a whole bunch o' newbie questions

[VeeCee]

I am somehow reminded of a quote from American Beauty, "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it... and my heart is going to cave in."

 

That is one of my favorite quotes.

 

V.

[林愛偉]

No game. Truth. And not from a Buddhist, but it answers your question.

 

You are unable to find an answer for this because you are looking for an explanation or rationalization. This is your nature I feel as you practice "scientific (magical) taoism."

 

End of my answer; now some comments...

 

This "ignorance" feels to me like it is the one integral source that is also everything sourced. We can't know it, it can't know itself. To be honest I am only grasping at some feeling of familiarity with this use of the word "ignorance." with a twist of semantics and acceptance I could say the Tao is ignorance.

 

The Tao itself manifests nothing and no thought, it is ignorance in this state. When abstracted to yin/yang, matter, perceptions, biases, and the 10 thousand myriad things, it loses it's ignorance.

 

I'll stop here for two reasons: 1. If I keep trying to follow this thought right now, it will become muddied. and 2. I am somehow reminded of a quote from American Beauty, "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it... and my heart is going to cave in."

 

I wish there was more ignorance, more innocence, more naivete, more beauty, more hearts caving in...

 

I wish fatherpaul was here to bring perspective to "Taoism vs. Buddhism"

 

Peace,

 

What I present was no Dao vs. Buddhism. It is only the dropping of the views about them, and get directly

to cultivating.

[Taomeow]

Beancurdturtle,

 

what do you know about scientific (magical) taoism and the way it is practiced? Please share.

 

 

Who is teaching Buddhism the way you and Taomeow describe? I'd stay away from them.

 

 

Lin Ai Wei,

 

this was the question I was responding to. The "bragging" about teachers and teachings was not happening, contrary to what your illuminated no-self, no-ego, or whatever it is that participates in forum discussions using your sig, has derived from my response. Nor was I questioning your teachers and teachings, obviously. I was simply answering forestofsouls question, honoring his (her?) desire to stay away from whoever it is that taught me. I may have mixed him (her?) up with you as the source of the question -- hope you don't mind, you don't have a self or an ego to mind anyway, right?

[林愛偉]

Beancurdturtle,

 

what do you know about scientific (magical) taoism and the way it is practiced? Please share.

Lin Ai Wei,

 

this was the question I was responding to. The "bragging" about teachers and teachings was not happening, contrary to what your illuminated no-self, no-ego, or whatever it is that participates in forum discussions using your sig, has derived from my response. Nor was I questioning your teachers and teachings, obviously. I was simply answering forestofsouls question, honoring his (her?) desire to stay away from whoever it is that taught me. I may have mixed him (her?) up with you as the source of the question -- hope you don't mind, you don't have a self or an ego to mind anyway, right?

 

 

 

Love and Peace ...Love and Peace

 

[forestofsouls]

放下 means to Put down.

 

Heh heh Ai Wei. Chinese characters show up on my computer as ??. I thought your answer was ????.

[Wayfarer64]

yikes this thread has really moved along in a day!-

 

First- I also have spent most of my adult life without a TV. (or a car)...and have found that it is a great boon to my well-being and capasity to observe my fellow Americans from a reference point that tends to keep me on my toes ... As I am often challanged as to my "normality" and ability to "fit in" - by such practices....

 

The whole Buddhist/Taoist points of contention are pretty interesting -but why do we bother ourselves with these things?

 

Our perceptions may be chamged, challenged and inhanced -I should hope - but otherwise it seems futile to try to change one-anothers minds about how we view these conceptual differences. There are just different ways of expressing our alternate perceptions. I hope that some where each one of us will become progressively more open and enlightened as to each-others stances and view-points....

 

We seem to be learning quite a bit from each-other already!

[林愛偉]

Heh heh Ai Wei. Chinese characters show up on my computer as ??. I thought your answer was ????.

 

 

hahaha

 

that would have been a funnier answer.

[forestofsouls]

Taomeow,

 

I'm not trying to convert anyone to Buddhism. In fact, I'm not really even a Buddhist in the common sense. I follow Buddhist practices. And the determination to follow through with Buddhist practice cannot be imposed on others. The reason I respond is to try to balance your statements, showing that there is another view from the angle of Buddhist practice. I will make the bold statement that there is no Buddhism apart from practice. While the sutras/suttas have their time and place (woefully often ignored in the West), it is practice that counts.

