popular opinions

[old3bob]

we often hear the term immortality, but what does it really mean?   Taoism goes into definitions of different types of immortals...which vary a lot.

And I hear many people sounding like they look to being an immortal as some particular identity of themselves...

 

Anyway there is a catch that we don't often hear of for even the most advanced  of "immortals", which is the length of a cosmic cycle after which it is said by some that all return to Tao before the start of the next cosmic cycle.  So with such a return can individual and unique souls really remain immortal if that is the term being applied to them?  I don't know what the different schools of Taoism say about this but I do know what some of the different schools of Hinduism say and they are definitely not in agreement with one another.  Your take?

[Michael Sternbach]

One way to look at this question is this: When, at the end of a cycle, Pralaya sets in, what has been perfected in the foregoing time retains its form and indeed becomes the form that gives structure to the next cycle. Whereas what hasn't been perfected gets 'recycled' and becomes the matter that constitutes the world to come.

[Nungali]

Thus the end of the cycle is reflected in the end of a life .

[Michael Sternbach]

42 minutes ago, Michael Sternbach said:

One way to look at this question is this: When, at the end of a cycle, Pralaya sets in, what has been perfected in the foregoing time retains its form and indeed becomes the form that gives structure to the next cycle. Whereas what hasn't been perfected gets 'recycled' and becomes the matter that constitutes the world to come.

 

Actually, 'completed' might be the better term than 'perfected'.

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, Michael Sternbach said:

 

Actually, 'completed' might be the better term than 'perfected'.

 

A return to Formless (chap 14 of the T.T.C.) would not retain any form...is the way I read it but I'm not representing or quoting a particular School of Taoism, are you?

Edited August 15, 2023 by old3bob

[kakapo]

3 hours ago, old3bob said:

we often hear the term immortality, but what does it really mean?   Taoism goes into definitions of different types of immortals...which vary a lot.

And I hear many people sounding like they look to being an immortal as some particular identity of themselves...

 

Anyway there is a catch that we don't often hear of for even the most advanced  of "immortals", which is the length of a cosmic cycle after which it is said by some that all return to Tao before the start of the next cosmic cycle.  So with such a return can individual and unique souls really remain immortal if that is the term being applied to them?  I don't know what the different schools of Taoism say about this but I do know what some of the different schools of Hinduism say and they are definitely not in agreement with one another.  Your take?

 

Most people die with a husk of a spirit,  however we each have the potential to grow our spirit just as acorn has the potential to grow into a tree. 

 

An immortal is one who has gone from an acorn to a great oak tree during their lifetime.

[old3bob]

11 minutes ago, kakapo said:

 

Most people die with a husk of a spirit,  however we each have the potential to grow our spirit just as acorn has the potential to grow into a tree. 

 

An immortal is one who has gone from an acorn to a great oak tree during their lifetime.

 

partly agreed, yet even a great oak tree also returns to The Great (and formless) Tao, would you say yes or no per most Taoist schools that you may know of?  

Edited August 15, 2023 by old3bob

[kakapo]

42 minutes ago, old3bob said:

 

partly agreed, yet even a great oak tree also returns to The Great (and formless) Tao, would you say yes or no per most Taoist schools that you may know of?  

 

I think crossing the event horizon of a supermassive black hole or a being at ground zero for 50 megaton thermonuclear bomb would probably end badly even for a hsien.

[Michael Sternbach]

5 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

A return to Formless (chap 14 of the T.T.C.) would not retain any form...is the way I read it but I'm not representing or quoting a particular School of Taoism, are you?

 

I am representing the Unnameable School of Daoism; you probably never heard of it.

 

It states that from the conjunction of Form and Formlessness, Yang and Yin, or Logos and Chaos, a new world is born.

 

If there were no in-form-ation carried over from one cycle to the next, karma would not exist.

[Michael Sternbach]

5 hours ago, kakapo said:

 

Most people die with a husk of a spirit,  however we each have the potential to grow our spirit just as acorn has the potential to grow into a tree. 

 

An immortal is one who has gone from an acorn to a great oak tree during their lifetime.

 

5 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

partly agreed, yet even a great oak tree also returns to The Great (and formless) Tao, would you say yes or no per most Taoist schools that you may know of?  

 

'Tis true, yet the oak tree leaves behind so many acorns that pass on its genetic code.

[Michael Sternbach]

4 hours ago, kakapo said:

 

I think crossing the event horizon of a supermassive black hole or a being at ground zero for 50 megaton thermonuclear bomb would probably end badly even for a hsien.

 

In fact, if you were crossing the event horizon of a supermassive black hole, you would hardly even notice it. It's the much smaller stellar black holes that spaghettify stuff due to the extreme gravitational gradient in their vicinity.

