Random thought about Dao that can not be spoken

[soaring crane]

I'm highly surprised that thread keeps popping up and has stretched out as long as it has.

 

Also surprised that I've not noticed the typo in the title until now! Weird ....

[Marblehead]

Also surprised that I've not noticed the typo in the title until now! Weird ....

I noticed that at the very beginning but didn't want to say anything.

 

I have even forgotten what this thread is all about.

 

But I do have random thoughts now and again so this is a good place to put those I care to share with others.

 

Yeah, I'll end up just watching if Y'all start doing poetry as that is something I have little interest in.

[Stosh]

There was a young lass from Nantucket....

 

jump in any time

[soaring crane]

Who flew to the moon in a rocket

 

[Taomeow]

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.

Just as "all of Laozi" is stuck in so many heads in the form of just one line -- "the tao that can be spoken is not the eternal tao" -- so all of Wittgenstein is stuck in mine in the form of one line expressing his philosophy in a nutshell --

"you can't have my toothache."

[Daeluin]

Zhuangzi says: "The Great Tao is not discussed, the great discriminations are not spoken." Essentially, since in the first place the Tao has no name, how can it be discussed? Since in the first place the Tao has no form, how can it be spoken? When no discussions or speeches are possible, how can there be discriminations?

 

Yet in the world there are some who discuss the Tao and make speeches on the Tao. As soon as there are discussions, right and wrong are mixed with one another and the Tao becomes not true; as soon as there are speeches, good and evil fight against one another and the Tao becomes false. Since their discussions on the Tao are not true and their speeches on the Tao are false, those people are not discussing the Tao and instead are slandering the Tao; they are not speaking on the Tao and instead are disparaging the Tao.

 

Slandering the Tao and disparaging the Tao close the gate to cultivating the True and obstruct the path to practicing the Tao. As these are the greatest of all harms, I cannot refrain from making thorough discriminations in order to break what is not true in those discussions, and from making fine discriminations in order to crack what is false in those speeches. By making discriminations on discussions that are not true and on speeches that are false, without hardship students can gradually awaken to the Tao that cannot be discussed, and inwardly comprehend the Tao that cannot be spoken. Enabling someone to awaken to something difficult to awaken to, and to comprehend something difficult to comprehend -- these are the only purposes of making discriminations about what is difficult to awaken to and to comprehend.

 

However, having made discriminations, can one call it "not speaking"? Having made speeches, can one call it "not discussing"? And having made discussions and speeches, is it still possible to make discriminations on discussions that are not true and on speeches that are false? Someone discusses and I also discuss; someone speaks and I also speak. How can I know that their discussion is true and my discussion is not true? Or that my discussion is true and their discussion is not true? How can I know that their speech is false and my speech is not false? Or that my speech is false and their speech is not false?

 

One knows what is true and what is not true, what is false and what is not false, only when one looks at all this by maintaining oneself in "not discussing the Tao" and "not speaking on the Tao." Could I make discriminations about this?

 

Preface by the Master Who Awakens to the Origin

 

(Liu Yiming, Cultivating the Tao, Pregadio)

[Marblehead]

"you can't have my toothache."

That references the relativity of things.

[woodcarver]

Maybe we can use deduction so zhuangzi doesn't get mad. What can be spoken of?

[GrandmasterP]

Everything on TTB for starters.

 

[woodcarver]

Hmm this really is pickle

[Marblehead]

What can be spoken of?

Everything within the realm of the Manifest can be spoken of. Yes, there is still a lot that we don't know that may be known one day. I repeat myself here, potential cannot be spoken of as it has yet not manifested itself. But even so, we can speak of the possibilities of potential. Many do here at TaoBums.

 

And yes, everything that has been said here at TaoBums can be spoken to as these words and concepts have been manifested. Even the possibility of the impossible can be spoken to.

[GrandmasterP]

+1

For example we had a lad join our bowling team last Spring and it has been said that....

" This new player is showing great potential."

We'll know for sure come the end of the season if that potential was fulfilled or not.

 

Edited August 1, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Stosh]

 

Zhuangzi says: "Essentially, since in the first place the Tao has no name, how can it be discussed? Since in the first place the Tao has no form, how can it be spoken? When no discussions or speeches are possible, how can there be discriminations?

 

Since this is a question , then I can give reply ,

"Essentially, since in the first place the Tao has no name, how can it be discussed?

Well now he has given it a name .. Tao .. so that clearly is not an obstacle, in the general usage of 'names'

If he was called Chuang (or similar) clearly his name doesnt represent all of him all he may be and all he once was,

yet he may be spoken of .

...and though the name of Tao that we might use , may not be perfect , but about it -like anything else ,,we may speak.

 

Names in the sense of Plato's idea forms similarly were spoken of though they were also imperfect describers of the perfect.

 

Patonic forms are the manifestations of things , such as a bird flapping , is a form ,,, its what the thing was presenting ,as it was .

Todays terminology re: form , is usually a things shape , and things without shape may be discussed too ( like color electrical potential and so forth ),

Even if one is looking at form from the platonic viewpoint , Tao presents manifestatiions , and we may infer its 'rules' and the like ...

 

It just should be understood , that words are imperfect describers - once thats understood one need not be silent.

 

Descriminations may be made about the indistinct , if one chooses a platform from which to view them ,,, for instance cold versus hot , clearly the vector of becoming hotter , is the inverse of the vector becoming colder , and we can use our skin as an arbitrary reference point.

 

So In this passage he may be simply be using rhetoric , or he may be testing the reader... but ultimately its true , that without having a non-arbitrary standpoint from which to consider things discriminations may not be made while being perfectly accurate.

 

and so anyone but the perfect , can talk about the Tao

[Stosh]

As for Mr Liu....However, having made discriminations, can one call it "not speaking

 

If he can call speaking of Tao slander , can one call it not asserting that Tao is 'other' than the slander?

[soaring crane]

oh, shut up

[GrandmasterP]

Now that is funny on so many levels.

 

LOL

 

.

Edited August 1, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[soaring crane]

haha glad it went over the way it was intended

[Marblehead]

But then it would get pretty boring here if everyone shut up.

 

The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.

 

Nothing manifest is eternal therefore all that is manifest can be spoken of.

 

Now I'll shut up. (But only momentarily.)

[GrandmasterP]

Fair enough if the Tao that we can't discuss here on TTB is the eternal Tao.

We can settle for chatting about the temporal aspects of Tao that we're interested in, do observe and may discuss.

( as we do).

In sure and certain knowledge that we're probably wrong.

Edited August 1, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Marblehead]

... we're probably wrong.

Who said anything about there being a need to be right?

[GrandmasterP]

You did.

Just then.

 

[woodcarver]

This is the last place I would expect to see walls of text.

[nestentrie]

This is the last place I would expect to see walls of text.

 

We all have the happiness of attaining the Tao, even where we fail, for someone else will keep it.

[Marblehead]

You did. Just then.

My remaining shut up didn't last long, did it?

[Marblehead]

Ah! The attainment of happiness. Who said it? "We never find happiness until we stop looking for it."

 

Random thoughts oftentimes come fast and furiously.