nestentrie

Internet Directory: http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Taoism/

Loyalty is one of those phantom virtues. It is difficult to see what is actually operating when loyalty is called out as such. Like the example given above with sheltering a criminal friend; is it compassion for the danger the friend has placed themself in? Or is it rather an example of righteousness, propriety, wisdom and or benevolence? (...that the person embodying the loyalty is seeking some end that they should have no business seeing to). Lao Tzu doesn't have a high opinion of the latter motives, and neither do I. Aetherous, you raise the proper point about sheltering this friend being a good thing, but I would be looking for what comes about by the presumption involved in it. (Or at least, the presumption that may follow). If one seeks by righteousness to defy the law and advantage their friend in so doing one is really just adding disorder to things. The compassion, that should really have come first and long before the crisis, is the real hinge on which the good will act. By co-incidence (or maybe just because it's been called to my attention) there is an active thread in the Tao Te Ching subforum with a chapter that I feel is relevent: Robert Henricks What is at rest is easy to hold; What has not yet given a sign is easy to plan for; The brittle is easily shattered; The minute is easily scattered; Act on it before it comes into being; Order it before it turns into chaos. A tree [so big] that it takes both arms to surround starts out as the tiniest shoot; A nine-story terrace rises up from a basket of dirt. A high place one hundred, one thousand feet high begins from under your feet. Those who act on it ruin it; Those who hold on to it lose it. Therefore the Sage does not act, And as a result, he doesn't ruin [things]; He does not hold on to [things], And as a result, he doesn't lose [things]; In people's handling of affairs, they always ruin things when they're right at the point of completion. Therefore we say, "If you're as careful at the end as you were at the beginning, you'll have no failures." Therefore the Sage desires not to desire and doesn't value goods that are hard to obtain; He learns not to learn and returns to what the masses pass by; He could help all things to be natural, yet he dare not do it. If the compassionate person were to have fostered the proper unfolding of their part of the relationship before the friend needed help then I think no such murky situation needed to arise. The compassionate person should have been kind *before* the crisis, extending no trouble and affording the friend ease in their undertakings. Kindness of course cannot alone prevent the friend from acting the way they do, but neither can the compassionate one by any other mode kill the chaos. Righteous defiance doesn't help anybody. There are probably many more examples of this where loyalty is troublesome, not just the one Aetherous has used. And while this probably isn't the greatest post ever to have been presented on the Tao Bums it's a pretty good first take on what I think of loyalty. I think more people need to add their thoughts...

http://www.tcmwiki.com/

Noticed that there wasn't much wind for September here in Australia (Melbourne) this year. If November doesn't rain much then I guess I can join in in saying things are weird. I'm a pretty indoors type so I haven't noticed much in the way of wildlife or out of season plant happenings. But I have noticed a wattle bird coming to feed on the wattle trees we have. I'm not sure if they're flowering at the proper time or not but I've seen no bees near them... so I dunno. The thread re-ignites my want to be a little more outdoorsy and learn about some of these things.

I don't care if the beer is real or not, i just want to know: WHERE IS IT?!?

Does anyone actually use it? I believe when i first registered (when i couldn't make posts in any other forum but the lobby) i tried it out. No one was there. Now I'm about 40 posts in, have read and seen a lot of the activity that goes on and would like to get to know the people here a bit more (without making a prickish imbecile of myself through inane posts)... I tried it again and no one was there. Is there a Universal Time I should be looking out for? Are Americans (for instance) the main users? Or is my first question the most to the point? (no one uses it)

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." ― Gildor Inglorion

Concentration and Insight... if I can manage to maintain it.

Yes it was a bit of pastiche. My bad.

My post turned out pretty rough in the end, but I hope it's ok to sit here in the thread.

