What does it mean to realise the Tao?
 

What does it mean to realise the tao?

Just wondering...did you want to know what we think because you don't know?
Or would you like to tell us what you think. Either way is fine.

I'd say, To realize the Tao - first you would have to experience It.

Tao is not a thing you can point to or pick up or touch. It's more like a process or event that continuously unfolds the universe. To realize the Tao is to become one with this process by accepting it and not fighting it or otherwise trying to control it.

Oh! My! Goodness! Did I really start this thread? Anyways, let me act like I own it!
I think the tao represents the universal but basic consciousness of everything that exists.
I think that everything has consciousness and the unified consciousness of all things is the tao, including the 10,000 things themselves.
I believe that if we give up the little coins that we have in our begging bowls, then we can truly be empty, and if we are empty then we can most certainly embrace everything. My opinion is that realisation of the Tao is for those who have given up everything in order to embrace everything.
I think that if we find our true face before birth, we transition from a personal realisation to a process of unfettering where the 'so-called' boundaries of the true self are eliminated layer by layer, making us more expansive to perceive the Tao in more fullness, more beauty and I believe that beyond emptiness is fullness, and that emptiness realisation and pure consciousness are cardinal for the realisation of the Tao.

And all that is just a description of something that generally precedes a specific result... but in this case as in so many others in this realm, if you turn the description into activity the way you did, the very fact of deliberately performing the activity to get the desired result is in conflict with the description you made for the activity and so the results isn't attained.

I hate this stuff sometimes...

Sigh.

I suppose it comes down to intention. Who is desiring? If you or I are desiring then of course there is conflict, but if we let Tao play out as it will...
I understand. :wink:

i guess i was trying to say, triggering the beginning of a causal sequence to try to get specific results you relate to the sequence, doesn't work in some realms as well as it does for things like technology and science. And even there there is some ambiguity about results...

I think we might agree that tao probably doesn't go out of its way to require specific results from its activities though

lol...

although i guess the tao could do that too if it wanted lol... sitting around drawing lines between what the tao can do and what it can't do doesn't seem like a good idea no matter how pretty a picture one wants to paint...

Tao

The Tao path is a path of knowing, thinking and believing serve it no purpose, no progress. A true Taoist is the ultimate atheist, they believe in nothing at all but know everything they know. They do not believe in God (Tao), they know it. They know it has no name, while knowing it has every single name there has ever been.

What they don't know, should it be on their path, they will explore and experience until they know it, they answer the question of what this thing means to me. A Taoist will not be deterred until they answer their own questions. A Taoist will never call themself a Taoist.

The basic idea of the Tao is not to chase anything, not even the Tao. Tao is simply another word for the eternal god, this simulation we are, the creation of all. The thing that was here before the first moment of creation. Whatever name it has when it comes to you. Tao is simply a representation of this without there being any story or ideology applied to it. It means we cannot chase it, because we cannot chase it we cannot identify with it. As we cannot follow it we can achieve it.

To identify, or follow anything is a blockage to your, and my, freedom. Tao is asking you to understand this, to walk your own path. Tao is the path of experience, of knowing yourself, uncovering and exploring what you are. The answers to all of life is in the shell which is your body. Again, Tao, is asking me to understand this and to apply it to my life.

Tao is the process where I work for my moment of freedom instead of waiting for it. It means to remove every story, cultural/socialised behavior, discrimination, judgement, bias, good and bad, hero and villain, like and do not like, every single duality in your life. Remove them all, and then you start to realize and experience the Tao.

To identify duality is a simple enough process. I call something this or that, and the opposite thing to it the opposite this and that, this is my trigger to explore it. Where I have participated in that thing both in the way I like it and the way I don’t like it, this is my exploration into it. Look at it deeply, not just it is good and bad, but understand it is different in its good and bad to me compared to others.

Others will see it a different good and bad, may see it the opposite to me, even on things I think are only good or bad and refuse to budge on. I have to accept them anyway, and I do, because I accept me and I know this concept of duality is an understanding we all have to come to by ourselves. Also knowing my rigidity to an answer is me not understanding it in its fullness, that is my identifying with it. Our own understanding is our own answers to our questions, we know our choices and don’t live in either of them.

We don’t live them because we are free from those choices until we need to consciously act on them. We are free even then because the choice is the choice for me, by me, now. I make it and I forget about it. This is the Tao way, know every single choice is yours, your own. Know your own breath is your own choice. Every choice you explore to its fullest removes associated thoughts from your head, creates silence, opens you up to the universe that is you. Prepares one for their moment of freedom.

Understand this and you start to live the Tao without ever calling yourself a Taoist. You take stuff from everywhere, all religions/spiritualities/mates crazy ideas/philosophies/etcetera, to understand the experience of you. You’ll answer your number one question all by yourself, what am I? The answer will not be I am anything, not even I am a person. This is the depth that needs to be explored to uncover freedom on the path of Tao.

It is the same depth that will come in a moment, a moment that may never come on its own. A moment that will come should you commit to and understand what Taoism is asking of you.

This is the way of the Tao. It is a beautiful path.