Takaaki's "American Taoism"

[dawei]

How easy would Dao be to understand without the dao de jing?

 

I think this is a crutch concept. Dao is easy to understand. But Life is very good at distracting us from it. Most of life (about 99.9999% of it) was primitive time and understood Dao without any written word.

 

I learned of Dao without any book. I call it life. When I first read the DDJ, I said.. duh... of course... tell me something new... I will say the DDJ helps to systematize and organize and conceptualize... and my brain likes this too... but nothing seems to replace direct experience with Dao.

 

I accept that maybe many or most need the book to understand it or to get them on a path.

 

If Lao tzu had not left the teachings behind would the process of being in the way be easier or harder?

 

If it were not left behind, the question would be irrelevant. But the process would be still there available to all who are in tune with it. Maybe your simply asking if the foreign document gets us in touch with nature? Maybe that is the sad truth...

 

Would it be acceptable to take DDJ piecemeal and create something else from it, call it the American daoist guide?

 

 

Ok. I think this is a useful question to probe as your specifically asking if the DDJ should be broken up and something else is made up(?)... In such a case, a distortion probably occurs of the original... but what arises is something new and that something new is a part of the process of Dao. I would no longer call it the DDJ but it seems to me it is a part of the process of Dao.

 

What we are discussing here is really about the stages that lead up to the dissolution of concepts and percepts...the science behind the art so to speak.

 

I am not sure I understand your point here but would like to understand where you are going with it.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

There is an interesting religion in Vietnam called Cao Dai which includes influences from Daoism, Buddhism, and especially Christianity. It doesn't claim to be a sect of any of these however.

 

If someone is going to start something with various influences, that is up to them, but to assume or act like the new creation is a legitimate lineage of the influence is inconsiderate of those influences.

[dwai]

 

I think this is a crutch concept. Dao is easy to understand. But Life is very good at distracting us from it. Most of life (about 99.9999% of it) was primitive time and understood Dao without any written word.

 

I learned of Dao without any book. I call it life. When I first read the DDJ, I said.. duh... of course... tell me something new... I will say the DDJ helps to systematize and organize and conceptualize... and my brain likes this too... but nothing seems to replace direct experience with Dao.

 

I accept that maybe many or most need the book to understand it or to get them on a path.

 

 

If it were not left behind, the question would be irrelevant. But the process would be still there available to all who are in tune with it. Maybe your simply asking if the foreign document gets us in touch with nature? Maybe that is the sad truth...

 

 

 

Ok. I think this is a useful question to probe as your specifically asking if the DDJ should be broken up and something else is made up(?)... In such a case, a distortion probably occurs of the original... but what arises is something new and that something new is a part of the process of Dao. I would no longer call it the DDJ but it seems to me it is a part of the process of Dao.

 

 

I am not sure I understand your point here but would like to understand where you are going with it.

 

Words have power. It is evident to those who scrutinize this because a "going beyond words" happens even during the reading of the words.

 

A friend of mine, who is prof emeritus of philosophy at SUNY once shared this -

 

He was teaching a course and part of it was (iirc) to do with the effect of words on people (his subject of research was bio-cultures and their effects on the cognitive processes). One of his students would not get how the same word could have different effects on people based on their cultural background. He asked this girl "what does the word Mother do to you?"

 

She said the word mother means mother. So it didn't trigger an image or other visualization for her. She just couldn't get it that it might trigger something other than the intellectual inference that mother refers to a parent.

 

But to someone like me it triggers a visual image of my own mother...

 

His thesis is that depending on one's bio-cultural roots the cognitive process is different and different parts of the brain and associated neurobiological components are triggered by stimuli (like the word mother)

 

Similarly spiritual literature triggers different cognitive responses in the reader. One can have profound realization by hearing words (like dao de jing or The Veda) or reading them etc.

 

Others might just have an intellectual realization at some level reading or hearing the same words.

 

Someone asked me on the Vedanta thread why memorize the Vedas when they could tap into the akashic records. My answer is pertinent to both that as well as this discussion --

 

Because words have power. To understand and experience the power one needs to learn to perceive in a certain way.

