wandelaar

@ OldDog Well - that's not exactly what I meant. For instance one can have a near death experience and consider it as a (perhaps interesting) freak of consciousness under stress, or one could have exactly the same experience and become completely convinced of the existence of life-after-death. So the results could be radically different depending on one's personality. No doubt the same is true for enlightenment experiences. There is no reason to consider the sceptical person as not yet ready for the truth, because one could just as well consider the ready-to-believe person as too gullible. Besides I'm already convinced of the fact that our sense of being an autonomic entity with a free will is an illusion, and that the world process forms one big interconnected whole. So what else is there to learn?

As to sudden and gradual enlightenment I think that apart from lineages and schools it also depends on one's personality what will happen.

Yes - I think I understand your approach. One could do that as soon as the idea of a somehow objective ultimate purpose no longer bothers one. It looks like the OP is still under the spell of such an ultimate purpose or of its perceived necessity.

@ OldDog Taoism does break out of the circle, but it does so by giving a non-answer. The foundation of the world is called Tao. This is OK because the world clearly has a certain structure and way of behaving, so there has to be such a foundation, and we may call this Tao. But now the logically next question is: Why is Tao as it is? (This is a problem because we can imagine all kinds of other worlds that consequently would have other Tao's as their foundation.) Now it is said that Tao is spontaneously as it is. This is a logically correct answer because if there actually were a reason for Tao to be as it is, than that Tao wouldn't be the true foundation of the world. So the chain of reasons has to stop somewhere to provide an ultimate reason, and in Taoism it stops right away with Tao. In this way no real answer is given why the world is as it is, or what we as humans are doing here. And this is exactly what I like about (philosophical) Taoism. It doesn't go beyond what can safely be known, and thus it keeps the ultimate mystery of existence intact.

That option only works for those who can simply decide to believe in some ultimate purpose, so it didn't work for me. I'm perfectly capable of making up some purpose for myself, but that by definition wouldn't be the ultimate purpose (unless of course I would have hit the mark by pure chance). But as I said if everything is ultimately futile then that also goes for worrying about ultimately futility. So the problem eats itself up, and after that one can return to the everyday world and resume the busy life that goes with its relative concerns. So the net result is that philosophically inclined people have to spend years of their life on investigating a problem that is instinctively ignored as irrelevant by ordinary and philosophically unsophisticated people. And finally the philosophically inclined arrive at the same point as the philosophically unsophisticated in disposing of the problem as a waste of time. Now isn't that ironic! (But it's in line with the TTC. )

Thinking about the ultimate utility of doing something (whatever) is a sure way to kill all joy in simply being alive. One has to live like an animal (without much thought), or like a sage who has not only seen the ultimate futility of life but also (and this is crucial!) the futility of bothering about the ultimate futility of life. Only thinking it trough halfway will result in depression or worse. That's how I solved the issue.

There are two schools: one of sudden enlightenment and one of gradual enlightenment. They are probably both correct.

Yes - but what has that to do with being awake or just dreaming? I personally once had a dream in which I dreamed to have waken up, but then after that I really woke up (not in the spiritual but in the normal sense). And it makes one wonder: could it happen that I would wake up again after that, and after that, etc. So whatever one's experiences (including spirit quests, observations on one's own body, enlightenment experiences, etc.) one simply cannot be absolutely sure that one is no longer dreaming. And that is why all absolute knowledge claims even by awakened people are unfounded. So the absolute claims of awakened people have to be considered as just as suspect as those of everybody else. And all claims of provisional knowledge by awakened people need to be validated just as all similar claims of everybody else. Of course those awakened people who are caught up in the illusion of belonging to the select few who know will flatly refuse to back up their claims by further validation. And that is why requests such as those of Still_Waters for validation are often ignored, diverted, or "answered" by remarks about the spiritual immaturity of those who dare to question the correctness of the utterances of the awakened.

I took a quick look at your link, but it would take me many hours to read. Could you give a simple and short description of what you understand by spirit quests.

It is quite possible that the world as a whole has a total of zero energy, so in that case all that is needed are the laws of nature. The world could just start from nothing. Evolution than does the rest. Now Tao is the ancient Chinese concept corresponding to our laws of nature. So from that perspective Tao and not mind or consciousness could be the foundation of the world. Now where does Tao come from? We don't know. And that is the nice thing about (philosophical) Taoism, it doesn't loose itself in empty speculation about things that are beyond our understanding. The over-the-top claims to absolute knowledge of the Awoken as they are exemplified by some posts here on The Dao Bums are nicely tackled by Chuang tzu's story of the dream of the butterfly. One simply cannot know for sure that one has finally waken up. Maybe the Awoken are more asleep than the non-Awoken, who knows?

