Taoism and higher education-To study or not to study?

[mnas2k]

 

 

about me: Hello! I am an Undergraduate of Anthropology, working in social services in undeserved communities.

 

 

 

I was born into a life of education, and as a college student, I find it hard to reconcile the Way, the water-like path, with theambitious, competitive nature of higher education, especially in demanding and complex sciences like medicine, and anthropology.

 

 

 

Often the internal qualities cultivated through higher education(skill, breadth of knowledge, wisdom-over time-) are exploited for worldly affects (higher pay/funding, access to better research or resources)

 

 

 

As it happens, I find that my studies and intended career deal in the profound matters concerning the health and lives of communities. I am interested in understanding the harmony of communities, and helping Where it is appropriate, However I am firstly interested in true harmony, and thenin the balance without.

 

I often feel that my pursuit of interests, skill, and knowledge contradict my conviction to live harmoniously, within and without, BUT, I also wonder whether I am destined, in some way, to pursue the course laid out for me by my birth, interests, and apparent strengths.

 

 

 

There are many texts with references to this problem--i.e. Zhuang Zi's denial of court positions, or Confucius' concerns about virtue and socio-economic status--

 

But is there anyone who can give me a fresh, living view of this?

 

 

 

I ask

 

is being born into a life of [access to] education --- like being born to a wealthy family--- a privilege to be embraced shunned?can a life in higher education can be harmonious?

 

​if so:

 

Can skills or positions gained through higher education be a harmonious influence on a community?

[dust]

Good question.

 

 

OK..I don't feel well-equipped to answer but will give it a go.

 

It depends first on what you mean by 'live harmoniously', I suppose. Laozi and Zhuangzi don't suggest running away to a cave in the mountains and living as a hermit, but neither do they suggest moving to the city and getting a high-powered job and being a 'slave to money' or becoming a power-hungry psychopath.

 

What they suggest, in my opinion, is reconciling whatever position one finds oneself in with the eternal/void/oneness/mystery/Way / nature.

 

Laozi suggests lessening knowledge and selfishness, and aiming for simplicity and knowing when enough is enough. Zhuangzi says,

 

緣督以為經，可以保身，可以全生，可以養親，可以盡年

Follow the middle as the constant and you can stay in one piece, keep yourself alive, look after your family, and live out your years.

 

 

I often find myself asking the same questions you are, and haven't found a satisfactory answer yet. I often find myself dreaming of sailing off to a deserted tropical island to live out my years drinking coconuts and eating fish; but this is hardly feasible, and hardly beneficial to anyone other than ourselves (assuming we care to benefit anyone other than ourselves).

 

I do think that knowledge/education can be used both ways. The fact that you're aware of the possible problems means that you should be able to stay aware of them and resolve them as they arise. Being like water can simply mean reacting when the time comes.

[thelerner]

To everything there is a season.

When you're in college, learn. Take advantage of what is offered. Become an excellent student, get to know the professors and learn about extra curricular and internship opportunities. You may never have this kind of free time and choices again. Don't fritter it away wishing you were somewhere else. The time will come when you're working 9 to 6 to earn food, rent etc. wishing you could go back and gain more expertise make some connections.

 

Question: If you dropped out now (and mom & dad dropped there support), what kind of job could you get? Will that job, help you find your harmony? If you're seriously wondering, then grab some part time work now. Perhaps you can find some social work that will appeal to you and help you with direction.

[Rocky Lionmouth]

I think thelerner has a very good point. Both from a practical standpoint and a taoist one: if you're going to spend your energy on something, then invest your energy in it.

 

Enjoy the benefits of your situation where possible, balance stoic and epicurean together.

If you thrive and feel stimulated from the work and in the environment then you're probably not opposing your nature or the energy you gain and generate in your daily endevours, i'd carry on and up at least for another year.

Careful with influencing stuff, it seems most people with influence cannot help but disrupt balance these days But maybe thats a good thing? I have a hard time thinking that a person conscious of the principles of the way would not help harmonize his or her community, whatever the size of it.

