which can lead to new perspectives.”

(Note: I endorse Jonathan Zap because I like his work. This is not an advertisement, and I get no kickbacks.)

Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES.

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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2008 Rob Brezsny

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Your real identity is that you are an interdimensional traveler who arrived from some other dimension at birth and who, almost every day, travels to another dimension called the dream time, has a guaranteed portal out of this matrix called death, and who interpenetrates with the varied dimensions generated by other human psyches.

—-From A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler

You are the ones I call out to from the edge of the campground because this is the time when the individual, isolated mutants, like scattered embers glowing in the cold, dark forest need to gather together to create a blaze of many colors, the radiance of which will reach out to the four corners of this richly chaotic realm…

—-From A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler

Our desires, addictions, obsessions and various neurotic sufferings are predicated on our enslavement to linear time. Against the backdrop of the dread ticking of the clocking we anxiously seek to enforce our will on the Tao. But against the backdrop of the infinite and eternal, the phantoms we pursue appear quite differently. —–Jonathan Zap (Zap Oracle card)

The greatest of life skills is the ability to live with ambiguity, ambivalence and paradox without trying to regularize these uncertainties into finished, absolute truths.  From Dynamic Paradoxicalism—the Anti-Ism Ism
People are not always what they seem. Respect the otherness of the other and don’t be sure you know who they are. It is hard enough to know who you are. (Zap Oracle card)

As the race car drivers say, don’t look at the wall if you are heading toward it, look at where you want to go, and where I want to go is through those shimmering planes of improbable coincidence, through the interstices of the web, sparkling constellations of thought forms and images encoded as zeros and ones, indeterminate autonomous zones where fellow mutants disassociate from Babylon Matrix, shape-shift and shimmer iridescently with possibilities.  I seek to follow time lines less traveled by, but where there are promises to keep, and many paths and errands meet, and I avoid the timelines of white powders which may seem lovely, dark and deep, but are where withering souls go to creep.   —From Friends don’t let Friends Incarnate in the Babylon Matrix

Dynamic paradoxicalism is my attempt to create a meta-philosophy that is a counter to fundamentalist and absolutist thought which is nearly as common amongst New Agers and the left as it is among religious fundamentalists and the right.  The greatest of life skills is the ability to live with ambiguity, ambivalence and paradox without trying to regularize these uncertainties into finished, absolute truths.  Dynamic paradoxicalism recognizes that most important areas of truth exist as a paradox where seemingly contradictory elements have a dynamic level of validity based on context specific circumstances.  Although a greater conception that synthesizes the disparate elements of a paradox into a grand unit is an awesome addition to the conceptual tool box, it is not always the most useful tool in the box.  Dynamic paradoxicalism recommends an ability to slide between the poles of a paradox, in some circumstances favoring the point of view of one side of the paradox, in other cases the other pole, and in still other cases favoring the unified view.

—–From Dynamic Paradoxicalism—the Anti-Ism Ism

Always remember that there are time lines in the affairs of  a mutant which, entered when portals open, lead on to fortune, omitted and all the voyage of our incarnation is bound in shallows and in miseries.  And oh how can one ever tell how rich the Babylon matrix is in shallows and in miseries! Intricate networks of stagnant, toxic rivulets seeping into florescent cubicles, scheduled incarnations set to run by clock and currency, the folk that seem to dwindle with every nervous step,  hungry ghosts hurrying, then hobbling, on the path of winding down.  In such a darkly trending part of the  multiverse are we now afloat, and we must seize the portals when they open, or lose the timelines of sparkly green fire which lead us to other worlds than these.

—– From Friends Don’t let Friends Incarnate in the Babylon Matrix

There are other paths than those of shallow misery, but they are easier to see when you realize the Babylon Matrix is only one of a multiverse of dreams. But what a noisy, bustling, buzzing, in your face sort of a dream it is, the dream of a Cyclops with one blinded eye careening drunkenly down the darkened skull-shadowed avenues of history while headlines blare “ This dream is an emergency!  Grasp it with white knuckles!”
—– From Friends Don’t let Friends Incarnate in the Babylon Matrix

And has no one ever told you the basic “facts of life” that to look into another’s eyes is to witness beacons from another dimension flashing across the night of time? Did you believe the Babylon Matrix lie that other entities were hottie objects with which you could have “casual sex” (dumbest of dumb oxymorons)? Didn’t you know that intimacy with the other is an impingement, an interpenetration, a merging of dimensions with consequences of cosmic proportions? Didn’t you realize that all relationship is interdimensional travel?—–From A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler

The core of your relationships to people, sex, time, money, power, eating, politics, career, health, spirituality, the Tao, the multiverse is your relationship to yourself. Get that relationship right (a moment by moment challenge of epic proportions) and all those other relationships will be as good as they possibly can be. Omit, neglect, or distort any part of your relationship to yourself and all those other relationships will accordingly be diminished and distorted.  (Zap Oracle card)

According to the Taoist I Ching, evolution occurs on the path of “reverse alchemy,” the path of returning to Tao and essence. It does not necessarily occur merely by being in tune with the Tao and essence. Viruses, daisies, spiders all live perfectly in tune with the Tao and their essence, never deviate from it, but they don’t have the human potential for metamorphic evolution. Acquired conditioning inevitably separates us from our essence and attunement with the Tao, but if we are able to follow the path of reverse alchemy, undo the conditioning and rediscover our essence and Tao, then we will have furthered our evolution and the evolution of self awareness everywhere.  (Zap Oracle card)

The heart has two phases, contraction and expansion, systole and diastole. Mammal incarnation has two phases it cycles through on a daily basis—-waking and dreaming. We are interdimensional travelers, arriving from another dimension at birth, departing to other dimensions at death. The cycle of the day recapitulates the cycle of a life. At night/old age we run out of energy, grow sleepy, and eventually surrender to the temporary oblivion of sleep/death. Sleep/death is not an eternity of velvet darkness, the velvet darkness is polka dotted with shimmering portals—-incarnations/dreams

There is a hidden evolutionary side to narcissism lacking in all descriptions of I have encountered. Narcissism also wants to explode the barriers that obstruct powerful communication of the self with others and to vividly enter their perceptual field. A perfect narcissistic fantasy, for example, would be to emulate Jimmy Hendrix playing searing guitar chords to a stadium full of mesmerized, electrified fans. What we call narcissism may actually be the pathologized form of an evolutionary drive toward more powerful communication, toward new telepathies. Those with a greater latent capacity for such communication may experience alienation and an insatiable urge for greater recognition from others. So don’t cringe from your narcissism, but don’t let it rule you either.

The personal view can trap us in the forever chaos of he said/she said. An impersonal or cosmic view requires looking fiercely into things without emotional entanglement. Cut through to the core of what is going on. One way to do this with your life is to ask yourself the question: What will I remember well on my death bed?—–(Zap Oracle card)

See the patterns of your world. Often there are acausal parallels between the physical world and the psychic world, in the past they were often called “portents” or “omens” and in many cases people projected too much into them. Modern fundamentalist materialists assume they are “coincidences” if they notice them at all. The Taoists saw the paralleling of inner and outer as inevitable and worthy of alert observation. (Zap Oracle card)

The central idea of the I Ching is that we are always cycling through classic patterns of energy and change. Oracle consultations, especially with the I Ching, can be a way of seeing such underlying patterns of energy and change. Another way is self inquiry—stripping away the details and asking yourself what essential pattern of energy and change is in play in your life right now?

(Zap Oracle card)

Avoid meaningless work if possible. Jobs take up too much of your time and life energy to have no intrinsic value besides a means to get you a pay check. Sometimes you may have to accept such a devil’s bargain to survive, but if at all possible find meaningful livelihood. Avoid work that you won’t remember well on your death bed!- (Zap Oracle card)

Keep secret work secret. Consciousness work should be shared with the worthy—spiritual allies that share your commitment to consciousness. Prosletizing indicates an unbalanced psyche with a compulsive need to get others to share the imbalanced belief system. As Aleister Crowley says, “If I tell a man something he is not ready to hear, it is the same as if I told him a lie.” Consciousness work is depotentiated if you spill it out everywhere. When a pick-pocket sees a saint, he sees only his pockets (Zap Oracle card)

You are a transformer. A human being is an entity incarnating in a corporeal primate body which is undergoing a state of continuous transformation from conception through birth, growth, aging and death. We live in a state of continuous metamorphosis and that is great! Not so great for an ego that would like to hold on to things, identify and resist change! As a super complex process, human incarnation bifurcates into either a higher state of organization or a lower one. As a Dylan lyric puts it, “He who’s not busy being born, is busy dying.” Embrace transformation and ride the wave of metamorphosis. Resist change and you will experience a drowning sensation as you get sucked downward by the undertow. (Zap Oracle card)

You have everything you need in the present situation to work with impeccability. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work toward manifesting additional resources and opportunities. It does mean that the present situation supplies you with everything you need to take the next step. Think out of the box, people have changed the world with nothing more than pen and paper. You can create magic out of mundane materials if you creatively embrace what is before you.  (Zap Oracle card)

I was once walking down the street at lunchtime on a weekday and saw one carefully groomed yuppie after another passing me.  There was not a hair out of place, and they seemed dressed up to look just like ads they had seen in glossy magazines. In my mind’s eye I saw that their energy had formed a kind of exoskeleton, their identification with persona, clothing, accessories and bodily appearance had formed them into a kind of full body helmet, polished, blow dried, glazed with subtle cosmetics, while somewhere the self, like a shriveled, malnourished, somnambulant embryo lay dormant. Molt the persona that has become attached to you through identification and feel yourself grow larger.  Don’t wait, like Darth Vader, for the exoskeleton to fall away on your death bed.

(Zap Oracle Card entitled “Beware the Hollow Folk”)

You may never know all the mysterious depths that cause some people to stand so much closer to you than others.  There is the often monotonous carnival of circumstantial acquaintance, and then there are those certain people you are connected to by inner ties. They are like planets with orbits aligning, even intersecting with the orbit of your planet. You need the whole field of relationships, the acquaintances in outer concentric bands, the strangers you have never met in more distant and diffused bands.  And then there are those few in the close bands…those connected to you through karma you can’t fully discern, those who light up your eros, those who are spiritual allies that help you to recognize and fulfill your great work, those whom you are called to help on a depth level, those who may be all of the above. All the concentric bands of relationship deserve your mindful awareness.  Be the wise alchemist over seeing the asymmetrical and ever shifting flows of energy happening at each of the bands of concentric relation. (Zap Oracle Card)

It is so crucial to respect the otherness of the other– they are like another world, another dimension, and despite whatever proximity they have to our world/dimension there are so many unknown aspects. It is a life time struggle to begin to know ourselves, how easily and falsely do we presume to know the other and merge our agenda and projections with their veiled identity. (Zap Oracle Card)
The immature attitude toward transformation is to see impeccability as a sacrifice to gain a reward. It degrades the present into a sacrifice for an imaginary “transformed” magical future. The immature approach turns all efforts into their opposite, light into dark. True impeccability is existential, it is done for its own sake, not in the expectation of anything. Only such a stance has the detachment from result to achieve the fluidity and adaptability to mean a lasting value. This type of impeccability is not “for” transformation. It is in itself the revolutionary transformation you seek. Transformation occurs when you strive to give up the expectant attitude and replace it with a lasting effort to seek impeccability as an end in itself.   (journal quote)
Babylon Matrix, you poisonous, parasitic lattice of antilife decrees, territorial aggression and evil hegemony of dominator primates, you far from equilibrium toxic patriarchy hurtling toward the strange attractor of quantum evolutionary change, you suffocating cocoon of shrinking parasite-ridden medieval leather bristling with the claws and stingers of puppet-headed warlike primates. You, Babylon Matrix, your darkness has metastasized through the skull shadows of our long descent into history. But your Gregorian days are numbered…. (Friends don’t let Friends Incarnate in the Babylon Matrix)
Intentionality is shown by the act itself. By your actions you reveal yourself, rather than by looking at yourself.  (this, and the next few are journal quotes)
Make a decision for the moment and act on it .
Leaving the moment is self deception. Being in the moment is self love .
Excess lingering in the shadows of reflection is such suffering while the path of positive action awaits .
Insight may be irrelevant and recursive when will is the issue.
Like a fractal, like a hologram the small part recapitulates the whole. By looking within you can see everything. (Zap Oracle card)

Find your spirit medicine and remember that what works for someone else, may not work for you (and vice-versa). Also what works for you when used consciously, sparingly, in just right the circumstances, might be disastrous as a habit.  (Zap Oracle card)

Emerson said, “The problem with travelling is that you take yourself with you.” But there is also the potential of traveling to be a secular pilgrimage, rite of initiation, but you can’t rely on a change of settings to take the place of inner dynamism.(Zap Oracle card)

You are much more than your body—don’t judge yourself by its reflection. (Zap Oracle card)

You need to be the alchemist of your own inner cauldron. You know the medicine you need better than anyone—-find it, make it, use it and don’t forget to offer some medicine to others as well. (Zap Oracle card)

What we often don’t realize about a loss, about the dark night of the soul, is the space that it opens up for us where new life can grow. (Zap Oracle card)

Much of what binds us into the matrix is surrender to gender stereoptypes which encourage us to feel incomplete and desperately in need of someone else to find a wholeness that can only be rediscovered within.

The Warrior must be aware that the psyche is conservative in nature preferring old, self destructive neurotic patterns to the unknown. The Warrior must have the insight and determination to break those patterns, particularly those created by early childhood situations.

THE WARRIOR SAYINGS OF DON JUAN

The following quote collection has been culled from the Casteneda books and represents a distillation of Don Juan’s philosophy of the warrior. Regardless of what you may think of the literal veracity of these books(they have been pretty successfully debunked as truthful encounters), they were for many in our culture, including me, the first encounter with the philosophy of the warrior. Don Juan’s teachings about the Warrior stance have the perfection of a Samurai sword or arrows shot by a master Zen archer. Their concise, penetrating power is unequaled, and they pierce ego illusions like diamond bullets. Taken together they amount to a Toltec Warrior Manifesto. Someone once defined stories as “equipment for living.” Don Juan’s warrior teachings are also equipment for living, something never to leave behind, like a blade of impervious metal, a powerful ally to accompany you into any sort of wilderness.

I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have
nothing to defend.
I have no thoughts, so I will see.
I fear nothing, so I will remember myself.

Detached and at ease, I will dart past the Eagle to be free.

Warriors have an ulterior purpose for their acts which has
nothing to do with personal gain. The average man acts only if
there is a chance for profit. Warriors act not for profit, but for
the spirit.

For the average man, the world is weird because if he’s not
bored with it, he’s at odds with it. For a warrior, the world is
weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable.
A warrior must assume responsibility for being here, in this
marvelous world, in this marvelous time.

Impeccability begins with a single act that has to be
deliberate, precise and sustained. If that act is repeated long
enough, one acquires a sense of unbending intent which can be
applied to anything else. If that is accomplished the road is
clear. One thing will lead to another until the warrior realizes
his full potential.

Any movement of the assemblage point means a movement away
from an excessive concern with the individual self. Shamans believe
it is the position of the assemblage point which makes modern man a
homicidal egoist, a being totally involved with his self-image.
Having lost hope of ever returning to the source of everything, the
average man seeks solace in his selfishness.

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts
for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient,
self-explanatory and complete.
Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the
experience of experiences is being alive.

A warrior must focus his attention on the link between
himself and his death. Without remorse or sadness or worrying, he
must focus his attention on the fact that he does not have time and
let his acts flow accordingly. He must let each of his acts be his
last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will his acts
have their rightful power. Otherwise they will be, for as long as
he lives, the acts of a fool.

Note—Although the quotes use the default masculine pronoun “he,” it is not assumed that warriors must be males. Many of the most powerful warriors in the Casteneda books are female.

Warriors compress time; this is the sixth principle of the
art of stalking. Even an instant counts. In a battle for your
life, a second is an eternity, an eternity that may decide the
outcome. Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time.
Warriors don’t waste an instant.

A warrior acknowledges his pain but he doesn’t indulge in it.
The mood of the warrior who enters into the unknown is not one of
sadness; on the contrary, he’s joyful because he feels humbled by
his great fortune, confident that his spirit is impeccable, and
above all, fully aware of his efficiency. A warrior’s joyfulness
comes from having accepted his fate, and from having truthfully
assessed what lies ahead of him.

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is
that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary
man takes everything as a blessing or as a curse.

The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence
of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of
the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks
impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The
average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked
only to infinity.

It is much easier for warriors to fare well under conditions of
maximum stress than to be impeccable under normal circumstances.

What seems natural is to think that a warrior who can hold his
own in the face of the unknown can certainly face petty tyrants with
impunity. But that’s not necessarily so. What destroyed the superb
warriors of ancient times was to rely on that assumption. Nothing
can temper the spirit of a warrior as much as the challenge of
dealing with impossible people in positions of power. Only under
those conditions can warriors acquire the sobriety and serenity to
withstand the pressure of the unknowable.

Knowledge comes to a warrior, floating, like specks of gold
dust, the same dust that covers the wings of moths. So for a
warrior, knowledge is like taking a shower, or being rained on b
specks of dark gold dust.

A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That’s
control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go.
That’s abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind.
No one can push him, no one can make him do things against himself
or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive and
he survives in the best of all possible fashions.

Acts have power. Especially when the warrior acting knows that
those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming
happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever he is
doing may very well be his last act on earth.

If a warrior is to succeed in anything, the success must come
gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.

Our fellow men are black magicians. And whoever is with them
is a black magician on the spot. Think for a moment, can you
deviate from the path that your fellow men have lined up for you?
And if you remain with them, your thoughts and your actions are
fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. The warrior, on the
other hand, is free from all that. Freedom is expensive, but the
price is not impossible to pay. So, fear your captors, your
masters. Don’t waste your time and your power fearing freedom.

