vsaluki

Interesting. I would not agree with that being an aspect of Taoism. I think that Confusionism was all about the cultivation of conduct. And the Taoists pick on the Confusions for this. They think that it's artificial and pretentious. They think that it creates a person who follows something that isn't natural.

Okay, new day. Lets try again. I'm trying to understand the problem that you are trying to solve with your approach. As I see it, the central issues are suffering, free will, and other minds. Your system has started with the idea that these problems must be solved and so a religion was invented to solve them. It reminds me of a case of curve fitting where you have certain data points and then you evolve a method or theory that covers the data points. Then you declare that your theory is correct because the data points are covered. They recently did that at the University of Colorado with solar cycles. A woman from India worked with the past solar cycles and declared that she had a model that was 98% accurate. Problem is, the first time she tried to use it to predict, it fell absolutely flat on it's face. But let's start with the problem you are trying to solve. It seems to me that the "life is suffering" problem is your central axiom. It's like the hub around which you are building a wheel. Then in attacking that problem you also want to deal with the problems of free will and other minds. Okay, but personally, I'm not that interested in the hub as the central focus point for a religion. I don't experience life as suffering. Yes, there is a little suffering occassionally, but so what. It's just a phenomena. I'd be curious to know what happens in Buddhism after you solve the suffering problem. Seems like you are left with rather dead flat landscape. Ever try to watch a movie where nothing goes wrong? Ever wonder why people don't make movies like that? It also looks like the whole, "everybody is suffering. I have to save them with my compassion", thing is just another huge ego trip. It reminds me of the story of some Buddhist monks that went to the pet store and bought a bunch of fish. Then they went to the shore and started turning them loose. In the meantime, the seagulls started to attack the fish and the monks tried desperately to shoo them away. They were essentially taking sides in a natural process and they thought that it was somehow benevolent. To me, they were idiots. Is that what they got from their years of meditation? You seem to be concerned with the idea that with a unative god model there is someone to blame for suffering. And you want to be able to blame yourself and your karma for your suffering. I personally don't care about placing blame for suffering. It is what it is and it's source is the same source as the source of all phenomena. So what? Like I said, you have basically invented a religion designed to answer your questions and as long as it does that you think it must be right. But I don't believe your answers. And I think that the obscurity of your syntax is meant to confuse the issue rather than clarify it. One thing that I like about Lao Tzu is that he never pretends to have answers for things for which he has no answers. He gives you what he has and he's quite contented with what he has. Can you not see what a load of bull that is? You are using "arises" as another word for "caused by" or "created by". But you have yet to explain how it is that this, that and the other are able to cause or create. You say that the power of causation is causation. You say that we don't have to be able to explain it because it has always been that way. I say that you are talking pure nonsense. I say that there is nothing that corresponds to your words. You are lost in your own words, and you think you have meaning. You don't. You drew a map and you said "this is reality". It's not. You say that it's true because of your meditative experiences. I say that your meditative experiences are just more empty phenomena produced by the same source that produces all of your other phenomena, including suffering. There is no "end of the universe". The universe is simply phenomena. Does the creative source that is self stop creating at some point? I don't know. But I'm not going to make up answers because I don't know. When you say that "you will dissolve into this god", that is not correct. I am already dissoved into that source of creation. I am not the phenomena. I don't care if the phenomena dissolves or not. You are thinking dualistically. What is it that suffers. There is no seperate self apart from the creative source that is being told "okay, vsaluki, I want you to suffer". Suffering is phenomena. It is an integral part of Self. And Self is God. If there is suffering it is not imposed, it is simply experienced by the very source that created it. It is not punishment or residue from past lifetimes. It is simply an integral part of this life. Judging it as evil or brutal or undesireable is again an empty phenomena. And it is a limited judgement made by an empty phenomena. The experience and the judgement are the same stuff coming from the same place. What Loa Tze would tell us is that it's all okay. Just take it in. Don't try to fix it. Buddhists want to delude themselves and think that there is something to fix and that they can be the source of the fix. It's all ego. Nothing is fixed. Suffering and joy, happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, the whole panorama of contrast, go on, and there is absolutely nothing that any Buddhist can do about it.

