sree

The people who gave us the Tao Te Ching are also the people who love the tree of money the most. Is the tree of life also the tree of money?

Do you mean to say that the less money your lifestyle needs funding, the less dependent you are on money? What about your lifestyle itself? Doesn’t it needs checking out to see if it is crazy? What if you need ten bucks a day on marijuana and bagua, rummage the trash for food and shack up in a commune to enjoy nature while I spend a hundred bucks a day on healthy food and a clean apartment in a safe neighborhood? What makes you think I am a money-splurging stock trader? I can understand why you want to live frugally because that is a spiritual fashion statement you fancy to jazz up your circumstance. Like a tattoo. Good for you. Another person’s tattoo is a Canali suit and a 460 horsepower sportscar. And that takes creative thinking to get too. People are dependent on money in various degrees: one likes a diamond ring and another a crystal skull. They are both adornments of choice. This nature thing is a mantra. You don’t think wealthy people can be spiritual and like nature too? Why do spiritual types look down on wealthy people and regard them as lost souls? On the other hand, rich people are not known to badmouth spiritual people and throughout history have been generous patrons. Why are you such an ingrate, zero? I must concede that I am stuck in reality. You don't think you are stuck in the tree of life in this reality where money flows?

What’s so funny? I admit that I am dependent on money just as the body is dependent on air. I can’t walk on water, zero. I can’t live without money. The only people who can live without money are those who live on other people’s money. What kind of life are you talking about? I don’t fancy living in a spiritual commune whether it is an ashram in India or here in America. There is no free lunch in the real world. Show me your tree of life and I will show you how it is funded - either in US Dollars or your ass.

Of course, you can because that;s the way it works. The guy who made fire for the first time ever, sank the putt for all mankind. Every time knowledge is acquired or a discovery is made, it is a putt sank for all mankind. This is a con typically handed out by conventional spiritualists. In the real world, when one guy can do it, he shows everyone how to do it – for a reasonable price, of course. I don’t really watch golf. I watch Tiger Woods the way I study every other instance of remarkable human struggle against adversity. Human goals may be banal and that’s regrettable; nevertheless, whether it is to be the greatest golfer ever or the first to climb Mount Everest, it takes the same kind of drive and intelligence to seek the deathless state. This is the only sane way to converse. This is why I like the business world where logic is self-consistent and matters of interest are real to other animals also. Sales up is good; cost down is also good; and growth is always great provided you are making a reasonable profit at a meaningful rate of return on investment after deduction for expenses on a private jet and yacht. Something smells here, Mr Wu. I found that I could never run a business successfully on account of this damn obsession with finding a meaningful life. This is why I buy shares in businesses with numbers like yours, look the other way, and keep my mind free to seek the deathless state.

Final Hexagram No. 4 is 蒙 Meng (Youthful Folly). How does Hexagram 54 - 歸妹 Guei Mei (The Marrying Maiden) through the movement of lines 1, 4 and 6 change to Hexagram 4 - 蒙 Meng (Youthful Folly)? What do they all mean with regard to the Tao of Dying? And Mr Wu got Hexagram No. 33 - 遯 Dun (Retreat). How do all these gel? Are you going to tell or should we all go to the Daoist priest and swallow his bullshit?

Did you toss Hexagram No 33 - 遯 Dun (Retreat)?

What did you toss, Mr Wu?

WE build the hexagram? What do you mean by “WE”. Are you Chinese? Anyway, you are right about building the hexagram from bottom up. But why do you say it is one of misfortune? Hexagram 54 is 歸妹 Guei Mei –The Marrying Maiden. Are you using the Wilhelm translation? I want to compare your interpretation with my reading of the Chinese text. The hexagram and the moving lines 1, 4 and 6 are talking to Mr Wu. It was he who has the question about the future of the Tao of Dying. Your call coincides with mine on the final Hexagram No. 4. Why do you think it fits? Fit what? I agree with your way of reading the the I Ching. In fact, I read it like Confucius – reflectively from beginning to end to extract all wisdom from the human consciousness. Let’s see how much wisdom we can draw from the depths of the I Ching in this consultation on Mr Wu’s low expectation of the Tao of Dying.

To see into the future is to imagine and project an outcome. This is called fortune-telling. So, if we want to know where the Tao of Dying is going, we could ask a fortune-teller, a Daoist priest, who would cast the yarrow sticks and bullshit us. You know you are smarter than a Daoist priest. So let’s do the fortune-telling ourselves, throw some coins and ask the I Ching. I did, and here is the result: First throw: head, head, head. This is 3+3+3 = 9, an unbroken line. _________________ Second throw: tail, tail, head. This is 2+2+3 = 7, an unbroken line. _________________ Third throw: head, head, tail. This is 3+3+2 = 8, a broken line . ________ ________ Fourth throw: head, head, head. This is 3+3+3= 9, an unbroken line _________________ Fifth throw: head, tail, head. This is 3+2+3 = 8, a broken line ________ ________ Sixth throw: tail, tail, tail. This is 2+2+2 = 6, a broken line. ________ ________ This is hexagram No. 53 - 漸 Jian (Development/Gradual Progress) What is your reading of this hexagram, Mr. Wu? If you don’t accept my hexagram, you can consult the oracle yourself here: http://www.yellowbridge.com/mysticism/i-ching-wizard.php