A warrior is never under siege. To be under siege implies that
one has personal possessions that could be blockaded. A warrior has
nothing in the world except his impeccability, and impeccability
cannot be threatened.

To discard everything that is unnecessary is the second
principle of the art of stalking. A warrior doesn’t complicate
things. He aims at being simple. He applies all the concentration
he has to decide whether or not to enter into battle, for any battle
is a battle for his life. This is the third principle of the art of
stalking. A warrior must be willing and ready to make his last
stand here and now. But not in a helter-skelter way.

The flaw with words is that they always make us feel
enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always
fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without
enlightenment. For this reason, a warrior seeks to act rather than
to talk, and to this effect, he gets a new description of the
world—a new description where talking is not that important, and
where new acts have new reflections.

Applying these principles brings about three results. The
first is that stalkers learn never to take themselves seriously;
they learn to laugh at themselves. If they are not afraid of being
a fool, they can fool anyone. The second is that stalkers learn to
have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry; they never
fret. And the third is that stalkers learn to have an endless
capacity to improvise.

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A
warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless
challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad.
Challenges are simple challenges.

The recommendation for warriors is not to have any material
things on which to focus their power, but to focus it on the spirit,
on the true flight into the unknown, not on trivialities.
Everyone who wants to follow the warrior’s path has to rid
himself of the compulsion to possess and hold onto things.

Self-importance is man’s greatest enemy. What weakens him is
feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of his fellow men.
Self-importance requires that one spend most of one’s life offended
by something or someone.

The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a
warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified
in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something to us.
Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.

A warrior takes his lot, whatever it amy be, and accepts it in
ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as
grounds for regret but as a living challenge.

By the way, Casteneda, just before he died, published an entire book of Don Juan quotations entitled The Arrow of Time.

When nothing is for sure we remain alert, perennially on our
toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is
hiding behind than to behave as though we knew everything.

As long as a man feels that he is the most important thing in
the world, he cannot really appreciate the world around him. He is
like a horse with blinders; all he sees is himself, apart from
everything else.

There is no completeness without sadness and longing, for
without them there is no sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without
kindness and knowledge without sobriety are useless.

Everything that warriors do is done as a consequence of a
movement of their assemblage points, and such movements are ruled by
the amount of energy warriors have at their command.

Power always makes a cubic centimeter of chance available to a
warrior. The warrior’s art is to be perennially fluid in order to
pluck it.

The worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and
since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who
have lost everything no longer have anything to fear.

What we need to do to allow magic to get hold of us is to
banish doubts from our minds. Once doubts are banished anything is
possible.

A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going
to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short
for witnessing all the marvels of it.

Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.

Dwelling upon the self too much produces a terrible fatigue. A man in that position is deaf and blind to everything else. The fatigue itself makes him cease to see the marvels all around him.

When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when there is something we can still cling to.

For a seer, the truth is that all living beings are struggling to die. What stops death is awareness.

The only freedom warriors have is to behave impeccably. Not only is impeccability freedom; it is the only way to straighten out
the human form.

I hope these quotes nourish you as they have me. Save them, print them out, keep them with you for they will never seem dated or irrelevant if you aim at impeccability and the warrior’s stance. — Jonathan

I am presently in a phase of reading some of the classics of American self motivational literature. Although I continue to be highly critical of this material if used or presented as a comprehensive psychology, I am also gaining a new appreciation of its value and American character. I hope you find this distillation interesting and useful.

The following is a distillation of Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Before I read Dale Carnegie I had a stereotyped revulsion to even the sound of his name which I associated with a Readers Digest Geritol generation given to sentimental platitudes. Actually reading Dale Carnegie will correct that impression for most, and even some of his dated colloquialisms are more charming than off-putting.

Dale Carnegie, like nondirective psychologist Carl Rogers, have a very American demeanor, but underneath they are actually Taoists and both have done their research into Asian as well as
Western philosophy. Carl Rogers actually lived in China for many years. They recognize that you lead people by going with their enthusiasms and being an alert listener.

The flaw in the self-motivational literature, and it is an enormous flaw if you make the mistake of adopting them as complete views of how to be human, is their aversion to the shadow, of their
directing your attention toward positive framing of all occurrence. (Though Dale Carnegie, as a far wiser voice than most self-help hypsters, also puts a lot of value on stoic acceptance of the
inevitable.) As Hillman says, “The soul pathologizes.” The soul needs to descend into darkness and learn from pain. Dale Carnegie, might well have known that as he quotes Jung frequently, but it is not reflected in his writings. The other flaw in the Dale Carnegie work to be distilled here is that it misses the value of anxiety. As Rollo May says in his classic On Anxiety, “anxiety is being asserting itself against nonbeing.” Something in us wants to be alive and something, usually internal, but sometimes also environmental, resists or even attacks that aliveness and we feel
anxiety as a potentially priceless form of spiritual, psychic pain. Just as people who have a rare neurological disorder that prevents them from feeling physical pain are ultimately incapacitated by it, and constantly vulnerable to injury, the Prozac generation that self medicates through (pills, tv, consumerism, eating, compulsive sexuality or whatever) its anxiety into a state of being in the words of Pink Floyd, “comfortably numb” loses touch with an inner heliotropic drive that seeks, through the negative feedback of anxiety, to move a constricted psyche toward the light.

The worry that Dale Carnegie addresses is the worry of the ego resisting the TAO, the ego trying to control and prestructure the future, take back the past, imagine poor future outcomes, and seeing itself as dependent on outside circumstances to feel at peace.

Much of my distillations will be aphorisms quoted in these works and I have to admit to a love of quotations. I’ll begin with this one, which is not from Dale Carnegie:

“I hate quotations.” Ralph Waldo Emerson —-I got that one from Bartlett’s Book of Quotations

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but
to do what lies clearly at hand. —-Thomas Carlyle.

Live in day tight compartments. —-Dale Carnegie (hereafter
unattributed quotes can be assumed to be Dale Carnegie)

Take no thought for the morrow. —-Jesus

Lead, kindly light..
Keep thou my feet: I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me. —-anonymous

So let’s be content to live the only time we can possibly live: from
now until bed time.

Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live
sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And
this is all that life really means. —Robert Louis Stevenson

Every day is a new life to a wise man.

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say:
To-morrow, do they worst, for I have liv’d to-day.
—-Horace

Life is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes. Most of which never
happened. —-Montaigne

Think, that this day will never dawn again.
This is the day which the Lord hath made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it. —-Psalm CXVIII

Step 1 I analyzed the situation fearlessly and honestly and figured
out what was the worst that could possibly happen as a result of
this failure.

Step 2 After figuring out what was the worst that could possibly
happen, I reconciled myself to accepting it, if necessary.

Step 3 From that time on, I calmly devoted my time and energy to
trying to improve upon the worst which I had already accepted
mentally.

When we worry, our minds jump here and there and everywhere, and we
lose all power of decision. However, when we force ourselves to
face the worst and accept it mentally, we then eliminate all these
vague imaginings and put ourselves in a position in which we are
able to concentrate on our problem.

Be willing it have it so…Acceptance of what has happened is the
first step in overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

True peace of mind comes from accepting the worst. Psychologically,
I think it means a release of energy. —Lin Yutang

Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the
tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.
—-Dr. Alexis Carrel

Three basic steps of problem analysis:

1. Get the facts.
2. Analyze the facts.
3. Arrive at a decision—and then act on that decision.

If a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial,
objective way, his worries will usually evaporate in the light of
knowledge.

When trying to get the facts, I pretend that I am collecting this
information not for myself, but for some other person. This helps
me take a cold, impartial view of the evidence.

Whenever I was worried I had always gone to my typewriter and
written down two questions—-and the answers to these questions:
1. What am I worrying about?
2. What can I do about it?

When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the
day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the
outcome. —-William James

One man Dale interviewed, who was a CEO or captain of industry of
some sort, found that he was bombarded by memos and calls from
people of the, “What should we do about the xyz problem?” sort. He
solved this by asking his staff to format all their memos in the
following way:

1. What is the problem?
2. What is the cause of the problem?
3. What are all possible solutions to the problem?
4. What solution do you suggest?

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the
first step to overcoming the consequences of misfortune.
—-William James

For every ailment under the sun,
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it. —Mother Goose Rhyme

Try to bear lightly what needs must be. —Jailer’s last words to Socarates

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference. —-Dr. Reinhold Neibuhr

Cooperate with the inevitable.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life, which is
required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run.
—-Henry David Thoreau

Whenever we are tempted to throw good money after bad in terms of
human living, let’s stop and ask ourselves these three questions:
1. How much does this thing I am worrying about really matter to me?
2. At what point shall I set a “stop-loss” order on this worry—and
forget it? …Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be
worth—and refuse to give it any more.
3. Exactly how much shall I pay for this (thing)? Have I already
paid more than it is worth?

A man is what he thinks about all day long. —Emerson

Our life is what our thoughts make it. —Marcus AUrelius

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell,
a hell of heaven.
—John Milton

Action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which
is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly
regulate the feeling, which is not…
This the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if your
cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak
as if that cheerfulness were already there. —William James

—-I love William James, but can’t help pointing out that pulling
yourself up by your boot straps can’t work in every circumstance.
James used to write in his journal, “Please God, give me a reason to
live for the next fifteen minutes.” —-Jonathan

Don’t expect gratitude, don’t hold onto grievances, think of the 90%
we do have, not the 10% you don’t. Remember the woman thrilled to
see the rainbows in the soap bubbles of dishwater. Remember your
prayers that have been answered.

The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your gains.
Any fool can do that. The really important thing is to profit from
your losses. That requires intelligence; and it makes the
difference between a man of sense and a fool. —William Bolitho

Nietzche’s formula for the superior man was “not only to bear up
under necessity but to love it.”

Our very infirmities help us unexpectedly. —William James

The north wind made the Vikings. —Scandinavian saying

Alfred Adler’s prescription for depression: “Try to think every
day how you can please some one.”

About one third of my patients are suffering from no clinically
definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of
their lives. —CG Jung

Man is not made to understand life, but to live it. —Santayana

During the past thirty years, people from all the civilized
countries of the earth have consulted me. I have treated many
hundreds of patients. Among all the patients in the second half of
life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one
whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious
outlook on life. It is safe to say that everyone of them fell ill
because he had lost that which the living religions of every age
have given to their followers, and none of them has really been
healed who did not regain his religious outlook.
—CG Jung

Faith is one of the forces by which men live, and the total absence
of it means collapse.
—William James

The turbulent billows of the fretful surface leave the deep parts of
the ocean undisturbed; and to him who has a hold on vaster and more
permanent realities, the hourly vicissitudes of his personal destiny
seem relatively insignificant things. The really religious person
is accordingly unshakeable and full of equanimity, and calmly ready
for any duty that the day may bring forth.
—forgot to record the author of this quote

Prayer can help you much more than you believe, for it is a practical thing.

Turn your problems over to a higher power.

Prayer is the most powerful form of energy we can generate.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred,
let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is
doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is
darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. Oh divine master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to consoled; to
be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in
giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Someone found the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII crying. When they
talked to him, he revealed that the others boys in school had been
kicking him. They wanted to say when they were older that they had
kicked a king.
So when kicked and criticized, remember that it is often done
because it gives the kicker a feeling of importance. It often means
that you are accomplishing something and are worthy of attention.

Vulgar people take huge delight in the faults and follies of great
men. —Schopenhauer

President of Yale, Timothy Dwight denounced a presidential candidate
in the following manner:
….We may see our wives and daughters the victims of legal
prostitution, soberly dishonored, speciously polluted; the outcasts
of delicacy and virtue, the loathing of God and man. (He was
referring to Thomas Jefferson)

Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you’ll be
criticized, anyway You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you
don’t. —-Eleanor Roosevelt

If I were to try to read, much less to answer, all the attacks made
on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I
do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and I mean to
keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right,
then what is said against me won’t matter. If the end brings me out
wrong, then ten angels swearing I am right would make no difference.
—-Abraham Lincoln

I hope you enjoyed this because if you didn’t I’m not going to worry about it.

Peace, Jonathan

I have been collecting quotations for a long time.
Aphoristic quotations are sometimes the most efficient
and entertaining expression of universal truths. For this reason
one can often find quotes from very divergent sources and times that
say almost the same thing in almost the same words. Sometimes they
may have influenced each other, but often they have been
independently influenced by universal truth. Everyone’s’ ego tends
to create narrow tunnel views of things, especially things that
frustrate us and arouse fear and desire. The right quotations at
the right time can be like diamond bullets that blast holes in those
tunnels and make us aware of much larger vistas.

My barn having burned to the ground, I can see the moon.
—Chinese Proverb

The best quotations resonate with our inner truth sense and help to
strengthen us in following what we already know to be true, but
often forget under stress. I have many more quotations on file, and
find new ones frequently, so if you like these, you can expect more
to come your way in the future. By the way you can make an
expandable oracle for yourself using a sufficiently diverse
collection of quotations. All you have to do is print them up, cut
them out and individually paste them onto identical index cards.
You can then pick cards at “random” from your collection. Through
the principle of synchronicity your quotations can now individualize
their dialogue with your mind, they can come from left field, tell
you exactly what you already know, offer corrections, inspirations,
solace, prodding, and an array of other oracular functions.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you think. —–Emerson

This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: there are no atoms,
only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in
barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding. You put
aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be
heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is
the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which
forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here—the
screen of the magic: imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be
human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems,
an organizer of chaos.
—–The Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives
(From the Dune books)

The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved.
They can only be outgrown. —-Sister Jessica, Private Journal
Entry (from House Harkonnnen, Dune books)

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of
improving, and that’s your own self. —-Aldous Huxley

A single sunbeam is enough to drive away shadows. —St. Francis of Assisi

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
—-Lao-Tzu

An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees
a calamity in every opportunity. —-Sir Winston Churchill

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our
dispositions and not on our circumstances. —-Martha Washington

Two men looked out through prison bars; one saw mud, the other,
stars. —James Allen

Life is ten percent what you make it, and ninety percent how you
take it. —Irving Berlin

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world, is
the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without
it. —-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the
conclusion is false. The hundredth time, I am right. —-Albert
Einstein

Take care of what you like or you will be forced to like what you do.
—-George Bernard Shaw

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their
dreams. —Eleanor Roosevelt

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high
and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
—Michelangelo

You can gain strength, courage and confidence, by every experience
in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the
thing you think you cannot do.
—-Eleanor Roosevelt

Let me listen to me and not to them. —-Gertrude Stein

When our center is strong, everything else is secondary. —Elie Wiesel

I couldn’t wait for success so I went ahead without it. —Jonathan Winters

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. —-Eleanor Roosevelt

If you don’t run your own life, someone else will. —-John Atkinson

It is never too late to be what you might have become. —George Elliot

I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more
specific. —Lilly Tomlin

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged
to change ourselves.
—-Victor Frankl

I’m an old man who has known a great many problems, most of which
never happened.
—-Mark Twain

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. —-Swedish Proverb

A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work. —-Unknown

Conflict cannot survive without your participation. —-Unknown

When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on! —-FDR

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an
understanding of ourselves.
—-Carl Jung

Worry is the misuse of your imagination. —Unknown

What you can’t get out of, get into wholeheartedly. —Unknown

When you don’t have red, use blue. —Unknown

Holding resentment is like eating poison and then waiting for the
other person to keel over.
—-Unknown

He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more
excellent who can suit his temper to his circumstances. —David
Hume

It’s hard to defeat an enemy who has an outpost in your own head.
—Sally Compton

Tension is who you think you should be.
Relaxation is who you are.
—-Ancient Chinese Proverb

Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their
opinions of the things that happen. —-Epictetus

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can
alter their lives by altering their attitudes. —-William James

If you want to be strong, know your weaknesses. —Unknown

Even loss and betrayal can bring us awakening. —Buddha

A bad habit never disappears miraculously. It’s an undo-it-yourself project.
—Abigail Van Buren

Life consists not in holding good cards; but in playing those you
hold well. –Josh Billings

Fear is the dark room where negatives are developed. —Unknown

Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past—over and
over again. —Buddha

He who conquers his anger has conquered an enemy. —Unknown

Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many: not
on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. —Charles
Dickens

Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much. —Oscar Wilde

In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at
heart. —Anne Frank

To belittle is to be little. —Unknown

Never insult an alligator until you’ve crossed the river. —Cordell Hull

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. —Goethe

There are two ways of spreading light. To be the candle or the
mirror that reflects it.
—-Edith Wharton

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small
people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you
too can become great. —Mark Twain

Love in an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person. —Unknown

Nothing has a stronger influence physiologically on their
environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived
lives of the parents. —C.G. Jung

The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it. —Sydney J. Harris

In the name of God,
Stop a moment, close your work,
And look around you. —Leo Tolstoy

The hardest work of all is to do nothing. —Jewish Saying

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you
can do with what there is. —Ernest Hemingway

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering—and it’s all
over much too soon.
—Woody Allen

What a wonderful life I’ve had…
I only wish I’d realized it sooner.
—–Colette

The heart has reasons which the reason does not know. —Unknown

The following quotes are all by Sir Winston Churchill. Although a
careful examination of his biography will tend to deflate and
disappoint his mythological standing, he is certainly one of the
greatest writers of inspirational aphorisms.

Promises are the blowing of glittering bubbles; performances are the
moulding and hammering of iron.

It is very important not to underrate the problem. It is also very
important not to overrate it.

The watchword we must carry must be that vigilance be unceasing.

When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men’s
souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort,
wealth, and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once
awe striking and irresistible, we learn that something is going on
in space and time and beyond space and time, which, whether we like
it or not, spells duty.

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in
nothing great or small, large or petty—never give in except to
convictions of honor and good sense.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain
of destiny can be handled at a time.

