Monday, April 28, 2008

Translucent Revolution: Part II

2 comments:

Pippin said...

Wow, Translucents...is this your actual belief or did you just read the book?

Bilbo said...

Hi Pippin,

I do connect with some of the aspects of what is described as Translucent thought and practice as I suspect a lot of people do...Particularly, embracing both the spirit and the world...and...the care of the body...and...the need to embrace rather than repress what many would consider the dark side of our human emotions and experience...just to name a few...I didn't mean to provide a sales pitch for this spiritual movement but I was hoping to stimulate others into thinking about some of the ideas and practices...


Translucents embrace spiritual practice not as a means to achieving a future goal but as a way to a more fully lived present moment, with open heart, open mind, and open body.

In the maturing beyond dogma and the rules of tradition, translucents have also grown beyond hierarchy. The tradition setting of one Enlightened, one sitting on a raised podium, answering questions from differential devotees, is being replaced by the sacred circle, where wisdom is everywhere in the room at the same time, where meeting is eye to eye, heart to heart. Realizing the deepest truth of who we are may occur on the mediation cushion or in a cave. To discover our potential to live as radiant love and humorous art requires involvement with other people. Through the alchemy of meeting with others in honesty and trust, we can take our inner wisdom for a test-drive and find out what happens when the rubber meets the road.

Tranlucents are lions, not sheep. They walk alone, although sometimes in each other’s company.

Translucents display willingness to be wrong, to let go and move on. Their perception of their identity is the way we might experience a crazy uncle who can be tolerated, enjoyed, even loved. There is no reason to change your mad uncle, but there is also no reason to defend him or apologize for him. If he disturbs the neighbors, a little damage control is simply intelligent.

Translucents have a natural interest in forgiving and moving on. Forgiveness is no longer a moral virtue, or something we need to practice, but the effortless by-product of no longer needing to protect an identity with a story attached to it. The past is not healed: it simply ceases to be useful….A translucents forgiveness is neither a moral quality nor a cultivated virtue, but the natural and inevitable consequences of knowing oneself as something more than the past.

Translucents have fewer beliefs to protect; They are comfortable with not knowing what to do until they really know. They have less need to think and dramatically less need to be right. When we are acting translucently, our actions come from a different place within us. Instead of reflecting a system of belief, they are a direct response to the situation as it is…Often we talk and take action based on preexisting set of beliefs about what is right and wrong. Our behavior is predictable and they almost always meet the present moment based on our past…and…having developed a complex system of beliefs, we become more interested in defending them than in knowing what is true. The actuality of life becomes secondary to the principle of the thing.
The role of a translucent teacher is to relax and allow a deeper part of the questioner to tell her what she already knows but cannot hear. This is the deeper role of a teacher; not to deliver a precooked set of dictates and theories but to be used by the Great Knowing…The key to accessing a deeper source of thought and action is the willingness to relax and wait...rather than accept the statue quo notion of avoiding “I don’t know” at all cost. Translucent action requires the wisdom of “I don’t know” as its firm foundation….