The Philosopher's Tao

[Marblehead]

I'm with you. You are an item in my awareness.

Oh, I'm sure he is. And that will last only as long as he says what you want to hear?

[Nikolai1]

Hi guys - hope you all love the new title! (thanks Apech)

 

The conversation we had about thoughts and perceptions is naturally very difficult because I'm asking you to think of a perception, then in the same breath I'm asking you to see that it isn't a perception. But hard as it is, this is a very important point and it is worth some perseverance.

 

Spiritual realisation, whatever your path, is knowing and feeling that you are not simply a mortal individual living in time and space.

 

The belief that we are mortals is completely dependent on the notion that we are subjects experiencing a world 'out there'

 

To have inner 'thoughts' and perceptions of 'outer things' is an inevitable corollary of this world view. We therefore will not attain intellectual realisation until we see that thoughts and perceptions are indistinguishable. There is no other intellectual way than to make this particular duality a unity.

 

If we want to transcend the division between self and world we must transcend the division between thought and perception. They do not and will not ever cease to comprise our lived experience, But we must learn to understand fully their shared nature and behaviour.

 

In the western philosophical tradition this vision of transience was described by Heraclitus, but not until Hegel was it fully outlined (In the Preface to The Phenomenology of Spirit). In the eastern tradition it was one of the core teachings of the Buddha - his term was anitya (often translated as impermanence) and he called it one of the three marks of existence.

 

Impermanence is a teaching that gets woefully underestimated. Most often Buddhists who do not realise the truly radical nature of impermanence talk about change, about decay over time and death, about the subtle changing of the seasons etc.

 

While this description is perfectly valid, impermanence goes a lot deeper than that. The decay and death of our bodies is an obvious fact understood by even very young children. Do we really suppose that one of the most influential and innovative spiritual teachers of all time's core teaching was something already deeply obvious?

 

Zen Master Dogen said: "the teaching which does not sound like it is forcing something on you is not true teaching"

 

This is certainly the case with impermanence. Impermanence only attains its true soteriological force when it is understood in its most radical sense, as both Hegel and the Buddha expounded it.

 

The world of thoughts and perceptions is an a constant state of annihilation. In the briefest blink of an eye our world dies and is reborn. Our perceptions and our thoughts are both alike. They are of the same nature. They behave the same way. Each exists for the briefest flash of an instant and then dies, forever.

 

The only world, the only self that we can ever find rest in is the that stable self that sees all this happen. To dwell in this self is to live in the Tao.

 

Best wishes guys. Next time I'd like to talk about the role of the belief on the philosopher's path.

[Marblehead]

Hi guys - hope you all love the new title! (thanks Apech)

I love it. I had a hard time finding the thread. Hehehe.

[zerostao]

Excellent comments.

 

On occasion (not too often) I get called "spiritual" or "mystical" but I do not accept those labels. I have my own labels. One of them is "Philosophical". Yes, understanding reality as my senses and brain have evolved is important to me. The universe and life in general are wonderful enough on their own. I don't need to be adding anything to them. But I really do try to gain a true understanding of it all.

 

it is cool that seeing things thru your lens/filters/experiences/bias is working for you. we each have different lens/experiences/bias/and filters, no?

[Marblehead]

it is cool that seeing things thru your lens/filters/experiences/bias is working for you. we each have different lens/experiences/bias/and filters, no?

Oh, absolutely! Many times I have said that we all, each and every one of us are special and unique. And for sure, we each see thing in our own light. But if I think that someone is trying to BS me I will call them on it.

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

it is cool that seeing things thru your lens/filters/experiences/bias is working for you. we each have different lens/experiences/bias/and filters, no?

 

Yes, we do have "different lens/experiences/bias/and filters", and.. they become 'beliefs' when we become attached to them, unwilling to 'let them go' in order to see/experience what is actually happening.. we have the opportunity to see/experience what is actually happening, within the limits of our observational abilities and information awareness, by suspending beliefs and knowings and preferences when we still the mind's active thinking processes.. experiencing our relationship with existence without the influence of beliefs and knowings is useful way to minimize the differences that often lead to conflicts about the meanings of those experiences and relationships..

 

Be well..

[zerostao]

Greetings..