 

Privilege is like the lottery in my book, your situation allows you the chance to take the path you think will help make you the happiest, if youre happy maybe its your nature to help others be happy? Some opportunities come with money or access, but not all. If you're lucky, smile. If you're unlucky take heart and relax, hopefully there are plenty of smiles to be had ahead.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Rocky Lionmouth

[mnas2k]

I think thelerner has a very good point. Both from a practical standpoint and a taoist one: if you're going to spend your energy on something, then invest your energy in it.

 

Enjoy the benefits of your situation where possible, balance stoic and epicurean together.

If you thrive and feel stimulated from the work and in the environment then you're probably not opposing your nature or the energy you gain and generate in your daily endevours, i'd carry on and up at least for another year.

Careful with influencing stuff, it seems most people with influence cannot help but disrupt balance these days But maybe thats a good thing? I have a hard time thinking that a person conscious of the principles of the way would not help harmonize his or her community, whatever the size of it.

 

Privilege is like the lottery in my book, your situation allows you the chance to take the path you think will help make you the happiest, if youre happy maybe its your nature to helpmothers be happy? Some opportunities come with money or access, but not all. If you're lucky, smile. If you're unlucky take heart and relax, hopefully there are plenty of smiles to be had ahead.

Thank you Rocky Lionmouth, optimism is so great to hear right now. I have been battling with this for some time now!

[Seeker of Wisdom]

I think wu wei is more about inner motivations and underlying perspectives than how active you're being.

 

If you're studying hard with the ambition to help many people, without being conceited about it, that is IMO living the Way much more than doing little external action just because of selfishly wanting a quiet life.

 

Water can be a mighty, thunderous torrent. It may not look harmonious as it's uprooting trees, but isn't it still taking the path of least resistance, letting gravity take it to the sea? Being harmonious doesn't have to mean being quiet or timid.

[Marblehead]

Follow your inner wisdom. What path will offer you the best chance to have a feeling of self-worth and yet be helpful to other?

 

I don't see why you need consider and be a part of the competitive nature regardless of our path. We just do the best we can. If it is less than many, that's okay. If it is better than all others, that's okay too. (Afterall, someone has to be first.)

 

And yes, I find it important to maintain harmony between our inner essence and our external reality.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

I don't think that being educated is contrary to Daoism.

Consider that the study of Neidan is at least 60% reading for the first several years.

 

consider your study as giving yourself opportunity to make progress en route to discovering the way of the world.

also remember that what you are learning isn't the final truth, but more of an icepick that you can use to chip away at the mystery of reality.

 

if you feel too rich, go live as a hermit for a while. There are lots of temples and churches scatttered around all over the place which have cells dedicated to people who wish to live the hermit life and expand themselves spiritually.

if you really feel too rich, visit the countryside in china or india and hang out with the peasents for a while.

 

keep trying to improve yourself and you will have a happy life.

[Michael Sternbach]

The pursuit of academic knowledge is in no contradiction to Daoism, in my view. What matters is the attitude it's done with. I met a number of academics priding themselves of their objectivity; they seemed to think of their knowledge as something final. Notwithstanding that no scientific truth has been final so far, but had to be revised one day, even though it served a purpose for the time being.

 

Sometimes more subjective/artistic personalities paradoxically are in fact more objective because they know and understand the inevitably subjective nature of their perspective.

 

Beware of the trap here and I think you will be fine.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

i like that post very much.

 

consider that the personality which you start out (or at least the one you have by the time you are university age) can simply be built on by knowing things.

if you are super nice and always look out for others, than your university education should just make you moreso that way.

if you are a meanie and do bad things to cats for fun, then likely you will study how to be meaner and nastier in university.

I think in one way, when laozi says that discarding study will benefit the masses, what he means is that it is very easy to miseducate people. the traditional chracter for study 學 (xue3) has a picture of a child (the bottom part) with three x going into its head. it looks like there are two arms there, pulling in the information. it appears to be that the child is directly shoving information into their noggin. consider how laozi might have viewed a king shoving information into the people.

it could be that the daodejing was a very early text suggesting that kings not brainwash their people.

it sure looks like that most of the time.

laozi thought that if the common people are giving to much information, whether real or false, it would cause social dischord.

he didn't tell the king not to learn things though. he told the king not to investigate 察 (cha3). this could mean that he ought not to try to figure out what bad things the people are doing against him and rather to rule according to his own good.

or more succinctly, investigate himself.

