True mastery?

[Everything]

Hey, all! I am kinda new to Tao, or noob, whatever you might call it. I would like to ask something about the 48th verse, where I'm kinda stuck. Perhaps you guys can correct me on my learning of Tao.

 

What I read (I don't know if this translation is correct or not):

Learning consist of daily accumulating.

The practice of the Tao consist of daily diminishing;

decreasing and deacreasing, untill doing nothing.

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

 

True mastery can be gained

by letting things go their own way.

It cannot be gained by interfering.

_______

 

So thats the 48th verse I read. What is meant by "True mastery" ? And how can fulfillment be reached by doing nothing? I thought being passive will do the opposite... I'm confused about this whole verse. Actually in all of my thinking about the Tao, because these teachings seems wise and paradoxical, but I cannot seem to relate it to anything else in the world.

 

 

Feel free to comment on any of my words here. Thanks

Edited August 15, 2010 by Everything

[Tao99]

TTC 48 translator W.T. Chan

 

48.1 The pursuit of learning is to increase day after day. The pursuit of Tao is to decrease day after day.

 

48.2 It is to decrease and further decrease until one reaches the point of taking no action. No action is undertaken, And yet nothing is left undone. An empire is often brought to order by having no activity.

 

48.3 If one (likes to) undertake activity, he is not qualified to govern the empire.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Tao99

[Machin Shin]

 

What is meant by "True mastery" ? And how can fulfillment be reached by doing nothing?

 

What is your "Truth"? How disciplined are you?

 

The Emperor Listens to the Mandate of Heaven, the people are the action of Heaven. Now if all is in accord with Heaven then the people will act accordingly. A Just Emperor will only do as the people have commanded.

 

A true man understands this to be the truth, now if you'll excuse me I'm of to find a white horse.

[bindo]

"If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling. Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human, should be discarded. The ocean of life contains all, not only humans. So, first of all, abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing."

 

Sri Nisargadatta

 

This is what's meant by "decreasing". Think of the uncarved block.

[Everything]

Good point on how does it relate to my life. Ya know Lao Tzu wrote primarily for the Emperor and was giving advice to future Emperors about how to run the empire. So to make this relevant to us, the empire is our own life, and the Emperor is our intention-forming (yi) spirit (shen) or ourself.

 

With this in mind here is:

 

TTC 48 translator W.T. Chan

 

48.1 The pursuit of learning is to increase day after day. The pursuit of Tao is to decrease day after day.

 

48.2 It is to decrease and further decrease until one reaches the point of taking no action. No action is undertaken, And yet nothing is left undone. An empire is often brought to order by having no activity.

 

48.3 If one (likes to) undertake activity, he is not qualified to govern the empire.

 

 

My Comment. Nothing worse then a busy-body Emperor always acting in this person's or that's business. Also butting in, and getting involved in personal matters. Best to have an Emperor who dislikes all this busy-bodyness, and prefers stillness and quietude, and allowing the empire to run on it's own accord, following the Tao or purely natural, uncontrived, interdependently originated Way of Nature.

 

You gave a whole new way of looking at it, great! I'm still confused about the diffrence between what you said about intention forming spirit and myself. Do you mean my physical form in the world of forms and boundaries is myself or shen and yi = my intention forming spirit? How does this spirit go about forming intentions? What is actually ment with this? The philosophy behind this souds very deep indeed. I'm afraid I don't uderstand it that well.

[Everything]

"If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling. Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human, should be discarded. The ocean of life contains all, not only humans. So, first of all, abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing."

 

Sri Nisargadatta

 

This is what's meant by "decreasing". Think of the uncarved block.

 

 

Holy! Thats some strong words! You mean I should die while still alive? How's that possible.

[Tao99]

"If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling. Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human, should be discarded. The ocean of life contains all, not only humans. So, first of all, abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing."

 

Sri Nisargadatta

 

This is what's meant by "decreasing". Think of the uncarved block.

 

He (Sri) is not a Taoist. What he says is not Taoist at all. Plus, he is promoting no-self doctrine, the exact opposite of the Shen (spirit) doctrine of Taoism. This is a blatant attempt to high jack an obviously Taoist discussion thread with underhanded, on-the-sly Buddhist doctrine that only confuses guests and members looking for Tao info.

