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November Project 2011 Finale

takuin — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:41:25 +0000

This post wraps up the November Project 2011.

Now that there have been a few days of space, and as I sit here looking over the posts for November, I think the project went quite well.

I would like to thank everyone for all their wonderful questions. I could not use them all, but I am grateful for every one. And special thanks goes to everyone taking part in the comments. It is always good to see others give themselves over to the questions in order to look deeper into them.

Thanks very much!

For those of you new to the site, and to the veterans unable to read the earlier posts, the following list contains all of the writings for the November Project 2011, in order.

The November Project 2011

01: On Dropping Thought

02: The State of Non-Duality

03: Burning the Notebooks

04: Quick Thoughts on Living

05: Questions Answered – Again!

06: On Increased Awakenings

07: Quick Reply on Living

08: Life After Death

09: What Are You Reading?

10: Confused About Enlightenment

11: In Sickness

12: Belief

13: On Writing at Takuin.com

14: On Freedom

15: On Meditation

16: On Dreaming

17: On the Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11, 2011

18: On Finding Out for Yourself

19: Where Should I Sit?

20: On Siddhis and Super-Powers

21: Takuin on Film

22: On Conclusion

23: On Apophis, Natural Resources, and Love

24: On Haters and Troublemakers

25: On Enlightenment and Awakening

26: On Ending

27: Ask the Reader

28: On Questions

29: On Suffering

30: One Last Sentence

Thanks again, everyone!

And for those of you coming to these posts late, please keep this in mind: Quick Note on Comments

Out of the Woods...

One Last Sentence

takuin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:51:26 +0000

November Project: Question #30

This last post for the November Project is a combination of two questions

First:

I know you’ll be leaving soon, in a manner of speaking. Do you have any last words of advice for us seekers?

And second:

If you had only one sentence you could say to the spiritual seeker, what would you say?

Well, I won’t leave…just move on with life. I won’t stop posting here and I won’t shut down the site. And I am sure there will be many more interesting conversations with all of you, so in some respects it might seem the same, or at least similar to what came before. But my own explorations have taken me far from where I began, and to remain any longer would be insincere.

Last words of advice sounds morbid, or at least far too dramatic. And I don’t care for unnecessary drama. So let’s say, the entirety of this website (330 posts, counting this one) are my last words of advice.

And as far as one last sentence for the seeker…it is difficult. It is not the kind of thing you can create a set answer for. Well, people create set answers all the time, but that is like taking medium size pants and expecting the entire world to fit in them.

Certain things are immutable, but they are only relevant in relation to one’s exploration. And that can take on forms difficult to imagine. So it is probably best to leave the ‘answers‘ to the ‘experts‘, and just get on with your life and your own explorations. An expert with an answer will never compare to the beauty that is you, anyway.

For my one last sentence, I will quote jazz/fusion guitar legend, Scott Henderson. He is speaking about technique, but this can relate to anything we experience in life. Some of you might not get it, but it means something to me.

“I would rather hear Albert King drop his guitar on the floor than hear some jazz guy play streams of eighth notes with no rhythms. It is boring.”

That distills my thoughts on life quite nicely.

Leaving the Building...

On Ending…

takuin — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:47:18 +0000

November Project: Question #26

Another grouping of questions, all with similar answers. I’ll put them together and see what comes up…

#1)

You’ve been writing here at takuin.com for almost five years. Do you think you’ll continue to write on these subjects for another five years?

#2)

What did you mean by this comment? “I think I have said all I want to say on this subject. It is almost time to walk out into the sun…” [On the previous post On Enlightenment and Awakening ~ TM] Did you mean you were finished with your answer for that particular post, or are you quitting the site? I didn’t quite understand it.

There have also been more than a few comments during this November Project amounting to this:

#3)

How can I get what you have attained?

I’ll answer all three quickly, then give a bit more detail.

For #1: “Do you think you’ll continue to write on these subjects for another five years?”

I definitely will not. In fact, I am thinking five years is quite enough.

For #2: “Did you mean you were finished with your answer for that particular post, or are you quitting the site?”

I am not quitting the site, no. But I am finished answering those kind of questions.

And for #3: “How can I get what you have attained?”

See #2.

I will write more on this in a later post after the November Project is finished. But I will say a few things now…

I don’t know that ‘answering questions‘ is what I have done on this site. I like to think of it more as exploration. After all, I began Takuin.com for the purposes of learning how to speak…umm…so to speak. It has been hit or miss, and some days have been better than others, but I think I have done what I set out to do.

