Taoist Philosophy - Chapter 97

[Marblehead]

Provide For The Belly And Not For The Eyes

 

The five colors blind the eyes of man;
The five musical notes deafen the ears of man;
The five flavors dull the taste of man;
Horse-racing and hunting and chasing
Madden the minds of man;
Rare, valuable goods
Keep their owners awake at night.

Therefore the Sage
Provides for the belly and not for the eyes;
Provides for the inner self
And not for the external self,
Not for the sensuous world.
Hence, he rejects the one and accepts the other.


The Five Senses Detract From Our Nature

There are five ways in which we lose our original nature. First, the five colors confuse the eye and obstruct our vision. Second, the five notes confuse the ear and obstruct our hearing. Third, the five smells assail our nostrils and block up our forehead. Fourth, the five tastes foul the mouth and hurt our taste. Fifth, desires and occupations confuse our mind and cause agitation of our soul.

All these do injury to our life, and yet many men regard them as means toward fulfillment. That is not what I would regard as fulfillment. For if fulfillment means enslavement, how can it be regarded as fulfillment? If so, then the pigeon and the owl in a cage may regard themselves as having fulfilled themselves. Besides, if a man’s mind is enclosed in a fur cap, or a kingfisher hat, and belts and ceremonial tablets, his mind a mass of stuffed confusion inside and his body a bundle of entanglements outside, and he still claims self-fulfillment from behind that bundle of entanglements, then the convict whose hands are tied behind his back and whose fingers are in a squeezer, and the tigers and leopards behind the bars, may also claim fulfillment of their nature.


Action Of The Wind On Water

When a wind passes over the ocean, it takes away something from the ocean. When the sun shines on the ocean, it also takes away something from the ocean. Yet if you ask the wind and the sun to keep on acting on the ocean, the ocean is not conscious of its loss because it is fed by a living source. Such is the gradual, intimate action of water upon the Earth, the gradual, intimate relation between shadow and substance and the gradual, intimate action of material things upon other things. Therefore the eye is harmful to the innate capacity of vision, the ear is harmful to the innate capacity of hearing, and the mind is harmful to the innate capacity of understanding. All functions are harmful to their respective organs. When the harm is done, it is beyond repair, for such effects accumulate and grow.


Distractions Of The Material World

For a long time now there is no man but has changed his nature on account of material things. The common men sacrifice their lives for profit; the scholars sacrifice their lives for fame; the noblemen sacrifice their lives for their families; the learned sacrifice their lives for the world. All these people have different professions and their reputations vary, but in suffering injury to their original nature, they are alike.

Two shepherds were both tending their sheep and both lost them. On being asked what he was doing, the first replied that he was reading with the shepherd’s stick under his arm. On being asked what he was doing, the second replied that he was gambling. The manner in which the two lost their sheep was different, but the fact of their losing their sheep was the same.


The Woodcarver

The master carver made a bell stand of precious wood. When it was finished, all who saw it were astonished. They said it must be the work of the spirits. The Prince said to the master carver, “What is your secret?”

The carver replied, “I am only a workman. I have no secret. There is only this. When I began to think about the work you commanded I guarded my soul, I did not expend it on trifles that were not to the point. I fasted in order to set my heart at rest. After three days fasting, I had forgotten gain and success. After five days I had forgotten praise or criticism. After seven days I had forgotten my body with all its limbs.

“By this time all thought of Your Highness and of the court had faded away. All that might distract me from the work had vanished. I was collected in the single thought of the bell stand.

“Then I went to the forest to see the trees in their own natural state. When the right tree appeared before my eyes, the bell stand also appeared in it, clearly; beyond doubt. All I had to do was to put forth my hand and begin. If I had not met this particular tree there would have been no bell stand at all.

“What happened? My own collected thought encountered the hidden potential in the wood; from this live encounter came the work which you ascribe to the spirits.”

Edited March 5, 2013 by Marblehead

[Everything]

Nice post, Marblehead.