 

In the Pali Canon, the Buddha again and again turned away from metaphysical questions: does God exist or not?; is there a soul or not? Questions of this kind lead to a "thicket of views" from which there is no escape. Rather, we are taught to start where we are. Am I suffering? What is its source? What is the mind? These are questions that can be verified from where we are. And the suttas state that we should verify everything ourselves, not because we are taught X or read Y.

 

You question about ignorance is an ultimate question. But what is ignorance? Not somewhere "out there", but "in here." You're questioning how ignorance relates to the universe, but how does it relate to you? How does it affect your views? Take time, for instance: there is no past or future--- yet we believe in them. Why? For me, the mysteries of my own mind need to be addressed before I worry about the mysteries of the cosmos.

 

 

 

"Who is teaching Buddhism the way I perceive it?"

 

[snip]

 

If I ever meet a Buddhist who has a good answer to this question, I'll take a second look at the rest of the deal. So any missionaries out there... here's your chance! Explain to me why the world (a funky place, have you noticed?.. and not all that simple and obvious, have you been paying attention?..) has been created by Ignorance of all things, and I might accept the rest of it... just please don't offer any demagogic or righteously-indignant sermons... an honest Ignorance Sutra an average Ignorant taoist mind like mine can grasp will do. Game anyone?

[beancurdturtle]

Beancurdturtle,

 

what do you know about scientific (magical) taoism and the way it is practiced? Please share.

This...

Whereas my very own practice, scientific (magical) taoism, is rooted in "hypotheses," "empirical observations" and extensive "experimental work." In other words, it is more or less fact-based rather than faith-based. That's what I believe , but long as I don't limit what I do to "believing," I "qualify."

To me this seems to be focused on finding explanations and rationalization. Some things are truth, not fact. Insist on filtering your understandings through a fact filter and you will miss some fundamental truth. Which would also explain your response to "Philosphical Taoism."

 

The whole Buddhist/Taoist points of contention are pretty interesting -but why do we bother ourselves with these things?

More amusing than interesting if you aked me. Jump up and down, flash me your "credentials," pontificate and insist one is Vermillion and the other Burgundy - hell, it's all Red isn't it?

Our perceptions may be chamged, challenged and inhanced -I should hope - but otherwise it seems futile to try to change one-anothers minds about how we view these conceptual differences.

ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

 

Right answer, again!

[beancurdturtle]

What I present was no Dao vs. Buddhism. It is only the dropping of the views about them, and get directly

to cultivating.

I know what you presented Brother. And I agree with you.

 

I was responding to Taomeow's question (or was it a challenge) about "ignorance." Though I'm not sure how close I got to how a Buddhist would answer the same question.

 

Speaking of ignorance (though not insinuating ignorance), I wonder - how would Taomeow reconcile the Dao de Jing Chapter 38 with "scientific (magical) taoism."

[VeeCee]

It seems to me that we spend an awful lot of time and energy debating buddhism vs. taoism, philosphical taoism vs. scientific taoism, and good, better, best cultivation practices. Why can't we agree that each of us needs to walk our own path - what is right for me may not necessarily be right for you, and vice versa.

 

V.

Edited September 15, 2007 by VeeCee

[Taomeow]

BKT,

 

scientific (magical) taoism is not rooted in rationalizing. It is rooted in ganying. Ganying is a fact. When I say my practice is fact-based rather than faith-based, I mean I'm a practicing (pragmatic) taoist, I don't have (nor need) a particularly rich imagination, I have my hands quite full of facts to work with: jing, chi, shen, fluids, blood, viscera, bones, marrow, skin, brain, emotions, motion, stillness, dreams, wakefulness, causal body, acausal body, the body of tao, the human mind, the mind of tao -- to name a few. I work with these -- all of these -- as taught by my teacher -- on the fundamental taoist principles of ganying, yin-yang, wuxing, Hetu, Luoshu, bagua, I Ching. These are all fact-based, rather than faith-based. I don't have much use for Tao Te Ching, a well-meaning instruction manual for a benevolent feudal warlord, because I am not one. Laozi suggests ruling a large country like one would fry a small fish; since I'm no ruler of a large country, I have other fish to fry. If you think mixing oil of sandalwood with dragon's blood and ashes of wormwood for ink to write a counterclockwise talisman of unmanifestation so as to turn a dangerous wildfire threatening hundreds of homes into a small fox is "rationalizing," you must know something about rationalizing I don't. Magical taoism is the work of assisting the gods, is what it is. Is all it is... But, of course, you know better, as usual, you know what I'm up to far better than I do, right? 'cause you've got me pegged, don't you?

[三江源]

.

Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[Taomeow]

Interesting question about "ignorance".

