Putting Taoism to the Test

[Scarlett Wampus]

I'm 29, but I act and look (for now) younger.

YmirGF and PureX, your posts were excellent! I've just spent two hours in and out of ecstatic trance because of something they made me realise that has confounded me for 5 years! Its personal so I can't go into it, but thanks! Sincerest thanks!

I do like the premise that the Tao is ultimately unknowable, but I do believe that the original concept was an INTENTIONAL red herring. The idea being, that once one strips away their precoceptions about what reality (the Tao) is, then they just might begin to INTUITIVELY GRASP what it in fact IS. The point I am flailing around trying to make is that intellectual speculation will always be the poor second cousin to direct experience.

Yessiree. First and foremost comes practice. Intellectual speculation is always the poor second cousin, but it is still a relation otherwise the RFs would be worthless.

Thus, a paradox is an illusion created by our own ignorance. When we understand this, we also understand that disharmony within the Tao is a paradox, and is therefor also an illusion.

Well, if the paradox is illusion and these two are working together; original perfection i.e. Early Heaven, and manifesting perfection, i.e. Later Heaven, then the Tao is one and the same time changeless pure eternal beingness while also a progressive and creative force that transforms/moves the manifest universe forwards. This is saying nothing that has not already been said a thousand times, in fact said right from the start of early Taoism, but I'm thinking the various religious ideas/doctrines that have sprung up over-emphasise one or other of the dual aspects of the Tao.

Though all forms are 'empty' greater awareness of Tao in us humans leads to movement towards forms like compassion, creativity, social cohesion and joy (i.e. what we find to be harmonic) while forms like hatred, creative sterility, social strife and misery diminish (i.e. what we find to be disharmonic) Why? Because the Tao has a direction in Later Heaven and we play a part in that. It is as if it (the manifest universe) has a mind, a will and an intention towards becoming...something (heh heh heh), and this has its root in Early Heaven (the eternal void) which has no mind, no will and no intention because it is already perfect. These two are connected and when we tune into Tao both Later Heaven and Early Heaven are glimpsed intuitively.

I don't know if this is making sense to anyone but I think a doctrine that reflected this clearly would suggest the 'goodness' in doing certain things is real, but its form changable and its basis always mysterious. Therefore 'The Way' could not be said to be relative nor absolute. The implication of this is, well, looking at chapter two of the Tao Te Ching: -

Beauty and mercy are only recognised by people
Because they know the opposite, which is ugly and mean.
...
The sage has no attachment to anything.
and he therefore does what is right without speaking
by simply being in the Tao.

This does not imply beauty and ugliness are relative, but that we have to rely on our instinctual capacity to recognise what is beautiful compared to what is ugly to guide us through life (and that our use of language can really screw with that, if we let it). Also, we can't get rid of ugliness once and for all because that would mean there could no more movement towards beauty, the direction of the Tao in this world. We have to accept ugliness yet not condone it. We have to release beauty yet still cultivate it.

Those things I hate about myself and the world so wish to be free of are what move me forward. If I can accept that I will never be free of ugliness once and for all, that its existence is necessary to understanding the direction towards beauty, and that beauty is changeable so I have to let it go at the same time as cultivating it, then I make peace with the world. LOL! I love it! And holy ****, i think this might've been the doctrine of Taoism right from the start.

Well thats enough 'intellectual speculation' for now. I'm going out to test it. See you in a few days losers (that was a joke, ego 'n' stuff).

 

[PureX]

I like Marshall's translation:

"When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever."
- from the Tao Te Ching​

The opposites that we see and experience (yin/yang) are the result of the way we human beings perceive and understand our experience of reality (the Tao). The Tao is not itself divided and opposed, as it appears to be to us. This is why the conflict and paradox that we see and experience is an illusion. Yin and yang are themselves illusions. There is only the Tao. And the Tao is a single unified whole.

To a leaf on a tree, the fall of the year must appear a very evil time, as it and all of it's kind will die, fall to the ground, and rot away. But for the many plants and bugs that live in the ground, the falling and rotting of these leaves is a time of bounty, and of great good, because they receive their shelter and sustinance from the bodies of these dead leaves. If leaves and plants and bugs thought like human beings, they would certainly be puzzled by the paradoxical nature of "good" and "evil" as they experience them.

Yet viewed from a more broad perspective, we can see that there is no conflict or paradox, here. There is only the illusion of conflict and paradox experienced by life forms that assess "good" and "evil" from the relative perspective of their own well-being. As they would naturally do.

But if we could transcend our limited and relative perspective, the illusion of conflict and paradox would vanish. This is what it means to "practice the Tao".

 

[PureX]

Out of interest, and I know Paul's young (at heart)... how old are you guys? Someone speculated that you were 23 S_W?

I'm middle aged, 35 - 55.

 

[PureX]

*bowing and thinking, "well, I guess there's nowhere to go from here but down"*

haha

 

[Master Vigil]

The biggest problem I had with Taoism when I first started practicing was the idea that ALL is Tao, yet humans are "against" Tao. It logically didn't mesh with me, but then my master said to me...

"Your right hand is opposite of your left, correct?" I said "I suppose".
"But they are a part of your body which is the "whole" of it's opposites", he said. I then reverted into my "hmmmmm.... oh yeah" state.

Humans are but a part of the "whole" of Tao. We may be an opposite to another "part" of Tao and thus in balance. To say we go "against" Tao no longer holds any weight for me. We are just one side of Tao, slowly churning, changing, molding, etc... within the constant flux that is "Tao".

Oh, and I'm 21. Yeah, I'm a young'in.