Tau of the SpaceWays

tau of the spaceways

budo

As a buddhist I was taught to discipline the mind. 

The best method I have found for this so far is from the Mayan Yaqui sorcerer Don Matos who taught Carlos Casteneda to 'disassociate from the mind altogether'.

In Western pharma-psychology this describes Schizophrenia. In buddhism it is Enlightenment. 

Words as worlds of difference and two contrasting  meanings from the same defined symbols. 

Pharmacology cannot compete with Truth. 

'Satori' is 'instant enlightenment'.

'Nirvana' is a state of being in enlightenment (bliss). 

I would make a distinction that genius and enlightenment in the buddhist sense are not the same thing. 

It is more akin to peaceful inner contentment, from which a source of great power. 

 

'Dissassociation from Mind' enables us to achieve true sight and comprehend what we really are. 

Servitude to the western Cult of Brainwash that emerged out of the Age of Reason is a topic for elsewhere. 

Here we remain as close to pure flow, to zen spirit, as we can. 

The mind is Arena. 

We are told it is a computer thus easy to program. 

Detachment enables true insight. 

Not all the thoughts originate from within "You", 'the Self'.

 

Mind is Not Self. 

 

Creeds used as advice we live by;

Do the Right Thing. Counter-postulation; (Who is to judge?) 

The Path of Least Resistance. Counter-postulation; (don't let bullies oppress you)

 

Already we can see there are situations where 'the right thing' and 'easiest course of action' are not necessarily the best response, nor even compatible wisdoms. 

So there is always Critical Choice to define our character and explore the strategies. 

For this we rely in Instinct rather than the sage advice of elders to guide us through. 

 Instinct to be honed and used purely as the most essential sense, as the Truth and guide for our actions.

 

Instinct is Prana (life flow energy).

Instinct is Kata (in flow with the pure form).

 

ALWAYS TRUST YOUR INSTINCT

 

Physical prowess is determined by strengthening elasticity through flow; in yogic form, in tai-chi, we are binding prana (instinct) into the nerves and fibres, that our automatic reflexes are fast and supple. That is the purpose of prana-bindu exercises, which we call yoga and in martial arts forms, by sparring.

This is the dedication of our Dojo. 

A mystic gave me a small black leather-bound pocketbook of some antiquity. Many of the pages were loose notes written by several different hands. I believe some of them to be quite old, going back generations further than memory and oral teaching. Much of the content seemed abstract and is beyond me, irrelevant perhaps to my journey.

The content of this book is the Tau of the Spaceways. 

It is my determination that the Spaceways are not necessarily a physical, interstellar travel concept, but the space of Mind associated with zen and buddhist disciplines.

The book offers some techniques for yoga, tai-chi, tantra, sonic vocal forms, all added by various adepts through whose hands this book has travelled and whose knowledges have been added to it over the years. We have the internet now and versions of these teachings are more commonly available to seekers.

I will transcribe the very basics from this book for you to read. The elegance of simplicity. There are many such stock phrases contained therin, for meditation upon. 

The main body of the book is divided into sections. 

 

 

Tau of the Spaceways

WAY
Introduction section. 
Versions of the Tau book vary between regions and teachers. The purpose of a physical manual is for the individual to add guidance koans, distilled personal wisdoms, contemplated universal truths, insights and elements of philosophies. To study the Tau is to keep field notes. Personal additions to ones pocketbook later become guidance for those to whom the manual is handed as initiation, often after the keepers departure. As the tradition has become. As we are the becoming.

VOID
a short but fundamental subchapter of the Tau book.
Contemplations of the Void are essential part of the meditation rituals of adepts.
Only by comprehending Nothing and Infinity can one comprehend scale of Self. Often this is considered in terms of causality and effect of action and of inaction; repurcussion and karma.
Only by comprehending Void can one understand a thing in its simple elegant entirety; for instance the revelation of humanity as a whole.
To achieve Void, one simply lets go.

BALANCE
a short but fundamental subchapter of the Tau book.
The observer affects the observed.
No form of energy ceases.
Energy seeks balance.
All things that were, are and will be.
Where balance is achieved, there is stillness.
Breath is rhythm.