Aversion for money is based on the western belief that it is easier for a camel to enter the needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. People who are averse to money, naturally, don’t have any to give away; and those who speak ill of money usually don’t have enough of it to live with dignity. In a material reality where economic viability is a measure of self-worth, this lack of money is insulting to one who believes one’s market value is wrongfully marked way below one’s true intrinsic value. The only way to redress this injustice is to diss the material world and re-price oneself in the spiritual realm where the currency is love and compassion rather than US dollars, the Euro or the British Pound. Money is indeed a medium of exchange, but the rest of what you said is unintelligible. People into spiritualism may not know this, but we have gone beyond paper a long time ago. The cash you carry in your pocket to tip the waiter or valet is a very small part of the volume of money, amounting to trillions of dollars, in circulation electronically every single day. Greater than the fear of death is my fear of getting financially wiped out due to sudden electronic glitches in the financial systems of the world. The problem with life is not money per se. It is the monetization of life itself in a world that is getting increasingly difficult to live in. Wisdom, that is relevant to humanity, must come from dealing with life. Do monks meditate on this? I don’t think so. It is easier to spin prayer wheels and other worldly stuff in the name of spiritualism.

It is easy to be lulled into spiritual-speak. It is a different kind of language you don’t use in the gym or the bar on a Saturday night when you are fully awake and in touch with your perceptions of the world you live in. Right now, I am in touch with the US Open and rather disappointed with Tiger Woods messing up again. “I can do that,” said a ridiculously fat guy on the recumbent bike I was standing next to as we watched Woods on TV miss a putt from under six feet, yet again. I turned to look at the fat guy in despair as he burst out laughing. It was sad because it was true. Any bozo could have done that from under six feet. And we are all Tiger Woods of the spiritual world – Chuang Tzu, one and all – and yet not one is able to sink that damn putt from under six feet. Chuang Tzu. Why is he famous? Did he find the Tao of Dying, or was he constrained by circumstances too and died a conventional death like a bozo? Talk is cheap, Mr Wu. If you have really listened and do care, you would sink that putt for me so I don’t have to do it. Humanity has got to find the Tao of Dying. If you are not so self-conscious, you would focus on the topic. To you, it may be a record of achievement, regardless. In the real world, where money talks and results count, this would be a record of colossal waste if you have learned nothing from this thread after 683 posts. Such pointless cash burn on Research & Development would wipe out any business enterprise.

It's Friday night. I want to take a break from death and dying stuff. I am making lemon tarts for dessert. Waiting for them to cool out of the oven. Dinner was magic. I won't say what we ate. There are spiritualists who won't like it. But it was great! I cooked dinner (but I'm not gay). The temperature is great here tonight on the porch. Maybe 68 degrees. Cool. I don't know. Life is so wonderful. This is why I must find the way out for all of us (mankind) - the Tao of Dying.

Are you not a real character? Is reality not a fictive world? We ARE the circumstance. You are not the monkey in the cage. You are the monkey AND the cage. This is the true meaning of a oneness in which there is separateness. What is the difference between the mind that sees itself as the monkey living in the cage, and the mind that sees itself as both the monkey and the cage? One sees the cage as the constraint while the other sees itself as the constraint. This is good meditation. I need to set up the prayer wheel for you to chant the sutra.

Who are those who are truly alive? You? And who else? Seriously, tell me and engage me in serious discussion, the kind that improves the human condition. Pain is the absence of joy, and suffering is the absence of happiness. To lump it all up – pain and joy and suffering and happiness – and suck it all in is plain stupid. Of course, physical pain does alert us to danger. Pain is supposed to invoke an intelligent response to withdraw from danger in order to end the pain and be free forever OF SUFFERING! No man. You’ve got it wrong. Life is great but death is not a blessing and does not have to be part of life. Why is death a blessing? Is it because it frees you from the burdens of the body? If you choose death as the only way out, you would still have to go through the process of dying – a horrid mess. This is an inferior solution. Steve Jobs would fire you. He would want a solution with better user-interface that gives great customer experience - no dying.

These observations are thoughtful and merit discussion. The nuclear family is created by individualism. If it is not good, how come it is quite popular in modern societies? The nuclear family places the woman and her kids at the mercy and under the dictatorship of the man. This is a bad situation considering our love of democracy and distaste for dictators. The elderly and infirmed become a burden on account of the divisive nuclear family that forces each family unit to shoulder its own problems. Care of a single autistic child can cripple the family. Even when the welfare state doles out financial support, it is still an undignified solution. This makes being old and sick a horrible fate. Of course it takes a whole community to care for each and everyone comprising it. It is not hokey but the intelligent way to live. No country is doing this satisfactorily because of individualism – each of us want to be an individual. There is this guy in Tennessee who fathered 22 children with 14 women. It is a nuclear family created by that dolt and those silly women. Now the whole USA village has to pay the tab. It is bad enough for earnest people struggling to support the elderly and the children in their own respective families. Factors are great for single healthy people but women want babies of their own. They convince bozos to marry them and start nuclear families. Why can’t children and the elderly be supported by the whole community of single healthy people? Do away with the nuclear family.