 

Not sure what value those words got for me, but I do notice that I love to experience without judgement/abstractions. Experiencing everything to its fullest so that we may ultimately act effortless, without intention.

Even taking cold showers for the first time can be enjoyable when you learn to experience it from within. Letting go of the external world, becoming aware of your perceptions/abstractions/judgements of it. It will be alot less painful, more refreshing. AAaahhh...

 

Well... That was my thought for the day!

 

Love and wisdom

[Marblehead]

Thanks Everything.

 

Yes, experience life to its fullest.

 

(Within sound moral values as much as possible.)

[Easy]

MH,

I have to hand it to you for bringing all these fine teachings into one space...Old Number 97...a sublime crock of sour owl shit.

 

I've lived in the South USA and so I know that you don't have to go to China for this kind of sanctimonious crap and you had better not try what with the perilous balance of trade these days. However you can pick it up from any Christian fundamentalist bitch-meister at least three times within any five blocks you might want to wander.

 

I have no respect for this because it is so goddamned common, so goddamned petty, so goddamned eager to debase life itself.

 

The only people for whom I have respect are those few who know, down there in the don-tien, more about the Tao than anyone on this forum because they have been around the block with their eyes and their minds wide open more times than anyone around here. And you will see them standing there with a bottle of Jack Daniels and the reins of a fast horse in one hand and an arm around the shoulders of a beautiful, wise and loving woman...a smile on their lips and a song in their heart...

[anatman]

putting it all together makes it much easier to understand.

[Marblehead]

Hi Easy,

 

You sound bitter.

 

So you have respect for the excessive. Many people do.

 

But I will suggest that one can get high on life without the use of any drugs or alcohol. I suggest that one can have beautiful relationships with members of the opposite sex, or even the same sex, without paying $400 a night. I suggest that there are better way to utilize one's resources than to blow the money away betting on a horse race.

 

Yes, I enjoy the beautiful, natural colors of nature. I enjoy the sounds of beautiful (IMO) music. I enjoy the taste of properly (IMO) spiced foods. Yes, I enjoy having something that few others have. Yes, I enjoy watching competition between individuals for the purpose of showing one's skills.

 

But I never let any of these things control my life. This is the bottom line. If we are not controlled by these excessives we will always remain open to experience life to its fullest.

 

Back in the days when I did a lot of travelling I would head in a given direction toward a destination but I would put away my map and just take whatever road beckoned to me. I was able to see so many really wonderful places and meet so many wonderful people that I never would have had to opportunity for had I remained fixed to a specific path.

 

It's not that the beauties of life are something bad, it is that when we are controlled by these excesses that we lose our potential for experiencing all the other aspects of life.

 

And I suggest that your vision of the happiness of that person drinking the Jack Daniels is extremely distorted.

[Marblehead]

putting it all together makes it much easier to understand.

 

That was the only reason I did the work. Thanks.

[Easy]

Hey,

I received a moderator's message when I logged on this a.m. that my post above had been reported as an attack on Marblehead. This is my reply:

 

"No way was that an attack on MH, he did not write the material that was presented. I like MH; he is one of TTB's greatest assets. I was using the strong language to emphasize the point that aspects of Taoism were every bit as morally repressive as fundamental Christianity (or Islam for that matter). I have found it strange that people in the west will condemn all of Christianity as being repressive and anti-life but will wholeheartedly embrace without reflection the entirety of an eastern tradition that contains the same puritanical clap-trap. It is a kind of sentimentality that evades critical thinking and needs to be shaken up from time to time. I could have written a mild little post to that point but it would not have had any effect.

 

If MH or anyone else thought the post was a personal attack then I sincerely apologize for not making that clear in the first place. But I will not apologize for the strong language. When I feel passionate about an issue I use strong language and I feel passionate about sanctimonious authority whether it is political or spiritual or social."

