TAO TE CHING - a study and UNDERSTANDING (paradise, experience)

[Scarlett Wampus]

Originally Posted by ChrisP

PS. The lurker awakes... Hi guys *nods at Ollie and PureX*. I'll follow this thread in silence.

In truth I think analysis of the Tao te Ching is useless. Humans are incapable of true objectivity in their analytical state, and also Tao is a concept based upon understanding of current circumstance and the flow of such in any direction

Hi!

If your analysis is that analysis is useless my analysis is that that's an insightful analysis. i.e. its good to have your take on all this.

[giant space amoeba]

Originally Posted by ChrisP

Atomic Amoeba,

Click the link in my signature (Tao) and use the dropdown at the top to get to the S Mitchell translation.

It's a good place to start that won't leave your mind reeling from mystical incomprehensibilities.

thanks im reading now

[giant space amoeba]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Wampus

I mean really, its more prose than it is precise philosophical treatise. I think its meant to be that way, its meant to appeal to feelings more than thoughts.

that might be why i dont get it properly.

though reading this simple english version im getting it in my own way.

when i read it a while back and then talked about it on forums i was told i didnt understand. I did get my own understanding from it though. Like the concept of yin yand yang... something that i think anyone can get really

[Scarlett Wampus]

Originally Posted by Atomic Amoeba

when i read it a while back and then talked about it on forums i was told i didnt understand. I did get my own understanding from it though. Like the concept of yin yand yang... something that i think anyone can get really

Heh, well believe me AA, no one on this forum will do you any better when it comes to understanding it. There is a paradox at the centre of Taoist philosophy, a paradox that seems unresolvable: If you are on the right track, you have failed to understand it. If you understand you have failed, you are on the right track.

To all the world following the Tao, this Way, is a pointless endeavour. Nevertheless if you persist remarkable things can happen. And you never see them coming.

[PureX]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Wampus

Instead of trying to find the right interpretation of it, read the Tao Te Ching lightly. Let the words wash over you without bothering to figure out what they're meant to mean. I mean really, its more prose than it is precise philosophical treatise. I think its meant to be that way, its meant to appeal to feelings more than thoughts.

Amen.

The language that it was written in is more a series of pictograms than it is symbols representing sounds, like what we're used to. In such a visual-oriented text, ideas are conveyed as much by the "ambiance of a scene" as by anything else. The best place I know of to really see this at work is in the I Ching, where each "revelation" comes with a set of images to help the user understand the oracle's message.

When Lao Tzu wrote the Tao te Ching he was composing "poems" using a pictographic text. So you can imagine that for the people in that time and place, "reading" it was indeed more like looking at a collection of images, and then letting their "significance" float around in the mind until they coalesced into a more fuller awareness of the nature of one's own existence.

I first read the Tao te Ching when I was in college, and did not understand it at all. I got angry at it because it seemed to me that every line directly contradicted the preceding line. Which they mostly did. I was simply not able, intellectually, to allow these lines to "cancel each other out", leaving that empty space for the truth (reality) to emerge into.

I read it again probably ten years later and that time I could sense that there was some real clarity or reality in it, but I still was looking for a collection of "answers" and so could not find them, and was left intrigues, but frustrated.

Finally, I read it again about ten years ago, and I laughed and laughed as I remember my past attempts. This time it was like sitting on a high mountain and breathing in the cold clear air and the bright sunlight. I finally realized that it wasn't "telling me" anything. It was merely allowing me the opportunity to quit thinking, and quit trying to "figure it out" and to just be.

When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.
When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.
When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.
If he didn't laugh,
it wouldn't be the Tao.

Thus it is said:
The path into the light seems dark,
the path forward seems to go back,
the direct path seems long,
true power seems weak,
true purity seems tarnished,
true steadfastness seems changeable,
true clarity seems obscure,
the greatest art seems unsophisticated,
the greatest love seems indifferent,
the greatest wisdom seems childish.

The Tao is nowhere to be found.
Yet it nourishes and completes all things.
- from the Tao Te Ching

[PureX]

Originally Posted by Atomic Amoeba

that might be why i dont get it properly.

though reading this simple english version im getting it in my own way.

when i read it a while back and then talked about it on forums i was told i didnt understand. I did get my own understanding from it though. Like the concept of yin yand yang... something that i think anyone can get really

One of the things about the "yin and yang" idea, to me, is that so many cultures have some significant version of it.

The eskimos, as I recall, had something like "bird" people and "fish" people, bird villages and fish villages, bird territories and fish territories. And ultimately died and went to a bird afterlife or a fish afterlife. They saw birds and fish and representing opposing, yet interdependant forces of nature, and these opposing yet interdependant natures permeated all aspects of life as they saw it, and so of death as well, they supposed.

The Australian Aboriginals saw a similar natural division of the life-force, represented by snakes and lizards (I think it was these animals), and they even understood the relative changeability of such forces. For example, according to Aboriginal culture, Bill and Bob, whenever they meet, tend to represent opposing natures; Bill as the snake-nature, and Bob as the lizard nature. Yet whenever Bill meets Mike, who is also a snake nature, with Mike, Bill becomes a lizard nature. Yet when Bill meets Mary, who is also a snake nature, Bill will remain a snake nature, too. And occasionally when Bill meets Bob, their natures are reversed, and bill is the lizard nature while Bib is the snake nature.

