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Chapter of the Week: #05 [Archive]
First...
Surely, is not our perception of "responsible" and "impact" relative to what we feel important? Importance, is an emotion powered by the void - 'fear', or survival instinct is you like (which is powered by the 'fear' of death, essentially.)
Now, if you believe that thought is what drives your life, and not emotion, then you will not concur with this view, of course. Certainly, thought and emotion operate in concert and feedback on one another. But, the foundation, in my view, is emotion. Emotion drives thought. If you feel angry, you are most likely to 'think' angry thoughts, for example.
A sense of importance is based in emotion. Thoughts simply express the feelings.
I suppose it comes down to the "I am therefore I think" vs. "I think therefore I am". To me, the former says it best, i.e, 'thinking' arises up out of 'am'. Being supercedes thinking, although human consciousness is very thought oriented, which I suspect makes us feel disconnected from being and from Nature, i.e., Nature doesn't 'think'.
I suppose that those who believe fervently in free will probably would choose "I think, therefore I am". Am I right? :?: :?: :?:
Next...
Very interesting! Point (2) illustrates why we have such a hard time being in our moment. The promise of future pleasures always carry us away... or rather the good-feeling dopamine carries us away.
(1) So we're looking forward to our next gratification. But when that occasion comes, there is no biological instinct to delay gratification. So we gobble away and the good feeling subsides only to be replaced by tomorrow's expectation.
This kind of explains why wealth makes us neurotic. We look forward to gratification, but wealth enables instant gratification, which propels us instantly on our next imagined future reward. A crazy making vicious circle! The moral of this situation: wealth is 'unnatural'. Or rather, circumstances which allow for unmitigated wealth are innately unbalanced. In the wild, wealth never accumulates - it is seasonal. Ah shucks!
[cite] Topher:[/cite]
... So if I think living in fear is important, I will maybe. And if you think not living in fear is important, you won't maybe...
Surely, is not our perception of "responsible" and "impact" relative to what we feel important? Importance, is an emotion powered by the void - 'fear', or survival instinct is you like (which is powered by the 'fear' of death, essentially.)
Now, if you believe that thought is what drives your life, and not emotion, then you will not concur with this view, of course. Certainly, thought and emotion operate in concert and feedback on one another. But, the foundation, in my view, is emotion. Emotion drives thought. If you feel angry, you are most likely to 'think' angry thoughts, for example.
A sense of importance is based in emotion. Thoughts simply express the feelings.
I suppose it comes down to the "I am therefore I think" vs. "I think therefore I am". To me, the former says it best, i.e, 'thinking' arises up out of 'am'. Being supercedes thinking, although human consciousness is very thought oriented, which I suspect makes us feel disconnected from being and from Nature, i.e., Nature doesn't 'think'.
I suppose that those who believe fervently in free will probably would choose "I think, therefore I am". Am I right? :?: :?: :?:
Next...
[cite] Lynn Cornish:[/cite]
1)... But when the rat was rewarded 50% of the time, the dopamine levels were higher than when the rat was rewarded 100% of the time.
2)... Even more interesting is that the dopamine was measured before the reward was given so it was the anticipation of the reward that signaled the release of good-feeling dopamine.
Very interesting! Point (2) illustrates why we have such a hard time being in our moment. The promise of future pleasures always carry us away... or rather the good-feeling dopamine carries us away.
(1) So we're looking forward to our next gratification. But when that occasion comes, there is no biological instinct to delay gratification. So we gobble away and the good feeling subsides only to be replaced by tomorrow's expectation.
This kind of explains why wealth makes us neurotic. We look forward to gratification, but wealth enables instant gratification, which propels us instantly on our next imagined future reward. A crazy making vicious circle! The moral of this situation: wealth is 'unnatural'. Or rather, circumstances which allow for unmitigated wealth are innately unbalanced. In the wild, wealth never accumulates - it is seasonal. Ah shucks!
