Existential Questions (was Re: Kudos for the New Scientist magazine.)

[Tang Huyen]

On 9/7/2016 11:12 AM, Ned Ludd wrote:

> I think this is definitely playing with mud, but there are,
> in Buddhist scripture, supposedly 14 unanswerable
> questions that the Buddha identified. (Which, imo, are
> really only four questions.) They are:
>
> ---
> Fourteen unanswerable questions (10 in Pali)
>
> Is the world eternal?
> or not?
> or both?
> or neither?
> Pali texts omit "both" and "neither".
>
> Is the world finite?
> or not?
> or both?
> or neither?
> Pali texts omit "both" and "neither".
>
> Is the self identical with the body?
> or is it different from the body?
>
> Does the Tathagata exist after death?
> or not?
> or both?
> or neither?
> ---
>
> Leaving aside the permutations of assertion and denial,
> I think this boils down to four questions:
>
> Is the world eternal?
> Is the world finite?
> Is the self the same as the body?
> Does a Buddha exist after death?
>
> Not that it's important, but I'd go with no, yes, yes, no;
> but what the hell do I know?

"Thus seeing it as it is with correct wisdom, the
views about the prior limit do not become, the
views about the prior limit not being, the views
about the posterior limit do not become, the
views about the posterior limit not being,
obstinate misconstruing does not become,
obstinate misconstruing not being, his mind
turns away from form, feeling, notion, volitional
compositions, consciousness, and is liberated
from the cankers by not grasping." SN, III, 45-46
(22, 46).

"The saintly disciple who well cognises this
dependent arising and these dependently
arisen things as they are by correct wisdom,
does not pursue the prior limit saying, 'What
was I in the past? Or, did I not exist in the past?
Who was I in the past? How was I in the past?'
He does not pursue the posterior limit saying,
'What shall I be in the future? Or, shall I not
exist in the future? Who shall I be in the future?
How shall I be in the future?' He will not doubt
internally, 'What is this? How is this? Who are
we? Who shall we be? From where does this
being come? Where will it go after dying from
here?' Whatever common worldly views which
recluses and brahmans attach to, to wit, views
(drsti-gatani) tied to theory of self (atma-vada),
views tied to theory of being (sattva-vada),
views tied to theory of living being (jiva-vada),
views tied to theory of rites and rituals to bring
good luck (kotuhala-mangala-vada) — all these
views are at this time cut, understood, cut
down at the root, made like the stump of a
palm tree, made something which has ceased
to be, never to grow again in the future." SA,
296, 84b-c, Nidana-samyukta, 150-152, MN, I,
264-265 (38).

These views about the prior limit (the past),
the posterior limit (the future), and all other
existential questions are mere playing with
mud, are done away with at awakening, and
are no longer entertained. In Daoism the
issue is phrased differently, but it comes
down to the same abandon of all views and
opinions, leaving only peace and tranquillity,
grace.

Praise be!

Tang Huyen

[{:-])))]

> Ned appears to have distilled such that:

>
>> this boils down to four questions:
>>
>> Is the world eternal?
>> Is the world finite?
>> Is the self the same as the body?
>> Does a Buddha exist after death?
>>
>> Not that it's important, but I'd go with no, yes, yes, no;
>> but what the hell do I know?

I'd go with, semantics.

[noname]

Interesting thought, why do you think it is true? Careful how you answer
this one, it might contain a ninja-star, like how the supposedly-awakened
can speak of such things without thinking of them.

> In Daoism the
> issue is phrased differently, but it comes
> down to the same abandon of all views and
> opinions, leaving only peace and tranquillity,
> grace.
>
> Praise be!
>
> Tang Huyen
>

Views remain, opinions remain, obligations remain; but although they
remain, they are forgotten in the midst of what is now and what is next,
arising only as the moment of action arrives.

When I set an alarm to ring at the time of my next obligation, my wife
calls it planning, but I call it becoming free by merit of having fully
performed due-diligence; if the alarm doesn't ring, oh well, these random
flukes happen, it's how the modern world is. And until it does ring, oh
well, there's nothing on, shall we do what's next?

