Every Thing in the Tao

"Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone." --Tao Te Ching

As a dancer knows, absorption into the dance becomes the dancer. Without separate consciousness they become the dance and the dance becomes them. It transpires effortlessly, without active thought. This may be thought of as a model, a clear example of non-action.

The dancer does not think and yet they move about with the music in a pure expression. It is so because "the doer wholeheartedly vanishes into the deed." The fuel completely transforms into flame; the wood is the fire. This 'nothingness' is in fact, everything. Can the dancer force the music, can they make the notes unfold in any other way other than as presented? What other response could they offer as a dancer?

Is singularity in the dance, really isolation; is the cooperation with the musicians less obvious? How does the dancer 'hear' the music? The fluid softness, the supple strength of the dancer occurs as a response to the music, to the musicians, when they trust in the great intelligence of the world, the dharmakaya and the simple intelligence of the body to respond physically, to respond appropriately in harmony, in symphony. The dancer then trusts, not only the present functioning of their own body but also of the musicians and the physics of the music itself

The wisdom book, the ancient Tao Te Ching so popular in the west, especially, tells of the intuitive wisdom of the dancer:

People see some things as beautiful
other things ugly
People see some things as good
other things become bad

Being and non-being create each other
Difficult and easy support each other
Long and short define each other
High and low depend on each other
Before and after follow each other
Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything,
teaches without saying anything,
Things arise. Let them come.
Things disappear. Let them go
Have but not possess
act but not expect
When work is done, forget it.
That is why it lasts forever

In surrender, in giving up notions, judgements and demands, the mind grows naturally into compassion. In dance, self-expression is the evidence. In one's own, deep experience, the central truths of living are revealed; paradoxical as they may first seem, this is only the surface. Deep looking and careful thinking reveal that the more solitary we are, the more compassionate we may be; the more we let go of what we love, the more present our love becomes; the clearer our vision, the more the way presents itself.

Transformation of Believers

"Religious conflict occurs more from the belief-attitudes than from the religion's beliefs."

The attitudes of religious minded people can determine the perception of a given religion. Generally spiritual minded persons fall into two ends: dogmatic believers or spiritual believers. Regardless of differences in religions, dogmatic believers are often at the core of religious conflict; while spiritual believers more often form the nucleus of inter-religious peace, writes theologian  Choi-in-sik, Seoul Theological University, Korea.

Choi-in-sik, a contemporary theologian, examines the ways believers and religions communicate their messages. Given that dogmatic believers are prone to inter-religious conflict, to realize meaningful dialog Choi-in-sik writes that the primary task is to turn those persons into spiritual believers. A dogmatic person, unwilling, and a spiritual person, unwilling to enter into dogma will have no meeting of the mind nor heart, is Choi-in-sik's premise. And yet we are all dogmatic at least some of the time. How many 'shoulds' and 'should nots' go through our minds when regarding our self or others? Perhaps the spiritual position is something more like 'will' or 'will not', ' is' or 'is not' when turning the hearts and minds of believers.

Twentieth century theologian, Hans Kung proposed an idea of the "true humanity" in which all believers would come to a spiritual point of view. Alternatively Choi-in-sik proposes the image of the "spiritual self" to represent true humanity. A review of the term, true humanity, via an on-line search quickly shows that it is a term of wide interpretation. In this article Choi-in-sik defines the term: "True humanity is the realization and maturation of the spiritual self."
 He further postulates the the conversion of every dogmatic believer into a spiritual believer is possible, thereby making dialog between persons possible.

"When one resolves to live, realizing that the spiritual self is the true self, there denies one self and bears the true cross," writes Choi-in-sik. In other words, that person turns from the merely physical to the spiritual; therefore, to follow the physical self in exclusion of the spiritual self is to lead away from the spirit and to follow the things of men alone. To live by the spirit, one is body-spirit and flesh all at once.