Geof Nanto

Yeah, this forum is probably not an appropriate place for this debate. Maybe it should be moved to "Off Topic"? However the topic of economic sustainability is one that deserves much wider attention. It's an issue both the left and the right of politics shy away from. Democracy favours sugar coated policies from all sides. To my mind the world economy has gone the way of mainstream diet; namely, it's centred on junk food and stimulants.

Because I choose not to disclose them.

This is an excellent website for informed economic analysis outside of mainstream commentary. http://www.zerohedge.com/ From Zerohedge today..... The Next Derivatives Implosion Just Started in Europe For over 30 years, sovereign nations, particularly in the West have been buying votes by offering social payments in the form of welfare, Medicare, social security, and the like. When actual bills came due to fund this stuff, Governments quickly discovered that current tax revenues couldn’t cover it (see the image below)… so they issued sovereign debt to make up the difference. And so the global bond bubble was created. As far back as 2009, most Western nations were completely bankrupt when you consider unfunded liabilities from their social policies. But Central Banks did everything they could to paper of this fact by soaking up as much bond issuance as possible while simultaneously maintaining zero interest rates......

Actually America is a country where optimism, happiness, and extraversion are all compulsory. These are the three pillars that support ponzi capitalism.

I'm not liking gender now showing as "Unknown" and fail to understand how three wrongs somehow make things right. It's my profile and neither age, birthday or gender is unknown to me.

There's a saying that the vast majority of people come to religion looking for certainty, and only a few come seeking truth. One could make a similar statement about ideologies and 'isms' in general. Hence religions tend towards dogma and stagnation. A critical evaluation such as you suggest is valid for those who seek truth. "People who believe and don't think always forget that they continually expose themselves to their own worst enemy: doubt. Wherever belief reigns, doubt lurks in the background. But thinking people welcome doubt: it serves them as a valuable stepping-stone to better knowledge. People who can believe should be a little more tolerant with those of their fellows who are only capable of thinking. Belief has already conquered the summit which thinking tries to win by toilsome climbing. The believer ought not to project his habitual enemy, doubt, upon the thinker, thereby suspecting him of destructive designs...let the believer rejoice that others, too, seek to climb the mountain on whose peak he sits." C.G. Jung

My thoughts are not my self, but exactly like the things of the world; alive and dead. Just as I am not damaged by living in a partly chaotic world, so too I am not damaged if I live in my partly chaotic thought world. Thoughts are natural events that you do not possess, and whose whole meaning you only imperfectly recognise. Thoughts grow in me like a forest, populated by many different animals. But man is dominating in his thinking and therefore kills the pleasure of the forest and that of the wild animals. C G Jung The Red Book

I Want it All (Thich Nhat Hanh) If you ask how much do I want, I'll tell you that I want it all. This morning, you and I and all men are flowing into the marvellous stream of oneness. Small pieces of imagination as we are, we have come a long way to find ourselves and for ourselves, in the dark, the illusion of emancipation. This morning, my brother is back from his long adventure. He kneels before the altar, his eyes full of tears. His soul is longing for a shore to set anchor at (a yearning I once had). Let him kneel there and weep. Let him cry his heart out. Let him have his refuge there for a thousand years, enough to dry all his tears. One night, I will come and set fire to his shelter, the small cottage on the hill. My fire will destroy everything and remove his only life raft after a shipwreck. In the utmost anguish of his soul, the shell will break. The light of the burning hut will witness his glorious deliverance. I will wait for him beside the burning cottage. Tears will run down my cheeks. I will be there to contemplate his new being. And as I hold his hands in mine and ask him how much he wants, he will smile and say that he wants it all – just as I did.

I posted this video clip yesterday on the 'animals and chi/jing' thread.- When I first watched it a couple of years ago I saw an amazing interaction of child and leopard - both beautiful and with an edge of danger. However when I re-watched it before posting I also saw it as an excellent allegory for Daoist practice along the lines on the Ox Herder poems from Chan. The little girl - a symbol of the childlike spirit and De (virtue) of the Daoist sage. The leopard - a symbol for the mind of Dao. The clip opens with the child leaving conditioned reality (society's values - the road, car and family). She wanders alone in the wilderness without a destination but her heart seeks the leopard. Child and leopard meet. And then what happens? Comments welcome.

You have a little over a decade on me. And yeah, I consider myself lucky to be alive too for many reasons. It means I consider my life now a bonus.....allows the possibility of contentment; the reality of contentment.

