Apech

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Posts posted by Apech

  6. Posted

    May I ask:

    Who wants to have the Status of Emptiness...???

    What is the ultimate goal to obtain the Status of Emptiness...???

     

    Anyone has an answer to these questions.???

     

    The first bhumi of a bodhisattva is the joyous realisation of shunyata (emptiness). So anyone following this path would wish to have this realisation.

  9. Posted

    Chapter 57

    1. Use basic principles to rule a country.

    2. Use tactics to run a arm force.

    3. Use non-violence to take over the world.

    4. How do I know this can be done...???

    5. From the list below.

     

     

    57

    1. 以正治國，

    2. 以奇用兵，

    3. 以無事取天下。

    4. 吾何以知其然哉﹖

    5. 以此。

     

    To be continued....

    Dinner time with tea.... :D

     

    No. 2 ... an armed force ... ... BUT army would be simpler I think.

  11. Posted

    I do like this Flowing hands translation (though it's not necessarily miles from the understanding available from other ones... edit: I take that back. Some word usages are definitely very different. Something wrong with my mind-mouth channel recently :blush: )

     

    Here is his tranlation of Chapter 29

     

    Do you think you can take over the Universe and then improve it?

    It can never be done.

    The Universe is sacred, it can never be improved.

    If you try to change it, you will ruin it.

    If you try to possess it, you will only lose it.

    In the Ten Thousand Things, as well as man,

    one never feels quite the same everyday.

    So, sometimes things are ahead and sometimes behind.

    Sometimes breathing becomes difficult, sometimes it is easy.

    Sometimes there is strength and sometimes there is weakness.

    Sometimes one feels up and cheerful, but sometimes one feels down.

    This is natural; for we are all subject to the Heavenly bodies that influence our lives.

    The Sage experiences these as well as ordinary men, for he is one of the Ten Thousand

    Things.

     

     

    What I understand from this is the way to be when following The Way. One must be as though they are handling a sacred object. They do not criticize the chipped paint, or the scratched surfaces, or the old dirt; they hold it reverently and with great love, respect, and admiration. The Tao must be approached in the same way.

     

    It also makes me think of a fine hand drum. A master must become one with the drum in a way so that they do not interfere with natural sound that comes from this drum and the way it was put together. When they do this, they can discover most subtle nuances of sound within it, and bring them out, and even allow them to penetrate into the resonance of their own body. Tai Chi and Qi Gong masters will also understand this.

     

    Interesting ending in this translation ... different form the others which suggest the Sage avoids extremes and so on.

     

    How different this chapter is from Western psychology where the emphasis is on progress and making a mark on the world. Here it is saying you can't really do that. Many people in our societies would ridicule a person who behaved in the way this chapter suggests. All the more reason for thinking the Tao is profound and wise.

     

    Actually it is so hard to be quiet and still and non -interfering when everything is shouting at you to 'take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them' to quote another bard.

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    A translator who uses the word "enlightened" to translate the Tao Te Ching must be a pseudo-Taoist. Boy, is s/he confused.

     

    Oh, I know. This translator was a crossbreed of a Buddhist and a Taoist.... :o

     

    Oh I think that's a bit unfair (possibly true though ironically). Enlightened is a proper English word ... as per 'The Enlightenment' which has nothing to do with Buddhism. It can just mean someone who has understood ... i.e. the Sage who embodies the Tao ... it doesn't have to mean Buddha.

     

    We are all confused I would suggest ... its just some of us are less confused than others ... :)

  13. Posted

    [*quote name=deci belle' date='02 August 2011 - 02:42 AM' timestamp='1312249361' post='279527]

    Hi Mal! Now that I can do code for italics, please teach me what to do for putting what I'd normally highlight and paste after pushing the quote button that don't work for me anymore.

     

    Thank you!❤

    [/*quote]

     

    miss out the * before word quote. Just put [*quote] and [/*quote] if you don't need the author ... again miss out the *.

  14. Posted

    Yin condenses from the sky, forming yang/earth; like expanded cold multiples into heat. It appears obvious that your predisposition as to the reality of duality is fixed within a patriarchial viewpoint.

     

    Yin is cold formless, sky; and yang is hot form, earth,...we could reverse the names yin to yang,...but cold, formless, sky, unwinding, exhalation, unfolded, diverging, etc., will always be synonymous with each other,....just as hot form, earth, winding, inhalation, folded, converging, will be the opposite synonyms.

     

    As I mentioned, perhaps that book on light will better help understand Who's Who in Duality.

    http://www.archive.o...fLight_djvu.txt

     

    Come find me afterwards, and will have a real dialogue.

     

    ... <snip>

     

    I see you have decided what I believe and that it is based on a "patriarchial viewpoint". Egyptian culture was a form of patriarchy I suppose ... but it was one in which women had a strong role and many rites and privileges ... and of course the religion had many goddesses including one's which were seen as creatrix (e.g. Neith). So I don't see how my describing accurately what the Egyptians were saying gives me a particularly patriarchial view point.

