Stosh

The two of yall should re-examine whether that is a valid assumption to make.(unless they are intending to lie )Every time one makes a positive assertion ,they are telling the truth.Every time someone agrees or dissagrees with an item of fact they are attesting a truth.A person can say, they believe a thing is true ,from a position of not believing that there is a valid position to deny it. The assumption is as bogus, as the assumption ,that a person tends to look you right in the eyewhen they are telling the truth.When talking casually folks eyes often wander ,but when one is concerned about your reaction being negative , they watch your eyes so they can read you.If you dont believe me that this is TRUTH ,observe a person you know for a fact is lying like a politician or salesperson. They stare at your face unwavering nine times out of ten.( there is a bias for a person feeling guilty to look down and to the side, but since they are feeling guilt and giving it away with a "tell', they arent really the ones to watch out for anyway)I am only jumping in on this because recently you gave me a wierd reaction about not telling you any 'truths'. Im mildly offended.Stosh

Spot on Sir, I one time tried to explain to someone the view that "helping " is often just interfering. They got defensive My solution is that the 'mind your own business' credo is good for dealing with most folks. Folks often ask for it by name! Geez how many times have I thought it ? Oh ! if they would just shut up and mind their own business! So if you want to help ,without getting too much flak wait till they ask and have a prepared response. because they may be asking for something unhelpful. even if its family ! hmmm Especially if its family have a great weekend Stosh

That sounds like potential for agreement which is incomplete Thats good , I can do some agreeing too Your description of entropy is spot on What energy is , is still enigmatic to science This view held by Mh seems solidly rooted as well. If there was a way to draw Cd into agreement the event would be quite noteworthy Have a nice weekend guys just keep thinking dust in the wind maybe humm it Stosh

sinancencer Im responding to this "but anyways taoism says dont make any effort, by trying to heal, you lay the foundation for disharmony, so im still learning by trying to heal others you lay the foundation for disharmony." Its up to you whether you wish to risk a bit of disharmony for someone elses wellbeing or whether you are living for your own internal "harmony" and thats it. (Personally I too think there are no free lunches and that someone has to absorb the negative.) Yes, wise benevolence drops its fruit uncaring unconcerned , but its more human nature to exend a bit beyond ourselves than it is to isolate ourselves. The thing is to choose wisely when one can extend a bit , have an effect for the better, and when to act with restraint, understanding that restraint too can be "good" I figure it boils down to the meaning that you want your life to have whether its one of extension and integration and having effects or if the meaning you want to have is to have no effect other than existing unto oneself. Stosh

Mh That fits nice with the concept of entropy , by the way. so its quite practical in practice too if you embrace the analogy. Stosh ( PS Tao iteslf is never visible just as entropy is not one can see the effects of the wind but not the wind itself) Hence the song "All we are is -dust in the wind"

I really see no correction in your correction Cd , just a narrow word association. Well, Harmonius E , it is just my personal understanding that Tao is the invisible stage that things happen in and happen on. It defines the rules of what can happen and those things that cant There are things which are larger scale consequences of the rules like evolution , and the bevelopment on consciousness like you and I have. I dont care what chinese labels are put on it (except as interesting footnotes) I am not alarmed if Cd doesnt endorse any of it , most of this equates to mythology to me You live your Dao and thats the important thing The figurative way the old texts were written and the characters that were used have inherent vagueness and words pop out of our minds before they are monitored , not after. IF you do any figurative writing on the side it should become apparrent that the only "Authentic" reading and understanding is by the authour at the time he was writing it . You go back an hour later and the significances have shifted. Yes at some point you put a stamp on it and call it finished and you say its your own. But the reality is that once the reader gets his hands on it things have just left your control entirely. Thats significant here in that there is a sort of circular re-emergence of the same sort of conceptry at different levels Like the "microverse recapitulating the macroverse" Some folks like the idea that they are boggled , that the world is mysical and beyond understanding ( and to a degree it is) and other folks prefer to boil things down to a point where they make sense (and therefore practical conclusions can ensue) I am a "boiler". I can go on but I dont want to belabor the point, if its boring. Stosh

