dust

Can one pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps? I see people as inherently selfish. That's how nature produces things. Animals evolve to survive. For humans, a big part of that is individual selfishness, and the smaller part is willingness to do things for the survival of the species. But that's still a selfish motive. When it comes to 'doing good' and 'doing bad', it can go either way.

http://ctext.org/wenzi/jing-cheng/zh Ch.13 老子曰：大道無為，無為即無有，無有者不居也，不居者即處無形，無形者不動，不動者無言也，無言者即靜而無聲無形，無聲無形者，視之不見，聽之不聞，是謂 微妙，是謂至神，「綿綿若存」，「是謂天地根。」道無聲，故聖人強為之形，以一句為名天地之道。大以小為本，多以少為始，天子以天地為品，以萬物為資，功德至大，勢名至貴，二德之美與天地配，故不可不軌大道以為天下母 (TT I'll leave Wenzi translation up to you...for all I know you've done it already..) I think that 谷神 is just a poetic alternative name for Dao -- gu/valley describing the enormous void-like nature of Dao, and shen describing its mysterious, all-present nature. In which case, the silly-sounding translations aren't far off. If we accept the "valley spirit" as the "deep eternal" as the Dao, it fits right in with the other chapters that describe Dao as inexhaustible, eternal, mysterious father/mother of all things. And this fits with the Wenzi chapter above.

James Tissot

Jean Beraud

Perhaps. My dog follows the Way, I think. More than me, anyway. She's happy running around and eating stinky meat. And barking at random things. But there are no expectations of her to do anything else. We are all expected to "rise above" such behaviour... T.T., I'm quite happy to look at ch.6 next. I've just been looking at it, and... well, let's just say I'm as confused as usual. I'll probably wait for your interpretation. It will be very interesting to see what you come up with

I agree that the vast majority of people cannot recognize or deal with the "truth" of most matters (though I also believe that "the truth" is subject to levels of subjectivity and I'm still not sure if there's any universal "truth"...but that's not entirely relevant here) but What is "moving forward as a civilization" ?

Tehe, OK.. We base most of our translations on the idea that the 聖人 is a sage or wise man, right? And that people reading and studying the text were attempting, often, to become better rulers. (Each would have his own idea of "better”, of course.) Laozi, in many chapters, attempts to suggest to these rulers the.. easiest and most virtuous way to rule? The 'one', in this case, is the person reading the text 'The Way' is something that's described in numerous chapters. 'Following the Way' is... difficult. As we see in the Zhuangzi, anyone who understands the way the Way works might have their own understanding of a certain aspect of life based on that. Robber Zhi understands the Way, and it makes him a better thief -- he translates it into “the way of robbing”. A ruler understands the Way and it makes him a better ruler. Whatever that might be. I'm looking to some of these other chapters to try and understand what LZ might've meant: 37 道恒亡爲也 The Way is effortlessness; 侯王能支之 A ruler can lean on it, 而萬勿將自爲 And life will take care of itself 57 以正之邦 Build a nation with laws, 以奇用兵 Wage war with the element of surprise, 以亡事取天下 Gain everything by doing nothing 32 道恆亡名 The Way is unidentifiable; 僕唯妻 It serves all, 天地弗敢臣 Yet Heaven and Earth daren’t tame it; 侯王若能獸之 If rulers could maintain it, 萬物將自賓 Life would submit to them

治大國若烹小鮮 Trying to govern a country is like making offerings to one's ancestors; 以道蒞天下 If one reaches everything through the Way, 其鬼不神 The ghosts of one's ancestors are not elevated to gods, 非其鬼不神也 The ghosts of other people's ancestors are not elevated to gods; 其神不傷人也 These gods will not harm people, 非其神不傷人也 And other gods will not harm people; 聖人亦弗傷也 And the sage also finds no harm; 夫兩不相傷 As long as two parties do no harm to each other 故德交歸焉 Does De not return? 烹 / 享 In other words, trying to govern a country is silly. Offer something to someone, and someone else wants something bigger. Nobody can be pleased, and everyone ends up doing harm (my ancestors are better than yours > my gods are better than yours > let's all kill each other in the name of our gods). If, on the other hand, one just follows the Way and stops micromanaging, gods go out the window and everyone stops fighting. Virtue returns. Thoughts?

