Daoism, Ecology, and action

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Found a great website about Daoism and Ecology

 

Which includes some "faith-based" Eco-activism groups for Buddhists, Daoists, etc.

 

 

When I read something like "..Teachings of Immortals Chung and Lu" so much of it is about the way the earth and environment go through changes. I ask myself "How could Daoist notions of ecology be used in modern ecology?"

 

 

What do you 0_o think?

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Official statement by The China Daoist Association, based at White Cloud Temple in Beijing which speaks about Daoism and Ecology.

 

 

 

 

...."1. In the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), the basic classic of Daoism, there is this verse: “Humanity follows the Earth, the Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows the Dao, and the Dao follows what is natural.” This means that the whole of humanity should attach great importance to the Earth and should obey its rule of movement. The Earth has to respect the changes of Heaven, and Heaven must abide by the Dao. And the Dao follows the natural course of development of everything. So we can see that what human beings can do with nature is to help everything grow according to its own way. We should cultivate in people’s minds the way of no action in relation to nature, and let nature be itself."

 

[Marblehead]

Chuang Tzu's story about the useless tree is an example. The well with the sweetest water being the first to be drained dry is another. I think Chuang Tzu was very ecologically aware.

[Mr. T]

hey,

 

it seems to me that a lot of the ancient "natural methods" of farming that are being relearned now in america are pretty taoist in nature. for instance, using birds and bees to help defend and propogate your garden rather than pesticides and fertiizers.

 

also, i love the story of suge liang who used the power of nature to bring about his success on the battlefield...when he gathered 10,000 arrows in the fog...it's great! those tao stories intertwined with nature are part of what initially drew me to taoist teachings.

 

later!

[voidisyinyang]

Well Mantak Chia uses the idea of composting for how lower emotional negative jing energy is recycled and transformed into chi energy.

 

Traditionally Asia practiced humanure composting and traditional Chinese did not have the word "shit" as a negative connotation -- since it is manure.

 

The West is considered to sanitize water through civil engineering but really this goes back to the Roman aqueducts being built because the Romans were dumping their waste in their water supplies.

 

So "saving seed" in farming - in fact the "lower tan tien" is sometimes translated as a farmer's field that needs to be plowed -- with the tantra meaning more explicit as this was also the tantra meaning in the Sumerian myth of ....

 

 

"Plow my vulva, my sweetheart." ...(Inanna) bathed her holy lap. At
the holy lap of the king, the high-standing (phallic) cedar..., the
plants stood high by (his) side, the...Garden (of Eden) flourished
by his side.

 

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/cut/message/946

 

Anyway ....

 

another alchemy secret is that bird singing overtones go into ultrasound and high sound which resonates the stomata of plants to open up so that nutrients in the morning dew air are absorbed -- plants not being dependent on roots for nutrients.

 

And so this is the piezoelectric ringing in the ears energy of the collagen of the body activated by ultrasound and this creates sonofusion or acoustic implosion -- sound into light energy and proton resonance as alchemy. Water as tetrahedral shape resonates zero point energy via the collagen piezoelectric ultrasound -- just like the dew of the morning condensation evaporating from the sun - activated by the bird singing.

 

Trees are now proven to resonate the ELF waves of the ionosphere and to help charge the earth with ions that are then taken in through the center point of the feet to increase the chi energy.

 

http://www.pearltrees.com/#/N-s=1_5528792&N-play=1&N-fa=2799246&N-u=1_283282&N-p=50449707&N-f=1_5528792

 

So the artificial low frequency electromagnetic pollution is killing the trees and ecology.....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vb9R0x_0NQ

 

This is a great documentary on it.

 

Taoists understand this intuitively as qigong master Chunyi Lin says he is very sensitive to the microwave resonance pollution from his cell phone and so doesn't like to use it very much.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

@ Marblehead and Mr. T:

 

Yes, I think Taoism also shows it's ecological virtues in much of it's just "way of being" and appreciating the natural aspects and realities of our place in the Dao. Humanity often fails to benefit from this relationship by over-inflating their position in relation to the Earth, as the statement linked above illustrated. When we refuse to listen, we might just miss out on an invitation to dance .

 

 

Very interesting stuff fulllotus! Thanks. Looking forward to that documentary too.