I think laozi and zhaungzi were very aware of social classes, and although later writers in daoism directed their works toward the masses, laozi most certainly was writing to members of a royalty about how they should comport themselves.

[beyonder]

Hexagram 1, nine in the fourth place means:

 

Wavering flight over the depths.

No blame.

 

A place of transition has been reached, and free choice can enter in. A twofold possibility is presented to the great man: he can soar to the heights and play an important part in the world, or he can withdraw into solitude and develop himself. He can go the way of the hero or that of the holy sage who seeks seclusion. There is no general law of his being. If the individual acts consistently and is true to himself, he will find the way that is appropriate for him. This way is right for him and without blame.

http://www.wisdomportal.com/IChing/IChing-Wilhelm.html#1

 

Nine in the fourth place means: "Wavering flight over the depths. No blame." What does this mean?

 

The master spoke: "There are no circumscribed rules in regards to raising and lowering; just as long as one does no wrong. There can be given no solid line to progress and regress; just as long as one doesn't go against ones true nature. The noblehearted develops his character and works on his task, so everything happens in the right time. That's why he makes no mistakes.

 

"Wavering flight over the depths":

He tests his powers.

 

"Wavering flight over the depths":

The way of the Creative is about to transform.

 

The nine in the fourth place is too solid and doesn't keep to the mean. Not yet above in Heaven, not on the field below anymore either; also not in the middle regions of humanity anymore. That's why it says "wavering flight". Wavering, because one has free choice; that way, one doesn't make mistakes.

[dawei]

Laozi was the freak'n Keeper of the Archives for the royal court of Zhou

 

He was a freak'n keeper of B O O K S ....

 

When he left, the gate keeper asked him to do what?

 

To record his wisdom in WRITING...

 

Laozi then wrote a FREAK'N B O O K

 

On BAMBOO

[mnas2k]

Thank you so much!

[Taomeow]

The view of taoism I subscribe to holds that taoists are the best-educated people of their generation, polymaths who routinely surpass specialists in every area of knowledge and/or empirical application thereof they happen to get interested in. A European counterpart would be Leonardo da Vinci -- painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He was also active in politics, and enjoyed worldly success. These last two options is what a taoist can take or leave -- and "take" is the more traditional choice, the image of a taoist as a kind of social misfit is both overrated and historically wrong.

 

That taoists "embrace simplicity" is usually a reference to how they act, not to what they are. "Watercourse" -- well, water happens to be the most complex substance in existence, with close to a hundred "aberrations" in its behavior compared to other substances in the world, with the most versatile range of behaviors of them all, and the least understood properties, many of them. Its appearance of something plain, bland, tasteless and colorless, mundane, "simple" is the non-contrived outcome of staggering, mind-boggling inner complexity. Taoists emulate that.

 

Knowledge is power. The way of tao is the way of power. Don't think tame chlorinated water in your tap -- think the ocean. Nothing is more complex, nothing is deeper, or more fertile. When they say "be like water," think "be like the ocean," not "like the puddle," and any knowledge you may acquire along the way will seem as a mere drop... This, too, is taoism -- to understand, via knowledge acquisition, the depth of one's ignorance, and thus avoid inflated ideas about one's own erudition and the ridiculous circus pride a one-trick pony might take in being good at his trick.

 

[dust]

The way of tao is the way of power.

 

Seriously?

[Taomeow]

Seriously?

 

Yup. This surprises people who are used to the connotations of the word "power" associated with its abuse -- and, indeed, this is the context in which we typically encounter it, unfortunately. But this is not its primary meaning. Its primary meaning is in the correct translation of Tao Te Ching -- The Way And Its Power, or The Way Of Power. So what I said was a direct quote from Laozi.

[dust]

But that's not a "correct" translation... besides the fact that it's not even the text's original title.