An end is a new beginning. It allows the space in time for new
quotations to come your way later. —Jonathan Zap

Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds.
– Samuel Butler

Tension is who you think you should be.
Relaxation is who you are.
—-Ancient Chinese Proverb

“HE WHO WILL DRINK FROM MY MOUTH WILL BECOME LIKE ME. I MYSELF SHALL BECOME HE, AND THE THINGS THAT ARE HIDDEN WILL BE REVEALED TO HIM.”
said by Jesus in the recently discovered Gospel of Thomas

With stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
– Friedrich von Schiller

In each of us two powers preside, one male, one female: and in the man’s brain, the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman’s brain, the woman predominates over the man…If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties. —-Virginia Woolf

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. Blaise Pascal

The following quotes come from Back to Beginnings, Reflections on
the Tao by Huanchu Daoren, translated by Thomas Cleary.
They were written around 1600 by a retired Chinese Scholar,
Hong Yingming, whose Taoist name, Huanchu Daoren, means “A
Wayfarer Back to Beginnings.” In it can be seen a form of lay
Taoism dating many centuries further back into history, in which
the historical and sociological insights of pristine Confucianism
are combined with the advanced educational and psychological
know ledges and methodologies of Buddhism and Taoism.
Nothing is really known of Huanchu Daoren, except that he
wrote these meditations on the Tao which were originally entitled,
“Vegetable Root Talks.” He identifies himself as a Confucian,
which means that he is a layman; his Taoist epithet, “Back to
Beginnings,” says in calendrical symbolism that he has passed the
age of sixty, has retired from public affairs, and has started a
new cycle of life.

A tangent on “sacred texts” : I found more of use to me in
this book of Taoist quotes than in the Tao Te Ching. They have a
sparkling sanity and at times seem almost funny in their humble
and common sense veracity. I don’t like the way the Tao Te Ching
is presented as a sacred text. That’s because I don’t like it
when any text is presented as a sacred text. If someone hands you
a “sacred text,” treat it roughly. The truth can take it. Take a
pen and scribble disagreeable notes next to passages that don’t
jive with your inner truth sense. Take a highlighter to any
passages that do ring true, then copy them over in your
handwriting in your own journal or notebook.
No, I don’t regard the I Ching as sacred text either. Using
the I Ching can be a sacred process, but the text can always be
amplified, improved, reedited—that’s why I use multiple
versions.

Much of the violence, gross and subtle, throughout our
descent into history has been at the hands of persons possessed of
and by a sacred text. And that text could be secular too, it
could be the Communist manifesto or the DSM III. Once a text is
considered superior to the felt experience of individual truth
sense it ceases to be a text and becomes an iron lid on human
consciousness.

Huanchu Daoren certainly did not want his writings treated as
sacred, and some of his aphorisms and passages worked better for me
than others. I think the highlighter more sacred than the text.
What lights up in your perception as significant or meaningful is
what counts. As Emerson says (I’m paraphrasing, check his essay,
The American Scholar, for an exact quote) Why should young men sit
in libraries reading Cicero with awe, when Cicero was just a young
man in a library when he wrote what they are reading? I like what
Huanchu has to say because he made me reach for my highlighter
often. —Jonathan

When you are but slightly involved in the world, the effect the
world has on you is also slight. When you are deeply enmeshed in
affairs, you machinations also deepen. So for enlightened people
simplicity is better than refinement, and freedom is better than
punctiliousness.

People are considered pure of heart when they do not approach
power and pomp; but those who can be near without being affected
are the purest of all. People are considered high-minded when they
do not know how to plot and contrive; but those who know how yet do
not do so are the highest of all.

When you are constantly hearing offensive words and always
have some irritating matter in mind, only then do you have a
whetstone for character development. If you hear only what pleases
you, and deal only with what thrills you, then you are burying your
life in deadly poison.

Late at night, when everyone is quiet, sit alone and gaze into
the mind; then you notice illusion ending and reality appearing.
You gain a great sense of potential in this every time. Once you
have noticed reality appearing yet find that illusion is hard to
escape, you also find yourself greatly humbled.

Blessings often give rise to injury, so be careful when things
are going your way. Success may be achieved after failure, so
don’t just give up when you’ve been disappointed.

Those who live simply are often pure, while those who live
luxuriously may be slavish and servile. It seems that the will is
clarified by plainness, while conduct is ruined by indulgence.

There is a true Buddha in family life; there is a real Tao in
everyday activities. If people can be sincere and harmonious,
promoting communication with a cheerful demeanor and friendly
words, that is much better than formal meditation practice.

Don’t be too severe in criticizing people’s faults; consider
how much they can bear. Don’t be too lofty in enjoining virtue, so
people may be able to follow.

A grub in filth is dirty, but it changes into a cicada and
sips dew in the autumn breeze. Rotting plants have no luster, but
they turn into foxfire and glow in the summer moonlight. So we
know that purity emerges from impurity, and light is born from
darkness.

Conceit and arrogance are acquired states of mind. Conquer
acquired states of mind, and basic sanity can unfold. Passion and
willfulness are part of false consciousness; erase false
consciousness, and true consciousness will appear.

Think about food on a full stomach and you find you don’t care
about taste. Think of lust after making love, and you find you
don’t care about sex. Therefore, if people always reflect on the
regret they will feel afterward to forestall folly at the moment,
they will be stable and will not err in action.

Those who have come to an impasse should examine their
original intentions; those who have succeeded should note where
they are heading.

When the rich and well-established, who should be generous,
are instead spiteful and cruel, they make their behavior wretched
and base in spite of their wealth and position. When the
intellectually brilliant, who should be reserved, instead show off,
they are ignorant and foolish in their weakness in spite of their
brilliance.

After one has been in a lowly position, one knows how
dangerous it is to climb to a high place, Once one has been in the
dark, one knows how revealing it is to go into the light. Having
maintained quietude, one knows how tiring compulsive activity is.
Having nurtured silence, one knows how disturbing much talk is.

To conquer demons, first conquer your mind. When the mind is
subdued, demons withdraw obediently. To control knaves, first
control your own mood. When your mood is balanced, scoundrels
cannot get at you.

In matters of desire, don’t get hastily involved because of
easy availability; once you get involved, you will sink in deeply.
In matters of principle, don’t back off for fear of difficulty;
once you back down, you will lose your ground entirely.

When people are determined, they can overcome fate; when the
will is unified, it can mobilize energy. Enlightened people do not
even let nature put them in a set mold.

When the liver is diseased, the eyesight fails; when the
kidneys are diseased, the hearing is adversely affected. The
disease is not visible, but its effects are. Therefore,
enlightened people, wishing to be free from obvious faults, first
get rid of hidden faults.

There is no greater fortune than having few concerns, no
greater misfortune than having many worries. Only those who have
suffered over their concerns know the blessing of having few
concerns. Only those who have calmed their minds know the
misfortune of having many worries.

In dealing with good people one should be magnanimous; in
dealing with bad people one should be strict. In dealing with
average people one should combine magnanimity and strictness.

Do not think about whatever service you may have done for
others; think about what you may have done to offend them. Don’t
forget what others have done for you; forget what others have done
to offend you.

When those who give charity do so without any sense of
self-satisfaction and without any thought of reward, even a small
gift is great. When those who aid others calculate their own
sacrifice and demand gratitude and recompense, even a great gift is
small.

Your own feelings may be reasonable or unreasonable; how can
you expect others to always be reasonable? It is useful to see
things in this light and thereby correct the contradictions in your
expectations for yourself and others.

Those in public office who do not love the people are thieves
stealing salaries. Those who teach but do not themselves practice
what they teach are mere talkers. Those who try to do successful
work without considering development of character will find it
insubstantial.

In the mind engaged in struggling with hardship, one always
finds something delightful. The sorrow of disappointment arises
in the complacency of satisfaction.

The learned should be vigorous and diligent, but they should
also be free-spirited. If they are too rigorous and austere, they
have the death-dealing quality of autumn but lack the life-giving
quality of spring. How can they develop people then?

If the mind is illumined, there is clear blue sky in a dark
room. If the thoughts are muddled, there are malevolent ghosts in
broad daylight.

People know that fame and position are pleasant, but they do
not know that the pleasure of anonymity is most real. People know
that hunger and cold are distressing, but they do not know that the
distress of not experiencing cold or hunger is greater.

If you fear that people will know if you do something bad, then
there is something good in bad. If you are eager for people to
know when you do something good, then there is something bad in
good.

The workings of heaven are unfathomable—sometimes
encouraging, sometimes suppressing. All this makes sport of heroes
and tumbles the great. Enlightened people take adversity in stride
and are prepared for trouble even when at ease; therefore, they are
not at the mercy of fate.

One should not seek happiness, just nurture the spirit of joy
as the basis of summoning happiness. One should not try to escape
misfortune, just get rid of viciousness as a means of avoiding
misfortune.

The road of truth is broad; set the mind on it, and you feel
expansive openness and broad clarity. The road of human desires is
narrow; set foot on it, and you see brambles and mire before you.

Soil with a lot of manure in it produces abundant crops; water
that is too clear has no fish. Therefore, enlightened people should
maintain the capacity to accept impurities and should not be
solitary perfectionists.

Even a wild horse can be tamed; even metal that is difficult
to work eventually goes into a mold. If you take it easy and do
not stir yourself, you will never make any progress. It has been
said, “It is no disgrace to have many afflictions: I would worry if
there never were any afflictions.”

…people of old deemed freedom from greed precious, and this
is how they got beyond the world.

The eyes and ears, seeing and hearing, are external
plunderers; emotions, desires, and opinions are internal
plunderers. But if the inner mind is awake and alert, sitting
aloof in the middle of it all, then these plunderers change and
become members of the household.

Even if you do no work that is particularly lofty or
far-reaching, if you can shed mundane feelings, that is a great
achievement. Even if you do not strive much for progress in
learning, if you can minimize the influence things have on you,
you will soar into the realm of sages.

In whatever you do, if you leave a sense of incompleteness,
then Creation cannot resent you, ghosts and spirits cannot harm
you. If you insist on fulfillment in your work and perfection in
achievement, you will become either inwardly deranged or outwardly
unsettled.

If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed,
there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon
hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?

If you are not lax when at leisure, you will be effective when
busy. If you are not absentminded in tranquility, that will be
useful in action. If you are not hypocritical in private, that
will show up in public.

When thoughts arise, as soon as you sense them heading on the
road of desire, bring them right back onto the road of reason.
Once they arise, notice them, once you notice them, you can change
them. This is the key to turning calamity into fortune, rising
from death and returning to life.
( For a modern view on how to do this see Tara Bennet Goleman’s
book: Emotional Alchemy —Jonathan)

In adversity, everything that surrounds you is a kind of
medicine that helps you refine your conduct, yet you are unaware of
it. In pleasant situations, you are faced with weapons that will
tear you apart, yet you do not realize it.

Delicious foods are drugs that will inflame the gut and rot
the bones, but there is no harm if one eats moderately. Delightful
things are all purveyors of destruction and decadence, but there is
no regret if one enjoys them moderately.

Valuing unusual conduct is not as good as being careful about
ordinary actions.

Compromise to please others is not as good as integrity that
annoys others. Rather than be praised without being good, it is
better to be slandered without being bad.

When one is not slipshod in small matters, not hypocritical in
secret, and not reckless in disappointment, only then is one a true
hero.

A thousand pieces of gold may hardly bring a moment’s
happiness, but a small favor can cause a lifetime’s gratitude. Too
much love can turn to enmity, while aloofness can produce joy.

People’s shortcomings should be treated with tact; if you
expose them crudely, this is attacking weakness with a weakness.
When people are stubborn, it requires skill to influence them; if
you treat them with anger and spite, this is treating stubbornness
with stubbornness.

When you meet silent and inscrutable people, don’t tell them
what you are thinking. When you meet irritable and self-serving
people, be careful what you say.

A clear sunny day can suddenly shift to thunder and lightning,
a raging storm can suddenly give way to a bright moonlit night.
The weather may be inconstant, but the sky remains the same. The
substance of the human mind should also be like this.

Perception is a clear jewel that shows up demons; strength is
a sword of wisdom that cuts down demons. Both are necessary.

To notice people’s deceptions yet not reveal it in words, to
bear people’s insults without showing any change of
attitude—there is endless meaning in this, and also endless
function.

Unexpected hardship refines people; if you can accept it, both
mind and body will benefit. If you cannot accept it, on the other
hand, both mind and body will be harmed.

Our body is a small universe; to regulate emotions and
feelings is a way of harmonization.

If those who give are conscious of their own generosity and
those who receive feel indebted, they are no longer family but
rather strangers doing business.

Public behavior is nurtured in private; earthshaking measures
come form careful steps.

Virtue is the master of talent, talent is the servant of
virtue. Talent without virtue is like a house where there is no
master and their servant manages its affairs. How can there be no
mischief?

To get rid of villains and knaves, it is necessary to give
them a way out. If you don’t give them any leeway at all, they
will be like trapped rats. If every way out is closed to them,
they will chew up everything good.

When enlightened people are so poor that they cannot help
others, if they speak a word to awaken the confused or to resolve a
problem, there is also boundless merit in that.

For those who reflect on themselves, everything they encounter
is medicine. For those who attack others, every thought is a
weapon. One is the way to initiate all good, one is the way to
deepen all evil. They are as far apart as sky and earth.

Business and scholarship pass away with the person, but the
soul is forever like new. Fame and fortune change with the
generations, but the spirit is always the same. Enlightened people
surely should not exchange the lasting for the ephemeral.

A net set up to catch fish may snare a duck; a mantis hunting
an insect may itself be set upon by a sparrow. Machinations are
hidden within machinations; changes arise beyond changes. So how
can wit and cleverness be relied upon?

When water isn’t rippled, it is naturally still. When a
mirror isn’t clouded, it is clear of itself. So the mind is not to
be cleared; get rid of what muddles it, and its clarity will
spontaneously appear. Pleasure need not be sought; get rid of what
pains you, and pleasure is naturally there.

One of our predecessors said, “Throwing away the inexhaustible
treasury of your own home, you go with your bowl from door to door,
acting like a beggar”`

Those who trust others will find that not everyone is
necessarily sincere, but they will be sincere themselves. Those who
suspect others will find that not everyone is necessarily deceiving
them, but they have already become deceivers themselves.

Those who are broad-minded and considerate are like the spring
breeze, warm and nurturing, at show touch all being grow. Those who
are envious an d cruel are like the snow of the northlands,
stilling and freezing, at whose touch all beings die.

Diligence means to be keen in matters of virtue and justice,
but worldly people use diligence to solve their economic
difficulties. Frugality means to have little desire for material
goods, but worldly people use frugality as a cover for stinginess.
Thus do watchwords of enlightened life turn into tools for the
private business of small people. What a pity!

Those who act on excitement act intermittently; this is hardly
the way to avoid regression. Those whose understanding comes from
emotional perceptions are as confused as they are enlightened; this
is not a lamp that is constantly bright.

You should be forgiving when others make mistakes, but not when
the mistakes are in you. You should be patient under duress
yourself, but not when it affects others.

Generosity should begin lightly and deepen later, fro when it
is first rich and then lessens, people forget the kindness.
Authority should begin strictly and loosen up later, for if it is
loose first and then strict, people will resent the severity.

If you do not join the polluted, then you are pure; if you
reject society in search of purity, that is not purity but
fanaticism.

The substance of mind is the substance of heaven. A joyful
thought is an auspicious star or a felicitous cloud. An angry
thought is a thunderstorm or a violent rain. A kind thought is a
gentle breeze or a sweet dew. A stern thought is a fierce sun or an
autumn frost. Which of these can be eliminated? Just let them pass
away as they arise, open and unresisting, and your mind merges with
the spacious sky.

When you meet dishonest people, move them with sincerity. When
you meet violent people, affect them with gentility. When you meet
warped people, inspire them with justice. Then the whole world
enters your forge.

A moment of kindness can produce a mood of harmony between
heaven and earth. Purity of heart can leave a fine example for a
hundred generations.

There is much meaning in the word endure. For example, when
dealing with unstable human feelings and uneven pathways in life, without endurance to hold you up, you may fall into a pit in the brush.

You should not be too much of a purist in your way of life, for you need to be able to accept all that is foul. You should not be too clear in making distinctions in social interactions, for you need to accept everyone whether they are good or bad, wise or foolish.

The sickness of indulging desires can be treated, but the sickness of clinging to abstract principles is hard to treat. Obstacles presented by events and objects can be removed, but obstacles presented by social principles are hard to remove.

Polish what you polish until it is like gold that has been refined a hundred times; anything that is done in a hurry is not deeply developed. Do what you do like a thousand-pound catapult; one who pops off too easily does not accomplish much.

At dusk the sunset is beautifully bright; at year’s end the tangerines are even more fragrant. Therefore, at the end of their road, in their later years, enlightened people should be a hundred times more vital in spirit.

Observe people with cool eyes, listen to their words with cool ears. Confront feelings with cool emotions, reflect on principles with a cool mind.

Attention is the mind’s feet; if you do not control your attention strictly, it runs into misleading pathways.

Sexual desire may burn like fire, but when you give a thought to when you are ill, then your excitement dies down. Fame and fortune may be sweet as candy, but when you give a thought to when you die, then their flavor is like chewing wax. Therefore, if people are usually concerned about death and illness, this can also dissolve unreal activities and develop longing for the way.

Even if you can’t get rid of the heat, as long as you can get rid of bother with the heat, your body is always on a cool terrace. Even if you can’t get rid of poverty, as long as you can get rid of the sadness of poverty, your mind always lives in a comfortable abode.

When greedy people are given gold, they are bitter that they haven’t gotten jewels; when they are made barons they are resentful that they haven’t been made lords. Though powerful and rich, their attitude is that of beggars. For those who know how to be content, simple fare is more delicious than rich delicacies, a cloth coat is warmer than fox fur, and an ordinary citizen does not defer to a king or a lord.