 

You should have started your own Buddhist thread or even better you should have your own Buddhist sub-forum. But please stop highjacking Taoist threads and ruining them.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Tao99

[bindo]

Sri Nisargadatta a Buddhist? hahahahahaha

 

Spare me your ignorance.

Edited August 15, 2010 by bindo

[Tao99]

Sri Nisargadatta a Buddhist? hahahahahaha

 

Spare me your ignorance about Taoism and all things spiritual. A "busybody"? Are you even being serious?

Who cares. You missed the point. He isn't Taoist and his quote is pure ignorance from Taoist point of view. So spare me your ignorance, and keep your off topic ignorance somewhere else and not on a Taoist thread. Every line in your quote is opposed by Taoism. hahahahahahahahah

 

 

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (birth name: Maruti Shivrampant Kambli) (April 17, 1897[1] – September 8, 1981) was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher of Advaita (Nondualism), and a Guru, belonging to the Inchgiri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj

Edited August 15, 2010 by Tao99

[Tao99]

Sri Nisargadatta a Buddhist? hahahahahaha

 

Spare me your ignorance about Taoism and all things spiritual. A "busybody"? Are you even being serious?

 

The problem of the Emperor busy-body is one of the most elementary points of Lao Tzu. EVERYBODY KNOWS AT LEAST THAT. hahahahahahahah

 

Spare me your ignorance about Taoism and all things spiritual. Are you even being serious?

:lol:

 

G

Edited August 15, 2010 by Tao99

[Tao99]

chk pm

Edited August 15, 2010 by Tao99

[SFJane]

Dear Everything,

 

Welcome to TBB. May I make a suggestion? Do not look at chapter 48 as an exercise in mental gymnastics or philosophy. I am sorry if that basically means ignore or tunnel vision past what everyone else is telling you about what it means. But consider chapter 48 as a kind of codified set of instructions and observations, which I will now comment on.

Learning consist of daily accumulating.

 

Every day we go through life sensing, seeing, hearing, smelling and learning trivia. We read books and articles. We gain experiences. We socialize and learn new things and think about them. These thoughts on these transient things adds to the volume of 'stuff' and 'noise' in your mind that is essentially pure thought and contemplation. It is the firing of your frontal lobe neurons as you cogitate the meaning of life and what you absorb. In this way, you are always, always accumulating unless you do something very very deliberate about it.

 

 

The practice of the Tao consist of daily diminishing;

 

If we do not allow ourselves to be distracted by the dialogue and data-stream in our minds,, if we do not allow the mind to jump incessantly from one chain of associations to another, we can begin to simply stop the additive process of constant 'thinking' and 'knowing' about more and more things.

 

In terms of practice, it can simply mean doing some meditation instead of watching the news. Going for a Zen walk instead of blogging or reading Fark or zoning out on your Wii.

 

Decreasing and decreasing, until doing nothing.

 

This simply is the next logical step. You literally put the brakes on your life, suspend 'trying to have a life' and replacing it with simply 'Being'. It directly means doing prolonged sitting meditation and reaching the event horizon in your mind where, you've stopped adding to what you 'know' and are simply seeing what 'is' floating around inside you.

 

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

 

This simply means that when the mind is still, it has no desire to jump around. It simply is. It also can refer to being on vacation, literally from life. Being a bum. Having no responsibilities, no commitments, no politics, no socializing, just being content being by yourself in the woods communing with the chi of the sky and earth and trees. In means sidestepping the rat race of consumerism and seeing that it IS a rat race that keeps people from self-actualization.

 

True mastery can be gained

 

True mastery is what obviously? Self mastery. It's repeated again and again in TTC. Know thyself and know the ways of the world. It means mastery of our inner world. A respite from unrelenting mental dialogue, personal demons, and inner emotional, moral, or existential conflicts

 

by letting things go their own way.

 

It means stop being a control freak, relax, let go, and be. It is a direct reference to doing some sitting time in the woods or on a mountaintop and letting the Emperors and Masters of the Universe do their thing, while you remain unattached. In the Water Method branch that also means dissolving through the first four Bodies of Being.

 

It cannot be gained by interfering.

 

Stop trying to make sense of life. Stop relying on selective thinking. Stop trying to control life. Stop trying to find meaning in life. Stop endlessly analyzing everything that happens around you. Relax, surrender, allow and it will unfold on its own, whether its inner peace or spiritual realizations or the events of life itself.