 

Off the top of my head, or out of my instinct, or something, I'd say it's a parallel state to being "fallen" ie Fallen From Grace, that is to say, seperate from god/the tao or whatever.

 

One's job is to reach a state of grace/ move out of ignorance. Same journey, a return to the source. Different language, but the same idea.

 

Ignorance = Seperation.

 

Yes, this is my understanding too.

 

However, the difference I see between taoism and buddhism is, to me, not superficial, not a mere terminological discrepancy.

 

To buddhism, life itself is a state of "fall from grace." If you are born, it proves you have fallen.

 

To taoism, life IS grace, life as it was before "tao has been destroyed" (the classic taoist term for "ignorance" and more.) It's life unconscious, fragmented, disconnected (from the inner personal self and outer greater process alike) that is suffering, not life per se, not life as a phenomenon. Taoism doesn't see life as a source of suffering -- it's "abnormal" life that is a source of suffering.

 

To eliminate suffering, buddhism basically proposes eliminating life. Life, to a buddhist, is false (samsara), and ultimate reality is "free of desires," "free of birth and death" -- which essentially means "free of life," sterilized with some spiritual Chlorox or other. Taoism, to eliminate suffering, proposes normalizing life rather than extinguishing it.

 

Gautama Buddha's mother died upon giving birth to him, maybe that's why his teachings are death-inspired. Buddhism is permeated with this imprint of the disappearance of life (of self, of desires, of "ego," of manifestation, you name it) as the "ideal" state -- because that's what greeted its newborn founder in this-here world, the disappearance into death of the only world he knew before birth -- his mother. The only reason buddhism is what it is is the inventor's imperative to replicate the bliss of his unborn existence, which ended so cruelly when he was born. Ah but that wasn't "normal." A "normal" human being will have the continuation and amplification of bliss once he or she is normally born to a normal life complete with normal presence and normal love of a normal mom and a normal dad. Taoism is after getting the norm to be the norm. Buddhism is after elevating an unfortunate abnormality to a status of "the ultimate liberation." So sad...

[林愛偉]

Yes, this is my understanding too.

 

However, the difference I see between taoism and buddhism is, to me, not superficial, not a mere terminological discrepancy.

 

To buddhism, life itself is a state of "fall from grace." If you are born, it proves you have fallen.

 

To taoism, life IS grace, life as it was before "tao has been destroyed" (the classic taoist term for "ignorance" and more.) It's life unconscious, fragmented, disconnected (from the inner personal self and outer greater process alike) that is suffering, not life per se, not life as a phenomenon. Taoism doesn't see life as a source of suffering -- it's "abnormal" life that is a source of suffering.

 

To eliminate suffering, buddhism basically proposes eliminating life. Life, to a buddhist, is false (samsara), and ultimate reality is "free of desires," "free of birth and death" -- which essentially means "free of life," sterilized with some spiritual Chlorox or other. Taoism, to eliminate suffering, proposes normalizing life rather than extinguishing it.

 

Gautama Buddha's mother died upon giving birth to him, maybe that's why his teachings are death-inspired. Buddhism is permeated with this imprint of the disappearance of life (of self, of desires, of "ego," of manifestation, you name it) as the "ideal" state -- because that's what greeted its newborn founder in this-here world, the disappearance into death of the only world he knew before birth -- his mother. The only reason buddhism is what it is is the inventor's imperative to replicate the bliss of his unborn existence, which ended so cruelly when he was born. Ah but that wasn't "normal." A "normal" human being will have the continuation and amplification of bliss once he or she is normally born to a normal life complete with normal presence and normal love of a normal mom and a normal dad. Taoism is after getting the norm to be the norm. Buddhism is after elevating an unfortunate abnormality to a status of "the ultimate liberation." So sad...

 

 

Interesting enough!

 

Buddhism has no view of life really. Any views are just views and produce states of mind which are experienced. There is no Life and no Death in Buddhism. Any states of such are only due to the mind ...minding such ideas.

 

Being born isn't a falling from grace kind of thing in the Buddhist school. Being born is a process of momentum of thoughts and attachments to them, with views that the "experience" was "real", confusion, if it is thought to not be real.

 

With a body, Buddhism works to keep it healthy, and utilize it, respect it for cultivation. Everything that is "denounced" in certain aspects of cultivation have a function in lessening that which is of the mind. What one may consider flavor, the Buddhist cultivator doesn't get moved by the flavor, and there are no thoughts of there being a flavor.

