Stories about Taoism in daily life

[wandelaar]

Are there any modern stories about the application of Taoism in daily life? I don't mean wonderful or magical tales, but true stories documenting actions and results that are achieved in the spirit of Lao tse and Chuang tse. I ask this question because I don't know how effective (or non-effective) a Taoist approach in actual life may be expected to be. Most Taoist stories I know are from ancient times and/or have a literary or symbolic character.

 

[silent thunder]

What could another say or do to prove unequivically, the veracity, quality and validity of their awareness and experience I wonder?

 

Not just in taoism, but any path, any approach...

[wandelaar]

@ silent thunder

 

Nothing. There is always the possibility that somebody purely by chance did "the right thing" in the spirit of Lao tse and Chuang tse. But that is missing the point. I did not ask for unequivocal proof! Just some stories from modern life that illustrate what a Taoist approach to daily life might look like. There are lots of sublime philosophies that when applied to daily life result in a hopeless mess. So to me it's a big thing whether or not Taoism will pass this test. I am yet at the point where I like Taoism as a philosophy, but ultimately the proof of it's  worth has to be that it works as a practical way of life. And not only in specially prepared circumstances in certain forms of art. 

[Marblehead]

When the task is complete, retire.

 

I did that and still do that on a daily basis along with the concept that we should know when we have reached to point of "enough".

 

To all things there is a season.

 

 

[wandelaar]

Which principles mentioned by Lao tse and Chung tse are to be considered as rules of thumb and which as laws of nature that invariably apply?

[Marblehead]

5 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Which principles mentioned by Lao tse and Chung tse are to be considered as rules of thumb and which as laws of nature that invariably apply?

Good question and I doubt I will be able to answer it efficiently but here goes:

 

The teachings of Lao Tzu could likely be considered laws of nature whereas those of Chuang Tzu would be rules of thumb.

 

 

[silent thunder]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

@ silent thunder

 

Nothing. There is always the possibility that somebody purely by chance did "the right thing" in the spirit of Lao tse and Chuang tse. But that is missing the point. I did not ask for unequivocal proof! Just some stories from modern life that illustrate what a Taoist approach to daily life might look like. There are lots of sublime philosophies that when applied to daily life result in a hopeless mess. So to me it's a big thing whether or not Taoism will pass this test. I am yet at the point where I like Taoism as a philosophy, but ultimately the proof of it's  worth has to be that it works as a practical way of life. And not only in specially prepared circumstances in certain forms of art. 

Nothing is such a wonderful answer to that query! 

 

It's what I said to my question as I was typing it as well... that answer, nothing, has gravity for me.  It represents living in the questions while accepting that mind answers, are not the answers.  the answers are not words, or stories, but the very beingness, the now, the presence instigated by the very questioning... and releasing the sense that any of my mind stories will ever be able to encompass the flowing action of life with their meanings and definitions... little boxes into which I try and store the meaning of the flowing river of experience. 

 

My question wasn't meant to accuse you of asking for proof, I didn't see your question that way, but when your question entered my mind space, it elicited that responding question instantly and rather unexpectedly.   gratefully...

 

Your query prompted a potent reassessing in my self, of all my stories and how they may be applied to answering your question... and I'm really grateful to you for eliciting that from me... I didn't know it was there. 

 

My question was the response to the attempt to locate within myself any stories that would elucidate and I'm loving the discovery that I find none of my stories will provide any meaningful answers!  

 

Questions embody beingness, flow reaching out, or inward, seeking, exploring.  Answers seem finite.  Stories develop meaning, context and become 'things', with starts and endings... and often a message that conveys meaning through relationship.

 

as it applies to my own process...  Can the stories my mind has acquired and crafted around this, or any philosophy, meaningfully alter, or shape, the living of my path in a moment by moment, practical, applicable manner?

 

When I first began swimming in taoism there was a fierce gravity to it for me and I was reflecting my own nature at the time, when I tenaciously began to saturate in it.  For the concepts, when encountered, entered me and filled me with a sense that this is what I was seeking, before I even knew there was something I was seeking. 