>> Is the world eternal?

Eternal enough.

>> Is the world finite?

Until it changes next, it is finite though uncountably large; at the point
of change, when what was and what is swap spit, one of a
theoretically-countably-infinite number of universes, the one it all
changes to, becomes finite once more.

>> Is the self the same as the body?

Only in the perfect being; the rest of the time the body is a footprint
left by the individual.

>> Does a Buddha exist after death?

Who cares, you planning to die if everything looks like upside? Darwin
Award. <g>

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[{:-])))]

noname wrote:
> Tang figured to figure:

>>
>> In Daoism the
>> issue is phrased differently, but it comes
>> down to the same abandon of all views and
>> opinions, leaving only peace and tranquillity,
>> grace.
>

>Views remain, opinions remain, obligations remain; but although they
>remain, they are forgotten in the midst of what is now and what is next,
>arising only as the moment of action arrives.

Cook Ting takes his time as he dances his Way.
As he cares for Tao more than all else, his Tao is.

Ting does not abandon his Tao as he dances his dance.
Not does he take his eyes off the ox he's carving.
At first he saw an ox. Then, his going shifted.

http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/chuang-tzu.htm

Something about his spirit was involved as things evolved.

" 'What your servant loves is the method of the Tâo, ... ' "

>When I set an alarm to ring at the time of my next obligation, my wife
>calls it planning, but I call it becoming free by merit of having fully
>performed due-diligence; if the alarm doesn't ring, oh well, these random
>flukes happen, it's how the modern world is. And until it does ring, oh
>well, there's nothing on, shall we do what's next?

Sleep-on. Alarm, on. Forgetting occurs.

>>> Is the world eternal?
>
>Eternal enough.

What the word, world, means,
will frame the context, be it physical or metaphysical.

>>> Is the world finite?
>
>Until it changes next, it is finite though uncountably large; at the point
>of change, when what was and what is swap spit, one of a
>theoretically-countably-infinite number of universes, the one it all
>changes to, becomes finite once more.

In worlds of change, change is constant.
The worlds are within change.

Those who have spare change
have worlds to spare.

At times, they may mind.
Beyond time, they, prehaps, never-mind.

>>> Is the self the same as the body?
>
>Only in the perfect being; the rest of the time the body is a footprint
>left by the individual.

If there is no self, then it can't be the body.

Semantics rule the antics of the daze.

>>> Does a Buddha exist after death?
>
>Who cares, you planning to die if everything looks like upside?
>Darwin Award. <g>

Buddha appears to be a word.
What the word, Buddha, means, varies.

[Ummmmmmm]

So why, dear Tang, do you spend so much time playing with mud?
Latin mud, Chinese mud, German mud, French mud, Japanese mud.
What's the point? Is your mud muddier than our mud? Don't we spread ours
around thickly enough?

are done away with at awakening, and
> are no longer entertained. In Daoism the
> issue is phrased differently, but it comes
> down to the same abandon of all views and
> opinions, leaving only peace and tranquillity,
> grace.

So how would it be if you abandoned the view that 'enlightenment will
result if you abandon all views'?

Which isn't possible, of course. Our minds insist on us having a view or
opinion about *everything* we encounter.

Maybe that's the whole point. If we relegate 'awakening' to the realm of
'can't possibly happen' - then we set ourselves free to speculate about
it to our heart's content. And free to simulate that condition in any
way that takes our fancy.

For you, that simulation seems to take the form of serene
imperturbality. An absence.

If this were the case, a catatonic would be ultimately enlightened, and
a sufferer from advanced Alzheimer's would pass as a zen master.

I suggest, respectfully, another possibility - that 'awakening' might be
what the word implies. A presence. In fact a super-presence. A presence
in the present. Not an absence in the stuffy old world of ancient
mis-translated concepts, but a living presence. Here. Now.

As someone on this forum very wisely said a while back, the present
moment is a gift, that's why it's called 'the present'.

Why should we worry about a package Marcus Aurelius forgot to unwrap
2000 years ago? It has turned to mud.