 

 

Yes, we do have "different lens/experiences/bias/and filters", and.. they become 'beliefs' when we become attached to them, unwilling to 'let them go' in order to see/experience what is actually happening.. we have the opportunity to see/experience what is actually happening, within the limits of our observational abilities and information awareness, by suspending beliefs and knowings and preferences when we still the mind's active thinking processes.. experiencing our relationship with existence without the influence of beliefs and knowings is useful way to minimize the differences that often lead to conflicts about the meanings of those experiences and relationships..

 

Be well..

to see something/anything/whatever in itself as it really is, has been the aim. and by using criticism as the first step towards seeing something/anything /whatever as what it really is--is part of a universal formula, i reckon. discriminating it and trying to realize it distinctly is the aim but what we really achieve is our impression of it. so , i just ask myself, what effects is all of this really producing to me? does it give me insight? if so, to what degree? is my nature modified in any way? and under what influence? do these answers even give me the original facts? or just another impression? so it isnt really beliefs one may get but they get their own impression, the function of the critic is to analyze , to distinguish, and to seperate from adjuncts. our self education becomes complete in proportion as our susceptibility to these impressions increases in depth and variety. if we can indicate what the source of our impression is and under what conditions it is experienced is more realistic than to say that we arrive at some concrete exactness. i consider that belief and dis-belief are both equally flawed.

[Marblehead]

Greetings..

 

 

Yes, we do have "different lens/experiences/bias/and filters", ...

Nice seeing you here in a philosophical discussion. It's been a while.

[Nikolai1]

Hi all,

 

The philosopher is an habitual sceptic. Explanations that make perfect sense to normal people for some reason leave him dissatisfied. This feeling leads him to seek out alternative explanations. When he finds them, he is in a position to openly doubt the accepted doctrine because he has alternatives. Until you are consciously aware of alternatives your doubt is a vague unease that you may not feel able to express.

 

As the philosopher’s confidence increases he learns to recognise the feeling of dissatisfaction, and starts to expect alternative viewpoints to present themselves: indeed often he goes looking for them from other philosophers who have felt the same dissatisfaction as he.

 

The philosopher is however basically the same as people. If he feels no discomfort with a doctrine he is happy to accept it as the ‘truth’. Because he feels no discomfort he does not seek alternative viewpoints, and finds it hard to suppose there can be any. Truth is the absence of doubt…it is a state of comfort and a state that all people value, even those apparently quite uninterested in the intellectual life.

 

The kind of relativism we discussed with the coffee cup is accepted by everyone, but there comes a point where relativism is not very welcome. It is unwelcome because it at some point it will introduce a discomfort that you didn’t previously feel. Many people who have read a writer like Nietzsche find it deeply uncomfortable. He says many things that we really, really don’t want to know and he therefore gets called bad names. Many philosophers, who have found their truths and feel comfortable there, will accept relativism in only some areas. When applied to those domains that really structure our lived experience, ethics, epistemology and ontology…relativism is often a very dirty word.

 

There are some good people who are so sensitive to the pain and suffering in the world that they feel compelled to remediate it by leading moral lives extreme in their piety. And there is also such a thing as intellectual morality. Some people are able to feel intellectual discomfort even at fundamental viewpoints - viewpoints whose acceptance in his peers is near universal. Such viewpoints are the ones we have talked about here: the existence of time, space, self and world. To feel dissatisfied with these seems like craziness to nearly everyone, and yet there are people caused pain by them…and then they make us feel uncomfortable by disturbing our comfort. What we take as fundamental truths these people suggest are just opinions, beliefs.

 

On some questions we are so aware of alternative viewpoints that we are able to concede that our own views are opinions. Politics is perhaps a good example, although knowing our opinions aren’t truths does not always prevent us from getting upset with opposition. But on some questions, alternative viewpoints are so rarely seen that we find it very hard to imagine that our opinions don’t constitute stable truths.

 

 

So our deepest truths – time, space etc - are dismissed by this crazy minority as mere beliefs.

 

This presents us with a hard question. If every truth is also just an unfounded belief, what then causes us to have truths in the first place? Surely there is some kind of reality? If not, what are we having opinions about?

