What is meaning?

[Todd]

What is meaning?

 

Also, what effect does meaning have on your cultivation and life?

 

I'll lay my cards on the table and say that I think meaning is an illusion, and is one of the greatest obstacles to cultivation and to free flowing life. This might just be my biases showing through, though. Perhaps my tendency to seek meaning makes the realization of its absence pretty freeing for me. Perhaps those who run from meaning might have a different perspective. Or perhaps I just don't know what meaning is? Can anyone clarify this for me?

 

How does this look to you?

[Cameron]

hehehe..how are your TCM studies going?

 

My teacher gave us different words to use to sum up these things.

 

All the pain we feel and in the world we call "OUCH"

 

All the struggle and reaching out to others we call "HELP"

 

And when I don't know the answer I say "DUUUUUUUUUUUUH"

 

There are others to I think that I don't remember right now

 

To your question I would respond with DUUUUUUUUH

 

It's not a sarcastic Duh..it's sort of like the primordial Duh..or something.

 

namaste.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Cameron

[Taomeow]

What is meaning?

 

Also, what effect does meaning have on your cultivation and life?

 

I'll lay my cards on the table and say that I think meaning is an illusion, and is one of the greatest obstacles to cultivation and to free flowing life. This might just be my biases showing through, though. Perhaps my tendency to seek meaning makes the realization of its absence pretty freeing for me. Perhaps those who run from meaning might have a different perspective. Or perhaps I just don't know what meaning is? Can anyone clarify this for me?

 

How does this look to you?

 

Things are connected to other things, events to other events, and the meaning is in these connections. An acorn falling on the ground doesn't mean anything by itself. Rain doesn't mean anything by itself. The sun doesn't mean anything by itself. An acorn plus rain plus sun mean an oak tree. An oak tree doesn't mean anything by itself. The word "oak" doesn't mean anything by itself. Attached to a suffix, it means my family name. My family name means nothing by itself. Written under a published work, it means money. Money doesn't mean anything by itself. Its absence doesn't mean anything by itself. If the only way to get food is to get it in exchange for money (a rather prevalent type of connection throughout civilized history), its absence means death. Death means nothing by itself. Having someone point a loaded gun at you and asking them to pull the trigger for no reason whatsoever would be one's ultimate proof of the absence of meaning from life as well. Whoever would do that would definitely prove to me that for them, there was no meaning in it all after all. Whoever won't do it would have to have a "because" to explain why they won't do it -- and this "because" will constitute their personal meaning, connected to "everything" in such a way that they will be reluctant to just disconnect from "it all" meaninglessly, for shits and giggles, "for no reason whatsoever." From meaning, you can run but you can't hide!

[Todd]

hehehe..how are your TCM studies going?

 

My teacher gave us different words to use to sum up these things.

 

All the pain we feel and in the world we call "OUCH"

 

All the struggle and reaching out to others we call "HELP"

 

And when I don't know the answer I say "DUUUUUUUUUUUUH"

 

There are others to I think that I don't remember right now

 

To your question I would respond with DUUUUUUUUH

 

It's not a sarcastic Duh..it's sort of like the primordial Duh..or something.

 

namaste.

 

 

My TCM studies are going well. There are ups and downs, as with everything, but overall my interest and involvement with my studies has been growing. I was mostly following an intuition when I started, and experience has continued to point the wisdom of following that intuition. Time will tell though.

 

I like Jeannie's approach with the words. Simplify what we tell ourselves about our experience in the world, so that we might see the common elements. If a person goes from telling long involved stories about what he is experiencing, to recognizing a basic, "OUCH" or "HELP", perhaps he might recognize where Jeannie is pointing at and let go of even those words.

 

What I said above can be simplified as well, which it seems you were trying to do.

 

Namaste.

[Cameron]

 

A couple other nice ones she taught me.