>
> Praise be!
>
> Tang Huyen

[Tang Huyen]

On 9/9/2016 4:58 PM, Ummmmmmm wrote:

> So how would it be if you abandoned the view that 'enlightenment will
> result if you abandon all views'?
>
> Which isn't possible, of course. Our minds insist on us having a view or
> opinion about *everything* we encounter.

Ummie dear, How could you possibly know that
it is impossible to abandon all views? How could
you possibly know that "Our minds insist on us

having a view or opinion about *everything* we

encounter"? Have you perchance read all minds,
past, present and future, anywhere on earth,
including minds of dead people and unborn
people?

I freely admit that I have been nowhere near
abandoning all views, meaning intellective views.
But I read that some sages say so, ostensibly
from their own experience. So to me it is mere
hearsay. And I freely admit that I do not live up
to norms and standards that I proclaim. I refrain
from abusively universalising my views to all
humans, though I trust those sages who
declaim their (presumed) experience, namely
that they can and do abandon all views. It is to
me a noble ideal that I may or may not attain in
this life. And if I cannot attain it, I can yet relax
and be serene, about it and everything else, at
least to some extent and once in a while, even
as I know that I often fail.

You can enjoy certainty all you want. I am sadly
not equipped for that.

Tang Huyen

[liaM]

Buddhist enlightenment must mean enlightenment with regards to
as many views as one is capable of while not
holding fast to any one view in particular. Why is it said
that a Buddha can remember all past lives he has lived ? And
is it anywhere said that he preferred one over another of his past lives ?

People holding on to opinions, wishes and prescriptions - saying
this is so and cannot be otherwise, are soon left behind as
life passes them by. Peace and quietude are fine as goals of
spiritual development, but what are they without
the knowledge of what not having peace and quietude signifies?
Thus imo the sage is one who has lived many lives, seen much,
done much, loved much - died a thousand deaths, much :)
He is the holder of many views on life, in full awareness
of what each has cost him, thus has he earned his equanimity
with regards to all views.

[Ummmmmmm]

On 10/09/2016 3:14 PM, Tang Huyen wrote:
> On 9/9/2016 4:58 PM, Ummmmmmm wrote:
>
>> So how would it be if you abandoned the view that 'enlightenment will
>> result if you abandon all views'?
>>
>> Which isn't possible, of course. Our minds insist on us having a view or
>> opinion about *everything* we encounter.
>
> Ummie dear, How could you possibly know that
> it is impossible to abandon all views? How could
> you possibly know that "Our minds insist on us
> having a view or opinion about *everything* we
> encounter"? Have you perchance read all minds,
> past, present and future, anywhere on earth,
> including minds of dead people and unborn
> people?

Yes. If one knows one's own mind, one knows that all human minds are the
same.It isn't necessary to 'read' them all.
If one knows that water quenches thirst, one can quite legitimately
'universalize' that knowledge. One doesn't have to check out every
creek, bottle, lake, river, faucet on the planet. And if one meets
someone who is thirsty, one can offer them water, secure in the
knowledge that, if they're human, water will be what they need.

>
> I freely admit that I have been nowhere near
> abandoning all views, meaning intellective views.
> But I read that some sages say so, ostensibly
> from their own experience. So to me it is mere
> hearsay. And I freely admit that I do not live up
> to norms and standards that I proclaim. I refrain
> from abusively universalising my views to all
> humans, though I trust those sages who
> declaim their (presumed) experience, namely
> that they can and do abandon all views.

Nobody is abusing you.
To point out what seem to be inconsistencies in someone's viewpoint
isn't abuse - it's rational discussion. The sort of thing one used to
get in newsgroups.

You seem to have difficulty accepting the fact that there can be
something which is true for all humans. We're born with it. Babies have
it. Old folk still have it. And it has nothing whatever to do with
'views & opinions'. Whether you embrace them, or reject them, or try to
get rid of them, or accumulate more of them (mental culture) - it's all
simply irrelevant. We all come equipped with 'enlightenment', or
'satori' or 'samadhi' or whatever you like to call it.