If you know that whatever is made inevitable breaks down, you needn’t seek too hard for achievement. If you know that all living beings inevitably die, you needn’t work too hard on health lore.

The powerful and prominent soar like dragons, the heroic and valiant fight like tigers: but if you look upon them with cool eyes, they are like ants gathering on rancid meet, like flies swarming on blood. Judgments of right and wrong bristle like porcupine quills: but if you meet them with cool feelings, that is like a forge melting metal, like hot water dissolving snow.

Those who turn things around by themselves do not rejoice at gain or grieve over loss; the whole world is the range they roam. Those who are themselves used by things hate it when events go against them and love it when they go their way; the slightest thing can create binding entanglements.

Those who like tranquility and dislike clamor tend to avoid people to seek quietude. They do not know that when one wishes there were no one around, that is egotism; and when the mind is attached to quietude, that is the root of disturbance. How can they reach the state where others and oneself are seen as one, where disturbance and quietude are both forgotten.

The realms of good fortune and calamity in human life are all made of thoughts and imaginings. Therefore Buddhists say that the burning of desire for gain is itself a pit of fire, while drowning in greedy love is itself a bitter sea. The moment thoughts are pure, fierce flames become a pond; the moment you become aware, the boat has arrived on the further shore. If your thoughts vary at all, your world will immediately differ, so can we not be careful?

Flowers should be viewed when half open, wine should be drunk only to subtle intoxication; there is great fun in this. If you view flowers in full bloom and drink to drunkenness, it becomes a bad experience. Those who are living to the full should think about this.

Introduction. © Jonathan Zap 2004

Someone once described stories as “equipment for living.” Quality fiction does fit that definition and, of course, so does the right non fiction. The modern Taoist quotes presented here are almost the illustration of this definition. They are like a set of tools, deceptively simple in appearance, but made of an adamantine metal that grows stronger and sharper with long use.

Someone else said, “Don’t read a book unless it is like a ball of light glowing in your hands.” When you find the right book, at the right time, it can be a sphere of light in your hands. The writings of Deng Ming-Dao (a contemporary Taoist whom I excerpt here) were, for me, like a large sphere of amethyst with cooling, calming purple depths. Areas of the sphere had a gem quality transparency and clarity while others had natural inclusions, areas that were clouded by carbon and iron oxide. The quotes presented here are the parts that, for me, had gem quality transparency, that sparkled in my mind’s eye like jewels flashing in the night of time.

If we were to look into an amethyst sphere we would probably all agree on which parts were clear, and which parts were occluded with inclusions and impurities. But if the sphere is a matrix of language, rather than a crystal matrix, the subjectivity of the observer is greatly increased, and the areas of greatest transparency for one may not be the same for another. What I chose to excerpt might not be what you would choose and the selections that follow are no substitute for reading and owning the two books they come from: 365 Tao and Everyday Tao.

365 Tao is set up with a page to contemplate for each day of the year and the pages have been arranged to correspond to the cycles of the seasons and turning points in the calendar. There is even a table in the back that reorients this arrangement for those living in the Southern Hemisphere. I recommend these books as equipment for living and glowing spheres of light for those who have an inner commitment to the Taoist path.

A tangent on “sacred texts” (adapted from an introduction I wrote about Taoist quotes listed on website as “Taoist Quotes”).

I found more of use to me in these books of Taoist quotes than in the Tao Te Ching. They have a sparkling sanity and at times seem almost funny in their humble and common sense veracity. I don’t like the way the Tao Te Ching is presented as a sacred text. That’s because I don’t like it when any text is presented as a sacred text. If someone hands you a “sacred text,” treat it roughly. The truth can take it. Take a pen and scribble disagreeable notes next to passages that don’t jive with your inner truth sense. Take a highlighter to any passages that do ring true, then copy them over in your handwriting in your own journal or notebook.

No, I don’t regard the I Ching as sacred text either. Using the I Ching can be a sacred process, but the text can always be amplified, improved, reedited—that’s why I use multiple versions.

Much of the violence, gross and subtle, throughout our descent into history has been at the hands of persons possessed of and by a sacred text. And that text could be secular too, it could be the Communist manifesto or the DSM III. Once a text is considered superior to the felt experience of individual truth sense it ceases to be a text and becomes an iron lid on human consciousness.

Deng Ming-Dao certainly did not want his writings treated as sacred, and some of his aphorisms and passages worked better for me than others. I think the highlighter more sacred than the text. What lights up in your perception as significant or meaningful is what counts. As Emerson says, “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.”

I like what Deng Ming-Dao has to say because he made me reach for my highlighter often. —Jonathan

This is the moment of embarking.
All auspicious signs are in place.

In order to start, we must make a decision. This decision is a commitment to daily self-cultivation. We must make a strong connection to our inner selves. Outside matters are superfluous. Alone and naked, we negotiate all of life’s travails.

Once we make our decision, all things will come to us.

First comes cleansing of the body…

All growth comes with a shock.

Young people need compassion and guidance, not obscure mysticism. Here are some guidelines for young people:

Remember that you are always your own person. Do not surrender your mind, heart, or body to any person. Never compromise your dignity for any reason.

Maintain your health with sound diet, hygiene, exercise and clean living…

Money is never more important than your body and mind, but you must work and support yourself. Never depend on others for your livelihood.

Choose your friends and living situations carefully, for they will influence you. Find a mentor you can trust, one who can answer your every question, but never give up responsibility for your own life. No one lives your life for you.

A good education is always an asset.

Emotions are transitory and are not a good way to make decisions.

Every day, you must make decisions. Everything you do will have irrevocable effect upon your life. Before you go down any path, consider carefully. Rivers very rarely reverse course.

Know evil, but do not do evil yourself. Remember, there is a way out of the delusions of life. When you weary of the world, find someone who will show you Tao.

(referring to trees) It is with this power that they withstand both the vicissitudes and adornment of life, for neither bad fortune nor good fortune will alter what they are. We should be the same way. We may have great fortune or bad, but we should patiently bear both. No matter what, we must always be true to our inner selves.

Even when it is snowy, the wood cutter must split wood…he must strike the wood with the grain, and he must let the axe fall with its own weight.

Whether it is the time or the method, true labor is half initiative and half knowing how to let things proceed on their own.

Although it is tempting to resent disaster, there is not much use in doing so…Disasters may well change us deeply, but they will pass. We must keep to our deeper convictions and remember our goals. Whether we remain ash or become the phoenix is up to us.

No matter how extreme a situation is, it will change.

It is being off balance that keeps life changing. Total centering, total balance would only be stasis.

That is why, even in the midst of an extreme situation, the wise are patient.

Whether the situation is illness, calamity, or their own anger, they know that healing will follow upheaval.

The closer something comes to completion, the harder and more definite it becomes. Our options become fewer, until the full impact of our creation is all there is. Beauty or ugliness, utility or failure, comes from the process of shaping.

…those who live only for some deferred reward often strain themselves with too much denial.

We must understand how the past affects us, we should keep the present full of rich and satisfying experiences, and we should devote some energy each day to building for the future. Just as a river can be said to have parts that cannot be clearly divided, so too should we consider the whole of our time when deciding how to spend our lives.

The sacred lies in the ordinary.

The action must be complete. It must burn clean; it cannot leave any bad ramifications or lingering traces. An act that leaves destruction, resentment, or untidiness in its wake is a poor one.

Useful trees are cut down. Useless ones survive. The same is true of people. The strong are conscripted. The beautiful are exploited. Those who are too plain to be noticed are the ones who survive. They are left alone and safe.

But what if we ourselves are among such plain persons? Though others may neglect us, we should not think of ourselves as being without value. We must not accept the judgment of others as the measure of our own self-worth…. Thus, to be considered useless is not a reason for despair, but an opportunity. It is the chance to live without interference and to express one’s own individuality.

…wise people travel constantly and test themselves against the flux of circumstance.

Markings in dry clay disappear
Only when the clay is soft again.
Scars upon the self disappear
Only when one becomes soft within.

Demons who enter your circle
must be pushed out.

No matter what world you walk in—office, school, temple, prison, or the streets—-there is an underworld populated with demons. These are people who are avaricious, aggressive, sadistic, and cynical. They not only take advantage of others without compunction, they delight in it. They find pleasure in seeing others suffer.

Whatever you do there is no need to be apathetic toward life. Instead, full participation in all things is the surest way to happiness, vitality, success, and a deep knowledge of Tao.

Worry is an addiction
that interferes with compassion.

When unpredictable things happen, those who follow Tao are skilled at improvisation. If circumstances deny them, they change immediately.

To buffer ourselves, we dwell on beauty, we collect things, we fall in love, we desperately try to make something lasting in our lives.

We should take the time to appreciate beauty in the midst of temporality.

There are others who follow Tao, but it is not always possible to meet them.
That is why it takes someone both sensitive enough to hear the call and strong enough to walk the solitary path.

The more you walk this road, the farther you are from the ordinary ways of society. You may see the truth, but you will find that people would rather listen to politicians, performers, and charlatans.

In the midst of great difficulty, a tiny opportunity will open, if only by chance. You must be sharp enough to discern it, quick enough to catch it, and determined enough to do something with it.

When faced with a sad situation, it is best not to languish in it. We can change things by being with different people, moving to other places, or, if all else fails, adjusting our own attitudes to take the initiative.

What is it like to feel Tao? It is an effortless flowing, a sweeping momentum.
It is like bird song soaring and gliding over a vast landscape.

If we fall, we must pick ourselves up and get back on the trail again.

You could labor ten years under a master Trying to discern whether the teachings are true.
But all you might learn is this:
One must live one’s own life.

You must not fail to explore anything that interests you.

Make every move count.
Pick your target and hit it.
Perfect concentration means
Effortless flowing.

Each day your life grows a day shorter. Make every move count. All that matters is accomplishing what you envision with the greatest dispatch.

Spiritual success is gained by daily cultivation.
If you practiced for the day, then you have won.
If you were lazy for the day, then you have lost.
…Whatever system of spirituality you practice, do it every day.

We part at the crossroads,
You leave with your joys and problems,
I with mine. Alone, I look down the road.
Each one must walk one’s own path.

Parting is inherent in all meeting. Nothing lasts forever. Transience is what gives life poignancy. Every person is responsible for him or herself. There is no road to walk but your own.

Banish uncertainty.
Affirm strength.
Hold resolve.
Expect death.

Make your stand today. On this spot. On this day. Make your actions count; do not falter in your determination to fulfill your destiny. Don’t follow the destiny outlined in some mystical book: Create your own.

Your resolve to tread the path of life is your best asset. Without it, you die. Death is unavoidable, but it is not from loss of will but because your time is over. As long as you can keep going, use your imagination to cope with the travails of life. Overcome your obstacles and realize what you envision.

Hide what you know.
Conceal talent.
Shield your light.
Bide your time.

There is great wisdom in being inconspicuous. …When you know how to hide, you avoid the attention and scorn of others, but retain the strategic advantage of surprise.

When one senses that one has come to the limits of the time and situation, one should conserve one’s energy. Often, this will be in preparation for a challenge to the limits, or a changing over to a new set of constraints.

Ultimately, all relationships are temporary. False attachment to another can become an addiction, a voluntary bondage detrimental to clear perception. We should not bind another to ourselves, should not define ourselves by relationship, should not force another to stay with us…

When it is time to part, then it is time to part. There should be no regrets. The beauty of relationship is like the fleeting perfection of a snowflake.

Life’s pulse is gauged in the hollows, the intervals between events. If you want to see Tao, you must discern these spaces.

Human law is imperfect: There will always be unprecedented circumstances. Thus, we must go beyond rules and operate instead from pure wisdom. We must act with experience, flexibility, and insight. Let us so absorb integrity—experiencing both its triumphs and defeats—-that way we do the right thing intuitively.

Though others have faults,
Concentrate on your own.

Look at a cat as she stretches out contentedly in the sun. There is no thought of the next moment, only the sheer enjoyment of the present. Rest assured that she will still be able to clean herself, still be able to catch mice, and still be able to do all the things that a cat must do. But she is without anxieties, and so she is purely and totally who she should be. She acts as if she were nature’s favorite. And who is to say otherwise?

In all of life, the only thing that separates from Tao is the human ego, because one places oneself before all other things. By contrast, those who follow Tao divest themselves of self-importance and desire for success. They prefer to follow Tao as it flows through the land. They move from place to place as they intuitively sense its direction. Feeling the divine energy, they live in its vital flow. These wanderers have glimpsed the void that is in them and in all
things.

…anything that grows old must be in touch with the sustaining Tao.

It is because of this that those who follow Tao study the ancient. What are the secrets of what has lasted? If we would endeavor to develop wisdom beyond the mere moment, we must ask this question over and over.

When we learn to tap into the power of Tao inside ourselves, we will feel a vitality as strong as a tiger’s. That is pure energy. It is very important to direct that power positively.

Vigilance is not a matter of mere waiting. It is a matter of the correct timing. It takes an exquisite sense of proportion to know that we are not just standing still—we are moving no faster and no slower than required by the situation.

…our essential nature will not change, just as the substance of silk is not changed by dyeing. Nor is our essential nature in need of any change. …we are who we are, and there is no reason to be ashamed of that. That is why we can be immediate in everyday life: we know who we are, and we trust in the process of Tao.

Thus, the ancients taught their students to always accept themselves as they were. This is not only eminently practical—to do otherwise is ultimately impossible—but it is the beginning of the attitude of acceptance that we need to follow the Tao. If we cannot accept ourselves, it is unlikely that we will be able to accept anything that Tao sends our way.

By accepting ourselves, we can then bring great immediacy to our lives.

Without going out of the door, I can know all things on earth.
Without looking out of the window, I can know the way of heaven.
The wise person knows others by observing himself.
The wise person will not go out when fate is in opposition.
The wise person knows when to withdraw into contemplation.

Books allow people to think for themselves, allow access to knowledge forgotten or even out of favor with the times. Books allow knowledge to travel over time and distances greater than the author could ever accomplish in person.

Most important, books encourage allegiance not to kings, but to the learning of the individual. And that is crucial to Tao.

Those who can read the patterns of life are the truly cultured.

Every person who has followed Tao has been a person of culture and refinement. Not only does Tao require study and intelligence, but it also demands the subtle mind of a sensitive person…

The (person who follows Tao) is someone who can read not just human language, but the languages of nature as well. There are patterns and secrets throughout the world—the rings of trees, and tracks of animals, and the traces of water down the sides of a valley are as clear as any scripture. The person who follows Tao does not blindly go through life, but is able to read it on every level. Those who follow Tao are those who know the many languages of life.

…those who seek Tao constantly seek words of wisdom and allow them to accumulate deep in themselves. That is why the ancients always said it takes a person of virtue to hear words of virtue. It takes a person of strength to want words of strength. It takes a person of learning to discern words of learning.

If one is a hermit, one can be quiescent. If one is in the world, one must be aggressive.

To be aggressive…is to have the prowess and cunning of the wolf. A wolf is shrewd. It does not blindly go into a situation. It scouts things out. It has a sense of itself and its surroundings that is nearly supernatural. Trackers have a hard time trapping it. Prey have a difficult time eluding it.

The wolf has its own “virtue” or moral force. It acts according to its own fixed rules. It does not kill excessively, it keeps to its territory, and follows its instinct when mating and caring for its young. If only human beings could be so consistently true to their inner nature!

If those who follow Tao act on a worldly stage, they take the wolf as a model. They know that success in a situation is frequently a matter of aggressiveness. They do not waste their time in trivialities. Instead, they remain supernaturally aware of themselves and their territory. They track others, but in turn obscure themselves. And when the moment of action comes, they act without hesitation.

To be aggressive is the secret of success.

For those who follow Tao, having a strong stance is essential both physically and spiritually. The example of the stance can be applied to every situation in life: you always have to have—and know—your position. Don’t be caught unawares. Don’t be caught without a point of view. Don’t be caught without tactics. The exercise of the stance teaches us that stance must be firm, but never static. From the insight and awareness of one’s strategy, there are dozens of positions to which one can move instantaneously.

In life, as in the practice of stances, one must have both firmness and mobility.

Life is difficult to confront. Chance and ruin are overwhelming; the heart and mind are fragile. Those who manage to assert their will against the odds are admirable. When we are the ones who are able to triumph over adversity, we have reached a rare and fleeting moment.

…Being a hero is a matter of being prepared for a gift in time. Time will give you an opening. It is how you then respond that will decide whether you have taken advantage of your opportunity.

Having any less than heroic aspirations is to settle for mediocrity, and the mediocre never develop the perceptions and reflexes needed to follow Tao.

But if you want to be extraordinary, concentrate only on perfecting yourself…We needn’t care about how others judge us. As long as we grasp the importance of a moment, meet the opportunity, and respond to it with the whole of our being, then we can consider ourselves heroes. This, then, is the true meaning of heroism; you met whatever came your way with every bit of yourself.

To go through life well is to have means at one’s disposal. To have means is to know the laws of life.

…we must have many transformations. Whenever things are not going our way, that is a signal to change. This is called the live way. Those who cannot change, who remain fixed in stubbornness eventually lose. That is called the dead way… Those who follow Tao seek the means that transcend limitations.

Those who follow Tao avoid fixed movements and do not hesitate to act in unorthodox ways.
Tao changes very quickly. Life’s circumstances shift so suddenly that they leave you breathless…
Those who follow Tao do not always do things the straight-forward and orthodox way. Instead of acting according to preconceived ideas, they look for the greatest advantages. Structured thinking or clinging to prevailing dogma are only inhibitions….

When things go badly, those who follow Tao seek the causes and correct them. If the problem cannot be corrected, they shift the entire frame of reference so that the relative importance of the problem is diminished or eliminated….

