chenping

I am glad you thought out loud and we all should think out loud to bring about a better world. I don't feel obligated at all to reply but love to do it. I am like my dog, a predator at heart, and come alive at the slightest movement of the prey. Let's hope what I see twitching and pounce on in the tall grass is not the tip of the tail of a tiger.

Wow, I feel like Hitler surrounded by Allied Forces: Apech, K and Samurai. I am seeing things as they really are. What is real to me is not real to you and vice versa. The proper way of social discourse to avoid conflict is recognize this and don't force your worldview on me. I think you are foolish but I must not force you to accept my point of view even though I can easily prove my case through clever argument. Hitler did not suffer fools and had no time for arguments. Strong people are like that. You see what you like to see. You identify with the weak and that's ok. I have seen The Seven Samurai and I see a different moral to that narrative. What you consider as the strong is not my idea of strength. Westerners would equate the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang with the western perception of the weak and the strong. That equation is wrong math. This is not a matter of difference in worldviews but rank arrogance. Chinese thought is inaccessible to simple minds. The label "Nazis" connotes hatefulness. I would rather not use this label but you are free to do so. Hitler's ideology may not appeal to you but that doesn't mean that his weltanschauung is flawed. Ideas need to be sold the way successful American businesses sell their products to the market. Hitler was successful in selling his ideology to the German people who gave him tremendous support to wield phenomenal national power in Europe. Hitler tried to sell his ideology to and got impatient with Churchill. So he decided not to suffer the fool and proceeded to brutalize him and his allies into submission. The German people are indeed a strong race. In less than 65 years after total destruction by Allied Forces, Germany is now the most powerful economy in Europe. The rest of Europe are on the brink of financial collapse. The story of the German race is not over yet. How do I treat the weak well? I don't pay them minimum wage and always give them a good tip. I don't lord over them and keep them at a respectful distance. They have their places and I have mine. Any intent on their part to cross the divide is politely snuffed out even before they make the attempt and they are fired. Sun Tzu's strategy is effective in stopping conflict before it begins. On my part, I never reach across the class border the way Bill Clinton and Dominic Strauss Kahn did. Bad moves. You have no idea how complex that relationship is. To see it as just a matter of the strong and the weak is to be superficial. I view people differently. It's not just strong and weak. There are strong winners and strong losers. There are also weak winners and weak losers. I know that is perplexing to you. Chinese thought is not as superficial as you think. I will give you a clue to what I mean. A strong loser is a bad person who makes it in this world. Your idea of a bad person is different from mine. My idea of a strong loser would be Cain who killed Abel in the Bible story. And a weak winner is a good person who doesn't make it in this world. My idea of a weak winner would be Jesus Christ. Why don't you share your worldview and tell me who would be your idea of a strong loser and a weak winner? Oh, I do want you to share your views with me. I am culturally curious even though I don't cross the divide that separates me from others. And you are welcome to give criticisms and take apart my worldview in any fashion you choose. I believe in freedom of expression even though no society, including the land of the free (aka America), allows this. I understand that this forum has its rules about people getting upset in discussion. If you get upset and need to sock it to me even in foul language, please do it through private messaging to avoid upsetting the mods. I look forward to a good discussion. And now, I need to deal with the other components of the Allied Forces, namely K and Samurai. Unlike Hitler, I intend to win the war. I wished Hitler had read Sun Tzu before he sent his panzers into Russia.

Of course. But we need only be concerned about reality that is harsh and forceful - stuff like unemployment, social violence, depression, being a nobody. The weak is the prey both in the forest and the cities. The strong depend on the weak the way your congressman depends on you, milk you for your vote, and use you to rubber stamp his self-serving policies. Nature do believe in insect communities. Hitler's Mein Kampf was inspired by Nature. Could there be a Nazi Dao after all? I don't see how anyone can avoid doing this. Your doubt is well-founded. No, I don't hold the same worldview as others. To avoid conflict, I live by myself on my own and depend on the weak to serve me my food, clean my home, wash my car, and clean my clothes. The weak can have their worldviews for all I care as long as they keep it to themselves and just do their jobs for me. I treat them well. I don't believe in nationalism. It's a form of religion where the weak are harnessed for a cause on which the strong depend. The strength that comes through cooperation is used to fight wars and dig ditches. That's your worldview and I respect your right to have one even if you piss on mine.