 

Heart opening: "Mmmmmmmmmmmmm"

 

Having Fun: "Weeeeeeeeeeee"

 

namaste.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Cameron

[Todd]

Things are connected to other things, events to other events, and the meaning is in these connections. An acorn falling on the ground doesn't mean anything by itself. Rain doesn't mean anything by itself. The sun doesn't mean anything by itself. An acorn plus rain plus sun mean an oak tree. An oak tree doesn't mean anything by itself. The word "oak" doesn't mean anything by itself. Attached to a suffix, it means my family name. My family name means nothing by itself. Written under a published work, it means money. Money doesn't mean anything by itself. Its absence doesn't mean anything by itself. If the only way to get food is to get it in exchange for money (a rather prevalent type of connection throughout civilized history), its absence means death. Death means nothing by itself. Having someone point a loaded gun at you and asking them to pull the trigger for no reason whatsoever would be one's ultimate proof of the absence of meaning from life as well. Whoever would do that would definitely prove to me that for them, there was no meaning in it all after all. Whoever won't do it would have to have a "because" to explain why they won't do it -- and this "because" will constitute their personal meaning, connected to "everything" in such a way that they will be reluctant to just disconnect from "it all" meaninglessly, for shits and giggles, "for no reason whatsoever." From meaning, you can run but you can't hide!

 

Dubaya?

 

Ok, so we have a workable definition of meaning-- the connections between things. In the progression that you presented, nothing has meaning in and of itself. It is only when a thing connects with something else and there is a result (as there has to be, or else what use is there in saying that there is a connection?) that meaning arises. This seems obvious.

 

But what happens when we go deeper with it? When two things relate, or as you say, connect, they create a result. This result, or third thing, can be called meaning. Another way of looking at this meaning is as a wider context. When I respond to you, there is a conversation, in which a meaning, yet to be determined, arises. The result off this conversation, in and of itself has no meaning, except that it connects to something else, and an even wider context is formed, out of which comes some result. My question to you is, "Is there an ultimate context? Is there a relationship that encompasses all relationships? If so, what is that context like? Does it have a result? And if there is no result, what use is there in saying that it has meaning? What would it connect to?"

 

As far as the gun to my head analogy goes, to say that I need a reason to not do a positive action seems to me to be assuming something that perhaps we might be better off not assuming.

 

This inquiry goes much deeper, but before it gets too philosophical, I'd like to connect it to our experience. In some of my questions above, I was assuming that there is an ultimate context. This does not have to be an assumption. It is not ultimate in the way that we normally think of it. It is immediately available in our lived experience. What about you has always been there? Have a look. From yourself, you can run, but you can't hide!

[Taomeow]

My question to you is, "Is there an ultimate context? Is there a relationship that encompasses all relationships? If so, what is that context like? Does it have a result? And if there is no result, what use is there in saying that it has meaning? What would it connect to?"

 

Is there an ultimate context? -- I guess tao might qualify.

 

Is there a relationship that encompasses all relationships? -- Per taoist cosmology, no. Twenty percent of everything is unpredictable and is governed by pure chance. Twenty percent of all connections, the ones arising from this probabilistic set-up, are not determined by any prior connections, they form their own relationships instead which can rearrange not only prior but simultaneous and future connections -- some of them, or even all of them! This is the realm of mystery, and true mystery is not mysterious because we're ignorant or some such pending "awakening" or some such -- it is mysterious by default, ziran, it can't be anything but no matter what we do or don't do about it.

 

What is the context like? -- Per my inquiry, it is the Triple Realm of people, things and events; humanity, heaven and earth; and tao. The Lower and Middle realms are "meaningful" through their interconnections all the way through. The Higher realm, that of no form and no substance, is triple meaningful, because it has "pure" connections without form and substance; it IS the realm of connections free for the taking by anything that would care or chance to get connected, erroneously dubbed "nothingness" in many traditions, of which taoism is not one. In taoism, "nothingness" is neither nothing nor something, neither empty nor not empty, neither exists nor doesn't exist --

it's a realm of ultimate "pure potentials," which are "connections" or "relationships" by other name --

one hundred percent random before they manifest, and still twenty percent random after manifestation.

 

Does it have a result? -- Apparently. We call it Hou Tian. The world of manifest phenomena. Unlike in buddhism, which thinks of it as "samsara," something ultimately "bad" and unnecessary, in taoism, it is glorious and meaningful, this ability of tao to manifest as tao-in-motion, taiji, in no way inferior to the unmanifest tao-in-stillness, wuji.

