Taoism Vs Buddhism

[Stigweard]

Indeed. That means you are stuck in absorption and re-expression, as Earth dissolves into Heaven and Heaven into the mysterious unknown that hasn't been penetrated by the insight of dependent origination and stays mysterious and transcendent. So at the end of a cosmic eon, your so called immortals in the heavens are resolved into ignorance once again to be expressed in forgetting to do the process all over again during the next cosmic eon/cycle.

 

That doesn't mean it's still not trapped in Samsara (unconscious absorption and re-expression or rebirth or Universal extension and return recycling program, over and over and over and over and over again).

Here we see your Buddhist distaste for the here and now coming in. You guys are so unhappy with your lot and so desperate to "get the flock out of here". You really do miss out on the living now which is where Tao is.

 

Speaking personally, the only thing I am trying to "escape" is the limitations of a fixed view of the world so that I can be truly "here". We may improve our view of the world by adopting a better ideology or philosophy, but that is still just another fixation.

 

What Laozi is truly offering is a way to simply see and engage life as it is in it's totality. No escaping, no conceptualizing, no transcending, just life ... just Tao.

 

I can understand if Tao is merely being defined as the way of mutually dependent things that arise through endless variations in cycles since beginningless time, yet is empty of inherent being, and is merely a way encapsulating through concept that which is really empty. As the Buddha taught, there is not one Dharma that has inherent essence, or self standing beingness.

 

But, to make it an ontological essence deep within the collective and (more importantly for you as the practitioner) personal unconscious, sounds like making of it a fun box of mysterious churning's that one is expressed from and returns to over and over again, considering it the truly self existing basis and conscious law giver of it all.

 

I don't think that considering the Tao or Way in this fashion will exhaust all possible ignorance for you as an individual, even if while on Earth one has the spiritual siddhis (powers) of spontaneous joy and even ascends to a heaven realm after for many eons.

Whoa up there Mr Vaj ... ain't nobody here trying to say Tao is some sort of "collective and personal unconscious" but you. Tao is just the way, method, process, principle of Universal manifestation ... nice and simple.

 

You keep trying to pin down Tao by adding your concepts to it for the purpose arguing against it. But every time you do it's no longer Tao and you end up just arguing with your own reifications, all the while propounding that "This is what Taoists believe". Now don't get me wrong, some most certainly do, but if you spent some quality time with the original text of Laozi you would realize that 'he' most certainly did not.

 

[majc]

See, the movement of the Tao includes the coming into existence of Earth, and it includes (right now on that Earth) the ongoing construction of images of all sorts of shapes and sizes inside homosapien heads.

 

Buddhist imagery is a fantastic example!

Oh I guess I didn't completely explain: if you recognize this, it follows naturally that, just as every idea constructed within a talking monkey's head is included in the movement of Tao, so too is every tradition that groups of talking monkeys build around such ideas.

 

Acknowledging this, 'Taoism' must therefore automatically be nonsense, and every definite tradition so labeled can be no more than an entertaining obstruction.

 

It isn't difficult to see why this sort of (often highly sophisticated) nonsense emerges though, what with all the 7 billion talking monkeys around...

[Marblehead]

[Marblehead]

Oh I guess I didn't completely explain: ...

 

I do that all the time. Sometimes intentionally.

 

I'm still trying to figure out where you are but as long as you keep posting I'll get it eventually. Interesting posts from you so far.

[Vajrahridaya]

Clearly you have a good memory for facts. But dude, you use a lot of words.

 

Can you please stop complaining about someone who has a good mind for facts, as if I didn't spend years meditating in an Ashram, experiencing directly the refined states of consciousness mentioned in various scriptures and seeing my past lives directly, as well as going to various realms of the gods talked about in Buddhism and Hinduism, directly, many times before I even read anything about them. I just get tired to being accused of merely being an encyclopedia of regurgitation. It's a pretty sad reflection of insecurity.

 

This is a discussion board so of course I'm going to explain using words and I enjoy using words!

 

If you have constructed in your mind an idea or image of what 'Tao' is - an image which you're able to contrast and compare with another image (which you have also constructed, in this case based on Buddhist literature), then you have already contradicted, or ignored, the very first line of the Tao Te Ching.

 

The Tao that can be told / described / 'image-d' is not the Tao.

 

I mentioned ineffable as well as transcendent. Yes, the same way Hindu's describe Brahman. I am directly familiar with the meditative experiences concerning this.

 

See, the movement of the Tao includes the coming into existence of Earth, and it includes (right now on that Earth) the ongoing construction of images of all sorts of shapes and sizes inside homosapien heads.

 

Sounds like a collective unconscious, or the concept of the Store House Consciousness (Alayavijnana) in Buddhism.

 

Buddhist imagery is a fantastic example!