 

Our reality is made up of percepts and concepts . To get to the reality behind the words one has to feel the words ( not merely hear or see them).

 

Subjective anecdote - I am moved spiritually and emotionally hearing the Chandi path ( chanting of verses on the deity Chandi ) and it actually triggers chi movement in my body. The muladhara chakra starts to vibrate and the energy rises....i start feeling heat and it is very similar to how Taiji Chuan affects me sometimes .

 

The science behind the art (of mystical experience) is that...the science of the words and their application.

[Marblehead]

 

Well, killing weeds was not considered to be abusive in LaoTze's philosophy but killing people would be....

Yeah, but they were still doing a pretty good job at that too.

[ChiDragon]

I'm not sure that Takaaki took this too seriously, but...

 

He is serious; he left, didn't he....???

[Birch]

Ah the 'mother' trigger. Recoil and disgust for me. Sense of being controlled and disregarded.

[ChiDragon]

Ah the 'mother' trigger. Recoil and disgust for me. Sense of being controlled and disregarded.

 

Explain, please....!!!

[Birch]

Explain, please....!!!

 

Oh, that would take a while:-) However, this is to do with what Dwai was referring to above and is a direct product of my experience with said 'parent'. If you add to that the social taboo on ever saying anything against 'mothers' then you'll be getting somewhere.

 

I have a link that I figured gets into it quite well that I'll post in PPF.

[dwai]

Oh, that would take a while:-) However, this is to do with what Dwai was referring to above and is a direct product of my experience with said 'parent'. If you add to that the social taboo on ever saying anything against 'mothers' then you'll be getting somewhere. I have a link that I figured gets into it quite well that I'll post in PPF.

 

I think the experiment was intended to be a study of cognitive response more than the psychoanalytical aspect (which occurs after the fact - a chain reaction following the cognitive process).

 

Didn't mean to cause distress...

[Birch]

I think the experiment was intended to be a study of cognitive response more than the psychoanalytical aspect (which occurs after the fact - a chain reaction following the cognitive process).

 

Didn't mean to cause distress...

 

No worries, you didn't :-) She did, however, and curiously never wanted to let me call her by her name...

It's interesting you put the psychoanalytical stuff after the cognitive aspect and then made them sort of separate. Personally I see them mixed in together with the psychological stuff 'poking through'. Something like 'door' doesn't do anything to me (maybe no experience per se with doors? Or insufficient to poke through into the cognitive layer?)

[dwai]

No worries, you didn't :-) She did, however, and curiously never wanted to let me call her by her name...It's interesting you put the psychoanalytical stuff after the cognitive aspect and then made them sort of separate. Personally I see them mixed in together with the psychological stuff 'poking through'. Something like 'door' doesn't do anything to me (maybe no experience per se with doors? Or insufficient to poke through into the cognitive layer?)

 

The word door immediately triggered the image of a door...

 

As an aside to the original post and subsequent responses thereof, could we try a little experiment?

 

Lets take a few words and observe their effects on our cognitive response.

 

Mountain

Lake

Sea

Rain

Forest

Cave

Electron

Charge

Nucleus

Electricity

 

[Birch]

The word door immediately triggered the image of a door...

 

As an aside to the original post and subsequent responses thereof, could we try a little experiment?

 

Lets take a few words and observe their effects on our cognitive response.

 

Mountain

Lake

Sea

Rain

Forest

Cave

Electron

Charge

Nucleus

Electricity

 

Sure:-)

Everything except Electron and Nucleus has a feeling attached to it. Charge is 'positive charge'. Cave is damp, Forest is cool, Rain is refreshing, Sea is happiness, Lake is cool, Mountain is airy.

[Taomeow]

Well, I'm no fan of the "Tao of Elvis" or "The Tao of Meow."

 

Laozi said, "Guan qi meow" -- "observe the wonder of tao." Didn't say anything about Elvis, of course, but the tao of meow is traditional.

