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Posted by Butcho
on 6/26/2009, 9:17 am, in reply to "The old men and the Dandelion"
216.96.14.x
--Previous Message--
: Greetings all,
:
: The old men were sitting on the creek bank,
: fishing, when the old boy spoke up.
:
: I bet you guys a nickel that as Taoist we
: can agree that; " While all other
: things move spontaneously on the course
: proper to them, man has stunted and maimed
: his spontaneous aptitude by the habit of
: distinguishing alternatives, the right and
: wrong, benefit and harm, self and others ,
: reasoning in order to judge between them. To
: recover and educate his knack he must learn
: to reflect his situation with the unclouded
: clarity of a mirror, and respond to it with
: the immediacy of an echo to a sound or
: shadow to a shape."
:
: Chuang-tzu, who was fishing without bait on
: his hook, said, " The fundamental error
: is to suppose that life presents us with
: issues which must be formulated in words so
: that we can envisage alternatives and find
: reasons for preferring one to the
: other." Apparently nobody had shown
: Chuang-tzu how to fish and he was unwilling
: to read the book, fishing for dummies,
: written by those logical Greek geeks.
:
: A long long time had passed when a dandelion
: sprang up from where the old men had fished.
: As a bee sat on the yellow pedals it said to
: the dandelion, why are you so plentiful and
: so giving.
:
: I am only what has gone before, not this or
: that, but because I'm what you see, I am
: what you desire.
:
: Quotes from the book, CHUANG-TZU the inner
: chapters A classic of Tao
: Translated by AC Graham
:
: in peace,
: gar
:
:
gar,
It is common for two or more of good will to use extremes when speaking to extremes. In that way it is hoped that a compromise, an underlying unity, can be realized. Otherwise it is just one extreme after another. Tit for tat.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the Intellect. The problem is when it is the lead character in the play of life. No lead character exists.
Those that characterize the Chuang Tzu as a purely subjective argument have lost sight of the forest for the trees. Pure relativity needs to be balanced by a holistic vision if it is to be in accord with the Tao. It takes two to Tango. The intellect as well as one's intuition.
Genuine truth cannot be communicated through words. But some words manage to speak to us where others don't. Different words for different folks.
From Nina's translation of the Chuang Tzu:
"Zhuangzi and Hui Zi were strolling on a bridge spanning the Hao River when they stopped for a moment.
Zhuangzi said: "The fish come up and swim so leisurely. That's how fish enjoy themselves."
Hui Ze said: "You're not a fish. How do you know how fish enjoy themselves?"
Zhuangzi said: "You're not me. How do you know that I don't know how fish enjoy themselves?"
Hui Zi said: "I'm not you so I certainly do not know what you do. You're certainly not a fish, so you can't possibly know what a fish enjoys."
Zhuangzi said: "Please think back to the beginning of this conversation. You asked me how I knew the fish were enjoying themselves. You're the one who asked the question. You already knew I knew that, but you asked me anyway. I knew that when we stopped here."
Let me try putting it another way.
Two friends were wandering along and came to the center of a bridge between self and other. Looking at the river beneath their feet one watched and the other noted some fish swimming above their own below.
One said: "Fish like to swim in a carefree manner."
The other said: "How is it that you know what something other than yourself likes or dislikes?"
One said: "Do you think you are me? Otherwise how would you think you know what I know or don't know."
The other said: "I am not you. Nor are you the fish. How can we know anything about each other?"
One said: "Logic is a circular path. Just when one thinks one is getting somewhere with existential concerns one must begin again. A castle built upon sand. So let us short-circuit the circuit of the intellect with a leap of the intuition. I can only really know anything about anything when I watch with my heart. When I stop thinking about feeling. My happiness feels your happiness. My pain feels your pain. And so I know what makes fish happy. It is the intellect that divides what is by nature whole and the heart that unites. From the first totality is a unitive one. I can feel It in my heart."
It is the heart that bridges one aspect of the whole with another.
Butcho
829
"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
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