 

That would be a manifestation of Dharmakaya, the individual storehouse consciousness liberated directly and thus becomes the womb or Tathagatagarbha of Buddha manifestations from the formless enlightened potential of the collection of endless Buddhas since beginningless time. Dharmakaya is likened to a Buddha mind matrix of constant creative expression with the sole purpose of liberating endless sentient beings.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

Here we see your Buddhist distaste for the here and now coming in. You guys are so unhappy with your lot and so desperate to "get the flock out of here". You really do miss out on the living now which is where Tao is.

 

You should know that I don't see it that way and neither does Buddhism. That would be a sour misunderstanding of what I was saying.

 

The here and now is liberated, because Samsara is Nirvana. Everything is empty of inherent existence, thus also no inherent power to bind. Liberation is merely a change in perspective. It's amazing how bad your memory is Stig. I've said this over and over again and any Buddhist that uses Buddhism for the sake of escapism instead of realizing insight-fully the nature of here and now is not understanding the teaching.

 

In Buddhism we really just aim at removing the inner causes of psychological suffering and unconscious rebirth. So we really just remove the blockages of awareness and insight into the nature of how all this does it's doing, in the ever ungraspable... here and now.

Speaking personally, the only thing I am trying to "escape" is the limitations of a fixed view of the world so that I can be truly "here". We may improve our view of the world by adopting a better ideology or philosophy, but that is still just another fixation.

 

We liberate from all views. We empty all views attaining the viewless view. Your universalist view of an ontological essence is considered a view and a fixation.

 

What Laozi is truly offering is a way to simply see and engage life as it is in it's totality. No escaping, no conceptualizing, no transcending, just life ... just Tao.

 

Boy you really have a concept here about what Buddhism teaches that hasn't been affected at all by anything I've ever said to you?

 

Whoa up there Mr Vaj ... ain't nobody here trying to say Tao is some sort of "collective and personal unconscious" but you. Tao is just the way, method, process, principle of Universal manifestation ... nice and simple.

 

So it's not an ontological essence and has no self basis for being, it is merely a convenient word used to describe a cyclical process, much like the term Samsara?

 

You keep trying to pin down Tao by adding your concepts to it for the purpose arguing against it. But every time you do it's no longer Tao and you end up just arguing with your own reifications, all the while propounding that "This is what Taoists believe". Now don't get me wrong, some most certainly do, but if you spent some quality time with the original text of Laozi you would realize that 'he' most certainly did not.

 

 

He called it a mother and a source, beyond direct knowing. Sounds like another way of describing the Hindu and monistic Brahman?

 

I do feel that the Buddhas teaching does go deeper and that is my opinion and experience and I do feel there is indeed a fundamental difference in view ultimately between the teachings of Lau Tzu (Laozi) and Buddha. The Buddha himself said that at the time he spoke there was not a teaching of liberation as clearly defined as his on Earth and he had the power of the eyes of Brahma to go into meditation and see remotely at will.

 

I think there are individuals that can have the exact same realization of the Buddha anywhere at any time, but they would have the exact same realization, even if worded differently. Thus far, Apech7 seems the best at sharing a Taoist view that is akin with what the Buddha taught, but through Taoist terminology.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Marblehead]

And we Taoists don't care.

 

Oh well. Nothing changes when you use a different word to label it with.

 

Where did that term 'collective unconscious' come from? Is Carl Jung lurking in the background here somewhere?

[Birch]

"I do still remain open to discussion of the possibility of more than one universe at any given moment in time(s)."

 

I'd wager Mr MH that an example of such a possibility might be yours and mine, respectively (universes).

 

In fact (I should stop saying that word) I'm willing to bet that without mediations such as Taoist philosophy and a common taste for certain types of music, we might also spend some time arguing about who is seeing any universe at all.

 

And I can almost inkle (not that it's really a verb, but I figured I should invent it because Apech was around) that here's the problem (IMO and small monkey experience) it both is AND it isn't.

 

Anyway, whatever I think the universe is doing, it's probably doing something else. I try to listen to it because it's running through me but I think I'd rather often listen to myself. Sorry, that was a bit rambling.

[Vajrahridaya]

[Apech]

 

 

I think there are individuals that can have the exact same realization of the Buddha anywhere at any time, but they would have the exact same realization, even if worded differently. Thus far, Apech7 seems the best at sharing a Taoist view that is akin with what the Buddha taught, but through Taoist terminology.

 

No one else will talk to me now!!!

 

Seriously ... I'm not sure that is what I am doing but hey. I don't agree with the ontological essence idea and I said so when it was suggested before. I think ontological essence is a valid idea but Tao is beyond 'being' as such ...hence the mystery... so you cannot make the equation tao=ontological essence.

 

Its like the idea of the Absolute in philosophy. You can say ... its like an infinite ocean, or its power beyond all powers, or its like space itself ... energy ... whatever you like and because it is absolute then all these are both true and yet not true ...

 

So if you try to say that the Tao is a collective storehouse consciousness blah blah ... etc ... well yes it might seem like that and even for practical purposes be like that ... like a source, an origin or a mother ... but it is not that. These are all functional definitions ... terms which may be appropriate or not depending on their application. So if the Absolute appears to nurture the things which 'are' - then the Absolute is a mother, in the same way that it is their origin since where else can they come from. If they came from somewhere else then my Absolute is not an absolute at all. This comes from a point of view which accepts at face value things are things.