[old3bob]

5 hours ago, Michael Sternbach said:

 

I am representing the Unnameable School of Daoism; you probably never heard of it.

 

It states that from the conjunction of Form and Formlessness, Yang and Yin, or Logos and Chaos, a new world is born.

 

If there were no in-form-ation carried over from one cycle to the next, karma would not exist.

 

I'd say The Great (un-nameable) Tao needs no seeds to carry (It) over after one cosmic cycle ends and another begins, being that it is the source of seeds and cycles, (and the One, The Two, The Three, etc.) and with no-thing never being lost,  (as the Tao goes far and returns as I believe is pointed to in Chap.14 of the T.T.C.)

Edited August 15, 2023 by old3bob

[Michael Sternbach]

1 hour ago, old3bob said:

 

I'd say The Great (un-nameable) Tao needs no seeds to carry (It) over after one cosmic cycle ends and another begins, being that it is the source of seeds and cycles, (and the One, The Two, The Three, etc.) and with no-thing never being lost,  (as the Tao goes far and returns as I believe is pointed to in Chap.14 of the T.T.C.)

 

If there is no information carried over from one cycle to the next, then there can be no evolution taking place.

 

Furthermore, I wonder how you reconcile the concept of complete annihilation at the end of a cycle with "no-thing never being lost" within the Dao.

 

Unless, of course, you think of the Dao as being transcendent to Creation (as your last post suggests). In which case the Dao may be very well be the 'data carrier' (akin to the alaya-vijnana of Yogacara Buddhism) that conditions  each succeeding cycle.

 

For that matter, I believe that the reincarnational cycles of individual beings, the cycles of humanity (a.k.a. history), and the cosmic cycles that pertain to planets and stars, and ultimately to the whole universe, express the very same principles -- in their respective ways. 

[Michael Sternbach]

DDJ, chapter 21 (Feng translation):

 

The greatest Virtue is to follow Tao and Tao alone. 
The Tao is elusive and intangible. 
Oh, it is intangible and elusive, and yet within is image. 
Oh, it is elusive and intangible, and yet within is form. 
Oh, it is dim and dark, and yet within is essence. 
This essence is very real, and therein lies faith. 
From the very beginning until now its name has never been forgotten. 
Thus I perceive the creation. 
How do I know the ways of creation? 
Because of this.

[old3bob]

On 8/15/2023 at 7:39 AM, Michael Sternbach said:

 

If there is no information carried over from one cycle to the next, then there can be no evolution taking place.

 

Furthermore, I wonder how you reconcile the concept of complete annihilation at the end of a cycle with "no-thing never being lost" within the Dao.

 

Unless, of course, you think of the Dao as being transcendent to Creation (as your last post suggests). In which case the Dao may be very well be the 'data carrier' (akin to the alaya-vijnana of Yogacara Buddhism) that conditions  each succeeding cycle.

 

For that matter, I believe that the reincarnational cycles of individual beings, the cycles of humanity (a.k.a. history), and the cosmic cycles that pertain to planets and stars, and ultimately to the whole universe, express the very same principles -- in their respective ways. 

 

Well if the Great Tao can evolve then it can also devolve...that idea is of simple logic imo and also along the lines of if the Great Tao is born then it could also die, but according to the T.C.C.  it is The One, The Two, The Three and so on to the Ten Thousand that are born in a way,  and which will also return ("after going far") while their Source (The Great Tao) always remains or IS,  thus is not bound to those laws even though it gives all form birth.

 

btw I'd say the return is not an annihilation per se but the meaning of true immortality in my understanding, namely a return to that which is beyond our particular identities with their particular designs in time and space along with related lives and deaths taking place in countless forms.  (for instance the Ten Thousand)   Further, and to me this is profoundly pointed to in a line from Chapter 43 of The T.T.C.  per, "only Nothing can enter no space",  thus not a particular being,  or seed, or karma, or form can enter and still remain as a particular this or that! 

 

To get into some possible correlations the term "creation" has various meanings which I think should be agreed upon when that word comes up.  For instance in the dualism that many religions espouse it normally means a God separate from his or her creation of things and beings;  while in some schools of Hinduism it may mean God is also the creation,  yet still non-dualistic and non-separate,  thus always simultaneously transcendent to any dualistic binder,  and in that case the term emanation would be a more descriptive pointer than the term creation as it is normally meant.  Btw,  Advaita Vedanta recognizes a non-dualistic Transcendent Self but posits a divorce of God as not being immanent in "creation", with creation being relegated to just being illusion.    Anyway there are many cycles within cycles wherein I'd partly agree with what it sounds like you are saying but I'm not seeing that as applicable to the total cosmic cycles that all other cycles fall under...

Edited August 19, 2023 by old3bob