 

And if there is no result, what use is there to say that it has meaning? -- Tao-in-stillnes produces neither results nor meanings, and simultaneously manifests as tao-in-motion that produces both. What is or isn't said about it doesn't seem to make a dent.

 

What would it connect to? -- A result without discernible meaning would connect to mystery. Connections of events to mystery are spontaneously mysterious.

 

As for my existing always and forever -- that's likely, but wouldn't one have to re-define "me" before announcing one's "true nature" as eternal and unchangeable without batting an eyelid? Do you remember yourself as a two-day-old infant? Do you identify with this entity as "you?" And if you do, what are the practical repercussions of such identification? And if here and now you can't discern any, how about your being an "eternal entity" of some Buddhist-Hindu extraction or other being an even greater irrelevance for purposes of handling your here-now existence and all its meanings and connections?

[Todd]

Tao-in-stillnes produces neither results nor meanings, and simultaneously manifests as tao-in-motion that produces both. What is or isn't said about it doesn't seem to make a dent.

 

What would it connect to? -- A result without discernible meaning would connect to mystery. Connections of events to mystery are spontaneously mysterious.

 

 

It seems that when we get down to brass tacks, we are in agreement.

 

However, we don't seem to be meeting at the brass tacks level in much of this discussion. Thats fine with me. The brass tacks level never meant much of anything anyway.

 

I do not remember myself as a two-day old infant. I am confident that such an experience is available to those who want it, and it is possible that I may want such an experience some day. I agree that an integration of the past seems to be an element of embodiment. However, this experience seems to hold no more inherent value to me than sitting here typing to you. It is all play. To think that it is anything else is to grasp, to say, "This experience is me!," and to deny one's identity as the Tao.

 

Indeed, what use are concepts of the Tao? What use is it to say, "I am the Tao," or "The Tao is mysterious" or "Twenty percent of everything is unpredictable and governed by chance," if we don't know that they are true? They make nice arguments, and create a nice identity. We can even separate ourselves from the world with thoughts of ourselves being one of the most connected beings that we know. What about all the beings so foolishly denying their connection? Are they just lost?

 

I admit, its counterintuitive to look at the world from the perspective of no ultimate meaning. In a way, it is to go against everything that we experience. I am not even saying that someone should look at the world this way. It is just that if we stop grabbing on to this and that, and we stop pushing away this and that, thinking that somehow, someday we will be more connected than we already are, then that allows us the see the infinite connections that already exist. They can't not exist, since everything is the same thing, and the appearance of variety is this one thing's play. However, taking one step further, this one thing relates only to mystery, and seeing that is the revelation of nothingness. Nothingness (or Shen level of Tao) is not a thing to be sought; it is the marrow of all this existence, as you often eloquently state.

 

If I haven't answered any of your questions, please restate them, and I'll try to be more direct. I wasn't sure what entity you were referring to when you asked if I identify with it. As far as "eternal" entities go-- I have no conceptions of being any such thing, though such a mystery may be what you and I and everyone is.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Todd

[hagar]

My two kroner:

 

There's a meaning in everything, but particularly in nothing.

 

h

[freeform]

Meaning is most often just 'stories' - you know when a film says it's based on a true story? that's what meaning is - ofcourse 'true story' is an oxymoron - because a story is a linear interpretation of experienced events - always distorting, deleting and generalizing - it can never be true - it's only a story.

 

Storys are for entertainment - once you take them seriously they become dangerous (because you take on all the deletions, distortions and generalizations).

 

The closer you can stay to your senses, the more 'true' your story is. But it can never be absolutely true... there's always that 20% of humanness in it...

 

I'm not down playing the importance of meaning and stories - it's how we 'capture' information and then communicate it - just that people mistake the stories for the real thing, and then we get movies that are based on a true story

 

It's always interesting to check internally when you make meanings and stories - "that facial expression means he disaproves"... you take that story and you lose the words (say it again in your mind, with full meaning and emotion, but only use the word blah) - notice where in your body you feel the meaning coming from and pay attention to that feeling. You'll get a sense of whether this meaning is coming from a belief (formed from past experiences) or from your body in real time. Most people will find most of their stories come from past beliefs... after some work you can start to get meanings directly from the body in real time - this is what intuition is...

 

Intuition is medicine for meaning...

 

intuitive meaning is the type of meaning that is connected with your body (the earth).