CHANGE
a longer chapter of the Tau book.
The I Ching of the Spaceways is simply a list of 64 words or Glyphs; symbols which have esoteric meaning. Glyph is the language of the spaceways. The I Ching forms the major 64 concepts of human culture. It is a grid projected onto reality to explain the motion of Ki, the dragon lines, the flow of living energies.

GROWTH
the shortest, yet the longest.
A thing cannot become greater than it is.
A thing is greater than the sum of its component parts.
All things must remain in balance lest they sway.
Thus the Dance of Life. Thus the Fire.
(There is a word here for Fire which means also ‘Seeking’ or ‘Journey’; it is ‘Ki’)

COMPLETION
The unseen seed is perfect.
The ancient translation of this is; 
Unwatched, the seed is Mu.
(Mu = ‘that ineffable quality of beauty which when described, ceases’ and also ‘dream’)



Study Notes

"The Warrior acts impeccably" ~Don Matos teaching to Don Juan (Yaqui Men of Knowledge)

Strive toward full self reliance, psymotional (mental & emotional) and physical.

Learn as much as you can about as much as you can.

Be ALL that you are.

Keep it simple!

A thing takes as long as it takes. It happens in its own time.  

"When the time is right" Bryan Charleywood.

"The Centre of Centres is Everywhere, the circumference is Nowhere. This point rests in itself, is sufficient for itself, wants Nothing and contains All things. All things were, are and will be, out of One, through One and to One."  - Jacob Boehme, 1575-1624

 

Moment Gate

There are but 4 directions of any given moment: 

Sideways, Forwards (upwards), Backwards (down), Stasis (No change). 

Eventually all things that are shall change. 

 This simplicity shall govern wise action from center, calmly.

Way-Signs

The symbols of our Path are all around, for pure eyes to See. 

Follow your way-signs.

 

Breathing

Living at the pace of breath. Upon further contemplation came revelation that Breathing is the single most important act we do. It is something that we should spend a great amount of time becoming excellent at. To practice breathing is itself a meditative art form and should by rights be its own chapter in the Tau book. "Slow, deep breaths." Ideally; inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 2, exhale for 4 seconds, hold for 2, repeat in rhythm. As you get better at this, extend it from 4 seconds to 5 seconds. The rhythm is more important than the exact duration. Yawning is your body clearing out stale air. I put this to a friend and she "had read that Yawning makes you shift dimensions."

©2015 ordo octopia

Egotic Eulogy

“What’s your IQ, mate?”  I was asked when somebody unexpectedly recognised the value of my insight into a particular topic at hand.

At the time I replied, “huh huh.” 

I have recently had Covid. My IQ has dropped. I’m aging and have a bad lifestyle. The food I eat (chocolate and coffee) the lack of socialising (social media doesn’t count), the lack of quality sex partners (feminist Wales). 

The last time I did an IQ test my score was regarded by Mensa to be in the top one percentile (again). They use the word genius for that. 99% of people are dumber than me. I don't like to show off about that. It is based on an exponential curve; the 0.5% of all people smarter than me are significantly smarter. I don't like to show off about that either. 

It’s not how I use the word. I use it to refer to creativity because I’m a creative. People very often mistake honesty for cleverness, which is manipulation. I am fully aware of the disparate discrepancy between what Mensa IQ tests show and what happens in the real world. 

I’m slowing down. My IQ has dropped, but not before I had made some significant observations, discoveries, revelations, achieving awareness from a particular plane of perception. In general that has been assigned to automated reflex. 

The first thing I will tell you is “knowledge is useless, unless it’s applied.” Air (mind).

The second thing I will tell you is “God gave us magic mushrooms and sexual love to help us heal and evolve.” Cups (emotion).

The third thing I will tell you is “confidence, compassion, accountability.” Fire (action).

The fourth thing I will tell you is “acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude.” Earth (world). 

The fifth thing is spirit. Be aware. Be alive. Be Free. 

image:
Taeka's Egoic Lotus,
used non-profit & accredited,
for educational purposes,
within international Fair Use Policy.
Click for link to source.

SNV dev notes

This is a roleplaying community blog.

It is also a personal anecdote. 

It is game development notes while working on a flagship project, Space Ninja Vampirates. 

