Stosh

You dont understand differentiating between faith and the physical?

Tis a pity , 'one' as a name , is like your parents were looking forward to the next kid , and weren't bothering getting all worked up on a name this time around, but after nine or so name changes.... Personally I like Running bare . Its better than 'Loose tool' .

Read the longer version of the story. Chuang has an original glib answer , then Hui entrenches his reasoning,( that Chuang has no basis to say he understands the fishes ), then Chuang goes back to the original question , and shows Hui that he can indeed know the happiness of fishes because he in fact does have a basis to do so. Chuang is messin around with Hui , like the fishes in the river, he enjoys the goofing around aimlessly , this is his argument that he has a basis to know that the fishes are happy since they appear to be doing the same thing( but in their element ) Rephrased,, How do I know they enjoy mucking around ? because I am mucking around with you and enjoy it.

Yeah, but get on with it already, we're losin' daylight.

Taoist faith , is presented to best be of the natural sort. Naturally, if one sees how things connect correctly , and makes a personal assessment of what is likely the case going forward , then one would have a natural faith in what to expect. Which isn't like the kind of faith where one suspends their suspicion and doubt, against all reason.

I tend to use Tao when I refer to the belief group, and Dao when I am talking about the universe process. I think everyone should copy me in that respect.

The tzu or tse is just an honorific, a title, a formality ,neither of them would have given a hoot if it was ommitted, and it actually indicates a rejection of the principles they professed. imo

If youre going to follow the narrators advice, guess again. What one reads is really just the second hand information offered by others. If that stuff is bad , then his commemts are worthless , right? As is all your books, your ttc your iching your chuang and buddha bible and koran. then you can ignore your parents news friends and teachers. Youll just be So accurately informed , well, you might not know what day of the week it is!

Frankly, the owl is not informed, he is disparaged by the narrator because of it. When pooh gets his head stuck in a honey pot, ya think the narrator is going to excuse it? If so, the narrator is presenting a forced conclusion. He explains that a pooh gains valuable knowlege, so really his beef is whether one is correct in what they know. If correctness is the pivot point , the issue of whether the stuff in books is more informed and informing than the spontaneous first impression one personally encounters. Most of our life learning is barely considered and off the cuff, its the careful consideration and dissection which leads to a new and more thorough understanding . If that were not the case. The greater study would only yeild a slower trail to the original conclusion. That narrator was insulting misinformed and pandering to an uninformed audience. The original stories themselves should have been left unmolested.

Your thing, says he himself ,developed the binary math used in a certain way to create functioning computer systems such as they are. But Ok , binary logic can be used to process more than the number one. But as far as I know the Taoist number system only has four numbers ... , one , two , three, ten-thousand, infinity. Which doesn't look binary to me !

Hold on there big fella , I thought computers 'essentially' ran on diodes or binary processing , the logic of which is dualistic , on or off but not both , and so Non-dualistic thinking would only create a computer that could calculate only the number one. And with words not being able to encompass the reality of anything, phonetic literacy would amount to ,perhaps, a grunt.

Yeah, that really is great.,, for everybody ! A long time back , somebody said that Gautama actually prodded people to argue against his point , if they really were just not on board. That through the forge of fair discourse, sincerely felt , that this was the only way for him to find out what the reluctance was , what the real obstacle was , to whatever thing ,which to him didn't seem like it deserved reticence... was actually getting in the way of the person seeing the truth for themselves. I consider this attitude to be one of the truly great attitudes of the greatest of thinkers, and respect it immensely. To stand strong and honest , wide open and exposed to any criticism , and yet be able to hold true to the veracity of ones stance without BS. It IS very convincing,, and should be.

( Buddha didn't think so. Neither did the Classical Daoists. ) Yes some people give up , they say , I am not capable of thinking , I am not capable of writing , and I am tired of all the smart people having gotten there before me ,, but , but , I too would like to think well of myself !, to be able to have pride and dignity , and to make sense. Oh well, I will just have to eschew making sense.

IMO, The sutras factored Bigly , it appears, for Gautama himself , and they're all over the place in Buddhism ! Its only when one considers logic wrongly, that it takes ideas away from being a good model ... imo ,, then again , Much of buddhism may have gotten away from that guys original teachings , and so it would then be true , that in Buddhist pursuit now, that logic could be of little utility.

Take x is y, and y is not x, then x is or is not y or its both or neither. This is a four possible outcome permutation. The universe itself is whatever it is and its not what its not ,tautologically. When we know what x and y are , we will know what x is or is not, we will know if the premise is true , until then ,all you have is a possibly invalid logical statement.

Statements are models About that which exists either in the mind or in reality . Statements are hot air which we deem true if they appear to correlate with whats true.. the Words are not True, logicians forget this when they posit that a verbal statement needs to conform to the reality which exists. The process is to determine that which is true so it can be used to improve the model, Not to confuse onesself with the model. Models can be considered valid whether or not the premise is true, and some valid models have exceptions.

The subset of you, is not all of the universe, its localized , though not separate as we consider it , the universe allows it, so its still in harmony with the rules of the universe. But it does bring up the question , in what form does conflict exist ? and frankly, it doesn't. Lets say you like bananas , and yet you do not like bananas, I might call that a conflict because I have the idea that these two things cannot exist simultaneously true.. but that's not really so , its your true sentiment. The perception of this being error , also resides in a mind mine , and again , the universe allows it , so it is not in contravention of any universal law. Our mental model ordinarily allows for error , falsity , badness etc, these do not exist outside the mental gyrations. You could grind the universe to dust , and yet never find a grain of it. Because they are mental representations of relationships and things which do not have to abide as physical objects , and do not have those constraints, they break no law.

I think I agree, I thought you were heading for the argument that , A person , as a human , which may be in conflict, is part of the universe ,and so the universe allows conflict to exist.

You do not agree that I am of that opinion ? That would be incorrect. You do not agree that the universe is not ever in conflict with itself ?... Too bad , you should agree with it. What do you think represents an instance where the universe is self conflicted?

Possibly, accurate , but I am not of an opinion that the universe is ever in actual conflict with itself . While our models can conflict , being just fabrications of the mind ,they are about a reality that is always true. Since its tautologically true that -what is , Is , and no falsity actually exists, apart from some mental gyrations. So presented with the 'one hand clapping' koan, .. it doesn't happen , and there's a false possibility presented by the Koan. Same goes for Schrodinger's cat, Just because we are not aware of the cats situation , doesn't mean the cat doesn't die -until we open the box. If you did a forensics exam on the cat , you would be able to determine time of death as being earlier. So a koan isn't going to bring me to any spiritual revision. Even if I incurred puzzlement , I'd dismiss it , I don't claim to know everything, or expect to , I don't have to , because the universe- is what it is , always.

Now that Would be an interesting comparison..though I'm thinking one would really need to look at the other schools of 'daoist' thought to fill the bill. Lao and Chuang , were more about Ethical behavior , firstly ,but using the logic systems of the day to explain , whereas The Mohists were perhaps? more interested in the pursuit of Nailing the logic systems down.,. Confucius with Governance , and so forth.

I'm thinking, true, it probably doesn't exclude that possibility. I'm only vaguely familiar with Zen , thinking it an ultra-simplified experiential relationship with ones awareness. As for Chan , I think its rather a broader umbrella of Chinese Buddhism in general which retains bells and whistles from both its parents, but again, I am not familiar enough with it to have a feel for its scope.

No, youre meant to Understand Daoist reasoning.Koans present paradox rather than irony.

So what happened to the interview , is it posted yet?

Neither is stupidity.