Stosh

Maybe its like the sound of one hand clapping. Much is left to the imagination.

I dont know if the story is true, but heard that a copy was given to some of the early european visitors... and so its possible that , at the time, they considered it to be detrimental to societal order. Here guys, chew on this!

There is the possibility that it was intended as entirely sarcastic too.

I suppose I agree a bit about the poetic nature of the writing . It uses various techniques to draw the parts into a unified whole, relies on some participation by the reader. And some passages are gratuitous. The proofs or rationale is essentially intuitive like an assessment of ones life.

Never heard that before, I was thinking more of the famous lass of many poems who came from nantucket. Different past, differing associations.

You have psychic ability ! How the heck did you know I was thinking about Melville !!! earlier. Wow. ( not in this thread , but certainly in the other , and was going to drag out a favorite passage. )

Can't be, It says nothing about Nantucket.

Xuanpin , should then therefore at least be understood as a female , otherwise god-guy would be named 'Weird Vagina'.

Thank you , that's rather interesting , maybe we can revisit this later and investigate it more thoroughly . Is this a good break point? or is there more that needs to be said at this time...

I see. How is it that you feel the concept of ziran relates to the chapter cited in the OP?

Where will it be , or , how do you find it , according to Mr Ziran . ?

Well , since one wants a timely death, what does he say ones true nature is?

Whos he?

The world is a game , just a set of rules , which can't be broken. No matter what you manifest, you will be in conformance. Therefore the sage plays his part , so that his life sucks least. Stosh

Me neither , nor is anyone IMO , but its a goal to consider heading towards ,when the world seems vague about what one should do.

I'm not wanting you to be anything necessarily , I'm just pointing out that the text as translated contravened the summary position you were advocating. Humane-ness in the text as translated , is not the impartiality of being beyond good and evil, or doing the right thing by leaving something alone. Its akin to being a busybody or pretender, or pushing ones bias on the world. If you put asserting ones will on the stuff going on around you on a scale of 1 to ten , way up there at the tippy top of being the most kind and selfless, you get back to not attempting to sway events as you want them to go at all, that's what is being held as the ultimate humaneness . Butting out so that other folks can live their lives best they can without 'my interference'. So as I explain this , I am 'butting in' , I am promoting the understanding of the text as I see it. I am not being the ultimate in humane. The ultimate in humane according to this translation is -keeping my mouth shut and if some reader comes along and gets the exact reverse meaning out of the text than was intended , that's their problem. But , you see , I am not all that perfectly impartial style humane. Not the De of Dao. See, If I was perfectly humane and just kept my mouth shut , noone would have anything to hold me at fault for etc, my life would be all that much easier, I wouldn't spend any time and effort on the behalf of others. I in fact , have the humane habits this text suggests is faulty. Its the Christian upbringing I guess. This reminds me of a little story. A long long time ago , a group of Missionaries went to the heart of Africa, and found a tribe who looked like they needed some good food, They provided milk to all the town ; Which happened to all be lactose intolerant , reacted badly to this protein source and all got sick. The end

" humaneness, righteousness, etc ..these all enslave virtue through self-constraint, but they are not worth putting a premium on." Fine with me if you hold to that opinion Mh but this translation appears to run contrary to it , and in fact the whole point is to undermine adherence to holding to the 'word of the virtue' and the tendency to act out 'what one envisions' as being best. Agreed, ,No you're not restricted from taking assertive actions , but you're also not necessarily definable as being a bad guy if you don't.

I think this particular excerpt is playing on various meanings of the same word, and in the translation, this has been overlooked rendering it less sensible. I would leave the particular word choices to someone versed in Chinese, but I am making some guesses to show my point that it becomes readable if one uses a bit of variety in English. Humane-ness is a generalized respect or concern for others , the filial-ness is more of a particular subordinate or respectful stance between familiar individuals. IMO Genuine emotions are very contingent on situation , they don't fit hard and fast rules , and so expectation of the fulfillment the labels of the virtues 'enslave' or 'force an insincere compliance' . Expecting rigorous adherence to supposed indicators of the love of ones kids for their parents, or parents for their kids isnt understanding this human factor. Assuming the kid has no love of his parents because he isn't perfectly compliant, OR expecting the parents to forget their role as parents as the kid gets older , isn't seeing rightly. Its important to understand that the bonds are still there despite ,... stuff that comes up. Likewise, humanness may not mean that one always has to take action to rectify, that one has to be embroiled in.. that one has to take responsibility for ,,, the unfortunate stuff one sees. Its just not that simple.

You reacted? I gotta get used to this change to the like thing. The little faces seem a bit sarcastic. Something more Spock saying , 'Please , elaborate'. would be good.

To make anything of this chapter would be difficult , To forget this chapter would be easy .

He he he , maybe.

He is saying that , while there are sound reasons to play one of the roles in a conflict, its deleterious to war for the purpose of enjoying the conflict, most people love conflict you know. They just don't like to be the loser. Conflicts abound , and every nation who plays a part in one , has their reasons , their justifications, and so forth. If you luxuriate in the drama , then drama is what you will have, and you wont want to bring it to a fruitful end. Check out one of the endless argument threads , there's no end-game , it just goes on and on and on and on ....

How about, If you think your happiness is built upon a foundation with a limited potential to persist over time,, you might think change was in order. The world continuously moves beneath our feet and so one has to predict , to stay in balance. Or you might be happy , but be under the impression that happiness isn't all there is to life.

As devils advocate, and with a broad brush... When the Yellow emperor dominated the land now called China , uniting it , it ushered in a golden age, and many societal advancements . Same can be said about the long term effects of Rome , and potentially the US. Talking doesn't often get people to change what they are doing whereas even an implied threat with force to back it up , can get folks moving. In these hallowed digital halls, there has been much ado about the fallibility of speech , and if that's correct, then talking amounts to the ' twitter of birds '.

Fine , then you should read Laozi because you're hungry .