 

I was wondering to myself whether or not to elaborate further because further elaboration might be off-topic. But I decided to go ahead because this is a philosophy thread and my musings on the matter tend toward a subjective philosophy that has been shaded more by Taoism than any other ism, but that doesn't mean I have purchased the entire package.

 

First I should mention that I embody a personality type that Carl Jung, Myers and Briggs describe as Extroverted Sensory Feeling. (We ESFs tend to be passionate, physical and autonomous beyond the norm, and sometimes a little anarchistic.) Now this hard-wired basic approach to life was originally shaped by growing up rural in Rocky Mountain cowboy country among any number of hard living, and sometimes exceptionally wise, human beings. It was further developed in my first occupation, journalism, which has its share of hard living and sometimes exceptionally wise human beings. My second occupation was that of a private investigator who specialized in criminal defense and civil rights work in a milieu that is populated by hard-living, autonomous, passionate (and sometimes exceptionally wise) human beings, many of whom are outlaws. (For more on that you can read this.) My current occupation is artistic blacksmithing. Now in line with this train of thought and to some extent the general tenor of TTB, I once wrote in an essay about forge welding:

 

"Working hammers of this weight—ten pounds—in this heat is a gourmet meditation on the priceless treasure of the body—that which we are until that moment we aren’t. The eyes and shoulders take care of the weld, wu wei, it doesn’t need another thought. This body is the only asset and care in the whole world now. One strikes right as if growing up, tranquil, from the earth with a dark, slacked core of original energy settled just above the groin as the center and source of awareness. It’s a little like a slow dirty, Latin dance and a dance to be regally, seductively dirty must look and feel as if it is the easiest thing two people have ever done standing up; a dance so certain of itself that the steps are barely there; just brief, cathartic afterthoughts that really aren’t thought of as much as they are small reflexive tokens to the music that, for its own part in the piece, is not so much the impulse for the dance but a restraint on its passion. So too, heavy hammers moves almost on their own, verging on beyond control. Gripping hammers that weigh like this will soon cripple the hands and the feeling of ease; being crippled spoils the fun to be had at the border with chaos. These hammers are held like a small bird—with just sufficient tension to keep them from flying away. They bounce, levitate on their own—boost the lift, stretch up with it, sense the apex, pause there. Throw the hammers down, try not to miss. Hammers of this weight in learned hands are always thrown at the work; softly guided there. They are never swung. The blow, steel against steel, generates power again into the core and that sense could be the entire reason to be right here. Care for the body—that is all there is—keep it straight, tranquil, upright and healthy so it can always feel this sublime and real, this close to the ground and a shout for delight and this fantasy of living forever that is spun up from the source. ~ ~ After the first weld is finished we stick an only slightly thinner piece on the other end. Its the same drill; heat and adrenaline, thirst, water and trace mineral tablets, flecks of slag sizzling cool on wet forearms, racked breathing, laughter, shouting, floods of sweat, sulfurous steam when I damp the fire’s edge, the sun-bleached Snickers Pamala brings back from the liquor store and the savored ground of vitality that substantiates it all." (The entire piece can be found on this blog.)

 

I once barely avoided a fight over a woman with a C&W singer/song writer who had written in a lyric two lines that are directly to the point: "Too high and too wide and too deep ain't too much to be. Too much ain't never enough..."

 

Yeats wrote something in this same direction, part of which is my signature below:

 

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

 

For some of us what looks like excess to another is just a standard--and moderate--portion. Some of us do get addicted to substances and sensations. Many do not, nor are they controlled by them.

 

But this has gone on long enough...I might get back to it later and address directly some of MH's observations.

Edited January 22, 2011 by Easy

[Marblehead]

Hi Easy,

 

Just for the record: I did not report you nor did I take your post as a personal attack on me. I would like the moderating team to take note of this as well. Thanks.

 

It was my understanding that you were attacking the concept being presented in this chapter.

 

I still stand by my response to your first post.

 

I do understand that there are many who do not believe in moderation. This is their choice.