 

This is a good question and one that will baffle every philosopher right until the end. It is only when he is able to see that the world itself is an opinion that he is able to dispose of the question. Truths about things in the world he sees are beliefs based on a belief. The world is also no world; reality he now sees is nothing other than a vacancy – a known state that cannot be talked about, only felt. It is the over-whelming comfort and satisfaction that comes when we dwell in this vacancy that leads the philosopher to accept it as truth. All former truths were just watered-down preparations for this.

 

Perhaps we are in position now to define truth and belief. Truth is an emotional state in which we accept and feel comfortable. We do not feel and anticipate that there could be any possible alternative view to that which gives us this feeling. Truth is therefore a state of heart and mind.

 

But if there is an alternative view then that person holding that view will consider your view ‘mere belief’ and their own view the truth.

 

Belief is the opposite of truth. Belief is something other people have, and which causes you to lose your intellectual peace. Belief is therefore a pejorative term, and a state of mind that we imagine we must avoid because we associate it with discomfort.

 

We are all therefore alike in seeking truth, but so often we imagine we have found it in places where others see mere belief. But because we know the emotional peace and goodness that we had when we had our truth, before we met with opposition, we are willing to suffer conflict with the believers in order to regain it.

 

If you subscribe to any viewpoint which you know others disagree with, then the reality of their disagreement automatically makes you a believer.

 

The two men arguing at the coffee table were both passionate truth seekers, and therefore both believers. The person who ironically observed the senselessness of their debate is the knower. Only the knower is at true stable peace, and although he arouses the ire of both the men - he cannot get angry back because he knows the truth and it elevates him from their anger.

 

The spiritual philosopher has risen above all argument. He knows and has seen through the assumptions that frame every single intellectual debate that could possible occur. He cannot speak his truth, it is a vision that no longer fits into words. He therefore disturbs all the peace of the truth-seekers and offers no intellectual alternatives in return. What then can he offer?

 

Maybe in future posts we can talk about how the philosopher communicates his truth.

 

Best wishes and thanks for reading

Edited August 16, 2013 by Nikolai1

[Marblehead]

The kind of relativism we discussed with the coffee cup is accepted by everyone, but there comes a point where relativism is not very welcome. It is unwelcome because it at some point it will introduce a discomfort that you didn’t previously feel. Many people who have read a writer like Nietzsche find it deeply uncomfortable. He says many things that we really, really don’t want to know and he therefore gets called bad names. Many philosophers, who have found their truths and feel comfortable there, will accept relativism in only some areas. When applied to those domains that really structure our lived experience, ethics, epistemology and ontology…relativism is often a very dirty word.

You should see some of the responses I get when I talk about him. Nietzsche is one of my favorites. I even label myself a Nietzschean.

 

 

BTW Nice post.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Marblehead

[三江源]

.

Edited July 21, 2014 by cat

[Nikolai1]

Hi all,

 

I was planning to write some more on epistemology but we can move on to the life of a philosopher.

 

“'a vision that no longer fits into words'.. and communicating... am waiting for this next installment with appetite. Hope you will come and share.”

 

Yes, how does the philosopher manage to communicate what cannot be put into words? Well of course, he does speak but is so often misunderstood, and so the best way is through his life itself: his behaviours, his choices, the way he lives his life.

 

The growth of spiritual wisdom is paired by a transformation in character, but this doesn’t come suddenly. At first the change is experienced as being as much negative as positive, and so we’ll start with the negatives.

 

The philosopher has come to realise that his identity as a mortal individual, is only one half of the story…but he has grown very used to this half-story, his life situation – job, family, interests - is still permeated by this belief, and he has to continue living in a society that functions almost exclusively from the perspective of the mortal individual.

 

As we believe so we act. If we believe that we are individuals, then our notions about what is important, what is good and bad, what is desirable/undesirable are notions as they apply to the individual. For example, to be a mortal is to belief in death, extinction, and that for most people is the supreme evil. Next to death is pain, and avoiding pain is a major motivating factor in life.

 

If avoiding pain and death through the pursuit of pleasure, health and longevity is a fundamental motivator to the individual, then beneath this fundamental there are all sorts of subordinate motivating factors. For example, fear of death leads to desire for health, which leads to desire for a certain diet, which leads to a desire for organic food, which leads to a desire for certain kinds of shops which exist only in certain kinds of towns, which leads to a certain kind of address and paypacket, and so on…

 

What happens when the philosopher sees that he isn’t, strictly speaking, a mortal in the first place?

