How to recognise a taoist master

[Wayfarer64]

Definetly.

 

Ken Cohen says maybe there is a reason the words cosmic and comic are so similar.

 

Also, Max(Kunlun) mentioned something that could probably go in the latest "who am I?" thread people are talking about. When you are laughing, where are you?

 

I learned from first hand experience with a bad case of flue this week the moments that really helped me feel good where laughing my ass of watching Comedy Central.

 

 

I thought THIS WAS comedy central?!

 

Where am I?

 

&

 

What the heck was/am I Laughing at?

 

That is great!!! A new way to look at things -

 

The real question being -(When you are not laughing)...

 

Why am i Not laughing!?

 

Or perhaps more to the point... Why aren't I happy just to be me... right now?

[witch]

Definetly.

 

Ken Cohen says maybe there is a reason the words cosmic and comic are so similar.

 

Also, Max(Kunlun) mentioned something that could probably go in the latest "who am I?" thread people are talking about. When you are laughing, where are you?

 

I learned from first hand experience with a bad case of flue this week the moments that really helped me feel good where laughing my ass of watching Comedy Central.

 

what shows?

 

 

As a popular taoist saying tells us :

 

Once jing ("sperm") is full, you do not think of sex( just opposite to what ordinary people think) ;

 

Then I am as far away from being a taoist master as one could possibly get!

 

 

[Cameron]

Colbert is a good one

[mentalground0]

I guess that means you've run aground or perhaps astray? Or at least feel as if you have...

If you realize it, then you've already given yrself a knock- a wake-up call as it were - to start a new path or maybe regain ground on one you've not set foot on for a while...

 

Meditation is the start -(IMHO), just relax into a deep reassessment of yr direction as if it didn't really matter, just a casual perusal of yr self...

 

That is how the best steps I've taken - always began...

 

If yr just down and grumpy/glum... -May the Farce be with you !

 

- Because, laughter is the best medicine!

 

 

thx for that Wayfarer

and i agree that laughter is best

i had a good dance in my living room/laughter session this am

since meditation wasn't going to cut it

 

the body moves

the mind follows

the laughter begins

[mYTHmAKER]

Every holy (for lack of a better word) being I have had the good fortune to

hang out with has always been able laugh freely.

If you can't laugh at yourself it is a sure sign of ego.

Norman Cousins claimed he helped cure his cancer with laughter.

Part of his regimen was watching comedians in movies and television.

[Taomeow]

Every holy (for lack of a better word) being I have had the good fortune to

hang out with has always been able laugh freely.

If you can't laugh at yourself it is a sure sign of ego.

Norman Cousins claimed he helped cure his cancer with laughter.

Part of his regimen was watching comedians in movies and television.

On the other hand, Desmond Morris of The Naked Ape asserts that laughter is crying in disguise, and that humans use exactly the same muscles to laugh as they use when they cry. (There's no other two activities for which we use exactly the same muscles -- except laughing and crying.) The first experience of laughter for a baby is when something pretends to be scary but really isn't -- dad going "boo" in jest or some such. There's this moment of decision for the baby -- get scared, cry? -- this "boo" thing can hurt me? -- but no, it's dad, familiar and safe... so, cry the way you cry when you know the dangerous thing is not going to hurt you? -- an as-if bad thing, and I respond with an as-if crying. And the baby discovers laughter. The as-if mode.

 

Have you noticed that 99.9% of all jokes, if you focus your awareness on the situation described rather than the "funny" factor, are about something going very wrong for someone? About someone being hurt?..

[witch]

Yes, and it's the loveliest thing in the world

 

http://www.indecision2008.com/blog.jhtml?c...;videoId=111030

Edited February 17, 2008 by witch

[mYTHmAKER]

On the other hand, Desmond Morris of The Naked Ape asserts that laughter is crying in disguise, and that humans use exactly the same muscles to laugh as they use when they cry. (There's no other two activities for which we use exactly the same muscles -- except laughing and crying.) The first experience of laughter for a baby is when something pretends to be scary but really isn't -- dad going "boo" in jest or some such. There's this moment of decision for the baby -- get scared, cry? -- this "boo" thing can hurt me? -- but no, it's dad, familiar and safe... so, cry the way you cry when you know the dangerous thing is not going to hurt you? -- an as-if bad thing, and I respond with an as-if crying. And the baby discovers laughter. The as-if mode.

