Harmonious Emptiness Posted July 8, 2011 Your Bruce Lee quote sounds reasonable to me if it indicates: Only one having wisdom is able to terminate wisdom. Only one having expertice is able to terminate expertice. It is saying that in a sense, but the thing is that Lao Tzu is talking about the Taoist way of the sage, rather than about fighting or painting or rhetoric. Can you understand how someone who is unconcerned with wisdom is wise? In regards to expertise, that was one of many translations of a word that has also been translated as cleverness. You should check out the Tao Te Ching forum on this site where chapter 19 is discussed. It goes into a lot of detail about this. In regards to martial skills, yes - expertise needs to be learned before it can be forgotten and thus naturalized to the practitioners reactions. In regards to sageliness -- focusing on expertise can constrict the mind and cloud the spontaneous connection with Tao. The thing with a lot of wisdom teachings is that they will be intentionally vague because you have to see the answer for yourself. If you understand it literally then you can get confused, but if they can lead you to find the answer on your own then you will have a much better understanding and you'll actually be learning something. The vagueness is to deter people who aren't looking to experience it for themself, while allowing others to experience their own meaning rather than being a copy-cat. To do this, you may have to abandon learned notions of wisdom and your expertise of language, which will confuse the understanding in these situations Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lienshan Posted July 9, 2011 In regards to expertise, that was one of many translations of a word that has also been translated as cleverness. I think, that it's the word "terminate" that have two meanings! To Shen Dao "terminate" is equivalent to "throw away" because worthless. To Lao Tzu "terminate" is equivalent to "give away" because valueable. The difference between Shen Dao's and Lao Tzu's preferred strategical position: Evaporation = Military Service and Taxes 100 Mountainstreams = The Supervisors The River = The Ruler The Sea = The People Evaporation = Wisdom and Expertice 100 Mountainstreams = The People The River = The Ruler The Sea = The Supervisors (I've used Lao Tzu's "watercycle" parable in his chapter 66) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
