Geof Nanto

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow to the head, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it will make us happy, as you write? How insipid, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. What we need are books that affect us like the most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that makes us feel as though we had been banished to the wilderness, far from any human presence, like suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.” – Franz Kafka

I know of no such shops, but relate to what you're wanting. Here's a couple of articles that you might find interesting..... The Making of a Monastic’s Robes: http://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/the-making-of-a-monastics-robes The Theravada Monastic Robe: The Design and Meaning: http://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/the-theravada-monastic-robe-the-design-and-meaning

I started with his latter book The Radical Luhmann and liked it so much I wanted to know more so I then bought Luhmann Explained. So I'd say you need them both because, although Moeller is a lucid writer, Luhmann's theories are complex. Although it's probably more logical to read Luhmann Explained first because of its more basic explanations, to my mind The Radical Luhmann is a better book. So really, suit yourself on what order you read them, (There are some good reviews on Amazon.)

I’ll be interested to learn what you make of these books. Which one have you downloaded? Some general background....... Luhmann’s non-anthropocentric, systems-environment paradigm is not for everyone and can take some perseverance to assimilate. He is radically anti-humanist. Like classical Daoism, social systems theory describes the world in terms of unceasing impersonal process where change occurs ‘self-so’. According to Luhmann’s metabiological theories, society is not something created and controlled by us humans, rather it continuously reproduces itself. And Luhmann’s theory comprehensively dissolves any notion of us humans as unified selves - as individuals with unitary identities whose thoughts, decisions and actions make society what it is – rather, we all consist of a dynamic interplay of countless functionally separate yet interdependent systems-environment interactions. Although as far as I know Luhmann was not influenced by Daoism he would smile in recognition of sentiments such as: Heaven and Earth are not kind: The ten thousand things are straw dogs to them. Sages are not kind: People are straw dogs to them. (BTW Although Luhmann might not have been versed in Daoism, Hans-Georg Moeller certainly is. He has written extensively on the philosophy of classical Daoism.)

Systems-environment theory is one of my favourite areas of interest. For me, it's an extension and expansion of key aspects of classical Daoist thought into modern theory. I've previously mentioned it on this forum but seemingly aroused no interest. For an excellent introduction, I highly recommend the work of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann as interpreted by Hans-Georg Moeller in his books Luhmann Explained and The Radical Luhmann.

OK. I don't know anything about James French's work but of course I'm appreciative of anyone who cares for abused animals. However, when I see people working to heal domesticated animals that have been abused such as horses and dogs, my overriding feeling is of sadness for the cruelty they've suffered. I think it's only natural that any well adjusted human would want to help if they could. I'm not sure what you mean by abused wild animals though. Do you mean non-domesticated animals that have been abused by humans whilst held captive? Is that the case with the lions in the video? What truly lifts my spirits is observing animals thriving in their natural habitat. And when I see them at play in the wild it makes me smile. Even a predator hunting and consuming its prey is part of this natural story that I find so awesome; the continual unfolding of the Dao. I know many people like domesticated animals - including some of my closest friends - but that scenario brings me no joy. I like animals in the wild, looking after themselves, living by their own skills; it's the life they were born for. Such animals have a special something; an edge of vitality that even the healthiest of captive animals lack. However, I do find stories of 'wild' animals living independently within urban environments heart-warming. Here's one I read of just now.... It's a photo of a New Zealand fur seal that's been living on the Sydney Opera House stairs for one year. That's right on the foreshore of busy Sydney harbour. NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service senior wildlife officer Geoff Ross said the seal's behaviour was an example of the health of the colony. "What we are seeing with all the seals these days is a resumption of their traditional haul-out sites," Mr Ross said. "The Opera House may not have been a traditional haunt for seals but certainly the rocks on the point there before the Opera House was built probably would have been in the 1800s." Fur seals making a recovery after near-extinction Hunting in the 1800s took both New Zealand and Australian fur seals to the brink of extinction, but there has been an encouraging rise in numbers over the past decade. "New Zealand fur seals are recovering more rapidly than their Australian cousins," Mr Ross said. "Before sealing in Australia, fur seals were very, very common in and around the harbour. "With the advent of sealing we stopped seeing them come into their usual haunts, and for me it is exciting to see animals returning to their natural haunts." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-13/seal-loves-harbourside-home-one-year-on/6849604

According to all the writings I've read the Daoists that entered wilderness did not abuse animals.What evidence do you have for that assertion? However people in the wider community certainly did and still do in most if not all countries. But no, I definitely don't go into shock on seeing such treatment. I've seen plenty; nature itself may seem cruel to city people in the way old and sick animals meet their end.