 

This is stillness without duality. Stillness is leaving nothing in the mind that can be picked up.. equivalent to the metaphor of dirt at the bottom of the cup of water. When the water is not stirred, the dirt stays on the bottom, but when the water is stirred, dirt follows and picks up.

 

True stillness is transforming the dirt to wisdom, and not being moved by emotions, desires, thoughts, and "outside" influences. This mannerism is perceived as dead like a piece of wood, but that is because the perceiver believes that emotions, and desires are life, and must be enjoyed. The perceiver still believes there is a perceiver.

 

There is so much to discuss on both Buddhism and Daoism... with all conceptions of them right out on the table. Without harshness, superiority. Just a new discussion getting both schools and dropping the culture they travel through to get the rawness, the overall non-dualness of them both.

 

Peace and Blessings

 

Lin

Edited September 16, 2007 by 林愛偉

[beancurdturtle]

Magical taoism is the work of assisting the gods, is what it is. Is all it is... But, of course, you know better, as usual, you know what I'm up to far better than I do, right? 'cause you've got me pegged, don't you?

Ah! A semantic issue. I had never heard of "magical Taoism," so I took your own brief explanation of it to heart without question. What you call "magical Taoism" I know as vitalizing Taoism. Wonderful, powerful fascinating stuff. I see a Taoist doctor myself and read the Yellow Emperors works many years ago. Very cool.

 

I don't have you pegged - never thought I did. I know my own ignorance and am not afraid to admit it (TTC Chapter 71). I am swimming in ignorance about you personally. I only know the face you present here - and the descriptions you give of yourself and your practices and beliefs. Even then I could be - actually, am likely to be - misunderstanding you.

 

I don't have an issue with you. As I said before (honestly), I actually find you charming in your way. I'm just a little boggled by someone that calls themselves a Taoist, and dismisses the Tao te Ching as if it were a 81 chapter fortune cookie.

 

Peace,

 

BTW, beancurdturtle, you're 'dingdingding, right answer!" really grates on me. What is it? A game show quote or something?

It's a silly way to acknowledge my agreement. Since it grates on you, I'll stop it.

[三江源]

.

Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[rain]

A question.

Do you think it possible to earn Grace?

 

this question is of course neither semantics nor a joke.

Edited September 17, 2007 by rain

[林愛偉]

Not pointing fingers or anything, but is there an assumption that because the Buddha's mother died at birth that he was emotionally scarred, and so repressed emotion in order to detach and used it as the base of his teachings?

That is a new one, and very funny... No way is it possible.

 

Repressing emotion is not detachment, and Buddha has never taught to repress.

 

 

 

Though there is death and birth, it is only of thoughts in an afflicted, personally attached, mind.

Buddha's mother dying wasn't really bad. Who said death is bad? Who said living is good?

Who said they are both real?

 

With the teachings the Buddha spoke of, there is no room for holding on to the view of "emotional abandonment". That would be too petty for such a being, and his virtue is way over any emotional scar.

 

 

So funny.

Peace and Blessings,

Lin

[宁]

no, that's not funny, that's not even the zip code of funny

is semantics, like someone else mentioned above

 

[forestofsouls]

Yes, maybe it was because of his mother. Or, maybe it was because death, disease, and old age were prevalent in ancient India, just as it is in the world today. Buddha was a realist. He saw the world as it is--- with thorns included. In the modern West, it is easy to think that life is paradise-- we live in the land of the gods. But even here, I can assure you that human cruelty is rampant. Sexual abuse, drug addiction, domestic violence, street violence is all around us, no matter what social class you're in.

 

Even for those living a charmed life, we all will taste sickness, old age and death. We will have to face being with what we do not like and being away from what we do like. Suffering is a part of life. Buddha acknowledges that. But this is not the end of the story. Buddhism teaches us to live in such a world --- a world where children are tortured, maimed and killed, the guilty are not always punished, and tragedy falls on the just and unjust alike. We can hide our eyes from human suffering, or we can open to it with clear vision and a heart full of compassion. Of course, the opposite is true. We can be so blinded by this that we forget the beautiful things--- the face of a baby full of compassion for another baby crying; the sky at any time of the day that seems like it was built for human appreciation; the joy of love and family. Life is tragic AND beautiful, not one or the other. Buddhism can teach us to live in such a world of great joy and great sorrow. Of course, in the end, it is not up to the teacher, but to the student.

[Wayfarer64]

This...

To me this seems to be focused on finding explanations and rationalization. Some things are truth, not fact. Insist on filtering your understandings through a fact filter and you will miss some fundamental truth. Which would also explain your response to "Philosphical Taoism."