 

How about "The Tao of Physics?" Or "DNA and the I Ching?" Are these "American taoism?" I'd say they are (even though the second author is Chinese -- American educated) and I would submit the only legitimate (i.e. not guilty of cultural colonialism) place for American taoism is at the foot of Chinese taoism, bowing and learning. As a teacher-student relationship between an old sage and a young prodigy it works fine. In any other shape or form this relationship is dysfunctional.

 

(As an important aside for anyone born or raised with a sense of entitlement to this attitude just on the merit of being an ethnic Chinese, without being a taoist in any traditional sense and without having traditional taoist transmission, schooling, training, hands-on practice, etc.: you are an American or otherwise Western taoist regardless of what you see in the mirror, and the same rule applies to you. By the same token, anyone who sees an American or otherwise Western face in the mirror but has been initiated and trained as a taoist with traditional taoist methods and internalized them to the point of being at home in the spiritual and cognitive paradigm of Chinese taoism is a Chinese taoist, though not a Chinese national.)

[dwai]

 

Laozi said, "Guan qi meow" -- "observe the wonder of tao." Didn't say anything about Elvis, of course, but the tao of meow is traditional.

 

How about "The Tao of Physics?" Or "DNA and the I Ching?" Are these "American taoism?" I'd say they are (even though the second author is Chinese -- American educated) and I would submit the only legitimate (i.e. not guilty of cultural colonialism) place for American taoism is at the foot of Chinese taoism, bowing and learning. As a teacher-student relationship between an old sage and a young prodigy it works fine. In any other shape or form this relationship is dysfunctional.

 

(As an important aside for anyone born or raised with a sense of entitlement to this attitude just on the merit of being an ethnic Chinese, without being a taoist in any traditional sense and without having traditional taoist transmission, schooling, training, hands-on practice, etc.: you are an American or otherwise Western taoist regardless of what you see in the mirror, and the same rule applies to you. By the same token, anyone who sees an American or otherwise Western face in the mirror but has been initiated and trained as a taoist with traditional taoist methods and internalized them to the point of being at home in the spiritual and cognitive paradigm of Chinese taoism is a Chinese taoist, though not a Chinese national.)

 

Well articulated.

[Taomeow]

Thank you!

[dwai]

Sure:-)Everything except Electron and Nucleus has a feeling attached to it. Charge is 'positive charge'. Cave is damp, Forest is cool, Rain is refreshing, Sea is happiness, Lake is cool, Mountain is airy.

 

 

It is interesting to see your cognitive process triggering "emotional" responses. My initial response is visual (in my mind's eye).

 

It would be interesting to hear what others experienced with these words. I often falter with word association exercises as a result since the first thing that pops in mind is an image.

 

Dao - now that is interesting. Mind's eye is blank with that word.

[Birch]

It is interesting to see your cognitive process triggering "emotional" responses. My initial response is visual (in my mind's eye).

 

It would be interesting to hear what others experienced with these words. I often falter with word association exercises as a result since the first thing that pops in mind is an image.

 

Dao - now that is interesting. Mind's eye is blank with that word.

 

Word association can get more abstract, especially if it runs off the top of sounds or shapes or habitual associations not based on experience, but on media, for example. Yes I'd say I weigh heavily on the feel of things. If I let it rip, I'm there in the forest, by the sea or on the mountain in technicolor. I'm probably very easy to hypnotize :-(

[dwai]

Word association can get more abstract, especially if it runs off the top of sounds or shapes or habitual associations not based on experience, but on media, for example. Yes I'd say I weigh heavily on the feel of things. If I let it rip, I'm there in the forest, by the sea or on the mountain in technicolor. I'm probably very easy to hypnotize :-(

Have you found that it is easy for you to glean the "truth" behind the words (as a result of the "feeling" thereof)?

 

While I'm no philosopher, nor an expert on any subject whatsoever, I find it fascinating (and also a bit obvious upon introspection) that different biocultural groups could have different cognitive mechanisms.

 

It's not just the spoken word but also the aesthetics of the written word as well. The Chinese have a most fascinating script, the ideographic script. It almost as if it is designed to trigger a different cognitive function (albeit perhaps when it developed there might have not been an "other" from which to set it apart).