Comments
Note: The Tao Te Ching can be obscure, especially if you think you're supposed to understand what it's saying! We find it easier and more instructive to simply contemplate how the chapter resonates with your personal experience. Becoming more aware at this fundamental level simplifies life. This approach conforms to the view that true knowing lies within ourselves. Thus, when a passage in the scripture resonates, you've found your inner truth. The same applies for when it evokes a question; questions are the grist for self realization.
Chapter 5
Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs;
the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.
Is not the space between heaven and earth like a bellows?
It is empty without being exhausted:
The more it works, the more comes out.
Much speech leads inevitably to silence.
Better to hold fast to the void.
My son Luke's view this morning was that everyone treats the people as straw dogs - at some point. I concur. So, just what distinguishes the sage's ruthlessness? Hypocrisy, or rather the lack of it, I'd assume. People, while playing favorites themselves, get bent out of shape when they are slighted. Ruthlessness, sage style, begins with self honesty. Thus, for me anyway, ruthless really boils down to [chref=25]modeling[/chref] Nature and showing no [chref=79]favouritism[/chref]. 'My' Taoism is a ruthless 'religious' path, in that I avoid political 'correctness' and entanglements [chref=57]by being as straightforward[/chref] as possible. That works out well when I make wise use of silence - there's my challenge!
As social animals, our lives are steeped in political 'games', beginning with those we play with our 'self' - our best friend and worst enemy. It all begins with that curious inner relationship we have with the illusion of our [chref=7]self[/chref].
The absence of ruthless self-honesty is fertile ground for double standards. There are endless examples. Here's a simple one; we eat cows but revile others who eat dogs or horses. And we each have a speech to rationalize our preferences and decry those of others. We use speech, and the thoughts that drives it, as a means to [chref=48]meddle[/chref] with the 'empire' to get our way. Well, to be fair, this is all driven by tribal instinct; we're not in control of anything. We just flail around as though we were - better to hold fast to the void.
I go round and round as I rationalize the validity of my needs. This inner speech I preach reminds me of a merry-go-round, or a galaxy, with the void being the center. My life is spinning round this central void, powered by it, like the gravitational field that keeps billions of suns spinning around a galaxy's black hole (and dark matter?). My life is simply a microcosm of this Natural process. This view helps me be more Natural, believe it or not. First, I see that my 'spinning' life is simply reflecting the Natural process. And, I see also that the only way to lessen the 'spinning' is to hold fast to the void within.
I feel more deeply each day that much speech leads inevitably to silence. And yet I keep yapping. This reminds me of the years I intended to quit smoking. Then, I did. I suppose I'm gradually headed for that inevitable silence, if I live long enough. Hey, maybe that's why there is such a small Taoist presence on the planet. At some point old Taoists 'retire' and disappear as they [chref=36]lay aside[/chref] beating around the bush.
Will that happen to us?
So, the sage treats people the same way as hurricane Katrina did, with the same ruthlessness. The sage has gone beyond our ideas of being humane or inhumane. The sage and the Tao encompass both of these opposites.
Me? I'm just a human being, and it's my nature not to like seeing people being thown away.
:?
"These straw dogs would be treated with deference and exaggerated respect prior to their ceremonial use. However, once they had served their purpose as an offering, the priests would discard them and ritually trample them into the dust."
So, that changes the meaning for me. The sage treats people with respect, but all the while she knows that people are mortal and will pass away. The sage doesn't become attached to people because each life is temporary, even her own.
Then I looked up "ruth" - compassion for the misery of another, sorrow for one's own faults. And "ruthless" - having no ruth :!: cruel, merciless.
So I was driving up the road and suddenly realized at a gut level that if one can step away and look at the big picture...I mean the cosmic universe-level picture...then the end of one's life doesn't mean much more than a leaf falling off a tree. Maybe that's why the sage is ruthless.
The word [chref=5]ruthless[/chref], like death, can leave an unpleasant taste - naturally so due to some primal instincts, I suspect. We fear ruthlessness and value its opposite, [chref=67]compassion[/chref]. However, in Taoism, these are not opposite - as you might expect...