Yes, I can see that using the words emptiness and nothingness to mean two different things is really an attempt at clarity. LOL. But I guessed that you meant something other than nothingness when you used emptiness, and the rest of my post still holds with regards to dependent origination. I'll get back to this tomorrow.

It is not a solution at all. It's simply shoving the problem away with language. A beginningless and endless god as the creator of phenomena is just as good a solution. Like I said, I get it. I got it long ago. But everything creating everything is a stupid idea. It avoids the question of how this matrix of co-creation creates. Saying that it is beginningless and endless still avoids the question. Saying that it always has and it always will still avoids the question. What you don't understand is that you are making simple assertions and you haven't given me a single reason why those assertions are a better model than the unitive god model. So then you claim that it is better because you sit on a cusion and meditate and you have direct experience. Well, other people who sit on a cushion and meditate have a different direct experience. So far your explanation for why your experience is superior is a complete flop. It's a nonsensical question. They have no more reason to dissolve with the unative god model than they do with your model. If you are talking about death, there is no death. The unitive god is both self and eternal. If there is an interruption of phenomena it does not effect the source of the phenomena. If you are asking what happens before during and after all perceivable phenomena disolve, the answer is I don't know. But I also don't care, because the true me is not the phenomena, but rather the source of the phenomena. You don't know what happens either. You've simply made up an answer about rebirth. ROFLMAO. It's been fun. I need to get some sleep - dissolve the phenomena.

This is dumb. If reality is empty then there is no reality. If there is no reality, then there are no phenomena. If you want to say that emptiness can create phenomena then you are playing word games instead of trying to communicate. An emptiness that can create phenomena is not empty. Your problem is that there are phenomena. The phenomena have to be generated. If you say that they come from subunits or if you say that they come from god, you have the same problems. I've understood non-duality for 35 years. I may be new to some of your terminology, but from what you are able to explain, your model has all of the same problems that you claim the uniative god model has. What the unitive god creates is not an object to be observed and an observer to observe it, but rather the unative god is the source of all the phenomena that we typically characterize as reality. You can call them empty phenomena or you can call them mind. But if you think that describing what is behind them as some kind of multiple sub unit creative matrix will eliminate problems of metaphysical conceptualization, then you simply don't understand your own solution.

Just another empty phenomena. Same problem with the crunch. Yes, I got that long ago. What I'm stating is that the conceptual problems that you claim for one thing all exist for your solution of having all things come from all things. A lot of people meditate and sit on a cusion. Some of them have the unative experience of god. You call their experiences empty phenomena. But your experiences are equally empty phenomena. You claim that your experiences are more real or of a higher caliber because they fit in with a better conceptualization. But your conceptualization has all of the problems that you claim that the unitive god has. Yes, it's a little different. But you haven't solved any of the problems of the unitive god conception that you claim makes yours superior. You think that using the words beginningless and endless somehow get you out of the regression problem. But that solution also gets the unitive god out of the regression problem. My existence is explained just as well by the unitive god idea as it is by your idea that all things come from all things. Because the question remains, from where did all things aquire the power to create reality. Your answer that they are beginningless is and evasion and the same evasion can be used with a unative god. My existence is doing just fine, thank you. Same applies to you. Ditto. Ditto. It's as paradoxical as unative creation. Now, take everything that you just said and imagine that a person with a unative experience of god is saying it to you. Then imagine that he has replaced the word Buddha with the words Lao Tzu.

Again, same magic, different words. Why not call beginningless causation god. The only difference is that you have broken it into subunits. But all of your subunits have all of the same problems that you claim for a unitive god. I can't, and neither can you. It's simply words. Not really. Because regardless of how far you go back, you have to start out with something to bang. By calling it beginningless you are simply pulling a rabbit out of a hat. I can also call a unitive god beginningless and avoid your problem of infinite regression. Both conceptualizations have the problem of infinite regression and you are permitting yourself a solution through words that have no meaning, but you won't let others use the same out. Ah, but that's just a phenomena, exactly the same as what you claim that the uniative people are experiencing. The problem of other minds has always been a dead end in mysticism. Nobody wants to be a solipsist. What the Buddha did is simply to punt. Another concoction that hopes to make the problem disappear through the use of linguistic abstractions that mean absolutely nothing. I hate to take sides in an arguement that is no better than how many angles can fit on the head of a pin, but at least Lao Tze didn't pretend that he could solve a problem that he couldn't solve by making up a bunch of absurd mumbo jumbo.