 

However if you start by considering the thing first. By analysing the nature of the thing(s) you quickly realize that the things are impermanent, made of parts and have no selfhood. That being the case what is the point of talking about a mother? or a source?

 

Then you take these two points of view and put them together and get a very long and sometimes fractious debate.

[Vajrahridaya]

 

Then you take these two points of view and put them together and get a very long and sometimes fractious debate.

 

Yeah... maybe Stigs and I are pointing at the same truth but getting dumb over wording?

 

I seem to resonate better with the way you construct your phrases though? It's karmic, I'm sure.

 

[Apech]

Yeah... maybe Stigs and I are pointing at the same truth but getting dumb over wording?

 

I seem to resonate better with the way you construct your phrases though? It's karmic, I'm sure.

 

 

I guess we should all remember that we are all on the path (maybe taking different routes) and even if we don't see eye to eye we can wave at each other and shout 'good luck!' as we pass by.

 

Also hope you are feeling better and not still looking at the bottom of a bucket.

[Vajrahridaya]

I guess we should all remember that we are all on the path (maybe taking different routes) and even if we don't see eye to eye we can wave at each other and shout 'good luck!' as we pass by.

 

Also hope you are feeling better and not still looking at the bottom of a bucket.

 

Nope, praising the porcelain god is over and done with... he swallowed well all of my offerings and kept them all down too...

[Vajrahridaya]

[Aetherous]

Thanks man. Well...that was confusing. I'm just not cut out for philosophy anymore.

[Vajrahridaya]

Thanks man. Well...that was confusing. I'm just not cut out for philosophy anymore.

 

HAHAHA!!! It's all good bro... practice, practice, practice... philosophy helps to fill the space for questions that arise during practice, but they don't make up for it! That's for sure.

 

Actually... Philosophy, it seems more so in Buddhism than most other traditions is emphasized as a practice as well though.

 

Anyway... as they say, "Refine the view, practice, refine the view, practice, refine the view, practice... " Eventually liberation ensues.

Edited November 9, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Stigweard]

[Vajrahridaya]

Okalydoekaly!

 

I love Chai by the way...

[Vajrahridaya]

 

Where did that term 'collective unconscious' come from? Is Carl Jung lurking in the background here somewhere?

 

Actually Buddhists were the first to posit such an understanding and systematize it. Abhidharma is pretty darn exhaustive of a cosmology as is Astavijnana or elaboration of the 8 consciousness'. Buddhist cosmology goes far deeper than these as well.

[goldisheavy]

Actually Buddhists were the first to posit such an understanding and systematize it. Abhidharma is pretty darn exhaustive of a cosmology as is Astavijnana or elaboration of the 8 consciousness'. Buddhist cosmology goes far deeper than these as well.

 

It is no easy task to separate a drunk from his bottle.

[Vajrahridaya]

It is no easy task to separate a drunk from his bottle.

 

As well as is weight from gold.

[Marblehead]

"I do still remain open to discussion of the possibility of more than one universe at any given moment in time(s)."

 

I'd wager Mr MH that an example of such a possibility might be yours and mine, respectively (universes).

 

In fact (I should stop saying that word) I'm willing to bet that without mediations such as Taoist philosophy and a common taste for certain types of music, we might also spend some time arguing about who is seeing any universe at all.

 

And I can almost inkle (not that it's really a verb, but I figured I should invent it because Apech was around) that here's the problem (IMO and small monkey experience) it both is AND it isn't.

 

Anyway, whatever I think the universe is doing, it's probably doing something else. I try to listen to it because it's running through me but I think I'd rather often listen to myself. Sorry, that was a bit rambling.

 

Hi Kate,

 

I totally understand what you are saying (I think). I think that we two actually do live in two different universes but the paths of our universes keep bringing us into contact.

 

That's fine, I think.

 

Yes, we should listen to what our world and universe is telling us. I think that this may well be where our intuitions and inspirations come from.

 

Of course, here we are speaking only figuratively but if it can be true figuratively why couldn't it be true literally as well?

 

No, I have no answers.

[Marblehead]

Stig's gets a little personal, but at least he has well formulated arguments supporting his intense dislike for me. :lol:

 

Hehehe. Naw. He just dislikes the way you present your understanding of Buddhism.

[Marblehead]

Seriously ... I'm not sure that ...

 

Very excellent post!

[Marblehead]

Actually Buddhists were the first to posit such an understanding and systematize it. Abhidharma is pretty darn exhaustive of a cosmology as is Astavijnana or elaboration of the 8 consciousness'. Buddhist cosmology goes far deeper than these as well.

 

Hehehe. Actually, I already knew that. And I do have somewhat of an attachment to that theory. (Except I speak to it in physical (DNA) terms.)