 

Have you noticed that 99.9% of all jokes, if you focus your awareness on the situation described rather than the "funny" factor, are about something going very wrong for someone? About someone being hurt?..

 

Interesting re the muscles. Crying and laughing are opposite ends of the spectrum. A good example of yin and yang at work. Sometimes we laugh so hard we start crying. Too much of one and it becomes its opposite.

 

At early stages of development we get our laughs at other peoples expense. As we move along- relate to others- this becomes less and less so. We will think a situation or humor that once broke us up is no longer funny.

 

We start out in the world with me me me as the center of the universe.

The path we travel is moving toward us.

The laughter of saints bubbles up- maybe it's an expressed joy of being.

And some things are just funny we can't explain why. "You had to be there"

[Wayfarer64]

"You had to be there"

 

 

That says it all... The shared experience of trials & tribulations, - that we can then laugh at in hindsight, the empathy inherent in "getting it"... These are each examples of how the knowledge of shared existence is lifting us out from our troubles...It is part of life, with indurance- we can get through it... it may not be funny now -but in time we will laugh at this...

 

The laughter/crying thing seems to hold up too... Why do comics say "I killed 'em", or - "I knocked 'em dead.." Are they out to get us!

 

So turn that frown

Upside down -

 

Apparently it is an "energy saver" too as only one set of muscles is involved... This can be some sort of muscle-memory inducement to good humor, as a prelude to better days ahead...

[Taomeow]

Good observations, guys... but my point was along the same lines as in that Heinlein sci-fi classic, Stranger In A Strange Land, where a martian-raised human was trying to understand and feel (grok) humans and, being very smart and extra sensitive, got most of it except for laughter. He simply didn't get it till the middle of this extra large book. Then one day he finally laughed. And after he did, he exclaimed: "Now I understand why people laugh. It's because it hurts so much."

 

Vis a vis the original question, I meant that a true taoist master doesn't laugh, because she is a "real human" and real humans smile when they feel pleasure, cry when they feel pain, but don't laugh. Laughter is an as-if mode. Smiling and crying are real. Pleasure and pain are straightforward, smiling and crying are straightforward responses; while responding to pain with pleasure is convoluted. A taoist master doesn't lose the smile and doesn't lose the tears, but she loses the laughter. I know it's hard to believe...

[Wayfarer64]

Good observations, guys... but my point was along the same lines as in that Heinlein sci-fi classic, Stranger In A Strange Land, where a martian-raised human was trying to understand and feel (grok) humans and, being very smart and extra sensitive, got most of it except for laughter. He simply didn't get it till the middle of this extra large book. Then one day he finally laughed. And after he did, he exclaimed: "Now I understand why people laugh. It's because it hurts so much."

 

Vis a vis the original question, I meant that a true taoist master doesn't laugh, because she is a "real human" and real humans smile when they feel pleasure, cry when they feel pain, but don't laugh. Laughter is an as-if mode. Smiling and crying are real. Pleasure and pain are straightforward, smiling and crying are straightforward responses; while responding to pain with pleasure is convoluted. A taoist master doesn't lose the smile and doesn't lose the tears, but she loses the laughter. I know it's hard to believe...

 

That may be -but I don't grok it... If so, then why even have a sense of humor-is this just to respond to pain?

 

Not all laughter stems from disguised pain, as there are more ways to laugh than Inuets have names for snow...

 

We even have several seperate smiley faces...to depict our several forms of amusement...

 

I'm not buying this all or none depiction of laughter, some is derived from pain some from lighter insights. I sense that the appreciation of foibles is not really very painful after all...

[Taomeow]

That may be -but I don't grok it... If so, then why even have a sense of humor-is this just to respond to pain?

 

Not all laughter stems from disguised pain, as there are more ways to laugh than Inuets have names for snow...

 

We even have several seperate smiley faces...to depict our several forms of amusement...

 

I'm not buying this all or none depiction of laughter, some is derived from pain some from lighter insights. I sense that the appreciation of foibles is not really very painful after all...

A sense of humor is a sense of "something not right" combined with a sense of "I have to do something about it" combined with "I have to do something defensive about it, something that circumvents compassion, empathy, pain, embarrassment, shame, a sense of inadequacy in me or the other -- something that covers up the not-right feeling." A sense of humor fits the bill. It is a defense mechanism.