What is the source of the infinite sentient beings? Oh, they are beginningless and endless. Well, so is the unitive source. This is really a silly language game.

LOL. Well, that's a nice way to deal with the problem of other minds. But I see no evidence and I see no logic. Just a hacked together set of words that seem to have meaning, but don't.

How do you know that there is no source? I'm sure that you have them, but can you give me a couple of quotes from the Buddha about no source. I wouldn't say that not experiencing a source is equivalent to there being no source. It's the old black swan dilemna. Why would there be an endless regress. The ability to ask and endless regress question does not impose a metaphysical condition of endless regress. I think that I would want to base a realization on an experience, or at least an inescapable logical consistency. It seems to me that what you are talking about is a simple conceptualization.

Sorry, you are wrong again. Here are some pieces of poetry from the Sufi Poet Sachal Sarmast: "Neither did I roll rosary, nor did I ponder and pray, I went to no mosque or temple, nor bow in adoration any, Sachal is lucky everyday, love is all around him. The kalma did not, make me a Muslim Nor did the prophet send faith from Arabia Sachoo*, is himself divine, if humans think him human. Truth this way you will attain not, Oh Sachoo! By just reading and studying the Books. Some say one thing, some say another, I am, who I am. Some say I am an infidel, some say I am a believer, I am, who I am. Yogis assemble here, they came and they passed by, They roused our hearts, they played their merry flutes, The company of those yogis, I will not forget though I die. You by yourself, know what is in your form! Why chant 'Allah Allah'? Find Allah within you. You listen, you see, Allah's word is witness, There is no doubt, O Sachal! that the Lord is One! To remain silent Is to be an accomplice To speak out is to be an infidel And here is a piece from Rumi. From "Signs of the Unseen" page 106. This is Rumi's subtle and politic way of saying, "We Sufi's don't need the laws of Quran, Ahadith, and Sharia." And I still have yet to see your evidence that the banal, repetitive, incoherent Quran is in any way spiritual. It is about laws, politics, barbarity, superstition, inhumanity and rituals. Nothing else. You can see Mohammed damning and threatening unbelievers with hell on virtually every page. It goes on ad nauseum. But real spirituality is simply not there. I don't understand how anyone can read it and not have their stomach turned.

Try this. There is a guru named Osho. He claims to have had sex with more than 100 women. And he has published a couple of books on Tao. His behaviour and his history are very spotty. And I'm not talking about the sex. But on the other hand, his explanations of Tao are excellent. I don't believe that the idea is that you cannot have passion or enjoyment. I believe that the idea is that you cannot be ruled by them and you cannot use them to feed your ego.

