On "Describing" the Dao

[Anzhi]

In a less astute place (not on this site) I encountered once again the reaction of those who appear to to deride any words at all about the Dao on the simplistic pretext that anyone who says anything about the Dao is mistaken because it cannot be described. In answer I posted the following. My second post, to simply share amongst new friends. Others may well have encountered this.

Greetings to all. _/\_

"Looking and yet not seeing it
we thus call it "elusive."
Listening and yet not hearing it
we thus call it "inaudible"
Groping and yet not getting it
We thus call it "intangible"
Because in sight, sound and touch it is beyond determination
We construe it as inseparably one.

As for this "one" -
it's surface is not dazzling
nor is it underside dark.
Ever so entangled, it defies discrimination
And reverts again to indeterminacy.
This is what is called the form of the formless
And the image of indeterminacy
This is called the vague and the indefinite.

Following behind you will not see its rear;
Encountering it you will not see its head.

Hold tightly onto way-making in the present
To mange what is happening right now
And to understand where it began in the distant past.
This is what is called the drawstring of way-making"

Chapter 14,
"Dao De Jing, A Philosophical Translation" by Roger T Ames and David L. Hall.

From the commentary of the translators;
"...Unlike the things we think we know, cosmic way-making will not yield itself up to our most basic categories of location and determination; bright and dark, inside and outside, and subject and object, one and many. And when we know this cosmic way-making better, we come to understand that we don't really know "things" at all."

My further note was:
I understand this to mean that saying something is or isn't the Dao is problematical. I would be as unsure to say the Dao is not in this or that, as much as to say it is in this or that. _/\_
"We know it by this." 
This phrase unqualified and without referral to anything. is found in a few places in the Dao De Jing. What is "this"?

Honor the Dao.

 

[Gerard]

"Why should a salmon that was born in a river upstream know what the sea is like when it reaches it in its adulthood?" (Future)

"Why should a butterfly know about being a caterpillar in its previous existence?" (Past)

"Focus on the here and now and go with the flow" (Present)

 

Taijiquan is an awesome exercise for the present moment, it can be practised many hours a day so it'll help you tackle the monkey mind as well as avoiding falling into the trap of past and future what-ifs.

 

[shanlung]

Just eat when hungry and drink when thirsty and fornicate when horny and all you need to know of the Tao will be with you naturally without you having to reach out for the Tao , or  for the De.

 

 

Idiotic Taoist good at all things an Idiot is good at.

[Marblehead]

Good thread Anzhi.

 

Discussing Dao is a difficult concept.

 

In my mind, Dao is either all things or no-thing. 

 

If no-thing then there is nothing to be discussed.

 

If all things then to define it as "this" negates it from being "that" and this just isn't possible.

 

But still, we can discuss the infinite attributes of Dao.  Of course, this is actually the De of Dao that we would be discussing.  I prefer calling this the "Ziran" (Tzujan) of Dao because if we translate "De" as "Virtue" confusion always follows.

[Anzhi]

Thank you very much for your responses that cause more reflection. 

There appears to me at present, an underlying assumption sometimes that encountering the Dao, moving with its De and its manifestations involves much more immediate physicality of this "now" (Taijiquan, fornicating, drinking tea etc) than thought (or speech, writing) or exploring these byways. The excessive legality and stultifying social rule-making of Confucians was the provoker of this letting go of forms that had become too rigid and deadly and quite devoid of the immediacy of "flow". Life as against death.This appears as an historic extreme.

It has always appeared to me however, partitioning off the verbal and cognitive too harshly as if the Dao will not be found there (impossible) begins to harden divisions again, the other way. I always feel more comfortable with the "blurred" Way and the lived being with its practices. I see dancing of thoughts, words, as if picking fruits and tasting. Zhuangzi and the DDJ both attracted me with this delightful non-insistent blurredness in approaching everything. Being ready to appear as an idiot for the Dao. 

