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Posted by rat on 2/17/2011, 8:33 am, in reply to "Re: love, rong, all-embracing, fond of chocolate"
108.28.65.x
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: --Previous Message--
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: Good point joseph, as I discuss it with Jan
: I will offer my definition of love. I will
: translate the Chinese word "rong"
: as "all embracing." And I will
: further define it as "fond of" as
: in "I am fond of chocolate."
: Being fond of chocolate and other things
: does not mean I will lay my life down to
: defend them.
:
: love,
: rat
:
: Hi, rat,
:
: Love as "rong", all-embracing,
: sounds suspiciously like Universal Love,
: which ZZ tells that Lao Tzu, dismissing
: Confucius's lofty rhetoric, soundly debunked
: as "impractical", saying, instead
: "merely liberate your integrity as you
: go along, sir, and you'll get where you're
: going".
:
: I sense what it seems you're alluding to,
: though, an undifferentiated openness and
: acceptance. The word "love" has
: been so overworked, a shot-put of uses
: covering the broad spectrum from the sublime
: to the ridiculous.
:
: The mundane uses, as a man saying he loves
: his wife, his car, new TV and favorite
: sports team, we get. We understand something
: of it. It somehow represents a warm-fuzzy
: variety of feelings. Though each
: "love" is really an umbrella term
: for other feelings; his love for his wife a
: composite of some elements like fondness,
: respect, admiration, attachment, desire,
: dependency, a complex feeling-bundle under
: the Valentine-heart-shape decorated umbrella
: called "love". Your fondness/love
: of chocolate, (which I share) is different
: (we hope), it represents the pleasure you
: get from devouring it. :-)
:
: What I don't get is when the word is used
: without question in deeply thoughtful
: inquiries in philosophy, mysticism,
: religion. Something's being assumed, but I
: don't know what. No one seems to be able to
: adequately say what. For me, it's like
: spotting a false premise and knowing to
: continue is useless, as further reasoning
: based on a false premise is flawed
: reasoning.
:
: "God IS love", Christians say, but
: squirm a bit when pressed if God-Who-Is-Love
: shines that lovet as well on Muslims, pygmy
: head-hunters, Jews, gays, serial killers..or
: maybe even those Lutherans down the street.
: :-)
:
: When digging deeply for understanding in the
: more sublime and mysterious realities, to me
: love is too much a careless, lazy, throwaway
: word like "nice", useful but vague
: and essentially meaningless, words then best
: serve when chosen for precision, with as
: exquisite clarity as we can muster, if
: communication about such subtleties can be
: achieved.
:
: The closest thing I've heard that resonated
: true of love to me in the highest sense is
: St. Augustine's "Love and do what you
: will." It alludes to the highest
: morality; acting from a pure and caring
: heart one will choose to do no ill or harm.
: But that slides into solidly and solely (I
: think, not sure) into daoren perspective
: where morality is simply sugjective. Where
: in daoguan perspective can love be found?
: What is rong, all embracing, what is
: universal love in daoguan perspective, in
: mysticism? What is it's reality? Is there an
: essence to be found?
:
: Over 50 years of going round about this with
: friends, people of other faiths, etc.,
: peeling away layers and layers of
: reifications attached to the word
: "love", looking for its reality,
: its essence, I've found...nothing. No
: essence,only connotations.
:
: Non-reified,love = ?
:
: Offering this not as argument. It's a
: subject that's engaged me for a lifetime.The
: word is everywhere, & only troubling
: (for me) in discussions such as this.
: Something assumed...yes, love..., unhunh. Am
: I the only one who doesn't buy or understand
: the assumptions? How can we talk about
: something if we don't know what we're
: talking about?
:
: Integrity in discussions about love always
: leads to this for me. So, poor you, I've
: drug it in and perhaps muddied, or at least
: waylayed, your discussion. Worth discussing,
: or dismissing, your choice. It's worth
: examining assumptions in any case, so that's
: what I do. Have become happily, ruthlessly,
: sincere in discarding my own sloppy thinking
: when I find it. Don't mean to inflict it on
: others, just offer it for consideration.
:
: namaste,
: josef
:
:
Hi josef
Very well said. I guess you and I might (and might not) be able to have a useful dialogue. The reason I say "might not" is that I reduce love (rightly or wrongly) to express "what I am fond of."
No essential difference for me between fondness for my family, and fondness for chocolate. Like Laozi, I make no fundamental distinctions/discriminations (Chinese is "yi")
That said, I may be fonder of two chocolate candies more than I am of one. I may be fonder of my sister than I am of chocolate. But to me, this is only practical difference, not a fundamental difference. I don't privilege what I feel toward my family as a "higher" form of fondness or love.
love,
rat
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"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
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