The ready yes, and the sycophantic yeah; why should grappling with whatness master the where? Whatness will not yield all its details nor reveal its wholeness. Agreeing with my lips is only so much 'non-moving' air. So how do we address the higher part that is not bright and the lower part that is not obscure? If 'ordinary affairs' would be easy (if they were inevitable), it would be because what we can neuters what we shouldn't against what we will. By this, resistance is rendered inert. With resistance inert movement goes on and crosses over the valleys that our disgust in plainness would feign hope is immaterial. We would do without willing, believing in our part without the karmic need to accept any extraneous worry. Things would go aright per their own agreements with guide and rule. If 'ordinary affairs' aren't necessary (or don't achieve anything) then why would we be interested in them? Why should what we can surprise any of us and commit us to what we will? The real question is why we shouldn't be interested. When 'ordinary affairs' are conflated to the everywhen, when where they occur is avoided, why diffuses in every direction and dulls muddy water. The lower part of whatness, that shouldn't be obscured and that should (for its part) command the why, leaves no quarter for the proper retreat of entropy. Why can then only create sickly, cleaving and clinging, bored torpor, that lessens the pre-eminence and primacy of cohesion that will only bind the necessary where it necessarily is. Which is the detail of whatness. Or rather, this is of the detail of whatness that can have mastery over where. See, for every act of doing in 'ordinary affairs' there is a non act, a can't do, that relates to extraordinary affairs. Ordinary is plain. Ordinary is common. Ordinary is that that we would have obscured. Extraordinary on the other hand is something that may start small, but through iteration, magnification, and extensibility becomes, through what we won't do: a 'grand affair'. What is grand is what, for a turn (or for a part), we leave out. We leave it out to let it be what it is 'as is'. Having in is how to achieve, and leaving out is what is the name of achievement. Having in is saying "I do this for expediency", because "I do this for what will be (for me)". Having in is saying "where I can't, I shouldn't" because "what I shouldn't should stand for what I won't (for myself)". Which is wrong. When entropy properly retreats it can still flatten how ordinary would include extraordinary. How we positively reflect what we shouldn't, through what we can, has no inertia that would save it. And this is precisely what we can leave out (when the where of what we can't do for ourselves is exhausted). So it is that that what we can't is the same as what we won't. No other combinations are necessary. This is part of the transcendence over the ordinary into the extraordinary. This maybe not what I would call Complete Reality (or that anyone would as I have not covered every aspect of the Wu Xing), but it may prove some grounds for discussion. When we have it that we can't be ordinary, we won't be.

This is interesting. Seems though like one of those things that would be difficult to talk about unless there is a specific example that needs to be discussed.

52 (The Tao) which originated all under the sky is to be considered as the mother of them all. When the mother is found, we know what her children should be. When one knows that he is his mother's child, and proceeds to guard (the qualities of) the mother that belong to him, to the end of his life he will be free from all peril. Let him keep his mouth closed, and shut up the portals (of his nostrils), and all his life he will be exempt from laborious exertion. Let him keep his mouth open, and (spend his breath) in the promotion of his affairs, and all his life there will be no safety for him. The perception of what is small is (the secret of clear- sightedness; the guarding of what is soft and tender is (the secret of) strength. Who uses well his light, Reverting to its (source so) bright, Will from his body ward all blight, And hides the unchanging from men's sight.

This is an interesting site: http://www.constellationsofwords.com/

I'm sagittarius. Nungali I see what you're implying with the cancer gemini thing (the sun was in front of ophiuchus when i was born).

