XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: tanghuyen@gmail.com   
      
   On 9/12/2016 8:02 PM, Ummmmmmm wrote:   
      
   > No-one has the water. Only a living Master can provide that. How it is   
   > delivered is entirely up to him/her. No recipes are required.   
   > It's as simple as "You need water?" "I have water"   
   >   
   > [snip]   
   >   
   > I never talk about Universal Love. What I talk about is very particular.   
      
   If only a living master can provide the spark, so to   
   speak, then the Buddha would have never   
   awakened and become a Buddha. He had had   
   teachers in meditation, but they only taught him   
   meditation and not awakening. Only on his own   
   did he awaken. And he had to discard all that he   
   had known, all that he had learnt, to awaken,   
   which was firstly to reconcile with himself   
   (whereupon he became a Stoic sage), and   
   secondly to quiesce all mentation, whereupon he   
   arrived at non-doing. The same non-doing was   
   independently discovered by Daoist masters in   
   China, and more recently at the cusp of the   
   seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by French   
   Quietists (Madame Guyon and her student   
   Fénelon).   
      
   It is not as simple as "You need water?" "I have   
   water", but if I get it aright, it is as simple as just   
   relaxing and being serene, though (here is a   
   paradox) pushed all the way. For that, no teacher   
   is needed, rather it is just doing it oneself until   
   one gets to non-doing (another paradox).   
      
   Christianity talks about Universal Love, but I   
   scarcely see it in that light. What you talk about is   
   very particular, you say, though what you talk   
   about is something of a commonplace (iow a   
   universal), even if hard, namely bald, straight   
   concentration, shorn of insight. And insight is what   
   helps us awaken, in part or whole. It is to discard   
   all that we have known, all that we have learnt. On   
   the contrary, you are stuck solid in your (presumed)   
   concentration, and your mind is hard like a rock.   
   (All the usual disclaimers ...)   
      
   Tang Huyen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)