It has nothing to do with 'norms & standards' either. These are social
constructs, learnt behaviours. They are irrelevant to who we really are,
although they have a lot to do with our egos, the image of ourselves we
like to project to others. Whether you proclaim them, or not, live up to
them, or not - simply doesn't matter. You can still tune in to the
presence in the present moment. That's where the fun is.

It is to
> me a noble ideal that I may or may not attain in
> this life. And if I cannot attain it, I can yet relax
> and be serene, about it and everything else, at
> least to some extent and once in a while, even
> as I know that I often fail.
>
> You can enjoy certainty all you want. I am sadly
> not equipped for that.

Permit me to doubt that. You seem to be certain enough in your trust in
those sages who say one should abandon all views.

I may be misreading you - but it seems to me that you are rather
unserenely and unrelaxedly clinging to the view that all views must be
abandoned.
Could it be that you have been in the past a little too scholarly?
Perhaps accumulated a few too many opinions for your own comfort?
Perhaps a little irritated by the suggestion that 'mental culture' might
be a blind alley? That someone who can't read Latin or French - or in
fact may not be able to read at all, may be as close to their own inner
clarity and wisdom as you are?

Are you not extremely certain that the views you hold to be correct, in
fact are so?
So where does that certainty spring from?

>
> Tang Huyen

[Ummmmmmm]

Agreed.

> Thus imo the sage is one who has lived many lives, seen much,
> done much, loved much - died a thousand deaths, much :)
> He is the holder of many views on life, in full awareness
> of what each has cost him, thus has he earned his equanimity
> with regards to all views.

To hold an opinion, or a definition, of what a sage might be, is perhaps
a good thing. It may or may not be right - you won't know for sure until
you are sage yourself.

No-one knows for sure whether we have lived past lives, or whether we'll
live again later. That too is a matter of opinion.
But what we do know for sure is that we're alive now. A wise person acts
as if this is the only life he'll ever have.

If enlightenment is possible in any one of a thousand lifetimes, then it
must be possible in this one.

There is only one 'view of life' that really matters - the true one, the
one that's in sync with our essential human nature. The one that makes
it possible for anyone to be a sage, if they really want to be.
Wisdom and clarity aren't slow, patient, accumulations - they're as
simple as finding the light switch in a dark room & turning it on.
There's no point sitting in the gloom, through a string of imagined
lifetimes, wondering what colour the light might be, or how bright, or
what it might feel like to be able to see clearly.
Just find the switch :-)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[noname]

It isn't necessary to abandon everything, but clinging to anything is a
"known" preventive, it'll keep you asleep for as long as you snore.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

No comment from me regarding past-lives, other than that I don't know
whether I've lived before; but if I had lived before, it seems like this
life would have been less difficult, had I recalled *something*, anything,
from a past-life. I can only conclude that either past-lives are memories
of dreams, or this is my first time in the barrel. I also conclude that it
probably doesn't matter, since this is the life we're in the middle of, not
the circumstances of some possibly-remembered past-life; we brought with us
what we are, which damn-well better be enough, because it's all we have.

>
> People holding on to opinions, wishes and prescriptions - saying
> this is so and cannot be otherwise, are soon left behind as
> life passes them by. Peace and quietude are fine as goals of
> spiritual development, but what are they without
> the knowledge of what not having peace and quietude signifies?
> Thus imo the sage is one who has lived many lives, seen much,
> done much, loved much - died a thousand deaths, much :)
> He is the holder of many views on life, in full awareness
> of what each has cost him, thus has he earned his equanimity
> with regards to all views.
>

Well-expressed imo.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

Ummmmmmm <tony.ki...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/09/2016 3:14 PM, Tang Huyen wrote:
>> On 9/9/2016 4:58 PM, Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>
>>> So how would it be if you abandoned the view that 'enlightenment will
>>> result if you abandon all views'?
>>>
>>> Which isn't possible, of course. Our minds insist on us having a view or
>>> opinion about *everything* we encounter.
>>
>> Ummie dear, How could you possibly know that
>> it is impossible to abandon all views? How could
>> you possibly know that "Our minds insist on us
>> having a view or opinion about *everything* we
>> encounter"? Have you perchance read all minds,
>> past, present and future, anywhere on earth,
>> including minds of dead people and unborn
>> people?
>
> Yes.