* Simply (and ruthlessly) put, compassion, in the ordinary sense of the word, is rooted in a projection of 'self', and '[chref=7]self[/chref]' interest. For example, could one feel compassion for the victims of a hurricane if one did not see oneself into that situation?
* Ruthlessness is essential to 'right action, right understanding,... etc.' Only when 'self' interest is ruthlessly extinguished (see Buddha's Third Noble Truth) - or at least recognized and examined - can a balanced approach to life be realized, i.e., we are all biologically biased toward self (and our tribe's) interest. (well, duh...)
* Self honesty requires a ruthless observation of my ulterior motives and biases (needs and fears).
* To let go and turn back to my original nature requires a ruthless acceptance of what 'is'. I must ruthlessly drop what I 'desire' to appreciate what I have. A particularly difficult part of this is ruthlessly confronting and adapting to what I fear.
* As I empathize more with the 'plight' of all earth's [chref=16]myriad creatures[/chref], I become more detached in much the same way as I imagine a doctor must when faced with an epidemic, or a general sending troops off to battle and possible death. Ruthless dispassion is essential to remain sane.
* Letting go of the temporal in exchange for the eternal requires ruthless awareness.
* Correlations shine light on the Taoist sense of ruthless: ruthless correlates to death, empty, silence, failure, non-self. Compassion (or ruth ) is the 'opposite' of ruthless, which explains why ruthless leaves a bad taste. Feelings of compassion, however, like pity and mercy, are rooted in empathy and the projection of 'self'. The 'Golden Rule' in effect. This works well as long as compassion is limited to local time and space - not to mention what engenders 'warm and fuzzy' feelings in us. For compassion to extend beyond one's personal likes and dislikes, needs and fears, requires [chref=65]conforming[/chref] to the whole (i.e., good, bad, success, failure, life, death...). Only through ruthless detachment from personal preferences can the deepest and broadest compassion be experienced. Without that ruthless letting go, compassion becomes [chref=79]favouritism[/chref].
Thus, while compassion and ruthless seem opposite on the surface, there is a deep complementary relationship between them. Welcome to the Taoist world of [chref=56]mysterious sameness[/chref].
Compassionate?
An ideal which culture values highly. The 'love thy neighbor' of Christ. The Bodhisatva of Buddhism. But what is compassion really about?
First, the virtue of compassion is a prized ideal for it promises to help cement the multitude of people which co-exists in civilization. Such virtues are hallmarks of civilization, in which we pride ourselves. However, viewed as a symptom, i.e.,[chref=38]when the way was lost there was virtue[/chref], tells a different story. In truth, keeping to virtue can't return us to the way any more than taking revenge can extinguishes the hate which caused it. We are so intent upon looking toward the future that we fail to [chref=40]turn back[/chref] and see how we got to where we are. Heck, we have great difficulty even turning back from 'tomorrow' to 'now'.
Second, deep down, however, our quest for compassion is symptomatic of a fundamental sense of disconnection from Nature - probably caused by thought. Specifically thought empowers our imagination of a past, present and future, and the illusion of a separate 'self'. Existing perceptually in our imagination disconnects us from 'being'. Compassion is just one of those imaginary ideals which promises connection. In fact, it is the sense of connection which evokes feelings of compassion (as well as sense of [chref=37]peace[/chref], [chref=1]mystery[/chref], [chref=72]awe[/chref], a [chref=28]return to the infinite[/chref],...).
As we become more divorced from nature, as we want to conquer her even more each passing year, we drive ourselves into creating or joining a religion that divorces ourselve even more from nature. The result is a death loop of negativeity and sadness for us straw dogs. :arrow: :yy:
The other day I was studying this chapter in a "verbatim" translation of the TTC, which arranges every character in the Tao into a table along with their suggested definitions and cross-references to everywhere else that symbol appears in the Tao, and notes where a particular symbol differs in the various manuscripts. Very handy for creating one's own personal interpretation.
