Random thought about Dao that can not be spoken

[soaring crane]

If the Dao can not be spoken, then, ipso facto, that which can not be spoken must be Dao.

 

When I gaze at a tree surrounded by sky atop a mountain resting on Earth absorbing and reflecting light traveling from the sun changing its position in the sky minute by minute creating with every movement a new tree, a new mountain, a new earth, a new sky, and all of it at the same moment is tree, all of it is sky, all of it is mountain, all of it is earth, all of it is sun ... and all of it is me, all one; I can't grasp and express the wholeness that I see before me or the connections I feel inside me.

 

See? And because I can't grasp and can't express:

 

Dao.

[dawei]

I have never really liked the idea that Dao cannot be spoken; it is the most spoken of topics here

 

I think you have come closer to what I felt; that it is the eternalness, the wholeness, our connection to the primordial soup from which all came that we cannot quite easily speak about.

[GrandmasterP]

There's that riff of Wittgenstein's in 'A Lecture on Ethics' about the impossibility of expressing the absolute in language.

We can talk 'around' Tao on here or anywhere else until the cows come home.

Try as we might though we could never express ourself in words that would come close to communicating our experience in such a way as to effectively and accurately transmit our subjective experience to another.

Edited March 30, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

I was fond of Wittgenstein.

 

Of that which we can speak, we can speak clearly.

 

Of that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent.

 

Summat like dat.

...

[soaring crane]

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen"

 

I knew the quote but not the author. Thanks, Capt :-)

 

There's a 'must' in there. He saying something more akin to, "if you can't speak intelligently about a subject, please resist the temptation to speak at all, tyvm ".

[GrandmasterP]

Wittgenstein was a closeted zen buddhist.

[Mark Saltveit]

Soaring Crane: Nice point, and a good example.

 

I think that Dao is in every moment and situation, though. There's a danger in reserving it for spectacular sunsets and the like.

 

Master Dung Guo: "Where does the Dao exist?"

Zhuangzi: "There is no place that it doesn't exist."

MDG: "You must be more specific."

ZZ: "It is in the ant."

MDG: "Why so low?"

ZZ: "It is in the panic grass."

MDG: "Even lower?"

ZZ: "In the tiles and shards."

MDG: "Is this the lowest?"
ZZ: "It is in the shit and piss."

 

22/6

[ChiDragon]

It is because they are there for a reason and that is tao(the principles of Tao).

Note:
tao(small t): 道理; reasons; the principles of Tao.

Edited March 31, 2014 by ChiDragon

[idiot_stimpy]

The conceptual cannot accurately talk about the non-conceptual, because its essence is not based on concepts.

[soaring crane]

Soaring Crane: Nice point, and a good example.

 

I think that Dao is in every moment and situation, though. There's a danger in reserving it for spectacular sunsets and the like.

 

Well, I think there's no 'danger' in using an expansive illustration, especially when the image and thought had occurred about an hour previously :-)

 

I'll re-phrase it starting with my bare feet surrounded by living room resting on the coffee table... Still got that shifting image caused by the motion of the sun coming through the window.

 

Actually, my point wasn't so much the illustration as the first thing I wrote, the ipso facto clause.

[Rara]

I have never really liked the idea that Dao cannot be spoken; it is the most spoken of topics here

 

I think you have come closer to what I felt; that it is the eternalness, the wholeness, our connection to the primordial soup from which all came that we cannot quite easily speak about.

Speech is within the Dao...

 

But I'd say the phrase is generally rebelling against the other philosophers that spend more time over-analysing and confusing themselves as opposed to just living and experiencing.

 

We can read and talk all we want, but none of it compares to simply living.

 

I like the tale that TTC was written involuntarily. That makes the most sense...it's a philosophy that shouldn't be written down.

 

Without all the words and ideas in the world to debate over, it would save time amd energy ignoring them all and just getting on with life!

[soaring crane]

Without all the words and ideas in the world to debate over, it would save time and energy ignoring them all and just getting on with life!

 

haha, I can dig that!

[Apech]

In part I think its a refutation of this tendency in Chinese thought :

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/school-names/

 

... a refusal to enter into disputation over terms ....

[GrandmasterP]

" A dao (way) is formed by walking it, things are made so by calling them so. Why so? By being so. Why not so? By being not so. Things inherently have what is so; things inherently have what is admissible. No thing is not so; no thing is not admissible. (cf. Graham 1981: 53)."

 

Dao as 'logical positivism'.

 

Being an academic is sweet work if one can get it.

 

:-)

Edited March 31, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Marblehead]

The conceptual cannot accurately talk about the non-conceptual, because its essence is not based on concepts.

But still so many people try. They only get lost.

[GrandmasterP]

I dunno.

Whilst we can't ever accurately convey the ineffable via language, some poets - for example - make a pretty good fist of trying.

Visual artists and some musicians too.

That striving to communicate the incommunicable does, sometimes; seem to bring out the best in some folks.

Edited March 31, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Marblehead]

Hehehe. Okay, I can't argue with that.

[Mark Saltveit]

I don't think there's any harm in talking about these things as long you remember it's always an approximation, no the real thing itself. I like maps, too but I don't try to live in them.

[Marblehead]

Exactly. Maps are only guides, they are not the real thing. Talking about Tao is only a guide, we have to live it to get the real thing.

[soaring crane]

And yet, here you all are, giving in to the urge to post 'something' in a thread that ostensibly should be about no thing :-)

Edited April 1, 2014 by soaring crane

[Yascra]

And yet, here you all are, giving in to the urge to post 'something' in a thread that ostensibly should be about no thing :-)

 

Like you?

 

[soaring crane]

I started the thread.

 

And I think it started out pretty good, so there :-)

 

One note: I don't agree 100 percent with the 'map' idea. I don't disagree with it 100 percent, either, but...

 

I see it more like a painting. A painting without a frame. A mixed-medium painting, painting itself, on a 4-dimensional canvas.

[Yascra]

 

A mixed-medium painting, painting itself, on a 4-dimensional canvas.

 

So, if talking about Dao is talking about no thing, where exactly are those 4 dimensions located...?

Edited April 1, 2014 by Yascra

[soaring crane]

 

 

So, if talking about Dao is talking about no thing, where exactly are those 4 dimensions located...?

 

no where

every where

 

[Marblehead]

And yet, here you all are, giving in to the urge to post 'something' in a thread that ostensibly should be about no thing :-)

But Mr. Crane, we can't talk about no thing.