[ Post a Response | Tao Speaks ]
Posted by Butch on 8/7/2008, 9:40 am, in reply to "Re: Confused is a good place to visit but I would not want to live there."
75.88.42.X
--Previous Message--
: What I am pointing to is beyond right or
: wrong, beyond dualistic conception. I
: recommend the same way of bringing oneself
: into accord with the Way of the eternal Tao
: as does Lao Tzu and Dogen. Through the
: negation of negation until one realizes the
: great affirmation. Or back, if you prefer,
: to nondualistic awareness.
:
: --------------------
:
: Your reading of the Laozi is as valid--or
: invalid--as mine, Butch, but I don't find
: 'negation' or an imperative to return to
: nondualistic awareness there. The 81
: chapters are all about affirmation, not
: negation. About seeing what's there, not
: about what's hidden from view.
:
: I don't see in the writings a fundamental
: need to escape from, or return to, anything.
: It's a done deal. The war has been won.
:
: You're so heavily invested in meditating and
: cultivating, Butch, that you've found it
: necessary to create and maintain a
: problematic universe in order to support
: your desires and longings in that regard.
:
: (Cultivation trap #6, if you're interested.)
:
:
:
Steve,
The negation of the negation that leads to the Great Affirmation. Two minuses make a positive.
Negative measures positive measures negative. Neither pole of a polarity stands alone. Each pole is a part of an underlying unity. A part of that which has no parts.
Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching makes the OldBoy's perspective clear.
The Way that becomes a way is not the Immortal Way.
The Way cannot be directly stated. Cannot be limited to words that are polarized--this or that. The Way must be experienced by oneself to be known. One can read about it all day long and not know for oneself what is being talked about.
... two different names for one and the same. The one we call dark. The dark beyond dark. The door to all beginnings.
Light and Dark are but two different names for one and the same. The OldBoy recommends that we take the Dark way, the feminine way, the inside way. The meditative way. The way where light and dark, this and that, are negated for they are seen as one and the same. But the OldBoy does not stop there, at the negation of duality. No, the OldBoy goes on. On to even the negation of negation. To the Great Affirmation. To the door to all beginnings, to beginningless endlessness.
By not relying on outside things, opinions, religion, science, and such, the adept relys on him or herself. The adept turns inward and finds the door that opens to the great beyond. It is a virtuous way. A wise way. A powerful way. The only way for it is the way that was given to each of us by existence. A way that cannot be given to us by any outside agency. A way that cannot be taken from us. It can only be given up. I choose not to give up.
Because everything is known does not mean everything is determined.
Butch
| 73 |
"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Webmaster: zentao00@yahoo.com Donations help to support, upgrade and expand the Tao Speaks! community..