Anyway, I noticed that the symbol yi can mean either "thus" or "because". To me, this suggests a slightly different rendering of the straw dogs passage:
The universe is dispassionate
thus everyone is a straw dog
The sage is dispassionate
because everyone is a straw dog
I feel that this perhaps captures the intended meaning a little bit better. The wise don't get too attached to that straw dog wrapped in embroidered velvet today, even if (especially if) it's themselves, because tomorrow it goes out into the street with the rest of the trash. And conversely, they don't despair for the straw dogs laying trampled and broken in the gutter, because perhaps tomorrow those will return to the golden altar to begin the cycle anew.
That's just how things work. All the straw-dog-barking in the world will only leave one drained and will not make the universe take even the slightest notice. Might as well remain "empty", i.e. dispassionate, about the whole thing.
Welcome Trojo, Good points. I'm glad to have you stirring our Taoist pot here a bit!
1) I'd like to know more about that niffy little 'gadget' that give a 'verbatim' translation and cross references. Is that by chance at:
http://zhongwen.com/dao.htm
2) The terse and flexibile nature of the Chinese language is a marvelous quality. Compared to English, much more is left unspoken, and it is up to the reader to find within himself. I certainly concur with your alternate interpretation. And it agrees in spirit with the other. What the reader brings to table is significant in general, but profoundly so when getting to the heart of the Taoist view. After all...
[chref=1]The way that can be spoken of, Is not the constant way; [/chref]
[chref=56]One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know. [/chref]
So, it is not so much a matter of what "... captures the intended meaning...", as what each of us brings to that 'table of knowing'. In my view, we tend to put far too much credence in objective realities and true meaning, when in fact no such thing exists.
In my experience, the subjective is the only 'reality'. What we see as an external objective reality is simply a reflection of our subjective experience / nature. As our subjective nature matures through our lifetime, our views change to reflect that. A reality that changes according to the observer is not much of a 'reality', in the way we wish it was, e.g., Bibles, Constitutions, Science, and dogmas in general....
I think the 'Taoist disclaimers' quoted above convey the simple truth that 'knowing' comes from within. All our words - thought, spoken and/or written - serve a social function primarily. Of course, this is not a very popular view. We all want to think that we make a 'difference', or at least that something can make a 'difference'! That there is something solid upon which to stand. We just hate the void... it is so wishy washy.
Well, pardon me for pontificating. It is just something I do rather well. It is ironic that I 'choose' Taoism to pontificate on... :oops:
Yes, I agree with this. The thing I like most about studying the Tao "verbatim" is that it strips away the confusing (to me) explanatory circumlocutions that so many of the English-language translations have. I personally find the Tao Te Ching to be simpler and more accessible by painstakingly going through it one symbol at a time, spending time thinking about and taking notes about each symbol, and finally trying to pull it all together in a personal interpretation. I imagine that the verbatim chart is no substitute for actually speaking Ancient Chinese but perhaps it's the next best thing.
I like your category, "supertribe" :!: Ironically, I suppose that many would interpret "super" as praiseworthy of modern civilization. The more, the merrier. On the other hand there are those who see that [chref=80]reducing the size and population of the state[/chref] is the only sane direction toward which to move. For such folks, "supertribe" is not so flattering.
I think trojo has a sound approach to exploring the Tao Te Ching. Taking it gradually, step by step, as he is, allows more opportunity to 'touch' the void. Interpretation should thus be more in accord with the original Taoist view.
On the other hand, does the Tao Te Ching reflect the 'original' authentic Taoist view? I think it is like Dial Soap, 99+% pure... I do notice what I interpret as a few possibly 'corrupted' parts of the Tao Te Ching, where at some point along the line of time humanistic biases crept in. Of course, I'm a heretic by nature. :roll:
So where does 'truth' lie? [chref=1]The way that can be spoken of, Is not the constant way...[/chref] That is just so neat! Hallelujah!