Sounds great.
That’s the problem…lol
As I mentioned in the PM…great in concept. Actual application…how that is done.
That is a rather difficult concept to describe.
That’s when it hit…where’s the religion that is bent on this?
shrug
There seems to be a religion for all things around the action: how to outlast action, how to manipulate action, discern action, coincide with action, or be at peace with action.
But there’s nothing in recorded history that I can find suggesting a religious grouping of peoples spiritually striving to be action.
Every description seems to look at action as separate.
No one seems to be writing concepts which articulate “I” to “Action”.
I and Action are not written of in league like “I” and “Self”, or “I” and “Soul”, or any other variation tied to “I”.
“I do” means that the “I” does an action, but not that it IS the action.
Just seems…strange.
Jayson,
How is it that a worldview that highlights no-self and nonduality isn’t a worldview within which people strive to “be the action”? I just don’t understand that. Unburdened spontaneity is perhaps the highest goal of Buddhism. But this unburdened spontaneity is not to be confused with carelessness, recklessness, etc. If you’re going to go beyond following rules, and even go beyond mindfulness and awareness, then it is because you had better act with absolute precision - that is to say, without falling into the duality of the actor and the act.
It’s like with jazz. What happens when you tell a novice to “be the music”, or to “just play, without thinking”? They make noise. What happens if you encourage an advanced journeyman musician in the same way? Perhaps they finally become a true artist. Inbetween these two things, is the path of hard work, and lots of practice. This is where most musicians are at, I think. Of course it’s not as neatly packaged as that in real life. On the contrary, the expert musician finds occasion to practice in the most mundane way, and the mere beginner can be encouraged to loosen up with respect to technique right from the start. Similarly, in Buddhism, philosophers often talk about “ground, path, and fruition”.
The “paramitas”, as conceived by many Buddhist schools are ways of training in overcoming the duality of the actor and the act. Following an act of generosity (the first paramita), the actor trains in wisdom (the sixth paramita) by reflecting on the non-substantiality, or non-separability of the giver, the gift, and the recipient of the gift. Practicing the paramitas as path, the practitioner develops the ability to overcome the duality of the actor and the act.
These might help clarify things - Trungpa was unafraid to present fruitional language to beginners like us:
Don’t they all swim in the same waters, Jayson?
Aren’t they all interdependent upon each other?
Anon, bear with me once again.
I must use rhetoric to hopefully explain my sense of this.
What does Aum represent in Buddhism?
They are interdependent indeed.
Yet, interdependence does not mean that all have been rested on.
Silly to say, but think of religion like a grand school of Harry Potter; Hogwarts. Each magic specializes in one form drafted from the same source.
Here’s a list of the kinds of magic in that fiction:
harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Magic … ical_Study
What’s missing?
How to feel magic.
How to be magic.
While each may touch on the matter in this fictional world, none focus on just that.
Now, look at religions of man.
What are their basic focuses in conception of life and I?
And then reflect, what is not present?
Not sure. I don’t think it represents anything in the kind of basic way in which most words represent things or concepts. I tend to think of it as something almost pre-linguistic (i.e. where does language come from in an immediate sense, what is the seed of language?) or even something like dada devoid of ridicule. But that’s just me. I don’t understand things like that.
How come?
Jayson…
To be perfectly honest with you, Jayson, I only really scanned what you put in there.
Aside from that, I rather think that when Harry and his friends are performing magic 
, they do feel the magic and they are the magic at the same time. But that’s just fantasy there! And I think that that statement depends on one’s own perception, my own, in this regard - being able to say that or not.
Insofar as religion and magic, I do feel that for many people, not all, it is looked on as a form of magic - prayers almost become like magic potions…people pray to statues and carry rosary beads on their person like some kind of magical good luck charm which will help and protect them…so they feel safe. As if something like that could make them feel safer than their own intelligence and logic could…but then that would leave responsibility for our lives to ourselves and not a god.
Having a god that will uphold them, take care of and protect them. Staying in a nice little cocoon in which they don’t have to struggle to grow out of and fly freely from. And also, going into that everlasting life after death…which they feel must be earned by being grudgingly good…not because it is what they feel personally called to do but because it is asked of them.
That is not to say, that one’s religion is the same for all. For many, it is about living a life that they sense and intuit their God has called them to, or at least that life which they feel they were holistically meant to live which benefits mankind to the best of their ability and inner power. For some people, there is no separation between their religion, spirituality and life - their very life is their spirituality and their spirituality encompasses the whole of their life…like it was with Mother Theresa…some religious orders, like the cloisters, monks…to name some. To them, there is no distinction between their lives and their lives in the spirit. I don’t suppose that one would have to be religious to live this way either. For instance, I would say that Albert Schweitzer and others like him felt this way.