When we get down to it, I think I am finished talking about freedom, as I would much rather express it. And we all know, deep down, talking about something is not the same as expression. ‘Talking about’ is prevarication, or at least postponement or procrastination in a way. Expression, while it may be dependent upon words or some other physical medium, is not dependent upon description. And THAT is what currently interests me.

I know this will come as a shock to a great many of you. And I am not leaving the site, and I will keep writing. But it will not be the same as before. It is just time to move on…

But for now, we still have a few more posts before the end of this year’s November Project, so let’s make them good ones!! I am still accepting questions you know. Chop chop! Let’s go!

On Apophis, Natural Resources, and Love

takuin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 02:23:54 +0000

November Project: Question #23

Today let’s do something different. Multiple questions, multiple answers. These particular questions I did not plan to answer. But I thought, What the hell? Why not?

This might not interest you, but I thought i’d ask anyway. First, what do you think of the possibility of apophis striking the earth in 2036? [She's referring to 99942 Apophis ~ TM] And second, if an impact seems imminent what do you think humanity will do?

Well, the chances of Apophis striking the earth are 1 in 250,000, so we’re probably safe. BUT, I don’t like those odds, haha. Usually when scientists give us the odds, the numbers are so high we can’t really understand them in any significant way. But 250,000 is a number very easy to get our heads around. I don’t like that I understand it as well as I do.

But even if Apophis strikes the earth, it is not an Extinction Event sized asteroid. It is a 10 – 20 million death sized asteroid, in all probability. But that is really dependent upon where it strikes, if it does.

What will humans do if the strike is imminent? Probably wait till the last moment, work frantically to try and stop it, then when millions die lament, “We did the best we could!” But that is just based on human behavior in general.

I’ve heard we’re coming up to our last reserves of oil for the entire planet. Do you think its too late to avoid the horrible things that will happen when the oil runs dry?

Depending on what source you trust, the earth’s supply of oil will be completely tapped within 30 to 70 years. I tend to think it will run dry sooner rather than later, for one main reason…

Humans will not stop screwing.

The more humans born, the more resources needed. And since the number of humans brought into the world will only increase, the amount of resources needed to support them will also increase.

The general theme for resources has been, when you run out, or do not have what you think you need, you take it from someone else.

For example – and purely hypothetical, of course – if a particular nation has certain resources the rest of the world depends on in certain amounts, and if they put a strangle hold on said resources, another more powerful nation(s) might invade and take the resources, through force, for their own use. Now normally, people all over the world might stand up against such oppression. But if they can be convinced the invasion is for the right reasons, they’ll keep their mouths shut.

But thankfully, we’re only speaking hypothetically.

As I mentioned in the Apophis question above, historically, humans tend to wait until the last minute to act. And at that point, the only method for change is violence. This is mostly due to the stupidity running through thought that says, “It is not so bad. I’m sure someone will take care of it.” And maybe that was fine years ago, but we can no longer afford to be lazy in this way.

Only you can take care of this problem. And by YOU, I mean EVERYONE.

If we keep to what we’ve always done, when we run out of resources we’ll see horrors that would frighten Hitler and Mengele. And they’ll be committed in the name of some noble pursuit.

Sitting in the Dark

Do you think you love more, or have more love, after your awakening?

What is love to you? Is it dependent upon the past? Dependent upon a history you have with a particular person? I bring it up because that is how a great many people see it. And many say that is love. But it is familiarity.

We might ask, is love dependent upon familiarity? Can you not love a person you are not familiar with? Or is it simply a matter of what you prefer?

Can there be more or less love? Or is it more or less familiarity?

Thanks for the questions, everyone!

On Meditation

takuin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:24:02 +0000

November Project: Question #15

This question arrived today from Nishanth through the Contact form

Most fully awake people that I have heard of – like Adyashanti, Buddha, Sri Nisargadatta, became realized after a lot of meditation. Only very few people like Sri Ramana Maharshi, Eckhart, and probably yourself, had spontaneos awakenings (without any effort) which led to permanent realization.

So I was wondering how much importance do you give for meditation? For most of us the ego and conflict runs deep, so do you think that meditation and discipline is important for awakening to happen? Will the mind get attached to meditation and if so how to avoid this?

(I understand that awakening always happens by Grace and not by our-doing, and the process of meditation is to keep the mind silent so as to increase the probability of awakening to happen. Of course on rare occasions it can happen in chaotic minds too.)

Thanks for the question, Nishanth. I’ll take bits of what you’ve asked, and try to answer the best I can.

I am sure my answer will differ from those people with backgrounds of spiritual study, spiritual searching, and spiritual seriousness.