 

Interference means also, that if you are projecting thoughts and cogitating, you are getting in your own way and you are not meditating or on the path to stillness, because stillness is what happens when you stop making and start allowing. It blossoms. It grows like a bacterial culture and reaches a flash point and starts transforming your inner landscape. Stop asking other people about how the mind works or relying on their books or or philosophies to jade you. Go in and find out conclusively for yourself

 

I do not consider myself a Tao scholar. I am way behind on the Canon. I wouldn't begin to comment on I Ching and do not have Pietro's familiarity with it. I don't pretend to be able to comment on the entirety of the Tao Te Ching. I don't study it. I really don't. I just browse it periodically and realize the chapters are talking about the stuff I find comes up in practice. My thoughts are from a sit and mediate point of view, not philosophy or idealogical. All the best in your practice.

Edited August 15, 2010 by SFJane

[Everything]

Dear Everything,

 

Welcome to TBB. May I make a suggestion? Do not look at chapter 48 as an exercise in mental gymnastics or philosophy. I am sorry if that basically means ignore or tunnel vision past what everyone else is telling you about what it means. But consider chapter 48 as kind of codified set of instructions, which I will now comment on.

Learning consist of daily accumulating.

 

Every day we go through life sensing, seeing, hearing, smelling and learning trivia. We read books and articles. We gain experiences. We socialize and learn new things and think about them. These thoughts on these transient things adds to the volume of 'stuff' and 'noise' in your mind that is essentially pure thought and contemplation. It is the firing of your frontal lobe neurons as you cogitate the meaning of life and what you absorb. In this way, you are always, always accumulating unless you do something very very deliberate about it.

 

 

The practice of the Tao consist of daily diminishing;

 

If we do not allow ourselves to be distracted by the dialogue and data-stream in our minds,, if we do not allow the mind to jump incessantly from one chain of associations to another, we can begin to simply stop the additive process of constant 'thinking' and 'knowing' about more and more things.

 

In terms of practice, it can simply mean doing some meditation instead of watching the news. Going for a Zen walk instead of blogging or reading Fark or zoning out on your Wii.

 

Decreasing and decreasing, until doing nothing.

 

This simply is the next logical step. You literally put the brakes on your life, suspend 'trying to have a life' and replacing it with simply 'Being'. It directly means doing prolonged sitting meditation and reaching the event horizon in your mind where, you've stopped adding to what you 'know' and are simply seeing what 'is' floating around inside you.

 

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

 

This simply means that when the mind is still, it has no desire to jump around. It simply is. It also can refer to being on vacation, literally from life. Being a bum. Having no responsibilities, no commitments, no politics, no socializing, just being content being by yourself in the woods communing with the chi of the sky and earth and trees. In means sidestepping the rat race of consumerism and seeing that it IS a rat race that keeps people from self-actualization.

 

True mastery can be gained

 

True mastery is what obviously? Self mastery. It's repeated again and again in TTC. Know thyself and know the ways of the world. It means mastery of our inner world. A respite from unrelenting mental dialogue, personal demons, and inner emotional, moral, or existential conflicts

 

by letting things go their own way.

 

It means stop being a control freak, relax, let go, and be. It is a direct reference to doing some sitting time in the woods or on a mountaintop and letting the Emperors and Masters of the Universe do their thing, while you remain unattached. In the Water Method branch that means dissolving through the first four Bodies of Being.

 

It cannot be gained by interfering.

 

Stop trying to make sense of life. Stop relying on selective thinking. Stop trying to control life. Stop trying to find meaning in life. Stop endlessly analyzing everything that happens around you. Relax, surrender, allow and it will unfold on its own, whether its inner peace or spiritual realizations or the events of life itself.

 

Interference means also, that if you are projecting thoughts and cogitating, you are getting in your own way and you are not meditating or on the path to stillness, because stillness is what happens when you stop making and start allowing. It blossoms. It grows like bacterial culture and reaches a flash point and starts transforming your inner landscape. Stop asking other people about how the mind works or relying on their books or or philosophies to jade you. Go in and find out conclusively for yourself

 

I do not consider myself a Tao scholar. I am way behind on the Canon. I wouldn't begin to comment on I Ching and do not have Pietro's familiarity with it. I don't pretend to be able to comment on the entirety of the Tao Te Ching. I don't study it. I really don't. I just browse it periodically and realize the chapters are talking about the stuff I find comes up in practice. My thoughts are from a sit and mediate point of view, not philosophy or idealogical. All the best in your practice.