 

My father used to get very sarcastic when I failed to see humor in situations he perceived as humorous, and "you have no sense of humor" was a put-down he used on such occasions. So I was conditioned early on to have a sense of humor. To the point that in lower grades in school I assumed the class clown role -- whenever someone said or did something stupid, a teacher or a student, everybody turned to me in anticipation of a wiseass comment and then I delivered and everybody cracked up. I started doubting it all when one day my best girlfriend slipped and fell down some stairs in a rather comical fashion, you know how people sometimes fall looking mighty ridiculous. Hilarious. I was really terrified because it looked like she may have dislocated or broken something, it was a pretty nasty fall, but all I could do was stand there and laugh -- it was as though laughter paralyzed my compassion, instead of rushing to help her I simply couldn't move, just stood there laughing like an idiot. But I didn't "grok" it then either, it was much later that I got an insight into the real nature of laughter -- it was like a bit of "enlightenment" on this one issue, suddenly I knew "everything" about it. No, there's no different kinds of laughter, only one kind... There's different ways to smile though... indeed ten thousand ways. There's ten thousand pleasures, ways for things to be right and good, but only one way for them to be wrong and bad. One, in many disguises...

 

Also sprach Taomeow.

[mYTHmAKER]

 

My father used to get very sarcastic when I failed to see humor in situations he perceived as humorous, and "you have no sense of humor" was a put-down he used on such occasions. So I was conditioned early on to have a sense of humor. To the point that in lower grades in school I assumed the class clown role -- whenever someone said or did something stupid, a teacher or a student, everybody turned to me in anticipation of a wiseass comment and then I delivered and everybody cracked up. I started doubting it all when one day my best girlfriend slipped and fell down some stairs in a rather comical fashion, you know how people sometimes fall looking mighty ridiculous. Hilarious. I was really terrified because it looked like she may have dislocated or broken something, it was a pretty nasty fall, but all I could do was stand there and laugh -- it was as though laughter paralyzed my compassion, instead of rushing to help her I simply couldn't move, just stood there laughing like an idiot. But I didn't "grok" it then either, it was much later that I got an insight into the real nature of laughter -- it was like a bit of "enlightenment" on this one issue, suddenly I knew "everything" about it. No, there's no different kinds of laughter, only one kind... There's different ways to smile though... indeed ten thousand ways. There's ten thousand pleasures, ways for things to be right and good, but only one way for them to be wrong and bad. One, in many disguises...

Also sprach Taomeow.

 

mYTHmAKER uvaca

What your father taught you was not a sense of humor, and unfortunately, this is what passes for a sense of humor.

As crying and laughing are opposites perhaps smiling is in the middle.

Buddhism, the middle way always has the buddha smiling ( the thin ones or the starving Siddhartha). The chinese big bellied ones are usually depicted laughing. Maybe the starving ones don't have the energy required to laugh

The masters I spent time with were always laughing or smiling.

Edited February 18, 2008 by mYTHmAKER

[Wayfarer64]

TaoMeow -Yr rememberance of being subjected to "humorous" bullying is one of the saddest things I've come across of late - and there have been some doozies!

 

I am much less amazed that you have such a dark view of comedy... But it does make me sad... and I find no humor in the story, but if I do, later on, I shall share it with ya in hopes of lightening the perspective...It may be that then we can grok the real meaning of the pain being released by laughter...

 

I've heard that sneezing is the closest thing to (male) orgasm, perhaps laughter is another sort of release of tension and relaxation of breath control that leads to light-headed giddyness. - or even groking it as variable and enabled, (liberated?)... by many criteria...

 

I'll keep quiping in the meantime (is that mean of me?)

[witch]

Good observations, guys... but my point was along the same lines as in that Heinlein sci-fi classic, Stranger In A Strange Land, where a martian-raised human was trying to understand and feel (grok) humans and, being very smart and extra sensitive, got most of it except for laughter. He simply didn't get it till the middle of this extra large book. Then one day he finally laughed. And after he did, he exclaimed: "Now I understand why people laugh. It's because it hurts so much."

 

Vis a vis the original question, I meant that a true taoist master doesn't laugh, because she is a "real human" and real humans smile when they feel pleasure, cry when they feel pain, but don't laugh. Laughter is an as-if mode. Smiling and crying are real. Pleasure and pain are straightforward, smiling and crying are straightforward responses; while responding to pain with pleasure is convoluted. A taoist master doesn't lose the smile and doesn't lose the tears, but she loses the laughter. I know it's hard to believe...

 

Finally a place where we disagree!

