Apech

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 )

 

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.

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....

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 ...

[*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 *.

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?

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.

Sorry came late to the discussion :

I think it means that the way to know the children is to know the mother. Look at the 10k things and wonder 'what, why, how?' ... the answer is the mother.

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

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.

I would like to. I really like life... all it's unpredictable twists and turns, all the funny people. Everyone is so unique, it's a wild ride! I like it.

Would you like me to stick my head in a bucket of water?

Welcome to TTBs and look forward to these discussions.

A.

I just thought I'd post this link in case anyone else is interested in these subjects.

Henadology

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

In shuowen we find 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.

<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?

My imagination went astray with that post. I imagined a naked female shaman dancing in the hills covered with trees.

 

Geeezzzee!!!!!

Was she well endowed ... with the spirit?

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 ...

"The question is would this be possible if there was no orthodoxy"

 

I think they (mystic setups) quite consistently run behind most of them too. Whether this would be possible without is in interesting question. But what I can't get my head around is the co-existence of both in the same society. I think it has to do with social/political power. But why the mystics would condone that purpose, I'm not quite sure, yet. I think it's possible for mystics to make mistakes...but is it possible for 'mystery' to make mistakes?

What a brilliant question! Vaj says dive in and find out ... well presumably the persecuted mystics did just that. Going back to Big J ... why didn't he save himself (assuming he was enlightened) - Pontius Pilot asked him "What is truth" and he didn't answer.

Sorry I am rambling. I'll come back when I have thought a bit more.

Apech,

 

I hope you are joking. Of course they'd be able to do it. I would argue that it's precisely the dogmatic and dittohead-ish nature of organized religion that kept many mystics at arm's length in many parts of the world. Traditional religious orthodoxies and bureaucracies were very hostile to the mystics and at best tolerated them. Didn't Meister Eckhart get excommunicated? I think Eckhart got lucky he wasn't burned at the stake. What would happen to a mystic who says "I am the Truth" in an Islamic country? Just ask al-Hallaj.

 

Screw everything about organized religion. I have put all the biggest organized religions on a demolition track and I am not bringing them back from the dead. Not all religions are as oppressive as Christianity and Islam, but I think we all know that the process itself is dangerous and not just the content. Content does make a big difference, but the process of organized religion is a dangerous and unhelpful one.

 

I think people do need spirituality, which is to say, people need wisdom and teachings that go beyond the apparently physical existence. But there should be a way to make these teachings accessible to everyone without the strangulation of organized religion.

No I wasn't joking exactly just thinking out loud. Bruno was burned at the stake and I am sure many recanted simply because it was more ecominical to carry on in secret than to make a big statement by dieing. I know its a different field but look at Gallileo he recanted ... but was still right in the long run.

No what i meant was that they (mostly) still used the terminology of the Judeo-Christian tradition ... the Godhead, Christ the logos and so on. Jesus himself seemed an ok bloke ... shame about the cross and all that. So running in secret behind the orthodox is a mystical tradition. The question is would this be possible if there was no orthodoxy.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Right!

 

I had a feeling spell check was doing that word wrong. Eh, English... such a feisty bastard!

Well at least we don't speak a language called American .

I think a case could be made for religions as vehicles for holding and preserving ideas through generations. In the west at any rate there have been individual mystics through history who reinterpret Christianity in a very individualist way and sort of make sense of it. Blake, Boehme and Bruno come to mind (why do they all begin with B???). Would they have been able to do this if there was no orthodox church?

Yes, exactly... and the highlighted is why I prefer Buddhist philosophy over Monistic Idealism or Monotheism of any sort, due to this subtle tendency to deify a "saint" and think that everything they do is somehow, "gods will!". A huge mistake in understanding reality and human potential in general in my opinion.

I went to see Namkhai Norbu give a talk in London in 1979 (this is another of my lama stories). My friend came round and said that there was this talk on Dzogchen somewhere maybe Camden and so we drove across London and sat ina hall with maybe 200 people. He appeared with three or four Italians on stage (he was at Milan or Turin university a the time I think) - one of them was enormously overweight. They all wore little mirrors as pendants and this was part of talk.

His talk was ok but quite Buddha-lite if you know what I mean - just basic four noble truths and a few funny stories (told in Italian and translated for us). They said that they had been somewhere and a guy had come up to them and assumed that the big fellow must be the lama because he was so large. That raised a laugh.

At the end of the talk there was questions from the floor. My friend who I went with leaps to his feet and waves his arm. He wasn't the shy retiring type like me. Then he says in a loud voice (there was no mike): "Me and my friend," (points at me),"drove all the way across London and gave up an evening to come to a talk on Dzogchen. So far you haven't mentioned it at all. Maybe you could say something now so we haven't completely wasted our time."

Needless to say every one of about 200 people turned to stare at us and I quietly willed a trap door to open under me so I could sink out of their gaze. There was a lot of tutting and gasping going on. Meanwhile the translator told the Lama the question,

He replied, "I'm not going to talk about Dzogchen if I don't want to. If you have wasted your time then that's your problem."

It always stuck in my mind as a great answer - probably because I expected a long boring blah blah about secret doctrines not this kind of 'tough shit' response.

(Thank you for listening ... please carry on)

So I think the woman was correct after all. Samayas are secret or otherwise not well known, so how is she supposed to know about that? And her observation about the general Tibetan culture is correct I believe.

