Geof Nanto

Please bump the thread it active and I will speak to it.  

I don't know what you're asking me to do (if anything) - I'm not savvy to these terms.

And Chuang Tzu quickly replied:

 

 

The Purpose Of Words

 

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten.  The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits.  When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.  The purpose of words is to convey ideas.  When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.  Where can I find a man who has forgotten words?  He is the one I would like to talk with.

 

Marblehead, I'm interested in what you (or anyone else) makes of Moeller's explanation of Zhuangzi's fish trap analogy. (I've posted it earlier on another thread but I'll post it again in case you didn't see it.) Moeller paraphrases the translation as follows....

A fish trap is a means to get hold of fish

    You can only forget about the fish trap once you've had your fish

A rabbit snare is a means to get hold of rabbits

   You can only forget about the rabbit snare once you've had your rabbit

Words are a means to get hold of ideas

   You can only forget about words once you've had your ideas

How could I talk to someone who has forgotten words?

(When it comes to two sages having no ideas, they will both have nothing to talk about - commentary by Guo Xiang, circa 300 AD.)

According to Moeller "the fishtrap allegory is by no means about how to catch and keep some deep thoughts or ideas [as is the mainstream interpretation]. It is, on the contrary, about getting rid of concepts in order to arrive at perfect Daoist silence. It is about how to become permanently satisfied and to completely eliminate the hunger for the next dish of meaning and language."

Leonard Cohen sings "Dance me to the end of love"; Zhuangzi dances me to the end of concepts.

I've read Shanlung's post twice and still have no idea of his position on the topic. Of course, there's no reason why he should have a position, or even write something I find comprehensible. Anyway, making sense is greatly overrated - I know I personally put far too much effort into it.  

I live surrounded by wildlife and it's obvious the animals have different personalities within the same species. There's an interesting book by Virginia Morell called Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures. And yes, an African gray parrot called Alex proved to be pretty smart.

There are two fundamental views on the nature of ‘reality’; namely realism and constructivism.  A simple realism argues that reality is as it is and it can be cognised and represented as such. This view underpins the scientific method and obviously has much validity - as, for instance, our technology testifies.

On the other hand, a constructivists view of reality posits that ‘reality’ only emerges as a result of construction by an observer. This does not mean that there is no reality, but that it emerges as a reality only when it is observed.  From this perspective the  assumption that there is such a thing as objective knowledge is flimsy. Commenting on Michael Frayn’s   ‘The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe’,  John Banville writes  “The universe plainly exists independently of human consciousness; but what can ever be said about it that has not been mediated through that consciousness? What can ever be wordlessly seen of it that is not dependent upon the existence of a single viewpoint from which to see it? What can be understood of it without the scale and context of human purposes, or the instruments of human thought?.”

I'm no expert on quantum mechanics, but to my mind it seems to exist on the boundary of these two views; namely at this subtle level of 'matter', measurement of 'reality' and construction of 'reality' cannot be separated.

I rarely speak about left/right brain stuff because my knowledge is extremely little.

If you want some background on brain hemisphere theory I can recommend Iain McGilchrist’s book.  With so much pop psychology and popular misconceptions in this field his book is a worthwhile read.  However, with over 500 pages of detailed research findings and nuanced argument , you might wisely reflect that  “your life has a limit but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no  limit, you will be in danger. If you understand this and still strive for knowledge, you will be in danger for certain! “

And conceptual knowledge must always be partial. .

Fold words into cranes. Knit sound into sequence

and hold its shadow up against tomorrow’s blank slate sky.

Watch how the dark flutter of notes makes meaning

seem bigger than it really is. Watch how night washes time clean.

Follow the words to their source

and emerge into a clearing of complete emptiness.

Become like a child.

I am almost totally left-brain dead.

Hey! surely all these posts are a product of left-brain consciousness. We need our human minds to function well. It just shouldn't be the master. (I've added a little to my post above to clarify what I meant.)

But you are are right, The more complicaed life becomes the less chance there is for us to return to the mind of the child.

More complicated, yes. We live in a world dominated by human mind, for sure. But conversely, dealing with difficulty in the midst of our hyper-complex contemporary world is what gives practice real strength. 