 

This however, held me back from fully embracing Taoism.  Any attempt at mind study, removes me a bit from the livingness of it.

 

As any 'ism' is filled only with mind-stuff, stories.  Whereas the experiences that had drawn me to taoism as a philosophy, were experiential in nature and had little to do with any of the mind stories that generated on the layers above and filtered over phenomenal processes.  So often the thins I read, seemingly have no applicable use in daily life and so...

 

All the talk and read and think about... were all but useless, if there were no manner in which to synthesize, apply and utilize in a flowing real time manner in my waking, beingness... in life.

 

I have one practical thing to share.  It relates to my long standing experience with rage and anger.

 

Some time ago, I began to use breath sublimation as an interrupt signal to rage's tendency to dominate my thinking space when it arose.  In my experience, an emotion engenders a thought, which reinforces the emotion, that then tends to bring about another, similar thought that further reinforces the emotion.  This inertial loop can become self sustaining and have devastating consequences for myself and those around me, as I stomp around the house for hours, or (used to be) days as the thoughts and emotion fed each other.

 

Well one day, in the midst of a deep rush of initial rage at an injustice I encountered, there was a moment of clarity outside the rage, that pierced through the rage to my awareness and my reaction to the usual conditioned response was altered as never before. 

 

I could see the arch of the oncoming inertial anger storm and could sense the overall scope of it... there was a moment of clarity and in that moment, one of my practices presented itself and I employed it without thinking or analysing.

 

I entered into breath sublimation.  I simply exhaled all of the breath in my lungs until I was empty.  As I did this, I released all tension in my body and slumped over in my chair, hanging my head down between my knees.  I remained empty until the body need to inhale, overrode my ability to think about and spend emotional energy on the rage query.

 

As soon as I began to breathe again, the story of the injustice returned... though along side it was now awareness... of the process underlying the emotion.  As the rage crescendoed, I again sublimated the breath and have found the need for breath in the body, when denied until it is becoming antsy... will utterly supercede the desire, or ability of the mindbody to maintain the inertia of the emotional storylines.  I had found a practical application of a (tibetan) practice, to affect change in my experiential life. 

 

The philosophy had managed to jump the shark, out of the realms of pure mind stuff and words/concepts/language.  To a living process in my daily life, that I had a functional relationship to...

 

After some time playing with this... I find it has shifted again. 

 

Now when any overwhelming emotion arises... I go quiet, empty and release tension.  Then I ask myself... where is this emotion in my body?   Then I relax further into full body awareness and when I locate the sensations that stand out in response to my query and self checking... once I locate the spot, I find the majority of the emotion has dissipated in the act of having non-judging awareness brought to presence with it.

 

Forgive me if this is too rambling.  I'm on day four out of hospital, with five stab wounds in my belly lol...

[Lost in Translation]

I very much want this topic to flourish. I think there is great potential here for sharing of experience and wisdom.

 

In my own life I often return to the I Ching for guidance. Typically that guidance comes in the form of reminding me to let go, to diminish, to become lesser than whatever item I am struggling with.

 

For example, I was having problems at work and I Ching delivered hexagram 51 (shock) followed by hexagram 54 (the marrying maiden) to me.The advise was to accept the shocks (stressful items in my life) as a "wake up call" that I should reevaluate my thinking, and the marrying maiden reminded me to correct my relationships by allowing myself to be subordinate where that is appropriate. I followed the advise, my stress greatly diminished, and even my boss seemed much happier.

 

This is not a glamorous story but I don't think it needs to be. Funny enough, I was going to write this in my PPD, since I have a dedicated I Ching thread, but I chose not to. I am glad I didn't since that meant I was free to share this here instead.