I don't like "Unknown" either for similar reasons to Soaring Crane and Liminal_Luke. If it's consistency you're after, then it would be more accurate to change "Age" and "Birthday" to "Undisclosed". However I don't see any need for this as these options don't show every time we post. I'm OK with "Not Specified" or "Private", though I still prefer "Undisclosed".

I relate to your feelings. I'm much the same. And it's good to read something so real, so heart-felt. I have a term I use for my approach to such situations. I call it 'Emotional Yoga'. I just try to relax and allow the discomfort. Try to allow the feeling without aversion or blocking. Just let it flow as an energy. Sometimes I gain insight, other times it just shifts on an energy level so that the intense discomfort dissipates. It can feel pretty bad, but I think of it like an uncomfortable new yoga asana that I'm trying to ease my way into. It's about working to transform real-life difficulties into something positive, and for me nothing is more important than working through emotional stuff. Of course, it's more like two steps forward and one back than any final resolution.

Yes, me too. Everyone must find their own path, and that can mean devastation. However, in my experience life itself provides ample 'poisons' and toxic situations to deal with - especially emotionally - and that's the type of qi I've needed to transform from something destructive into something that can help me grow. The Way of Wisdom The way of wisdom 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. (adapted from Rumi)

Thanks, well said.

The words are easy to understand but perhaps it follows the rule of three - mountain; no mountain; mountain. Dual awareness; non-dual awareness; dual awareness. For me, this has been an interesting and informative discussion thread. I much appreciate all the contributions.

It's winter solstice here in the southern hemisphere. This is a significant point to keep in mind because it puts us in different energy spaces. Winter is a time more favourable for quiet introspection and stillness in contrast to the outgoing activity summer energises. Last night I could see the crescent moon through my window - it looked just like my portrait photo. I love the almost total darkness of the night here away from any artificial light sources; especially so at new moon times. And the stillness, the almost total quiet - especially so on dark winter nights.

