Now the sixth milestone is where there is only the second bird.
Where the first bird,
With practice,
Has dissolved and you are in this quote-unquote mode of the second bird all the time.
Now it doesn't mean you're just sitting there in a bob all day long.
I mean you're still doing stuff,
You're still working,
You're still paying the bills,
You're still you know driving the kids to carpool and getting things done,
Laughing,
Enjoying life,
Everything.
But it's as if everything is just getting done all on its own without any true deep real effort from you.
Certainly without any real stress or worry or fear on your part.
And there's obviously a lot more to say about this mode but I'll just wrap up this sixth milestone by saying that when you get to this mode where there is only the second bird,
Being in this mode is the true meaning of the classical Taoist saying that nothing is done and yet nothing is left undone.
That corresponds exactly to this sixth milestone.
Now the seventh milestone is where the second bird itself also dissolves.
And there's nothing.
There's no first bird,
There's no second bird,
And there's nothing except for all of life.
All of life.
Just as it is.
Endless joy.
Where nothing remains to be fixed and everything is perceived as being perfect as it is.
And again you can still be fully engaged in the active world and yet deep inside you have this core of quiet stillness where you see everything perfect as it is.
Now a natural question at this point is,
You know,
So is this seventh milestone enlightenment?
And there's no really good way to answer that but in the framework of these milestones I think the most accurate way to answer is to say no.
And the experience of enlightenment can actually strike at any time over the course of any of these seven milestones.
So it's not something that is off in the future where you're gonna have to,
You know,
Slog your way through the seven milestones to get there.
The enlightenment experience can happen at any moment,
At any point,
Immediately.
And in this context I would describe it as being an awakening to the actual reality that underlies all seven milestones.
In other words there are these seven milestones that are the progression of mastery and enlightenment in a sense is the realization of the backdrop,
The background of these seven milestones and what is actually there on an underlying basis,
Right?
The thing that these seven milestones are actually built upon and the realization of that.
Okay,
So now I know from teaching this to my private students that you'll probably have a lot of questions and,
You know,
Rather than make this,
Turn this into a six-hour video,
What I'll do is I'll just end the talk here and invite you to email me directly with any follow-on questions you may have.
So thank you so much.
I hope this,
I hope you found this helpful and I will talk to you soon.