Ok thats fine too but to me with Mysterious-dark female being all Tao "LaoTze portrayed Tao, in Chapter 6, as a Mysterious Female," then yin and yang are both subsets of femaleness not the other way around. Unless Tao was the stage of creation Wu?,and there was stuff in it Yo? and he was drawing analogy between women on the stage and the stage itself. Stosh

Well we started talking about chapter 10 I found a pinyin calculator and Ch 10 has a pin in it which I think means female and so the line is confirmed as can you play the part of a female more or less The calc also says that yin is synonymous with feminine If in chapter 6 Tao altogether is the mystic female then yin would be the feminine aspect of the total Tao which would be a female and yang would be the masculine aspect of the mysterious female so if chapter 10 asking if one can play the part of the Total tao ( mystic or dark female) it is not asking if you can act feminine which is yin. Its asking if you can bestow bounty and productivity. It strikes me as a smooth transitional conceptry along with Harmonius E's "So it's not so much Creative in the yang sense, but both providing the ground and also nurturing it to completion" Which totalled ,,,reads something like "Can you set the stage for bounty and nurture it." Ill take it like that and just move on if its wrong. Have a nice evening Stosh

Understanding I got testimony from CD as to the classic chinese wording, , I dont got. Stosh

You can say whether the classic term is female or if it is yin Like I said ,... for a third time if the classic text contains a gender specific term then we are stuck with it But if it Doesnt then its a distortion. As you pointed out Wu chose not to include one in his line. and Quoting Henricks to back up a possible distortion by henricks is uninformative ( and yes I would still be at odds with Lao anyway, but I wouldnt be at odds with Yall sticking to that terminology in the translation,, and I would also be at odds with Cd for what he wrote contrary elsewhere ) There is nothing holding any of us to being honest or to accept new truth as a verdict. But plain honesty would be nice and sociable. Telling straight men that they are supposted to act like women isnt exactly promoting natural relations. Stosh

Sorry , thats BS like you called in the other thread You said.. "Yes, we should remain flexible in our beliefs just in case someone shows us where one of our understandings is wrong or misunderstood. " That just happened Its a circular argument to say yin is female-feminine because you learned it that way. This is exactly why I asked whether the Classic reading really specifies women-femaleness-femininity in the original. BY the way,, It was Cd himself who described yin and yang as light and dark sides of a hill An issue keeps cropping up which is logically false,, That a Yin equates to lakes and darkness the moon and women and that Yang equates to mountains and light the sun and men so therefore yin is female and yang is male because by the exact same reasoning yin is lakes and yang is mountains So nobody could say that the suggestion was for certain ,to be feminine , it could just as logically be a suggestion to act like a moon! What the heck does the moon have in common with a woman! Moons are not women! Its a ridiculous process to lump all those dissimilar things together, except! if there is a common thread Thats Yin The common thread is not femininity, its the yin principle itself. Telling an assertive woman , say,Cat , that she should act more feminine is an insult to her ,,She actually IS a woman. Telling a man he has to act feminine otherwise he is a problem is also an insult! If I were to say to any guy I know You have the patience of a woman .... I dont think he would take it like a 2000 yr old chinese dude unless he was gay and wanted to be thought of as feminine. Moreover I would bet that the average heterosexual man in China today would also have issues with that comment. I cant be sure of that but in general if I started telling him various ways that he was like a woman ,,at some point I would get a punch in the face. Stosh PS I dont follow redirects , if a person cant support their own point I dont need to post to them. ( I dont mean that as harsh as it sounds , but I do mean it) Have a nice evening.

