Apech

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Posts posted by Apech

  1. Posted

    Hey Twinner,

     

    I think the "Confucian influence" is somewhat controversial since 'influences' exists from time-past to time-future. I don't want to side track too much, but there is great irony in the fact that the DDJ received text version embraced around the world was written by a Confucian, Wang Bi. :D

     

    But I think for studying these DDJ manuscripts and not getting caught up in what "Daoism" evolved into later may be avoided for our general purposes... well, at least, we'll see if that's the case or not.

     

    I've read Richard John Lynn's translations of both DDC and I Ching both of which include Wang Bi's own writing e.g. introduction to Loazi and also his biography. Although he was a scholar living at a time when Confucian thinking was prevalent to say he was 'a Confucian' is misleading. It is clear that he embraced and understood the Tao.

     

    I agree it is good to go back to source texts for some pure or original messages but I don't agree that you can ignore what Taoism became (if you like) or discount Wang Bi's commentaries as not being relevant to the core truths. Wang Bi achieved a lot in his short life and was actually attacked by Fan Ning (a strict Confucian advocate) for what he regarded as rampant nihilism and libertinism.

  4. Posted

    This is off the top of my head - for discussion.

     

    OK without watering down the words on meaning of this difficult section I would say this.

     

    Imagine you are managing a group of people. Some of them are talented and resourceful, others are average performers and some are quite useless. What do you do to get the most out of everyone?

     

    1) Don't heap too much praise on the best because the others will get resentful and cause trouble.

     

    2) Don't make the rewards of work too distant and unachievable for the less good because they might get desperate and try to take what they are not entitled to.

     

    3) Don't flaunt what you've got because it will upset people when they would otherwise be happy in their work.

     

    Is this manipulation? or just common sense?

  5. Posted

    Hello Apech,

     

    I think we're working on different wave lengths, because what you've just said sounds suspiciously like what I've been saying all along... I think you're not agreeing with the way I'm saying it, which is an excellent example of what this chapter is all about.

     

    Aaron

     

     

    Hi Aaron,

     

    I don't think our wavelengths are that far apart. Sometimes its more interesting to talk about differences than samenesses don't you think?

     

    I like what you are doing on TTBs since you arrived.

     

    A.

  8. Posted

     

    With that said, I have a question for you, If all the world stops judging, what happens then? What do we base our understanding of reality on? I would say that in order for any philisophical premise to work, at least one such as yours, that it needs to work on a global level and I can't see this premise working on that level, hence it's one of the reasons I don't feel that this traditional taoist interpretation of this chapter is accurate.

     

    Aaron

     

    Wang Bi says:

     

    Delight and anger have the same root, and approval and disapproval come from the same gate, thus they cannot be used with bias [pian]. These six [existence or absence, difficulty or ease, long or short, instrumental sounds or voice tones, highs or lows, before or after] are all terms that express what is natural [ziran] and cannot be used with bias.

     

    when commenting on this section of the TTC. He is not saying don't judge as in do not discriminate between one quality and another - in fact he is saying it all in the mix of nature if you like. He is saying don't prefer the beauty and reject the ugly because both are aspects of the non-dual Tao. You can gaze on the Grecian Urn and swoon at its beauty but next time you pass a pile of horse poo you have to accept that that also is also part of reality and I suppose has its own (from the eyes of a blow fly) beauty. Its all ziran, all Tao.

     

    What would happen if the whole world stopped judging? ... I can't answer that ....

  9. Posted

    Hi Stig,

     

    Thanks for this. Maybe you should move it to the TTC sub forum cos it will sit nicely beside the other discussion.

     

    Just a couple of comments.

     

    I see why you have gone for 'collective view' but my first reaction was that it sounds a little like modern psycho-jargon. I can't suggest an alternative - its just how I reacted.

     

    At the end you use 'themselves' for sage ... shouldn't it be "himself" or are you being politically correct so you don't have to put him/herself ???

     

    "Truly, the sage never fixates themselves,"

     

    that reads a bit odd because the verb is in the third person singular ... 'he/she/it fixates'

     

    Truly, Sages never fixate themselves ... would be better maybe.

     

     

    BUT ... good job I think it is excellent!

     

     

     

     

  10. Posted

    Hello Apech,

     

    I think you're missing the point and in a way drawing an absolute. You see the diamond as flawed, when in fact it is flawless. Just as the person who sees the diamond as flawless, doesn't realize it is flawed. Long and short, high and low, you can't have one without the other. This isn't so important really and in my opinion it's not meant to be dwelled on, the important thing is not to value the diamond, that way you wont desire to own it and it can never be stolen from you.

     

    Also the world is abstract, we just view reality in it, or perhaps the world is reality and we decide to make it abstract? The question of the chicken and the egg comes to mind. Just kidding.

     

    What's important to remember is that we don't have to be right, right happens whether we believe it to be or not. If we can just accept that it's a diamond as its intended to be then there can be no argument.

     

    Aaron

     

    edit- Changed a statement and tried to make my comments less harsh. I'm not trying to instruct, just express my opinion.

     

    Aaron,

     

    You can be as harsh as you like - I won't be offended. Please express yourself freely I enjoy the debate.

     

    Maybe I didn't make my point properly. I think these relative judgments are important because this is what we tend to do all the time. In the West for centuries people (poets and philosophers) have been talking about beauty, goodness and truth. This gives rise to the idea that there is perfect beauty, perfect goodness and perfect truth. If one is religious then these qualities are often assigned to God. Keats in his Ode to Grecian Urn said "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." So there is a kind of elegant harmony in form which is 'true' and 'beautiful' - as if there is some essence in the thing that makes it so.