I would say that very often mystery and sacredness is not present. Sounds strange doesn’t it, considering that we are talking about religion. But religion and spirituality are at times so far removed from one another…Peace is not always present either…because many people feel that their god and their religion ought to bring peace. If we can’t see that we also live in a dystopian world or a real world - and that perhaps we are not meant to always have peace but meant to create more of it ourselves in the world and in ourselves, god and religion will not provide it.
What is also not present – I will take from the title of a Hallmark movie I once saw – “The Magic of Ordinary Days*. There is so much magic within the ordinary day, within everything which surrounds us but we choose to see and define magic (and miracles – which to me swim in the same waters) as only being that which comes from fantasy or our delusions about what a god can really accomplish.
To use your word – if we spent the time to really sit quietly in nature without thought (unless one wants to think) or to look up at the night sky and reflect on what we see about us and allow an experience of it all to flow through our spirits, that would/could bring magic to us – that would make us magic…the only true magic which exists in the world…Spirit. But of course, we might have to first open up our minds to see the magic hidden in the real world and to let go of the little beetle in the box and allow another one to jump right in.
Okay, I’m rambling. 
Well, I know it doesn’t represent things in the ways that words can accurately convey.
Give it a shot though; try to convey that pre-linguistic sense that you understand it as if you would like.
On the other hand, I just simply asked what your understanding was that Buddhism holds for Aum, so that can be different than how you personally understand it.
Arctus;
Everything you mentioned aims to affect the current.
You mentioned protection; that’s preservation - part of outlasting the current.
But again, nothing there described is being the current.
Not being one with the current.
Just being the current.
You are the water.
Rather than, you are in the water.
You can feel the water current while being in the water, but seriously changing the perspective to being the water and current itself is a different meaning to the phrase, “how to feel”.
Not how to feel the magic you are using.
How to feel the magic that you are.
Now a step further brings us to this thread: after feeling you as the current, a perspective of how to be that current.
After feeling the magic that you are; now how to be that magic in full.
How to be spirit.
No, seriously Jayson. I don’t know what it means. That hasn’t been part of my instruction. It’s just something that gets said in certain chants, etc. There’s just kind of a vague sense of meaning. Very vague.
Gotchya.
Hmm…
Well…give me a bit to try to think how to explain myself then without that.
I’ll get back with you on that.
I’m going to try bouncing off of your jazz bit.
In Jazz, you attempt to be the music; very much so; and in much the same way Buddhism considers “flowing” (to use a term in blanketing form).
But let me approach this from a different angle of perspective.
Be the scale.
Before the notes, during the notes, and after the notes as it leaves.
Be the scale and not the jazz.
Being the scale requires something; it requires being very exact and adjustable at once.
It also requires hearing the note coming long before it ever starts.
If you are walking, I would say to be your stride, not your walking.
The difference is in perception.
I’m not being the walk, flowing with the walking.
I’m trying (terribly flawed as it may be in how I am doing so) to describe being the stride and not the walking.
With Jazz, you move where the music in you is moving.
You are the music, and so you flow your fingers with it.
With ____ you move where you direct the music that you already are as a scale.
You are the scale, and so you direct the music to the scale.
You are making the music flow to you because you dictate the order of the music because you are the scale it rests upon.
If you transpose, then it follows you rather than you following it.
Rather than your foot following the walking that you are, your foot follows your stride that you are.
Rather than being the path; be the stride.
Rather than being the array; be the algorithm.
Rather than being the chess game; be the strategy.
Rather than being the stream; be the current.
The stride has all path possibles to its nature.
Change the stride; change the path.
The scale has all musical path possibles to its nature.
Change the scale; change the music.
Be the modular.
Be the action; not the actioning.
Be the volume; not the content.
Be the potential; not the actual.
Feel for your volume; not for the contents.
Be the bonding equation; not the bonding.
Feel for the potentials; not for the actual.
Be the delusion; not the self.
Be the Aum before the Aum; not the Aum during the Aum.
Be the essence, not the presence.
Be the spirit, not the soul.
I’m just listing as many ways as I can think there to explain this.
Sorry if it’s a bit scattered.
It’s not scattered at all, Jayson. You’ve conveyed something to me quite elegantly.
Still not sure what to say, but I guess it doesn’t matter. You don’t see this kind of approach in Buddhism, while I do. Perhaps it’s because it’s something that comes out of practice, more than from theory. It’s more Yogacara (which emphasizes individual experience and practice) than, say, Madhyamaka (which emphasizes logical exposition). A Buddhist logician might ask who “you” are that can “be” some construct of the imagination called a “scale”. But this negative dialectic has its positive side.