Why do you think Yin is female in that sentence.I gave reasons why not Give a reason why.Sosh

Yes ,it is a very beautiful picture of a highly crafted , expensive and manicured semblance of an idealized 'natural' place. I wish it was my yard. Stosh

Thats quite true about different cultures and its one of those odd factoids that add color to descriptionsyou just dont get everywhere.But at the same time it struck me as a diversionary excuse for not wanting to correct a blatant distortion which is offensive in the current context.Cd told me that he had learned not to compromise when it came to telling truth.So what am I to make of it when he dodges the point with such a factoid?Ill Stop there.Stosh

Yep He makes many insightful comments But which comment you are referring to ,I dont know. Stosh

<p> On the Chinese side of the translations I never know if there is some linguistic reason for the choices made ,heading to the english, So.. I dont know who would be closest, Wang or elsewho. I was told that yin and yang were most accurately described as the light and dark sides of a hill. And I am told men and women have both yin and yang aspects and that yin and yang are terms about things relative to one another. If thats all true then Yin is not an inherently gender biased term in the original Classic text! If the term used in this chapter WAS a gender biased term then one would be stuck with gender bias in the final translation to english ..( otherwise one would be corrupting the orginal.. essentially re-writing it rather than doing accurate translation) Wu and Henricks have both introduced gender bias , distorting the original text. I couldnt give two flying hoots what their own personal associations for yin and yang are-were,Likewise the general public's associations have no validity to re-write the original either! One quite properly translates to terms ,which will be under stood for correct meaning,but it is not correct to distort the meaning to reflect habitual terms erroneously applied. I am not a woman I am not trying to act like, or be a woman I do not think being a man is bad I do not think being a woman equates to good I do not think you can characterize either gender so generically as to say one is Yin and the other Yang If you want to be a woman ,and are not ,or, act like a woman, because you think being a man is bad, go right ahead. But as far as the text goes , thats a distortion. Stosh

This is an interesting approach you have made. I have some difficulty in getting the meanings that folks assume the words they write have, on an intuitive basis. You say that thoughts of myself as an I, pop up like other types.. Can you give me an example of an I thought in a sentence form? I hear the word I in my minds ear when formulating sentences but I dont think I hear them the rest of the time. Are there are also times when I would be refering to to myself wordlessly? and is this still considered an I thought? for instance,, a self direction to look at the sky without a grammatical component , Is that an I thought by inference? or would that not be considered a thought. Stosh

Sorry, I dont understand what the first half of your post means.As far as the consrtual of the inverse adjectives giving meaning to their inversesfor instance (good construes evil.... or a man abstracts the inverse of these things )well It is my understanding that it is a very basic Tao principle.As in 'from the one there becomes two' resulting in the TaijiiThats why its Yin and Yang ,, not 'Yin and more Yin'If your perception is more in line with universal one-ness of everything...(which I think is the case)I have no response that would not just be blanket negation of your position.That peception of reality is just one I do not share.I am not searching to find it , nor do I want to remove that view from you.I would prefer to just let you be as you are ,regarding that point.Stosh

You are correct sir Here is Aarons first post to bring things back on track... Here's chapter Four of the Tao Teh Ching for discussion. I personally think this is a great chapter and certainly helps us to begin to understand Lao Tzu's beliefs regarding the Tao. I look forward to hearing everyone's comments. Chapter Four (Translated by John C. H. Wu) The Tao is like an empty bowl, Which in being used can never be filled up. Fathomless, it seems to be the origin of all things. It blunts all sharp edges, It unties all tangles, It harmonizes all lights, It unites the world into one whole. Hidden in the deeps, Yet it seems to exist for ever. I do not know whose child it is; It seems to be the common ancestor of all, the father of things. Chapter Four (Translated by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English) The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled. Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things! Blunt the sharpness, Untangle the knot, Soften the glare, Merge with dust. Oh, hidden deep but ever present! I do not know from whence it comes. It is the forefather of the gods. Chapter Four (Translated by Robert G. Henricks- Note this translations is from an older version of the Tao Teh Ching and may differ from other translations) 1. The Way is empty; 2. Yet when you use it, you never need fill it again. 3. Like an abyss! It seems to be the ancestor of the ten thousand things. 4. If files down sharp edges; 5. Unties the tangles; 6. Softens the glare; 7. And settles the dust. 8. Submerged! It seems perhaps to exist. 9. We don't know whose child it is; 10. It seems to have [even] preceded the Lord. Aaron