If you, who reject the idea of a ruling class and subscribe to the worldview of equality, isn't it a contradiction to accept a situation where some people are in need of help and other people get involved through compassionate action? Helping is a nice word for ruling. People in need of help are at the mercy of the helpers. No? As for fighting the good fight, this has appeal to western sensibilities, and you are for it. Sun Tzu wants more: every battle is won before it is ever fought. I share Sun Tzu's worldview. A just means is not enough. Without victory, fighting for its own sake is pointless. Patience, therefore, is a Chinese value. Bide your time, wait for the moment. Act in haste - even for a just cause - invites misfortune. But what is the truth? There are only worldviews: your belief system against my weltanschauung. Humans, inherently, are incapable of living correctly. This is why all societies are corrupt. The underclass, left to their own devices, are a mess. They need laws and regulations to protect them from each other. The ruling class, who devise the laws and enforce them to help the people in need of a civilized way of life, is usually self-serving and unfit to rule. I am an elitist who practises wu-wei. This means that I believe in taking charge of my own destiny and don't believe in helping people in need. All goals are personal. People - including me - are best left to their own devices. This is the only form of anarchy and chaos that make sense to me. To each his own. Ours is a harsh reality. Nature will weed out the weak whether we live in forests or in cities. Nature does not believe in socialism and will do the harming. Pull up your socks or go down either individually as a homeless guy or collectively as a nation in economic ruin. Each man must look out for himself. People with the same worldview cooperate together for a better life and avoid conflict with others with a different belief system. Societies must allow for breakup into smaller parts with different worldviews. Divorce is good. Can you see anything wrong with my belief system?

Your good analysis deserves serious comment. You are correct in stating that people employ belief systems which I call worldviews. Nazism is based on Hitler's weltanschauung . Daoism is also based on either the western Christian-based belief system of Philosophical Daoism or the Chinese-based worldview of Traditional Taoism. And, as you have said, nobody can perceive or willing to perceive reality outside of each person's weltanschauung. This is why we - the human race - are caught in perpetual conflict when worldviews clash. Are you willing to examine our - meaning yours and mine - respective worldviews and see who is crazy? We cannot both be sane since we disagree with each other. There is a chance that the two of us could be mad. That's a frightening thought.

Animal Farm is not really fiction. Is the Chuang Tzu fiction? Is the Tao Te Ching fiction? Even Charlie Brown is not fiction. They are all commentaries on factual life. What difference does it make if is a genuine revolution done with a higher mindset? It's still the same devil up to monkey business. Come on, man. Why is everyone dumping on America? And when there is trouble from the bad guys, it's America to the rescue. If I were President, I would make every country relying on the US to pay their share to keep her 11 Aircraft carrier groups prowling the world's oceans. Venezuela's social problems are homegrown. Knowing their rights is one thing, enjoying them is another. What good is sticking the Constitution to their faces when they can't read or write? Third world countries all have rotten government and that's why they are third world. First world countries have less rotten governments. The only difference is that first world people are more vocal and assertive in making sure they don't get kicked around by people in high places. Seems like I have the mind-set of the ruling class and you have the mind-set of the underclass. I wonder how this came about? Whatever the system, the top 1% will always be in charge and the 99% will always be complaining. The head will always decide where to go and the feet will always do the walking. There is nothing right or wrong, fair or unfair about this arrangement. This is the way. Anarchy and chaos are not going to happen. Societies may crumble, social structures may fall but the totem pole will resurrect itself: head back on top and feet at the bottom.