[wandelaar]

Great! I am not looking for heroic deeds or magical short cuts but for practical everyday examples of what it might mean to live a Taoist life in the  world of today. Using the wisdom of the I Ching might be one way. I didn't think I had some personal example to offer, but your example of the I Ching reminded I actually have. A friend of mine uses the I Ching a lot. I tried it a few times myself but it didn't seem to be the right thing for me. Nevertheless the idea of regularly considering some Chinese pieces of wisdom in the hope of letting them become a part my philosophical background did seem a good idea. So I bought a "Tao Box" containing cards with texts from the Tao Te Ching and have now been using it for quite some time to daily draw a card to read the text on it and think about it. My familiarity with the Tao Te Ching already has been greatly improved, and it's become much easier for me to see when in daily life a certain Taoist principle might suggest an appropriate way to proceed.

[Marblehead]

I used to read the fortunes in my Fortune Cookies.  Now I just collect them in the event one day I need a change of fortune.

 

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Compassion, frugality and humility, Lao Tzus three greates treasures.

 

The other day a beggar asked for money of which i had none on me, but i had two choccolate bars of which i gave him one, he compassionately told me we’d at least have eaten half a meal each so i didnt need to worry about full hunger. 

 

He asked me to buy cigarettes as a gift, i said i couldn’t but offered him my snus (like snuff or dip, it’s the traditional swedish thing) which he didn’t want because he liked to smoke tobacco and if no cigarettes were available he’d make due without. Frugality indeed.

Then he gave me a small pin with the band Korn’s logo on it which i tried to decline because i had no gifts of my own to offer. He insisted so i took it and felt humbled he found a present for me and i had nothing to reciprocate.

 

I’m not saying he was no saint or sage but the guy was pretty taoist in his approach, i’ll give him that!

[wandelaar]

Anybody read this book?

 

https://books.google.nl/books?id=id_HbDAQnlcC

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Nope but i intend to now, thanks for the tip!

 

While perhaps not a story in itself there is a book by one Michael Saso called ”Taoist Master Chuang” that recounts the impressions and memories of the author and pretty detailed descriptions of his formal induction and training as a Taoist priest. The titular person is a master priest who is known far and wide in Vietnam for his superb skills and deep knowledge and mastery of many rituals and the correct way to perform them. His two sons and the author undergo their education as priests and masters of ritual and a lot of curious encounters and unexpected tidbits are retold.

Chuang is also a pretty grumpy fella who leans heavily on his liver with alcoholism, the effects of which he stays and remedies through various forms of internal alchemy practices.

 

As far as i can tell the details are legit though not exhaustive (some things are, afterall, too secret to tell) and it is a popularized piece of contemporary history that grew out of the authors interest in so called Real Daoist practices, that important and esoteric stuff everybody is so excited about, and how it was taught in this instance only a few decades ago.

Saso went as an academic but soon realized he needed to show his commitment by becoming an official and accepted disciple of Chuang so he went native

 

I reserve the right to be unintentionally full of shit regarding details in my pitch of this book but it was a while ago i read it last and details get fuzzy.

[Rocky Lionmouth]

On 2018-04-23 at 1:37 AM, Marblehead said:

I used to read the fortunes in my Fortune Cookies.  Now I just collect them in the event one day I need a change of fortune.

 

 

Might one speculate of the monetary worth of such a fortune?

[Marblehead]

2 hours ago, Rocky Lionmouth said:

 

Might one speculate of the monetary worth of such a fortune?

Who knows?  There might be a set of numbers in there that might win the lottery.  But then, I don't play the lottery so I guess the value would be zero.

 

But I'm sure there are some nice words of wisdom in there.

 

[wandelaar]

On 26-4-2018 at 3:13 AM, wandelaar said:

Anybody read this book?

 

https://books.google.nl/books?id=id_HbDAQnlcC

 

After some doubts I eventually bought the book. Why the doubts? As far as I could see the kind of wisdom presented in the book hardly rises above plain common sense, so why read the book, let alone buy it? But something kept telling me to at least give it a try. So I bought it and yesterday the book arrived. I am now at page 60. I still think the book contains mostly plain common sense, but of the kind that we automatically tend to forget or ignore when egocentric concerns with the ups and downs of daily live becloud our view of the larger picture of our life and the world as they actually are. So after all I think it is a good book.