That word stinks of bullshit within the specifics of this context, and
would have better-served your message by having been left unwritten.

> If one knows one's own mind, one knows that all human minds are the
> same.

For values of "same" meaning "similar" yes, for other meanings,
specifically including "identical", no.

But here we enter peril of falling through the cracks beween the meanings
of words, so further dissection is a FWOT: all dogs are dogs, but this dog
is not the same as that dog, except for this and that and some other
irrelevancy.

>It isn't necessary to 'read' them all.
> If one knows that water quenches thirst, one can quite legitimately
> 'universalize' that knowledge. One doesn't have to check out every
> creek, bottle, lake, river, faucet on the planet. And if one meets
> someone who is thirsty, one can offer them water, secure in the
> knowledge that, if they're human, water will be what they need.
>

[snip]

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

It is not the color or tint of the spectacles through which you view
reality that matters, it is whether what you see through it is true or
false. Looking through a viewpoint tinted blue, or tinted atheist, or
tinted fundy-Christian, it doesn't mater a bit what shape or color the
world you see has. What matters is what the world you see does, and what
significance you perceive in that. When multiple people who have different
viewpoints see the same thing, the same reality, behaving in the same way,
they are seeing the same thing, through different sets of spectacles, each
adjusted to the eyes of the viewer who wears them. In other words there is
no one true shape or color for spectacles, but there is just one reality,
that can be seen truly through many kinds of viewer. Or more often, seen
falsely through delusion rooted in desire, or misunderstanding rooted in
the naive ignorance of childhood. And even if one finds the magical
microscope focus point, attempting to compare notes with others is
difficult, because they may be hearing what you see, or smelling something
entirely different from what others hear.

> the true one, the
> one that's in sync with our essential human nature. The one that makes
> it possible for anyone to be a sage, if they really want to be.

Really wanting something doesn't make it happen.

> Wisdom and clarity aren't slow, patient, accumulations - they're as
> simple as finding the light switch in a dark room & turning it on.
> There's no point sitting in the gloom, through a string of imagined
> lifetimes, wondering what colour the light might be, or how bright, or
> what it might feel like to be able to see clearly.
> Just find the switch :-)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

There is no switch, the lights are on all the time, even when there's
nobody home; the problem isn't how to switch on the lights, but how not to
be standing in the darkness because your eyes are shut.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[{:-])))]

Ummmmmmm

>No-one knows for sure whether we have lived past lives, or whether we'll
>live again later. That too is a matter of opinion.

Generally speaking it can be good to not generalize too much.

If someone knows for sure one has lived past lives, e.g. Buddha,
or Yogananda, or a three-year-old who has yet to forget,
then that one has. And if that one remembers who
one's mother, father, sister, brother et al were
then that's simply what is/was recalled.

Whether that one knows whether, 'we' have lived past lives,
or whether we'll live later, might be a matter of opinion.

It could be a matter of opinion that it's a matter of opinion.

How someone could know for sure it's a matter of opinion
might fall into some epistemological realm.

I can't say for sure if it is nor if it isn't a matter of opinion.
Nor if Yogananda or anyone else has actually recalled
a past life or many lives. Including mine.

Yet I would not rule out the possibility.
I like to believe in various potentials.
And, at times, to try and be accurate
in terms of terms used and such speaking.

- of realities, unusually

[{:-])))]

Ummmmmmm wrote:

> If one knows one's own mind, one knows that all human minds are the
>same.It isn't necessary to 'read' them all.
>

> ... a lot to do with our egos, the image of ourselves we
>like to project to others. ...

If one knows one's own mind, then one knows one's own mind.
That might be obviously true and goes without saying.

If one knows one is projecting, and how ego is involved, one knows.