     

    Lao Tzu says "Once all under Heaven knew beauty as "beauty"; at that moment "ugliness" was already there" (Richard John Lynn trans.)

     

    What I take from this is that the idea of the perfect diamond (or anything) is an abstraction while the Tao is not an abstract. Tao follows its own nature (or some say Tao follows nature) so Tao is natural and the sage follows this by not using judgments ... or "Therefore the Sage [sheng] tends to matters without conscious effort" (same trans.).

     

    If you think the world is abstract then you are starting to sound a little Buddhist. I tend to use the Taoist version - to paraphrase : man follows earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows Tao and Tao follows its own nature [ziran]. Nothing abstract about that.

  11. Posted

    The Eye of Horus all so has a deep alchemic meaning which has to do with the anus. Most writers pass it over but if you read Crowley and Regardie you will get it. Move Slowly, Cloudhand

     

    This rings true - the Egyptians said "the buttocks are the buttocks of the eye of Horus" so there is a relation with the lower body. Can you explain more as to what Crowley and Regardie said?

  12. Posted

    Hello folks,

     

    I had some ideas regarding chapter two. I've always thought that this chapter isn't necessarily about non-judgement so much as understanding the nature of absolutes, that when one begins to apply absolutes, they deny the true nature that exists within everything. An example would be that every truth holds within it a small lie, or that, what one person might consider a "flawless" diamond, may still seem flawed to someone else. Nothing is completely good, nor completely bad, rather everything complements each other. On another level I think this also applies to morality as a whole, that we should never just accept something as being good, just because everyone else does, but rather try to view it objectively.

     

    The last two lines are the most important to me, because they express the entire meaning of this chapter in just two lines, that if you do not value something, no one can ever take it away from you, because you never really own it in the first place.

     

    Aaron

     

    In the real world the flawless diamond like the perfect circle does not and cannot exist. The Tao is a real Tao not an abstract Tao - while being perfectly Tao it not perfect-Tao which would be an abstraction.

     

    Despite this we all know what a perfect circle is. We do geometry based on it ... even though such a thing cannot be ever drawn in the real world.

  19. Posted

    I think sometimes our values make us think we shouldn't want or need money or material wealth or property. Actually it is healthier to think that as a cultivator the universe would benefit by allowing you enough money so that you have the time and energy to devote to practice. I'm not saying that money will fall into your lap if yu change your mind set - but it is a beginning. There are creative visualization practices for gaining the money you need. I'm not recommending them I'm just saying they are out there if you look for them.

  20. Posted

    Just for the sake of joining in the discussion here is Richard John Lynn's translation:

     

    The Dao that can be described in language is not the constant Dao; the name that can be given is not its constant name.

    Nameless, it is the origin of the myriad things; named, it is the mother of the myriad things.

    Therefore, always be without desire so as to see their subtlety.

    And always have desire so as to see their ends.

    These two emerge together but have different names. Together, we refer to them as mystery: the mystery upon mystery and gateway of all subtleties.

     

    I particularly like TianShi's challenge to say what this book is for. This is a really good point and I think the idea of a survival manual for rulers is about right (if I have understood what is being said). I think there is a tendency to kind of fall in love with the mystery in this text and forget that it is a very practical text. It is practical because it cuts straight to the heart of things by saying 'ok, what exactly are we talking about'. But even if this was written for rulers on an individual level we can say that we are all rulers of our own worlds and so the advice applies as much to us as to a king in ancient China.

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  23. Posted

    Agree. Maybe a Buddhist subforum, then? :rolleyes: I read the enlightenment guaranteed thread but got only a headache instead. To each their own; I travel a simple path and to me nothing is simpler than tao and it's as natural as breathing.

     

    Maybe the TTC chapter discussions could start out here - and then if it gets too cluttersome those posts can be moved into a new sub-forum? Having the TTC chapter in the post title (unlike Marblebrain's numbering system) would make them easier to spot, reply to, or move later if need be.

     

    I was just thinking .... on the old version of the board this appeared on the title page:

     

    This is an informal community created to discuss Tao (Dao), particularly as is expressed in key philosophical texts such as the well known Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu, health and cultivation practices such as Tai Chi and Qigong (Chi Kung), nonconceptual meditation approaches such as Zuowang (sitting and forgetting), and also the historical developments of Taoism as the bona fide Chinese religion of Taoist priests and shamans. Don't let this intro scare you though. Most of us are syncretic at heart. Discussion is encouraged to wander eclectically across a wide range of spiritual thought and practice, whether Buddhist, Yogic, Tantric, Judaic, Advaitic, Christian, Islamic, Shamanic, Occult, "New Age", Integral... As long as you are up for a good time, you're welcome to discuss your path. Though we can get rowdy at times, we all do our best to keep it civil. We are, almost as a rule, rather strange, but we have good hearts and even better senses of humor.

     

    I think its a great definition of this place.

     

    Anyway - maybe not a Buddhist sub-forum but I would love to go through TTC one section at a time together - probably spend 5- 20 years on Ch. 1. :):):)

  24. Posted

    Apech, I agree with your thinking on this. That said - if Twinner has in mind what he's done elsewhere and given how fast topics sink off the front list page - well, it might be a good idea to give the TTC it's own corner. Especially if debates over which translation is better start up here... Then again, if the philosophy folks mostly hang in the TTC corner, all you'll be left with out here is rest of ya to keep the e-sanghaites company! :lol:

     

    hey. wasn't that helpful. LOL

     

    We've had threads before where we've discussed sections/chapters - it was good I thought and its nice to focus just on Taoism without Buddhist views creeping in.