It is also a personal anecdote. 

TRIGGER WARNINGS: MATURE CONTENT. 

On Developing SNV

Trying to do something new with it. 

People go-to resources for inspiration. 

Example: 

FASA’s Shadowrun’s Matrix was not Tron in the core book but all the digital art looks like it. 

Yes: my project is inspired by space opera science fiction and horror cliches. 

No: it should not be played as a re-enactment of those sources. 

How to reconcile this? 

Rehumanise the human. Make the tribes folky. The love within the group of survivors. Exaggerate their dominant personality trait. 

Contrast that with; the monstrousness of the monsters. They are truly filthy, degenerate, abhorrent monsters. 

Make it 18+ XXX Mature rated Horror. 

The vampires are dark triad (narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths) and pedophiles.

The innocents are virgins with a simple, pure code of honour. 

In nineteen-eighties horror movie style they should all be teenagers. 

Anyone whose personality profile is between naive and perverted is subject to temptation, seduction, manipulation. Which is in almost entirely all of us. 

To become all we are capable of being, the full self, requires experience. Experiences change us. Extreme experiences widen our potential dramatically. 

Our integrity is tested by situations. It is called into question and into focus. Our ability to maintain internal stability throughout diverse and extreme experiences is the measure of us. Our reliance on our tribe to help us retain humanitarianism. 

Question: are polyamorous, bisexual gang-bangers, inherently amoral if they don’t know any better? It’s tempting to explore that fully and without prejudice. It’s too easy to make vampires into BDSM cultists and to portray that as an evil thing. 

But I want a more mature game. To cover more angles than using the game to direct hate toward any specific subgroup no matter how deserving according to a different subgroup. 

For example, exploring how children’s blood is more potent and pure than adult blood ignores the refinement and maturity from experience, which flavours the blood of elders. While Vampires have personal preferences, they are connoisseurs. 

Do the Players get to play as Vampires?

Perhaps there are grades of vampires. 

It runs risk of becoming too similar to a particular existing, famous, influential gothic horror role-playing game.  

There is a definite need for a Safety Net. 

I am unsure to leave interpretation open to the player groups to modify the concept to their own play-style or to develop it into a more precision instrument. 

Path of least resistance. 

Keep it minimal and broad-based. 

In my own personal life and explorations of LGBT and BDSM cultural influences I have always maintained two hard rules.

No children, No animals. 

Those are taboos I am not prepared to endorse or encourage. Not even in vampire fiction. 

This game is actively against pedophilia and bestiality. 

I’m worrying about what to do with that. Is it actively against them by ignoring those topics and not including them in the game at all? Or is it actively against them by making them the evil which the heroes are out to destroy? 

It is winter of 2022 / 2023 as I write this. Social media is currently full of the social issues of the day. LGBT is being used as a shield by pedophiles to groom children. 

Time for honest disclosure and courage. 

I was groomed by pedophiles as a child. We didn’t even know what that was back then. Felt it was wrong and re adults involved were bad people. Kids are powerless and have no voice. I was sexually abused by pedophiles as a child. It is a real issue to me, it has affected me. I am at age 44 still in therapy because of it. 

I am now a father myself of a child who has dropped out of school because the teachers are grooming kids in classrooms and he objects to it, simultaneously he is angry that nobody appears to be listening to the kids themselves attempting on raise an alarm bell about it. 

We went to a Protest exhibition in the capitol city museum and were caught up in a Protest against Government school syllabus grooming children behind closed doors, which helped us to put our own experiences in context. 

I’m writing a project about a ruling class of powerful vampires who are intentionally sick perverts, as terrifying protagonists to fight against. 

Of course I am directly linking these things, the influences and inspirations of my own life experiences with my creativity output. 

I want to do it in a safe way. 

I want to get it right. 

I also want to draw blood and create a project which bites deep enough to make a splash in peoples awareness and memory. 

To get paid for it. 

I was born an indigo child in the 1970s and raised on a farm as a hippy kid. My childhood through 80s corporate capitalism and teenaged through the crusty-techno 90s. I came of age at the Millennium. In a field somewhere on the outskirts of Vurtopia. 

