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EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 7,152
Loc: Time and Space
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Effort vs. The Tao/Non-doing
#15059749 - 09/10/11 08:15 PM (12 years, 5 months ago) |
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When we were young kids, we couldn't wait to grow up. We may have feigned independence by rebelling against our parents. We wanted to stay up late and insisted that we didn't need a babysitter.
I thought that someday I would be an adult. I didn't really know how a person turned into an adult. I just knew that some day I would be one.
I was a spoiled kid. When my dad would buy me an ice cream cone at the mall I rushed to finish it - I wanted all the pleasure NOW. I couldn't comprehend that things were better when enjoyed slowly.
When I played video games I would get tense and put incredible effort into beating the game. If I did beat the game, or level, or whatever, I was very happy but if I didn't I would get enraged and angry.
.............
Anyway, I wanted to make a post about effort and it's opposite, Non-Doing. Wu wei is an important concept of Taoism (Daoism), that involves knowing when to act and when not to act
How much effort is too much - what is the right amount of effort? Whenever we put significant effort into something, we chase it away.
For example, the task of relaxing. I used to meditate for an hour to two hours a day to reach a blissful relaxing state. It was a lot of effort! I would have been better off just relaxing.. ah, but there's the problem. Before you can relaxe you need to put in effort to relaxe. Only through putting in the effort does there come a time where we can let go of the effort and simply BE that thing. It's a paradox.
As we grow older, or grow wiser, we become better at letting things happen rather than doing things. We flow down the Tao and learn to let go.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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The right amount of effort imo has to do with the state of mind. In general if one is not neurotically attached to any certain outcome the body knows when to stop.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
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Re: Effort vs. The Tao/Non-doing [Re: Icelander]
#15059909 - 09/10/11 08:51 PM (12 years, 5 months ago) |
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Cramping and vomiting are both good indicators.
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crkhd
☾☼☽

Registered: 12/28/08
Posts: 2,401
Loc: A human sphere enfolding ...
Last seen: 8 months, 26 days
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Re: Effort vs. The Tao/Non-doing [Re: Icelander]
#15061595 - 09/11/11 08:19 AM (12 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: The right amount of effort imo has to do with the state of mind. In general if one is not neurotically attached to any certain outcome the body knows when to stop.

Just finding the balance... There's always a better equilibrium. Sometimes maximal exertion feels effortless and vice versa. IMO it's just too dynamic to really pin down any specific way. There's just a flow and everything goes with it, nothing much more to say.
-------------------- "Everything there is, and all that there is, is a Pattern of unspeakable proportion. The Pattern contains everything that is, completely fixed in succession, all the minimal particles interconnected in every way that is. Every way that is is not every conceivable way, because not everything that can be conceived is manifest in the pattern." "THE Human, you, is a miniscule but essential part of that pattern. In it lies complete fulfillment. It will never become something it is not, but it will never need to be anything else." - Wiccan_Seeker "If boring drudgery was the way of the universe, everything would have killed itself long ago." - Spacerific
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