Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness? — T Clark
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light? — T Clark
What is experienced by an individual organism is the result of a condition happening to all organisms. It is exquisitely "materialistic" in many ways. — Valentinus
Taoism has no beef with science and the question of how Taoism is incompatible with science never ever came up. — TheMadFool
I think that's you looking at it through the prism of modernity. As I said to T Clark, in practice Taoism is allied with nostrums, potions, and all manner of magic spells, it's about as far from materialism as you could imagine. — Wayfarer
The whole story of his ascent to the role of Patriach pivots around a poem he writes on the temple wall about exactly this point. — Wayfarer
'Darkness' is a symbol of the 'divine darkness', the unknowable-yet-known nature of the ground of being. There's a school or movement called Dark Zen which is also reminiscent of these verses. — Wayfarer
By ‘science’ I mean ‘modern science’, commencing with Newton. Traditional Taoism had no contact with modern science, obviously. Buddhism is different because it is more a global religion (‘Hinduism stripped for export’, in Alan Watts’ phrase.) ‘Science’ in the traditional meaning of ‘scientia’ is less sharply defined, and less inimical to traditionalism. — Wayfarer
Is this the verse you are talking about? — T Clark
The body is the bodhi tree.
The heart-mind is like a mirror.
Moment by moment wipe and polish it,
Not allowing dust to collect.
In bringing your spiritual (ying) and bodily (p'o) souls to embrace the One,
Can (neng) you never depart (li) from it? — T Clark
In concentrating your breath to attain softness,
Can you be like an infant (ying erh)?
In cleansing your mirror (lan) of the dark (hsüan),
Can you make it spotless? — T Clark
To grow yet not to lord over – To grow as in to grow a plant? Don’t overwater? — T Clark
This is called the dark virtue – “Dark” gets used a lot. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes not. This is worth looking in to more. — T Clark
"There is life, there is death, there is a coming out, there is a going back in - yet in the coming out and going back, its form is never seen. This is called the Heavenly Gate. The Heavenly Gate is nonbeing. The ten thousand things come forth from nonbeing. Being cannot create being out of being; inevitably it must come forth from nonbeing. Nonbeing is absolute nonbeing, and it is here that the sage hides himself. — Chapter Gensang Chu, translated by Burton Watson
In D.C. Lau's version of verse 10, he makes a reference to how the Heavenly Gate is described in Zhuangzi that may interest the ongoing discussion of being and non-being: — Valentinus
The verse in its entirety seems to outline the uncertainty in our relation to the Tao. — Possibility
The way I set up my post for Verse 10, but cutting it all up in pieces, made it so I never looked at the whole verse as one piece. So, anyway, here's the whole verse, Chen version: — T Clark
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
And - which is more - you'll be a Sage, my son. — T Clark
At the source of the practice, Taoism is gender-neutral religion, emphasizing the dualism and importance of both masculinity and femininity as necessary, complementary forces that cannot exist without each other. '
The interaction between ying (echo, answer, response) and pò (broken, expose the truth of) as internal aspects of our relation to the Tao, to me reflects Feldman Barrett’s proposed interaction between a constructed conceptual (‘spiritual’) reality and a constructed interocepted (‘bodily’) reality in an ongoing dialectic that manifests and refines consciousness. — Possibility
From now on I'll give the entire verse at the beginning of my post. Do you like the Ivanhoe translation particularly? — T Clark
I see this differently than you do. To me this looks like a list of requirements for being a sage. Almost a checklist: — T Clark
In loving the people and governing the state,
Can you practice non-action? — T Clark
I think this is a Western interpretation of the text. We find in the text what we’re looking for, I suppose. But I’m intrigued by the interpretations here that attribute relations of affect, value and morality where it doesn’t seem to exist in the traditional Chinese concepts themselves. — Possibility
So it reads more like this:
In caring for the state and governing its people, understanding our capabilities without acting in that capacity is uncertain - such is our relation to the Tao. How does this affect us? Does it hold us back from making decisions? Do we focus on attributing any apparent capability only to ourselves? Are we capable of governing without certainty in this regard? — Possibility
Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs., the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.
Is not the space between heaven and earth like a bellows?
It is empty without being exhausted:
The more it works the more comes out.
Much speech leads inevitably to silence.
Better to hold fast to the void. — Translated by D.C. Lau
Zi Gong said: “What our Master has to say about the classics can be heard and also embodied. Our Master's words on the essence and the Heavenly Way, though not attainable, can be heard.” — Translated by A.C. Muller
A method is being promoted that often sounds like a rejection of all method. — Valentinus
Cook Ding was cutting up an ox for Lord Wenhui. At every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip, zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the Dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Jingshou Music.
'Ah, this is marvelous!' said Lord Wenhui. 'Imagine skill reaching such heights!'
Cook Ding laid down his knife and replied, 'What I care about is the Way [Dao], which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now, now I go at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.
'A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I've cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there's plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That's why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.
'However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I'm doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until — flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.'
'Excellent!' said Lord Wenhui. 'I have heard the words of Cook Ding and learned how to [nurture] life!'"
Before going further along my line of thought, I would like to ask if it seems like complete blather or is there a point of departure where it made some sense and then stopped making sense. — Valentinus
What is a philosophical method? — T Clark
I’ve never liked this verse. It doesn’t make sense to me — T Clark
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