 

My true nature has always been rather conservative so I really have very few problems with Taoist Philosophy. And as I have mentioned before, my philosophy is also influenced by Nietzsche and my spirituality is more aligned with Native American than any other belief system.

 

I have no problem with you. I just thought your first post was rather bitter and negative and that is why I said the things I did in my response.

 

I am in my senior years of life and it has been my experience that moderation is much better than living in excess.

 

And I will point out that I do not hold the TTC as a dogmatic teaching. For me it is more like a guide map showing recommended paths on a tour but there is nothing in the TTC that requires me to walk any specific path. Just knowing that I have alternatives and that the choices I make are of my own doing and I must take full responsibility for my choices and any of my actions based on those choices. I must also be willing to accept the consequences for all my choices and actions.

 

If I live a life that is true to my inner self I have no inner conflict. Doesn't really matter if it is consistent with the words of the TTC or not.

 

So to all the younger folks here at TTB I suggest that you do experience life. Test your limits. Find out what causes you happiness and what causes you inner conflict. If having material objects and having excessive carnal pleasure is what gives you happiness and causes no inner conflict then all I can say is "Go for it."

 

But always, be true to yourself.

Edited January 22, 2011 by Marblehead

[Otis]

And I will point out that I do not hold the TTC as a dogmatic teaching. For me it is more like a guide map showing recommended paths on a tour but there is nothing in the TTC that requires me to walk any specific path. Just knowing that I have alternatives and that the choices I make are of my own doing and I must take full responsibility for my choices and any of my actions based on those choices. I must also be willing to accept the consequences for all my choices and actions.

Yeah, that's how I hear the verses, as well. It's a guide toward freedom, not a moral restraint on freedom.

[Marblehead]

It's a guide toward freedom, not a moral restraint on freedom.

 

You said that very well. Thanks.

[Easy]

Yeah, that's how I hear the verses, as well. It's a guide toward freedom, not a moral restraint on freedom.

 

Indeed. The meaning of the verses is ultimately in the mind of the reader. And, in that light, I have known readers who are perhaps more susceptible to granting power to authority and they have made it a law in their lives..."I must live by the lights of the TTC"...that kind of thing. Such a reader also puts a more literal interpretation into statements like:

 

The five colors blind the eyes of man;

The five musical notes deafen the ears of man;

The five flavors dull the taste of man;

Horse-racing and hunting and chasing

Madden the minds of man;

 

and accept them as tending toward absolute truth without critically examining the moral judgment behind that which is not necessarily so.

[thelerner]

For the record, Easy, your words are like a ice cold water thrown in my face.

I like it.

 

Michael

[sifusufi]

For the record, Easy, your words are like a ice cold water thrown in my face.

I like it.

 

Michael

 

Cheers to all!

I've always looked to any art as an augmentation, inspiration so to speak, not as the end all gospel.

 

A most refreshing post I've seen in quite some time!

 

Initially reminded me of a clip I caught on The Henry Rollins Show- Letters from Henry "Toby Keith"

Couldn't find a clip, thought provoking none the less.

 

A big shout out to our Mod team!

 

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

[Easy]

For the record, Easy, your words are like a ice cold water thrown in my face.

I like it.

 

Michael

 

Salud, my friend.

[Mark Foote]

[ben]

[Marblehead]

One of my favorite pieces of advice from the Gotamid is:

 

So he abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front.

As (he is conscious of what is) in front, so behind: as behind, so in front;

as below, so above: as above, so below:

as by day, so by night: as by night, so by day.

Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy.

 

 

Yes. That is the state of wu wei.

 

The five distractions do not cause blindness of any of the senses and therefore he(she) is able to experience life in its fullest.

[Marblehead]

Interpretations of Chapter 12, TTC include; ...

 

Hi Ben,

 

Although I don't care much for the presentation I do like the concept being presented. Interesting way of looking at the concept. Thanks for sharing.