 

Yeah this is exactly what I thought of as I read this chapter. There comes a time when learning is over, and now you are the elder who stops taking, but gives. You are the man who returns from his journey and prepares others for theirs. When you share what you have gained it comes back to you in double. This has been going on for ages. The elders of the families do it all the time. Butt when you read from it in the Tao it has no contect to relate it with. Don't know the target audience, don't know the author, don't know the correct translation. This all seems so vague, and so many interpretations can be taken from the same teachings. It is more like art. Art of living or something.

[SFJane]

Yeah this is exactly what I thought of as I read this chapter. There comes a time when learning is over, and now you are the elder who stops taking, but gives. You are the man who returns from his journey and prepares others for theirs. When you share what you have gained it comes back to you in double. This has been going on for ages. The elders of the families do it all the time. Butt when you read from it in the Tao it has no contect to relate it with. Don't know the target audience, don't know the author, don't know the correct translation. This all seems so vague, and so many interpretations can be taken from the same teachings. It is more like art. Art of living or something.

 

There is that and perhaps even more simply, the entirety of chapter 48 can be summed up like this:

While you were wasting time reading this verse and wondering what it really means you could have been sitting, meditating in the woods, letting go and finding True (self) Mastery, ontologically, for yourself.

 

Tao Te Ching is weird like that. It sounds all mysterious and hinting of paradox and multiple-entendres, but the teachings become 'like duh, obvious' if you go practice.

Edited August 15, 2010 by SFJane

[Tao99]

Dear Everything,

 

Welcome to TBB. May I make a suggestion? Do not look at chapter 48 as an exercise in mental gymnastics or philosophy. I am sorry if that basically means ignore or tunnel vision past what everyone else is telling you about what it means. But consider chapter 48 as kind of codified set of instructions, which I will now comment on.

Learning consist of daily accumulating.

 

Every day we go through life sensing, seeing, hearing, smelling and learning trivia. We read books and articles. We gain experiences. We socialize and learn new things and think about them. These thoughts on these transient things adds to the volume of 'stuff' and 'noise' in your mind that is essentially pure thought and contemplation. It is the firing of your frontal lobe neurons as you cogitate the meaning of life and what you absorb. In this way, you are always, always accumulating unless you do something very very deliberate about it.

 

 

The practice of the Tao consist of daily diminishing;

 

If we do not allow ourselves to be distracted by the dialogue and data-stream in our minds,, if we do not allow the mind to jump incessantly from one chain of associations to another, we can begin to simply stop the additive process of constant 'thinking' and 'knowing' about more and more things.

 

In terms of practice, it can simply mean doing some meditation instead of watching the news. Going for a Zen walk instead of blogging or reading Fark or zoning out on your Wii.

 

Decreasing and decreasing, until doing nothing.

 

This simply is the next logical step. You literally put the brakes on your life, suspend 'trying to have a life' and replacing it with simply 'Being'. It directly means doing prolonged sitting meditation and reaching the event horizon in your mind where, you've stopped adding to what you 'know' and are simply seeing what 'is' floating around inside you.

 

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

 

This simply means that when the mind is still, it has no desire to jump around. It simply is. It also can refer to being on vacation, literally from life. Being a bum. Having no responsibilities, no commitments, no politics, no socializing, just being content being by yourself in the woods communing with the chi of the sky and earth and trees. In means sidestepping the rat race of consumerism and seeing that it IS a rat race that keeps people from self-actualization.

 

True mastery can be gained

 

True mastery is what obviously? Self mastery. It's repeated again and again in TTC. Know thyself and know the ways of the world. It means mastery of our inner world. A respite from unrelenting mental dialogue, personal demons, and inner emotional, moral, or existential conflicts

 

by letting things go their own way.

 

It means stop being a control freak, relax, let go, and be. It is a direct reference to doing some sitting time in the woods or on a mountaintop and letting the Emperors and Masters of the Universe do their thing, while you remain unattached. In the Water Method branch that also means dissolving through the first four Bodies of Being.

 

It cannot be gained by interfering.

 

Stop trying to make sense of life. Stop relying on selective thinking. Stop trying to control life. Stop trying to find meaning in life. Stop endlessly analyzing everything that happens around you. Relax, surrender, allow and it will unfold on its own, whether its inner peace or spiritual realizations or the events of life itself.