 

More amusing than interesting if you aked me. Jump up and down, flash me your "credentials," pontificate and insist one is Vermillion and the other Burgundy - hell, it's all Red isn't it? ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

 

Right answer, again!

 

 

As an artist it is very important that I know the differences ( and costs ) of each pigment I use -

 

the real world has strict needs for, and restrictions on, many things that are maliable and compliant in our minds...

 

The Taoist approach keeps my feet on the ground whereas the Buddhist approach has me floating- that is the difference I feel... it is not intellectual just gut reactive...

 

 

whats up with the dings?

[beancurdturtle]

whats up with the dings?

Aiyah! And here I thought I was dingless.

 

It is a parody on Game Show histrionics. It's the opposite of the silly phrase "*making the sound of a buzzer* Wrong Answer!"

 

And it is a silly phrase I will never again use in this forum.

[Taomeow]

Cat,

 

really appreciate your take, and am glad to make sense.

 

 

Wayfarer,

 

for me it's the same...

 

also, my "gut-reactive" and my "intellectual" are "one snake."

 

"A snake named Shuairan lives on Mount Heng. If you strike its tail, the head comes, if you strike its head, the tail comes, and if you strike its middle, both the head and the tail come." -- Sun Tzu

 

Shuairan is a rare practice I've been trained in and might feel ready to teach some day, maybe a few, maybe many moons from now... It's the art of eliminating the disconnection between "intellectual/logical/rational" and "instinctive/gut-reactive/systemic." This disconnection is not normal. The fact that Shuairan can use its head, can think well (and read and write too), doesn't in and of itself paralyze its tail. By the same token, just because it can sense the whole electromagnetic spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet with its tail, or the impending thunderbolt or an earthquake thousands of miles and hundreds of hours away, also with its tail, doesn't in and of itself render it unable to use its head, i.e. deaf, dumb, blind, or intellectually impotent. And if its middle is consciously connected to BOTH its head and its tail, simultaneously at all times, what's left there that Shuairan can't perceive and process and respond to as it sees fit -- instinctively, intellectually, or using both, or neither?..

 

Also sprach Shuairan.

Edited September 17, 2007 by Taomeow

[Taomeow]

I'm just a little boggled by someone that calls themselves a Taoist, and dismisses the Tao te Ching as if it were a 81 chapter fortune cookie.

 

I don't dismiss it at all, I have tremendous reverence for Laozi in general (see below) and for popularizing some important aspects of the overall taoist cognitive paradigm in this little book in particular. However, Tao Te Ching is neither the source of taoism nor a sine qua non of taoism, because even the written documents of taoism-the-source are at least four thousand years older than this book, let alone the oral tradition whose beginning disappears well into prehistory. It so happened that I first read TTC when I was already a practicing taoist with a teacher, who (the latter) either failed to mention this book or did it in passing so that it didn't register, or deliberately chose not to mention it to me. So when I finally read it, I liked it very much but it left me dissatisfied -- because of a sense of foreign/extraneous agendas in all translations I've seen. I mentioned that I read fast; so I took the trouble to read over seventy (sic) translations of TTC into English and a few into Russian, and the sense of dissatisfaction kept growing. What the book talked about, I already knew from my practice and from other books that either predate it or have expressed the same taoist paradigm more or less simultaneously (e.g., the Yuan Dao and the Wen-tzu). In other words, it could have been a revelation if it was what started it all for me, but it so happened that it wasn't, so it wasn't. (Although the whole taoist paradigm was indeed a revelation, mostly because it offered a language and a formal framework for things that obssessed me without me knowing anyone else in history was ever obssessed with them. What a great relief it was to find out that I'm not alone and not nuts after all! just a "taoist," is all! ) So, if there's anything I must credit TTC with, it's the inspiration to start learning Chinese -- because of all the frustrated feelings over all the translations. Tao works in mysterious ways, you know...

 

By the way, TTC, to me, is neither the main nor the most interesting contribution to taoism by Laozi, he did other things too... e.g., taught a few immortals-to-be in person (long after he himself moved to the celestial realm, he visited our world on a few occasions, for this specific purpose). And of course the Wen-tzu, a more detailed version of his oral teachings than the cursory TTC, and one that takes guts to grasp... not intellect, not even wisdom... courage. TTC is milder. Kinder, gentler. Wen-tzu is merciless. But that's what truth is like, alas... takes honesty and courage to deal with (two of the virtues I value above all else, incidentally, and aspire to cultivate...)

 

Anyway... thanks for a stimulating exchange. I don't have you pegged either, you know. You're too colorful for that!