Edited February 11, 2013 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Daoist-Eco-Handbook, distributed by and to Daoist temples .

[silas]

A whole theory of ecology based in classical Taoism:

 

Ecology, Progress and Activism

[Sanzon]

Awesome thread. I have little background in Daoism. I do however work in the health & healing realms, and one of the things that appeals to me about the TCM view of the human body is that it is an ecology within itself, with the understanding of how it works in reference to the ecology of nature and it's elements. A microcosm of the microcosm. I understand Daoist practice to be similar in that the subtle energies of the body work in relation to an understanding of the workings of the cosmos. We can't separate ourselves from nature without a compromise to our health. From my perspective, the simple fact that the chemical equation for respiration is the exact opposite of the chemical equation for photosynthesis is proof enough that we have evolved side by side with plants and trees as our siblings, the Earth being both our Mothers. The sacredness of this is of great reverence. Thanks for the links & video, I shall enjoy reading further.

[Marblehead]

When we refuse to listen, we might just miss out on an invitation to dance .

I really like this!

[Harmonious Emptiness]

A whole theory of ecology based in classical Taoism:

 

Ecology, Progress and Activism

Great article. Good stuff to go back to.

 

Awesome thread. I have little background in Daoism. I do however work in the health & healing realms, and one of the things that appeals to me about the TCM view of the human body is that it is an ecology within itself, with the understanding of how it works in reference to the ecology of nature and it's elements. A microcosm of the microcosm. I understand Daoist practice to be similar in that the subtle energies of the body work in relation to an understanding of the workings of the cosmos. We can't separate ourselves from nature without a compromise to our health. From my perspective, the simple fact that the chemical equation for respiration is the exact opposite of the chemical equation for photosynthesis is proof enough that we have evolved side by side with plants and trees as our siblings, the Earth being both our Mothers. The sacredness of this is of great reverence. Thanks for the links & video, I shall enjoy reading further.

So true. Goes back to the whole Buddhist "interdependency" thing and beyond.

 

 

Thanks for your responses folks

[Gnu Mind?]

Harmonious Emptiness, thanks for starting this thread.

 

I have a couple of related questions that might be of interest here (they are certainly of interest to me).

 

(1) How can we determine what kinds of human-nature interactions follow the Dao, and what kinds do not? For sure humans produce enormous negative changes in ecosystems, but then so do many animals, and even plants. It seems that any "natural" expression of Te (i.e., any Wu-Wei-type action) has to be in accord with the Dao. Yet, one of the things human beings do, apparently naturally, is harm nature, for example by concocting harmful things (like paving, many chemicals, etc.), or by depleting nature directly (mining, logging, etc.).

 

(2) Daoism is obviously a very attractive approach to life, and as such it would be wonderful if it could be applied to solve, or anyway mitigate, big problems (e.g., anything from big personal problems to planetary ones). Yet we are told in DDJ 63 and 64 to solve problems before they get big, or even before they even begin to exist. So, is a Daoist powerless to address serious problems? Stated another way, is the most a Daoist can do is wait/hope for a yin/yang reversal and then hope for harmony? I am interested in this as a rabid tree-hugger. It sure would be nice if, somehow, Taoist "principles" could be applied to human actions concerning the environment.

 

Here is how I see the questions relating to one another. Unless we can get some useable idea about what possible kinds of human action are anti-Dao (question 1), there is no hope for coming up with the principles of Q2.

 

Best to all, GM

Edited May 19, 2013 by Gnu Mind?

[lienshan]

(1) How can we determine what kinds of human-nature interactions follow the Dao, and what kinds do not?

 

(2) Yet we are told in DDJ 63 and 64 to solve problems before they get big, or even before they even begin to exist.

 

There's no we but I in taoism.

 

There's no organisation to join. There's no membershipfee to pay. There's no leader to follow.

[Wu Ming Jen]

"Please do not litter you are the enviroment" I saw this sign translated to english in China it made me think how there is really no separation between us and environment. In the west we like to think we are individuals and separate from nature. Man against nature funny religion. So If we are separate from nature what harm can we do. If we are nature why would we harm ourselves.

 

If you could make millions of dollars with patented genetically modified seeds that nature otherwise gives natural seeds for free, that is the mental illness we are looking at.Plant an apple seed and how many apples do you get each year once it is a tree,lots. Nature is very generous, man is greedy and out of touch.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Wu Ming Jen

[Gnu Mind?]