Well.. You've done well in finding the link to 'worship' or 'spirits' in this chapter -- something I had certainly missed when I made the post in the other thread -- but I'm still not convinced that Laozi is in any way recommending religion, or saying that these spirits are real. I believe, as with most other chapters, that there isn't just one message in the words. And even if this one chapter does promote religious action, is that enough to say that the entire TTC is a religious manual? For argument's sake I'll assume you are correct that any given state in history was a theocracy. Take the Romans and the Greeks (so often intertwined in philosophy and religion): Lucretius: "Too often in time past, religion has brought forth criminal and shameful actions. ...How many evils has religion caused!" "The nature of the universe has by no means been made through divine power, seeing how great are the faults that mar it." "All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher." Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, of things that are not that they are not." And, my favourite... Diogenes: "When I look upon seamen, men of science, and philosophers, man is the wisest of all things. When I look upon priests, prophets, and interpreters of dreams, nothing is so contemptible as a man." "I do not know whether there are gods, but there ought to be." We see that even in such religious nations with such powerful and vengeful gods there was, among philosophers and other writers, often a deep contempt for religion. But religion was inescapable. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates...the greatest philosophers generally accepted the existence of gods in some way. Does that mean that every text was a religious manual? For me, Diogenes is a notable Westerner at that time closest to living a somewhat Taoist lifestyle. The chapters in the TTC come closer to saying, like Diogenes, "Well, religion exists, but I don't really care to talk about that. Let's just talk about living in harmony with nature."

She's offended because it's a white woman who looks a lot like her who's being called a "white whore" on the show. That's what she objects to. Not double standards, but white people, for once, being the victims of racism. So I call her a white bitch. She is. If you have no answer to the rest of my post, and must cling onto the only seemingly (but not, actually) racist thing I said, I think it's because you have no answer to the rest of my post.

Racism is a touchy subject here. Be careful. I can absolutely understand the mods not wanting any threads devolving into bizarre arguments about eugenics. To respond, though.. 5 mins in and all I can think is, "Wow this white bitch is a racist white bitch". I'm not watching further. Sorry, but there are double standards everywhere. And to fight racism, one doesn't go to the other end of racism. If this lady would like to see racism stop, she'd do better to acknowledge that race is nothing more than an illusion created by our propensity for recognizing colour over character. Now to the silliness of what the video said: The woman who played the principal on the TV show in that video played a police chief in Psych. That's a TV show with a white lead who dates a bunch of white girls and has a black sidekick. Sofia Vergara in Modern Family is often teased for her Columbian background, and many jokes are made about how poor and shitty Columbia is. What other TV shows feature white people in the lead? Just go here and look at the most popular shows today: http://watchseries.ag/Watch Castle -- white leads, black/hispanic sidekicks 2 Broke Girls -- white The Originals -- pretty sure the main ones are white CSI -- white NCIS -- pretty sure Chris is the lead and LL Cool J the sidekick Anger Management -- white lead (Charlie Sheen) and black neighbour Gotham -- white lead, black baddie (Jada Smith) I could go on. That's just today. Basically, all of them. People like to watch white people being heroes whilst other characters help and applaud. That's racist. That a deep, inbuilt, unrecognized racism right there. There are shows with non-white leads, but they're fewer and less popular. And when one of them has a racist Mexican grandmother calling her ex-daughter in law a "white whore", suddenly the media is full of double standards? Fuck.

A.K.A. achievement, success, doing big things, etc I watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory where the main characters are cleaning out the office of a university professor who recently died. They lament the idea that he seems to have been unsuccessful and died without having "accomplished" anything. The kind of accomplishment they're talking about is, we assume, proving a scientific theory that has some kind of impact, discovering something, or somehow gaining some kind of renown for one's work. They want this. They feel like their lives won't have been "worth" anything if they don't "achieve" something. So I have a few questions.. A) Is this belief -- that "accomplishment" is important -- as common as it seems to be in the USA? B ) Is it common where you are / where you're from? C) Do you set store by it? Do you want to have "accomplished" something before you die? D) If so, what? What constitutes something important or grand enough that you'd say "Now I can die happy" ? E) We set our own goals. If I set store by mine, and fail to accomplish them, haven't I set myself up for my own failure/unhappiness? F) Is the idea of accomplishment/success not a major force behind war, poverty, and depression? F) Does "accomplishment" have any place in Daoism or Buddhism? (philosophical) G) Is there really such a thing as "accomplishment" ? Hmm.. lots of questions.. I'm interested in the modern (American?) ideal of "accomplishments". It's my belief that it's hugely destructive, not just for individuals who fail to "succeed", but for everyone who's affected by everyone else's attempts, and often the results of successful accomplishment. I'm also not really sure what an accomplishment actually is these days. I'm also interested in how it all fits in with Daoism and Zen. It's my belief that one can set and achieve goals and be quite happy doing it, but that one should be aware that placing any great importance on the idea of "accomplishment" is at best a great waste of energy. Knowing when enough is enough...? ... edit: goddamn sunglasses emoticon

I do. And I agree with your mantra.

Yeah almost, but I think that it's impossible for any normal human to be entirely impartial. Dao, Buddhism, Hinduism.. the philosophical aspect of these does not teach that to be "enlightened" is to lose one's humanity. A living person cannot be entirely as impartial as Dao itself, because then one would cease to be a person. But to be obsessed with giving, helping, charity.. to make accomplishing charitable things, usually for the sake of fulfilling one's own selfish need to be giving, helpful, etc.. it's not actually helpful. That's what I get from Laozi. Non-interference. Less action based on morals and social convention, and more living based on doing what feels natural. Sometimes that might be murder.. most of the time it won't.