I have (almost) enough versions of the Tao Te Ching now, and the one of this topic didn't make it through the selection.

https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Ching-Definitive-Lao-Tzu/dp/1585420999 Any comments on this book? I already have many translations of the Tao Te Ching. Would this one add something special? Is the concordance it appears to contain (not visible in the preview) of any use?

I already listened to some of those some time ago. I found them interesting as far as they described their actual experiences. But unhappily their interpretations were of the usual non dualistic dogmatic type where mind or consciousness was posed as the foundation of everything else. I have heard the preaching of this fashionable but unfounded doctrine so many times now, that I thought it wiser to simply quit listening and resume with my daily business.

It would help if you could post a link to a talk on You Tube be some such contemporary teacher as an example.

Should have known better than to participate in this topic. It's just one more of those mindless anti-science rants that currently can be found everywhere on the internet. The apples example is completely wrong, and proves that Stosh and Zen Pig have no idea what they are taking about. Nor do they show any signs of wanting to know more about it. - Have a nice time science bashing guys, I quite.

Where does the idea derive from that logic declares that one apple has to be equal to all other apples?

Or neither. It's quite conceivable that the many paradoxes in the interpretation of quantum mechanics derive from our continued use of the inappropriate concepts of "wave" and "particle". The micro-world could very well consist of something else that sometimes manifests as waves and sometimes as particles.

No it is not subjective, because digital circuits and computers can operate with logical truths. You don't need to be self conscious to do that. And errors in logical reasoning can be pointed out beyond all reasonable doubt. But you have a point in that we cannot derive empirical truths from logical truths. So the problem of defining reality cannot be solved by logical means only.

Reincarnation can easily be disproved. For even if it were true than the fraction of the personality of our previous incarnation that actually survives in our present existence has to be minute, or else the proof of the reality of reincarnation would have been overwhelming with so many people living today, and there would have been no doubt about it. I think it is a pity that the idea of reincarnation has become so popular lately. It's just muddled talk like so much in modern day spirituality. The same goes for the nonsense about everything being an illusion. If that were so than Hazrat Inayat Khan himself would also be an illusion, and we wouldn't have to bother about what he said.

There is also the difference that orthodox Buddhism accepts reincarnation and spiritual development spanning several incarnations, whereas reincarnation was not part of the early forms of Taoism. Taoism is more happy with and thankful for (everyday) life as it is.

Some people think so...

Are there any modern stories about the application of Taoism in daily life? I don't mean wonderful or magical tales, but true stories documenting actions and results that are achieved in the spirit of Lao tse and Chuang tse. I ask this question because I don't know how effective (or non-effective) a Taoist approach in actual life may be expected to be. Most Taoist stories I know are from ancient times and/or have a literary or symbolic character.

The fact that absolute knowledge is impossible was already known to the ancient sceptics. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism#History_of_Western_skepticism So that quest could have stopped right there, but the illusion dies hard. And people in emotional trouble still long for doctrines that promise absolute certainty. True scientists don't claim absolute certainty, they usually only claim to know better than those who didn't take the trouble to (sufficiently) study a particular subject. And I see nothing wrong with such a moderate claim. That's why I think that: Science is not just another religion.

Nothing wrong with Boolean logic, the internet wouldn't even exist without it. But what is wrong is creating false dilemmas. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma Now ironically this topic itself is based on a false dilemma. The reasoning goes thus: 1. We cannot be absolutely sure about anything, because we might just be dreaming. (Which is true.) But: 2. We either (a) know something or (b) we know nothing at all and would do better to do away with the very idea of knowing something. Now as it isn't (a) it has to be (b): 3. We know nothing at all and would do better to do away with the very idea of knowing something. The error here hides in the (implicit) use of a false dilemma in 2. Absolute knowledge is a favourite subject for philosophers and a dead serious illusion for religious fanatics, but everyday life, common sense and science don't need it. Provisional knowledge is good enough. So the fact that we haven't got absolute knowledge is actually irrelevant.