     

    Oh and what does " like expanded cold multiples into heat" actually mean?

  15. Posted

    Interesting,...so it appears I was correct,...Geb = earth = yang, while Nut = sky = yin.

     

     

     

    No, sorry, I was trying to explain that you cannot make equations like this.

     

    Also I think I should point out that in the Chinese Tradition Heaven (sky) = yang and Earth is yin (see trigrams in I Ching etc.).

     

    Making correspondences between systems (e.g. China and Egypt) is confusing without first properly defining the terms involved (and even then ....) ... inverting basic principles in any system based on your own ideas is even more likely to confuse.

  18. Posted

    Those who know don't talk about it; those who talk don't know it.

    He blocks up his holes,

    Closes his doors,

    Softens the glare,

    Settles the dust,

    Files down the sharp edges,

    And unties the tangles.

    This is called Profound Union.

     

    (first part of henricks)

     

    Just some off the top of my head thoughts as I read this.

     

    1 ) I wish more people on TTBs would read the first two lines :lol:

     

    2 ) To me it reads like this. Most of us are caught up in the world where there is pressure to be right. Or rather to talk about how right you are. If you don't people think you are weak and stupid. They think this is being assertive but its actually just being noisy. As in "empty vessels make most sound". The sage goes beyond this ... he listens to people and knows that they don't know anything ... so he keeps his own counsel ... because they talk so much that they will never listen anyway. Add to this that the truth is ultimately inexpressible.

     

    3 ) The sage lessens the disharmony, the jangly edges, the jumbled up-ness which also arise because of the speed of the world. Not to say being quick is wrong but being caught up in the knock knock of daily life is not what the sage does. He's interested in being integrated, quiet and wise ... the profound union within and with the way.

     

    Just some thoughts.

     

    PS. Its so peaceful here in the TTC sub-forum ... maybe there's something to this Taoism lark.

    • Like 2

  22. Posted

    The idea of a forest - removed trees ... we can find at Wieger Lesson I,J

    In shuowen we find wufuelle.gifwufuelle_sw.gif rendered as 豐 fullness...(the character of wang - entering the corner is not added here!)

    I think it is not necessary to interprete the adding of wang as removing the trees...

    What is your idea about the meaning of adding the wang here?

     

    I understood the character to mean a hill with trees removed based on Stigs posts above.

  23. Posted

    <snip>

     

    It all depends on your goals in life. If your goal is to sneak around in secret, then it helps to have a good legitimate reason for that sneaking around, such as the climate of persecution. If your goal is to nurture wisdom and to open yourself to new and strange experiences then you don't need an organization that's bent on persecution.

     

    EDIT: Oh, I think part of your question is: do the mystics need religious vocabulary to lean on? My answer is no, they do not. Mystics can "mystify" any language, and the social structure of organized religion is not necessary to produce spiritually useful terms and meanings. I would even go further. I would say that if you don't have your own vocabulary you're not a real mystic to begin with. It's important to have a shared vocabulary to talk to others, but it's also important to have your own vocabulary to talk to yourself in the terms that are most relevant to you. A mystic who appears on Earth is someone who has one foot in convention and one foot beyond convention.

     

    I think I half agree with you and half disagree.

     

    I'll give another historical example which will not please Vaj. (:)). In the lineage of Karma Kagyu Tib. Buddhism the stated role of (the saintly) Gampopa who was himself a student of Milarepa, was to merge the monastic tradition which was started by Atisha with the line if the siddhas (i.e Nilopa, Tilopa, Marpa, Milarepa ....). To me these are two classes of tradition. One orthodox Buddhism the other a line of mystics. While the second clearly saw themselves as being buddhists they were not monks and their activity was outside the 'normal' teachings - as the life of Gampopa illustrates.

     

    So its it possible to do what Gampopa is said to have done? Can genuine mysticism which is individual and spontaneously revelatory sit inside an organised orthodox system? If no ... then what purpose if any did Gampopa serve in establishing (through his successor Karmapa) the lineage? In other words can it be a comfortable home for a mystic or is there always a compromise in which the mystic will always either to have to break out ... or keep silent?

     

    The other way to look at it is ... to be properly individual you need something to kick at. This would give a kind of negative purpose to dogma.

     

    Lastly ... K's point ... if I understood it ... if the mystic dwells in truth and reality (the mystery) is truth ... then how can it be oppressed by lies anyway?

  25. Posted · Edited by Apech
    grammar

    Hill empty of trees and dancing female shaman ... I like the fact that there are both images.

     

    Just a word for the hill (since everyone else seems to like the dancing shaman ... for obvious reasons I guess).

     

    Hill with trees ... the hill has trees and could be said to be 'a treed hill' or a 'wooded hill' ... remove the trees and you have just 'hill'. What has changed? Compare ...the subject has predicate .. remove the predicate and you have only subject.

     

    Something is happening ... a dance ... the dancer and the dance ... the person and the pattern of movement ... remove the predicates and you just have 'dancing' ...

     

    Hmmm ok carry on ...