Overwhelmed

[minusmode]

I just picked up the Tao Te Ching again for the first time in months and started going through it and started thinking about my ambitions to learn all I can about everything Taoist and whew! such a small brain in my head and so much wisdom to put in it! When it comes right down to it, I would be doing incredibly well if I can even half learn half of the wisdom that's in the Tao Te Ching, yet I want to learn all about the I Ching and all about T'ai Chi and and aaah! A lot of the things from the Tao Te Ching that I think are finally sinking in, I turn around and find myself doing things and making decisions that make me realize I haven't learned squat!

I guess if studying other literature can help me absorb what's in the Tao Te Ching, it might be good to branch out a little, but as I go through the Tao Te Ching I really get the sense that the Tao Te Ching alone contains all the wisdom a person really needs to live well. Then too, so much of learning the Tao Te Ching, it seems to me is just in reading it, and then allowing life to present the same lessons to me through what I experience; the mistakes I make and (much more rarely) through the successes of applying the principles in my affairs. Maybe I'm becoming a kind of Taoism purist who just sees the TTC as the final word, but I don't know if that's a good thing. Given how hard it seems, though, to absorb and practice the wisdom of the TTC, maybe narrowing my scope would actually help me to focus better and really learn some of the TCC rather than trying to cram a lot of other things in to my poor head as well.

On the other hand though, I don't see the TCC as Christians see the bible; divinely inspired, therefore perfect. Lao Tsu has a tendency to make his points through exaggeration so much that it often becomes confusing and seemingly self contradictory, so maybe some of the same ideas would be good to see put into other words by another author.

Thoughts?

[doc benway]

I don't see the Dao De Jing as the "bible" of Daoism. I don't even see it as the most important work of Daoist literature. It's simply one of many written works in the canon. I found it very difficult to get much our of the classic works until I had connected with some of the core concepts. This came through practicing Dao meditation. There are other readings that have helped me grow in my understanding dramatically as well, some not in the Daoist canon but expressing very similar ideas in different ways. Many have been posted in other threads or stickies. Here is a list of a few readings that have helped me return to the Daoist classics with a deeper level of understanding and appreciation:

Alan Watts - What is Tao? and The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Osho - When the Shoe Fits (Chuang Tsu), The Empty Boat (Chuang Tsu), Tao: The Pathless Path (Lieh-Tsu)

Raymond Smullyan - The Tao is Silent

Anthony DeMello - Awareness

J Krishnamurti - To Be Human and A Light to Oneself

UG Krishnamurti - The Mystique of Enlightenment

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - I Am That

David Godman - Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Jeff Foster: Life Without a Centre: Awakening from the Dream of Separation

Good Luck! Branch out a little if you feel like you have attached too much to any particular book, point of view, teacher, or idea. After all, it's all just stuff created by the mind. It's all really a distraction from what is behind it all...

 

Here's a nice quote from Sri Ramana Maharshi

Do not meditate - be!

Do not think that you are - be!

Do not think about being - you are!

I'd like to add to myself - stop reading so many books - be!!

[bindo]

I guess if studying other literature can help me absorb what's in the Tao Te Ching, it might be good to branch out a little,

My understanding of Taoism improved a great deal from studying the works of Sri Aurobindo. And he is one of the greatest masters of the english language, also.

[freeform]

You're filling your head with stuff...

 

Since you're using the internet, you must be a modern person living in the modern 'civilised' world - which (usually) means that your head is already full of stuff... so rather than filling more and more in, try emptying, unlearning, forgetting, welcoming confusion and disorientation...

 

The universe consists of 'stuff' and 'space' - whether you look at very big things (as in astronomy) or very small things (particle physics or even the dreaded quantum mechanics) - you will find a certain ratio of 'space' to 'stuff' - our whole culture is focused on stuff - generation upon generation we have been indoctrinated with focusing on 'stuff'... try letting a bit of space in between the stuff - the tao arises from there...

 

There is nothing you have to learn - especially with the Tao... The TTC is of little value if you have to 'learn and understand' it... start being a little less sure about things - the Tao is about spontaneous discovery, not intellectual understanding and verbal reasoning. If you find yourself 'thinking' after reading the TTC, you've already fallen at the first hurdle...