I do feel and believe that I have the choice right now whether or not to believe in the freedom of my will. But I can't be sure that this choice isn't really illusion, and that based on everything that's happened up to this point, the choice I make is the only one I could ever have made based on the circumstances of existence I find myself a part of. I feel that perhaps it's not all that important.

Little did you know, you didn't disagree with me...not entirely I'm not saying that one should not be helpful. I'm not saying "Don't help people". I'm saying that there seems to be an opinion on here (edit: and everywhere else) that without going out of one's way to be helpful and compassionate, one is worthless. I think that's bizarre. If, for example, I walk by the local river and see someone struggling, drowning, I will jump in to help. That's my human empathy/compassion/whatever taking over. But to tell me that I should help, or that I shouldn't feel worth anything if I don't go out of my way to help people... Why? Going out of one's way to "do good" can result in things like the Inquisition and the Iraq War. Charitable giving often (not always, but often) only addresses the symptoms rather than the true root cause of any problem. I'm not saying we shouldn't have charity, or donate to charity (again, instinct kicks in and I can't help but donate when I see starving or abused children on TV commercials), but I do wonder if it truly helps, in the end. -- Thoreau Didn't Laozi tell us that the wise man treats the 10,000 things as straw dogs? And, as you say, Tao destroys too. Isn't impartiality the Way? Dao naturally helps us, and naturally hinders us too.

Isn't simply being here a pretty great attainment? I'm impressed by it (almost) every day. Existence exists. We can change the way it presents itself, but we're not really doing anything, are we? Personally, I prefer to create because it feels good. When I'm creating, I'm not worrying. Is this what you mean by immortality? Does it have to be either/or? The human being is nature. In those works (and I assume we're talking about art) that effuse a "divine" or wonderful feeling of beauty or emotion or connection, i believe the artist/creator has been able to get closer to honesty. I mean, an honest expression of a certain facet of existence -- perhaps, how and what it is to be alive.

Yeah that's pretty much what I meant to say

So, just to be sure: as I haven't been told differently, I'm going ahead and believing that a majority of Americans are indeed obsessed with achievement, for better or worse. I'm also seeing that many here on TTB believe, to an extent, that accomplishment is "worthy", and that if one doesn't achieve "great" accomplishments that help people, or do anything of "value" in life, one's life was a waste, worthless, a mistake...? I find this at variance with the teachings of Tao, to be honest.

Have we? Are we sure? (If so... I'm impressed. We've accomplished something! I can die happy) What does it say, exactly, then?

Sorry Indeed, without wanting something or attempting to achieve anything at all, one would sit around doing nothing until one starved to death. And most people don't want that. But I think it all depends on how big one dreams to achieve..? If all I desire to accomplish in a day is eating an apple, and there's an apple on the tree outside, and I eat it, then I've had a good day. I've accomplished what I wanted. Seems simple. But if there had been no apples, I'd have been disappointed, and might've spent the whole day looking for an apple only to find that my neighbour had some really delicious oranges that he was happy to share. So, firstly, why not just eat what's there? Why fight for apples? And secondly, why dream for anything much bigger than that? One can be quite happy eating apples and oranges, until one decides that it's a better accomplishment to eat elephants and sharks. Most people in the world wouldn't consider eating an apple an "accomplishment" in the strict sense. To be considered a real accomplishment, it must be something impressive, like publishing a book or starring in a movie. But how do you know if the book is the apple or the orange? For sure. I do feel satisfaction on completing a beautiful painting, for example, but... it does depend on one's personal definition/idea of accomplishment. So many people wouldn't consider that an accomplishment. People are so obsessed with accomplishing "great" things, with making "accomplishment" their accomplishment, that I feel they've missed the point entirely. Why should helping someone be considered an accomplishment? If people forgot about trying to accomplish "great" things, there would be far less need to help people. In my opinion. What is something of "value" ? What is "amounting to nothing" ? Not accomplishing anything? Or not helping anyone? What if I'm born on a far away island in a village with just a few hundred people, and spend my whole life fishing and swimming and bringing up my kids? I never affect a great change in the world... have I "amounted to nothing", or have I just lived a fairly contented life?

This being the case, who knows if the wording's even correct. The wording found in the MWD texts might be.. more accurate? received 聖人亦不傷人 MWD 聖人亦弗傷(?) (???) 弗傷也 reconstructed MWD 聖人亦弗傷也

I hadn't expected that response Good catch. Being that the 非其鬼 is exactly the same in both texts, we'd do well to translate it in the same way. The Confucius translation makes sense. Could Laozi be using C's words to make a different point? 其鬼不神 The ghosts of one's ancestors are not gods 非其鬼不神 The ghosts of other people's ancestors are not gods 其神不傷人 One's gods do not harm people 非其神不傷人 Other people's gods do not harm people 聖人亦不傷人 The sage also does not harm people 夫兩不相傷 As long as two parties do no harm to each other 故德交歸焉 Does De not return?

I'm glad

Nope, though I know a few people who do... I'd position myself agnosticly as I do with God/gods. Why do you ask? Do you?