It's possible that all human minds are not the same.
And without having read them all, one simply does not know.

Paradigms can be fun though.
Some are more logical than others uttered.

Assumptions, hypotheticals, knowings,
thinkings and believings one knows, everything all
about how all human minds are the same.

My ego used to be much bigger than it is now.
But one might not be able to know that
unless one knew me when it was.

As this ego ages, it dies a slow death.
One day at a time at times.

- beyond time

[{:-])))]

noname wrote:

>It is not the color or tint of the spectacles through which you view
>reality that matters, it is whether what you see through it is true or
>false. Looking through a viewpoint tinted blue, or tinted atheist, or
>tinted fundy-Christian, it doesn't mater a bit what shape or color the
>world you see has. What matters is what the world you see does, and what
>significance you perceive in that. When multiple people who have different
>viewpoints see the same thing, the same reality, behaving in the same way,
>they are seeing the same thing, through different sets of spectacles, each
>adjusted to the eyes of the viewer who wears them. In other words there is
>no one true shape or color for spectacles,

If there is no one true shape or color of the spectacles,
it might be said views are all true and all false, or, partial,
since there are no views, if there are no views, without them.

> but there is just one reality,

I'd call that a paradigm of sorts.
I like that one as much as I like others.

If everyone sees it different and is involved
then at another level there are as many realities
as there are viewers of what is said to be the one.

In other words, the viewers are not apart from
but are a part of the one which makes it many.

The one Venn that includes them all
is the union of all that intersect each other.

>that can be seen truly through many kinds of viewer. Or more often, seen
>falsely through delusion rooted in desire, or misunderstanding rooted in
>the naive ignorance of childhood.

The desire or misunderstanding is real enough.
Naive ignorance of childhood is also real.

To discount those as being false can be called, semantics.
Calling them, incomplete, might be a different word.
Or, pointing out how they are problematic
might assist one in problem solving.
Assuming one has problems
with desires, etc.

> And even if one finds the magical
>microscope focus point, attempting to compare notes with others is
>difficult, because they may be hearing what you see, or smelling something
>entirely different from what others hear.

Because their realities are different.
Because their experiences differ.
Which is why their minds differ.
And none are exactlly alike.

To think there is what is called the one true reality
independent of all viewers might be called a
sort of hypothetical situation.

By consensus, people may accept such a notion.
At the same time, within each within the one, all differ.

- in an ocean of realities

[{:-])))]

> Ummmmmmm wrote about all minds being the same how:

>
>> It isn't necessary to 'read' them all.
>> If one knows that water quenches thirst, one can quite legitimately
>> 'universalize' that knowledge. One doesn't have to check out every
>> creek, bottle, lake, river, faucet on the planet. And if one meets
>> someone who is thirsty, one can offer them water, secure in the
>> knowledge that, if they're human, water will be what they need.

Non-sequiturs sometimes sound convincing
and one might convince one's self the logic is sound.

When, in fact, it isn't.

If one meets someone who is thirsty and the water works, it works.
If the water does not suit the taste, then it doesn't work.

If it worked all the time for all minds, then it would.
But it doesn't. And that's the fact. That's reality.

When premises are flawed, a conclusion might be valid
based on those false premises. Such is called, unsound.

[{:-])))]

noname wrote about how:

>It isn't necessary to abandon everything, but clinging to anything is a
>"known" preventive, it'll keep you asleep for as long as you snore.

Some are able to float without letting go of everything
because they are more floaty and buoyant than others.

Others will sink because they are heavy
even after having let go of everything.

Drilling them full of holes won't help.

[Ned Ludd]

"liaM" <cud...@mindless.com> wrote in message
news:nr01r2$n45$1...@dont-email.me...

Oh, I know. His favorite life must have been the one he mentioned
in the Diamond sutra - When the King of Kalinga had him cut into
pieces because he talked to one of the king's concubines.