Yet to declare we must always be "blurry" seems another sort of hard edge. This Dao is never pinnable, is what Ch. 14. seems to be saying (in words or characters). Grounding in the present moment of way-making surely includes the timely picking up of its texts and talking in an unfixed way about them, as much as taijiquan or cooking fish.

I am still finding my way around. I am open to direction as to where posts fit better. Thank you again, Marblehead, shanlung, Gerard

_/\_ 
   

Edited December 8, 2015 by Anzhi

[Michael Sternbach]

Hi Anzhi,

 

There once was a Dao Bum called ChiDragon, a Chinese scholar. He said that ch. 1 means that Dao can't be described by one word - implying that it can be described by many words! I asked him if that is just his personal interpretation, but he replied, that's the common understanding in China.

 

Not that I necessarily agree to this reading, but I found it worth mentioning.

Edited December 8, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[vonkrankenhaus]

People writing about Tao like it is some mystical, ineffable thing that they must attain through some spiritual process.

 

It is more like "the manner in which" or "the order of".

 

An example in simple term might be like considering the way water molecules arrange when water is liquid, frozen, and evaporating.

 

The manner of, or, the way, in which this happens is not the water, and not a "thing" in and of "itself".

 

Not a thing we can pick up and put in a jar, etc.

 

But "it" is "how".

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Geof Nanto]

Thank you very much for your responses that cause more reflection. 

 

There appears to me at present, an underlying assumption sometimes that encountering the Dao, moving with its De and its manifestations involves much more immediate physicality of this "now" (Taijiquan, fornicating, drinking tea etc) than thought (or speech, writing) or exploring these byways. The excessive legality and stultifying social rule-making of Confucians was the provoker of this letting go of forms that had become too rigid and deadly and quite devoid of the immediacy of "flow". Life as against death.This appears as an historic extreme.

 

It has always appeared to me however, partitioning off the verbal and cognitive too harshly as if the Dao will not be found there (impossible) begins to harden divisions again, the other way. I always feel more comfortable with the "blurred" Way and the lived being with its practices. I see dancing of thoughts, words, as if picking fruits and tasting. Zhuangzi and the DDJ both attracted me with this delightful non-insistent blurredness in approaching everything. Being ready to appear as an idiot for the Dao. 

 

Yet to declare we must always be "blurry" seems another sort of hard edge. This Dao is never pinnable, is what Ch. 14. seems to be saying (in words or characters). Grounding in the present moment of way-making surely includes the timely picking up of its texts and talking in an unfixed way about them, as much as taijiquan or cooking fish.

 

I am still finding my way around. I am open to direction as to where posts fit better. Thank you again, Marblehead, shanlung, Gerard

_/\_ 

   

 

Thanks for your excellent insights. The only paragraph I thought could be better researched is this one.....

 

"The excessive legality and stultifying social rule-making of Confucians was the provoker of this letting go of forms that had become too rigid and deadly and quite devoid of the immediacy of "flow". Life as against death.This appears as an historic extreme."

 

Sure, Confucism became too rigid with institutionalisation but then so did Daoism.  Neither started out this way. The former sought to align society with the Way of humans, the latter sought to align humans with the Way of the cosmos. Both have their validity as ideal guiding forms. 

 

I found Arthur Waley’s Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China a good reference. I quoted a little from his text in a previous thread on the difficulty of describing the Dao ...

 

http://thedaobums.com/topic/38221-the-meaning-of-tao/?p=623101

Edited December 8, 2015 by Yueya

[PLB]

What if there was this element that brought things together but could not be understood the way we speak of most universals because language itself is entangled in our ability/inablility to turn toward it? Or even hope to open ourselves up to such a thing?
So, the not being able to talk about it is why it is worth talking about. Whatever it is I am not talking about, it is attractive in a way that needs no decoration. It is not so much that nothing can be said but too much. Like to a lover.

See Zhuangzi.

