When the TetraSeed is awakened-to and integrated as a conscious and voluntary experience, as with the Crystal Crown procedure, the content and context of any moment reveal the TetraSeed as the stabilizing structure underlying that experience at that moment. The experience, itself, can then easily be released and so dissolve, leaving the bare intuition of the TetraSeed.
The bare intuition of the TetraSeed is that of concept-less, formless radiance, consciousness, or the ground of being from which everything arises as a condensation or modification of Itself.
The Way of Life as the Mother of All Things
Existence is beyond the reach of words to define.
Descriptive words may be used, but all are approximate.
In the direct experiencing of things, there are no descriptive words.
Descriptive words are a later development in the scheme of things.
If we wish to use descriptive terms to describe existence,
we may say
that mysteriously,
existence appears, persists, and changes.
Such may be said of The Way of Life.
Lawrence Gold's rendering of
~ Lao Tzuh, Tao Teh Ching
or as the late Dr. Richard (Dick) Feynman put it:
I wonder why
I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder.
from Richard Feynman: The Adventures of a Curious Character
edited by Ralph Leighton
Smart fella. Also, a bit of a Zen smart-aleck.
FROM IDEA to EXPERIMENT
In practicing with The TetraSeed, we may come to notice that every different pairing of the four powers of the TetraSeed [ IMAGINING | INTENDING | REMEMBERING | ATTENDING TO ] feels different from all of the other pairings. (There exist twelve combinations, in which forward and backward order makes a difference.) Never mind.
If we experiment with different pairings, we may also come to notice that when two different pairings balance with each other in intensity (take a breath and pause with that one) . . . . . the unity of all four (two pairings of two) intuitively reveals "The Way as A Mother," as described in my rendering of the text.
Let's make that practical. Let's create and do an experiment. Here goes.
Examples of pairings:
< PSYCHOACTIVE >
"imagining intending"
"intending remembering"
"remembering attending to"
"attending to imagining"
"imagining remembering"
"intending attending to"
also
"attending to intending"
"remembering imagining"
"imagining attending to"
"attending to remembering"
"remembering intending"
"intending imagining"
< THAT'S ENOUGH, FOR NOW >
So, we have two pairs for consideration:
INTENDING ATTENDING TO
IMAGINING REMEMBERING
INTENDING ATTENDING TO
A few times in succession, think to yourself or speak aloud with a pause after each line,
the words . . . . .
the words . . . . .
Intending
intending intending
intending attending to
attending to attending to
attending to intending
intending intending
intending attending to intending
attending to intending attending
Ok. That leaves you "resonating" a certain way, like a struck bell.
Now,
IMAGINING REMEMBERING
remembering
remembering imagining
imagining imagining
imagining remembering
imagining remembering remembering
remembering remembering
imagining imagining
imagining remembering
imagining remembering imagining
remembering imagining remembering
imagining
remembering
let's start from the first one. Go ahead.
Now do the second one. Alternate between them a few times. I'll wait.
By this example, I illustrate the "Children" of which The Way of Life is as a Mother: experience-able things of all kinds.
These TetraSeed pairings and rhythms create unique experiences that can be felt as "resonances". As "phenomena" -- events -- they are the "children" of the Way in its Mother metaphor.
If we now apply what we have learned to feel ( THOSE RESONANCES, IN THE FIRST EXPERIMENTS ) in a structured experiment, perhaps we may discover something more.
So, the next experiment:
Recall the feeling of
INTENDING ATTENDING TO INTENDING ~ or ~
ATTENDING TO INTENDING ATTENDING TO
Do that, now. I'll wait.
Now, recall the feeling of
IMAGINING REMEMBERING IMAGINING ~ or ~
REMEMBERING IMAGINING REMEMBERING
Do that, now. I'll wait.
Repeat back and forth until the sensations "consolidate" (get denser and stabilize).
Do that now. I'll wait.
Now, as you repeat them back and forth, make them equally available, equally intense, equally vivid.
Notice what happens.
I'll wait.
Notice what happened? They fell transparent and revealed the silent presence, the field of undefined (or "infinite") consciousness, the "substance" of which all "thingness" is made, The Mother or Matrix of The Way, The Way as a Mother. Your mind turned to mush -- that is to say, dissolved.
That which we reach for, beyond grasping,
and call, unattainable
listen for and find inaudible
look for and never find
merge beyond conceptual comprehension (beyond understanding)
in a singleness or universality
that does not merely rise and bring light, as the sun,
nor set and leave darkness, as the sun,
but forever issues a succession of living events
as mysterious as the singleness of origin that is their substance
which itself has no quality, no location, no signal of its own
and so has nothing to change.