[minusmode]

I don't see the Dao De Jing as the "bible" of Daoism. I don't even see it as the most important work of Daoist literature. It's simply one of many written works in the canon. I found it very difficult to get much our of the classic works until I had connected with some of the core concepts. This came through practicing Dao meditation. There are other readings that have helped me grow in my understanding dramatically as well, some not in the Daoist canon but expressing very similar ideas in different ways. Many have been posted in other threads or stickies. Here is a list of a few readings that have helped me return to the Daoist classics with a deeper level of understanding and appreciation:

Alan Watts - What is Tao? and The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Osho - When the Shoe Fits (Chuang Tsu), The Empty Boat (Chuang Tsu), Tao: The Pathless Path (Lieh-Tsu)

Raymond Smullyan - The Tao is Silent

Anthony DeMello - Awareness

J Krishnamurti - To Be Human and A Light to Oneself

UG Krishnamurti - The Mystique of Enlightenment

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - I Am That

David Godman - Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Jeff Foster: Life Without a Centre: Awakening from the Dream of Separation

Good Luck! Branch out a little if you feel like you have attached too much to any particular book, point of view, teacher, or idea. After all, it's all just stuff created by the mind. It's all really a distraction from what is behind it all...

 

Here's a nice quote from Sri Ramana Maharshi

Do not meditate - be!

Do not think that you are - be!

Do not think about being - you are!

I'd like to add to myself - stop reading so many books - be!!

Thanks. I copied your book referrals and will look for them, though the Alan Watts I have read already. Yeah, I'm sure the TTC is hardly the whole enchilada, but it's more than a feast to me!

[minusmode]

You're filling your head with stuff...

 

Since you're using the internet, you must be a modern person living in the modern 'civilised' world - which (usually) means that your head is already full of stuff... so rather than filling more and more in, try emptying, unlearning, forgetting, welcoming confusion and disorientation...

 

The universe consists of 'stuff' and 'space' - whether you look at very big things (as in astronomy) or very small things (particle physics or even the dreaded quantum mechanics) - you will find a certain ratio of 'space' to 'stuff' - our whole culture is focused on stuff - generation upon generation we have been indoctrinated with focusing on 'stuff'... try letting a bit of space in between the stuff - the tao arises from there...

 

There is nothing you have to learn - especially with the Tao... The TTC is of little value if you have to 'learn and understand' it... start being a little less sure about things - the Tao is about spontaneous discovery, not intellectual understanding and verbal reasoning. If you find yourself 'thinking' after reading the TTC, you've already fallen at the first hurdle...

My preferred state of awareness (which I call minusmode) is such a state of disorientation. When I get too "out of sorts" I shift into minusmode and just let my thoughts and perceptions just wash over me and stop putting energy into them until it all turns into transparent background noise and then there is no separate me... there just is. Then there is plusmode--the thinking me trying to live in this , as you say "civilized" world of so much stuff and trying to keep my sanity amid all the cultural neurosis and overbusiness of society.

That's mostly what I study the TTC for as a guide to being in the world without being led by it. I'm not too sure about the dichotomy between spontaneous discovery and intellectual understanding. Life is a process that involves both.

The problem, I think is the tendency to mistake the intellectual understanding for real understanding. Don't knock the boat, just be able to get off it once you're across the river--so to speak. I meditated for years seeking enlightenment but never caught a glimpse until I was reading an Alan Watts book and at some point the intellectual understanding turned into an actual experience and I felt like I was floating for weeks afterward. But then I found that to make that experience a part of my life I needed to learn to shift out of the intellectual mode since everything my mind thought it knew about reality was wrong and as long as I stayed in that mode it would be constantly manufacturing that false reality for me to be deceived by. I kept thinking I could reconfigure my cognitions and learn an enlightened way to think that would keep me from being sucked back into illusion, but brains aren't like computer disks that you can reformat. So now I have minusmode and plusmode.

I think the reason I'm into Taoism though is that the "mystical" insight is only part of the journey--there is also being able to live in harmony with the laws and forces---- and that, I think, is a job that demands every part of one's self--including the intellect. I think the spontaneous discovery occurs when the understanding is carried through the thinking rational to the feeling non rational part of ones self and thats where mere understanding actually becomes learning. Like in martial arts, you can watch someone demonstrate the technique and you can't learn it without doing that, but it isn't untill you make that technique "second nature" that you acquire the reflexes necessary to implement it effectively.

Of course theres the unlearning the old way that has to occur as well---learning to keep the eyes open to better ward a punch for example instead of flinching which keeps you fighting blind. Learning a Taoist approach to an aggressor might involve unlearning the martial response of counter-attack before you can learn the response of gaining advantage by yielding. But unlearning old responses takes a concerted effort. It rarely happens spontaneously.

[loose tea]

May you be well, may you be safe, may you be happy.

May you meet the events of this day with ease of heart...

 

The replies to this topic are most enlightening. There is profound wisdom here. Thank you for sharing your ideas and suggested readings. I'm glad I came to this forum, I've started my day off with some wonderful insights. Again, thank you all.