 

I think Taomeow's reply is also interesting.

[rex]

Meaning is arbitrary and based on personal and social constructs. It is a useful and necessary illusion. While liberating on personal and spiritual levels, saying that nothing has any meaning or that it's possible to realize the absence of meaning could possibly lead to nihilism. Absence of meaning on what level? Personal? Social? Historical? Spiritual? I suppose it hinges on context and what is experienced when the perception arises into awareness that there is a 'realization of the absence of meaning'. The absence of meaning is in itself meaningful.

 

Later edit: Just reread this - what a load of old bollocks it is!

Edited November 7, 2007 by rex

[Taomeow]

Meaning is innate. Things mean "pleasure" or "pain" from the start. We are brought up to promptly lose this innate ability to tell what means what. We are taught to be confused, to seek what we normally would avoid and to avoid what we should seek. We are trained to take pain and call it pleasure, to be ashamed of being pleased, to be proud of suffering. It takes about five years, according to research, to teach a child to lie. Here's the experiment that showed it:

 

they were giving chocolate that had no sugar in it and instead was mixed with something very bitter to a group of adults, a group of two-year-olds, a group of three-year-olds, and a group of five-year-olds, with the instructions to say "yum, sweet, so tasty!" and show pleasure with the facial expression, show that they're eating something very good that they are enjoying. Adults had no problem whatsoever doing that. Two-year-olds simply squirmed and cried. Three-year-olds managed to get the words "yum, sweet" out but had no control whatsoever over their faces that showed extreme contortions of suffering while they went, "yummy, tasty!" And finally, five-year-olds performed as well as adults.

 

The meaning of the experience was there all along, the same for everyone. It's the training that allowed people to lose it and substitute something arbitrarily offered. Training in unreality destroys the innate meaningfulness of each and every experience we have. Losing unreality restores it. And a glorious feeling it is too, resonating accurately with the medium and message of meaningful change that Chinese civilization calls qi...

Edited July 30, 2007 by Taomeow

[witch]

Very good sense! Although of course unavoidable, otherwise we couldn't stand the little blighters. There's a reason a child in his natural state is called spoiled!

[Taomeow]

Very good sense! Although of course unavoidable, otherwise we couldn't stand the little blighters. There's a reason a child in his natural state is called spoiled!

 

You mean a child is born spoiled and in need of immediate and ongoing correction? That's a traditional Christian view. Taoists believe the opposite, the child is born an "uncarved block" -- perfect -- and all the carvings we proceed to apply only damage it. There's nothing more unnatural than a spoiled child, or more ubiquitous. In our "civilized" world, it's the term used to describe a child who has abandoned her natural needs because of early-on hopelessness to get them met, and has embarked on a lifelong act of substituting symbolic needs, which the world based on mandatory unreality is better equipped to accept.

[Trunk]

What is meaning?

Meaning = concepts, abstract thought. That is, as distinct from things~events themselves. Though concepts are often about things~events.

 

On the plus side, abstract thought is great for a lot of things, it's a lot about what makes us humans such great tool-makers. But it's also a lot of what makes us so neurotic.

 

I think that we experience something, feel it (energetically, physically, emotionally) , and apply concepts to that experience, and invest our personal energies in a tangled mess of thoughts~feelings~impulses about the experience. We glue together and confuse the whole mess. It quickly becomes a perpetually changing inner dust cloud which obscures the ability to experience directly. Thus, the importance of "stillness meditation".

 

Also is a big part of why teaching energy manipulation meditations without stillness teachings is such a disaster. We are all already habitually chasing our inner tangle of concepts+winds.

 

Also has a lot to do with the subjects: "refinement", and "mistaken identity".

 

~ later ~

The authentic energy manipulation practices, btw, are about energy transformation (not hoarding), such that rubbish as I described above gets refined away... and it's easier to abide in stillness as a result.

 

And, while it's usually a significant mile-post for an aspirant to get moments of stillness, its important that that ability matures - such that stillness sustains, regularly, for some duration, so that you actually do refine away that rubbish.