 

But it will have to be complemented with meditation to calm our mind and make it less dependent of the ups and down of daily life. Otherwise we will probably lack the composure to apply the Taoist advise when it is needed.

Edited May 9, 2018 by wandelaar

[Stosh]

3 hours ago, wandelaar said:

 

After some doubts I eventually bought the book. Why the doubts? As far as I could see the kind of wisdom presented in the book hardly rises above plain common sense, so why read the book, let alone buy it? But something kept telling me to at least give it a try. So I bought it and yesterday the book arrived. I am now at page 60. I still think the book contains mostly plain common sense, but of the kind that we automatically tend to forget or ignore when egocentric concerns with the ups and downs of daily live becloud our view of the larger picture of our life and the world as they actually are. So after all I think it is a good book.

 

But it will have to be complemented with meditation to calm our mind and make it less dependent of the ups and down of daily life. Otherwise we will probably lack the composure to apply the Taoist advise when it is needed.

I Didn't read it , and probably won't , but that's not a disparagement. In fact I want to give it a little support , sight unseen.. Zigging when one should zig , and not zagging , (if you get the idea) may not be the stuff of legends , but its really pretty important. 

How could someone tell this kind of thing in a book ? Dunno  

How could one transfer values and attitudes of a lifetimes accumulation in a book , again ,,dunno. 

 

But I will say that it might be worth a read, for people to simply read something which was specifically not ... designed to be precipitous , edgy , transformative ,, heavily laden with ,,, anything ! 

 

 A long time ago , when my mother was living , and with my sister and her kid  , she told me that as part of her therapy that she had to write a story,, to relate , I wrote a little one for my niece , and my mom read it. Well she critiqued that it didn't have any conflict , and said that stories needed conflict for people to have a reason to read them. 

I know this was a normative attitude , but 1) its just for a little kid ,

and 2), why wouldn't it be nice to just not  include conflict... Science books and stuff aren't conflict based , and , they're still interesting yadda yadda. 

 

If the sage teaches without words , I imagine that would include just being and living as an object lesson , that folks might see what it is to not be so wrapped up in dramas, what its like to live simply and genuinely , and perhaps if it was acceptable , to maybe osmose a bit of that habitude themselves.

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by Stosh

[wandelaar]

@ Stosh

 

The book contains ancient stories, and in this way by reading the book one learns of examples of wise behavior. The writer then adds how the stories might apply to modern life.

[Stosh]

12 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

@ Stosh

 

The book contains ancient stories, and in this way by reading the book one learns of examples of wise behavior. The writer then adds how the stories might apply to modern life.

So what do they think wise behavior is? 

[wandelaar]

1 minute ago, Stosh said:

So what do they think wise behavior is? 

 

If I could tell you in a few posts I wouldn't have bought the book...

[Lost in Translation]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

I still think the book contains mostly plain common sense, but of the kind that we automatically tend to forget or ignore when egocentric concerns with the ups and downs of daily live becloud our view of the larger picture of our life and the world as they actually are.

 

"The bright path seems dim;
Going forward seems like retreat;"

[wandelaar]

Or this one:

 

"My words are easy to understand and easy to perform,
Yet no one under heaven knows them or practices them."

[Stosh]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

Or this one:

 

"My words are easy to understand and easy to perform,
Yet no one under heaven knows them or practices them."

Does this iteration render reasonable to you ?

[wandelaar]

6 minutes ago, Stosh said:

Does this iteration render reasonable to you ?

 

Yes. I understand it as a poetical way of saying:

 

6 hours ago, wandelaar said:

I still think the book contains mostly plain common sense, but of the kind that we automatically tend to forget or ignore when egocentric concerns with the ups and downs of daily live becloud our view of the larger picture of our life and the world as they actually are.

 

The same in some measure holds for the Tao Te Ching.

[Stosh]

12 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

Yes. I understand it as a poetical way of saying:

 

 

The same in some measure holds for the Tao Te Ching.

Interesting , I suppose this means you see the 'no one' phrase in the colloquial sense. I took it in the more literal one .