I have problems with the entire language that underpins the framing of contemporary social theory. This virtually unquestioned paradigm is based on the anthropocentric ideals of humanism that arose from Enlightenment thinking and has served us well. But whilst society has evolved, the theory has not, so it now fails to describe the reality of our increasingly globalised society. The language has become false, and is misleading in many ways. For instance, it tricks us into believing we humans are in control of shaping human destiny. My own observations of how society actually operates have been vastly deepened and greatly enlarged by reading the theories of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. (I'd like to think a modern Zhuang Zhou would concur with this perspective.) Keeping in mind my above post that all concepts are a combination of reality and illusion, here’s an excerpt from The Radical Luhmann by Hans-Georg Moeller in support of my current reality…… ECOLOGICAL EVOLUTION A CHALLENGE TO SOCIAL CREATIONISM Relatively speaking, one of the less conspicuous radical aspects of Luhmann's theory is his application of the theory of evolution to sociology. This may seem a somewhat strange point to make, given that the theory of evolution is no longer considered all that scandalous, at least outside of North American fundamentalist Protestant circles. The same may be the case with respect to biology, but Luhmann's use of evolutionary theory for a theory of society is, I believe, quite provocative. Although Luhmann is not a social Darwinist and has little in common with Herbert Spencer, his evolutionary approach is nevertheless at odds with the dominant liberal and humanist views on society, which can often be understood historically as secularized successors of Christian ideas.' Luhmann's theory radically breaks with anthropocentric views of society, just as Darwin broke with the Christian idea of the human being as the "crown of creation" Thus, Luhmann's radical evolutionary view of society (which was decisively shaped by the post-Darwinian evolutionary biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela) when viewed from mainstream humanist post-Christian social theory, has the potential to be as offensive as Darwin's biological theory once was. Evolution, for Luhmann, emerges as the complex coevolution of system-environment relations. In Darwin's vocabulary, evolution is the evolution of species that constitute environments for one another. An ecosystem indicates the coexistence of a great variety of life-systems without a center or a general steering mechanism. Within an ecosystem, all subsystems coevolve. A change in one subsystem, let's say a change in the oxygen level of the water in a lake, "perturbs" the plants in the lake and triggers evolutionary changes in them. This also triggers evolutionary changes in the fish. These evolutionary changes will again have an effect on the chemistry of the water, and so on. All of these things happen simultaneously. Coevolution means there are permanent feedback mechanisms between a multiplicity of simultaneously evolving systems. Changes trigger changes that trigger changes and so on. Such a basic evolutionary model contradicts the central idea of creationism, namely, the primacy of an external or initial act of creation or (intelligent) design. A coevolutionary ecosystem is self-generating and self-contained and not designed or based on any specific a priori input. The difference between a theory of evolution and creationism parallels the difference between a theory of immanence on the one side and theories of transcendence or transcendental theories on the other. While current social theories are no longer transcendent and commonly do not speak about divine origins of social phenomena, they are often transcendental theories, to use the Kantian term—and thus represent, so to speak, a kind of secular social creationism. Unfortunately, in English academic language, the foundational Kantian distinction between transzendent and transzendental is mostly ignored and the terms "transcendent" and "transcendental" are often used synonymously or interchangeably. Kant, however, used the term transzendental in particular to distinguish his philosophy from previous transcendent metaphysics. For him, transzendent meant "beyond experience" (God, for instance, is transzendent), whereas transzendental referred to whatever precedes experience in the sense of being the (or a) "condition of the possibility of experience. Transzendental is what is a priori in this sense, namely what is prior to or "pure of" anything empirical. Many contemporary social theories are, though certainly not transcendent, still, in a post-Kantian sense, transcendental theories of society. As such, they are still essentially incompatible with a radical evolutionary theory of society that is radically immanent and leaves no room for any a priori social principles. Modern and contemporary social theories, like those of Hobbes, Rousseau, Habermas, and Rawls, can be called "transcendental" They, at least hypothetically, think that society either is or should be founded on some sort of a priori mechanism or basis for intrasocial consensus such as a contract, a commitment to reason, or a definition of fairness. Society is assumed to have access to something that is not itself social but an a priori condition for society to function well. Society, according to these models, can only be enacted properly if it adheres to certain principles. These principles are most commonly believed to be civil principles, that is, they are related to specifically human characteristics such as human nature, free will, human rationality, human rights, and so on. In this way, these transcendental theories of society are also inherently humanist, or, more precisely, anthropocentric. Luhmann's theory of society, like Darwin's theory of evolution, is not. One profound difference between creationism and a theory of evolution is the idea of a plan. Creation is not random or involuntary; it involves intentionality. It involves action and agency. This agency can be transcendent or transcendental. In the first case the agent is of divine nature, that is, a God; in the second, agency is this-worldly. Evolutionary theory, however, denies both sacred and secular agency. An ecosystem cannot intentionally evolve. It neither enacts God's will nor freely determines how to develop itself. Luhmann's social theory has been criticized, in precisely this context, as being "metabiological" by Habermas,' because it follows evolutionary biology in denying not only transcendent, but also transcendental agency and intentionality. This is what makes Luhmann as scandalous in social theory today as Darwin's theory was in the context of nineteenth-century biology. Humans are no longer capable of their own development, but are simply an element within highly complex system-environment entanglements. To take evolution seriously means to take the notion of environment seriously, and therefore to undermine the concepts of intentionality, planning, and free will. None of the post-Kantian transcendental and anthropocentric social theories can be truly ecological so long as they ascribe the capabilities of design and agency to a privileged species. Conventional transcendental social theories are incompatible with radically ecological and evolutionary social theories such as Luhmann's. While many progressive and, to a certain extent, leftist (at least in their own view), social theoreticians, like Habermas, take great pains to come up with nonhierarchical or egalitarian visions of society that eliminate structures of domination, they cannot be classified as noncentrist thinkers. Typically, these theorists