Entries from March 2007 ↓

There is an interesting flaw in the way men tend to relate to attractive women, myself included. I think women are used to getting attention and having men more than willing to sleep with them, love them, etc. before any real criteria on the man’s part is applied. Men too easily assume because there is attraction that a woman has something we want or is worth our time whereas I think women tend to learn very early on the value of selectivity. In my own life these observations point to where I want to cultivate deeper sexual honor. Women already have to go through Lezlie before becoming intimate with me, a trial in it’s own right, but it’s not enough. Who are you? What kind of energy do you have? What are you about?

I could swear I read somewhere about a study done where monkeys were presented with two switches. For some time only the first switch worked and it delivered the monkey its food. The monkey learned to flip this switch and be fed. At some point the second switch was activated. This switch was hooked to an electrode connected to a part of the monkey’s brain that stimulated an instant orgasm. The monkeys would push this orgasm button until they passed out from exhaustion only to wake up again and do it over again. This to the point of starvation and near death, the food button completely forgotten. Does anyone remember this study or am I making this shit up?

In any case, we aren’t monkeys, we have the capability of a more refined consciousness. And deeper still, DNA is merely an expression of the spiritual, matter a thought in the mind of God. I find the depth of sexual desire, or any desire for that matter, to be intimately related to the intensity of our longing for reconnection with Truth. It’s not a failure that men have to consciously cultivate selectivity. Man’s lack of selectivity had an evolutionary purpose. It’s a big part of how we survived! But something new is evolving. And perhaps ironically I think it’s the highly selective men nowadays, the men that can find a girl incredibly sexy and simultaneously brush her off because she is lame that get the most women and the sexiest women.

What is the difference between Taoism and non-Taoism? In order to engage in even this conversation, you have to pick a reference point.

Which is then, canonically, not the Tao. True?

There is no distinction between Tao and anything else. “The principle that can be enunciated is not the one that always was. The being that can be named is not the one that was at all times.”

Yet there is a Tao that is distinct from something else. In a way. It just cannot be grasped by the mind. Still, we can discuss it and point to it as long as we remain in truth and are not lost by our own words. Furthermore, this discussion is about Taoism, the historical Chinese religion that has specific characteristics we can clarify and discuss, not unlike antique dealers might talk about the evolution of a culture’s furniture.

Once something becomes an “ism” it is lost. “When the oneness of humanity is forgotten a distinction is made between good and evil. Focusing on goodness leads one down the path of self-righteousness which separates a person from others. Self-righteousness leads to justice and since justice is as arbitrary as goodness and righteousness, it degenerates into a facade of justice or ritual.”

Perhaps in the same way that someone might merely hear of Christianity and then by chance stumble upon a spiritual relationship with what she might call Christ and then come to call herself a Christian — all without approval from the Pope or the meticulous reference of Biblical scripture … well, perhaps one can follow their heart and remain more “true to the Tao” than slaves to intellectual analysis of what is authentic and what is spontaneous.

A good friend of mine from Mexico used to tell me that he thought it was silly whenever he saw the term “Authentic Mexican Restaurant”. He felt the term “authentic Mexican” was strange.

What does it mean for something to be authentically Mexican? That a Mexican makes it? A Mexican can make a cheeseburger. Is that an authentic Mexican cheeseburger?

Is it that it tastes like food from Mexico? When you live in Mexico, you realize that all the food tastes different and that, in actuality, clever innovation is appreciated in a restaurant. Not a bizarre attempt to distill the essence of what makes Mexican food Mexican food and sticking to that.

But we do mean something intelligible when we say “authentic Mexican”. If a bunch of white guys that had never eaten Mexican food or even met a Mexican opened up a diner serving scrambled eggs and spring rolls and called it “Mexican food” it would strike most as strange and inappropriate.

Reading what I’ve written, essentially I’ve said nothing. I fail to see my own point. Sorry. Carry on.

I just got finished watching the The Root of All Evil?, a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be better off without religion.

My two cents. I think Dawkins is clever and readable/watchable to an extent. I got into reading him and Dennett for awhile years ago, and I still think Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained” is a great Western introduction to Buddhism (though I doubt he would ever agree with that). The whole Dawkins-Dennett camp appear to be in what I would call “vertical kindergarten”. But I appreciate that they are addressing some of the more obvious nonsense being passed off as holy/spiritual/religious and that most philosophers just leave alone out of some outworn respect or political correctness. I think it’s safe to say that most all of us bums have “been there done that” and have moved on to deeper inquiry, but the sad fact is that the majority of world religion, shit - even world mysticism, is still at what Ken Wilber would call the mythic membership level - authoritarian, paternalistic, hierarchical, conformist, emotional without critical thinking, ethnocentric, nationalistic, militaristic, etc. ad nauseum.