nestentrie

75 hundred dollars! Sweet.

NEXT!

Yes. There is a difference between making appeals, and actually asserting something. Your transmission suffers no analysis - you figure you can mark the meaning without letting people reflect.

Flowing hands translations are chaff.

Morrissey. Cave. Dempsey.

If there is nothing to pity, there is nothing to teach.

Do these 10 ideas you're riffing on relate to these other 10 ideas from the Zhuangzi? If so, I like your cleverness in responding! Hui Shi had many formulae and his writings filled five carts, but his guiding doctrine was incoherent and his language didn't get the point. He catalogued the significance of natural kinds. He said: 'The ultimately great has nothing outside it, call it "the greatest One". The ultimately small has nothing inside it, call it ''the smallest one". 'That which has no thickness cannot be accumulated, yet it's amounts to a thousand miles. 'The sky is on a par with the earth; mountains are level with the marshes. 'The sun is simultaneously at the center and declining; natural kinds are simultaneously living and dying. 'Make unity great and with it a lesser unity differs. This we call the lesser unity and difference. The myriad natural kinds are totally the same and totally different. This we call the great similarity and difference. 'The south has no limit yet has a limit. 'I go to Yue today yet arrived yesterday.' 'Linked rings can be disconnected. 'I know the center of the world; north of Yen (northern region) and south of Yue (southern region); it is this-here-now. 'Exhaustively love all the myriad thing-kinds; The cosmos is one unit.' I ask not just because your choice of 10 retorts is interesting, but because they seem to share something. Also, I've been working with them of late. I look forward to seeing you incorporate them elsewhere!

I dunno. For me it goes to the Christ = Laozi = Mithra = Krishna = Buddha etc etc. If Christ is alive, look to him (if you must), and don't expect to find life in the manuscripts from his previous lives.

Ok. No worries.

I don't see this one going down well in Silicon Valley. They love useless innovation and even revel in terms like "disruption", knowing full well the implications. Innovation that doesn't solve a problem is useless. Worse, complicating. We should offer up iphones to the gods as sacrifice. I'm kidding of course. More snickers! More coke!

Hmm. What answer do these people think they have hit upon? I'm afraid I don't follow this part.

So what do we discuss now? Any other chapter discussion anyone can recommend?

And Jesus wept.

I live a pretty isolated life. Apart from a few trips a week to the bottl-o and tobacconist I'm home most of the time. I have family that I keep in contact with, and friends online, but for the most part I don't deal with society at large. My life is all online. I could talk about the things behind that, I guess. I could talk about mass media and the manufacture of consent, and I could talk about globalisation, but I don't suppose it goes close enough to the question. Is humanity at large corrupt and degraded? No more or no less that at any other time in history. Progress is always measured by how far fascism can go before there's a regression, and that fascism can occur on any side of the political demarcation. Humility has its place. Staking one's claim to one's lot, and allowing no further interference goes some way towards reliance on the sanctity of virtue. Yet for me that's a given. I adopt earnestness. If I were to divide myself from the world I judge, I would be cutting my tether to the source. I don't see the profit in drawing lines and choosing a side on which to stand. If I'm to one side, then those that are on that side are my friends. If by erosion or deliberate interference the lines are redrawn and i find myself on a different side with different people, then I tune my efforts for that side and those people. Sure, if one can see that one is surrounded by arseholes then it can be a burden, but because a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, and all light is given, strength can still be borrowed. Didn't the sage say that he doesn't expect the speedy fulfillment of a deal? It doesn't matter if he's the virtuous one among many defectives, because his weakness is always going to be the hinge on what people rely. No one is so far gone that the sage can't be their friend. Not the greatest post I've ever made, but it's a difficult question.

You want me to comment on Starjumper's, straw dog reference, Stosh? Since we're on Zhuangzi I'll take his (or his students') approach. DISCUSSION ON MAKING ALL THINGS EQUAL [...] Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy. Great words are clear and limpid; little words are shrill and quarrelsome. In sleep, men's spirits go visiting; in waking hours, their bodies hustle. With everything they meet they become entangled. Day after day they use their minds in strife, sometimes grandiose, sometimes sly, sometimes petty. Their little fears are mean and trembly; their great fears are stunned and overwhelming. They bound off like an arrow or a crossbow pellet, certain that they are the arbiters of right and wrong. They cling to their position as though they had sworn before the gods, sure that they are holding on to victory. They fade like fall and winter - such is the way they dwindle day by day. They drown in what they do - you cannot make them turn back. They grow dark, as though sealed with seals - such are the excesses of their old age. And when their minds draw near to death, nothing can restore them to the light. [...] The Way has never known boundaries; speech has no constancy. But because of [the recognition of a] "this," there came to be boundaries. Let me tell you what the boundaries are. There is left, there is right, there are theories, there are debates,13 there are divisions, there are discriminations, there are emulations, and there are contentions. These are called the Eight Virtues.14 As to what is beyond the Six Realms,15 the sage admits its existence but does not theorize. As to what is within the Six Realms, he theorizes but does not debate. In the case of the Spring and Autumn,16 the record of the former kings of past ages, the sage debates but does not discriminate. So [I say] those who divide fail to divide; those who discriminate fail to discriminate. What does this mean, you ask? The sage embraces things. Ordinary men discriminate among them and parade their discriminations before others. So I say, those who discriminate fail to see. The Great Way is not named; Great Discriminations are not spoken; Great Benevolence is not benevolent; Great Modesty is not humble; Great Daring does not attack. If the Way is made clear, it is not the Way. If discriminations are put into words, they do not suffice. If benevolence has a constant object, it cannot be universal. If modesty is fastidious, it cannot be trusted. If daring attacks, it cannot be complete. These five are all round, but they tend toward the square. Therefore understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest. Who can understand discriminations that are not spoken, the Way that is not a way? If he can understand this, he may be called the Reservoir of Heaven. Pour into it and it is never full, dip from it and it never runs dry, and yet it does not know where the supply, comes from. This is called the Shaded Light. [...] First off (and i'm saying this to a general audience), the sage is not bad to people, and treating them like straw dogs doesn't go contrary to that. If one were to suppose the sage treasures people, look to his impartiality. His charity extends to each individually, never holding to the one person over another. If he were to hope his object could do all things, and exclude all else until he witnessed it, he would be cramped and busy. If he were to dare fix his object of all its sin, being already cramped and busy, he would commit to quarrel. As for idly standing by watching his children fall into fear and impotence, he can still save. [...] Chu Ch'ueh-tzu said to Chang Wu-tzu, "I have heard Confucius say that the sage does not work at anything, does not pursue profit, does not dodge harm, does not enjoy being sought after, does not follow the Way, says nothing yet says something, says something yet says nothing, and wanders beyond the dust and grime. Confucius himself regarded these as wild and flippant words, though I believe they describe the working of the mysterious Way. What do you think of them?" Chang Wu-tzu said, "Even the Yellow Emperor would be confused if he heard such words, so how could you expect Confucius to understand them? What's more, you're too hasty in your own appraisal. You see an egg and demand a crowing cock, see a crossbow pellet and demand a roast dove. I'm going to try speaking some reckless words and I want you to listen to them recklessly. How will that be? The sage leans on the sun and moon, tucks the universe under his arm, merges himself with things, leaves the confusion and muddle as it is, and looks on slaves as exalted. Ordinary men strain and struggle; the sage is stupid and blockish. He takes part in ten thousand ages and achieves simplicity in oneness. For him, all the ten thousand things are what they are, and thus they enfold each other. "How do I know that loving life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death I am not like a man who, having left home in his youth, has forgotten the way back?