A Buddhist way of saying “be the scale” is “rest in the nature of alaya” (from Atisha’s mind training instructions).
Or from a Zen perspective:
Before we study Zen, the mountains are mountains and the rivers are rivers. While we are studying Zen, however, the mountains are no longer mountains and the rivers are no longer rivers. But then, when our study of Zen is completed, the mountains are once again mountains and the rivers once again rivers.
and…
Thoughts can be compared to clouds. When clouds vanish, the moon appears. The moon of suchness is the Original Face.
Punch reality by being the delusion of alaya.
I give up. 
I think I was more or less agreeing that you can find this idea within Buddhism.
I still rather hold that the … mentality of the approach that I’m … feeling regarding this is different.
There does indeed, in reflection, seem to be quite a bit on the matter in Buddhism; for instance, as you pointed out with alaya there.
That is very much the nature of this concept.
At this point, the only remaining difference that I can see is the mentality; or state of mind.
And perhaps that is not different, but I haven’t encountered an aggressive Buddhism yet personally.
And I think there is the difference to me, at least.
I wrote “punch” because I’m meaning to say that one should grab with force of movement.
Direct and active; vigorous. Yelling Buddha.
Buddha stood against the water, so it is mentioned occasionally.
I’m looking at being the crazy Scott laughing at the water as he punches it.
The onlooker thinks him mad because the water can’t be punched. It seems so futile.
The Scott replies that he is making the water by becoming the current with each punch into the water.
Or, another way of stating it.
The Buddhist might often approach confrontation by moving with it and changing perspective.
I am thinking of approaching confrontation by direct attack before the confrontation.
You want to hit me, lets say.
How can you if I move into your punch rather than letting you punch me?
If I determine the scale, then you must mold to me.
This is known, and even within Buddhism.
But then…why not this?
If you want to yell in anger, how can you if I move into your anger before you get your anger to me?
If you want to utter Aum, I will be the Aum before you begin to speak Aum.
On a personal range, if I feel that I am becoming depressed, how can I become depressed if I move into my depression and depress it before it becomes my depression?
If I feel tension, how can I become tense if I move the tension?
Tension is typically in the chest and shoulders. If I feel such when first approaching, if I move it to my stomach where sadness hits, then how can I be angry when I am feeding myself sadness?
If I am sad in the stomach, I can push this to my chest where tension is.
But if I move from the stomach to the chest, this is the same as excitement.
If I have excitement, then I can push it to the base of my neck and behind my ears and allow it to wrap to my eyes; causing my pupils to dilate and provoke my nostrils to become slightly more astute and cause a form of thrill; delight.
I have then, by stepping into the punch - by punching the water, converted tension to delight.
Conversely, if I see you in sadness and despair and I am perfectly happy, how can you remain sad if I steal your sadness?
If I dump your sadness into my stomach and then rush it with vigor into my shoulders and chest and hold it there; not allowing it to become excitement, but fuel it to anger, and then hit your sadness with that direct power of anger, but using words of kindness then you will be confused; not sad.
You will be shocked, and alerted.
You will be frustrated, and your body will dump endorphin’s into your body from the shock.
Your brain will frustrate with the polarized affect of anger and devoutly kind words mixing; these do not agree inherently.
You will now have frustration.
Sadness has been converted to frustration, and frustration is easy for most to distress.
You will be over it before the day is gone; most within hours.
But your sadness will not compound and aid in building existential depression.
But doing this requires feeling a different way; it requires feeling the potential and exacting a specific approach.
And quickly.
It’s emotional martial arts; but without form.
And it is without form because it requires each to know how emotions physically feel in their body.
This is what I call a religion of spirit, as it is the spirit of the move that is being the move.
The essence of potential being the being.
I know time is an issue for most of us, but did you read the Trungpa links I posted? If not, here is a selection from The Lion’s Roar…
I do think it’s easy with language like this to confuse this approach with recklessness though. In Tibetan Buddhism at least, this kind of teaching is typically considered most appropriate for more mature students, who are also genuine practitioners.
Yes I did read that.
Now, rather than allowing, evoke.
Rather than:
“everything is workable”
It is stated:
“everything is intentionable”
Rather than:
“whatever occurs in the realm of samsaric mind is regarded as the path”
It is stated:
“What is directed into being the samsaric mind is the stride for the path”
I can’t really follow your distinctions here, Jayson. Not knowing you well enough, all I can say is I hope you know what you’re doing. This is potentially dangerous stuff.