Stosh

You can say that its Clearly Taoist virtue to tell the truth without manipulative distortion, as a general rule Whether the truth of the situation is less palatable than the fake story , or not .

People often fudge for the rationale you just gave. But that makes me especially sad. Its one thing to distort to defeat evil forces arrayed against you. Thats much of war, but when parents and friends decide that they can and in fact SHOULD lie deceive manipulate you... thats bad. To accept the ramifications of the facts, such as they really are.. that should be seen as a fair deal.

So what impediment can you claim is enough to dump your integrity? Absolutely anything not swinging your way is enough excuse ? Clearly there may be a price either way otherwise we would all be angels. Right?

Since youre dug in trying to justify why you should manipulate and present false narrative.. Im ok with letting you squirm in there to your hearts content.

Youre afraid?

Ramble has presumed to redirect the duke away from reacting to a realistic view of the world, and towards a superstitious one pushing him toward an aggressive military stance. We cant know if the Duke wouldve just let the Ghost thing drop anyway.. but we do know it was bs artists who instilled those ideas in his head in the first place. I dont want my friends to intentionally warp my impressions of what reality is so as to usurp my ability to react in accord to what it actually is and according to my nature. I think the daoist take is to reflect what actually is like the still water. Thst this is the behavior of virtue and being the phony is not.

I say the taoist master in the story isnt a phony who trades his honesty to be manipulative of his friend nor does he believe in ghosts.

No, not as far as Kuan is concerned. Thats what second rate Ramble chooses to flesh out the parable.

Kuan the author, doesnt see ghosts nor offer a fix. Ramble says Duke is harming himself. Its Possible that the duke is the bendcrook.Which means neither of the daoists believe in the ghosts an even the duke has his doubts Master Ramble is second rate he defies the dukes existing beliefs. Kuan leaves him to them.

What the hell does that mean? You see it as a possibility ,but Youre rejecting it cause... You just dont want to accept that people knew how to express patronizing sentiments back then ?

I didnt see anything out of the ordinary,, but sure, theres Boogymen in closets, Fairies that make dew drops, and we all know the hazards of messin wit Sasquatch, but y'know if it was one of them Giant Boners, this could really work out as a good omen for you!

You may be missing the subtle possibility,, that this legalist daoist author thinks the ghost stuff is bullshit.

Its called a moon walk, it looks funky, the kids all do it nowadays

I wasnt joking.

Next piece of advice you hand out... tell em they owe you for it. Charge em a dollar or demand they perform some chore like taking out the garbage. Right there get that debt secured. Things will change pretty quickly. Most likely you will become a target of defiance etc. Then you can report back here. Chop chop.

Thanks, I left the eightfold path of virtue for the next guy.

DAOIST VERSION 1 suffering is due to the difference between our favorable expectations , and our experience . 2 Suffering keeps happening because circumstances change. 3 Life is sometimes difficult , so make the best of it. 4 We are often our own worst enemy and thats mainly because we have screwed up attitudes.

No not ironic sarcasm. It takes integrity to say oops. Its hard to even count so high as the number of spats which could be so easily avoided by just something so minor as that, or simply by agreeing that an opposing argument had its merits recognized. The tendency is to dig in ones heels and upon pain of death never to admit that new data or perspective had weight. Ive made errors , and will periodically continue to , not to admit them is a lie if they are shown to me to be so. But it really has to be solidly shown to be factually so. Its the nature of scientific enquiry to really establish fact as fact, and it requires the honesty that says oops ya got me there, or, look, I wasnt planning on making a big deal out of this ,it was just a casual assertion. Its just a mature attitude nice to see.

I bet it means that one should be nice to their Guru and re-commit to their teachings at the beginning of the monsoon.

If your analogy is a flame , then I would suggest - - it can be seen as a form of destiny , that a flame will occur in conditions which are conducive to having the flame happen. Fuel +air + ignition source and Voila! ya got's a flame. (The tricky part is whether one considers a flame to have independently originated, which is to say , that the flame is somehow unique , or if it is just a condition born of the prevailing situation in that localized part of the universe.) And then.. it is not requiring of some sort of limbo to preserve the Aggregates in.. nor is it requiring of some sort of conscious selection process to line up the soul with a new body. It would just be an unavoidable destiny that things worked out the way they did.

Hmmm, can I think on this and ask a follow up later,, if I get it formulated ? Because it looks like you just said ,that Buddha said ,,that when you die, the skandhas are terminated as well, yielding no rebirth whether one calls those mind objects, souls OR aggregates of skandhas, but the Mahayana tradition revives the idea. Looking at dates , though earliest sanskrit texts may be 2000 BC,(vedas) however in Nepal , earliest sanskrit is possibly 464 CE , sources seem to suggest , that The teachings of Buddha weren't compiled till 500 yrs after his death, and so anything attributed to him can be suspected of modifications from both earlier and later dates. SO I cant really ascribe an opinion to him divorced of the traditions which perpetuated his input.

Can you just tell me what you think..

From the vantage of a person who is not serious , but does speak fluent English , what are they saying a soul is , if it is not the skandhas? which I just read, includes consciousness and awareness.

That's a respectable position. Very nice.