 

Well he doesn’t stop eating, that’s for sure. His mortal existence is still as relevant to him as it always was. But it has been supplemented by an ever-growing sense of himself as an immortal spiritual being. This new sense of himself is only dim at first, but it is enough reason for him to start to doubt the rationality of those desires that are most distant from his egoic needs. He does not stop desiring food to eat, but he does start to feel it unnecessary to cross town on his bicycle just to get the bread that was produced organically. This one desire he is now free of, and his life is simpler as a result.

 

Now of course this may be viewed as a positive as far as he is concerned, but for those around him who consider organic food to be most important (as he once did), this apathy is not a good development. And, being the philosopher he is, he is not now arguing that organic food is wholly pointless - he is just seen that, from a certain perspective it is pointless. And this new perspective is enough to make him…well, kind of apathetic.

 

As time goes on this indifference towards things viewed important by others grows and grows. He, as his spiritual self, is pretty much happy whatever is going on – he’s at peace, and he starts to see that this peace is going to be with him whatever happens in the future, good or bad. Some big things will shake his peace, but most stuff won’t affect it all - it won’t really add nor take away from what he has right now.

 

The normal person, he sees, spends the vast majority of time seeking out or avoiding things that really aren’t very essential. They are derivatives of the derivatives of the essentials. Not the important stuff.

 

The overwhelming industry of society is geared towards securing goods or avoiding evils that really aren’t particularly good or evil. And seeing this, the philosopher find sit very hard to participate. He doesn’t like to dismiss it all, he can see that people are getting really geared up by this stuff…but to him its unimportant and he is…apathetic.

 

Most people’s lives are filled to the brim with an overwhelming array of things to pursue or avoid. Desires are positively queuing up, and the moment one is fulfilled the next takes its place.

 

The philosopher meanwhile, finds that his desires are becoming increasingly essential - and related only to the basic realities of his mortal existence. Gaps start to appear. Times when he is just living, and motivated only by basic needs: eat, sleep, warmth. Anything subsidiary to these may flicker briefly, but never really take hold.

 

This might sound almost desirable, but we must remember that this individual is likely still wrapped up in social relations from his former self. Like his interests, people are either essential or inessential…but those essential ones, parents, spouse best friends are not necessarily following the same path as he. They may be important to him, but that does not mean they understand him. Their importance dates back to a former time and is now diminishing.

 

So they worry about him, tell him to take more of an interest…and he can’t explain himself and is left feeling lonely, uncertain. A complete transformation in his circumstances, and all from a habit of philosophising. His family and friends start to tell him to stop thinking…his greatest skill and asset is ruining his life.

 

All of this, from the emotional peace that comes with realising the identity of good and bad, right and wrong, to the social isolation and apathy is summed up in Ch 20 of the Tao Te Ching:

 

Have done with learning,

And you will have no more vexation.

 

How great is the difference between ‘eh’ and ‘oh’?

What is the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’?

Must I fear what others fear?

What abysmal nonsense is this!

 

All men are joyous and beaming,

As though feasting upon a sacrificial ox,

As though mounting the spring terrace;

I alone am placid and give no sign,

Like a baby which has not yet smiled.

I alone am forlorn as one who has no home to return to.

 

All men have enough and to spare:

I alone appear to have nothing

What a fool I am!

What a muddled mind I have!

All men are bright, bright:

I alone am dim, dim.

All men are sharp, sharp:

I alone am mum, mum!

Bland like the ocean,

Aimless like the wafting gale.

 

All men settle down in their grooves:

I alone am stubborn and remain outside.

But wherein I am most different from others is

In knowing how to take sustenance from my Mother.

 

The philosopher’s realisation prompts a withdrawal from the ways of the world that he and others can easily view as negative. I wanted to get this out the way…but the other side of the coin is learning to ‘take sustenance from the mother’ and we can talk about that next time.

 

Best wishes

[Marblehead]

…but the other side of the coin is learning to ‘take sustenance from the mother’ and we can talk about that next time.

 

Best wishes

Yeah, that is an important concept that rarely gets discussed. I will look forward to reading that when you have the time to do it.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to share with us.

[三江源]

.

Edited July 21, 2014 by cat

[Aaron]

Hi all,

 

I was planning to write some more on epistemology but we can move on to the life of a philosopher.