Okay, I'm still struggling with translations. I have the Hua-Ching Ni translantion. Today I went to Borders and compared four translations, including Ni's, for chapers 18-21. It's apparent that the variation is significant. I would be okay with that if the meanings were similar. But occassionally it looks like one or the other of the translators just plain screwed up the meaning. I'm basing that on the disagreement of meaning with the other translators. I went to the web site for the raw word translations that you get from clicking on the Chinese symbols; but to be honest, I can't get a logical flow doing that. I think you have to understand Chinese; and better yet, Chinese culture; and better yet, Chinese culture of the Lao Tzu era. It looks like my translator, Ni, is especially loose and especially expansive in how he does his translation. Of course that doesn't mean that he is wrong. But it makes me want to verify him. In my short exploration it never looks like the majority flat out disagreed with him - so that helps a little. I believe that he's studied mysticism and the Tao all of his life, so he probably feels that he can take certain liberties. Also, if you understand Chuang Tzu and read Loa Tzu the way that Chuang Tzu might have, you tend to get Ni's translations more readily. I mean when I look at some of the more literal translations, it looks like the things that Loa Tzu hints at in them, Chuang Tzu says outright. Since I'm especially fond of Chuang Tzu, having Ni expand his translations in that direction suits my taste just fine. But if we hopefully discuss some of these chapters more deeply later on it would be good if we agreed on a translation. Here is an example from sutra 20 From Jane English: Other have more than they need, but I alone have nothing. I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused. Other men are clear and bright, But I alone am dim and weak. Other men are sharp and clever, But I alone am dull and stupid. Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea. Without direction, like the restless wind. Everyone else is busy, But I alone am aimless and depressed. I am different. I am nourished by the great mother. From Hua-Ching Ni: The people of the world have more than enough. I alone appear to have nothing. The people of the world appear shrewd and wise. I alone look foolish. I like to be forgotten by the world and left alone. Indeed, I have the mind of a single person! Calm and self-contained, I am like the vast ocean. Free and seemingly aimless, I am like a gentle wind. Everyone seems so clever and self-assured. I alone appear unlearned and original, insistent upon a different direction than other people pursue. I alone value taking my sustenance from the Mother. Notice that Ni adds things like "appear" and "seem" where English does not. It makes a big difference, usless you assume that the reader knows Lao Tzu's meaning. Notice that English uses the word "depressed". I didn't see that word in the literal translation. The literal translation has the symbol for "alone". But that could also be "independent". English assumes that aloneness = depression. And she may be taking Lao Tzu's words more literally than she should. In Ni's case all of those words are conditioned with the "seem" and "appear". For me, it's hard to imagine an enlightened mystic as being depressed. It would also mean that "taking your sustenance from the Mother" is somehow inferior to the company of happy men. I cannot imagine that Lao Tzu would mean that. So I have to assume that English's translation is just wrong, and that Ni's translation, while sometimes less true to the literal, is correct. Of course in the case where English uses the word depressed, she seems to be wrong both with regards to the literal and the interprative. Any thoughts?

Thinking of themselves as modern western Taoists with challenges to overcome may be the biggest problem. That said, I am a bit of a loss as to what to make of all these different translations. Sometimes it is not just slight variation, but actual differences in the meaning.

I've seen Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu both say that the best kind of rulers are the ones that you don't even know are there. Maybe that applies to moderators as well.

Appealing to people the right way is everything. I think that half of the McDonalds that I've ever eaten I ate because my daughter wanted to go to their playground. And many was the time that my wife and I bemoaned the fact that we couldn't find a good, healthy restaurant with the same kind of playground as McDonalds. If we play the game right we can solve much of the problem without having the government force things on people.

Okay, let's add part 3 for the definition of socialism. 3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles. Collectivization, ownership, and control of the means of production simply means that property and control are moved from the individual and are turned over to the government. The "community as a whole" thing is pure bull. Nothing is done by the "community as a whole". All decisions are made by the government. The fact that the government was elected is irrelevant. Fascists are often elected as well. So once the ownership and control of the means of production are in the hands of the government, they pretty much have complete control, just like the fascist. Now look at the part for the fascist that says "forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism". No one has done more of that and done it better than Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela etc. The part for the fascist that says, "regimenting all industry, commerce, etc. applies equally to socialism. Socialism may not be exactly the same as fascism, but they are very close. And they meet at the back of the circle in a thing called totalitarianism. And for the private individual that is on the receiving end of either form of government, they look very much alike. Namely that someone takes their property and tells them how to live in every aspect of their life. If anything, socialism may be more suffocating in telling people how to live. Of course the definitions leave a lot of commonality out. The Fascist dictators also had national health care.

Agree with that completely. I went back and checked the balance of my quotes three times on each of the posts that came out misformatted. Notice that sometimes my formats come out correctly. In any case, if you can tell me what I did wrong, I'd be happy to know. My quote stuff is all showing up on the page. It's not an all or nothing proposition. By free I mean that I make all the choices of what I do and when I do it in my life. Obviously we all have a fairly large set of obligations that prevent that. But I still have a big chunk of my life where I can call it as I like. What I want is to maximize that chunk and to keep anyone, like the government, from reducing it. Now, if you are talking about the metaphysical concept of determinism we are in a different ball game.