Ok then. I can admit I'm wrong (or that I over reacted). I'll be more wary of rejecting what you say next time. I'm not generally so sensitive, at least, so senstive as to react so defensively to a complete stranger. It makes me look like the fool really, given what I had written in my post that you were addressing. As to that original post I was trying to evoke a sense of Chapter 20 and 48 (and maybe a few others) of the Tao Te Ching. 20When we renounce learning we have no troubles. The (ready) 'yes,' and (flattering) 'yea;'-- Small is the difference they display. But mark their issues, good and ill;-- What space the gulf between shall fill? [...] 48He who devotes himself to learning (seeks) from day to day to increase (his knowledge); he who devotes himself to the Tao (seeks) from day to day to diminish (his doing). He diminishes it and again diminishes it, till he arrives at doing nothing (on purpose). Having arrived at this point of non-action, there is nothing which he does not do. He who gets as his own all under heaven does so by giving himself no trouble (with that end). If one take trouble (with that end), he is not equal to getting as his own all under heaven. ...with the idea being that the 'learning' these chapters refer to are a kind of 'facts and figures' type body of knowledge. Facts that stand without any implication. Facts that call no intuition. Meaningless learning basically. I wasn't really drawing an analogy with what is mainstream. To draw the analogy with what is mainstream I suppose can cover meaningless as there are certainly many unconscientious pursuits in the mainstream. There's also peer pressure in the mainstream. But I think of things like Nazism (uh oh: death of the thread) with this kind of thing (as to one respect of the issue). Genocide and the invasion of Poland et al weren't really mainstream goals until they were. Minor groups conspired to whip up panic and hatred and were sure to be with whip in hand panicing and hating on each other trying to convince themselves first that it was the right thing to do before anything happened. Mainstream just came later. And while this kind of thing is common for the groundwork of what later comes mainstream the basic fact is that not everything will become mainstream: there's a million hitlers that never got their way. This is of course taking the view that what is mainstream is cultural and not societal. If societal then I suppose you can throw what I've said out the window. It's here anyway that angle on what I'm talking about stops. My basic point with the 'meangingless learning' is that we seek to be admired for some of this stuff and when we get into groups where we're all trying to be admired a disharmony develops. I wouldn't mind being called strange for dropping the pretense that I should be admired for what I know (or believe).

So you're mocking me because I didn't suggest that peer pressure has to be mainstream? How many roads?...

27 The skilful traveller leaves no traces of his wheels or footsteps; the skilful speaker says nothing that can be found fault with or blamed; the skilful reckoner uses no tallies; the skilful closer needs no bolts or bars, while to open what he has shut will be impossible; the skilful binder uses no strings or knots, while to unloose what he has bound will be impossible. In the same way the sage is always skilful at saving men, and so he does not cast away any man; he is always skilful at saving things, and so he does not cast away anything. This is called 'Hiding the light of his procedure.' Therefore the man of skill is a master (to be looked up to) by him who has not the skill; and he who has not the skill is the helper of (the reputation of) him who has the skill. If the one did not honour his master, and the other did not rejoice in his helper, an (observer), though intelligent, might greatly err about them. This is called 'The utmost degree of mystery.'

If you can get away with being strange, then you've won the war, but I think to rest in it means you've lost, especially if you're recognised for it. 'Favour and disgrace would seem to be equally feared; honour and great calamity to be regarded as personal conditions of the same kind'.13 And: 'The skilful masters (of the Tao) in old times, with a subtle and exquisite penetration, comprehended its mysteries, and were deep (also) so as to elude men's knowledge.' 15 If someone thought I was strange because I didn't talk much, but I knew I was 'obeying the spontaneity of [my] nature' in doing so I'd feel rest enough for the moment. If peole thought I was strange because I couldn't recall by how many seats did the new government win the election by; or if I didn't recall how many chromosomes an ameoba had, I would feel rest enough that I'd renounced learning superflous facts and could day to day reduce my doing. If I was thought strange because I didn't grieve my grandmother passing away in her sleep at the age of 95 I'd rest well in the belief that she was just returning to her root. In all these (and more) I'd accept the reputation of being strange. This is 'shrinking back like wading through a stream in winter'. This is being 'irresolute like those who are afraid of all around them'. This is being 'vacant like a valley' and affording to seem 'worn and not complete'. But if someone thought I was strange because I didn't value the 'nursing mother tao' then I'd really have to stop and think. 21The grandest forms of active force From Tao come, their only source. Who can of Tao the nature tell? Our sight it flies, our touch as well. Eluding sight, eluding touch, The forms of things all in it crouch; Eluding touch, eluding sight, There are their semblances, all right. Profound it is, dark and obscure; Things' essences all there endure. Those essences the truth enfold Of what, when seen, shall then be told. Now it is so; 'twas so of old. Its name--what passes not away; So, in their beautiful array, Things form and never know decay. How know I that it is so with all the beauties of existing things? By this (nature of the Tao).

I put The mighty Tao, Buddhism, and Agnosticism (though that's a little less emphatic/worrisome these days).

...

...

...

[never post drunk]

Personal joke, but: 'Moobs for the ring!'.