Lawrence Gold's rendering of
Lao Tzuh, The Tao Teh Ching
That is why wise human beings notice
that the sense of substantiality we feel
when we combine
the pairings of two into two balanced pairings
< YOU DID DO THE EXPERIMENTS, DIDN'T YOU? >
we feel the same sense of substantiality that we feel
when we experience anything and everything else --
even ourselves.
It's something everything has in common.
The Sense of Substantiality
Thus, we feel the balanced combination of The Four Powers of The TetraSeed: as the very sense of substantiality: "something there" or "something, here".
At the same time, the particular felt qualities of things recede from the Foreground to the Background, so that what is universal is all the more obvious. The sensation is of a gathering of attention in a steady, but unfocused, presence without location -- in a manner of speaking.
If we notice that sensation as our own state of tension, feel its texture, its shape and ours, and recognize it as our own mysterious stress pattern, we may desist from, cease to do, relax out of it.
We lose a persistent feature of self-definition
lose concern about it
and lose concern about the center of things.
The Way is as a mother.
Know the children, but know the mother dearer.
~ Lao Tzuh, ibid.
Wake-up Call | This is Not a Drill
The convergence of crises of which are becoming aware seems to me to stem from a more fundamental problem than the acts of individuals. There seem to be too many cats loose to herd, and a herd of cats can be a challenging thing to manage.
If we go after the problems of the times "cat by cat", we end up chasing cats. A lot of effort is involved.
I see the situation differently -- not as a problem of a lot of cats loose, but as a problem of species intelligence.
Putting it bluntly, too many stupid things are going on at once. The problem, it seems to me, can be reduced to this: stupidity.
What can you expect when you chase after a stupid man?
That's what we are facing.
So, once again, I say the problem is one of intelligence.
A look at developing culture reveals that the mainstream have sunk in their intelligence over the past fifty years, or so. Consider popular music, the type played in grocery stores and restaurants.
The mainstream look upon such efforts at music with favor, music which commonly can be described as caterwallering accompanied by a loud, monotonous drum beat and either a spectacular orchestra or a group of players who make sounds that resemble a garbage disposal unit or a buzzsaw, to which the singer either cries out emotionally or yells.
Consider the output of TV Land and Hollywood, the proportion of tales involving sinister power plots, crime, murder, or widespread destruction. Stupidity at its best.
And, again, a large proportion of the general population eat it up.
And advertising, which, admittedly can be an artform, commonly portrays immaturity, stupid behavior, lying, deception, absurd distortions of judgment and disproportionate emphasis of the trivial, is done the way it is done ostensibly because it works! "This drug may cause death, blindness or paralysis. Ask your doctor if it's right for you!"
What does that say about the intelligence of the consumer population? Do the advertisers believe (or hope) we are stupid? or is it the advertisers who are stupid?
Too many cats. Impossible for us, or for our government, to regulate them.
No, the only solution is for them to regulate themselves. Intelligently.
And that's where the matter of species-intelligence comes in. The human species exists within a range of intelligence that seems inadequate either to herd all of those cats or, more frankly speaking, inadequate for people to regulate themselves intelligently.
Hence, we also have a largely preventable and resolvable "health care crisis", which isn't really "a health-care crisis"; it's "a self-care crisis." With the staunch cooperation of various business vested interests, people do it to themselves with bad diet, bad living, and bad entertainment. It's stupidity perpetuating stupidity, or even making it more so.
It's enough to turn one into a Republican, except for one thing -- Republicans are at least as stupid as the rest of us, only they think they are smart and that we, non-Republicans, are stupid. And from their behavior, it would seem that's exactly what they think. They may be wrong.
The germane question is, What would provoke a species-wide rise of intelligence, a species-wide improvement in people's ability to regulate themselves intelligently?
Historically, cataclysm has been the thing that has provoked evolutionary breakthroughs. Starvation begat agriculture. Wars begat new technologies that could help humankind. Geophysical events immediately preceded the emergence of more intelligent lifeforms and, it can be argued, begat them.
Let me pose an example:
This planet has been beset by ice ages throughout its long, geophysical history. The last one was about 100,000 years ago, and the one before it, about 120,000 years before that.
Ice ages rather radically change the climate and the wildlife present at any location.
Animals either adapt, leave or die, when climate conditions change.
Humans facing the situation faced the same demand: adapt, leave, or die. But humans had another potential: innovate.
For humans, the word, adapt, shows up as learning. Innovate shows up as developing new ways.
In ice age conditions, learning without innovation is an inadequate response because all that can be learned are the old ways, which are now inadequate.