affirm the central role of politics (or the economy, or both together) in society. If society is, in a post-Kantian sense, to rationally determine its own future, then there has to be a central planning agency for directing this development. This agency, as is the case for Habermas, may well be supposed to be democratic, that is, collective, nonrepressive, and nonauthoritarian, but it nevertheless has to have some sort of social centrality. It must have some authority over law, the economy, education, religion, and so on in order to ensure that society progresses in the right way. Luhmann, the evolutionary theoretician, goes against such a centrist vision. Instead, he "develops a polycentric (and accordingly polycontextural) theory in an acentrically conceived world and society". An ecosystem has no center. Evolution does not follow any guidelines or directives given by any of its subsystems. Subsystems are not egalitarian or democratic in the sense that each system has a the right to make a contribution in determining where evolution goes. Subsystems may compete for survival, and, in the long run, most of them will simply dissolve since they cannot plan their own future or the future of the whole. There is no institution inherent in evolutionary processes that a system may appeal to, or, for instance, complain to that its extinction is unjust, unfair, or irrational. A social theory that takes evolution seriously will therefore not only disappoint, but most likely offend those social theorists who think that even if such institutions may not yet exist or may not yet be perfect, they should at least be aspired to. Evolutionary theory, however, does not allow for such aspirations. Modern social theories rooted in the Enlightenment hope that society can elucidate itself in a twofold sense; it has the ability to see itself more clearly and gain, at least potentially, a more or less complete understanding of itself, and it can work toward making itself brighter, that is, happier and better in a moral or pragmatic way, or both. An evolutionary theory is, in a sense, a counter-Enlightenment theory, since it theoretically excludes both of these achievements. A thoroughly immanent ecosystem, be it biological, mental, or social, does not, so to speak, include its own light switch. As Luhmann pointed out regularly, an observing system can, paradoxically, often see only what it cannot see—and what others cannot see. It can detect the blind spots of other systems and thereby draw some conclusions about its own. A perfect illumination is theoretically impossible. Light and darkness, metaphorically speaking (and alluding to Daoism), constitute each other in an evolutionary context. The very condition of seeing something is not to see everything. The ability to observe, paradoxically, also implies limitations, and thus inabilities, of observation. The partial blindness that comes with evolution also implies a certain ethical and pragmatic blindness. Since it is impossible to see everything, it is also impossible to see what is good for all. An ecosystem that cannot know itself and that cannot know its future also cannot know what it should ultimately hope for. How can today's species know what will be good for future species? A bright future for one species implies necessarily, according to Darwin's theory, a dark future for others. The application of such a view on social theory must be deeply disconcerting for any sociologist or philosopher who shares the Enlightenment vision of a self-illuminating society. A major Enlightenment narrative immediately connected with the program of self-illumination was the belief in progress., Enlightenment as a process of human self-illumination is, both cognitively and practically, quite necessarily, geared toward improvement. The natural sciences provide us with more knowledge; new technologies enhance our capacities and productivity, and increase our material well-being. The social sciences, it was hoped, would provide us with expertise in social engineering so that we would be able to rationalize and optimize our political and economic life. Education was consequently seen as the means to lead ourselves out of our "self-inflicted immaturity"—to use the famous Kantian expression. Thinkers like Hegel, Marx, and the French positivists (Comte and others) subsequently came up with some of the grand nineteenth-century descriptions of a historical march to the light—of inevitable progress toward greater human self-realization — in the double meaning of this term, that is, both epistemologically and existentially. The nineteenth century has been qualified as the century of historicism. This not only indicates a focus on the inherent historicity and dynamics of life, but also a belief in the possibility of a science of history. History could finally be understood by those who make it. Marx is probably the prime example for such an attempt to identify the laws of history which, in the past, had shaped social developments unbeknownst to those who actually constituted or performed them. It was believed that an adequate analysis of the historical movement would enable humankind to actually make history rather than simply be moved forward through it. Instead of merely interpreting history, a historically informed social science would enable us to enact change rather than be merely subjected to it. In this sense, liberation for Marx also meant historical liberation: rather than being determined and dominated by history, humankind would now be able to determine and dominate it. Progress came to mean not only a development toward a better state but also, and perhaps even more important, a self-conscious motion. Progress thus meant to deliberately and actively move forward, to go on, by one's own will and in the direction that one set out beforehand. The Enlightenment narrative of historical progress was soon questioned. Nietzsche replaced history with genealogy. Nietzsche, as well as many of the leading theorists of the twentieth century who were substantially influenced by him (one may think of Freud and Foucault in particular), was less optimistic about the idea of progress. On the one hand, these thinkers fully acknowledged the idea that what we are is an effect of what we have been—Wesen ist, was gewesen ist, as Hegel succinctly put it., On the other hand, they did not really share the belief in the possibility of rationally improving the course of history. Simply put, genealogy may be defined as history minus progress. To understand our heritage does not necessarily mean that we can change or control it. Genetic engineering may in fact, from the perspective of a genealogy, turn out to be as futile as attempts at social engineering. Just as it is highly questionable how improved genetically modified food actually is, it is questionable how much improvement was brought about by the experiments in transforming historical knowledge into social progress. In this sense, Luhmann's theory of social evolution fundamentally differs both from the historicist social theories of the nineteenth century and from Darwin's biological theory of evolution. For Darwin, in line with his historicist contemporaries, biological evolution was a story of progress. Evolution meant "survival of the fittest;' and to be fit, as in contemporary popular usage, connoted being good, or at least better than the unfit. Similarly, natural selection meant the selection of the better over the worse. Darwin explicitly pointed out how "immeasurably superior" natural selection was, compared with "man's feeble efforts" to perfect living organisms over time.' This meant, for Darwin, that nature was even more concerned with bringing about biological advancement than, let us say, human horse