 

“'a vision that no longer fits into words'.. and communicating... am waiting for this next installment with appetite. Hope you will come and share.”

 

Yes, how does the philosopher manage to communicate what cannot be put into words? Well of course, he does speak but is so often misunderstood, and so the best way is through his life itself: his behaviours, his choices, the way he lives his life.

 

The growth of spiritual wisdom is paired by a transformation in character, but this doesn’t come suddenly. At first the change is experienced as being as much negative as positive, and so we’ll start with the negatives.

 

The philosopher has come to realise that his identity as a mortal individual, is only one half of the story…but he has grown very used to this half-story, his life situation – job, family, interests - is still permeated by this belief, and he has to continue living in a society that functions almost exclusively from the perspective of the mortal individual.

 

As we believe so we act. If we believe that we are individuals, then our notions about what is important, what is good and bad, what is desirable/undesirable are notions as they apply to the individual. For example, to be a mortal is to belief in death, extinction, and that for most people is the supreme evil. Next to death is pain, and avoiding pain is a major motivating factor in life.

 

If avoiding pain and death through the pursuit of pleasure, health and longevity is a fundamental motivator to the individual, then beneath this fundamental there are all sorts of subordinate motivating factors. For example, fear of death leads to desire for health, which leads to desire for a certain diet, which leads to a desire for organic food, which leads to a desire for certain kinds of shops which exist only in certain kinds of towns, which leads to a certain kind of address and paypacket, and so on…

 

What happens when the philosopher sees that he isn’t, strictly speaking, a mortal in the first place?

 

Well he doesn’t stop eating, that’s for sure. His mortal existence is still as relevant to him as it always was. But it has been supplemented by an ever-growing sense of himself as an immortal spiritual being. This new sense of himself is only dim at first, but it is enough reason for him to start to doubt the rationality of those desires that are most distant from his egoic needs. He does not stop desiring food to eat, but he does start to feel it unnecessary to cross town on his bicycle just to get the bread that was produced organically. This one desire he is now free of, and his life is simpler as a result.

 

Now of course this may be viewed as a positive as far as he is concerned, but for those around him who consider organic food to be most important (as he once did), this apathy is not a good development. And, being the philosopher he is, he is not now arguing that organic food is wholly pointless - he is just seen that, from a certain perspective it is pointless. And this new perspective is enough to make him…well, kind of apathetic.

 

As time goes on this indifference towards things viewed important by others grows and grows. He, as his spiritual self, is pretty much happy whatever is going on – he’s at peace, and he starts to see that this peace is going to be with him whatever happens in the future, good or bad. Some big things will shake his peace, but most stuff won’t affect it all - it won’t really add nor take away from what he has right now.

 

The normal person, he sees, spends the vast majority of time seeking out or avoiding things that really aren’t very essential. They are derivatives of the derivatives of the essentials. Not the important stuff.

 

The overwhelming industry of society is geared towards securing goods or avoiding evils that really aren’t particularly good or evil. And seeing this, the philosopher find sit very hard to participate. He doesn’t like to dismiss it all, he can see that people are getting really geared up by this stuff…but to him its unimportant and he is…apathetic.

 

Most people’s lives are filled to the brim with an overwhelming array of things to pursue or avoid. Desires are positively queuing up, and the moment one is fulfilled the next takes its place.

 

The philosopher meanwhile, finds that his desires are becoming increasingly essential - and related only to the basic realities of his mortal existence. Gaps start to appear. Times when he is just living, and motivated only by basic needs: eat, sleep, warmth. Anything subsidiary to these may flicker briefly, but never really take hold.

 

This might sound almost desirable, but we must remember that this individual is likely still wrapped up in social relations from his former self. Like his interests, people are either essential or inessential…but those essential ones, parents, spouse best friends are not necessarily following the same path as he. They may be important to him, but that does not mean they understand him. Their importance dates back to a former time and is now diminishing.

 

So they worry about him, tell him to take more of an interest…and he can’t explain himself and is left feeling lonely, uncertain. A complete transformation in his circumstances, and all from a habit of philosophising. His family and friends start to tell him to stop thinking…his greatest skill and asset is ruining his life.