On the one hand, I really do subscribe to "wu-wei", this Taoist concept of letting sleeping dogs lie. The world is a mess and the only way out is to pick your way through the crowd and step over strewn rubbish without touching it. Tigers, monkeys, whatever, best leave them be. They either get whacked with batons in dictatorships or left to the misery of their own making in socialist democracies that are run tight as drums with mobility to nowhere. Personal freedom is an idea fed into the heads of herd animals. They never learn. Have you read Animal Farm? Revolution just brings the scums at the bottom to the top of the trash heap. Leaders are not ruthless and corrupt because they are evil, they suck because they are you. I don't mean this in a personal sense. Yeah, I remember how "the negro" was just a savage. Here in America, they make hundreds of millions playing basketball because society treat them as equals. Back in Africa, left on their own, it's a different story. Have you read Animal Farm? I suggest you do it before creativity leads us into another mess worse than the one before.

Then, mistrust is the problem and not the philosophies or their proponents. Personal freedom is a nice thing to have if we are a tiger. Pack and herd animals must live under the rule of others who call the shots. We live in a herd even though you run with a pack.

I think the intent was to demonize Nazism using destructiveness as the argument. Nature can be quite destructive and seemingly more heartless than any ideology devised by man; and yet, we love Nature. The idea of purifying the human race alarms us but yet we pursue the same ideology in striving to be true Taoists through self-cultivation by weeding out the nasty bits about ourselves. Why is purifying the human race, at the biological level, such a bad thing? Why is breeding out physical deformities, genetic diseases, and even bad hair wrong? For one thing, the Tao that you know is not the eternal Tao. Which part of Chapter One you do not understand? The other thing is hate propaganda. Nazism, like Taoism, should be studied objectively. Both are part of being human.

I missed nothing. A Taoist shrine can be either man-made or natural. Of all the people of religion communing with God in churches, temples and mosques, the Taoist should know better. Chuang Tzu would prefer the roof of the Taoist shrine to be the blue sky, and its floor the good earth carpeted with green grass. There are mind-blowing natural Taoist shrines in America. There is one called Big Sky Country in Wyoming. It will take your breath away. Chi Kung can either come out of Chinese culture or - you got it! - Nature. All human knowledge comes from observation of Nature, and the Chinese are pretty good at learning this. But (Chinese) knowledge is one step removed from the mother lode: the eternal Way embodied by Nature. Animals breathe correct naturally. With lightning speed they strike faster in combat than any taichi master ever can. And I have never seen a Taoist meditate better than a majestic eagle sitting atop a dead tree, so motionless that even Chuang Tzu would approve. You'd better believe it, buddy. If being natural is the key element to being Taoist, then animals take the cake. Anyone who has read Animal Farm would understand that even pigs and fishes (the most dumb in the animal kingdom according tot the I Ching) have feelings too. I am not convinced that divine sages included other animals besides humans. Have you read Animal Farm? They don't trust humans who gripe endlessly about the Holocaust but think nothing of wholesale slaughter of other animals by the hundreds of millions every single day to make chicken nuggets and hamburgers. Even I don't trust humans. There is something wrong with people. They think one thing, say another and do something else. Absolutely no integrity.

Gorillas dedicate their full lives up in the mountains close to Nature. Can we accept them as true Taoists? How come we deny other animals from Daoism? Are they not also sentient beings just like us? I cannot discuss Philosophical Daoism with my dog any more can I discuss anything with a deaf mute. But that doesn't mean that a dog is any lesser than a human being. Sometimes, my doberman would come up to where I am sitting on the couch and look at me. She is so cute. I would cup her face in my hands and look into her eyes. She knows my next move. Why can't she be a Taoist too?

The moral of the story is somewhat different to me. Taking a job at the palace is similar to getting stuck in a dead situation. Every situation in life pins you to the fabric of society. In the palace, that godly tortoise has an assigned exalted place but is dead. In each of our respective family, each one of us also has an assigned place and just as situationally dead. Even here in this forum where we waggle our tails in the mud, each of us also has an assigned place among the others. That palace tortoise has been dead for 3000 years. Each post made in our Tao Palace is equivalent to being dead for one year. Looks like I have been dead for 63 years.