 

I'm sure this forum has been through this many times, but a better translation would be "The Classic of Dao and De". Feel free to define Dao and De how you like, but if you do it within Laozi's own use of the terms, there's no way De = power, in any sense of the word.

Edited December 13, 2014 by dustybeijing

[Taomeow]

But that's not a "correct" translation... besides the fact that it's not even the text's original title.

 

I'm sure this forum has been through this many times, but a better translation would be "The Classic of Dao and De". Feel free to define Dao and De how you like, but if you do it within Laozi's own use of the terms, there's no way De = power, in any sense of the word.

How is "The Classic of Dao and De" a translation? It's merely a transliteration.

 

This is one of those cases when you can't translate from studying the vocabulary -- you have to study the context. The context of early taoism whence TTC comes (regardless of whether it's written by an individual or a whole bunch, at one time or over a period of time, it still draws on the earlier tradition -- I've read taoist classics predating it which it practically quotes verbatim). The source of early taoism is proto-taoist shamanic tradition. And there, the concept of Power is absolutely central, under various names, central and globally universal. Be it "medicine" or "the great spirit" or "Tengri" or "Sachamama" or "tao," the idea is not the word, but translating the word as "power" relays the idea more accurately than any which other way.

 

De, incidentally, is a form of power -- integrity, tao's main attribute and one of her "virtues," per taoist classics. If one considers its opposite, bude, fragmentation, disconnection, compartmentalization, this might take one even closer to the understanding of the concept of "power" as Laozi et al mean it.

 

The way of tao is the way of power -- unity, integrity, sincerity, naturalness, and ultimate invincibility. You can't defy tao -- no one and nothing can. That's what true power is like: nothing can overcome it in all of creation and in all of eternity. Knowledge, wisdom, skill are all aspects of power. Their opposites are aspects of powerlessness, of having lost The Way of Power.

[dawei]

De, incidentally, is a form of power -- integrity, tao's main attribute and one of her "virtues," per taoist classics. If one considers its opposite, bude, fragmentation, disconnection, compartmentalization, this might take one even closer to the understanding of the concept of "power" as Laozi et al mean it.

 

The way of tao is the way of power -- unity, integrity, sincerity, naturalness, and ultimate invincibility. You can't defy tao -- no one and nothing can. That's what true power is like: nothing can overcome it in all of creation and in all of eternity. Knowledge, wisdom, skill are all aspects of power. Their opposites are aspects of powerlessness, of having lost The Way of Power.

 

I have to agree... a reasonable translation is 'efficacious' ; successful in producing an outcome.

 

Dao endows; De empowers;

 

De is Dao in us... the power to live, to arise, to return.

[Daeluin]

Perhaps in some way De is the Yang, active manifestation of Tao.

When we control its use or allow it to wane, this is inferior de.

But when we wrap this active power in emptiness, it is returned to Yin.

Non-doing protects it until this yin and yang merge and one returns.

 

 

To the OP, studying is important. It is a tool.

But knowledge is limitless - our lives have limits.

Knowledge can disguise what our heart knows.

Knowledge can empower the human mind to dominate the mind of tao.

Knowledge can judge, but cannot live.

 

 

 

Pursue knowledge, daily gain

Pursue Tao, daily loss

Loss and more loss

Until one reaches unattached action

With unattached action, there is nothing one cannot do

Take the world by constantly applying non-interference

The one who interferes is not qualified to take the world

 

 

Knowing others is wisdom;

Knowing the self is enlightenment.

Mastering others requires force;

Mastering the self requires strength;

He who knows he has enough is rich.

Perseverance is a sign of will power.

He who stays where he is endures.

To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.

 

Use knowledge to eventually transcend knowledge.

Never forget the heart.

Cultivate intuition along with knowledge.

Use both to find your way.

[z00se]

To the OP.

 

Anything can be bought into balance and harmony through counterweighting. If life is too sciency, do things that aren't sciency in your free time to balance yourself out.

 

People who are at the top of their game are so not because they practice hard, but because they know how to balance themselves using their free time so that they can practice so much!

Edited December 19, 2014 by z00se