Wu Ming Jen, I love that sign.

 

"If we are separate from nature what harm can we do. If we are nature why would we harm ourselves."

 

Yes!

 

The problem, as you point out, is a third alternative, that "we like to think we are . . . separate from nature" (if I may add italics). So that our destructive "nature" which I mention above is simply the result of "mental illness" and not genuine Te. (I had been thinking that ignorance is the problem, but "mental illness" captures the bizarre perversity much better.)

 

Perhaps this problem will go away by itself in time, since as the environment continues to degrade it will become harder and harder to maintain the fiction that humans are separate from nature.

 

I find your remarks extremely illuminating and helpful. Thank you very much.

[silas]

There's no we but I in taoism.

 

There's no organisation to join. There's no membershipfee to pay. There's no leader to follow.

 

The Tao has been compared to Adam Smith's "invisible hand" that guides and regulates free markets. There is a "we" in that we are all part of the whole, part of the regulatory mechanism of this planet and this universe. The practice of classical Taoism is to learn to sense to current flows to guide us (individually) but whose overall effect benefits society and the whole planet.

 

These essays discuss the regulatory nature in classical Taoism and what it means to "follow" Tao.

 

Interfaith, Syncretism and Universal Love: A Study Of New Age Taoism

Internal And External Patterns In Medicine

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Harmonious Emptiness, thanks for starting this thread.

 

I have a couple of related questions that might be of interest here (they are certainly of interest to me).

 

(1) How can we determine what kinds of human-nature interactions follow the Dao, and what kinds do not? For sure humans produce enormous negative changes in ecosystems, but then so do many animals, and even plants. It seems that any "natural" expression of Te (i.e., any Wu-Wei-type action) has to be in accord with the Dao. Yet, one of the things human beings do, apparently naturally, is harm nature, for example by concocting harmful things (like paving, many chemicals, etc.), or by depleting nature directly (mining, logging, etc.).

 

(2) Daoism is obviously a very attractive approach to life, and as such it would be wonderful if it could be applied to solve, or anyway mitigate, big problems (e.g., anything from big personal problems to planetary ones). Yet we are told in DDJ 63 and 64 to solve problems before they get big, or even before they even begin to exist. So, is a Daoist powerless to address serious problems? Stated another way, is the most a Daoist can do is wait/hope for a yin/yang reversal and then hope for harmony? I am interested in this as a rabid tree-hugger. It sure would be nice if, somehow, Taoist "principles" could be applied to human actions concerning the environment.

 

Here is how I see the questions relating to one another. Unless we can get some useable idea about what possible kinds of human action are anti-Dao (question 1), there is no hope for coming up with the principles of Q2.

 

Best to all, GM

 

Here's my impression of things, as of a fairly recent realization:

 

 

Most things that appear on the earth are put there, or develop, to level out and balance something that was already in existence. I guess when the first amoeba got too numerous, another one appeared to decrease the first one. This is a reflection of something existing in the nature of Dao.

 

So humans play a major role in balance.

 

What scientists and geologists seem to miss, is that all inert matter is not merely a dung ball full of bacterias any more than they are. A dung ball does not have an energy field around it, like humans do, and like the earth does as well, when you look at the heavens, the atmosphere and the symbiotic relationship going on between earth, heaven, and humanity.

 

 

We do most of our job without thinking about it, our organs do their job without really thinking about it, and our bacterias do their job without really thinking about it..

 

but there is an internal balance which expresses itself in the external state. When we feel energetically depleted we deplete the external in an unhealthy way. When we are internally balanced, we interact with Dao and nature in healthy ways both externally and internally.

 

What does it mean to be internally balanced though? There is mental balance and wisdom which can help to see the difference between what seems like the best course of action and what is the best course of action. There is also the simple wisdom of cultivating generosity, benevolence (offering without expectation of return), and keeping our emotions in balance so that we don't have desires without a reason for their existence. This rewards us with contentment, but we are forever under pressure of emotions of survival, so there is need to cultivate this in ourselves.

 

Like building a house or lighting a fire, this is a process that we need to undertake for it to happen, though it is part of our nature, and role in nature, to do so.

 

 

Thanks for the great questions!