‘Profound Sameness’: The Holy Grail of Taoist Perception?

Carl

Not being afraid to fail has and is still a big learning curve for me, but it is paying off extremely well. I was playing guitar last night, just improvising over some music, and I just decided to try to hit whatever notes came to me, not focusing on where it would go, or how to phrase it, and just played fearlessly, not worried about whether I would hit a "wrong" not. I played better than I ever had, it was great fun!

Carl

Perceived threats (fears) and needs drive our thoughts and actions. Action follows perception. Thus, the more ‘evenly’ we see our circumstances, the more ‘evenly’ our reaction to them. Perception boils down to two primary points of view: difference or similarity. I suspect we evolved with a heightened ability to perceive differences over similarities (although, Andy is forever disputing that). For example, a snake and a stick can appear very similar, though they are very different in how they effect us. To distinguish the difference is crucial for survival. It’s my view that our innate bias to favor difference perception combined with a thinking mind often works against us. Thus, we have the helpful Taoist idea of ‘profound [chref=56]sameness[/chref]’. I’ve actually found this view expressed in various ways by many religions. The Tao Te Ching addresses it the most directly, not only in chapter 56, but also supports the idea of this ‘Oneness’ in various ways throughout. Personally, I’ve found it deeply helpful to look for similarities and attribute them to ‘truth’ . Likewise, I discount the differences I notice by attributing them to being more illusionary and relative.

Note ‘Profound sameness’ and [chref=56]mysterious sameness[/chref] are the same. The literal Chinese is…
Xuan (玄): black; dark; profound
Tong (同): same; alike; similar; be the same as