breeders. Given this focus on improvement through selection, Herbert Spencer's social theory has rightly been labeled "social Darwinism" since it also conceives of evolution as progress, as a development toward the better. Luhmann is not a social Darwinist in this sense. Social evolution for him, like biological evolution for post-Darwinist biologists, is not to be automatically equated with social progress., Functional differentiation is an effect of social evolution, but it is not in any general way "better" than stratified or segmentary differentiation. Evolution is not teleological. Its partial blindness does not allow it to take aim. Furthermore, the lack of a central force or a socially progressive element (such as, for Marx, the proletariat, with the Communist Party as its avant-garde) makes it impossible to anticipate any specific course that history may take. Post-Darwinian ecological evolutionary theory, in both biology and sociology, is genealogical rather than historicist. It tries to understand its "genes”, or its inherent heritage, and does not continue the Enlightenment narrative of progress. It refrains from scientifically evaluating species according to their respective merits and does not rank social systems or social structures. This does not mean a postulation on the equality of all biological or social systems; it means refraining from constructing a narrative based on value judgments. Not making value judgments also means not proclaiming that all systems are equally valid. For a post-Darwinian ecological evolutionary theory, be it biological or sociological, development is contingent rather than necessary. But contingency is an ambiguous term. It means to exist despite other alternatives having been equally possible, and to come into existence as a result of previously existing conditions in the sense of being contingent upon. It implies, on the one hand, the coexistence of a plurality of options or alternatives without hierarchical order, and, on the other hand, a nonarbitrary connection between what is and what has been. That there are horses is a contingent result of biological evolution in the sense that the emergence of other species or the extinction of the horse species would have been equally thinkable, given the extreme variety of evolutionary possibilities at all times. But it also means that the current existence of the horse species can be traced genealogically to a very specific evolutionary development that actually took place. Luhmann often stresses the unlikelihood of whatever is actually brought into existence by evolution, given all of the innumerable developments that might have taken place instead. This takes nothing away from the important role that everything that did evolve has within evolution. That horses came into existence was not evolutionarily necessary. Now that there are horses, they influence further evolutionary developments and thereby limit evolutionary possibilities. That something like stocks and bonds came into existence in social reality was not historically necessary. However, now that there are stocks and bonds, further economic, and thus social, evolution is contingent upon their existence. Luhmannian ecological genealogy combines historical awareness with nondogmatic pluralism. In an evolutionary context, the notion of contingency affirms both historical heritage and the openness to the future. It implies both a confirmation of the relevance of the actual and recognition of its aleatory character. Everything might have come about differently, but now that the die has been cast there is no going back. And the options for the way forward are, although not predetermined, relatively limited by what is now the case. Historicist theoreticians of progress share, unlike evolutionary genealogists, some of the teleological fantasies of the secular creationists. If there is, at least potentially, a plan for the course of history, and if we can both know and guide, or at least accelerate, this course, then radical contingency is unacceptable. For creationists and historicists, the course of history has a specific and necessary meaning and not only a contingent sense. That history has a meaning is to say that there is some thread that runs through it, that it somehow unfolds as a plan, that it has a discernible design and is therefore determined to lead somewhere. Evolutionary genealogy recognizes or observes that evolution makes sense, but this making of sense is an immanent evolutionary construct, a dynamic process of continual reinvention. From a genealogical evolutionary process, development is neither a priori nor teleologically determined. "Sense,” as a linguistic alternative to the term "meaning,” is made, while something has a meaning. In an ecosystem consisting of complex system-environment relations, sense is not singular. The system does not have a meaning, nor does it have any intention of pursuing a certain direction. What makes sense for one species does not necessarily make sense for another, and the evolutionary direction that the development of one species or biological system takes does not correspond to the direction of other species or systems in its environment. Human beings, for instance, have on average become a lot taller in recent centuries. This does not imply that other species became taller as well, or that evolution is generally aimed at tallness. Nevertheless, I am sure that the increased height of human beings will have perturbed the various subsystems within the human body and triggered certain evolutionary developments that biologists might be able to trace and make sense of. While there is no general meaning of having gotten taller (e.g., approaching a perfect human height), this change will help biologists make sense of a number of evolutionary changes in the human body (e.g., in the muscular system). It can even help sociologists explain how sociological change occurs, such as the production of longer beds. While a social systems theorist might make sense of an increasing variety in furniture size, Marxists may detect the meaning of this development in an ever-expanding capitalist economy, and liberals may see it as an indication of the liberation of consumer choice. Traditional historicist attempts to define the trajectory of historical progress are, from an evolutionary perspective, comparable to biological attempts to define the trajectory of "progress" in human height. Biologically, it is uncommon to conceive of increased human body height as advancement toward an evolutionary goal. The idea of improving and purifying the biological development of human life was in fact one of the sociobiological experiments infamously conducted in twentieth-century Europe. Such a biopolitical project is certainly not compatible with an ecological post-Darwinian view of evolution. Ecological evolutionary theory avoids evaluations of what is desirable and what is not. It does not identify a developmental direction and it certainly does not try to give advice on how to help evolution move forward. From an Enlightenment perspective, this attitude may be criticized as a lack of engagement, but so far the concrete results of attempts to help either biological or social evolution reach its respective goals a little quicker have not been without their problems. If, as Habermas has done, one labels Luhmann's social theory as “metabiological," then it should also be added, in order to avoid misunderstandings, that this means "metaevolutionary" and not "metacreationist.” While social theorists like Habermas worked on the unfinished "project of Enlightenment" and its secularized creationist ideals, Luhmann subscribed to a radically different paradigm, namely the paradigm of ecological evolution.