 

All of this, from the emotional peace that comes with realising the identity of good and bad, right and wrong, to the social isolation and apathy is summed up in Ch 20 of the Tao Te Ching:

 

Have done with learning,

And you will have no more vexation.

 

How great is the difference between ‘eh’ and ‘oh’?

What is the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’?

Must I fear what others fear?

What abysmal nonsense is this!

 

All men are joyous and beaming,

As though feasting upon a sacrificial ox,

As though mounting the spring terrace;

I alone am placid and give no sign,

Like a baby which has not yet smiled.

I alone am forlorn as one who has no home to return to.

 

All men have enough and to spare:

I alone appear to have nothing

What a fool I am!

What a muddled mind I have!

All men are bright, bright:

I alone am dim, dim.

All men are sharp, sharp:

I alone am mum, mum!

Bland like the ocean,

Aimless like the wafting gale.

 

All men settle down in their grooves:

I alone am stubborn and remain outside.

But wherein I am most different from others is

In knowing how to take sustenance from my Mother.

 

The philosopher’s realisation prompts a withdrawal from the ways of the world that he and others can easily view as negative. I wanted to get this out the way…but the other side of the coin is learning to ‘take sustenance from the mother’ and we can talk about that next time.

 

Best wishes

 

 

You've taken Chapter 20 out of context. It has nothing to do with apathy, but rather, coming to terms with your own understanding of the world around you. It's an allegory, not meant to be taken literally. Lao Tzu is advocating being the devil's advocate.

 

So, this has nothing to do with a realization of right and wrong, good or bad, or any other paradoxical quality, but rather that there is no right or wrong, good or bad, that everything is subjective. One culture burns the body of a loved one, the other views it as the ultimate sin, neither is right or wrong, it's their cultural subjectivity that causes them to view it as such.

 

Lao Tzu is telling us that we don't need to believe something is good or evil, simply because we are told it is so. This is the exact opposite of what you're talking about, defining things as good and evil, in fact that is exactly what he is warning us against here.

 

It also has nothing to with retreating from the ways of the world, but rather understanding the way of the world. Squirrels gather nuts for winter, not out of greed, but necessity, so accumulation itself isn't bad either, as long as there's a need for it. I would suggest that you don't read chapters by themselves, simply because much of what is being talked about in the Tao Te Ching goes on for several chapters. With that said, I do appreciate that you're reading the Tao Te Ching. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

 

Aaron

Edited August 21, 2013 by Aaron

[Nikolai1]

Hi all

You've taken Chapter 20 out of context. It has nothing to do with apathy, but rather, coming to terms with your own understanding of the world around you. It's an allegory, not meant to be taken literally.

and..

 

 

I just want to point out that you've misunderstood this passage. Yes we should look for the mystery of mysteries, but this mystery isn't Tao, but the bellows, spring, spirit of the feminine (force of creation) between heaven and earth, a product of Tao.

Both times I’ve quoted the Tao Te Ching I’ve been corrected by Aaron for doing so inappropriately. Rather than defend the quotes themselves, it might be easier if I explain my own approach to religious texts.

 

A religious movement is only of practical use when it starts positively influence the well-being of the people. A religion that does not make the world a better place is a dead religion. The texts and scriptures must therefore serve as a guide and rule to those whose lives and well-being are to be improved. Those who have gained the inner wisdom to understand the texts are in a position to explain them to those who have not yet gained that wisdom. It follows therefore that those most in need of a clear and unambiguous presentation of scripture are children.

 

Taoism is in the west still a nascent religious movement at best. If it is to become a force for good it is therefore necessary that its distinctive message can be made available. This enterprise will require the exegesis of texts like the Tao Te Ching, but it must come from those who have understood for themselves the core spiritual message. Only these people will be able to meaningfully relate this message to the spiritual, philosophical and historical nexus in the west. With this understanding, they are in a position to present the meaning of the scripture to western society.

 

So we can see the importance at the societal level of a clear and shared understanding of scripture, and those who most benefit from this are those whose own inner wisdom is most underdeveloped.

 

Spiritual seekers are all different. Some people are naturally most concerned about those whose wisdom is less then their own. They seek to help others up to their own level. We’ll call these the compassionates. Such people will instinctively try to help others by explaining scripture, which they themselves once had to struggle to understand. They perhaps seek to speed up people’s spiritual development by taking the role of scriptural teachers. They therefore present scripture as something clear and unambiguous.