Innovation, followed by learning of the innovation, had and has survival value.
Those who could learn an innovation had the advantage, and those who could innovate had a special advantage, over those who could not, who died out.
The last ice age "filtered" the human species for ability to innovate and to learn.
Cataclysm led to higher evolution.
Cataclysms can take many forms.
So can innovation.
We're seeing technological innovation, now, but that's the continuation of a primitive imperative -- to shape our environment for ourselves and our benefit. And as we have seen, the technology developed by the few who have "technological intelligence" can be turned to the uses of the less evolved or less intelligent. Too many cats.
A new intelligence is needed -- an intelligence not of controlling what is outside us, but of ourselves, of self-regulation toward a healthier life.
If we go after the problems of the times "cat by cat", we end up chasing cats. A lot of effort is involved.
I see the situation differently -- not as a problem of a lot of cats loose, but as a problem of species intelligence.
Putting it bluntly, too many stupid things are going on at once. The problem, it seems to me, can be reduced to this: stupidity.
What can you expect when you chase after a stupid man?
That's what we are facing.
So, once again, I say the problem is one of intelligence.
A look at developing culture reveals that the mainstream have sunk in their intelligence over the past fifty years, or so. Consider popular music, the type played in grocery stores and restaurants.
The mainstream look upon such efforts at music with favor, music which commonly can be described as caterwallering accompanied by a loud, monotonous drum beat and either a spectacular orchestra or a group of players who make sounds that resemble a garbage disposal unit or a buzzsaw, to which the singer either cries out emotionally or yells.
Consider the output of TV Land and Hollywood, the proportion of tales involving sinister power plots, crime, murder, or widespread destruction. Stupidity at its best.
And, again, a large proportion of the general population eat it up.
And advertising, which, admittedly can be an artform, commonly portrays immaturity, stupid behavior, lying, deception, absurd distortions of judgment and disproportionate emphasis of the trivial, is done the way it is done ostensibly because it works! "This drug may cause death, blindness or paralysis. Ask your doctor if it's right for you!"
What does that say about the intelligence of the consumer population? Do the advertisers believe (or hope) we are stupid? or is it the advertisers who are stupid?
Too many cats. Impossible for us, or for our government, to regulate them.
No, the only solution is for them to regulate themselves. Intelligently.
And that's where the matter of species-intelligence comes in. The human species exists within a range of intelligence that seems inadequate either to herd all of those cats or, more frankly speaking, inadequate for people to regulate themselves intelligently.
Hence, we also have a largely preventable and resolvable "health care crisis", which isn't really "a health-care crisis"; it's "a self-care crisis." With the staunch cooperation of various business vested interests, people do it to themselves with bad diet, bad living, and bad entertainment. It's stupidity perpetuating stupidity, or even making it more so.
It's enough to turn one into a Republican, except for one thing -- Republicans are at least as stupid as the rest of us, only they think they are smart and that we, non-Republicans, are stupid. And from their behavior, it would seem that's exactly what they think. They may be wrong.
The germane question is, What would provoke a species-wide rise of intelligence, a species-wide improvement in people's ability to regulate themselves intelligently?
Historically, cataclysm has been the thing that has provoked evolutionary breakthroughs. Starvation begat agriculture. Wars begat new technologies that could help humankind. Geophysical events immediately preceded the emergence of more intelligent lifeforms and, it can be argued, begat them.
Let me pose an example:
This planet has been beset by ice ages throughout its long, geophysical history. The last one was about 100,000 years ago, and the one before it, about 120,000 years before that.
Ice ages rather radically change the climate and the wildlife present at any location.
Animals either adapt, leave or die, when climate conditions change.
Humans facing the situation faced the same demand: adapt, leave, or die. But humans had another potential: innovate.
For humans, the word, adapt, shows up as learning. Innovate shows up as developing new ways.
In ice age conditions, learning without innovation is an inadequate response because all that can be learned are the old ways, which are now inadequate.
Innovation, followed by learning of the innovation, had and has survival value.
Those who could learn an innovation had the advantage, and those who could innovate had a special advantage, over those who could not, who died out.
The last ice age "filtered" the human species for ability to innovate and to learn.
Cataclysm led to higher evolution.
Cataclysms can take many forms.
So can innovation.
We're seeing technological innovation, now, but that's the continuation of a primitive imperative -- to shape our environment for ourselves and our benefit. And as we have seen, the technology developed by the few who have "technological intelligence" can be turned to the uses of the less evolved or less intelligent. Too many cats.
A new intelligence is needed -- an intelligence not of controlling what is outside us, but of ourselves, of self-regulation toward a healthier life.
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