[witch]

You mean a child is born spoiled and in need of immediate and ongoing correction? That's a traditional Christian view. Taoists believe the opposite, the child is born an "uncarved block" -- perfect -- and all the carvings we proceed to apply only damage it. There's nothing more unnatural than a spoiled child, or more ubiquitous. In our "civilized" world, it's the term used to describe a child who has abandoned her natural needs because of early-on hopelessness to get them met, and has embarked on a lifelong act of substituting symbolic needs, which the world based on mandatory unreality is better equipped to accept.

 

I will not argue with you about this point, because there is no doubt in my mind that you are far advanced in wisdom, much farther than me. I do have one question, though, do you have any kids? And if you do, do you have more than one? I don't think the idea that children need immediate and ongoing correction is particularly a Christian view; it's more of a female mammal view. All mammals childrear, and the higher the intelligence, the more they do it--even cats.

[Taomeow]

I will not argue with you about this point, because there is no doubt in my mind that you are far advanced in wisdom, much farther than me. I do have one question, though, do you have any kids? And if you do, do you have more than one? I don't think the idea that children need immediate and ongoing correction is particularly a Christian view; it's more of a female mammal view. All mammals childrear, and the higher the intelligence, the more they do it--even cats.

 

Thanks, Witch, but let's not compare "advancement levels," I'm sure there's areas where you're far more "advanced" than me -- e.g., you published a book, I only keep meaning to!

 

I have twins, a boy and a girl, all grown up -- they were born when I just turned 21. I wish I knew then what I know now. I would rear them in a remote cave in the mountains or something, I swear.

[Todd]

Perhaps it might be useful to make a distinction between content and meaning. I am in no way denying the existence of content. To do that would be the mental equivalent to having my head up my ass. The fact that this conversation appears to be happening is proof enough for me that there is content.

 

Meaning however is something else entirely. It is a result. Something happens, and there is a result. The key question for the existence or lack of existence of meaning in any situation is, "Does this have any result?" In most situations, this can be answered in the positive (and the more open we are, the deeper the ramifications of any event). However, when one considers one's existence as a whole, "Is there a result?," the only honest answer (for me) is, "I don't know." Considering this, it was a bit silly of me to say that meaning is an illusion. But I can also say there are times when the belief that there is meaning, that there is a result, drops. It disappears into a simple acceptance of the fact that I do not know-- in fact I'm not even sure who I am. If I don't know who I am, then what thought can there be of there being a result to who I am? Its even hard to phrase the question in a way that is comprehensible! Its a bit like describing a dance move to someone-- not likely to mean much unless they are following along, or have done something similar in the past. Hearing the dance moves explained verbally, one might wonder what all the fuss is about. But if we actually dance the dance, if we are actually honest enough to allow ourselves to not know if there is a result, then a whole world opens up. At first it might not seem like much, since we've all been here for our entire lives, and here has always presented itself to us whenever we have stopped insisting that it be something else for even one moment. However, for most of us, we have not allowed ourselves to be here for very long. And one of the ways that we pretend that we aren't where we are, is with silly beliefs in things such as meaning, a result that might be achieved, when, if we are honest, we just don't know if such a thing really, ultimately, exists.

 

 

 

Taomeow: It may be that we are just using different versions of the word meaning. It seems that you have meaning connected to a certain immediacy of experience. Nothing I said above denies the value of that. But is a result necessary for such immediacy to exist? Immediacy is content as it is, before we start carving the block, as you so astutely point out, but what effect does saying that it has, or will have a result have on the block?

 

 

Trunk: Good thoughts. But given the distinction between content and meaning made above, can there be abstract thought without believing that it has an ultimate result? I know that abstract thought is a part of my content at least, though at times its absence can make the non-ultimate nature of thought very much clearer.

 

 

Rex: That is a danger in using words. These words may be more dangerous than others, too, since they are so obviously useless or counterproductive to anyone who doesn't take the time to find out if they are really true for them, and to see what that is like. Words never are the truth, and believing in any of them is pretty silly. I hope no one takes anything I say as anything more than invitation to look at their own experience minus a preconception or two. Or else as some guy's babbling on.

 

 

Freeform: I like the blah exercise. I'm not sure if I do it the way you suggest, but it brings a smile to my face to replace the thoughtstream with, "Blah, blah, blah, blah..." and to return to the richness of life without coherent thought about it.

Edited July 31, 2007 by Todd