 

However, there comes a point when every spiritual seeker reaches “adulthood”. They know and understand how their society understands and approaches scripture. They can pass it on to children if they need to. But they still have a need to grow themselves. They are not thinking of those beneath them, they, themselves, need to grow beyond the generally shared understanding. They have spent early life trying to reach adulthood, but know they seek full maturity.

 

People in this situation will start to notice changes in their approach to scripture. They find that suddenly passages generally considered dull and irrelevant are starting to fascinate them. Those overlooked sections obscure of societal relevance are now sparkling with individual meaning. Dusty passages suddenly feel like they are addressed personally to you. One day a passage can some full of beautiful meaning…yet you seek out the same feeling the next day, and all you find are arid, pompous speculations. (As an aside, the I Ching shall remain unaccessible to any who can't approach scripture this way)

 

Scripture therefore becomes something very animated, very subjective. A living presence and companion. It starts to serve as a constantly shifting mirror to our present spiritual condition, and the notion of fixed interpretation seems impossible and therefore ridiculous. If scripture changes its meaning, in a moment, for me, how could it apply universally to all people?

 

Once this way of understanding scripture first arises there is a tendency towards a kind of antinomianism. “Scripture”, it is said, “cannot and should not, be interpreted for us. We must do it ourselves. Exegesis is an art and not a science.”

 

With time this reaction softens and we start to recognise that we are all at different stages, and that some people first need to internalise core principles from scripture before they can start to extemporise for themselves.

 

I read Aaron’s blog The American Taoist. I think he is a natural teacher and writer, a compassionate, whose concern is for those whose understanding is not yet at his level. It also seems, that as an American, he is trying to develop an understanding of Taoism relevant to the West. This requires the development of good, broad and stable understanding of Taoist scripture which can be shared. This is an important exegetical project and I wish him well with it because he seems talented. It is a shame that his blog seems to be a case of “high quality, low quantity”!

 

But… in my last post I quoted Chapter 20 to illustrate that subjective feeling of nostalgia and disconsolation that comes as we start to lose interest in the ways of the world: that feeling that we are being emptied of things, and that they shall not return, and that we must therefore say goodbye. I have always found that Ch 20 mirrors this sentiment. It is therefore not an ingenious allegory devised by a sage, not for me while I’m in this mood. It is an authentic cri de coeur, resounding down the millennia, from one bereft spiritual seeker to another.

 

I shall continue to quote, and no doubt enrage people by my choices. But this isn’t a thread about scriptural interpretation so forgive me if I don’t have time to do more of it.

 

Best wishes

Edited August 22, 2013 by Nikolai1

[三江源]

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Edited July 21, 2014 by cat

[Nikolai1]

Thanks Cat, yes the OP describes the feeling really nicely. There's also a trepidation because you don't know what will fall next.

"What that too? Does that really have to go too?"

 

Our mortifications come, whether we seek them out or not.

[三江源]

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Edited July 21, 2014 by cat

[Apech]

we need mortificatio.. or we are stuck with putrefactio.. one would think putrefaction occurs after mortificatio, but I'm not so sure.

 

 

 

You can't put out a flaming barrel with a vase of flowers.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

he has a chimera, your argument is invalid.

[三江源]

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Edited July 21, 2014 by cat

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

speaking plainly, one cannot convey the profound, so one must elude to the profound with a manner of speech which reflects that.


Or as you said, "by indirect methods".

[hydrogen]

It comes down to this " transformed people transform people."

 

Who transformed Buddha? Who transformed Jesus? Who transformed La Tzu?

 

No body can transform you but yourself.

 

A philosopher is not different than a mathematicin or a butcher or a foot ball player about understanding of Tao.

 

A double P.H.D. in engineering and physics have no bearing when driving a car.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

Who transformed Buddha? Who transformed Jesus? Who transformed La Tzu?

everyone in his life he experienced lent to his transformation, rather than from a singular transformed person

 

No body can transform you but yourself.

50% rule. Half is self, half is "not self".

 

A philosopher is not different than a mathematicin or a butcher or a foot ball player about understanding of Tao.

 

A double P.H.D. in engineering and physics have no bearing when driving a car.