My take on this is that my conceptual awareness, like everything else on this planet, involves yin and yang forces in continual and dynamic interaction. , Reality and illusion form such a pair within this framing; 'reality' being the yang aspect of my awareness and 'illusion' the yin aspect. Concepts that are were once real for me have now become illusions, and vice versa.

I have many thoughts on this very complex topic. I'll make a start by quoting a passage from David Cooper's Convergence with Nature: A Daoist Perspective. It's a perspective that reflects much of my actual day to day life as someone who lives surrounded by wildlife in a semi-wilderness area. However, it certainly doesn't encapsulate the entirety of my view. The Daoist contribution It is because self-cultivation is not focused on the 'inner' rather than the 'outer' that it requires an appropriate attunement and comportment towards the natural world. Engagements with nature of the kinds described in earlier chapters help to secure the moral space – the arena in which to develop virtue – which Daoists hope to occupy. This is why the metaphor of Daoists as gardeners of the world – as cultivators of personal landscapes – is an apt one. While Daoists engage with natural environments, their engagement is also a retreat – not from an 'outer' to an 'inner' world, but from a frenzied world of activity and ambition to a quieter haven. From this haven, they have no illusions about 'saving the planet'. Like one distinguished nature writer, they eschew "plans for reorganisation and reconstruction". But, also like him, they will want "to reduce somewhat the level of suffering where [they] encountered it"" and, more generally, to serve in small, local and undramatic ways to protect and enhance the natural environments with which they engage. In doing so, they live naturally or spontaneously, for their actions are not dictated by principles and plans, but are mindful and pliant responses to the situations and contexts they encounter. Daoists, then, are unlikely to be found among `eco-warriors', but they will be found tending gardens, feeding birds in winter, protecting local wildlife from clumsy combine harvesters, opposing plans for a factory farm near their villages, and encouraging their neighbours to appreciate the useful uselessness of a threatened grove of trees. If this sounds insufficiently radical, one should recall that it is a way of living that is achieved only through a deep transformation of the self.