Then it was a splash at working for the MoD to fund my sex magic partners voodoo habit and inevitable splashdown into rough dirty concrete and trashy tarmac torture of gangland scenes and underground film and music studio productivity. 

Then further up the coast to dog-town to raise my brave viking son with his witch of a mother. Kept myself sane in my recluse by writing sci-fi stories and gluing bits of card together for tabletop roleplaying game terrain. 

Somehow already it’s 2022, I’m 44 and even this window is becoming someplace I passed through where before the alignment was a curious harmonic of everything coming together at last. 

Which in many ways it has. Strangely the shape it has taken is SNV. It deserves to be given all its worth. It deserves to be done right because it is worth doing at all. 

It’s fucking Christmas again already in two weeks and I need to get laid. My last two girlfriends are both now fifty and both self-obsessed to the point of classic inspiration for a project about vampires. 

Putting my experience to good use as a healing path to capitalise on. Everything coming into focus. 

Concept Images c2022 Ordo Octopia. 

All Rights Reserved. 

Infinitive

“Because to me, fantasy isn’t wishful thinking, but a way of reflecting, and reflecting on reality.” Ursula K Le Guin

“Imagination is not imaginary.” Matthers OGD

There are two possibilities. 

One, the universe is finite, has an edge, has a limit. 

Second, the universe is infinite. 

So far as we able to tell it is the second, the universe is infinite.

There are two reasons.

1st, the basic obvious we cannot see it’s edge, we have not found it’s limit. 

2nd, all of our scientific studies have concluded; no form of energy ceases. It transmutes. 

We have to factor in imagination. 

Eckhart Tolle describes a human being as “life, nature, becoming self-aware.” 

We have the faculty of imagination.

There are two possibilities what is imagination.

First possibility: it’s where we make things up. Imagination creates new things which did not previously exist.

Second possibility: it is an imaging device, much like a lens capable of drawing information from somewhere.

This necessitates that information to already exist. Imagination, then is a combination of observing and deciphering, translating what we have observed from its source. As a generalisation we tend to bundle everything together into one raw chaotic mess. 

The concept of remote viewing, which many people claim to be a sensory ability of the mind, suggests that what we bundle together into one raw, chaotic mess, is a crude basic way of describing ‘everything out there’ into a singular concept. 

Which obviously is incorrect and misleading. Perhaps they should describe it as ‘arguably’ incorrect and misleading.

It is at this stage we recognise the description of ‘everything out there as a singularity’, as one entity, to be what is referred to by mystics as the ‘all-being’.

If the universe is infinite, if imagination is a visionary tool, able to peer into other parts of the infinity, it is a logical conclusion, that everything we can imagine exists as a reality, somewhere.

What we are seeing in the minds eye is an actual, real thing. If not for us here now, for some version of us somewhere.

Ice-Age 2020s

Reading this blog might be the most seriously you take this until too late. If that is the case, you will freeze to death. 

Surviving Rapid-Onset Ice-Age. 

Blankets across the windows. 

PREP: Get duvets and blankets. 

Pipes will freeze and crack. 

No water on tap. 

No gas central heating. 

Never burn resources excessively. 

Never burn plastic. 

PREP: stock up on firefighters. 

One fire to heat water and dry clothes on warms ten people. Ten fires of the same size wastes resources.

PREP: Get a metal cauldron with a lid. 

Glass will crack from cold. 

Brick up windows. Use cement if possible. 

Water will freeze in the cracks between the bricks. Use boards between frozen bricks and blankets across the windows. 

PREP: Stock up on soap.

Learn how to make soap.

Lye can cause blindness. 

Liquid soap is easier to make but is not easily portable/tradable. 

Your perfect survival space is a cave with a log-fire (a stove with chimney flume is best) and soap manufactory. 

Keep all rooms dry. 

Store all liquids at ground level. 

One warm-room for living in.

Other rooms (cold-rooms) are for storage. 

An air-lock room if possible. 

Managing Toilets.

There will be no more flushing toilets. 

The ground will be frozen solid. 

Luckily excrement and urine will freeze but it will stink and is unhygienic. 

Do all that outside in one place. 

Soap before returning indoors.

Converting a room to have an open-log fire. Cut a hole in the carpet or remove it entirely (it’s probably plastic, poison fumes if it burns: never burn plastic), expose the foundation cement of the ground floor. 

