plebeian

Enlightenment Is An Exclusive Destination

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There is the school of no thought. plebian refers to the gradual and sudden. These are one without beginning.

 

The epiphany is not relative to the person. What is significant is that in the aftermath of the sudden, one then learns to express the void in terms of chaos in everyday ordinary situations unbeknownst to anyone.

 

As before, one uses the world to refine potential.

 

So there is a return to the gradual path in the aftermath of the sudden.

 

The void is a term for the absolute. Chaos is creation, the world right now.

 

 

 

 

ed note: typo in 2nd paragraph

Edited by deci belle
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...

If you consider destination only in a conventional sense, then you miss the gest.

 

We are all headed for our destinations.

 

No doubt about it.

 

In the conventional sense, get thee to a nunnery!

 

Do I miss the gest?

 

Sadly not.

 

I always get the punch line.

 

Beau Geste.

...

Edited by Captain Mar-Vell
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Yascra said:

 

 

What makes you think that guy was a master?

 

Sounds more like kind of a negative person to me.

 

The point is that to accomplish the basis isn't a matter of people. The master isn't putting people down. It is an attempt to clarify for people that mind isn't the thinking apparatus …which not only comes up with things like television, but feeds it and feeds off of it. This is the self-perpetuating mechanical mind— not the true human with no status.

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The epiphany is no joke, dear. Please rise to the occasion.

 

 

maheosphet said:

This void seemingly empty has directions to travel which were previously unknown, unfathomable in 3-dimensions, being a line of the fourth. A fractal like shrinking and expanding.

 

It doesn't seem empty. There is no direction— which would imply relativity. The unknowable is complete in and of itself. Void cannot imply distance because unity has no dimension.

 

These are all speculations people.

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+1 deci belle.

Thing is - as soon as we impose limits via language we're 'measuring' and measuring just doesn't work.

"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent."

Edited by GrandmasterP
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The quantum world and reality would beg to differ.

 

Using the rationale that "IF You see nothing so there must be nothing", is the same rationale that leads to materialism.

Edited by maheosphet

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The quantum world and reality would beg to differ.

 

You see nothing so there must be nothing, no different than materialism.

 

Yes.

You are right.

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If a tree falls in the woods who gives a shit? It's all sophism.

Edited by plebeian

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This is not sophism. I will now direct you to the recreational philosopher's section.

 

Please report to Marblehead.

 

Thank you.

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As for reality, just this is it. Those with the mind of reality see it as is.

 

Others may beg to differ, but theirs is the splitting of hairs they create themselves.

 

Nobody knows it except to witness it slipping through their grasping mentality.

 

As for the epiphany of cows, theirs is the realization of phantoms in a phantom world, not the power of buddhas to see through the shenanigans of sophists who have nothing invested in reality to know it when it appears.

 

Of course their realization is as powerful as a pile of steaming…

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Sophism originally meant 'teaching for money'.

Some of us get a living doing that.

Not so sure that ' If a tree falls in a forest.......etc." is Sophism as such.

Our local version goes....

" If a tree falls in a forest.

And no human is there to witness its fall.

Do the other trees giggle?"

Edited by GrandmasterP
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The Tall Tree

 

The lumberjack cuts down the tallest tree first. This practice – which is also a Taoist principle – warns us against the dangers of standing out. The message is to try not to stand out like a tall tree, because people will naturally envy you and will attempt to do you harm. Germans have a word for it. They call it Schadenfreude. They will try to take you down, just as the lumberjack drops the tallest tree first.

 

A Group of Confucians were digging up a grave in the hope of finding old manuscripts. The leaders among them said, “It is already dawn, Have we finished?”

No replied the little Confucians, “we haven’t yet stripped the dead man’s clothes, and we know that he keeps a pearl in his mouth. There is an old verse which says, ‘How green is the wheat! It grows on the hillsides. He did not give money to the poor when he was living, why did he carry a pearl in is mouth when he died?’” The group of Confucians therefore smashed in the dead man’s temples, pulled his whiskers and, taking a metal hammer to knock open his jaw, they gradually tore open his cheek. But they were careful not to hurt the pearl in the dead man’s mouth.

The Wisdom of Laotse, Lin Yutang, 313

 

It is simply not possible for everyone to like us all the time. However, we often bring dislike needlessly upon ourselves by doing things that irritate those around us. We make ourselves stand out, like a tall tree, by carrying an allegorical pearl in our mouth. People in their jealousy naturally want to rip it from us.