There are people who prefer practising martial arts for self-defense even though packing heat is easier. For self-preservation, isn't $20 billion better?

Why do you keep referencing the Tao Currents site? The blogger is a Pooh Bear Taoist with a lively imagination. I have difficulty tracking out his complicated thinking pattern which is harder to understand than classical Chinese.

Silas can only contribute meaningfully in telling the difference between Philosophical Daoism (derived from English translations) and Classical Taoism based on the Chinese text of the Tao Te Ching if he can read Chinese. You and I can read both the Chinese texts and the English translations. Grasping their respective messages of the Tao Te Ching, to me, is like eating "lap cheong" and bratwurst. Lau and Wang might insist that the western sausage is a good approximation of the lap cheong. No self-respecting Chinese would agree. Yes, that is true. But that doesn't mean they could convey classical Chinese thought in English. I am quite happy with Philosophical Daoism derived from English translations of the Tao Te Ching. It helps me to get along with people in the west. But when I have to deal with life in a serious way, I look to the Chinese texts.

Before we talk further over this, may I ask if you can read the Tao Te Ching (either the Received Version or Wang Bi version) in Chinese? If you can, then we can explore our viewpoints further objectively to prevent our discussion from needlessly turning into an emotional argument.

I have no problem with Dr Gabrielle Palmer's statement. A wet nurse could suckle babies all her life after nature had kick-started the process after her first child was born. To continue feeding other babies indefinitely would be an unnatural abusive thing to do and she would pay a heavy toll on the part of her body. Kick-starting the milk production on a virgin girl sounds bizarre. Who would even think of this? But then, we humans are a compassionate lot who believe in equal rights. We would even fund research into kick-starting lactation in gay men now that we have accepted Elton John and his husband's rights to have babies.

I noticed that you keep referring to "classical Taosism" when you are actually talking about "Philosophical Daoism". Wang Keping and D. C. Lau belong to what Drifting Cloud referred to as "Barnes & Noble" Daoists. I know that labelling is not politically-correct but we need to know what we are referring to, especially over the internet where words are all we have to use in discussion. Philosophical Daoism is the western version derived from popular English translations published in the west (typically by the likes of Barnes & Noble). So, in this forum there are Barnes & Noble Daoists, mainly westerners and western-educated Asians like me, who study and expound Philosophical Daoism. Classical Taoism is based on classical Chinese texts on the Tao Te Ching, as well as, other classical literature of Chinese anitquity, and practised, mainly, by the Chinese according to the Pakua explained in this thread by Mo Tzu. So, in this forum there are Classical Taoist practitioners like Taomeow. Flowing Hands is an anomaly in this forum, a hybrid. He is a westerner who is a Taoist practitioner who based his Daoism on a direct transmission in English from Lao Tzu. Now that we have everything squared away, it would be helpful in avoiding confusion if you use the correct term of reference.

But Chidragon have said that the Tao just doesn't care. So, how do you justify any purpose in the 3 treasures for the human good?

I suppose anything is possible but this would have to be a quirk of nature like getting born with two heads or six fingers on one hand. To draw conclusions on what is possible is a moral hazard.

I don't think one can go about accumulating money at will if money doesn't want to come one's way. But when it comes, it pours, the way that one-armed slot machine goes 7-7-7 and vomit out the coins, there is no stopping the deluge of cash coming your way. It's the money that is attached to the rich man and not the other way round as seen by envious poor people. Ok, I will check that out and report back. Sounds like you would not like this role and would decline acceptance of the Mandate of Heaven like Chuang Tzu in Chapter Seventeen? Why? You said you like to give others a break. If fate bestows upon you limitless power to help others, why won't you accept the role? Is it because you don't know how to go about it? Were they laughing at your proposal to do away with war and oil industries or laughing at you? If you have $20 billion, they would take you seriously.