To get the image to show here right click on the picture in Tumblr and select 'Copy Image URL'. Then paste the URL using the 'Image' tab here in the Dao Bums compose window.

Whilst China has a long tradition of reclusive Daoist and Ch'an cultivators living independently in remote wilderness areas, such people are not renowned for accepting students. They guard their privacy. Temples have always been a place to go for instruction and these have operated with varying degrees of official regulation since at least the Tang dynasty. And fortunately, these days, places of authentic teaching do have websites. For those with an interest, here is a little background information on Li Shi Fu, the abbot of Five Immortals Temple, as told to Lindsey Wei and recounted in The Valley Spirit..... One day I asked Li Shi Fu when it was that he first had the notion to become a Daoist renunciant. He said such a thing does not occur in a single moment. "It has been occurring as far back as I can remember. When I was two or three I used to be very timid, afraid of everything. My older sisters would tell me ghost stories to work on my courage. This is what I grew up with," he said, "mythology and the belief in the power of spirit." Li Shi Fu's family lived in an ancient ruined temple. Three days before he was born, there came many crows to live in the trees around their home. They stayed until he came of age. Many people thought it was surely a bad omen. However, in Wudang, the crow is the spirit of the mountain. One day in the market when Li was seven, he met a wandering Daoist on the street. The Daoist looked at him, felt his bones, and told him that he had destiny with the Dao. The young boy thought nothing of it at the time. By age 13, Li began to study Daoist and Buddhist beliefs as well as Chinese Internal and External Arts such as Shaolin's Plum Blossom Boxing, Chen Family Taijiquan, and Qing Gong or "light" Gong Fu. He traveled to many places in China and learned under the tutelage of over 16 masters. Li Shi Fu grew up in a generation that can hardly be compared to my own. Since he was 13, he trained in fighting skills day in and day and day out, as well as meditation, all in the traditional manner of extreme discipline, dull repetition, and bitter lengths. When he was 19 his "teacher," as he called it, pointing upwards, guided him to broaden his religious studies to include Christianity and Judaism. He read the Bible nine times, looking for where it was the same as Daoism. By 1996 he left his family to become a renunciant and within one year found his way to White Horse Mountain. By 2000 he became the Abbot of the Five Immortals Temple, undergoing severe hardship in the bitter conditions. [The Temple was virtually a ruin and he did all the early rebuilding by himself.] When he left his life behind, he thought it would take him three to five years to reach enlightenment. Now it is nearly 15 years later, and he says he is hardly even past the beginning. "I was not properly prepared in myself. So I remain in society's clutch, to grind my thoughts and desires until I am ready." [Hence he sees it as his 'karmic' role to teach Western students. His temple is one of the few in China able to accept Westerners.]

I had the same problem when I first tried. The best way is to post them first onto a website that hosts user content and stores the pictures in a format Dao Bums software recognises. (There are probably many; I know Tumblr works, and that Flickr doesn't.) Then copy the URL of the picture here using the 'Image' tab. Alternatively, you can reduce the size of the file yourself and add it directly. However this is not the preferred method because of storage limitations here (I hope you can get it to work as I too would like to see your paintings.)

Unfortunately that is true. But then the animals are no longer themselves. They lose their wild vitality. There's no comparison between witnessing an animal in its natural environment compared with ones in even the best wildlife reserves.

Yeah, I live in a wilderness environment and use trust techniques at times, but for different reasons. It allows me to cause less disturbance as I wander about, especially when I startle an animal at rest. But I'd never want to tame the animals around here. I like the harmonious chaos of nature in its totally. Wilderness has a consciousness beyond words. (Of course, I also appreciate Cheya's reasons for posting the video.)

Ahhhh! That video makes me feel like screaming. That's a terrible thing to do to wild animals. First we imprison them and take away their physical freedom. Next we mess with their minds so that they are 'nice'. This is humanism out of control. The ancient Daoists entered wilderness to learn from it, not teach it. They revered wilderness in its ineffable totality as an expression of the Dao. It's us modern humans who have reversed the formula and want to teach the wilderness to be 'civilized'.

My impression, from reading Lindsey Wei's account of the Five Immortals Temple in her book The Valley Spirit, is that it's very much a place of genuine intent, headed by an authentic Daoist practitioner.

Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realize that. If natural things are beyond it, what are we to say about supernatural things? - Blaise Pascal

It seems to me that conflict here, in part, resembles the split between between religion and science; it is both ontological and epistemic. Religion and science offer two very different ontologies (theories about what exists) and epistemology (ways to figure it out). Consequently, participants are operating from irreconcilably different perspectives of 'reality'.

If our brain - or more correctly, our whole biological system - is the environment where our personal consciousness lives, then, of course, if we damage it, so too will our consciousness suffer.