[Anzhi]

Thank you Michael. It seems the crux is in how many words. I have, like many, looked closely at the great summation of Ch. 1.

I am definitely no Chinese scholar but there are many helps by these same scholars now. The describing character there is often translated "constant". Others use words like "eternal", "absolute" but some translators think that injects too much Western ideas into it, and I tend to agree. My poor attempt at expanded paraphrase of first two verses, to convey the nuances I see;

A way/path (distinctly outlined, edged)  cannot be the constant (everywhere, all the time) Way. 
A name that can said (completed)  cannot be the Name that is constant (never finishes, always being named, indicated) 

This attempt seems to have a certain logicality to it in that a path/way of doing etc, that is boundless and constant cannot be one that is edged like a normal path or set of instructions. A name that is never finished being uttered (constant)  cannot  logically be one that is a finished, ended labeling.

I can only submit it to far more informed Dao bums than I. Thank you very much for your comment.


 

Hi Anzhi,

 

There once was a Dao Bum called ChiDragon, a Chinese scholar. He said that ch. 1 means that Dao can't be described by one word - implying that it can be described by many words! I asked him if that is just his personal interpretation, but he replied, that's the common understanding in China.

 

Not that I necessarily agree to this reading, but I found it worth mentioning.

[Anzhi]

Thank you VonKrankenhaus. 
I tend to agree that Dao is not like "some mystical, ineffable thing that they must attain through some spiritual process". A Western idea like "Logos" is not appropriate to the Chinese more grounded way of approaching things. The example of the molecular coming together appears a really good one. There it is in front of us happening, but exactly "how" is not as easily pinned own and very difficult to convey in an holistic view, which sort of dissipates once you start dividing and labelling.  _/\_

People writing about Tao like it is some mystical, ineffable thing that they must attain through some spiritual process.

 

It is more like "the manner in which" or "the order of".

 

An example in simple term might be like considering the way water molecules arrange when water is liquid, frozen, and evaporating.

 

The manner of, or, the way, in which this happens is not the water, and not a "thing" in and of "itself".

 

Not a thing we can pick up and put in a jar, etc.

 

But "it" is "how".

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

Edited December 9, 2015 by Anzhi

[Anzhi]

Thank you for that necessary clarifying statement, Yueya. I didn't make it clear enough. It was just one historical period and the Confucian way has a great deal of respect from me, not the least in its contributions to the Yi Jing.
I am not fully aquainted with when Daoism became afflicted with the same problem, probably later. Thank you for the link. I will read it with much interest. _/\_

Thanks for your excellent insights. The only paragraph I thought could be better researched is this one.....

 

"The excessive legality and stultifying social rule-making of Confucians was the provoker of this letting go of forms that had become too rigid and deadly and quite devoid of the immediacy of "flow". Life as against death.This appears as an historic extreme."

 

Sure, Confucism became too rigid with institutionalisation but then so did Daoism.  Neither started out this way. The former sought to align society with the Way of humans, the latter sought to align humans with the Way of the cosmos. Both have their validity as ideal guiding forms. 

 

I found Arthur Waley’s Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China a good reference. I quoted a little from his text in a previous thread on the difficulty of describing the Dao ...

 

http://thedaobums.com/topic/38221-the-meaning-of-tao/?p=623101

[Bearded Dragon]

It's kind of like if you want to perfectly describe Earth then you'd need an exact replica to perfectly describe it. We've already got one though. There's more to the Dao, so if you can't even perfectly put the wonderment of Earth into words then you've got no chance with the Dao. This is why experience > philosophy.

[shanlung]

  Dao is not like "some mystical, ineffable thing that they must attain through some spiritual process".  

 

 

The Tao was found by the wood carver and maker of wheels, the oil seller , the butcher.

Tao was found by Liu ChengSheng in a brothel where he stayed for over a year financed by gold he fraudulently created (some called that transmuted) from stones.  Liu CS was so highly regarded by Wang ChongYang (founder of QuanZhen Pai) that Wang chose Liu to be leader of his funeral procession.