I got the impression she was married to Stephen B. who practices vajrayana - so she would know about samaya vows. I think the interesting thing about the 14 Root Downfalls while we're on the subject is that they do include 'not denigrating women'. Clearly whoever it was that formulated them realised that denigrating women was a problem, either culturally or personally and that people specifically had to be told 'don't do that if you want to be a good tantrika.' So I think she was spot on about the culture ... and I suppose it makes whatever Soggy gets up to even worse ... since he was a member of an 'elite' who had spefically agreed not to do these things. Mind you as you say in his own mind he probably thought he was doing them a favour.

Even if she knows about samaya, it is still a reasonable thing to believe that the culture is weightier than the samaya. Your culture was put there by generations of people, friends and family, and from a Buddhist POV it's fixed firmly by countless past lives. Samaya is a relatively arbitrary decision on your part that is not as stable and as weighty as the basic culture. Samaya is more superficial than the basic cultural assumptions. That's why it takes vigilance and willpower to keep samaya, because it's not normal.

Yes, see above.

I agree. That's how it works in theory. In practice what happens is that there is a famous lama and you've only heard good things about the lama (saying bad things about the lama breaks samaya). The lama says you're special, which is exactly what you wanted to hear all along. One thing leads to another, and by the time you realize what happened the deed is done, as they say.

 

Authority is a powerful drug. To deny that would be senseless and a denial of our own nature, as you'd probably agree.

Like everything there's good lamas and not so good ones. I have to say that SG's reputation amongst the Buddhist circles I mixed in a few years ago was not good. He was considered 'confused' and other lamas said this openly. I also never came across this total lama worship although the samaya vows were taught and emphasised along with the 5,000 verses of guru-yoga. The view seemed to be that you developed a relationship of trust (love even) over a long period of time with your lama ... ok they sat on high thrones to teach but in a one to one situation they were gentle, kind and tolerant and never put any pressure on (apart from urging you to practice). Maybe I was lucky.

I think if there is any of this ... "you are special" stuff then that is pure manipulation and very un-dharmic if I can coin that phrase. But I still go back to the fact that I don't really care.

I used to go and see these guys teach ... and for me it was more a question of what they knew and what they could impart. I wasn't ever interested in a god to worship or a saviour ... maybe that's just me.

***********************************. So, this is the classic accuse the accuser of what you were accused of out of a distraction measure. This is also the case with certain x-swami's too.

 

 

Is this a fact or an allegation? If you are going to name someone like this in this context it could be libelous ... I suggest you remove it.

I have two questions:

 

1. When exactly in the interview does she say something to the contrary? I will watch the interview at the precise minute and second to try to understand what you're talking about.

 

2. Are you making a distinction between the ideal case and what actually happens in real life (theory vs practice)? Are we discussing how things ought to happen or how they actually tend to happen?

Hi,

I don't want to watch it again but she says something like part of the problem was the place of women in trad Tibetan culture. My only point is that while this may be the case (that women were second class citizens) this view is specifically prohibited for those practicing tantra. So if a lama had this opinion of women they were already breaking their samaya.

Perhaps the lama may have thought that in fancying and shagging young western women he was not denigrating them I don't know.

For me the root is not the sex scandals which I don't actually care about much but the whole misunderstanding of the lama/guru thing. If the guru does anything they point out one's true nature and the true nature of reality for you. That is by being realised themselves they give you an external example (is that the right word) to resonate with ... so that you can benefit by getting closer to your own true nature. They don't give you anything because you already have it. So it is not necessary to suspend all caution and rationality ... in fact that would be a denial of your own buddha-nature. EVEN IF you regard your teacher as a Buddha you do not approach them in a gormless and naive way. You owe it to them and to yourself to keep your eyes open and your wits about you. If they try to pull the wool over your eyes and to act otherwise then pack up your cushion and move on.

Orb,

 

When I read your link, I found the show mentioned in the article.

 

Here's a link to one of the clips from the show. I think the woman in the clip is right about a lot of things and people should pay attention to what she says.

 

I'm going to watch other clips. The clips can be activated on the lower portion of the page, under the main video clip window.

 

EDIT: Here's an interview with Stephen Batchelor on the same topic. I found this interview to be very insightful.

Excellent interview ... but she's wrong on one point ... denigration of women is a Root Downfall (might be number 14 not sure) and thus a breach of samaya vows no matter what Tibetan culture generally might say about women for a tantrika it is not ok to regard women as second class beings or whatever.

Here they are:

1. Contradicting one’s Guru or Lama.

2. Contradicting or denigrating the teachings of the Buddha or one’s Guru (Lama).

3. Quarreling with others on the same path.

4. Violating the Bodhisattva vows (in action, word or thought).

5. Violating the sacred drops in the heart chakra through illicit sexual activity.

6. Denigrating the teachings and paths of other systems.

7. Revealing secrets to non-initiates or those not ready to receive them.

8. Viewing the five aggregates that compose the psycho-physical continuum as impure.

9. Doubting one’s entrance into the path.

10. Having the ability to perceive the mental continuum of others and recognizing that someone in particular will commit great harm to others and not taking action.

11. Holding either of the extremist views of permanence or nihilism.

12. Refusing to teach someone who asks for teachings and is qualified to receive those teachings.

13. Superficial or dualistic clinging to appearances of pure/impure, good/bad etc.

14. Verbally or mentally denigrating women.