What purpose does virtue and merit have in practice?

[Clear'Waters]

Dao De Jing:  

 

The Sacred Book of the Way, transmission by Flowing Hands:

 

CHAPTER 21

 

The greatest virtue is to follow the Dao and only Dao.

Oh unfathomable Dao, ever elusive and intangible.

But yet within, there is substance and form.

It is the essence of the Ten Thousand Things.

This is very real, so here lies a true path to follow.

It was there at the beginning, as it shall be at the end, Thus I know the ways of creation.

Do you consider following the Dao is like living in the present tense?

What i mean is although we can perceive our lives as a cycle and it might be as well, that we understand the concept of the present is like water. Regardless of obstruction that we individually experience in life, the present keeps on flowing, and in such manner the beginning and end as well would be like water?

[Clear'Waters]

 

In plain words - the intent to grow "virtuously" is helpful and a general requirement of sorts for practice to begin and continue.

But what is "virtuous"? In the sense of practice it is: to grow in refinement without attachment to the growth. This is nearly perfectly said and at the same time completely open to misinterpretation - so it is put into the couch of relative moral concepts and lost in behavioral prescriptions.

 

I completely agree with your interpretation. Maybe lots of time me misinterpret the true essence of things from general backwardness. Maybe because we make it what we want it to be, than what it is intended to be?

[Clear'Waters]

 who wants to become immortal must gain 30 points of merit. It is said that someone who gathers 3,000 points of merit becomes inimortal in a day. According to the chapter “Merits and Demerits” of the ^Jiiyan zong: Doing good lengthens life whereas doing evil shortens it. Deities metes out recompense or punishment unerringly.

I have heard this in a book. It talks about the level of virtue i guess. It says how if a practitioner moves to a mountain to cultivate, it would generally take them longer to reach a higher state of immortality (not saying that they wont reach heavenly immortality themselves). Also it says how a person who sacrifices (im guessing with true instantaneous compassion) or heals/helps people would transcend into the greater ranks.

[Clear'Waters]

To gain power without equal measures of virtue makes a person wobble.   Maybe this isn't Taoism, but imo without gains in kindness, humility, empathy, caring of community and humanity.. personal power corrupts, the ego blows up and unnecessary tragedy follows.  

 

Listening to wisdom, dharma speeches, of my elders and seniors is as important a practice as any meditative art.

I agree. It is like the Midas touch, where King Midas gains the ability to turn things into gold, and ends up turning everything into gold and being able to enjoy his 'riches'. Without a sensor or what is considered morally right or wrong, power will inevitably corrupt. 

[Clear'Waters]

These are the virtues you believe are important to you. I'm not asking you to justify them, but I can prove they are flawed as primary virtues and in 'humility' there is a virtue that belongs nowhere. Let's not be without kindness, empathy and caring....I'm not chucking out the baby with the bath water here, those things are good, but, if you think about it, these virtues first require judgement otherwise you will give your allegiance to a tyrant, your knife to a murderer, your credit card to a thief and your children delivered into the care of a child molester. Somebody, surely must first 'merit' your kindness and empathy and therefore they must 'deserve' and that is a judgement and therefore justice must be a primary virtue. You cannot even begin to give anything unless you provide value and that requires productivity. If you are entirely dependent on other men and not your own efforts then your 'kindness' is actually their kindness. If you are not honest, then you are promising values that you have no right to. It's very easy for someone to be caring if you don't earn your way honestly.

I can agree with you to a certain extent. i understand your point of view behind this statement. You wouldn't buy a knife for someone who claims they need defense if they are already holding a gun.

[Karl]

I agree. It is like the Midas touch, where King Midas gains the ability to turn things into gold, and ends up turning everything into gold and being able to enjoy his 'riches'. Without a sensor or what is considered morally right or wrong, power will inevitably corrupt. 

 

The seeking of power is a moral corruption. To seek power is to abandon independent productiveness and become a parasite on the backs of the productive.

[Karl]

I can agree with you to a certain extent. i understand your point of view behind this statement. You wouldn't buy a knife for someone who claims they need defense if they are already holding a gun.

 

Not quite what I meant. If one believes that primary virtues are purely altruistic (in Jesus case he said to love thy enemy/neighbour as thyself) , then one becomes selfless, any act which is selfless has no value because one has abandoned judgement, therefore abandoned the virtue of the just. In that case one puts no value on ones life and is, in effect, a hopeless suicide looking for any chance to sacrifice themselves and end their existence.

 

I was discussing what primary virtues one would require at a minimum before it was possible to act from kindness, compassion etc.

 

My practice absolutely requires me to choose specific virtues as primaries and to live by them. The standard of value being my own life, and this, against which all other values are measured and the primary means of achieving value is the use of reason. From reason comes the principles of virtue for which all values chosen are to be gained and kept. Merit is one of those virtues, it is better called justice, it is for a man to judge and prepare to be judged. This is the precise opposite of the biblical incantation of 'judge not, lest you be judged'.