Am I okay with paying for that. No, of course not. But that is the catch 22 that we find ourselves in when we pay for healthcare with tax money. First we force people into a government financed and controlled system, then we claim that we can tell them how to live their lives. If government health care is going to be a given, then we have two options. Take away peoples freedom and tell them how to live, or pay the tab for that freedom. My vote will always come down on the side of freedom - even if I don't like paying for it. But the problem goes further than that. If we are going to regulate and tax and coerce based on the healthcare excuse, then where are we going to stop. We start by taxing fattening foods. Of course you can get fat eating pasta. How about alcohol and cigarettes. Their consumption is going to result in bigger tax payer bills. How about people playing too much video or watching too much TV. That can make them fat and unhealthy. Should we have regulations only allowing people 1 hour of each a day. How about surfing the net and talking on social forums. Enough of that will certainly widen out your butt. Maybe we could mandate that everyone show up at a common location for exercise every day. That would help their health. How many things about the way that you live your life effects your health. I mean where does it stop. I could imagine the fat guy that you described above saying, hey if you are going to tell me how to live because of healthcare costs, then I don't want people taking my tax money to pay for some hokus pokus holistic health programs that have never undergone the billion dollar testing programs or even the emperical validity test that other forms of healthcare must undergo. Then we could all fight over who has what right to impose what kind of regulations on whom. In the meantime, government is writing more laws and taxes every day limiting our choice of how to live. Government is always happy to play off groups against each other. We all think that we know better how other people should live. The test of your believe in freedom and your own right to freedom lies in your willingness to defend the freedom of people whose actions you don't approve. In my opinion, the Toa way is to have yourself flow with the universe. It's not forcing others to flow as you think they should. That's like trying to turn the yin yang symbol all into what you believe to be white.

LOL. Yeah, I've been following that drama for the last couple of years. At first NASA's top scientist were saying that we were about to have the largest solar cycle in the last 400 years. Then when it wouldn't start when they predicted, they simply moved the time line for the same prediction to the right. After that went on for a while and the sun was still not responding they started to drop the size of the solar cycle. Now it looks more like we are going to have one of the smallest solar cycles in 400 years. It's been a real comedy. Of course that extends to the global warming predictions as well. We haven't had any global warming for the last 11 years. They used to tell us that the effects of CO2 would override all natural cyclic temperature effects and that the temperature would simply keep rising. Now they are saying that we have had no temperature rise because the natural effects are overriding the CO2 effects temporarily. But when you ask them specifically what natural elements of temperature variation are now holding the temperature down, they can't tell you. They simply don't know. So on the one hand they cannot explain what we have already seen for the last 11 years, on the other, they claim that they can predict the next 100 years. Then there's the polar ice shrinkage issue. After the 2007 low in Arctic sea ice some of the scientist thought that we might actually see an ice free north pole in 2008. There were numerous newspaper articles about it. It turned out that the ice coverage increased in 2008, and then increased even more in 2009. Of course through all of this they completely ignored the fact that we had some near record highs in sea ice extent in the south pole. And they ignore the fact that we had an ice free north pole about 6000 years ago. Alarmism is a growth industry. Crazy. Regarding the healthcare issue, I agree with you. There is inadequate competition. A friend of mine had eye surgery recently and he showed me his billing statement. I was shocked at what the Hospital charged for the simplest items. We need to increase the supplies of healthcare and require that doctors and hospitals list the price of all of their services on the internet; and that they give anyone who wants one a price menu at the front door. We badly need tort reform. We could do this independently without effecting the current system. We could have done it years ago. I mean who was against it? No one but the lawyers. And their contributions to the Democratic party kept it from happening. Then when we've lowered costs as much as possible, we need to figure out who is simply too poor to afford health care and we give these people health care vouchers to use with whom they choose. Some people in the gray area financially may get vouchers to supplement what they can afford. Those who can afford health care for themselves would be on their own. They could buy it or not buy it. But the government wouldn't bail them out either way. In my mind, that would solve the coverage problem, introduce competition, lower costs, and best of all, keep the government out of it - other than supplying the vouchers. I don't know what the Tao answer would be. I don't think that Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu had healthcare coverage. But I would refer people to the first four lines of Sutra 58 of the Tao Teh Ching. Regarding the taxation of fattening foods - I don't believe that we have the right to tell people how to live. And if we are going to force them on government healthcare, I don't regard that as an excuse to tell them how to live. Just think about how far the government can go with that. The fact that we believe that people should live healthy life styles is nice, but it doesn't give us the right to run others lives. I go for a bike ride in the mountains five times a week, keep my weight down, and my health up. When I go to the Mall and see the parade of grossly overweight bodies, I'm a little disgusted. But I value freedom above all else, and so I would never presume to tell these people how to live.