Generally speaking, I'm not overly fond of brain theory but I make an exception for McGilchrist's work. I was introduced to his brain hemisphere theories via an interview a few years back on Australia'a Radio National. You can download the podcast or read the full transcript here. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/the-master-and-his-emissary-the-divided-brain-and/3047408#transcript According to McGilchrist (and many others) our contemporary world has become dangerously dominated by left-brain type perception resulting in "an increasingly fragmented, decontextualised world marked by unwarranted optimism mixed with the feeling of emptiness". Of course both hemispheres need to work together but according to Iain the right hemisphere allows us to feel direct connection with the world and therefore should be primary. I've found McGilchrist's insights extremely helpful for deepening my Daoist based praxis. Really, I go so far as to say this is essential knowledge for anyone on a spiritual path. Since I've learnt of his theory it's become obvious to me that the traditional methods of both Buddhist and Daoist cultivation have the effect of enhancing right-brain function.

From The Daoist Tradition by Louis Komjathy…… Daoist Dietetics Dietetics refers to food consumption and to theories related to eating and nutrition. Conventionally speaking, dietetics is primarily about food and liquids, especially consumable beverages. In contemporary America, the dominant view of food is based on modern theories of nutrition and modern scientific categorizations, though there are also cultural and religious minority viewpoints. In addition to fruits and vegetables, grains, dairy, and meat, the dominant view includes scientific analysis based on "vitamins and minerals," "sugars," "proteins," carbohydrates," and so forth. Such views differ from those of traditional Chinese and Daoist dietetics, a point which highights the cultural dimensions of diet. The most common analytical framework in Chinese dietetics centers on yin (cold/cooling/moistening) - yang (hot/warming/drying) and Five Phase characteristics (e.g. the five flavors). Such categorization is also utilized in Chinese pharmacology and the classification of herbal substances. Like other dimensions of the Daoist tradition, such as the foundational cosmology and certain views of self, Daoist dietetics is, first and foremost, rooted in traditional Chinese views and consumption patterns. Although "dietetics" technically refers to theories and practices related to food intake, and especially to the modern study of nutrition in terms of health, Daoist dietetics is much more complex than "food consumption." In addition to the conventional, therapeutic, and cosmological ingestion of food, Daoist dietetics includes ascetic, alchemical, and monastic approaches. Considered comprehensively, it encompasses dietary modification, fasting regimens, herbology and mineralogy, as well as vegetarianism, avoidance of the five strong-smelling vegetables, and abstention from intoxicants. Daoist dietetical views, the religious rationales and motivations behind one's relationship to food, consumable substances, and forms of nourishment, are also diverse. As is the case with Daoist Yangsheng practice, motivations range from health and healing through vitality and longevity to immortality. Food intake The traditional Chinese, and thus Daoist, diet centers on the consumption of grains, vegetables, beans and legumes, as well as fruit, with smaller, supplemental amounts of eggs and the flesh of slaughtered animals ("meat"). Before the modern period, dairy products were scarce, if not non-existent in the Chinese diet. This was a shared Chinese and pan-East Asian diet. In certain regions, the standard Chinese diet also includes mushrooms, nuts and seeds, and seaweed. Water and tea, hot water infused with dried leafs from the Camellia sinensis tree, were the primary beverages of traditional China. Various types of grain alcohol were also consumed. Daoist dietetics related to food intake involves a therapeutic orientation and parallels classical Chinese medicine. A Daoist therapeutic diet emphasizes the complex interplay among one's constitution and energetic tendencies, climate and seasons, and qualities of food. On the most basic level, it categorizes things in terms of yin (cold, cooling, moistening, etc.) and yang (hot, warming, drying, etc. Next, it categorizes things in terms of the Five Phases (wuxing), namely, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. One's constitution may have, for example, an excess of Water and Earth, and a deficiency of Wood and Fire. Each of these is associated with particular organs, tissues, conditions, seasons, flavors grains, vegetables, meat, etc. A common use of correlative cosmology with respect to dietetics involves the five flavors namely, sour (Wood/liver), bitter (Fire/heart), sweet (Earth/spleen), spicy (Meta lungs), and salty (Water/kidneys). The ideal meal consists of a balance of each of the five flavors. One may, in turn, adjust one's lifestyle and diet to return to an increased condition of equilibrium and homeostasis, of health and wellbeing. At the same time, one may simply be attentive to the energetic qualities of specific foods in relation to one's constitution. One may consume food in a more therapeutic and energetic way. From a Daoist perspective, a therapeutic diet includes a seasonal and energetic component. This takes us to another dimension of Daoist dietetics, namely, cosmological attunement. A cosmological orientation again utilizes correlative cosmology, that is, yin-yang and the Five Phases. One becomes attentive to the energetic qualities of specific seasons: spring (minor yang), summer (major yang), fall (minor yin), and winter (major yin), and adjusts one's lifestyle and diet accordingly. The primary factors in one's health, after cosmological, ancestral, and environmental influences, are food (spleen/stomach) and breath (lungs). From this perspective, clean air, nourishing food, and good sleep are the foundations of health and wellbeing. Connecting these insights to seasonal awareness, one adjusts one's sleeping and eating patterns in relation to the corresponding seasons: in spring, one goes to bed early and wakes up early; in summer, one goes to bed late and wakes up early; in fall, one goes to bed early and wakes up early; in winter, one goes to bed early and wakes up late. That being said, many Daoist practitioners find that they require less sleep and less food as their practice deepens. With respect to eating, one eats foods in season. In a contemporary, industrialized context, this is often difficult to determine, as food grown all over the world is transported to international locations. However, in a traditional context, one can observe the principles of seasonality and bioregionalism, that is, eating local, seasonal, and organic foods. An interesting modern example, which expresses some classical Taoist principles, is Masanobu Fukuoka's (1913-2008) The One Straw Revolution. Finally, with respect to food intake, Daoists have often followed standard Chinese dietary principles, principles which have a root in Yangshang ("nourishing life") practices. One is encouraged to recognize the ancestors (human and non-human) before eating. One adjusts one's diet with attentiveness to age, season, and health issues. One eats pure and fresh foods. One eats food containing the various flavors. One eats a nourishing meal during the time of the stomach (7 a.m. - 9 a.m.). One primarily eats vegetables, fruits, grains, and beans. One takes at least 100 steps after finishing a meal. One enjoys the food and company that surrounds one. With respect to dietary prohibitions, one is advised to avoid eating anything discolored or bad-flavored. One avoids eating anything not well cooked. One avoids eating anything that is rotten, old, or stale. One avoids eating late at night and eating a full meal at dinner. One avoids over-eating. One avoids lying down immediately after eating. One avoids negative emotions when eating. In a modern context, one also avoids drinking ice water with meals, as it taxes the spleen-stomach and inhibits digestion, which is sometimes compared to a warm stew. There are also specifically monastic guidelines, which parallel Daoist ideals of ritual purity. One avoids eating strongly flavored dishes (garlic, onions, leeks, etc.), which are associated with the creation of heat and activation of sexual energy. One abstains from smoking. One abstains from drinking alcohol. While these dietary principles derive from a variety of sources, both Daoist and non-Daoist, both ancient and modern, it is noteworthy that one already finds a precursor in the fourth-century BCE "Neiye" (Inward Training) chapter of the Guanzi (Book of Master Guan). THE WAY OF EATING Considering the way of eating, If you over indulge, your qi will be injured. This will cause your body to deteriorate. If you over restrict, your bones will be weakened. This will cause your blood to congeal. The place between over-indulgence and over-restriction, We call this "harmonious completion." Here is the lodging-place of vital essence. It is also where knowing is generated. When hunger and satiation lose their regulation, You must make a plan to rectify this. If you are overly satiated, engage in activity. If you are hungry, expand your thinking. If you are old, forget your worries. If you are overly satiated and do not move, The qi will not circulate through the limbs. If you are hungry and do not expand your thinking, When you finally do eat you will not stop. If you do not forget your worries when old, The wellspring of your vitality will dissipate. ("Neiye' Chapter 23) (Komjathy goes on to explain in detail specific Daoist ascetic diets, alchemical diets, and Monastic diets.)