Ned

[noname]

{:-]))) <wu...@wuji.net> wrote:
> noname wrote:
>
>> It is not the color or tint of the spectacles through which you view
>> reality that matters, it is whether what you see through it is true or
>> false. Looking through a viewpoint tinted blue, or tinted atheist, or
>> tinted fundy-Christian, it doesn't mater a bit what shape or color the
>> world you see has. What matters is what the world you see does, and what
>> significance you perceive in that. When multiple people who have different
>> viewpoints see the same thing, the same reality, behaving in the same way,
>> they are seeing the same thing, through different sets of spectacles, each
>> adjusted to the eyes of the viewer who wears them. In other words there is
>> no one true shape or color for spectacles,
>
> If there is no one true shape or color of the spectacles,
> it might be said views are all true and all false, or, partial,
> since there are no views, if there are no views, without them.

That's a bit twisty for me to parse, sorry.

Their realities are different, but *the* reality they see and know for what
it is, that is the same for all who see it, regardless of whether they see
it by smelling it, or by hearing it, or by reading instruments that tell
them about it.

> Because their experiences differ.
> Which is why their minds differ.
> And none are exactlly alike.
>
> To think there is what is called the one true reality
> independent of all viewers might be called a
> sort of hypothetical situation.

You can call it whatever you like, but you cannot disprove it. The
acceptance of an absolute reality is a matter of personal choice, but its
existence is not; if it were not a matter of truth, the whole would amount
to the solipsistic dreams of an intelligence bored stupid. I think that if
you simply call it "consensus reality" where the "consensus" is the
commonality between all sentiences with regard to which parts of "their"
reality are also part of "consensus" reality, you might get close to the
truth of the absolutes of reality, but you'd get damned little consensus at
the edges of things, and waffling in the middle, imo.

>
> By consensus, people may accept such a notion.
> At the same time, within each within the one, all differ.
>
> - in an ocean of realities
>

There is a choice, between the existence of free-choice, and its
non-existence. Those who fear, pretend belief that there is no
free-choice, so they can claim non-culpability and gain the spotlight as
whining victims of the drama they have created of themselves; those who
know free-choice to be real are free from the slavery of victimism but must
suffer the slings and arrows of their own stupidity, which the Buddhists
call "suffering" by some name or other, until they can man-up and pay their
karmic debts down to a positive value.

This is some boring shit, It may be necessary to do anything except reading
it, because it's way down there near the bottom of the boring-shit scale,
right next to fuck-this-lets-party.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[liaM]

On 9/10/2016 1:24 PM, noname wrote:
> No comment from me regarding past-lives, other than that I don't know
> whether I've lived before; but if I had lived before, it seems like this
> life would have been less difficult, had I recalled *something*, anything,
> from a past-life.

That's why I appreciate meditation, as being a past life all who have
ever meditated have in common.. more or less..

It is a point of no return. The merchandise is guaranteed good.
It will never have to be sent back to be repaired or exchanged.
Meditation works even on one's death bed in hospital or in prison.
It is never subject to soul-searching, worrying about, deciding this
or that, or be the cause of gut wrenching regrets or remorse unlike
what happens with other of our past lives (past lives within our
one human life).

[Ummmmmmm]

Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -
means you don't give up until you've found it.
If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
Otherwise we let ourselves down.

[Ummmmmmm]

Agreed. To 'think' that there is one true reality independent of all
viewers is a hypothetical situation.

On the other hand, to *know* the one true reality, is to know that it's
the same for everyone.
This is not a hypothetical, but an actual situation. The universe, as it
exists here and now.

[liaM]

On 9/11/2016 4:50 AM, Ummmmmmm wrote:
>
> Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -
> means you don't give up until you've found it.
> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
> Otherwise we let ourselves down.

Aim for the highest may not be so simple.. Do you mean "Enlightenment"?
That, in fact, imo, is the simplest to achieve, if one is of age to
understand the 4 Noble Truths and follow the way to achieve liberation.
No hocus pocus is needed. One or a few kind teachers, maybe.

For me "the highest"is a life well led through its seven or so stages.
A Japanese guru years back asserted that each stage has its flowering,
he was referring to actors' lives in his troupe, from the youngest to
the oldest.. And the last flowering, of the oldest actor.. perhaps one
who plays a maiden in the Kabuki, is the best.