 

It’s tempting to dislike the grave robbers in this parable. Taoists look at it from a different perspective. They ask, “What did the dead man do to bring such hatred upon himself?” Contradictory to conventional beliefs, the fault is not with the grave robbers who are ripping the pearl from the dead man’s mouth. The fault is with the man who asked for the pearl to be placed there. He had to know that someone would naturally take it from him. We can’t change how people react to us; we can, however, manage our own behavior. Conflict in life is unavoidable; it will come to you one way or another. Why provoke people by doing things that obviously annoy them?

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Yin and Yang (Opposites)

Every phenomenon consists of a pairing of relative opposites (Yin and Yang) tethered together in a single continuum. This single continuum, this oneness, is Tao. The forces of Yin and Yang are interdependent. The rotation between these forces is continuous. Change is therefore constant. The lesson is: Don’t hold too firmly to anything, because by nature you are destined to lose it. Also, don’t get too excited or too distraught over events; the reality is that just as something is reaching its peak, it begins the downward decline. Accept change as it comes – and adapt.

 

All things take their rise, but he does not turn away from them;

He gives them life, but does not take possession of them;

He acts, but does not appropriate;

Accomplishes but claims no credit.

It is because he lays claim to no credit

That the credit cannot be taken away from him.

-The Wisdom of Laotse, Lin Yutang, 47

There is a natural observable rhythm to the universe. Seasons come and go – then come again. Creatures are born and then they die. Our own emotions fluctuate from sadness to happiness, from anger to delight. This is the natural order of things. Our personal desires and biases make us less adaptable and more resistant to change. We have a tendency to want to hold on to things, to be controlling and to interfere with the natural progression of events. For example, a famous Chinese parable tells the story of Chinese farmers who grew frustrated by a flock of birds that was feeding on the seeds the farmers had sown in the fields. The farmers spread nets to keep the birds from landing. The birds, unable to land, eventually died from exhaustion. With no birds left, the worm population grew out of control and destroyed the crop anyway. Had the farmers accepted the fact that the birds were going to take a percentage of the crop, they would have at least have benefited from what the birds left alone. The farmers’ personal desires, their greed, caused them to lose everything.

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Expectations

 

To achieve contentment, your expectations in life must be realistic and reflective of reality.

 

Those who dream of the banquet wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt.

The Wisdom of Laotse, Lin Yutang, 11

 

Tao is the mysterious source of the universe. Teh is the word used to represent the manifestations of Tao. The greatest manifestation of Tao is nature. Therefore you can appreciate the values of the source, Tao, by observing and studying its manifestation, nature.

 

Look around and you will see that in nature everything is a struggle. Animals feed on one another. Germs, viruses and bacteria prey on all of us. Businesses take delight in “killing” their competition. Nature functions through the cycles of Yin and Yang, predator and prey, growth and decay. Life therefore is a struggle. It’s a war. Taoists embrace this reality and cultivate within themselves a warrior spirit. Their attitudes and expectations are therefore correct. When expectations are correct, you will not be disappointed or discontent. Consequently, Taoists do not expect life to be a bed of roses, a “banquet;” instead, they know that life is a difficult war, “lamentation and sorrow,” so they embrace it and “join the hunt.”

 

The greatest sin in Taoism is confusion – not having a clear picture of reality. Taoists seek to keep themselves free of confusion so that their expectations of life’s harshness are correct. Their spirits thrive on this reality.

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Is there 'sin' in Taoism?

I'd rather thought that was Xtianity.

Great point! Poor choice of words on my part. Confusion is fatal.

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Reversion

 

The rotation cycle between Yin and Yang is never-ending. To make it easier for us to comprehend things, we give the stages of this rotation various different names. When the sun rises, we call it dawn; when it sets, we call it dusk. Dusk and dawn are but snapshots of a stage in a cycle that is in perpetual motion. Dusk reverts endlessly to dawn and vice-versa.

 

“To take the phenomena of rise and fall, growth and decay, it (Tao) does not regard rise and fall as rise and fall, and it does not regard growth and decay as growth and decay. It does not regard beginning and end as beginning and end. It does not regard formation and dispersion as formation and dispersion,”

“These are all leveled together by Tao. Division is the same as creation, and creation is the same as destruction. There is no such thing as creation and destruction, for these conditions are again leveled together into One.”