 

Could a Chinese literate bum illuminate how the cognitive aspect is different (as in how they read, interpret, translate etc)? This becomes moot for a native chinese speaker (who also thinks in say Mandarin) but a good subject would be someone who is non-native but has learnt to read, write, understand and speak mandarin?

 

I can speak from the perspective of a native indian language speaker (I can read and write the bengali script and the devanagari script, understand and speak the southern indian language Kannada but not read/write in it). There might have been a time in my youth when I thought in my native tongue, but I do now mostly in english. That not withstanding, I can however "emote" with the nuances of the language at a subliminal level (ingrained with my cultural upbringing perhaps). I can understand the unspoken meanings of words beyond their mere dictionary translations.

 

Eg: the word Dharma is used loosely to mean "religion". But to a native indian speaker, dharma signifies much more than religion. It implies duty, responsibility, a way of existence. It is one of those untranslatable words I mentioned earlier. I am not sure how much a Westerner would glean from merely the word or the import of the word in a sentence or verse.

 

Take for example the statement -- "The tiger's dharma is to be a hunter". It might seem ludicrous to a non-native but to me it is natural and a familiar usage of the word "dharma" (in that we are not referring to the religion of the tiger of course, but the natural way of it's existence).

 

Anyway, this topic is about Daoism so I'll desist from posting any more of my ramblings.

[三江源]

no, good ramblings, dwai.

[Birch]

"Have you found that it is easy for you to glean the "truth" behind the words (as a result of the "feeling" thereof)?"

 

Hum, tends to have less to do with the words themselves and much more about what's 'behind' them. I'd love to say I'm spot on with the 'truth' every time, but I'm not. The other thing being if I ask someone 'hey was XYZ the truth, in fact?' and they don't want to say (for whatever reason, not always 'negative') then they'll say no. Should I insist further, the 'truth' will almost certainly get buried. Plus besides, by that point, it has moved already.

[takaaki]

Anyway, this topic is about Daoism so I'll desist from posting any more of my ramblings.

 

This is a very good presentation. I feel the same way about the Tao Te Ching being a Chinese cultural artifact. No foreigner can understand it in a way a Chinese can. Same with the Gita for your countrymen. This is not meant to diminish western scholars of Asian classical works. No woman sees a child in the same way as its own mother.

Edited January 31, 2013 by takaaki

[Marblehead]

Take for example the statement -- "The tiger's dharma is to be a hunter". It might seem ludicrous to a non-native but to me it is natural and a familiar usage of the word "dharma" (in that we are not referring to the religion of the tiger of course, but the natural way of it's existence).

Nice example. May I rephrase this for we Taoists? "The tiger's Tzujan is to be a hunter."

[Marblehead]

This is a very good presentation. I feel the same way about the Tao Te Ching being a Chinese cultural artifact. No foreigner can understand it in a way a Chinese can. Same with the Gita for your countrymen. This is not meant to diminish western scholars of Asian classical works. No woman sees a child in the same way as its own mother.

I'm glad to see you are still with us.

 

And, of course, I will disagree with you (again). Hehehe. We foreigners are able to grasp the essence of the TTC. All we have to do is follow Lao Tzu instruction that we forget everything we have ever learned. Yes, this can be accomplished with empty-minded meditation. Not all that hard, really.

 

And so I still suggest that there really is such a thing as an American Taoist.

[dawei]

I think most arguments rely on a physical understanding and metaphor of cultural specificity. And if our understanding is purely about a physical body alone, then the arguments make sense to me.

 

But if there is energy and light and spirit... then that means there are connections beyond the body. Over millenia , we have probably shut down most of those connections but they exist. For those who gain access to something beyond the physical, whether they realize it or not, then there are no cultural boundaries just as Dao is unbound.

[dwai]

I'm glad to see you are still with us.

 

And, of course, I will disagree with you (again). Hehehe. We foreigners are able to grasp the essence of the TTC. All we have to do is follow Lao Tzu instruction that we forget everything we have ever learned. Yes, this can be accomplished with empty-minded meditation. Not all that hard, really.

 

And so I still suggest that there really is such a thing as an American Taoist.

An American Taoist doesn't however imply there is an American Taoism...right?