…how much importance do you give for meditation?

For me, meditation had no significance (assuming we are talking about meditation in the way most people use the word). I was curious about life and living things, and I think I would search for what I call temporary truths, which are quantifiable, measurable, physical phenomena. Things that can be known. I imagine it was similar to how Sherlock Holmes solved his cases, although it was never quite as interesting or romantic as that, haha.

Temporary Truths can reveal wonderful things about the physical world. And that might have been a large part of my fascination, because I have always loved the Earth and the physical things it has provided. It was such a thrill for me to learn how something worked, or to solve a problem effectively using only the simplest information. But my fascination only went so far, as whenever I would figure something out, I quickly tossed it aside to move on to the next thing.

In many ways, how I lived is no different from someone on the so-called spiritual path. Or a person on any path, for that matter. I always wanted the next thing, and the next, and the next. But the main difference, I think, between how I lived and the spiritual seeker was I never once thought there was an end goal. I never thought, “If I keep doing this, I will be rewarded in the end.” I just did it because it interested me.

Even now, meditation has no real importance in my life. But I don’t want to confuse anyone, because I often talk about what I have called, sitting. When I use that word, I don’t necessarily mean actually sitting. And I don’t mean meditation, as in sitting on the cushion. I use the word sitting to mean a kind of seeing or observation, although observation is not quite the right word.

In sitting, there are the senses. But they are devoid of interpretation. No one is saying good or bad, right or wrong, hot or cold, or any of that. If one sits and there is no interference, it is like ‘melding’, if that is the right way to put it. There are no longer ‘separate’ senses; no sight apart from hearing, no hearing apart from touch, etc. There is only ONE sense, and that is life. Life is the purest sensation.

Some might call that a kind of meditation, and that is fine. I can see that. But sitting as I have described it, is not something you DO. You don’t begin at a certain time, or end at a certain time. One has no choice in the matter. It never begins and it never ends.

And I hope my descriptions of sitting have been clear in the past, because I never wanted anyone to think of it as something one can attain through practice or effort. It is not that kind of thing. Sitting is merely life living through Takuin, and it is nothing more than a word used to describe that life.

Sitting

For most of us the ego and conflict runs deep, so do you think that meditation and discipline is important for awakening to happen?

I can’t really say. Many people say meditation is important for awakening, but those people also meditate and hope to be awakened, so what else should we expect them to say?

I think many people do meditate for the reasons you’ve said above; to be awakened, and so on. In those cases, they hope to have a better state in the future through meditation, and they are at odds with whatever their current circumstances happen to be and want to change them…otherwise why do it at all unless they can get something from it? In those situations, the need to meditate, and perhaps the meditation itself, is born of conflict. In other words, if not for the conflict in the first place, those people might have never meditated.

But, that is not the only reason people meditate. Some do it for others, and not for themselves. Most likely, the number of people doing that is smaller than the I WANT-type of meditators and meditations. But even so, we can’t just throw it all out and assume it is nonsense.

And there are beneficial physical effects from certain kinds of meditations, for relaxation and other purposes. I know of some athletes that have used meditation to help in their recovery from training, and some of them swear by it. So it is not necessarily all hocus pocus.

But if someone is selling you meditation, and it all sounds too good to be true, use your head…otherwise you get what you deserve. A con is a con, and it doesn’t matter how long the beard or how white the smile.

Will the mind get attached to meditation and if so how to avoid this?

If the mind hopes to avoid attachment to meditation, is that not attachment?

Thanks very much for your question, Nishanth.

November Project 2011: 30 Questions with Takuin

takuin — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 05:16:16 +0000

Time for another month-long project! I received many wonderful questions last year, and I am looking forward to doing it again.

Here’s the project:

For the entire month of November, I will be answering one question per day, every day, from a reader. And I will be taking submissions every single day, right up to November 30th.

You can submit your questions by commenting on this post, through the Contact Page on this site, on Twitter, or on the Life Beyond the Image Facebook Page.

For those of you submitting questions, I’ll be happy to link to you if you have a website, Twitter account, etc. But if you want to remain anonymous, or if you do not tell me one way or the other, I will just use your first name, or your initials.

I will most likely answer your questions in a written post, but I may decide to record audio or video for the answer instead. I’ll just go with whatever feels right at the time.

The questions themselves should be on the topic of this website, but we can still have some fun. Use your imagination, and feel free to ask anything you like. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer every question, but I will keep them all as I might use them in future posts. So let’s get to it!

November 1st is rapidly approaching…What would you like to ask?