The Wisdom of Laotse, Lin Yutang, 192

 

Taoists expect change, because this reversion cycle of Yin and Yang dictates that change simply must happen. There are advantages to understanding and accepting this principle. The first advantage is that openly accepting change makes one more adaptive. Adaptation is the single best method of surviving.

 

The second advantage is derived from gaining the ability to view phenomena from an opposite viewpoint. For example, when asked what we specifically want for ourselves in life, we sometimes have difficulty answering this question. And yet it is very easy to answer the opposite question, which is: What do we not want out of life? The answers to that question are simple. We don’t want to be sick, we don’t want to be unhappy, and we don’t want to be poor. Knowing what we don’t want helps us answer the question of what we do want. We want to be healthy, happy, and not poor. Next time you are asked a question to which you do not know the answer, try this technique. If asked what you should do about something and you don’t know the answer, start by thinking about what you should not do.

 

When we pop out into the world we witness a train that is already in motion. We take a snap shot of that train and we judge from our subjective viewpoint of good and bad. Good and bad for the most part are artificial values taught to us by the instruments of the social structure, education systems, religious institutions, the media, our social networks, our parents who themselves were poisoned by the same process. Enlightment is the process of wiping that slate as clean as we possibly can understanding that we will never be pure as long as we inhabit this human vessel. Anyway....that snapshot we take of events and hold to be good or bad is just that, it's a snapshot and it will change. We try to hold onto things that we "like" but the Taoist knows that abundance turns to sparcity and vice versa and that cycle never ends. Having the expecation that things will change is a huge step toward achieving some sort of a sense of contentment. After awhile almost nothing suprises you, expecially human behavior!! "Can you believe that guy in the midwest captured those women and enslaved them for years?" To that I respond, "Of course I can believe it and I know there are many more things going on in the world that would make that guy look like a schoolboy." The media appeals to our our need to to feel outrage and to take action! We declare "war on those things." The war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on terrorism. Is the 20th century the wizards in charge figured out that common people have an apprehension to declaring war on other people so now they declare war on ideas. Wars against undefined enemies last longer because it's impossible to physically measure defeat or victory. By the way I don't condone what that guy in the midwest did, in fact it disgusts me, I'm just not shocked by it. How do I respond to it? I warn the women around me that it could very well happen to them and warn them and they should be leary of others, especially those who are offering "free candy". I don't know where the master borrowed this quote but I think of it often, "If you want to live in peace then prepare for war."

 

It would be so easy to rant about the naivity of the American public at this point but why bother? The master said there is no such thing as naivity, there is only stupidity and furthermore there are no victims in the world. There are only volunteers. It's hard to argue that children aren't victims in many cases but for we adults...we are responsible for our own actions. We might not volunteer to be "naive" or stupid, but we certainly volunteer to to remain that way. When we look at world events today, expecially those in the Middle East, it's easy to look down on places like Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iran, and Iraq and say those people are uncivilized savages. Well, that's what the snapshot is showing right now, back up a 1,000 years or so and those civilizations were the most advanced, progressive and tolerant in the world. Even Germany was one of the most diverse, liberal and tolerant societies in Europe before the Fascism became appealing. For all of us today, the snapshot of what we see going on in the MIddle East is not a shapshot of a past we have permanently overcome. It is a snapshot of the future of our civilization. Reversion!! Don't be shocked.

Edited by plebeian

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Wu Wei (noninterference)

 

Wu Wei, translated literally into English, is “doing, not doing.” Some call this the principle of inaction. The meaning of inaction is really noninterference. Noninterference does not mean taking a passive stance. Noninterference means taking action only when it is absolutely necessary. What dictates when action (interference) is necessary and when it is not? The answer is simple. Action is required when we encounter an obstacle that threatens to take us from our individual path.

 

There is a great beauty in the silent universe. There are manifest laws governing the four seasons without words. There is an intrinsic principle in the created things which is not expressed. The Sage looks back to the beauty of the universe and penetrates into the intrinsic principle of created things. Therefore the perfect man does nothing, the great Sage takes no action. In doing this, he follows the pattern of the universe.

The Wisdom of Laotse, Lin Yutang, 68

 

The seasons need no help from us to change. Similarly, we should not waste our time in toiling with affairs that do not directly impact us. In knowing when not to act, we preserve our energy and have the reserve required when we must spring into action.

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