To that Mh and to rene's applause I agree well But and I agree its a big but Please let me explain Remember ,I am not trying to emulate a sage I think it is a literary device anyhow .. I am contending that it is the being nice stuff that doesnt jive with sageliness. The mode of behavior being described by the TTC, IMO is not the same as that of Chrisitianity, or Buddhism etc The other systems rely on arbitrary codes of morality A person strives to be GOOD , kind ,nice ,just ,etc with the intent that it yeild them benefit, usually in the afterlife (because we all can see justice isnt reliable in this one) One can also try to get the good blessings of folks around them to be validated accepted etc, This system however doesnt rely on either the boons of afterlife nor does it rely on the whims of those around us to validate our behaviors , but it still can yeild harmonious results. Nature is harmonius in its own way without our artificial morality! and without artificial constucts of heaven either! You would give because you wanted someone to have You would help because you wanted that person to prosper not because you wanted to be thanked or liked or to get preferred treatment from a god. The ancients were digging around at the foundations of why folks make themselves unhappy and suggesting cures in the form of perspectives to relieve the burdens placed on us BY US. If I or you believe there is no such thing as justice we cannot become bent out of shape over a percieved injustice! If we do not believe in right and wrong we cant feel ourselves unduly burdened. If we do not respect conventions of beauty and ugliness we cant be envious or ashamed. Not being envious , ashamed , angry , resentful etc we are then freed of our "negative" responses which have plagued mankind. But once you construe niceness and justice and beauty etc You get it all back again. And thats why a Sage wouldnt entertain these things but would still benefit himself and society. Stosh

1) I actually like bears , silly I know , and self defeating but hey , cmon they are nifty. 2) I have this illusion that the things we say and do live on after us and they affect all that will happen after. A sort of legacy of who we were that can never be undone, a fingerprint, a brand, some sort of ongoing ripple, and remnant of us. No matter how rapidly it appears to fade No matter how suddenly it appears to be swallowed up in background noise it will go on and on top of that ! I kid myself that my intent drives it to the positive. Stosh

If it was as easy as agreeing with the bears not to interfere with one another that would be terriffic. But say you live in New Jersey and you have to worry every day that some bear is going to maul your child on the way to school.. Just saying they are dumb animals doesnt say that I have a debt of care for bears. If both Sages and Tao dont make exception for me why would it be that I have to coddle bears? Again ,You know darn well that knowing there are bad actors just aint enough and again If I treat people as straw dogs ,, youre fine with that? "It is not the Sage's fault if others get in his way." Stosh

Ok Ill tell one if you will,, The ball is in your court. Stosh

Focusing on the word SHOULD ,why should one give a darn about bears if people are to be considered straw dogs? Is it natural to care about bears? Folks have warred with bears forever. Do the bears care about us? They like our garbage ,but they dont seem to like us. Does the eternal Tao at large care about us? No, it doesnt, thats a human thing. Does it bring us to personal peace, acceptance and dispassion to extend concern to living things that we cant control? Heck no. Being AWARE of bears is sufficient to protect us? Heck no again. Youre a soldier ,you know well enough its not sufficient to be AWARE of bad actors. You can take exception when I say it DO you want to take exception to it in Ch 5 as well? Chapter 5 1. Heaven and Earth have no mercy, 2. Treat all things as straw dogs. 3. Sages have no mercy, 4. Treat people as straw dogs. Stosh