Therefore, the wise solely follow the shifting and changing Tao and avoid fixed routines. They do not stick stubbornly to ideas or patterns. Tao is formless, constantly creative, and relentlessly in flux. Those who follow Tao seek to change with it.

The inexperienced overreach: they do not know their abilities and limitations. The veterans know exactly what is possible, and they keep everything they need close at hand.

One who knows how to take advantage of natural forces will always be sustained. One who is ignorant of natural forces will be destroyed.

Those who follow Tao are extremely canny. They know the slightest details of what happens around them. Then they take advantage of them. Their lives appear miraculous, but all they do is take advantage of natural events.

Timing is everything in Tao. To act in a way that is harmonious to circumstances and in accord with one’s own heart is rare but precious.

In action, timing is everything
Force doesn’t matter.
Weight doesn’t matter.
Even being morally right doesn’t matter.
All that matters is timing.

…correct timing is something that must be felt in one’s heart. …those who would act according to Tao cannot blame Tao if things do not go their way. It is the individual who must discern what the time calls for and then act accordingly.

Timing means harmonious union. Clumsily destroying things cannot be called good action. To bring things together at precisely the right moment is what deserves to be called timing. A photographer captures light at the right moment. …In these and all other professions, force, cleverness, determination, and power are meaningless if timing does not bring the right elements to bear. What matters is the right action at the right time.

….if you know the time is bad, avoid the situation. If you know a place is bad, avoid it. Evil is inevitable. But it is often possible simply to get out of the way. Some heroes advocate meeting things openly, fighting it out man to man, meeting force with force. Followers of Tao disagree. Whenever possible, they avoid bad times and bad places. They avoid confrontations. In this way, they make as many of their encounters as positive as possible.

(This principle reminds me of an amusing moment in the Castaneda books when Carlos is asking Don Juan, “But Don Juan, what would all your powers do for you if someone was stalking you with a rifle with a telescopic sight?” Don Juan replied: “Well, if someone were stalking me with a rifle with a telescopic sight I just wouldn’t come around.”—JZ)

The crux of following Tao is to know acceptance. If you want to go east, but Tao wants you to go west, then you should go west. If you want to accomplish ten things, but circumstances only allow you to accomplish nine, then accept that. If you meet obstacles to what you want to do, you have to ask yourself how you can adapt. Sometimes you will be able to overcome the obstacles. At other times, you will have to go around the obstacles….

One should never be too proud to adapt. If you see that things are not going your way, adapt quickly. By doing it in a smooth and timely manner, you can avoid disrupting the flow of events. This is call Tao.

JZ: I found an inner resistance in myself when I wrote the line above, “If you want to go East…” There is a flaw in the way Taoist principles are presented, and maybe even in the way they are understood or applied by some Taoists. An impression is given of forever adapting and changing in response to shifts in external conditions. This misses a huge part of Tao. As George Bernard Shaw said: “The mark of the reasonable man is that he adapts to the world he finds himself in. The mark of the unreasonable man is that he expects the world to adapt itself to him. Therefore, all progress is made by unreasonable men.” Tao is not all external, it is internal, intrapsychic as well. Our inner relationship to ourselves is our realm of absolute sovereignty. Aleister Crowley had a concept of “true will”—-an inner calling coming from our deepest self. This is our internal refraction of Tao, and this needs to be followed regardless of whatever resistance external conditions throw at us. We adapt and change with outer circumstances, but never abandon our true will.—JZ

The ancients said that the bird follows Tao, since it is a natural creature, unsullied by human conceptions.
For direction, look to nature. For direction, look into yourself—is it not possible that we have within us an instinct for direction as strong as the bird’s? If you can find that—and it most assuredly exists in each of us—then Tao is sure to follow.

When we walk along a road, we should not regret another road not taken. Those who are mature accept this. We cannot travel on one path while walking another. If we go to one destination, then it is inevitable that we will miss others.

It is tempting to linger upon regrets and suppositions, especially when times are unhappy. Maybe we could have been more famous or richer. Maybe we could have done more as we grew older. But it is far better to remember that we make our own road one day at a time. If we have been fully involved with our own lives and have been making our own decisions, there is no reason for regret.

As we grow older, it becomes critical to fulfill what we find important.

When you think of others before yourself, that is Tao.
When you discipline yourself, that is Tao.
When you feel an activity doing itself rather than your doing it, that is Tao.
When you are aware of what to do spontaneously, that is Tao.
When you can take responsibility for what you do, that is Tao.
When you cultivate different skills with complete attention, that is Tao.
When you enter into lucid stillness, that is Tao.
When you are better than your worries, that is Tao.
When you can control your health, that is Tao.
When you can combine mind and action, that is Tao.
When you can be like water, that is Tao.
When you can be as illuminating as fire, that is Tao.
When you can be as sharp as metal, that is Tao.
When you can be as abundant as the earth, that is Tao.

If you are on the road of Tao and you need healing, seek out the means to acquire it. Whether that means going to a doctor or learning how to maintain your own health, it is a vital part of following Tao. And if you have achieved balance and meet someone you can help, never turn away. Skill is to used not just for yourself, but for the good of those you meet. That, too, is balance and harmony.

What do you do when life is difficult? You could call for help, but that is not always reliable. Sooner or later, life will catch you with no one around.

You might be without food or shelter during a time of natural disaster. You might be alone at a time when help cannot come quickly enough. You may even suffer the tragedy of having all your friends abandon you. That is why those who follow Tao emphasize the importance of having many abilities. If you have the self-reliance that comes with having many skills, you will not lose your equanimity. This cannot be emphasized enough. You cannot truly walk the whole path of Tao until you can cope with the unknown.

People say that those who follow Tao are serene, but that serenity is not because of some meditative trancelike state. It comes from the confidence of one who has ability.

Without controlling how we eat, we cannot control our existence…those who follow Tao have a personal relationship with how they eat and with what they eat. Only then do they have a chance of controlling their destiny.

Secret, private, divine. The left side (of the ideogram Mi–Secret) is the sign for spiritual influence. The right side shows a weapon hidden beneath the two halves of a robe.

What is most precious is always kept secret.

When you do something, don’t hold back. Shoot it all, go for it all. Don’t wait for a “better time,” because the better times are built on what you do today. Don’t be selfish with your skills, because the skills of tomorrow are built upon the performances of today…

When you act, act completely. Follow through. Do everything that has to be done. Be like the fire that burns completely clean: only from that pure stage can you then take the next step.

To live is to work. When we work we learn…It is important to do the type of work that leads not simply to production, but to skill. In other words, the most important type of work is the kind that results from one’s life, not from societal or economic pressures. When we work as part of life it leaves a profound residue in our personality. It produces an attitude of accomplishment, an accumulation of working wisdom impossible to obtain any other way.

The ancients recognized this phenomenon so clearly that work came to signify skill. The kind of work one does—-farm work, art work, spiritual work, or any other work—is not so important. What is important is that one performs one’s work at its most profound level. In olden times, people would say that a craftsperson who had achieved great skill had realized the Tao of that art form.

And once one has realized the Tao in part, the whole is not far away.

It is more trouble to go for what is lasting. People want immediate results and often do not consider the future… The cheap and fast solution becomes useless after a few years and you then have to start over again. Perhaps, over the course of a lifetime of replacement, you even spend more time, effort, and money than if you had acquired or made a lasting item to begin with.

And what of the time spent? Let’s say you need a chest. It is far better to buy one or have a craftsman make you a good one—and then never have to waste time on the issue again—than it is to live out of a series of bags, cardboard boxes, or flimsy wooden ones.

And what of what you do in life? It is far better to do a quality job each and every time in whatever you do. Whether you are repairing a broken door or paying attention to your meditation, do the very best job you can. Then your problems will be fewer.

That which is made by hand improves both the maker and the user.
In the recent past, everything was made by hand.
The objects that were made did not have the precision and regularity of machine-made things. In turn, however, the objects had spirit.

Those who fritter away their energies are ineffective. Those who concentrate surpass others. If you can count the time you’ve wasted in a day, then you know how much room you have for improvement.

The remedy for this is very simple to state but highly difficult to accomplish: finish what you begin. That takes incredible concentration. Once you try this a few times, you will understand. First you will become more realistic about what you can take on. Second, you will marshal all your skill and the greatest perseverance to go the distance. Third, you will be able to complete your task. Fourth, you can only progress by building on the distance you have come.

Finish what you start. That is the great rule when it comes to action. But when it comes to personal development, you are never finished. The great are supreme only because they understand this.

Life is a daily process of compromise, murky meanings, and ambiguity. What is correct one day can be wrong the next. What seems good can all too easily become bad.

And in the examination of character, be as constant as the pine is green—-always.

It is said that there are three levels of friendship. The first is the level of casual acquaintance. The second is where there is sharing. The third, considered most deep, is the level where we trust friends to criticize us.

Ulterior motives at any one of these levels ruin people quickly, and we cannot call such relationships true friendship. When we are with a true friend, we will know, because we can be open and trusting. Such openness is friendship.

When it comes to suffering injustice, there are two types of people. The first says, “I can’t wait to turn around and do this to someone else.” The second says, “This was done to me, and I do not want to do it to someone else.”

When it comes to spiritual accomplishments, there are two types of people. The first says, “I will press on for myself because my knowledge was won so dearly.” The second says, “I will help others, because I know how difficult it is to walk a spiritual path.”

When it comes to facing death, there are two types of people. The first says, “My life is at an end, and I am bitter.” The second says, “In sharing I become more than myself and cannot die.”

In the face of the world’s myriad opportunities, we try to discern what is advantageous to us and avoid the detrimental. We do not move in the world without discrimination, but try to use our own experiences—and not the unreliable opinions of others—to make choices. Thus, although the world is vast, we travel through it in increasingly wise ways.

Even though we acknowledge that our desires are great, we try to pare them down to their most essential. The way to do his is never suppression, but a constant and steady give-and-take between our energies and our opportunities. From the palette of desires with which we were born, those who are wise choose the wholesome. We also recognize that we may have unwholesome tendencies, and rather than feel guilty about them, we seek to discharge them harmlessly. We understand that the more twisted our upbringing and experiences, the more perverse our desires become, so we try to heal the scars of our younger years and keep our lives harmonious.

In trying to follow Tao, there will invariably be conflict between the ideals we pursue and the realities of our lives. Unless we accept this situation, and even learn to work with it, we cannot have the harmony of Tao.

While it’s true that you must pursue truth with no thought of gain, you must, sadly enough, also pursue truth with little thought of support.

We may have lofty ideals, but they are easily thwarted in this turbulent world. The ancients often said, “The more you try to live a good life, the more you will suffer.” It’s true. We must be receptive, even to misfortune: the depths of our character are only revealed upon trial.

..it is a fact that there is no special deal to be gotten by being generous. We should simply be kind because that is the right thing to do. We won’t get a direct reward in exchange for our kindness, and yet nothing else can so awaken us to the spiritual within.

The deepest kindness comes not from simply thinking of others, but in feeling what they feel.

Those who are truly kind are so not because of theory or ethics, but because they feel the suffering of others as directly as they would their own.

That ability to feel human need can develop your sensitivity to feel Tao.

When we understand the importance of moderation, then we will automatically operate from the center.
In all matters, the ancients counseled moderation. For them, the primary sin was excess, for excess destroyed all sense of what was human and plunged a person far from a true way in life.

If all of life can be thought of as a continuous walk along a real path, the worst thing in life is to lose one’s balance on that path. That is why the ancients continually underscored the need for moderation with the word “zhong.”

It is a clearly drawn word—a target with an arrow piercing its center. For the arrow to hit the target, it must fly true. If the archer inclines to the left or right, even by a mere fraction of a hair’s breadth, the arrow will not fly a true path. And once an arrow has hit its target, it has attained the only correct spot—any other place shows imbalance.

So whenever we are confronted with the impossible in life, we need only think back to what the ancients would counsel: be moderate. If we keep that as our aim, then there will be few mistakes in life.

Opposites are really pairs. We cannot have one side without the other.
The ancients believed that all things are divided into opposites, and that it is the interrelationships of these opposites that cause all phenomena in the world.

We have a male side and a female side. We have a left and a right. There is up and down. Without opposites, we literally would not exist.

The trouble comes when we are unable to view things with moderation. We all want to be rich, but we don’t want to be poor. We all want happiness, but we shun disappointment.

That is why the word “dui” is so important. It reminds us that opposites are not mutually exclusive but are actually pairs. If we have sadness, then happiness will come too. If we have love, we will also have to deal with conflict. For all our learning, we will have days where our philosophical outlook will be tried to its breaking point. For all the peace of meditation, we will still have to face work, illness, and stress. There is no path in life that only stands on one side of a pair and never ventures into the other.

The sooner we accept—and work with that—the better off we will be. That is why the way of Tao is the middle way. We cannot have one side without the other in life: it is wisdom to strike a balance between them both.

Know when enough is enough. Some die from hunger, but many die from overeating.
So to be happy, we have to control our desires. The ancients taught two ways to do this. Sometimes they used discipline to curb desire. Sometimes they satisfied their desires. This is the genius of Tao: moderation. We do not need to cling to the extremism of the ascetic. We do not need to lose ourselves in the indulgence of the hedonist. We follow Tao, the middle path.

Hunger comes when food is scarce.
The follower of Tao stays hungry.

Those who follow Tao know hunger and scarcity.
Thus, when times are difficult, they know how to survive. When times are rich, they remember to be cautious.
Those who follow Tao make great achievements, if they are so inclined to come out and act in the world.

Nevertheless, they always stay hungry, so that they are never complacent. They are always out trying to do better. Like an immigrant eager to make a new life, or a boxer trying to win a title, or a tiger searching the jungle for is prey, those who follow Tao know that hunger is a great motivator.

In eating, be moderate. Leave a little room in your stomach. Try to stay lean, not for the sake of fashion, but for the sake of health and motivation.

The mind grows sluggish on too much rich food and fine wine.

However, neither should one become a “hungry ghost,” forever searching the world for something to eat. That is too much the other extreme. Like everything else in life, those who follow Tao use moderation, and they use everything they can–even hunger—to further their travel through Tao.

Having enough to eat: that is joy. Knowing when one is full: that is wisdom.

Eat what is proper. Eat what is right. Although there are elaborate schools of cooking, avoid excess. Although there are fanatic beliefs about diet, fasting, and ritual, avoid obsession. Eat what is natural. Eat enough, but don’t eat too much. The simple application of that dictum is difficult enough.

Feeling and emotion are the colors emerging from the heart.

Not to have feeling is inhuman.
To be carried away be feeling is foolish.
Not to have desire is death.
To be a slave to desire is to be lost.

If feelings are the color of the heart, then let us paint with the brevity and lightness of watercolor.

Just as wind shakes the leaves of the bamboo, so too do we laugh in reaction to the world.

The ancients understood the ephemeral and advised their students not to take life too seriously. Life changes too quickly for us to dwell overly long on any single aspect. Things may go one way for a while, only o change quickly and unpredictably….it is far better to accept and work with its ephemeral quality.

Then, no matter how difficult things are, we can laugh.

As nothing is permanent, there is nothing to take seriously. As there is nothing to take seriously, we should laugh at the world. As we laugh at the world, we should realize that understanding the changeable nature of life is the swiftest way to joy.

Many accomplishments are made by people who study carefully and put in a lot of hardwork, but those who follow Tao would rather celebrate the accomplishments of those who got their best ideas while tinkering, or taking a bath, or eating breakfast, or taking a walk, or sipping tea, or just doing nothing.

A smart person takes play seriously, for in the act of playing is the possibility of going beyond established borders. And Tao, while it is everywhere, is most likely to be found outside of borders. If you want to be with the Tao, it is better to put aside all that is “important” and “significant” and just play. Be natural. You’ll arrive at Tao a lot sooner than if you make a “special effort.”

Build your life brick upon brick.
Live a life of truth,
And you will look back on a life of truth.
Live a life of (delusion),*
And you will look back on delusion.

*Deng used the word “fantasy” in this line and “delusion” in the next line. I feel that “fantasy” was an unfortunate word choice, as fantasy can be life affirming or not depending on the fantasy. A second delusion makes the meaning stronger and clearer, also more symmetrical with the double use of “truth” in the two preceding lines. —JZ

The good of today is based upon the good of yesterday. That is why we should constantly be attentive to our actions.

Take frugal people as an example. They recycle the scraps from their cooking into compost piles. They eat at home rather than in restaurants. They do not waste water. They shop carefully. They do not spend their money on frivolities. This is exactly the type of care that we need for spirituality.

We should not fritter our efforts away on amusements; rather, we should concentrate on endeavors most important to us. We should not randomly gather information; rather, we should try to order it into a comprehensive whole, thereby compounding our abilities to our own advantage…

Whether our lives are magnificent or wretched depends upon our ordering daily details. We must organize the details into a composition that pleases us. Only then will we have meaning in our lives.

Don’t call me a follower of Tao.

Following Tao is an intensely personal endeavor in which you spend each minute of your life with the universal pulse. You follow the fluid and infinitely shifting Tao and experience its myriad wonders. You will want nothing more than to be empty before it—–a perfect mirror, open to every nuance.

If you put labels on who you are, there is separation from Tao. As soon as you accept the designations of race, gender, name, or fellowship, you define yourself in contrast to Tao.

That is why those who follow Tao never identify themselves with the name Tao. They do not care for label, for status, or for rank. We all have an equal chance to be with Tao.

Reject labels.
Reject identities.
Reject conformity.
Reject convention.
Reject definitions.
Reject names.

Those who follow Tao strive for perfection, but they are wary about being called prophets. That is a limited role. Being a prophet represents a great trap baited with the temptation of self-importance. The ultimate aim of following Tao is to transcend identity. Those who call themselves prophets or even masters maximize their identities…

Having someone call you by a title is an interference that you don’t need. When you are seeing the greatest wonder of your life, the last thing you want is to have someone blocking the light.