Using right-brain / left-brain terminology as analogous to 'child-like mind' and 'human mind', I like this.....

Iain McGilchrist in his brain hemisphere function thesis published as ‘The Master and His Emissary’ writes  "In one (right-brain), we experience - the live, complex, embodied, world of individual, always unique beings, forever in flux, a net of interdependencies, forming and reforming wholes, a world with which we are deeply connected. In the other (left-brain) we 'experience' our experience in a special way: a 're-presented' version of it, containing now static, separable, bounded, but essentially fragmented entities, grouped into classes on which predictions can be based......(Right-brain) is the way in which we all experience the world pre-reflectively, before we have had a chance to 'view' it at all.....These are not different ways of thinking about the world: they are different ways of being in the world."

Edit: To clarify "Using right-brain / left-brain terminology as analogous to 'child-like mind' and 'human mind'."....

Using this analogy, right-brain function is how we connect with mind of Dao. From a Daoist perspective McGilchrist's title could well be "The Mind of Dao and her Emissary the Human Mind".

A child's mind is innately in balance, working as it should with the right- brain function as master. But it's a balance that's easily disturbed. The childlike mind of a sage is likewise in balance - but the harmony has been hard won through long cultivation and is rock solid.   

Once the uncarved wood is carved,

It forms utensils.

 

This is why the Holy Man does not carve,

Nor does he wish to be carved.

 

Since the Holy Man follows the way of Tao

He is fit to be lord over the functionaries.

 

 

Have you seen the very different interpretation of the lines "Since the Holy Man follows the way of Tao, He is fit to be lord over the functionaries" from the Mawangdui version? I find it much more authentically Daoist.

Among all the Daodejing occurrences of pu (uncarved block), chapter 28 is the only case in which the transmitted and Mawangdui  excavated versions are significantly different – the transmitted text has an extra grammatical particle zhi 之 "a possessive marker; a 3rd person pronoun" after yong 用 "use; employ". Robert G. Henricks  explains this small grammatical change between the standard text saying the sage yong zhi "uses it" and the excavated silk text saying yong "is used". The transmitted version 樸散則為器聖人用之則為官長 "When the uncarved wood is broken up, it is turned into concrete things. But when the sage uses it, he becomes the leading official." should be read 樸散則為器聖人用則為官長 "When uncarved wood is cut up, it's turned into vessels. When the Sage is used, he becomes the Head of Officials." D. C. Lau says the traditional passage "seems to say that when the uncarved block shatters it becomes vessels. A vessel is a specialist who is only fitted to be an official. Hence the sage when he makes use of these vessels becomes the lord over the officials.", but in Mawangdui passage, "The meaning is very different. The uncarved block is a symbol for the sage. Just as the uncarved block becomes vessels when it shatters so does the sage become the chief of the officials when he allows himself to be employed, and just as the uncarved block is ruined when it becomes useful, so does a sage become ruined when he becomes useful." The word qi 器 "vessel; utensil" is translated here as "tools", "concrete things", "vessels", "specialists", and "officials".

(edited version of text from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu_%28Daoism%29)

It's always nice, IMO, to have contact with other species.

Tippi Degre, the girl in the clip, said in an interview that she felt totally safe with animals because she could mentally communicate with them. Ah! to have the mind of a child - it's uncommon enough for children to have the mind of a child these days let alone Daoist practitioners. It something that requires long and careful cultivation for an adult. Truly, a Daoist child-like mind is an exceptional achievement.  

Translated by Fabrizio Pregadio in the book Cultivating the Tao, Taoism and Internal Alchemy by Liu Yiming

 

I love this quote. I find it very helpful.

Liu Yiming works are amongst my Daoist favourites. I haven't read Fabrizio Pregadio's book but for many years Zhang Boduan's (Chang Po-tuan) "Understanding Reality" with a commentary by Liu Yiming as translated by Thomas Cleary was my main reference. The world of Daoist alchemy it opened for me was a revelation.

Here's the beginning of a passage that sent shivers up my spine when I first read it....