Big Tree

Questions Answered

takuin — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 10:06:05 +0000

November Project: Question #13

We’re nearly half way through the November Project, and it has been great fun so far. The questions have been interesting, and I have done my best to try and present a unique variety of them.

But for every ‘unique’ question, I probably receive 10 ‘common’ ones. Now, this is totally fine, but a friend pointed out to me the other night – after showing her the list of questions – that many of them have already been answered or at least explored through the posts on Takuin.com.

So as not to ignore the frequently asked, I present to you a list of the top 5 common questions, along with the answers already available on this site. But please, never think of these posts as definitive answers. Really, they are nothing more than explorations…had the wind blown differently, I might have traveled in a totally different direction.

Question #1 – What is Enlightenment?

Your Idea of Enlightenment

What is Enlightenment?

The Road to Enlightenment

A Question for My Peers (read the comments!)

The Despair of Enlightenment

Question #2 – Are You Enlightened?/What Happened on Dec. 1st, 2006?

Are You Enlightened?

Audio Interview ‘The End of Soul Searching Sounds Like Takuin‘

What Did Takuin Do?

The Day After

Question #3 – What Does it Mean to ‘See’ Within?

A Problem of Seeing

A New Dimension of Silence

What Am I?

Questions on Sitting

Questioning the Common Phrase

Question #4 – What, If Anything, Is Beyond the Self?

If There is No Self, Then What is There?

Can the Self Be Free of Suffering?

Solidifying the Questioner

Does the Wind Blow?

Question #5 – How Can I Get What You Apparently Have?

Notions of I AM

The Ghost

Are You More Than Experience?

To The Student

The Nature of the Search

Only You Can Know

***************

It will probably take you a long time to get through these posts, especially if you also read the comments, which I highly recommend. Many times, the nature of the original articles will go in completely different directions from within the comments. And seeing as how the readers of Takuin.com are all brilliant human beings, it is in your best interest to read what they have to say.

Bookmark this page, and read at your leisure.

Nature and Thought

takuin — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 02:10:04 +0000

November Project:Question #10

This question comes from E.L.

You think when we see a beautiful dragonfly or sunset, the reason we love it so much is cos theres just dragonfly, just sky? Not rushing for the next experience, everything just stops and were right here with what ever were seeing..

…are we working for the thought machine? Are we slaves to it? But then again, without it there wouldn’t be anything, would there? We’d be walking off cliffs without reference points and all that comes about from duality, the play of opposites, something that’s created so we can communicate in a more complex way? Tho are we ever really doing anything?

I thought it would be nice to answer with an audio response below. I don’t know if this is the answer you were looking for, E.L., but I hope you can get something out of it.

Thanks for your questions.

(Note: For those reading this post through RSS or Email subscriptions, if you cannot see the audio player below, please click through to the post itself to listen.)

The Beauty of a Flower

takuin — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:29:46 +0000

November Project: Question #8

This is a question from an old friend, YM.

What is it about flowers that you love so much?

You already know the answer, but I’ll give it for everyone else.

The flower is the template for living a complete life as a human being.

The flower has its expression, which it gives over freely and selflessly, until the day it dies. It never feels it should have done more. It never feels inadequate. It never feels it has missed the life worth living. It just radiates beauty, perfume, and love.

And it never thinks to itself, “I have to radiate beauty, perfume, and love.” It just does. That is the inevitability of its nature.

It will give freely, until the day it dies.

If human beings could live as the flower, for just one day, this world would be transformed forever.

Project for November: 30 Questions with Takuin

takuin — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:48:07 +0000

Time for a new month-long project! I have not done this sort of thing in quite some time, but it is nice to change things up every once in awhile. Here it is:

For the entire month of November I will be answering one question per day from a reader. I will be taking submissions every single day, so it will not be pre-planned in any way, other than choosing the question and writing the answer.

I will be accepting questions all the way to the 30th of November, and you can submit them by commenting on this post, through the Contact Page on this site, or through Twitter. (NOTE: You can find my Twitter account HERE.)

When I decided to do this, I wanted to approach it with as little planning as possible, and not amass questions during the first couple of days, then plan out my answers as the days slowly rolled by. That is not my style, anyway…

I will most likely answer your questions in a written post, but I may decide to record audio or video for the answer instead. I’ll just go with whatever feels right at the time.

The questions themselves should be on the topic of this website, but we can still have some fun. It doesn’t have to be all nothingness wrapped in enigmatic nonsense. Use your imagination, and feel free to ask anything you like. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer every question, but I will keep them all as I might use them in future posts.

So let’s get to it! What would you like to ask?