Mind in the center
Radiates to eight legs,
Creating a supreme web
To sift Tao.

A spider is a perfect creature of Tao. Its body is an elegant expression of its mind: It spins beautiful threads, and its legs are exactly suited to create and walk its web. From its center, a spider radiates its world out with a spare economy.

A spider’s posture in regard to Tao is to set up a pattern. Its mind determines this pattern. It realizes the flow of Tao and does nothing to interfere with it. It simply creates is pattern and waits for Tao to bring it sustenance. That which comes to it, it accepts. That which does not come to it is not its concern.

Once its web is established, a spider does not think of expanding unnaturally. It does not make war upon its neighbors, it does not go for adventures in other countries, it does not try to enslave others, it does not try to be intellectual. It is simply who it is and is content with that.

I am not this fragile body.
We are not our bodies…

This fragile body
Is matrix
For mind and soul.

We cannot afford to neglect our bodies, even if we recognize that we must not identify with them exclusively. Actually, in our search for our true selves, our physical existence is the best place to start. We can alter our lives by how we eat and exercise, and we can expedite our search by keeping ourselves healthy. If we are free of physical blockages and pain, we can identify our inner selves much better.

In the search for the mind and the soul, it is wise to understand that the body is not the true self, but it is also wise to maintain the body. There should be neither denial nor mortification of the flesh, but it takes a wise person to both maintain the body and look beyond it.

Sex, coffee, liquor, and cigarettes
Are the totems of today.
Stimulation has replaced feeling.

In today’s world, these are the unfortunate equations:

Do you want intimacy? Have sex.
Do you want to be energetic? Drink coffee.
Do you want freedom from inhibitions? Drink wine.
Do you want a fashionable prop? Smoke cigarettes.
Why is it that these things have replaced what should naturally be done?

Because people have lost the knowledge of how to do these things without artificial stimulation. Why not seek intimacy through sensitivity? Energy through good health? If we overcome our obstacles, we won’t need inhibition.

Pretension will fall away. Only then will there be a blossoming of Tao.

Loneliness need not be despair.
It could be an opportunity.

Some people claim that self-sufficiency is a myth. A person is a social animal, they declare; people cannot successfully live outside of some community. But that is not the correct way to understand true self-sufficiency. What we are referring to is a supreme sense of connection with oneself and the cosmos around oneself. This doesn’t preclude community with others, but it does prevent the excesses and shortcomings that occur when society is one’s only source of union.

Tao surrounds us. One who is with Tao is never lonely but is an integral part of the natural cycle. In the same way that water surrounds a fish Tao surrounds us. If we feel lonely, then it is only because we are forgetting how we are totally immersed in Tao. That is why loneliness can be an opportunity:

It reminds us that we are dwelling on our own egoistic identity rather than on the support of the Tao.

In the minds of those who follow Tao, duality in life is not clearly demarcated. There is a fuzziness at the line. Day does not have a sharp border with night. So it is with the alternations of the seasons. It is not a simple, smooth continuum from summer into autumn. There is complexity and counterpoint.

If nature is full of subtlety and even false appearances, how wise must we be in order to follow life’s rhythms unerringly?

Everyone has their own style in life. The old have perspective. The young have vigor. We can learn from each other, but we cannot have what the other generations possess. We are each shaped by our generations, and to transcend the limitations of our time is a rare occurrence indeed.

…The secrets of life are already written repeatedly in all the holy books.

They are only secrets because we do not take the time to truly read.
Can you see jewels in the mud?

Today we have a very incomplete relationship to our food. We don’t see where something grows, we eat foods out of season, we buy prepared foods made by someone we don’t even know. There is great power in knowing your food, knowing where it came from, preparing it with your own hands. This food, whether vegetable or animal, died for us. The least we can do is partake of it thoroughly and with respect.

You could tell the secret of life ten times over, and it would still be safe. After all, the secret is only known when people make it real in their own lives, not when they simply hear it.

Every morning means a fresh start on things. If yesterday was trying and exhausting, today is a given opportunity to do something different. If yesterday was full of triumph and satisfaction, today is a free chance to go further. All too often we wake up, think of our schedules, and assume that we must act according to the same dull script. We need not. If we find what is unique to each day, we will have freshness and the greatest fulfillment possible.

Although we have talked about our relationship to Tao in terms of positioning and timing, the clear discerning of intervals is just as important. Geese keep a perfect distance between them to establish a dynamic equilibrium; so too must we fit in with the intervals of a day’s events. If we, like the geese, act in unison with these moments, with each other, and with the season, then we will be in total concert with Tao.

Today is poised between yesterday and tomorrow. What you may have started yesterday can be continued or interrupted today. Every morning is a new day. That observation is so simple as to seem trite. If we could observe the simple, there would be no need to study Tao.

Cat sits in the sun.
Dog sits in the grass.
Turtle sits on the rock.
Frog sits on the lily pad.
Why aren’t people so smart?

Those who follow Tao are fond of pointing out the wisdom of animals. When they see a cat sitting motionless in the sun or a turtle who stretches her head upward in a still pose, they say that these animals are meditating. They know how to be still and conserve their internal energy. They do not dissipate themselves in useless activity but instead withdraw into themselves to recharge…

There is no reason to think of meditation as something out of the ordinary. Quite the opposite. Meditation is the purest and most natural expression we can have. When you next look at a cat or a dog sitting still, and admire the naturalness of their actions, think then of your own life. Don’t meditate because it is a part of your schedule or is demanded by your particular philosophy. Meditate because it is natural.

Don’t be afraid to explore;
Without exploration there are no discoveries.
Don’t be afraid of partial solutions;
Without the tentative there is no accomplishment.

Indecision and procrastination are corrosive habits. Those who wait for every little thing to be perfect before they embark on a project or who dislike the compromise of a partial solution are among the least happy. Ideal circumstances are seldom given to anyone for an undertaking. Instead there is uncertainty in every situation. The wise are those who can wrest great advantage from circumstances opaque to everyone else.

Wanting everything in life to be perfect before you take action is like wanting to reach a destination without travel. For those who follow Tao, travel is every bit as important as the destination. One step after another. That is still central to the wisdom of Tao.

Every day passes whether you participate or not. If you are not careful, years will go by and you will only have regrets. If you cannot solve a problem all at once, at least make a stab at it. Reduce your problems into smaller, more manageable packages, and you can make measurable progress toward achievement. If you wait for everything to be perfect according to your preconceived plans, then you may well wait forever. If you go out and work with the current of life, you may find that success comes from building upon small things.

You may be capable of great things,
But life consists of small things.

Big things seldom come along. One should know the small as well as the big. We may all yearn to make lasting achievements and to be heroes, but life seldom affords us the opportunities to do so. Most of our days consist of small things—the uneventful meditations, the ordinary cooking of meals, the banal trips to wok, the quiet scratching in the garden—and it is from these small things that the larger events of life are composed.

We rarely have the occasion to make grand gestures. The champion gymnast’s greatest moment is but an hour out of an entire lifetime….If we want to be successful, it is to the small things that we should pay attention.

We must not fall into the trap of waiting for life to be perfect. They complain that fate is against them, and the world does not recognize their greatness. If they would lower their sights, they would see all the beautiful opportunities swirling at their feet. If they would humble themselves enough to bend down, they could scoop untold treasures up into their hands.

One willing to take his own life into his hands
Will not hesitate to take the lives of others…

Beware the brave man. He may be a hero, willing to risk his very life, but he will also be willing to endanger the lives of others. After all, he is a risk taker and therefore does not see much wisdom in conservation, compassion, and carefulness. Such a person will threaten others, force his will upon others, and even murder others not out of passion but out of something much more deadly—rationale. He will justify his actions according to ideology, patriotism, religion, and principle.

When attacked, a brave man goes forth with strength, power, and confidence. In that boisterousness, there is little awareness of the subtle. Life is not simple, and it takes a great deal of time to master. Perhaps that is why the brave are youthful while the wise are old.

If I don’t want to be known, I cannot be known.
The best actor can divide role from self…

People think that they know you. Soon you begin to play the role that they place on you. Why should you act a certain way to please others? You should do things from you inner awareness and from your own feelings. If they do not accord with the herd, then so much the better.

You should change when it pleases you. Your life is flexible. If you let other people shape you, then you will never know independence.

The sages say that all life is illusory, and they usually lament this. The way of Tao is to use this fact and not let it oppress you. If you want to dodge others, then step behind one of the myriad illusions in this world. If you do not volunteer anything and you neither confirm or deny, the opinions of others can never stick to you. Then you will be left in peace.

True sages never go by appearances. When it comes to introspection, they are not deceived by the appearances their own minds spew out. They know that if they want to get at the truth, then they must pierce to the very core.

So if you would hide from others, avail yourself of the false appearances of life. If you would know yourself, distinguish between the false appearances of life. Above all, do not be put off by the illusory nature of life. Use it.
Everything in this life can be an advantage to the wise.

Though life is a dream,
Act as if it isn’t.
Act with no weight.

You may understand that life is but a dream, but that doesn’t free you from the responsibility to act. This dream may not be of your own making, but you must still engage it and operate within the parameters of the fantasy. You must become the producer, director, and actor of a phantasmic stage play. Otherwise, you are aimlessly adrift.

Meditating is to wake up. Few of us have acquired the skill to be in constant meditation. Therefore, we awake and dream, awake and dream. The moments of enlightenment are like the times when swimmers come up for air. They gain a breath of life, but they must submerge once again. We are all swimmers on the sea of sorrow, bobbing up and down until our final liberation.

The initial difficulty of spirituality is a schizophrenia between true understanding and the sorrow of everyday life. Our enlightenment clashes with the outer impurities. That is why some novitiates withdraw into isolation. Once people gain true spiritual insight, they dispense with this split. They can live in this world and yet not be stained by it. They are the strongest and most serene swimmers of all. They act, and yet they barely disturb the water. Their actions are outwardly no different from ordinary actions, but they leave no wake.

Tao may be known as directly as water is knowable to a fish. My Tao will not be the same as your Tao. We are both individuals, with different background and thoughts. As soon as Tao enters into us, it takes on the colors of our inner personalities. When it passes out of us, it takes on the colors of our inner personalities. This is an ongoing and constant process, like water lowing through a fish’s gills. Just as the water nurtures the fish, so too does Tao nurture and sustain us. As long as we continue our immersion in Tao, we will be as safe as a carp in water. When we separate from Tao, we are as helpless as a fish out of water.

Be self-sufficient but not isolated.
When the king of China closed the borders,
Centuries of stagnation and decadence began.

All the philosophy of Tao is intended to lead to self-sufficiency. Whatever one needs to do in life, one should be able to do on one’s on. Whether one is trapped in the wilderness or whether one is dealing with a social gathering requiring etiquette and grace, one should be able to cope with aplomb and ease.

Being self-sufficient is not the same as being isolated…problems can arise in people who are so self-sufficient that they fail to engage life fully. Either they will implode from the sheer weight of their own decadence and stagnation, or they will explode once the outside world confronts them with something they cannot comprehend.

Those who follow Tao roam the world. They may not avail themselves of the temporary advantages of withdrawal and intense self-cultivation, but they do not become permanently isolated. They flow with the Tao, are with all things, and
therefore avoid decadence.

How do you know when your own life verges on decadence?

Certainly when the force of form becomes more important than the force of substance. When etiquette and morals become more important than understanding and righteousness. When procedure becomes more important than creativity. When gratifying your lust becomes more important than giving to others. When patriotism becomes more important than measured governing and enlightened treatment of other nations. When the act of eating becomes more important than considerations of nutrition…When one’s own comfort becomes more important than the suffering of loved ones. When ambition becomes more important than benevolence. When prestige becomes more important than charity. When the academy becomes more important than the streets. When loud expression becomes more important than listening to others. When outrageousness becomes more important than communication. When connoisseurship becomes more important than simple acts. When style becomes more important than function. When books become more important than teachers. When expedience becomes more important than the elderly.

When you smell these things happening, you are not far from decadence.

Lightning rod at the pinnacle
Attracts power by its mere presence.
In the same way, we must work
For substance and height.

If we want communion with heavenly powers, we need only attain the proper spiritual height. Then heaven will come to meet us as surely as lightning is attracted to a lightning rod. The effort is only in the becoming, in the purification of our characters, in the reaching upward. Once the situation is correct, union is inevitable…

Of course, no one is required to make an effort in life. We can all go the easy way. But then we are still lightning rods. Only the forces we attract arenot the powers of heaven, but the powers of demons, misfortune, and predators…The fact is, no matter what kind of person you are, you will attract something to yourself. One of the major ways to control what comes to you is to refine your substance.

The irony of spiritual living is that you become more sensitive and subtle. Therefore, you become intolerant of the coarse. There is not much choice in this. If you want to catch the subtle things in life, then you must become refined yourself. But the coarser things will then accumulate all the more quickly. A coarse sieve in a rushing stream will hold back only debris and large rocks. A fine mesh will catch smaller things, but it will also retain the large…

The solution lies in floating on the current of Tao, uniting with it. That way we no longer seek to hold or to reject.

Poverty of any kind need not be a deterrent if you know how to utilize the wealth you possess. You must embrace your fate, work with it, and take advantage of it.

Ultimately, we cannot truly grasp anything permanently in life. We re born naked, we die naked, and in point of fact we live naked. What we take to us—our clothes, our wealth, our relationships—are all external to us. They are easily taken away from us by bruising fate.

Perhaps even the poorest of situations is rich, because all the futility of life leads us to embrace Tao…

The wrestler was once more solid than a bull.
He loved to flex enormous, oiled forearms
Before he delightedly vanquished foes.
But now, brittle skin is taut over bone,
And his wheeze is a ghost of his manly bellow.

At any point in life, it is prudent to contemplate the nature of prowess. If you have it, glory in it, and use it wisely and compassionately. But you should not think that it is you yourself who are doing these things. You are borrowing this strength. It isn’t yours. It is a gift, something here for you for as long as you are lucky to have it. …When you have been humbled, what is gone? You are still here, here to feel the pain of not being able to do what you were once able to do—unless you learn how to exercise your prowess without identifying with it.

Those who fail to learn this become bitter old people. They curse life. They lose faith. That is because they placed all their self-worth in their abilities and not in who they were…

Young people often have a mania for more and more information. But mere accumulation is not enough. The more you take in, the more that data needs to be managed. Without that, you have encyclopedic knowledge and miniscule wisdom.
True wisdom is a qualitative value built on a quantitative foundation…

One might say that wisdom is not simply a mental process but the sum total of a human being.

Watching a performance of warriors, I was told, “This fighter’s tradition is six hundred years old.”

And I saw a performance so mired in ritual—-
As if nothing valid had happened in six hundred years.
We must honor the classical without being irrelevant.

What makes a tradition alive? The adherents must be fully capable of manifesting the greatness of their tradition in contemporary settings. If someone says that they are expert in traditional medicine, then they must be able to heal others today…

We should not ape the habits and theories of a long dead people and time in the name of tradition. We must be ruthless in this respect. Unless the force of tradition allows us to manifest a unique greatness, there is no reason to keep it.

The drunk falls from the cart but is not hurt.
You throw hesitation aside but look stupid.
To be truly uninhibited is a rare grace.

Ancient societies were tribal;
The current group did the thinking.
Current society is splintered;
The individual must be complex.

…It is good to strive for purity, but if you conceive of purity as a fight against the filth and dust of the world, you doom yourself to obsession and futility. The only way to achieve actual purity is to realize your essential oneness with all things. If you are one with everything, then even filth is pure. For this to happen, you must transcend all distinctions in yourself, resolve all contradictions. With this erasure, the mirror-bright soul and the dust are all dissolved in a single purity.

…We cannot allow ourselves to be hobbled by the woes and alienation of our race or nation. It is our responsibility to overcome these, even if we can only succeed in our hearts.

By following Tao, we join a larger spiritual order. There is a great comfort in being part of something that is not tied to place or state. Indeed, since Tao is not wholly relegated to the material level, it can never be taken away from us. Even if we are exiled from our homes and thrown into the most miserable prison, Tao is there for us. Once we enter it, we need never be frightened by the threat of alienation again.

© 2008, Jonathan Zap

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An Encounter with Jung

As a child my psyche was magnetized by emergent archetypal visions from the collective psyche that would appear in my own imagination, and also in many artifacts of popular culture such as science-fiction novels and films. By the time I was nineteen, and a senior in college, I set out to understand these numinous visions and was quickly led to a very personal encounter with Jung. A few years ago I described that encounter as follows:

My first encounter with Jung was intense and had the uncanny stamp of what Jung called ‘synchronicity’ all over it. I was nineteen years old and attempting to investigate certain anomalies. I had had experiences of a parapsychological nature, and found myself fascinated by disturbing fantasies and strange visions, which lit up in my imagination with recurrent intensity, but also appeared, inexplicably, outside of my psyche in sci-fi books and movies. This appearance of artifacts of the inside world materializing outwardly, another example of synchronicity, was especially strange as some of the material pre-dated my incarnation. Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, for example, had been written two years before I was born. Even more disturbing was the British 1960 sci-fi movie, Village of the Damned, which was based on the novel, The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, written five years before I was born. How could fantasies and visions that I thought weirdly peculiar to my imagination turn up in stories that were older than I was?

[singularity3]

Still image from the movie, Village of the Damned

Unlikely help offered itself to me during the course of my studies. I was in my last year of college and the Chairman of the Philosophy Department, though I was an English major, had become my benefactor and opened doors for me in a highly conservative academic environment, allowing me to pursue interdisciplinary research projects into obscure, shadowy areas. But it was actually my mom who suggested that I read what a Carl Jung had to say about the ‘archetypes and the collective unconscious.’