Drag rocks in to make a circle between the rocks no larger than twelve inches diameter. Clear space around the outside of the rocks, minimal twelve inches preferably at least thirty inches. 

Dedicate one corner or cupboard to keeping dry logs and wood in. Smoke-ventilation is a health & safety issue. Try to send it upstairs. Smoke will cause damage. Disable fire-alarms. 

Comfortable space around the fire for a group of people. Cushions and blankets, mattresses. Sleep huddled together for warmth near the fire.

Go outside and retrieve as much fallen wood as possible to dry-store in a cold-room. Bash insects from it before bringing it indoors. 

Killing trees is bad for our oxygen needs and their wood is too wet to burn anyway. Only idiots kill trees, it is not survival. Short Pine-needle tea is soap and nutrition (long or curly pine-needles are poison). 

Contact neighbours and express the fundamental importance of all moving into one room at a time to preserve limited local resources by sharing warmth and to discuss survival. 

Building a Water Filter: tutorials exist, acquire the necessary materials now. 

Prep to do before the big freeze:

Get duvets and blankets. 

Stock up on firefighters. 

Get a metal cauldron with a lid. 

Stock up on soap.

Spare tin-openers and various canned foods, stockpiled. Minimal of 2-tins-a-day-each-person rations. 

Build a water filter. 

Prep to do during the big freeze: 

Brick&Blanket all windows. 

Fire-pit in living room. 

Good Luck. 

Dungeon Ecology

This is a roleplaying community blog post. 

‘Dungeon Ecology’ is a great concept. It is not only about the plants and animals to be found in a dungeon. It is about all the denizens of the dungeon and the sustainability of their lifestyles.

This is where realism has to go out of the window for 99% of those rpg dungeons to exist. This blog is an exploration of applying realism to the concept of dungeon ecology.

The primary question to ask is:

What is the dungeon for?

The correct answer is: 

For a gang of adventurers to go in there, dodge traps, kill everyone and steal whatever they can find. 

You would’ve thought people would give up having dungeons by now with all that going on. 

The ‘Why would a person want to live in a dungeon?’ Table

1-2 they are mad. 

3-4 they are a monster who cannot find anywhere else to live. 

5-6 some other really good reason. 

The ‘Really Good Reasons To Live In A Dungeon’ Table 

1 can’t find a way out.

2 nowhere else to go. 

3 born there. 

4 paid to be there. 

5 looking for something specific. 

6 is a dungeon builder. 

That’s enough of good enough reasons. 

Dungeon Ecology is about how it’s denizens interact with each other. It’s about their food sources and waste management. Lastly it’s about what they do to prevent themselves from going stir-crazy with boredom. Not very different at all from any urban environment. 

Most supplies and resources are not manufactured in the dungeon. They are imported into it. This relies on ‘Trade & Raid’ interactions with the outside world. 

Attaining necessary supplies requires at least one denizen dungeon dweller to have skills involved with successful raiding and/or trading with outsiders. 

What do dungeon dwellers have to trade with, in exchange for the supplies they require? 

From where do they go to acquire those supplies? 

Do they buy in bulk and stockpile sacks of dry grains or tins of pulses? Do they source fresh fruit veg and dairy products daily? 

It is useful to be aware we have grown up in generations of affluence the likes of which history has never seen. We have better diets and eat more regularly than did mediaeval kings. While we know it is not sustainable to continue doing things the way we inherited from the 20th century, it does not stop us from continuing that lifestyle regardless. One must surely wonder who are the real monsters.

Most dungeon dwellers, as with most people throughout history and even alive in the world today, are for most of the time hungry. Only wealthy people eat daily. Most people do not. That is the harsh reality of the matter. It is the social and living conditions to which people adapt. Malnourishment. 

Let’s face it; the adventuring party are probably only going in there at all because they are hoping to make some money so they can eat tomorrow themselves. 

Oh yeah there’s that undead warlord wearing a magickal doohicky to save the world from but you ain’t gonna want to do that on an empty stomach, surely? 

Next up:  What plants live in dungeons? 

Answer: Gross-tasting sprouts covered in psychotropic mold. Probably. 

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