The point is that the Aboriginals understood that "yin" and "yang" are both relative and dynamic. We can be either, or, simaltaneously, depending upon what we are relating ourselves to, and when. And likewise for those things being related to us.

[zenzero]

Friends,
Once again we have to understand Lao Tzu pointing the finger to the moon. here it is found some either watching the finger and some watching the moon.
Lao Tzu had realised Truth and knew the both the Way and the goal are the same; the MIND.
For that very reason he had mentioned in his first stanza itself about it.
That truth once put in words does not remain so and that the key to realisation and the manifestations of truth are both happening wirh the MIND as the key.
The path is taking conciousness through all the dark levels of the mind.
Every being in this universe lives in harmony which is the garden of eden; no need to change anything, ecerything is perfect as it is. The chatterings of the minds here are all perfect if understood but if the mind does not understand that then one is thrown out of the garden and the person suffers.
This garden of eden is available to each individual HERE-NOW provided that attempt to silence the mind is there or atleast an attampt to just observe in silence. The chattering of minds, only digresses one from the objective. If something is not understood, it does not matter if one accpts it silently and tries and remain alert in silence to go deeper into it. This silence observation leads to meditation and in that meditative state suddenly lights the individual. Only the initial spark is needed, then nature will take its course or the light will give on burning brighter and brighter .

Once again friends, an attmpt is made which had been made by various masters to point to the moon another attempt in a more direct manner is made here to point towards the mind.
Silencing it is the final frontier top cross from where everything is harmonious, paradise.

The second stanza with the understanding is given today; please approach it with a silent mind a meditative mind as all chatters/noises of the mind will always result in not understanding or a disturbed understanding.

A story goes this way:
A disiple went to his master after years of meditating on god. The master asks: did you see god. The disiple replied, yes. The master slapped him and sent him for another year of meditaion and this time the disiple says No. The mastyer slaps him again and send him for another year of meditation. This time the disiple is very very calm, silent in apperance and when the master asks the question the disiple slaps the master. The master says YES thats the answere I was looking for. Means to say the question itself is wrong. There is no God as nothingness is to be realised not to be got or seen. Anything or all that is seen is by the mind only.

Let us enter these pointers in silence as these too are a sacred temple to meditate.

2

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.


[The nature of mind is such that it always takes sides. And in taking sides the opposite is created. When one utters the word Beautiful automatically has created Ugly as one can say Beautiful as surely there is something called Ugly? Similarly good/bad. All such terms are relative to each other]

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.


[ again the laws of opposites have been defined or how the opposites are related to each other]

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

[The individual who has mastered his own mind acts without doing anything means the mind is not attached in the act. The transmission happens in silence without using words which will make truth false. The master allows the things to happen on its own as they are but natural what goes up will come down etc. Whatever things the master has is without possessing or being attached that they are mine or they belong to me. No such feelings are there. The master does things without any expectations as expectations gives rise from desires and the master does not desire as they are mind rooted. Whatever the master has to do, he just does it and since that becomes the past does not try to hang on to it remaining in the present at all times.]

[zenzero]

Friends,
Time is no doubt without begining or end.
The goal can be reached by both the WAYS and both are equally perfect.
One the evolutionary process; wherein each creation goes through the whole process of evolution and by slowly completeing his desires slowly evolves to reach the goal on its own accord.
The other is Revolution; wherein the individual understand sthe whole creation as just a MAYA/illusion and all desires coming from the mind and the futulity of it all and sets forth to reach the goal and merge with the source.
If by reading and discussing the goal could have been achived then all priests in the temples/ churches/mosques etc. would have realised the truth in large numbers they would have achieved salvation; reality is just the opposite. Till the realisation is not there that even intellectuals go on missing the point that the mind is both the cause and source of all problems and also the solution. Except the solution is by making the mind calm. The mind has to be used for various purposes and then the master calls for his servives but not the other way round that the mind goes on his business all the time; making the person living in a dreamland/ maya land/ an illusionary world.
Time to wake up / awaken to this fact and do something about it.
We humans have been around for a long, long time to understand this simple fact.
Once an man went on his morning walk in his village was passing a hut when he heard the mother waking up his son: Son, wake up, its time; you have been sleeping for long. This simple one line was enough for this man to ignite such a spark in him that he kept walking out of his village and went to the mountainbs to meditate and finally woke up totally. ofcourse his family found about his whereabout much later by the time he was given up as missing.
Similarly friends; wake up, shake yourself fromthis stupor approach life prayerfully, meditatively. The smartness of the mind does not smarten the owner he his kept tethered to this illusionary world for lives to come.
"WELL BEGUN IS HALF DONE' -
Evryday every moment is an opportunity; one has been missing lives on endd; now is the time to clean out the cobwebs from the mind and make a begining.
Hear the birds chirping, watch nature deeply; its all around you and you are part of it all. Just that realisation and the jouney begins.
Love & rgds

[ChrisP]

Originally Posted by zenzero

The other is Revolution; wherein the individual understand sthe whole creation as just a MAYA/illusion and all desires coming from the mind and the futulity of it all and sets forth to reach the goal and merge with the source.

Please elaborate? Specific interest in concept of Maya/Illusion.

Thanks
Chris