And so I came to stand before the many elegant black volumes of the Princeton Bollingen edition of Jung’s collected works. But what could this Swiss psychologist, the son of a minister, who reached manhood in the nineteenth century, say of any use to a nineteen year old Jewish kid from the Bronx who found himself obsessed with sci-fi fantasies like The Midwich Cuckoos, in which a UFO-related incident somehow resulted in large-eyed, androgynous children with psychic powers and a group mind? I scanned the index volume for a minute or so and came across a late work, Flying Saucers, A Modern Myth of things Seen in the Sky. That was a bit of a shock, as UFOs were a major part of the fantasies and my esoteric research. I went right to volume ten, Civilization in Transition, where flying saucers were considered. This subject seemed to haunt Jung near the end of his life, and he couldn’t let go of it. At the end of the book there was an afterward, followed by an epilogue, followed by a supplement.

As I glanced through the supplement my jaw dropped open in amazement. Jung had devoted this lengthy supplement to analyzing mythological layers of meaning in John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos! It seemed as if this dead Swiss guy had stepped out of the bookcase and had holographically manifested himself to look over my shoulder at the same sci-fi story that obsessed me. Even more amazing, I saw that we had some parallel ideas about what it might mean.

From the moment of that first encounter, Jung, like a wizard bearing a torch, became my guide as I followed numinous visions of evolutionary metamorphosis down the rabbit hole and discovered what I now call “the Singularity Archetype.” (see the 1978 paper that resulted from this encounter: Archetypes of a New Evolution)

So I am glad to be a Jungian, and not Jung, because I get to be the benefactor of his many decades of heavy lifting. He had the earth-moving power to tunnel deeply into the cultural matrix and uncover the deep program, the core ruling images he called archetypes. If anyone has made a heroic contribution to pulling back the veils of Maya, it is Jung.
If you have not read Jung before, and would like to go beyond this quote collection, a perfect starting place is Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung. This book was written by Jung and many of his most brilliant colleagues, like Marie Louise Von Franz, as an introduction to his work. Jung’s part, entitled Approaching the Unconscious, was completed shortly before his death in 1961 and represents a mature summing up of his way of psychological exploration. An alternative starting point or follow up to Man and his Symbols is Jung’s autobiographical work, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. This book expresses Jung’s more personal voice and some of his inner experience so it as if he were talking to you across from the primeval campfire and is a much more intimate introduction. Volume 9 of the collected works, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, and volume 10, Civilization in Transition would be a great follow up to Man and His Symbols. Another inexpensive and easily available follow up would be The Portable Jung, edited by Joseph Campbell.

C.G. Jung Quotes:
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn the literature of the whole world—all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls. Thus the soul had gradually been turned into a Navareth from which nothing good can come. Therefore let us fetch it from the four corners of the earth—the more far-fetched and bizarre it is the better!

Whether this psychic structure and its elements, the archetypes, ever “originated” at all is a metaphysical question and therefore unanswerable. The structure is something given, the precondition that is found to be present in every case. And this is the mother, the matrix—the form into which all experience is poured.

The psyche consists essentially of images. It is a series of images in the truest sense, not an accidental juxtaposition or sequence, but a structure that is throughout full of meaning and purpose; it is a “picturing” of vital activities. And just as the material of the body that is ready for life has need of the psyche in order to be capable of life, so the psyche presupposes the living body in order that its images may live.

What we call fantasy is simply spontaneous psychic activity, and it wells up wherever the inhibitive action of the conscious mind abates or, as in sleep, ceases altogether.

Natural man is not a “self” —he is the mass and particle in the mass, collective to such a degree that he’s is not even sure of his own ego. That is why since time immemorial he has needed the transformation mysteries to turn him into something, and to rescue him from the animal collective psyche, which is nothing but an assortment, a “variety performance.”

Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness.

To have soul is the whole venture of life, for soul is a life-giving daemon who plays his elfin game above and below human existence, for which reason—in the realm of dogma—he is threatened and propitiated with superhuman punishments and blessings that go far beyond the possible deserts of human beings. Heaven and hell are the fates meted out to the soul and to civilized man, who in his nakedness and timidity would have no idea of what to do with himself in a heavenly Jerusalem.

The world comes into being when man discovers it. But he only discovers it when he sacrifices his containment in the primal mother, the original state of unconsciousness. …the primitive has not yet experienced that ascetic discipline of mind known to us as the critique of knowledge. To him the world is a more or less fluid phenomenon within the stream of his own fantasy, where subject and object are undifferentiated and in a state of mutual interpenetration.

The primitive cannot assert that he thinks; it is rather that “something thinks in him.” The spontaneity of the act of thinking does not lie, causally, in his conscious mind, but in his unconscious… His consciousness is menaced by an almighty unconscious.

Science, curiously enough, began with the discovery of astronomical laws, and hence with the withdrawal, so to speak, of the most distant projections. This was the first stage in the despirtualization of the world. One step followed another: already in antiquity the gods were withdrawn from mountains and rivers, from trees and animals. Modern science has subtilized its projections to an almost unrecognizable degree, but our ordinary life still swarms with them.

Whatever name we may put to the psychic background, the fact remains that our consciousness is influenced by it to the highest degree, and all the more so the less we are conscious of it. The layman can hardly conceive how much his inclinations, moods, and decisions are influenced by the dark forces of his psyche, and how dangerous or helpful they may be in shaping his destiny. Our cerebral consciousness is like an actor who has forgotten that he is playing a role. But when the play comes to an end, he must remember his own subjective reality, for he can no longer continue to live as Julius Caesar or as Othello, but only as himself, from whom he has become estranged by a momentary sleight of consciousness. He must know once again that he was merely a figure on the stage who was playing a piece by Shakespeare, and that there was a producer as well as a director in the background who, as always, will have something very important to say about his acting.

Rationalism and superstition are complementary. It is a psychological rule that the brighter the light, the blacker the shadow; in other words, the more rationalistic we are in our conscious minds, the more alive becomes the spectral world of the unconscious.

Nowhere and never has man controlled matter without closely observing its behavior and paying heed to its laws, and only to the extent that he did so could be control it. The same is true of that objective spirit which today we call the unconscious: it is refractory like matter, mysterious and elusive, and obeys laws which are so non-nonhuman or suprahuman that they seem to us like a crimen laesae majestatis humanae. If a man puts his hand to the opus, he repeats, as the alchemists say, God’s work of creation. The struggle with the unformed, with the chaos of Tiamat, is in truth a primordial experience.

The unconscious is the unwritten history of mankind from time unrecorded. The conscious mind allows itself to be trained like a parrot, but the unconscious does not—which is why St. Augustine thanked God for not making him responsible for his dreams. The unconscious is an autonomous psychic entity; any efforts to drill it are only apparently successful, and moreover harmful to consciousness. It is and remains beyond the reach of subjective arbitrary control, a realm where nature and her secrets can be neither improved upon nor perverted, where we can listen but may not meddle.

Any attempt to determine the nature of the unconscious state runs up against the same difficulties as atomic physics; the very act of observation alters the object observed. Consequently, there is at present no way of objectively determining the real nature of the unconscious.

Nobody can say where man ends. That is the beauty of it. The unconscious of man can reach God knows where. There we are going to make discoveries.

Before the bar of nature and fate, unconsciousness is never accepted as an excuse; on the contrary there are severe penalties for it.

Every advance in culture is, psychologically, an extension of consciousness, a coming to consciousness that can take place only through discrimination. Therefore an advance always beings with individuation, that is to say with the individual, conscious of his isolation, cutting a new path through hitherto untrodden territory. To do this he must first return to the fundamental facts of his own being, irrespective of all authority and tradition, and allow himself to become conscious of his distinctiveness. If he succeeds in giving collective validity to his widened consciousness, he creates a tension of opposites that provides the stimulation which culture needs for its further progress.

When we must deal with problems, we instinctively resist trying the way that leads through obscurity and darkness. We wish to hear only of unequivocal results, and completely forget that these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged again from the darkness. But to penetrate the darkness we must summon all the powers of enlightenment that consciousness can offer.

“Reflection” should be understood not simply as an act of thought, but rather as an attitude. It is a privilege born of human freedom in contradistinction to the compulsion of natural law. As the word itself testifies (“reflection” means literally “bending back”), reflection is a spiritual act that runs counter to the natural process; an act whereby we stop, call something to mind, form a picture, and take up a relation to and come to terms with what we have seen. It should, therefore, be understood as an act of becoming conscious.

Gleaming islands, indeed whole continents, can still add themselves to our modern consciousness.

There are many people who are only partially conscious. Even among absolutely civilized Europeans there is a disproportionately high number of abnormally unconscious individuals who spend a great part of their lives in an unconscious state. They know what happens to them, but they do not know what they do or say. They cannot judge of the consequences of their actions. These are people who are abnormally unconscious, that is, in a primitive state. What then finally makes them conscious? something really happens, and that makes them conscious. They meet with something fatal and then they suddenly realize what they are doing.

An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.

The stirring up of conflict is a Luciferian virtue in the true sense of the word. Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions, and like every other fire it has two aspects, that of combustion and of creating light. On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes…But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion.

Nothing is so apt to challenge our self-awareness and alertness as being at war with oneself. One can hardly think of any other or more effective means of waking humanity out of the irresponsible and innocent half-sleep of the primitive mentality and bringing it to a state of conscious responsibility.

Without consciousness there would, practically speaking, be no world, for the world exists for us only in so far as it is consciously reflected by a psyche. Consciousness is a precondition of being. Thus the psyche is endowed with the dignity of a cosmic principle, which philosophically and in fact gives it a position co-equal with the principle of physical being. The carrier of this consciousness is the individual, who does not produce the psyche of his own volition but is, on the contrary, preformed by it and nourished by the gradual awakening of consciousness during childhood. If therefore the psyche is of overriding empirical importance, so also is the individual, who is the only immediate manifestation of the psyche.

…All Nature seeks this goal and finds it fulfilled in man, but only in the most highly developed and most fully conscious man.

Archetypes are like riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it can find again at any time. An archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of life has flowed for centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it has flowed in this channel the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return to its old bed.

Our personal psychology is just a thin skin, a ripple on the ocean of collective psychology. The powerful factor, the factor which changes our whole life, which changes the surface of our known world, which makes history, is collective psychology, and collective psychology moves according to laws entirely different from those of our consciousness. The archetypes are the great decisive forces, they bring about the real events, and not our personal reasoning and practical intellect…The archetypal images decide the fate of man.

…They (the archetypes) may be compared to the invisible presence of the crystal lattice in a saturated solution. As a priori conditioning factors they represent a special, psychological instance of the biological “pattern of behavior,” which gives all living organisms their specific qualities.

Sooner or later nuclear physics and the psychology of the unconscious will draw closer together as both of them, independently of one another and from opposite directions, push forward into transcendental territory, the one with the concept of the atom, the other with that of the archetype.

I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development and become fixed in the organism. My consciousness is like an eye that penetrates to the most distant spaces, yet it is the psychic non-ego that fills them with non-spatial images. And those images are not pale shadows, but tremendously powerful psychic factors. The most we may be able to do is misunderstand them, but we can never rob them of their power by denying them. Beside this picture I would like to place the spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the universe without; and just as I reach this world through the medium of the body, so I reach that world though the medium of the psyche.

The organism confronts light with a new structure, the eye, and the psyche confronts the natural process with a symbolic image, which apprehends it in the same way as the eye catches the light. And just as the eye bears witness to the peculiar and spontaneous creative activity matter, the primordial image expresses the intrinsic and unconditioned creative power of the psyche. The primordial image is thus a condensation of the living process.

It is a great mistake in practice to treat an archetype as if it were a mere name, word or concept. It is far more than that: it is a piece of life, an image connected with the living individual by the bridge of emotion.

The so-called “forces of the unconscious” are not intellectual concepts that can be arbitrarily manipulated, but dangerous antagonists which can, among other things, work frightful devastation in the economy of the personality. They are everything one could wish for or fear in a psychic “Thou.” The layman naturally thinks he is the victim of some obscure organic disease; but the theologian, who suspects it is the devil’s work, is appreciably nearer to the psychological truth.

All the true things must change and only that which changes remains true.

Nobody doubts the importance of conscious experience; why then should we doubt the significance of unconscious happenings? They also are part of our life, and sometimes more truly a part of it for weal or woe than any happenings of the day.

In order to do anything like justice to dreams, we need an interpretive equipment that must be laboriously fitted together from all branches of the humane sciences.

As in our waking state, real people and things enter our field of vision, so the dream-images enter like another kind of reality into the field of consciousness of the dream-ego. We do not feel as if we were producing the dreams, it is rather as if the dreams came to us. They are not subject to our control but obey their own laws.

Anyone who wishes to interpret a dream must himself be on approximately the same level as the dream, for nowhere can he see anything more than what he is himself.

Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer is himself, only they are always a little bit ahead of the dreamer’s consciousness. I do not understand my own dreams any better than any of you, for they are always somewhat beyond my grasp and I have the same trouble with them as anyone who knows nothing about dream interpretation. Knowledge is no advantage when it is a matter of one’s own dreams.

The art of interpreting dreams cannot be learnt from books. Methods and rules are good only when we can get along without them.

Only the man who can do it anyway has real skill, only the man of understanding really understands.

So difficult is it to understand a dream that for a long time I have made it a rule, when someone tells me a dream and asks for my opinion, to say first of all to myself: “I have no idea what this dream means.” After that I can begin to examine the dream.

…The whole dream work is essentially subjective, and a dream is a theater in which the dreamer is himself the scene, the player, the prompter, the producer, the author, the public, and the critic.

Just as the body bears the traces of its phylogenetic development, so also does the human mind. Hence there is nothing surprising about the possibility that the figurative language of dreams is a survival from an archaic mode of thought.

Nature commits no errors.

Now supposing that these (dream) interpretations also go astray, the general inconclusiveness and futility of our procedure will make itself felt soon enough in the bleakness, sterility, and pointlessness of the undertaking, so that the doctor and patient alike will be suffocated either by boredom or by doubt. Just as the reward of a correct interpretation is an uprush of life, so an incorrect one dooms them to deadlock, resistance, doubt, and mutual desiccation.

Many people who know something, but not enough, about dreams and their meaning, and who are impressed by their subtle and apparently intentional compensation, are liable to succumb to the prejudice that the dream actually has a moral purpose, that it warns, rebukes, confronts, foretells the future, etc. If one believes that the unconscious always knows best, one can easily be betrayed into leaving the dreams to take the necessary decisions, and is then disappointed when the dreams become more and more trivial and meaningless.

Experience has shown that a slight knowledge of dream psychology is apt to lead to an overrating of the unconscious which impairs the power of conscious decision. The unconscious functions satisfactorily only when the conscious mind fulfills its task to the very limit. A dream may perhaps supply what is then lacking, or it may help us forward when our best conscious efforts have failed.

To concern ourselves with dreams is a way of reflecting on ourselves—a way of self-reflection. It is not our ego-consciousness reflecting on itself; rather, it turns its attention to the objective actuality of the dream as a communication or message from the unconscious, unitary soul of humanity. It reflects not on the ergo but on the self; it recollects that strange self, alien to the ego, which was ours from the beginning, the trunk from which the ego grew. It is alien to us because we have estranged ourselves from it through the aberrations of the conscious mind.

Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to put away his scholar’s gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world. There, in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, Socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in hos own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with real knowledge of the human soul.

An ancient adept has said: “If the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.” This Chinese saying, unfortunately only too true, stands in sharp contrast to our belief in the “right” method irrespective of the man who applies it. In reality, everything depends on the man and little or nothing on the method.

True art is creation, and creation is beyond all theories. That is why I say to any beginner; Learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul. Not theories but your creative individuality alone must
decide.

If I wish to treat another individual psychologically at all, I must for better or worse give up all pretensions to superior knowledge, all authority and desire to influence.

We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

When the ego has been made a “seat of anxiety,” someone is running away from himself and will not admit it.

Among neurotics, there are not a few who do not require any reminders of their social duties and obligations, but are born and destined rather to be bearers of new cultural ideals. They are neurotic as long as they bow down before authority and refuse the freedom to which they are destined. As long as we look at life only retrospectively, as is the case in the psychoanalytic writings of the Viennese school, we shall never do justice to these persons and never bring them for the longed-for deliverance. For in this way we train them only to be obedient children and thereby strengthen the very forces that made them ill—their conservative backwardness and submission to authority.

Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other.

In spite of all indignant protestations to the contrary, the fact remains that love (using the word in the wider sense which belongs to it by right and embraces more than sexuality), its problems and its conflicts, is of fundamental importance in human life and, as careful inquiry consistently shows, is of far greater significance than the individual suspects.

The love problem is part of mankind’s heavy toll of suffering, and nobody should be ashamed of having to pay his tribute.

It is a favorite neurotic misunderstanding that the right attitude to the world is found by indulgence in sex.

So far as we know, consciousness is always ego-consciousness. In order to be conscious of myself, I must be able to distinguish myself from others. Relationship can only take place where this distinction exists.

For two personalities to meet is like mixing two chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed.

It must be admitted that a fit of rage or a sulk has its secret attractions. Were that not so, most people would long since have acquired a little wisdom.

Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality.

Most men are erotically blinded—they commit the unpardonable mistake of confusing Eros with sex. A man things he possesses a woman if he has her sexually. He never possesses her less, for to a woman the Eros-relationship is the real and decisive one.

Our life is like the course of the sun. In the morning it gains continually in strength until it reaches the zenith-heat of high noon. Then comes the enatiodromia: the steady forward movement no longer denotes an increase, but a decrease, in strength. Thus our task in handling a young person is different from the task of handling an older person. In the former case, it is enough to clear away all the obstacles that hinder expansion and ascent; in the latter, we must nurture everything that assists the descent.