I also have noticed a split but I'd question your summary, and your labels 'Healed' and 'Wholed'. From my perspective, your overview is far too simplistic to be helpful. The only part I agree with is your final sentence, "I should also say that many people, and these perhaps make the best teachers as all, start needing healing but don't stop when they get it but carry on to become whole." And even here I'd question your use of the word 'whole'. Are any of us whole, or are we all seekers of wholeness? According to Carl Jung "all religions are therapies for the sorrows and disorders of the soul.” The second type are not whole or they would not be seeking more to life. In my experience these people often have trouble with humility. They view themselves as successful people and they are seeking greater success. For a true spiritual path to progress, the hero - the egocentric self that been running the show - must die. This means devastation; hence the expression "dark nights of the soul." For me this is the distinction that underpins the split; those who have experienced "dark nights of the soul" and those who have not.

The Palace of Supreme Purity, Qingcheng Mountain I meet a young Daoist nun with delicate fair skin and a beautiful face. The graceful person beneath the loose Daoist robe exudes dignity and freshness. She installs me in the guest room in the temple hall in the side courtyard off the main hall. The unvarnished floorboards which clearly show the grain and colour of the timber are spotlessly clean and the bedding smells as if it has just been washed. I am staying in the Palace of Supreme Purity. Each morning the nun brings hot water in a washbasin for me to wash my face, then makes tea and stays to chat for a while. Her voice rings with a clear purity like the first picking of the green tea that I am drinking and she talks and laughs in an open manner. She says she finished high school and voluntarily took the examinations to become a Daoist nun, but I don't ask why she made this decision. They enlisted ten other young men and women along with her and all have at least primary school education. The head Daoist is a master. He is over eighty but has a clear voice and walks with a spritely stride. He doesn't shirk hard work and it was only after spending several years liaising with the local government and various levels of the establishment, then convening a meeting with the few old Daoists on the mountain, that he was able to re-establish the Palace of Supreme Purity on Qingcheng Mountain. Both the old and the young chat freely with me and, to use her words, everyone likes you. She says everybody, but doesn't say she herself. She says you can stay as long as you like, Zhang Daqian the painter live here for many years. I saw a portrait of Zhang Daqian's father engraved on stone in the temple of the three legendary rulers – Fuxi, Shennong and the Yellow Emperor – situated alongside the Palace of Supreme Purity. Afterwards I also learn that Fan Changsheng of the Jin Dynasty and Du Tingguang of the Tang Dynasty lived here as recluses in order to write. I am not a recluse and still want to eat from the stoves of human society. I can't say that I am staying because of the charming spontaneity of her movements and her unaffected gracefulness, I am simply saying that I like the tranquillity here. My room leads out onto the temple hall with its ancient colours and ancient smells. Inside is a long table made of nanmu hardwood and some square chairs with armrests and small low tables. Calligraphy is hanging on the walls and the friezes of the horizontal central tablet and the pillars are early wood carvings which have luckily been preserved. She says you can do some reading and writing here and when you get tired you can go for a stroll in the courtyard at the back of the hall. Ancient cypresses and ink-green indigo plants grow in the square courtyard and the artificial stone mountains in the pond are completely covered in thick green moss. Early in the morning and at night the talk and laughter of the nuns can be heard coming through the lattice windows. Here, the oppressive and prohibitive harshness of the Buddhist monasteries doesn't exist. Instead there is tranquillity and fragrance. After dusk when the few tourists have all gone, I like the solitude and austerity of the lower courtyard of the Palace of Three Purities. I sit alone on the stone threshold at the centre of the palace gate and look at the big rooster of inlaid ceramic tiles directly in front of me. The four round pillars in the centre of the palace hall are each inscribed with couplets. The outer couplet is: The Way gives birth to one, one gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, three gives birth to the myriad things Man follows earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Way, the Way follows Nature This is the source of what I had heard from the old botanist in the primitive forest. The inner couplet is: Invisible and inaudible, mystical indeed is its imperceptibility, joining the trinity of jade purity, superior purity and supreme purity Know its workings, observe its profundity, pure indeed is its tranquillity, forming the principle of the Way of heaven, the Way of earth and the Way of man The old head Daoist tells me about the two couplets. "The Way is both the source and the law of the myriad things, when there is mutual respect of both subject and object there is oneness. This source gives birth to existence from non-existence, and to non-existence from existence. The union of the two is innate and with the union of heaven and man there is the attainment of unity in one's view of the cosmos and of human life. For Daoists, purity is the principle, non-action is the essence and spontaneity the application; it is a life of truth and a life requiring absence of self. To put it simply, this is the general meaning of Daoism." As he is expounding the Way to me, the young disciples, men and women, crowd around to listen and sit all huddled together. One of the young nuns even puts her arm on the shoulders of one of the young men as she listens intently and wholeheartedly. I doubt that I would be able to attain this realm of purity where there is an absence lust. One evening after dinner the men and women, old and young alike, all come into the lower courtyard to see who can make the porcelain frog in the hall whistle by blowing into it. It is bigger than a dog and some get it to whistle while others don't. They amuse themselves doing this for quite some time and then disband to do their evening studies. I am left on my own and again sit on the stone threshold, looking at the temple rooftop with its intricate decorations of benevolent dragons, snakes, turtles and fish. The flying eaves curling upwards are lines of pure simplicity and the majestic forests on the mountain behind soundlessly sway in the night breeze. Suddenly the myriad things turn silent and the sound of pure pipes can be heard, serene and flowing, then abruptly vanishing. Then, beyond the gates of the temple complex, the noisy surging of the river under the stone bridge and the soughing of the night wind all seem to be flowing from my heart. (Extract from Soul Mountain by novelist, playwright and Nobel laureate, Gao Xingjian. Soul Mountain is a long, rambling epic voyage of discovery recounting Gao’s fifteen thousand kilometres of wanderings across China in 1982, undertaken to flee the repressive cultural regime in Beijing and the threat of a spell in prison for subversive writing.)