The tiger leaps, the dragon soars, the wind and the waves are rough. In the correct position in the center is produced the mysterious jewel. Fruit grows on the branches, ripe at the end of the season; how can the child in the belly be any different? 

For me the images in this clip showing the meeting and interaction of the child and the leopard are far more symbolic of Daoist cultivation than the monk and the ox of the Ox Herder poem sequence. Like the mind of Dao, the leopard is soft and supple most of the time yet can also be powerfully fierce, dangerous. Unlike the ox its independence means it will never be domesticated and used as a farm work animal.  

Also the young girl is perfect as a symbol for the Daoist seeker. She spontaneously attracts the leopard through strong De, demonstrating the power of wu wei, rather than the mindful discipline the monk uses to rope the ox. Her bond with the leopard is one of love and respect - they ramble together with no destination so their bond can develop of itself (ziran).

Know the male,

yet keep to the female:
receive the world in your arms.
If you receive the world,
the Dao will never leave you

and you will be like a little child.  

(Daodejing: Chapter 28)

These are but a few of my thoughts on the Daoist symbolism of this short clip. I'm very interested in what other practitioners make of it.

What happens?  A merging.  Tzujan.  The De of Dao.

Perhaps ultimately but look how the leopard tries to merge with the child by way of play. How dangerous it looks. The child at a loss as to how to respond to the leopard's massive size and hidden power.

I posted this video clip yesterday on the 'animals and chi/jing' thread.-

When I first watched it a couple of years ago I saw an amazing interaction of child and leopard - both beautiful and with an edge of danger. However when I re-watched it before posting I also saw it as an excellent allegory for Daoist practice along the lines on the Ox Herder poems from Chan.

The little girl - a symbol of the childlike spirit and De (virtue) of the Daoist sage.

The leopard - a symbol for the mind of Dao.

The clip opens with the child leaving conditioned reality (society's values - the road, car and family). She wanders alone in the wilderness without a destination but her heart seeks the leopard. Child and leopard meet. And then what happens? Comments welcome. 

There's also a video of her with the leopard at

 

but anyway, no one had any success cuddling with a lion ??

Maybe not a lion but here's Tippi Degre with a leopard.

To my mind if you're going to use yin and yang in relation to animals it's only meaningful if you specify the characteristic you're referring to. These are relative terms, not absolute qualities. For instance, I'd call the subservience of dogs a yin quality and the independence of cats a yang quality, whereas the flexibility and softness of cats is yin relative to the muscled 'hardness' of active dogs.

Many dogs (& cats) are remarkable at picking up a sense of the person.  Course you need to know the animal pretty well for awhile to gauge its nauances and accuracy.

Yeah, animals sense heaps - but can we know what they're sensing anymore than we can know the happiness of fish? As for domestic animals, I've noticed for instance that dogs seem to react according to the feelings of their human master. In fact, the friendliness or otherwise of a dog can be good indication of how their master feels toward you. Dogs are very sensitive to emotion, as are cows and horses.

I stumbled onto this site while searching for the full quote in relation to 'life is limited, knowledge unlimited'. 

Gerald, those are excellent photos. For me connection to the natural environment has been my most valuable teacher. I like the idea of meditating in the company of frogs.

I came across a red-bellied black snake in the rainforest but it retreated quickly once it saw me; however it wasn't too far away, watching me closely and being very curious about my presence. I wish It was a lot cooler back them (steaming hot, near 35 deg. Celsius and 85% humidity), I would have sat there in meditation waiting for the snake to come close.

I've noticed that some species of snakes and lizards (and some other animals too) can feel my awareness directed towards them. Once alerted to my presence they will never move as long as I stay conscious of them. I can sit near them for extended periods even with my eyes closed and they'll stay absolutely still. But once my attention drifts they are gone in a flash.  To get such animals to come close I need to be able to pull my awareness in and merge with the inner 'stillness' of my surroundings. It's an interesting practice - one I assume indigenous hunters excelled at. 

I live in wilderness and relate to the Daoist worldview, both conceptually and as embodied praxis. I've referenced their texts for many, many years - especially the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi. 

I've browsed some posts here on several topics and like the co-operative way most discussions proceed. It's a pleasant change from the confrontational approach on many forums.