If there is anything that we wish to change in our children, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. Take our enthusiasm for pedagogics. It may be that the boot is on the other leg. It may be that we misplace the pedagogical need because it would be an uncomfortable reminder that we ourselves are still children in many respects and still need a vast amount of educating.

Our whole educational problem suffers from a one-sided approach to the child who is to be educated, and from an equally one-sided lack of emphasis on the uneducatedness of the educator.

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by what he says.

“I hate quotations.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology Newsletter

JANUARY 9, 2008

FreeWillAstrology.com

“You have everything you need in the present situation to work with impeccability. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work toward manifesting additional resources and opportunities. It does mean that the present situation supplies you with everything you need to take the next step.”

– Jonathan Zap, “A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler”

My book

“PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:

How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings”

is available for sale at

tinyurl.com/qaj62 and

tinyurl.com/3dsx6q

Here’s an excerpt:

ART LESSONS

French Impressionist painter Henri Matisse wanted his art to be “free from unsettling or disturbing subjects . . . soothing, a cerebral sedative as relaxing as a comfortable armchair.”

Spanish painter Pablo Picasso had a different opinion. “Art is offensive,” he asserted. “At least, art should be allowed to be offensive. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous.”

As you practice the art of pronoia, you will probably get best results if you swing back and forth between Matisse’s and Picasso’s approaches.

Every once in a while, try out William Butler Yeats’ idea, too: “Art that doesn’t attempt the impossible is not performing its function.”

To read news and features from my book, go here:

tinyurl.com/lhwx2

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OTHER PRONOIA RESOURCES:

This week I’m featuring the work of JONATHAN ZAP.

He’s putting together a collection of his writings in book form. For the moment, we have to be satisfied with reading his insights on his website at zaporacle.com.

Here are some of my favorite essays:

“The Glorified Body: Metamorphosis of the Body and the Crisis Phase of Human Evolution”

tinyurl.com/2bg6ag

“Suffering associated with body image has reached such epidemic proportions in our culture that it must be counted as one of the greatest spiritual plagues ever to be visited upon mankind.”

“Resource Fluctuations Happen–Working with Scarcity and Abundance”

tinyurl.com/yq96pq

“The Taoist assumption is that the universe is unfolding as it should. Resources fluctuate, and fluctuation is the heartbeat of life, an essential part of the dynamic aliveness and interest of incarnation. And it takes times of both abundance and scarcity, along with every other sort of fluctuation, for there to be development.”

“Projection: The Enemy of Peace and Justice”

tinyurl.com/28etdr

“Environmental destruction, racism, violence, injustice, war derive from a single source — the human psyche. An activist who is not interested in psychological underpinnings is analogous to a botanist who is not interested in biology.”

“Dynamic Paradoxicalism”

tinyurl.com/2djg56

“The greatest of life skills is the ability to live with ambiguity, ambivalence, and paradox without trying to regularize these uncertainties into finished, absolute truths.”

“Kill the Time Grid and Fire up your Life: A Lesson in Practical Magic”

tinyurl.com/yutjyd

“The test of a big dream is to ask yourself, ‘Will I remember this well on my death bed?’ If you have a big dream you will probably find that to accomplish it will require a minimum of two hours of devoted activity per day.”

“The Path of the Numinous: Living and Working with the Creative Muse”

or “The Muse: Ego Can’t Live with Her, Creative Fulfillment Can’t Happen without Her”

tinyurl.com/yvcwls

“A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler”

tinyurl.com/2vn7a7

To find out about Jonathan’s DREAM INTERPRETATION service and other counseling services, go to zaporacle.com and click on the blue-green sphere. I have personally benefited greatly from doing dream work with him.

To use Jonathan’s ORACLE, go to zaporacle.com and click on the gold sphere at the top. Here are some quotes from the Oracle cards:

1. “The core of your relationships to people, sex, time, money, power, eating, politics, career, health, and spirituality is your relationship to yourself. Get that relationship right (a moment-by-moment challenge of epic proportions) and all those other relationships will be as good as they possibly can be. Omit, neglect, or distort any part of your relationship to yourself and all those other relationships will accordingly be diminished and distorted.”

2. “Find your spirit medicine and remember that what works for someone else, may not work for you (and vice-versa). Also what works for you when used consciously, sparingly, in just right the circumstances, might be disastrous as a habit.”

3. “The Warrior must be aware that the psyche is conservative in nature, preferring old, self-destructive neurotic patterns to the unknown. The Warrior must have the insight and determination to break those patterns, particularly those created by early childhood situations.”

4. “The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One’s sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed — a situation which can lead to new perspectives.”

(Note: I endorse Jonathan Zap because I like his work. This is not an advertisement, and I get no kickbacks.)

Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES.

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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2008 Rob Brezsny

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Your real identity is that you are an interdimensional traveler who arrived from some other dimension at birth and who, almost every day, travels to another dimension called the dream time, has a guaranteed portal out of this matrix called death, and who interpenetrates with the varied dimensions generated by other human psyches.

—-From A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler

You are the ones I call out to from the edge of the campground because this is the time when the individual, isolated mutants, like scattered embers glowing in the cold, dark forest need to gather together to create a blaze of many colors, the radiance of which will reach out to the four corners of this richly chaotic realm…

—-From A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler

Our desires, addictions, obsessions and various neurotic sufferings are predicated on our enslavement to linear time. Against the backdrop of the dread ticking of the clocking we anxiously seek to enforce our will on the Tao. But against the backdrop of the infinite and eternal, the phantoms we pursue appear quite differently. —–Jonathan Zap (Zap Oracle card)

The greatest of life skills is the ability to live with ambiguity, ambivalence and paradox without trying to regularize these uncertainties into finished, absolute truths.  From Dynamic Paradoxicalism—the Anti-Ism Ism
People are not always what they seem. Respect the otherness of the other and don’t be sure you know who they are. It is hard enough to know who you are. (Zap Oracle card)

As the race car drivers say, don’t look at the wall if you are heading toward it, look at where you want to go, and where I want to go is through those shimmering planes of improbable coincidence, through the interstices of the web, sparkling constellations of thought forms and images encoded as zeros and ones, indeterminate autonomous zones where fellow mutants disassociate from Babylon Matrix, shape-shift and shimmer iridescently with possibilities.  I seek to follow time lines less traveled by, but where there are promises to keep, and many paths and errands meet, and I avoid the timelines of white powders which may seem lovely, dark and deep, but are where withering souls go to creep.   —From Friends don’t let Friends Incarnate in the Babylon Matrix

Dynamic paradoxicalism is my attempt to create a meta-philosophy that is a counter to fundamentalist and absolutist thought which is nearly as common amongst New Agers and the left as it is among religious fundamentalists and the right.  The greatest of life skills is the ability to live with ambiguity, ambivalence and paradox without trying to regularize these uncertainties into finished, absolute truths.  Dynamic paradoxicalism recognizes that most important areas of truth exist as a paradox where seemingly contradictory elements have a dynamic level of validity based on context specific circumstances.  Although a greater conception that synthesizes the disparate elements of a paradox into a grand unit is an awesome addition to the conceptual tool box, it is not always the most useful tool in the box.  Dynamic paradoxicalism recommends an ability to slide between the poles of a paradox, in some circumstances favoring the point of view of one side of the paradox, in other cases the other pole, and in still other cases favoring the unified view.

—–From Dynamic Paradoxicalism—the Anti-Ism Ism

Always remember that there are time lines in the affairs of  a mutant which, entered when portals open, lead on to fortune, omitted and all the voyage of our incarnation is bound in shallows and in miseries.  And oh how can one ever tell how rich the Babylon matrix is in shallows and in miseries! Intricate networks of stagnant, toxic rivulets seeping into florescent cubicles, scheduled incarnations set to run by clock and currency, the folk that seem to dwindle with every nervous step,  hungry ghosts hurrying, then hobbling, on the path of winding down.  In such a darkly trending part of the  multiverse are we now afloat, and we must seize the portals when they open, or lose the timelines of sparkly green fire which lead us to other worlds than these.

—– From Friends Don’t let Friends Incarnate in the Babylon Matrix

There are other paths than those of shallow misery, but they are easier to see when you realize the Babylon Matrix is only one of a multiverse of dreams. But what a noisy, bustling, buzzing, in your face sort of a dream it is, the dream of a Cyclops with one blinded eye careening drunkenly down the darkened skull-shadowed avenues of history while headlines blare “ This dream is an emergency!  Grasp it with white knuckles!”
—– From Friends Don’t let Friends Incarnate in the Babylon Matrix

And has no one ever told you the basic “facts of life” that to look into another’s eyes is to witness beacons from another dimension flashing across the night of time? Did you believe the Babylon Matrix lie that other entities were hottie objects with which you could have “casual sex” (dumbest of dumb oxymorons)? Didn’t you know that intimacy with the other is an impingement, an interpenetration, a merging of dimensions with consequences of cosmic proportions? Didn’t you realize that all relationship is interdimensional travel?—–From A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler

The core of your relationships to people, sex, time, money, power, eating, politics, career, health, spirituality, the Tao, the multiverse is your relationship to yourself. Get that relationship right (a moment by moment challenge of epic proportions) and all those other relationships will be as good as they possibly can be. Omit, neglect, or distort any part of your relationship to yourself and all those other relationships will accordingly be diminished and distorted.  (Zap Oracle card)

According to the Taoist I Ching, evolution occurs on the path of “reverse alchemy,” the path of returning to Tao and essence. It does not necessarily occur merely by being in tune with the Tao and essence. Viruses, daisies, spiders all live perfectly in tune with the Tao and their essence, never deviate from it, but they don’t have the human potential for metamorphic evolution. Acquired conditioning inevitably separates us from our essence and attunement with the Tao, but if we are able to follow the path of reverse alchemy, undo the conditioning and rediscover our essence and Tao, then we will have furthered our evolution and the evolution of self awareness everywhere.  (Zap Oracle card)

The heart has two phases, contraction and expansion, systole and diastole. Mammal incarnation has two phases it cycles through on a daily basis—-waking and dreaming. We are interdimensional travelers, arriving from another dimension at birth, departing to other dimensions at death. The cycle of the day recapitulates the cycle of a life. At night/old age we run out of energy, grow sleepy, and eventually surrender to the temporary oblivion of sleep/death. Sleep/death is not an eternity of velvet darkness, the velvet darkness is polka dotted with shimmering portals—-incarnations/dreams

There is a hidden evolutionary side to narcissism lacking in all descriptions of I have encountered. Narcissism also wants to explode the barriers that obstruct powerful communication of the self with others and to vividly enter their perceptual field. A perfect narcissistic fantasy, for example, would be to emulate Jimmy Hendrix playing searing guitar chords to a stadium full of mesmerized, electrified fans. What we call narcissism may actually be the pathologized form of an evolutionary drive toward more powerful communication, toward new telepathies. Those with a greater latent capacity for such communication may experience alienation and an insatiable urge for greater recognition from others. So don’t cringe from your narcissism, but don’t let it rule you either.

The personal view can trap us in the forever chaos of he said/she said. An impersonal or cosmic view requires looking fiercely into things without emotional entanglement. Cut through to the core of what is going on. One way to do this with your life is to ask yourself the question: What will I remember well on my death bed?—–(Zap Oracle card)

See the patterns of your world. Often there are acausal parallels between the physical world and the psychic world, in the past they were often called “portents” or “omens” and in many cases people projected too much into them. Modern fundamentalist materialists assume they are “coincidences” if they notice them at all. The Taoists saw the paralleling of inner and outer as inevitable and worthy of alert observation. (Zap Oracle card)

The central idea of the I Ching is that we are always cycling through classic patterns of energy and change. Oracle consultations, especially with the I Ching, can be a way of seeing such underlying patterns of energy and change. Another way is self inquiry—stripping away the details and asking yourself what essential pattern of energy and change is in play in your life right now?

(Zap Oracle card)

Avoid meaningless work if possible. Jobs take up too much of your time and life energy to have no intrinsic value besides a means to get you a pay check. Sometimes you may have to accept such a devil’s bargain to survive, but if at all possible find meaningful livelihood. Avoid work that you won’t remember well on your death bed!- (Zap Oracle card)

Keep secret work secret. Consciousness work should be shared with the worthy—spiritual allies that share your commitment to consciousness. Prosletizing indicates an unbalanced psyche with a compulsive need to get others to share the imbalanced belief system. As Aleister Crowley says, “If I tell a man something he is not ready to hear, it is the same as if I told him a lie.” Consciousness work is depotentiated if you spill it out everywhere. When a pick-pocket sees a saint, he sees only his pockets (Zap Oracle card)

You are a transformer. A human being is an entity incarnating in a corporeal primate body which is undergoing a state of continuous transformation from conception through birth, growth, aging and death. We live in a state of continuous metamorphosis and that is great! Not so great for an ego that would like to hold on to things, identify and resist change! As a super complex process, human incarnation bifurcates into either a higher state of organization or a lower one. As a Dylan lyric puts it, “He who’s not busy being born, is busy dying.” Embrace transformation and ride the wave of metamorphosis. Resist change and you will experience a drowning sensation as you get sucked downward by the undertow. (Zap Oracle card)

You have everything you need in the present situation to work with impeccability. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work toward manifesting additional resources and opportunities. It does mean that the present situation supplies you with everything you need to take the next step. Think out of the box, people have changed the world with nothing more than pen and paper. You can create magic out of mundane materials if you creatively embrace what is before you.  (Zap Oracle card)

I was once walking down the street at lunchtime on a weekday and saw one carefully groomed yuppie after another passing me.  There was not a hair out of place, and they seemed dressed up to look just like ads they had seen in glossy magazines. In my mind’s eye I saw that their energy had formed a kind of exoskeleton, their identification with persona, clothing, accessories and bodily appearance had formed them into a kind of full body helmet, polished, blow dried, glazed with subtle cosmetics, while somewhere the self, like a shriveled, malnourished, somnambulant embryo lay dormant. Molt the persona that has become attached to you through identification and feel yourself grow larger.  Don’t wait, like Darth Vader, for the exoskeleton to fall away on your death bed.

(Zap Oracle Card entitled “Beware the Hollow Folk”)

You may never know all the mysterious depths that cause some people to stand so much closer to you than others.  There is the often monotonous carnival of circumstantial acquaintance, and then there are those certain people you are connected to by inner ties. They are like planets with orbits aligning, even intersecting with the orbit of your planet. You need the whole field of relationships, the acquaintances in outer concentric bands, the strangers you have never met in more distant and diffused bands.  And then there are those few in the close bands…those connected to you through karma you can’t fully discern, those who light up your eros, those who are spiritual allies that help you to recognize and fulfill your great work, those whom you are called to help on a depth level, those who may be all of the above. All the concentric bands of relationship deserve your mindful awareness.  Be the wise alchemist over seeing the asymmetrical and ever shifting flows of energy happening at each of the bands of concentric relation. (Zap Oracle Card)

It is so crucial to respect the otherness of the other– they are like another world, another dimension, and despite whatever proximity they have to our world/dimension there are so many unknown aspects. It is a life time struggle to begin to know ourselves, how easily and falsely do we presume to know the other and merge our agenda and projections with their veiled identity. (Zap Oracle Card)
The immature attitude toward transformation is to see impeccability as a sacrifice to gain a reward. It degrades the present into a sacrifice for an imaginary “transformed” magical future. The immature approach turns all efforts into their opposite, light into dark. True impeccability is existential, it is done for its own sake, not in the expectation of anything. Only such a stance has the detachment from result to achieve the fluidity and adaptability to mean a lasting value. This type of impeccability is not “for” transformation. It is in itself the revolutionary transformation you seek. Transformation occurs when you strive to give up the expectant attitude and replace it with a lasting effort to seek impeccability as an end in itself.   (journal quote)
Babylon Matrix, you poisonous, parasitic lattice of antilife decrees, territorial aggression and evil hegemony of dominator primates, you far from equilibrium toxic patriarchy hurtling toward the strange attractor of quantum evolutionary change, you suffocating cocoon of shrinking parasite-ridden medieval leather bristling with the claws and stingers of puppet-headed warlike primates. You, Babylon Matrix, your darkness has metastasized through the skull shadows of our long descent into history. But your Gregorian days are numbered…. (Friends don’t let Friends Incarnate in the Babylon Matrix)
Intentionality is shown by the act itself. By your actions you reveal yourself, rather than by looking at yourself.  (this, and the next few are journal quotes)
Make a decision for the moment and act on it .
Leaving the moment is self deception. Being in the moment is self love .
Excess lingering in the shadows of reflection is such suffering while the path of positive action awaits .
Insight may be irrelevant and recursive when will is the issue.
Like a fractal, like a hologram the small part recapitulates the whole. By looking within you can see everything. (Zap Oracle card)

Find your spirit medicine and remember that what works for someone else, may not work for you (and vice-versa). Also what works for you when used consciously, sparingly, in just right the circumstances, might be disastrous as a habit.  (Zap Oracle card)

Emerson said, “The problem with travelling is that you take yourself with you.” But there is also the potential of traveling to be a secular pilgrimage, rite of initiation, but you can’t rely on a change of settings to take the place of inner dynamism.(Zap Oracle card)

You are much more than your body—don’t judge yourself by its reflection. (Zap Oracle card)

You need to be the alchemist of your own inner cauldron. You know the medicine you need better than anyone—-find it, make it, use it and don’t forget to offer some medicine to others as well. (Zap Oracle card)

What we often don’t realize about a loss, about the dark night of the soul, is the space that it opens up for us where new life can grow. (Zap Oracle card)

Much of what binds us into the matrix is surrender to gender stereoptypes which encourage us to feel incomplete and desperately in need of someone else to find a wholeness that can only be rediscovered within.

The Warrior must be aware that the psyche is conservative in nature preferring old, self destructive neurotic patterns to the unknown. The Warrior must have the insight and determination to break those patterns, particularly those created by early childhood situations.