The Dao Bums is a communal garden. What you plant here is up to you.

More than tolerable, gardening metaphors are excellent. Welcome!

On the subject of reason I like Blaise Pascal's lines.... "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." "Two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason." On consciousness....I suspect us humans will need to development a totally different way of understanding 'reality' to gain insight into the its nature. The current anthropocentric paradigms are manifestly inadequate. Personally, I like the notion from systems / environment theory that posits consciousness as a new and evolving form of non-biological life that lives in the environment of our brains, our bodies. We have a symbiotic relationship with consciousness. It's co-evolved with us. We're continually expanding its environment with our books, computers, hyperspace etc. But I'll leave it there as past experience tells me such a perspective will be met with incomprehension.

Your post reminded me to buy some buckwheat kernels. I haven't eaten with them for a couple of years. How do you cook them? I haven't found any of the recipes I've tried particularly tasty. But I've milled them into flour and added it into to my sourdough bread mix with good results. I regularly eat buckwheat (soba) noodles though. It's difficult to get 100% buckwheat but there's a brand of buckwheat pasta spirals I like that's 80% buckwheat and 20% rice flour.

I've been through two events that could well be described as 'dark nights of the soul'. However, I'm reluctant to write about them here. To my mind, it's too big a topic for a discussion forum such as this where short comments work best. The way I see it, using the format of this forum, we gain insights into people's experiences by reading a multitude of their comments over time. Slowly a picture reveals itself. Also, I lack the language skills to do justice to these experiences in any single narrative, if at all. Perhaps only a skilled poet can evoke the essential essence of experiences in a few brief words..... The Way of Love Rumi The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they're given wings. (Rumi is of course referring to love in the sense of merging with divinity.) Or, from one of Carl Jung’s ex-patients…. “Out of despair, much good has come to me. By keeping quiet, repressing nothing, remaining attentive, and by accepting reality—taking things as they are, and not as I wanted them to be—by doing all this, unusual knowledge has come to me, and unusual powers as well, such as I could never have imagined before. I always thought that when we accepted things they over-powered us in some way or other. This turns out not to be true at all, and it is only by accepting them that one can assume an attitude towards them*. So now I intend to play the game of life, being receptive to whatever comes to me, good and bad, sun and shadow that are forever alternating, and, in this way, also accepting my own nature with its positive and negative sides. Thus everything becomes more alive to me. What a fool I was! How I tried to force everything to go according to the way I thought it ought to !” According to Jung “Only on the basis of such an attitude*, which renounces none of the values won in the course of Christian development, but which, on the contrary, tries with Christian charity and forbearance to accept even the humblest things in oneself, will a higher level of consciousness and culture be possible. This attitude is religious in the truest sense, and therefore therapeutic, for all religions are therapies for the sorrows and disorders of the soul.” * Jung writes at length about the significance of this shift in attitude to one of a special type of detachment. In small part he says “ If such a transposition succeeds, it results in doing away with participation mystique, and a personality develops that suffers only in the lower stories, so to speak, but in the upper stories is singularly detached from painful as well as joyful events.”

I like white rice too and eat it with one meal most every day. In colder weather I prefer medium grain rice; when it's hot I go for Basmati or, very occasionally, Jasmine rice. Years ago I would only eat organic brown rice because of its superior nutritional profile, but these days organic white rice is what I chose.