 

Tao need not be searched for as it is part of everything and anything be that 66-72 hours work week or eternal contemplations of the fluff in your navel or  roses or supernovas  or saints or ISIS with suicide vests or in cowdung.

 

 

Idiotic Taoist not inclined to seek the Tao for the Tao never left him be he drinking or eating or yabyumming

[Geof Nanto]

People writing about Tao like it is some mystical, ineffable thing that they must attain through some spiritual process.

 

It is more like "the manner in which" or "the order of".

 

An example in simple term might be like considering the way water molecules arrange when water is liquid, frozen, and evaporating.

 

The manner of, or, the way, in which this happens is not the water, and not a "thing" in and of "itself".

 

Not a thing we can pick up and put in a jar, etc.

 

But "it" is "how".

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

 

Although I agree with your description as far as it goes, it's only the Dao as cosmological process. You seemingly discount mystery / sacredness / the unknowable.

 

From Louis Komjathy’s The Daoist Tradition……

                                                                                                                                              

Dao (Tao): Pinyin Romanization of a Chinese character meaning "Way" (cosmic order) and/or "way" (lifepath). As a Daoist cosmological and theological category, utilized by Daoists to designate their sacred or ultimate concern. In the case of Daoism, best left untranslated as "Dao." From a Daoist perspective, the Dao has four primary characteristics: Source of all existence; unnamable mystery; all-pervading sacred presence; and universe as cosmological process.

[Geof Nanto]

Here's a more lengthy description of the Dao as cosmological process from David Hinton's Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China.......

 

Tao originally meant "way," as in "pathway" or "roadway," a meaning it has kept. But Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu redefined it as a spiritual concept by using it to describe the process (hence, a "Way") through which all things arise and pass away. We might approach their Way by speaking of it at its deep ontological level, where the distinction between being (yu) and nonbeing (wu) arises.

 

Being can be understood in a fairly straightforward way as the empirical universe, the ten thousand living and nonliving things in constant transformation; and nonbeing as the generative void from which this ever-changing realm of being perpetually arises. Within this framework, Way can be understood as a kind of generative ontological process through which all things arise and pass away as nonbeing burgeons forth into the great transformation of being. This is simply an ontological description of natural process, and it is perhaps most immediately manifest in the seasonal cycle: the emptiness of nonbeing in winter, being's burgeoning forth in spring, the fullness of its flourishing in summer, and its dying back into nonbeing in autumn. In their poems, ancient Chinese poets inevitably locate themselves in this cosmology by referring to the seasonal cycle—for as we will see, deep wisdom in ancient China meant dwelling as an organic part of this ontological process.

 

The mechanism by which being burgeons forth out of nonbeing is tzu-jan [ziran]. The literal meaning of tzu-jan is "self-ablaze." From this comes "self-so" or "the of-itself," hence "spontaneous" or "natural." But a more revealing translation of tzu-jan might be "occurrence appearing of itself," for it is meant to describe the ten thousand things emerging spontaneously from the generative source, each according to its own nature, independent and self-sufficient, each dying and returning into the process of change, only to reappear in another self-generating form. 

[shanlung]

While Un-named and Nameless, 

And for want of a Name, the word Tao was used.

 

If you do like Zen, as the finger pointing to the moon.

Which must not be mistaken as the Moon itself.

 

Anything and everything else will be at best avid descriptions and ponderings on the finger and its shape and size and if crooked or curved.

 

And in going on that path, the moon will be missed entirely as all focus will be on that finger.

 

Idiot on the Path trying to see the moon hidden in the forests of fingers and thumbs

[Marblehead]

You guys are doing really great.  I have nothing to say.

[Anzhi]

What if there was this element that brought things together but could not be understood the way we speak of most universals because language itself is entangled in our ability/inablility to turn toward it? Or even hope to open ourselves up to such a thing?