 

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n13/mente/laughter/page2.html

 

and the source of smiling

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZessQo9jv...QCXkVYieeqQSeSg

 

both are primate behavior. If anything, laughing is more authentic than smiling. In primates laughing signifies play, and smiling signifies submission, not pleasure.

 

The thing I treasure underneath the laughing and smiling is the uniquely human trait of finding humor in not only the pain that life brings, but the pain we carry inside ourselves. I think it's a more human response to laugh in sympathetic understanding than to disconnect oneself from emotions the way buddhists try to do.

 

I believe you when you say taoist masters do not laugh, and that has convinced me that's not a thing I'm interested in--finally! Although good health is good, of course!

[Taomeow]

Um... serves me right for bringing up an "unconscious defense mechanism" to the verbal level without a chance to reach the level of buried consciousness in the addressee. Stupid of me, really.

 

Mythmaker -- so what would be an example of "real humor," in your opinion?

 

Wayfarer -- did I ever mention I really like you? -- so with this in mind, please forgive me if I say you fare way off with this one. Sorry for me? I spend my life trying to not feel sorry for everybody else. Nothing beats being real, trust me. No freakin' thing feels better -- even when you feel sad, even when you feel pain, the real you feeling your real feeling instead of an as-if one... the only thing worth living for, the only thing worth dying for. But I won't be able to explain. Verbal level... doesn't scratch the surface.

 

Witch -- researchers are among the most heavily defended people on earth. There's two reasons people do research in our time: because a)someone with a special interest/ulterior motive has paid for it, or b)because they are trying to prove to themselves "scientifically" that there's nothing wrong with them personally.

 

I bow out of this hopeless thread knowing I can't possibly convince anyone of anything. Like I said, it was stupid of me to try.

[Uncle Fester]

.

Edited September 19, 2021 by darebak

[witch]

Witch -- researchers are among the most heavily defended people on earth. There's two reasons people do research in our time: because a)someone with a special interest/ulterior motive has paid for it, or b)because they are trying to prove to themselves "scientifically" that there's nothing wrong with them personally.

 

I bow out of this hopeless thread knowing I can't possibly convince anyone of anything. Like I said, it was stupid of me to try.

 

You know very well that I agree with you about researchers. And you could convince me of anything; I trust in the truth of what you say. I do believe what you said. I believe that taoism leads to that; it's just not a place I want to go. My whole heart belongs to someone who makes me laugh, and I'm realizing how much he is my master, even if he is a Christian.

 

Also, as a witch I follow Hathor. One of her most famous acts

 

An interesting story involving Hathor - all the more interesting because it is very similar to the Japanese tale of the sun goddess who leaves the company of the gods to sulk - is the story of Ra's temper tantrum. Baba a predynastic baboon god, taunted Ra who stood for Set becoming ruler rather than Horus, "Your shrine is empty!" With that, Ra stormed off to be alone - presumably this is a story about a solar eclipse - and refused to join the other gods. Realising that they'd gone too far, the others sent Baba away, but still Ra refused to stop sulking. Finally, Hathor decided on a plan. She went into Ra's presence and stood before him and started to dance and strip, revealing her nakedness and lewdly showing him her private parts. The dance caused Ra to laugh, forget his hurt feelings and he once again rejoined the gods.

Edited February 18, 2008 by witch

[mbanu]

The best description of a big-m Master, I think, was "The True Man" bit from Thomas Merton's book on Chuang-tzu. Big-m masters are useless, though, because they no longer hold attachments to their students, which make teaching in any sort of meaningful way impossible. Really what most people need are little-m masters, and the ways to recognize them depend on the student's own level of development. Unless a student has reached the state where they can formulate certain questions, the sort of answers a master on a higher rung of the totem pole might give would only lead to suffering, and really aren't necessary for gaining the benefits Daoism can offer. In many ways, Daoism is a lot like a painkiller; being on a stronger dose does not necessarily mean that you have moved up in the world.

 

Really a better thing to study, if one wants to study traits, is to determine how to recognize a Daoist con-artist.

[三江源]

.

Edited April 12, 2015 by 三江源

[mYTHmAKER]

 

Mythmaker -- so what would be an example of "real humor," in your opinion?

 

I bow out of this hopeless thread knowing I can't possibly convince anyone of anything. Like I said, it was stupid of me to try.

 

Here's one time that comes to mind.

I went to a flea market bazaar in a public school a number of years ago.

I hadn't been in a public school since I was a kid.

I had to go to the bathroom so I went into the room marked boys and proceeded to pee

in a metal trough like urinal.