 

Interference means also, that if you are projecting thoughts and cogitating, you are getting in your own way and you are not meditating or on the path to stillness, because stillness is what happens when you stop making and start allowing. It blossoms. It grows like a bacterial culture and reaches a flash point and starts transforming your inner landscape. Stop asking other people about how the mind works or relying on their books or or philosophies to jade you. Go in and find out conclusively for yourself

 

I do not consider myself a Tao scholar. I am way behind on the Canon. I wouldn't begin to comment on I Ching and do not have Pietro's familiarity with it. I don't pretend to be able to comment on the entirety of the Tao Te Ching. I don't study it. I really don't. I just browse it periodically and realize the chapters are talking about the stuff I find comes up in practice. My thoughts are from a sit and mediate point of view, not philosophy or idealogical. All the best in your practice.

 

 

 

While you were wasting time reading this verse and wondering what it really means you could have been sitting, meditating in the woods, letting go and finding True (self) Mastery, ontologically, for yourself.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Tao99

[Taomeow]

"If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling. Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human, should be discarded. The ocean of life contains all, not only humans. So, first of all, abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing."

 

Sri Nisargadatta

 

This is what's meant by "decreasing". Think of the uncarved block.

Moderator's note:

 

We've discussed "hijacking threads" recently and have come to the conclusion that this constitutes a violation of our policy. We got reports with complaints re your entry. Ergo:

 

Please open a separate Buddhist thread to promulgate "true Buddhist mastery." DO NOT hijack a taoist thread.

 

-- Sword of tao sheathed

[Everything]

There is that and perhaps even more simply, the entirety of chapter 48 can be summed up like this:

While you were wasting time reading this verse and wondering what it really means you could have been sitting, meditating in the woods, letting go and finding True (self) Mastery, ontologically, for yourself.

 

Tao Te Ching is weird like that. It sounds all mysterious and hinting of paradox and multiple-entendres, but the teachings become 'like duh, obvious' if you go practice.

 

Wait... I don't understand what meditation is. I don't even know how meditation would benefit me. Being present minded is not a problem for me, I'm good at that. Meditation is not a term I'm familiar with.

 

I already knew that learning only is not the answer to succes. One must also experience. Together they form your intelect and you can be succesful. Ok, but this verse says to go meditate as a form of experience? Being present minded is often the way to have new experiences, play, go mine the intellect of others, etc. For some require more experience and others require more education. It is like a spectrum, no one is perfectly in the middle, in balance.

 

How can meditation be part of that? It teaches you present mindednes. The play part of intellect is where Tao comes in, here in this verse. "By doing nothing, nothing is left undone." You're just going about, doing nothing, letting it all happen. Nothing is left undone, thus you can relax into the present moment and experience it fully to provide you with valuable lessons or new insights. Then, and only then does diminishing get you results and more things to accumulate. This is all very paradoxical, oddly explained in the tao. I don't see how this verse can be interpreted anyway else, but as a poem. It communicates clearly a state of play and experience, where nothing is left undone.

[hagar]

Hey, all! I am kinda new to Tao, or noob, whatever you might call it. I would like to ask something about the 48th verse, where I'm kinda stuck. Perhaps you guys can correct me on my learning of Tao.

 

What I read (I don't know if this translation is correct or not):

Learning consist of daily accumulating.

The practice of the Tao consist of daily diminishing;

decreasing and deacreasing, untill doing nothing.

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

 

True mastery can be gained

by letting things go their own way.

It cannot be gained by interfering.

_______

 

So thats the 48th verse I read. What is meant by "True mastery" ? And how can fulfillment be reached by doing nothing? I thought being passive will do the opposite... I'm confused about this whole verse. Actually in all of my thinking about the Tao, because these teachings seems wise and paradoxical, but I cannot seem to relate it to anything else in the world.

 

 

Feel free to comment on any of my words here. Thanks

 

I think this video explains some of your questions quite well. Its best recieved from the heart. The man in the video is a Daoist, yet what is important is that he is operating from the level of understanding that the text implies, thus if this is Daoist or Buddhist insights is not really relevant. See the whole video, and part II also,

 

[SFJane]

Sarahpalinsarahpalinsarahpalin

 

Plus you contradicted your own advice by wondering in great detail about this verse.