But I prefer Gurdgieff's view, that humans are endowed with
potentialities that not everyone has the chance and the will to
realise to their fullest. To have known creativity, to have experienced
fusion with one's contemporaries, to have worked hard and succeeded
(or failed) in Love, Sex, Music, Children, Kindness, Gourmet cooking,
Zen or Buddhist Enlightenment, to have considered God - or not,
to have found out who one's parents are or were, etc. etc. is part of
"the best"

So little time, so much to do. In truth, here's a confidence, I estimate
every human, even the innocents that die young thanks to an oversight
of the Almighty (careless as he is) - all humans have the
time that's needed to reach "the highest". Life is "the highest".

[noname]

You can plan your life and attempt to live the plan. No matter what it is,
maybe you plan a hiking trip to the moon. Living a plan requires the
cooperation of events. Events are not always cooperative with one's plans.

You can't make things happen. You can decline to move in a direction that
makes your desires impossible. If your desires are not what you think they
are, you might learn something from the trip.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[Ummmmmmm]

On 11/09/2016 3:37 PM, liaM wrote:
> On 9/11/2016 4:50 AM, Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>
>> Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -
>> means you don't give up until you've found it.
>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.
>
>
> Aim for the highest may not be so simple.. Do you mean "Enlightenment"?
> That, in fact, imo, is the simplest to achieve, if one is of age to
> understand the 4 Noble Truths and follow the way to achieve liberation.
> No hocus pocus is needed. One or a few kind teachers, maybe.

If it's so simple, why don't more people achieve it?
Could it be that over three thousand years of muddled transmission &
mis-translation the original message has been warped beyond recognition?
The recipes don't work anymore?

In the same way as Jesus's teaching that "the Kingdom of Heaven is
within you" has been completely forgotten by modern Christianity.

>
> For me "the highest"is a life well led through its seven or so stages.
> A Japanese guru years back asserted that each stage has its flowering,
> he was referring to actors' lives in his troupe, from the youngest to
> the oldest.. And the last flowering, of the oldest actor.. perhaps one
> who plays a maiden in the Kabuki, is the best.
>
> But I prefer Gurdgieff's view, that humans are endowed with
> potentialities that not everyone has the chance and the will to
> realise to their fullest. To have known creativity, to have experienced
> fusion with one's contemporaries, to have worked hard and succeeded
> (or failed) in Love, Sex, Music, Children, Kindness, Gourmet cooking,
> Zen or Buddhist Enlightenment, to have considered God - or not,
> to have found out who one's parents are or were, etc. etc. is part of
> "the best"

All the paths in this bucket list lead to happiness of one kind or
another. (if they don't make you happy, why pursue them?)
But they all lead you out, away from your essential self, not in towards it.
There may be a path that leads inwards, towards your true being.
And it may be that the experience of who you really are is more
enchanting and engrossing - more fun, in other words, - than all the
other paths put together.
To put it another way - instead of following a whole lot of pursuits in
the outer world, in order to find happiness, why not first find
happiness in the inner world?
Then you can still have all the other things if you want to pursue them
- but because your happiness isn't dependent on them, it doesn't matter
if your friends die, or your lover leaves, or your children grow up, or
your taste buds get too old to appreciate gourmet cooking. Everything
'out there' changes, all the time.
There is something inside you that is constant, untouched by time. To be
in touch with that is 'liberation'.
There is a light inside of you - to see it is 'enlightenment'
There is clarity and peace inside of you - to bathe in it is 'samadhi'
To realise that this is true is 'satori'.

I'm not much of a foodie, but my guess is that it beats gourmet cooking
every time - and doesn't give you indigestion or make you fat :-)

>
> So little time, so much to do.

Well, that's the problem with bucket lists - the list grow longer, and
the time grows shorter, and hope slowly turns to despair, as you begin
to realise that none of the avenues you've wandered down has actually
resulted in lasting happiness. Transient joys, perhaps, yes. