The Art of Discussion

[Stosh]

56 minutes ago, Daeluin said:

To be clear, nothing I said speaks to controlling anything - rather the opposite, really.

 

Directness does tend to be somewhat controlling, and if indirectness eludes its grasp, it is like complaining that someone won't stand still to take a punch?

 

Meeting directness with directness tends to lead away from balance, like one person grasping at the other - when the grasp lands, they tend toward wrestling upon the floor. One person thinks it means one thing and that the other should agree, and the other has a difference of opinion - where does grappling truly lead them, unless one side or the other is willing to release their expectations?

 

As my Sifu says, lead to emptiness.

 

Indirectness to meet directness is balance - it brings natural circularity to that which is too linear.

It is a gift, but perhaps not one that all are willing to appreciate.

 

 

Directness on my part controls me , on your part ,controls you. Yes,  its standing still to take the punch, to respond with directness, are you afraid the punch will crush your presentation? If so, then You think your argument is weak.

 Its not balance to be evasive , its an attempt to protect ones Own perception of their Own weakness from becoming apparent , it gives one maneuvering room so one can escape from truthful recognition of a valid point made on the other side.

This cheating of  your foil, of recognition for making a valid point is angering and puts the onus on , never getting to the heart of the matter , brings on ad hominem attacks , bailing out , and confusion.

 It doesnt therefore lead to emptiness , it leads to hostility and futility, which are anything but empty of ego.

In martial arts , I have seen guys bow to one another for making a good move throw or punch ( touche') , direct acknowlegement at the end of the match about who won , recognition of the referee's authority and so forth.  Its important for civility. 

[Daeluin]

In aikido, the attack is guided, the attacker's momentum is used as the fuel for the guiding.

 

There is no need to receive a punch in order to defend "the presentation." The efforts of the attacker are already sustaining the presentation. To oppose something maintains it.

 

It is natural for falseness to cover truth, and little point in fighting this. The truth is there for those who wish to look for it. This is the point of hiding it within gentleness and humility. Even should it attract attacks, it needs not do attacking of itself. With nothing to defend, what need for retaliation? Not attacking, what need of bailing out? Falseness may be applied upon the surface, yet the truth remains the truth, unassailed.

 

With taijiquan practitioners, it is said that doing push hands with an advanced practitioner is confusing. It is like they aren't even there... you see yourself touch them, yet you feel nothing in front of you. You try to send your qi into them to find their center, to disrupt their root, and you become lost within their emptiness. The attack simply dissolves within them.

[Stosh]

You wish to guide me , to waste my time and effort , to prevent yourself from getting hurt.  

Well if we were in a physical fight and your goal is to remain in one piece , your plan has merit. But we arent. 

 

 No,,  opposing something doesnt always maintain it ,

continually running away and not accepting the verdict of 'what is the fact' ,  essentially true does. 

You see this in wars where , the defeated do not admit the loss ,

and so the victor has to keep beating on the loser until the victory is clear ,

otherwise the loser continues to proclaim they didnt lose in an attempt to rekindle the hostilities. 

And you see this in nature , where both the rabbit and fox , lives to run again. 

We agree evasion is confusing , but we disagree on whether that is desirable in friendly discussion. 

I say its not , its angering , and its self deluding. 

Wich brings us all the way back , to understanding what it is you are having your discussion for ,

what it means to you and the other. 

In your case , it appears the goal is to evade, and you have no desire , to together find the root truth.

To properly evade , you just do not get into the discussion at all,

I am sure your Sifu mentioned the great power of not being around , at all.

And therefore your motives are self conflicting, to have a thread , and want to escape the conversation,

becomes vexing to me, where we could have advocated from two different perspectives.  

 

You see, If I am honest , and I stick to fact , and you indeed , hold me to fact, then you cannot lose to me

you will arrive only at the reality of fact.

Evade, and you are pushed from your center ,

I can shove you all over the mat, and only if your goal is to be diverted and man-handled like a novice 

will you gain your goal. Thats not martial art , theres no , chicken-style kung fu ( that I know of).  

 

 

 

[Daeluin]

My evasion is simply the maintenance of the appearance of my center.

 

Another comes at me, intent upon invading the appearance of my center, so I guide it past.

 

I remain at peace, yet it keeps on coming, and seems to grow angrier with each evasion.

 

Did I cause this, or did it cause this from its own attachments and expectations?

 

Where winning and losing enter the equation, balance is already lost.

 

Is the art of discussion founded upon motives for winning and losing?

 

So much for proclamations of trust and equality - they were but traps.

 

I reply out of courtesy to the thread, and yet I need not reply at all.

 

There is no evasion needed, for nothing was engaged but presence.

 

If my presence is unwelcome, I am not attached to sticking around.

 

Peace be with you.

[Stosh]

Someone might have misled you to believe that all opponents care about victory. 

Say you are a lion that found a dead zebra , then I walk up and you move off the kill to evade. 

I eat my fill and you can have the scaps that I dont care about. 

 The analogy is that you have a thread , ostensibly that had a purpose for you , and then I push you off it 

But truth is I havent made a first stroke even, you see traps where all you needed to see was that I was not spinning anything. 

 

 

[Daeluin]

25 minutes ago, Stosh said:

Someone might have misled you to believe that all opponents care about victory. 

 

And yet I said nothing about believing such things. On multiple occasions you have proclaimed something like this in a way that twists the meaning of things. It is a clever technique for playing mind games.

 

25 minutes ago, Stosh said:

Say you are a lion that found a dead zebra , then I walk up and you move off the kill to evade. 

I eat my fill and you can have the scaps that I dont care about. 

 The analogy is that you have a thread , ostensibly that had a purpose for you , and then I push you off it 

 

Like I said before, the evading is the protection of the center, not fleeing from it. It does not require direct contact, even when the fighting becomes close.

 

And is it really possible to push someone off of a thread? People are easily ignored - they may easily be done with you, but not with the thread. Especially when following a posting style that is humble and open, there is little to be concerned with. People are welcome to their opinions.

 

25 minutes ago, Stosh said:

But truth is I havent made a first stroke even, you see traps where all you needed to see was that I was not spinning anything.

 

This is amusing. You declare intent with your words, and make invitations. Then you say they were designed to cause a certain effect.

 

The first time was when I, oblivious to your intention behind asking if I could become a broccoli, did not respond directly to it. Then you revealed that your intention was for me to acknowledge that I could not be a broccoli. Next, I called you out on inviting a discussion based on trusting one another to not go too far, and then you verbally attack me and twist the meaning of my words quite intentionally, post after post. Only after I reply calling your declaration a trap, you say it was designed to make me see that you weren't spinning anything.

 

This is pretty much the definition of entrapment.

 

You are welcome to act like a troll and play your mind games. But these attacks and games and twisted meanings all just take things into a more unsophisticated realm of discussion. In the beginning, you proposed:

 

My own palliative for discussions, a type of unicorn I would like to see some day ,  is much more basic ,it's simply the honest Direct answer of any question mark.

I am willing to reciprocate. 

 

Are we to believe that without direct answers, we should make attacks upon others? How is this a palliative for discussions?

[Stosh]

 " make yourself like broccoli, ignore the death of a loved one ," meaning...  make broccoli be appealing to yourself ( or whatever food you might substitute ) 

 

Someone might have misled you to believe that all opponents care about victory.

The point being,  that if  you can keep moving away from the things you care about , you might declare yourself undefeated , meanwhile , I would push you off your food .

You would bail out and re-declare a new center point you now ' defend '. 

Since you think you should just re-delineate what ground you claim to be master of ,

then you might think that victory was my point, because you do not see what you have lost . 

 

 

Like I said before, the evading is the protection of the center, not fleeing from it..

How is abandoning the thread, protecting it? 

 

"This is pretty much the definition of entrapment."  No it would not be., how could I be trapping you by being upfront and explicit?

You admit you want to be evasive, praise the behavior .. but if you started the thread , that is supposed to be inviting dialog ,

and then you want to evade that same dialog, That Sir ,, Would fit the term entrapment , (but since I dont feel trapped at all, I didnt call it so). 

 

This Sir,  could be an excellent point ! 

" Are we to believe that without direct answers, we should make attacks upon others? How is this a palliative for discussions?"  But I dont feel I have attacked you, "is this palliative ?" certainly not.   But its what happens when one chooses to evade , defend evasion , and so it might stand as an object lesson for a quiet reader. 

 

 

[Daeluin]

Well, not much I feel like responding to in this one.

 

6 minutes ago, Stosh said:

Someone might have misled you to believe that all opponents care about victory.

 

The point being,  that if  you can keep moving away from the things you care about , you might declare yourself undefeated , meanwhile , I would push you off your food .

You would bail out and re-declare a new center point you now ' defend '. 

Since you think you should just re-delineate what ground you claim to be master of ,

then you might think that victory was my point, because you do not see what you have lost . 

 

Doing the work of spiritual integration and dissolving the ego, abiding in emptiness, naturally takes one in the direction of wholeness with all. It is not abandoning anything, not stopping about caring about anything, but quite the opposite. In oneness with everything, attachment to particular parts based on ego just removes from connection to wholeness. This is generally something that needs to be experienced for the meaning to become clear, in my experience.

 

Thus, you can push me off of what you think is important to me, but you can never push me away from what really matters, even were you to kill me. I can navigate the openings and closings as they appear and disappear, and that is all that really matters in terms of fully walking my path using wu wei and ziran.

 

It is not about my choosing what to delineate or not as anything at all. As one grows in connection to the whole, one begins to see that nothing can truly be lost, for all is one. Separate the parts and they eventually come back together again.

 

6 minutes ago, Stosh said:

 

Like I said before, the evading is the protection of the center, not fleeing from it..

How is abandoning the thread, protecting it? 

 

 

Keeping to the center, applies to oneself. One should not overly attach to external things. If there is call to breathe life into them, breathe life into them, and then let them do their own living, see what happens. If called to participate, participate in the moment, as called. If things stop feeling "right," observe the closing and look to see where there is a new opening, and continue the journey.

 

[Stosh]

2 minutes ago, Daeluin said:

Well, not much I feel like responding to in this one.

 

 

Doing the work of spiritual integration and dissolving the ego, abiding in emptiness, naturally takes one in the direction of wholeness with all. It is not abandoning anything, not stopping about caring about anything, but quite the opposite. In oneness with everything, attachment to particular parts based on ego just removes from connection to wholeness. This is generally something that needs to be experienced for the meaning to become clear, in my experience.

 

Thus, you can push me off of what you think is important to me, but you can never push me away from what really matters, even were you to kill me. I can navigate the openings and closings as they appear and disappear, and that is all that really matters in terms of fully walking my path using wu wei and ziran.

 

It is not about my choosing what to delineate or not as anything at all. As one grows in connection to the whole, one begins to see that nothing can truly be lost, for all is one. Separate the parts and they eventually come back together again.

 

 

Keeping to the center, applies to oneself. One should not overly attach to external things. If there is call to breathe life into them, breathe life into them, and then let them do their own living, see what happens. If called to participate, participate in the moment, as called. If things stop feeling "right," observe the closing and look to see where there is a new opening, and continue the journey.

 

Ah , then we certainly are on the same page , this, " not being overly attached to external things " is at the center. I think there are things worthy of being attentive of , more than just ones own skin or pride , or whatever you are alluding to.. there is your daily bread, your family , your job , your posessions. I do not think in reality , (not the fantasy land of literature)

you would not be willing to defend these " shallow primitive trivial"  things .

But As soon as you did so , you would be gainsaying all this non attatchment stuff. If not , I or others will indeed take your home and wife and everything else wanted. 

There are those who indeed do walk away from possessions etc, and they beg on the street , so they have also walked away from their contributions to society , health , family , and pursuits.  I presume you are not  a  jobless , homeless , beggar ,,,,  you seem educated , and linked in to society , and rather normal. 

[Daeluin]

Well, I live very simply, with very few possessions. Mainly a computer, a small book collection, weapons for class, and some clothes, in a tiny-house that I built myself. It sort of came to me when I asked the universe where I should live. The computer holds me back from inner work. The books are valuable until I have read them. The weapons are tools for training qi extension. The clothes largely come from thrift stores and are easily replaced. The tiny-home is temporary as well. I can do without all of them.

 

As for daily bread, this comes through computer work, and I am actively working to change this and replacing it with something more psychosomatic, which may or may not require me owning a car or depending on other possessions. As they will be based on my service, I do not see why I should need to attach to them. I have lived the past 3 years without a car and do not depend on one. I either walk most places, which is very healthy for me (I live 2 miles from the city), or take a bus if I need to get somewhere further away, which happens infrequently.

 

Ultimately I believe that people can work together in community to nurture and sustain each other on very little money. Currently I live in a home where we each put in $100/m for food and always end up with extra at the end of the month. My tiny home was built myself so I am only charged $100/m for a main-house use fee, and $55/m for utilities. This way of living hardly required any loss from my perspective, and it is difficult for me to see why our society doesn't nurture this type of lifestyle. Again, it isn't about detaching, it is about refining and integrating. The more we integrate, the more harmony is created and the more things become effortless, as we nurture higher spiritual awareness.

 

Appearing normal is related to how I comport myself within society, more than it is an indication of my lifestyle or attachments. It is a choice one can make, to harmonize with one's environment.