So, the not being able to talk about it is why it is worth talking about. Whatever it is I am not talking about, it is attractive in a way that needs no decoration. It is not so much that nothing can be said but too much. Like to a lover.

See Zhuangzi.

Thanks PLB. Very good. Endless nothings, everythings, like to a lover... 

Bows to Zhuangzi.  

[Anzhi]

The Tao was found by the wood carver and maker of wheels, the oil seller , the butcher.

Tao was found by Liu ChengSheng in a brothel where he stayed for over a year financed by gold he fraudulently created (some called that transmuted) from stones.  Liu CS was so highly regarded by Wang ChongYang (founder of QuanZhen Pai) that Wang chose Liu to be leader of his funeral procession.

 

Tao need not be searched for as it is part of everything and anything be that 66-72 hours work week or eternal contemplations of the fluff in your navel or  roses or supernovas  or saints or ISIS with suicide vests or in cowdung.

 

 

Idiotic Taoist not inclined to seek the Tao for the Tao never left him be he drinking or eating or yabyumming

Wordless and laughing, I plonk on my bum, before you, still chuckling. I get up and try to bow and fall over. Thanks shanlung

[Anzhi]

I find bridging of the chasm between Western Greek philosophical thought forms and Chinese multi-meanings in one character very difficult to cross these days. I must allow others to show the way. All crossings from both sides are much appreciated. I especially appreciate the opening of further nuances within the Chinese characters. Thanks to Crescent Moon.

These days I always find myself returning to the side of Zhaungzi, unable to cross.  
I remember the other side, lots of good thoughts there and still.
I think I did it when I was younger, but it may have been a dream, I am not sure now. The venerable Roger Ames, and David Hall have returned with stories to tell in "DDJ - a Philosophical Translation." 

"Nabo Zikui said, "Where did you learn of this?"
Lady Ju said, "I learned it from the son of Aided-by-Ink, who learned it from the grandson of Caught-in-Recitation, who learned it from Look-and-See, who learned it from Heard-in-a-Whisper, who learned it from In-Need-of-Labor, who learned it from There-in-the- Singing, who learned it from Dark-Oblivion, who learned it from Joined-in-the-Void, who learned it from Perhaps-a-Beginning"

[Zhuangzi, The Essential Writings, Brook Ziporyn translation: 6:38> ]


 

Edited December 11, 2015 by Anzhi

[thelerner]

If its not a little painful

it's not the dao.

 

After all,

you can't spell dao,

without the ow. 

 

Getting back into harmony means change.  Shifting our paradigms, our values, leaving our comfort zones.  Cutting away more and more of the superfluous.  Becoming simpler.  And simple is often way harder then complex. 

Edited December 11, 2015 by thelerner

[Anzhi]

It's kind of like if you want to perfectly describe Earth then you'd need an exact replica to perfectly describe it. We've already got one though. There's more to the Dao, so if you can't even perfectly put the wonderment of Earth into words then you've got no chance with the Dao. This is why experience > philosophy.

Thank you Bearded Dragon. _/\_ Most helpful and clear.

[Anzhi]

 

If its not a little painful

it's not the dao.

 

After all,

you can't spell dao,

without the ow. 

 

Getting back into harmony means change.  Shifting our paradigms, our values, leaving our comfort zones.  Cutting away more and more of the superfluous.  Becoming simpler.  And simple is often way harder then complex. 

Thank you thelerner. _/\_  

 

When we get to the place of neither easy nor hard,

neither simple nor complex, both begin to look like the other.

 

More quickly we see pain's blessing, guide and protection,

the complex becomes the textbook for learning to be simple. 

 

Then we see through the complex in a flash, 

ponder on the simple that has swallowed us,

and everything into one or two scribblings,

 

and we watch as thing after thing emerges from it endlessly.

 

 

Edited December 13, 2015 by Anzhi