Why is that, though? I have a feeling Jesus knew the way (Tao) to eradicate poverty completely. His comment on the poor being a perpetual feature in life was an indictment of the way we go about helping others. Helping others is like throwing gasoline on the fire (of poverty). To get an idea of what I mean, wire $50,000 to yourself in Mumbai, India; fly there and withdraw the money in rupees which you hand out to the poor, the beggars and urchins who will mill around in the street. I guarantee you that within 30 minutes of handing out, you will understand that teaching of Jesus Christ. What good things? It's not easy to do good things in a bad world. The Gates Foundation spend 5% of its assets doing good works each year. That 5% comes from returns on investment of its assets in the stock markets of the world. It's like a hedge fund pledging 5% of its profits on good works. Hedge funds could make more than 5% maybe 20% in a good year. But hedge funds have to pay taxes. A hedge fund that is set up as a charitable foundation pays no taxes. So, instead of paying taxes to Uncle Sam, a charitable foundation gets the power to spend 5% of its profits on pet projects of its own choice. I won't go into all the kind of good works being done. One kind they are big on is fighting Aids which is projected to grow by leaps and bounds in Africa. I suppose doing something is better than doing nothing even if doing something amounts to nothing. Talking about money is also talking about Taoism which deals with the way of life. I don't know what you mean by attachment to money. Money we need to spend is like the air we need to breathe. Just because there is abundant air doesn't make us increase our breathing rate. The extra air stays in the air bank (atmosphere) and breathed on when necessary. It's the same with money. The extra money stays in your money bank. Even if you were to keep it in your counting house for you to count your money, what evil will that lead to? Chuang Tzu told that story? Which Chapter is that? Instead of giving your excess to others, don't you think it is better to work towards an equitable world where no one has any excess and everyone has enough? You are correct. Did you tell this to your Congressman? He would turn the issue around and ask us for an alternate solution without the US Military and energy source to power America's economy. The Way of the Tao means the end of life as we know it. Will you be happy living in American Samoa?

Yes, selfishness is definitely a human trait. Altruism, which is its other name, is a do-good sentiment that serves to beautify the self. But I think people are capable of acting instinctively in response to helping out - not just other humans but animals too when they are caught in a tough spot. Helping others, as a grand scheme of doing good, is usually something that Lao Tzu would frown on. So, why Taoism? I don't think wu-wei means don't ever respond. Helping others is a tricky thing.

What if I what I have to say upsets you? Jesus was not upset. What he had to say upset the moderators of his time because they felt insulted and they banned him and got him nailed to the cross. Even the Son of God was subjected to the oppression of moderators. Ruling a Tao forum should be like cooking a small fish. And I am the small fish?

Yes, having fun is nice until it gets ugly when one of us becomes unglued because the Tao we embody overheats and has a fissile meltdown. Should this happen, can we move to private messaging? I don't want to upset the mods when our Taichi moves gets deadly and we are dead set on attaining orgasm. You come across as someone who sees a need to help out. Fundamentally, it is a good impulse. And if helping out is what you want to do, then you probably will never have enough because Jesus said, "the poor, you will always have with you". Bill Gates has more than that much money. He has $67 billion not counting Warren Buffet's pile of $53 billion pledged to the Melinda and Bill gates Foundation dedicated to helping out others. Is that what you are talking about? How come all this desire and fire-power to help out (not to mention the billions in US foreign aid) amount to zilch in terms of making the world a better place? What is your take on this? If you had the Tao power to direct the Bill gates Foundation, what would you do that they are not doing to make a lasting difference? I don't doubt you and it is good to make that bold statement. In my book, self-confidence is not a crime as long as your head is screwed on right. Taking life seriously is a must; otherwise, you wouldn't care about helping out others. It's taking oneself seriously that needs to be tamped down. Taoism, all too often, amounts to self-glorification. Helping out others, like I said, is a good thing provided the self is not in the equation.