I like what you've written and concur, with the exception of your final paragraph. For me, reality is multiple so I have no trouble accepting the reality of my separate ego. I don't find the reality / illusion dichotomy particularly helpful as for me awareness is both real and illusionary at the same time. Awareness of a 'greater reality' certainly puts my ego in a secondary position though. (I'm using the term 'ego' in the sense of ego being the centre of my consciousness, rather than the more popular connotation of an inflated sense of self.) Accepting the secondary role of my individual ego allows an expansion of my sense of self. However, I agree that we human's fight to keep our ego centre-stage. For me, the degree of surrender I've achieved has been hard won through my defeats in life over decades. On this spiritual path the hero must die. From Leonard Cohen....... Roshi said something nice to me one time. He said that the older you get, the lonelier you become, and the deeper the love you need. Which means that this hero that you're trying to maintain as the central figure in the drama of your life—this hero is not enjoying the life of a hero. You're exerting a tremendous maintenance to keep this heroic stance available to you, and the hero is suffering defeat after defeat. And they're not heroic defeats; they're ignoble defeats. Finally, one day you say, "Let him die—I can't invest any more in this heroic position.”

This sounds like a description of right-brain function as delineated by Iain McGilchrist...... Iain McGilchrist in his widely acclaimed brain hemisphere function thesis published as ‘The Master and His Emissary’ writes "In one (right-brain), we experience - the live, complex, embodied, world of individual, always unique beings, forever in flux, a net of interdependencies, forming and reforming wholes, a world with which we are deeply connected. In the other (left-brain) we 'experience' our experience in a special way: a 're-presented' version of it, containing now static, separable, bounded, but essentially fragmented entities, grouped into classes on which predictions can be based......(Right-brain) is the way in which we all experience the world pre-reflectively, before we have had a chance to 'view' it at all.....These are not different ways of thinking about the world: they are different ways of being in the world." Using this analogy, it's through right-brain function that we activate what's being called non-dual perception on this thread. It's how we connect with mind of Dao. From a Daoist perspective McGilchrist's title could well be "The Mind of Dao and her Interpreter the Human Mind". (Speaking personally, I don't like the term "non-dual" as it has so much cultural and tradition based baggage. And in a strict sense non-dual awareness is beyond the capabilities of us embodied humans, as has already been mentioned in this discussion.)