| Re: The twinkle in a child's eyes.
Posted by Butch on 11/6/2007, 11:06 am, in reply to "Re: The twinkle in a child's eyes."
75.88.40.X
--Previous Message--
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: Worth noting, I think, that all of those 'not divine' things are learned
: behaviors. Gassing people and blowing oneself up in a bus are not
: instinctual behaviors.
:
: "In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
: In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped."
:
: Tao Te Ching (Feng/English trans.)
:
:
:
: Steven,
:
: imo, this is the conditioning I have spoken to in other threads. It seems
: to me that much of the "World's" learning isn't really learning
: at all. That is, it isn't learning to think for oneself, but learning what
: to think. This is the unlearning I think the OldBoy was referring to.
: Unlearning what we have learned from others--family, society, and so on, by
: learning for ourselves. Direct experience isn't the best teacher, it is the
: only teacher. As we drop our conditioning the barriers that have been put
: in place between ourselves and the rest of existence begin to drop. Though
: each of us are unique, we are not separate. What Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh
: calls "Interbeing".
:
: Butch
:
: -----------------------------
:
: Agreed. But trusting instinct is not always easy. Obstacles appear, some
: erected by others, some we erect ourselves.
:
: Other critters on the planet don't seem to have this problem. No
: second-guessing there. They do what they sense they need to do in order to
: be content. Instinctually.
:
: Maybe the lake was not as calm and placid as it looked, and was full of
: alligators. But who would say the antelope showed 'bad judgment' drinking
: there?
:
: I don't think outcome necessarily reflects whether one is acting
: harmoniously with the dao. What do you think?
:
:
:
Steven,
With our wittle human brains I just don't think we will ever have all the information we might need to control our destiny. What to do? Go with the flow. I think there is something at work here that is bigger than we can imagine. Some might call it God, other the Tao, others an impersonal force--evolution devoid of any intelligent design, but most agree there is something in the way she moves me. A something that is a no thing that we are a part of though it has no separate parts. I AM THAT I AM.
More directly to your question. I think all outcomes are relative. Like the story of the farmer his son and his horse. I think what it boils down to is our personal ontology. Our personal world view. Our functioning definition of reality. As world views go the East is the yin to the yang of the West, imo. Neither is complete, whole, without the other. Here in the West we tend to base our world view on something, in the East on nothing. Seemingly never the twain shall meet. I disagree.
I think Dogen was one of the first to cross the divide between East and West with complex thinking. Emptiness is not the Emptiness unless it is full of emptiness. Nothing (no-thing) is either absolutely empty nor absolutely full. Including our concepts. The tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao. No pole of a polarity stands alone. So it is not enough to say Dogen's ontology was based upon Emptiness without qualifying one's terms. Dogen's reality was empty of relative terms and yet full at the same time. He had negated negation. What Abe calls the "Great Affirmation". What Joyce realized and simply said "Yes" to.
Ours is a never ending story. It is not an Elizabethan novel. Been there done that. It is a story that each time we read it new vistas open up. "Enlightenment unfolds". Dogen.
So, no, I don't think one can judge or discern whether one is living according to the Tao by relative results. I don't think the heart of Taoism is about ends justifying means. Do our actions have consequences, yes. Is reality a continuum, yes. Do our actions matter, yes. But not so much by future results as by immediate awareness of the everpresent moment. Our actions are an expression of our inner reality. Past and future are two ends of the string of eternity. Both have their place. But we live in neither. Except in our heads. To my mind Taoism is about being present and accounted for. It is a grand adventure. Again, a never ending story. I have no beginning, and I have no end. I AM THE TAO. And so are you. And josef. And gar. And rene. And rat. And yosemite sam. And Wayne. And Nina. And kerri/calliope. And the rest. And Bao Pu's leaves and wulf's mountains. And dogs and cats. There are no lines of demarcation in Nature, rather, there are merely areas of confluence where one seemingly separate thing gives way to another seemingly separate thing. The Dream of the conditioned mind. The symbollic mind. And so I shift my world view as new information comes to me. As I awaken to reality as it is and not as I think it is. I am multiperspective man. Able to leap tall buildings... just kidding. Sometimes I get a little carried away. Ok, sometimes alot.
Butch
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