Chuang Tzu believed in God (Creator, mystic, translation, mission)

[zenzero]

Friend Scarlett,
The confusion of the mind is a necessary evil.
Meaning to say mystics never have a point of view.
Which means that when the mind/ego is non existent then the person is non-existent but at the same time physically present that itself is a paradox; creating confusion.
The mind / ego always picturises and holds on to them for mystics it is NOTHINGNESS that they live in and so there is nothing they are holding and so no particular point of view.
Confusion in other minds also gives those minds an opportunity to exhaust their energies as they cannot think any further than the pictures in those minds and cannot comprehend Nothingness and then the mind falls sapped of energies and in that split second when the mind is in active that the satori happens. There on its a new birth.
So, allow this confusion to get its full quota of food and watch.
Love & rgds

[Scarlett Wampus]

Originally Posted by lilithu

Chuang Tse was NF.

Sorry, that's a reference to Myers Briggs.

I say in that thread that I had trouble understanding what the path of harmony/NF was. But today my friend who led the workshop explained it in a way that I finally understood.

Some of us, NTs, look for underlying unifying principles. We start from the assumption that the chaotic diversity of beliefs that we see is troublesome "noise" due to imperfect understanding, but that underlying that is a unity - a common principle. And as we gather new experiences that do not match our previous theories we may have to change our beliefs, but there is still the assumption that such unity exits. But others of us, NFs, do not assume that there is a common underlying principle. Instead, they approach each situation, each person, each religion, each moment... as an individual in all its diverse glory. They do not feel the need to have a final "explanation."

NTs love unity.
NFs love diversity.

I am by nature an NT. However, after years of trying to find unifying principles that underly all of the great world religions, and not being able to except for very general statements, unless I were willing to do violence to the faiths by cramming them into categories that don't quite fit - I have by necessity become more NF. I appreciate more the chaos than I used to, and now I love both unity and diversity.

Chuang Tzu being an NF as described in that thread fits quite snugly. There, my NT tendencies are satisfied.

Great response.

[Scarlett Wampus]

Originally Posted by zenzero

Friend Scarlett,
The confusion of the mind is a necessary evil.
Meaning to say mystics never have a point of view.
Which means that when the mind/ego is non existent then the person is non-existent but at the same time physically present that itself is a paradox; creating confusion.
The mind / ego always picturises and holds on to them for mystics it is NOTHINGNESS that they live in and so there is nothing they are holding and so no particular point of view.
Confusion in other minds also gives those minds an opportunity to exhaust their energies as they cannot think any further than the pictures in those minds and cannot comprehend Nothingness and then the mind falls sapped of energies and in that split second when the mind is in active that the satori happens. There on its a new birth.
So, allow this confusion to get its full quota of food and watch.
Love & rgds

*sigh* Always on planet Zen, Zenzero. I much appreciate the invitation.

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Wampus

Chuang Tzu being an NF as described in that thread fits quite snugly. There, my NT tendencies are satisfied.

Thank you for recognizing the irony. I'm quite amused myself.

[Francine]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Wampus

Personally I think Chuang Tzu is openly asking whether a creator God is behind everything. Finding no evidence for such a God he cannot say whether it exists or not thus he identifies it as a matter of faith. A classic Agnostic/Agnostic Theist position.

CT is saying the world looks like it was put together by Intelligent Design, but that after creation, the Designer blended so skillfully into the world he left no detectable traces, which is closer to a Deist position.

[zenzero]

Friend Francine,
Though would not like to get into any debate with your response to SW but just wanted another response to your response.
Kindly explain who is the creator in your idea and then if he did all the creation and blended then has creation stopped? Am sure it is ongoing and how does he manages to do so after having blended.
Love & rgds

[doppelgänger]

Lao Tzu uses a Creator-type God for effect (demonstrating that before even "God" there must have been the Tao). So it's not surprising.

If there were no 'other', there would be no 'I'. If there were no 'I', there would be nothing to apprehend the 'other'. This is near the mark, but I do not know what causes it to be so. It seems as though there is a True Ruler, but there is no evidence for Her. We may have faith in Her ability to function, but cannot see Her form.

"God" resides in and draws his/her/its being from grammar. Nietzsche wrote something very similar.

[doppelgänger]

Here's something I wrote a while back that is similar I think to the excerpt you posted:

If all were one consciousness, one Unity, it would have no consciousness of its "self" that would require an identifying symbol such as "self" or "Unity." If there genuinely is no other, then there is no "me" to even ask the question of whether there is an "other." In this sense, Unity and Nothing are the same. If one focuses on the wholeness/Unity/the Absolute one fails to see the "I am" doing the focusing. If one focuses on the "I am" and the thingliness of "other," one fails to see that "I am" and "other" are One. What is the answer? Is all one substance or is the universe composed of a plurality (or at least a duality) of "things" of which "I am" but one or a part?

Both and neither. Complementarity.

Here's the Tao te Ching reference to "God" (from the Mitchell trans., chapter 4)

The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities.

It is hidden but always present.
I don't know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.

The reason we cannot see the "True form" of the Master is that the Master is form itself. The process of creating things in forms and organizing the universe of our experience in thought.