 

Not at all. I arrived at the existential realization of the entirety of verse 48 accidentally. I found that it had been foretold in the book and that according to the chapter itself, is hinted at as a matter of course.

 

Your statement is dishonest and a red herring. It implies that had I been concerned with wanting to 'not appear to contradict myself' I should have stfu and not bothered to answer a simple enough question with my own anecdotes gleaned from practice. When the OP directly requested bums to comment on it from their perspective.

 

I have done the sit-and-do-it approach and I found that the practice leads to a sort of, hindsight understanding or apprehension of, something that seemed abstract in the beginning. Then with my bolded print I basically said he should not obsess over what I just told him, but go and find out the truth or falseness for himself. There is information about Taoism that you can not get from contemplating it or batting around cute or elegant seeming prose. Which is what daily accumulating is. You have to, as Morpheous said to Neo, stop wondering what is and isn't real and "See it for yourself."

 

You have yet to contribute something I haven't heard before so what is your excuse for your post just now?

Edited August 16, 2010 by SFJane

[Taomeow]

Sri Nisargadatta a Buddhist? hahahahahaha

 

Spare me your ignorance about Taoism and all things spiritual. A "busybody"? Are you even being serious? :lol:

 

Moderator's note:

 

I gather Sri Nisargadatta is a Hindu, not a Buddhist then? Perhaps a Moslem? Maybe a sufi mystic? Beats me. What's so funny about someone not into any of the above and trying to discuss taoist sources not knowing who the heck he is? I don't know who he is either. "Spare you my ignorance" I can't, I don't know who he is, but I can assure you that "spare me your ignorance" is entirely without merit and barely within insult policy margins that are stretching under its pressure. Please try to talk to people instead of belittling them for not being into your thing.

 

-- Sword of tao sheathed

[Everything]

I think this video explains some of your questions quite well. Its best recieved from the heart. The man in the video is a Daoist, yet what is important is that he is operating from the level of understanding that the text implies, thus if this is Daoist or Buddhist insights is not really relevant. See the whole video, and part II also,

 

 

Hey there, n thanks for your reply. I've also discussed this on my other topic about the spiritual value of the Tao. Yes, I know very well that I must find a place for Tao in my heart, but I know not how one goes about doing this... I cannot just put the Tao in my heart, first and foremost, if I don't know what the tao is. Secondly, I cannot do it if my heart is distracted, maybe overwhelmed even, by so much bad thoughts and negative feelings connected to these thoughts. I must surely practice to focus on the Tao trough on going meditation or present minded. But exactly how can one go about inspiring one self to carry the Tao in the heart? Even if one wants to carry words on his heart, its not always possible to do that. "The world is perfect" When I say that, I don't feel them in my heart. How can I place them on my heart? How did you? Do you remember how they got there? Overtime ofcourse.

 

thanks for the video link btw, its awesome

Edited August 15, 2010 by Everything

[bindo]

Holy! Thats some strong words! You mean I should die while still alive? How's that possible.

You're a quick learner.

[Everything]

You're a quick learner.

 

I kinda live by the samurai code. Hold death in mind at all times, get over the fear of it, but respect death.

Only once you've faced death as a hero can the boy in you die and the warrior arise. You know your boundaries as a warrior, thus are more effective in all combats in life. Not only that, you see this world from a mature perspective, where nothing is scarce, rather then agression, assertiveness is the answer.

 

exaMPLE: The murderer of my master has spit on my face, and I seath my weapon, to walk away from killing him. Because in that moment I would have acted out of my anger, not out of something that is bigger then me and him.

 

Also can one face his fears and do courage instead of whining or passiveness when it is needed most. But how does being dead help you achieve this kind of mastery while being alive? The concept of death is one that should be respected, not tried to replicate. Rather you should know that your fear of death is natural and a key element for your initiation into mandhood. Not only that, you should, in this time and age, know that death and life are opposites that depend on eachother, so they mean nothing to the Taoist, right?

[thelerner]

IMO Bindo's quote was appropriate to the topic.

But SFJane hit the target in the center.

 

 

Michael

[Tao99]

You have yet to contribute something I haven't heard before so what is your excuse for your post just now?

 

I was talking to OP. Who cares if you heard it before or not? Is it all about you? Are you the arbiter of what can or should be said here? Christ.