frp

Initial contact with Taoist thought and the interpretations of the Tao Te Ching can be a little unnerving. Particulaly if one is used to western style of writing. Give yourself a lot of time to figure these ideas out for yourself. While Chapter Five sounds a bit severe, the following passage from Matthew 5:45 is readily acceptable to most Christians. Matthew 5:45: "that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust God is seen as impartial. (In this verse anyway) I prefer the following interpretation of Chapter Five. 5. Nature Nature is not kind; It treats all things impartially. The Sage is not kind, And treats all people impartially. Nature is like a bellows, Empty, yet never ceasing its supply. The more it moves, the more it yields; So the sage draws upon experience And cannot be exhausted For me the neat part of this chapter concerns the idea of the impartiality of nature. This impartiality creates a void. Humans both love and detest a void. We try to fill voids with all sorts of things in an effort to make a nice tight defined package out of them. Voids left alone are quite elegant and useful. When we fill them they become useless at best and downright dangerous at the worst.

Thanks Blasto! I needed this.

Greenhorn, Be careful were you let this take you. Some are of the mind that sperm is imbued with properties beyond the truly magical ability to fertilize the human female egg. You will be told to manipulate your sperm/ejaculation to attain a higher order of being. This makes as much sense as using extreme and unnatural control over any of the bodily excretions to attain power. It is a contrivance. Nature gave you a penis for peeing and procreation. Humans have adapted well and found a fine entertainment/pleasure value as well. Some use it for abusive power. Please do not look at your penis and what comes out of it for some sort of pathway to discovery. I can speak to this subject with some degree of sympathy for your situation. Like you I have never produced sperm. Or more accurately stated I have never ejaculated sperm. I have Congenital Bilateral Absence Of The Vas Deferens. This is when the Vas Deferens do not completely develop at birth. You may also have this condition. You may be making sperm but it has no way to exit from the testicles. A congenital vasectomy if you will. Sperm is created in the testicles but never ejaculated. They are eventually absorbed by the body. Talk about saving Chi! I have been packing it away since puberty! If you are young, you will have to come to terms with your infertility. I wish you peace in that journey. Be wary when someone tells you that power is directly related to a milky secretion. You are young. Read and study the Tao Te Ching for a year or so. Read as many different translations as you can find. Stay away from other sources of Taoist wisdom for that year or so. It will be time well spent.

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." Sir Francis Bacon,

See, Masters are as old as time, maybe older. Thank you, Meow. I loved your post as well as this discussion.

Let this thing we call Tao strip us to our bones. We will reshape ourselves using Compassion, Restraint & Unimportance. This is where the Magic lies. frp

L7, What you say is true. Except you left out one thing. **This is where the Magic starts!** frp

Thank you, goldisheavy. frp

Agape, I am interested in your thoughts about nature and our place in it. The way that the Tao explains nature is one of the most important tenants of this wonderful work. Consider this... A Tree bears fruit The Fruit, though unripe, falls to the ground The Fruit rots This could be interpreted as a very base scenario of nature. The fruit did not accomplish. It came and went. Perhaps only providing some nutrients back to the very soil that provided the nutrients that originally allowed it to grow. Should we expect to be more significant to the Tao or nature then this piece of rotten fruit? frp

Hey Marblehead, Speaking of Texas, I have been stuck on James McMurtry & the Heartless Bastards "Live in Aught Three". Good stuff. Well grounded in an augered into the ground kind of way. frp

Hello All, I appreciate the opportunity to partake in this group with you. A group of this size and the combined wisdom is very promising and I look forward to snooping around. I live a rural life in eastern North Carolina. Ten years ago I was partaking in a laymen study of Physics. During this study I stubbed my toe on the Tao Te Ching. It was as if I suddenly had clearer sight or better hearing. However I still do not understand Physics very well. I saw the power of the Tao not in what it says but in what it does not say. The lack of esoteric ideas and absence of dogma is a subtle relief but I quickly began to understand its great importance. The idea that we are not really supposed to fully understand the Tao is liberating and expansive with possibility. The concepts of good/bad or beautiful/ugly being abstracted from nature is both a freeing concept and also a reasonable burden on humanity. This thing called Tao that I cannot hold, cannot use and cannot fully understand suddenly became very important to me. I am also searching for a good vegetarian Thai peanut sauce. Best Regards, frp