You are my kind of Guru. The enlightened say that the world is already perfect. Sometimes Johnnie Walker can cast it in the same light.

Thanks. I have the Hua-Ching Ni translation. But he seems to do a lot of expansion. It's nice to have other translations to compare it to.

Well, I guess that ends our conversation then. I suppose that trying to communicate with someone that thinks a dignified life can be "awarded" is just a waste of my time in any case.

Let's remember what my question was. I want not only what you consider to be "bullshit"; But also evidence that it is being propogated by a healthcare company. Where is that evidence? Now, regarding the "death panel bullshit", I believe that the British government already has guidelines for the limits of healthcare to senior citizens. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthne...on-the-NHS.html and that people have already died due to such panel decisions. http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/A....aspx?id=505757 This is a system that you stated is "OK" And I think that Rahm Emanuelle's brother has also suggested that we need such a program. Now the current administration proposed to add more people to the heathcare roles and to simultaneously cut the costs. Just how do you think that is going to happen? When costs run over, as they invariably will, how will the government control costs. And what are the advisory panels for seniors suppose to do? Do they need government advisors? Aren't their doctors able to advise them on their healthcare as they are doing now. This is a new government function. Why do you think it is there? So basically we see an administration that sees it's program in trouble because certain objections are raised and so they come out and declare that it's all "bullshit". But when you consider the evidence, it looks to me like their declaration of "bullshit" is bullshit. Again, you are failing to trace this back to the insurance companies. And you have failed to give me an example of where government programs haven't always become larger and where government control hasn't always expanded. As I said earlier, the only reason that Obama doesn't want to try for a complete take over of healthcare is because they know that they cannot get the support. So they will take as much as they can get and leave more for later. This has always been the pattern. Without exception. We already do. "You people can't have private jets," says Nancy as she steps into her private jet. "You people are too fat. It's costing our healthcare system. We are going to tax fattening food." That is your predominant emotion about corporations, even though their power over our lives is small compared to government. I'm talking about doing health insurace well. If you want to see the government do private functions well, look at the disaster of Fannie and Freddie. Who are you to tell doctors what their motivation should be? Talk about 1984. If you want to become a doctor and work cheap, that's your option. Telling others what their labor is worth is not. Yes, the entire human race is genetically miswired. And you are going to force them to be generous if they like it or not. Thank you comrade. What I love is the fact that a man who never sent a nickle to his impoverished brother in Africa is going to lead us to the brave new world where we are all generous at the point of the government gun. I don't see very many people like that. What I see is a lot more people who think that pure socialism actually works. I asked you earlier if you supported any limits on how far our march to socialism should take us and you did not answer. Nothing will ever produce a utopia. But people who think that people are inherently flawed and that they have to get government to forcibly fix them will undoubtedly produce a hell. And who is keeping government in check? Probably not the voters. They have become convinced by government propaganda that they can vote themselves someone else's property. Maybe you could come up with a nice government breeding program for that. The Soviet Union tried propaganda, but it just didn't cut it. People were still people. And I'm fine with people just being people. It's people who want to fix people that bother me. That explains our failure to communicate. I hold freedom as a primary value and you declare it's none existence. Tao Teh Ching Fifty-Eight When the government does not interfere, the people are simple and happy. When the government does interfere, the people are tense and cunning. Hau-Ching Ni translation.