Just as I finished someone came out of a stall and proceeded to wash their hands in the urinal

I had just peed in what turned out to be the sink. It was urinal height because little boys are small etc.

Anyway I started laughing and came rolling out of the bathroom in hysterics - couldn't stop laughing.

mYTHISmAKER watching me bent over laughing started laughing - also went into hysterics and couldn't stop.

 

--- You had to be there.---

 

I wasn't laughing at the expense of the person who was going to wash their hands. It was the situation.

mYTHISmAKER didn't even know why she was laughing.

 

Please don't bow out. It's not about convincing. You brought up some very interesting ideas.

You are right much laughter is based on cruelty but not all.

 

Something else comes to mind re saints/masters. To say Taoist masters smile while other masters laugh

is in my opinion not the way it is. To much of a fixed rule where there are no rules.

Once you become a master you retain your personality (so I've been told) so perhaps some will smile some laugh with many variations in between.

Once you become one there is no differentiation all smiles and laughter are the same.

[三江源]

.

Edited April 12, 2015 by 三江源

[Wayfarer64]

Hi there TaoMeow-

 

I also like you very much, in a cyberific may of course...

 

But I am not sorry for you, I said it made me sad to think of a humorless state as it pertains to yr state of well-being...and I indeed have read many humorous things in yr entries here...

 

I just don't get the idea that all humor stems from a denial of pain, that is too much like the Buddhist "all (attachment to)... life is suffering - idea...

 

It just does not ring true in my experiences...

 

Also, when I read that Taoist masters never laugh I had a vision of a Taoist Master laughing his ass off at that comment...I will assume we have some wiggle-room here vis-a-vis one's funny bone...it was a metaphorical "never laugh" not an actual - never laugh - as policy... to maintain one's Masterhood etc...

 

But if you are so damn sure about this thing, I'll never quip again...

 

(just kidding)- ...

 

In fact I thought you enjoyed that old chestnut about the hot-dog vendor...no?

[Taomeow]

But Mythmaker, your example fits in perfectly with my premise that it is always about "something going wrong." Wasn't it a wrong thing for someone to wash his hands in your piss? It doesn't matter that you didn't "mean it" and didn't do it "on purpose." The outcome was still "something going wrong for somebody," wasn't it?

 

mYTHISmAKER didn't even know why she was laughing.

Well now that's funny. If you're a she why were you peeing in a boys' bathroom?..

 

Something wrong again...

 

Wayfarer, my cyberlove, I'm not humorless. I have people in stitches when I'm in the mood, and laugh easily myself, I'm really easy to amuse. But it only means I'm not a realized master -- to me it's one of the sure signs. Not that there's no other signs of that of course.

 

My taiji teacher laughs a lot and can be very funny, delightfully so, and is quite taoist in his leanings and lifestyle and cognitive preferences, but he isn't what they refer to as a "Real Human" or a "realized being" or a "holy sage" in taoist classics. My taoist teacher, however, never laughs. Never gets bored either... ever. Never needs to be amused, entertained, noticed... She's really hard to understand on everyday human terms. The part I understand though is that her state is what they call "more advanced" (whatever it's supposed to mean) than any 'normal' human state anyone can imagine.

Edited February 19, 2008 by Taomeow

[mYTHmAKER]

But Mythmaker, your example fits in perfectly with my premise that it is always about "something going wrong." Wasn't it a wrong thing for someone to wash his hands in your piss? It doesn't matter that you didn't "mean it" and didn't do it "on purpose." The outcome was still "something going wrong for somebody," wasn't it?

Well now that's funny. If you're a she why were you peeing in a boys' bathroom?..

 

Something wrong again...

 

Wayferer, my cyberlove, I'm not humorless. I have people in stitches when I'm in the mood, and laugh easily myself, I'm really easy to amuse. But it only means I'm not a realized master -- to me it's one of the sure signs. Not that there's no other signs of that of course.

 

My taiji teacher laughs a lot and can be very funny, delightfully so, and is quite taoist in his leanings and lifestyle and cognitive preferences, but he isn't what they refer to as a "Real Human" or a "realized being" or a "holy sage" in taoist classics. My taoist teacher, however, never laughs. Never gets bored either... ever. Never needs to be amused, entertained, noticed... She's really hard to understand on everyday human terms. The part I understand though is that her state is what they call "more advanced" (whatever it's supposed to mean) than any 'normal' human state anyone can imagine.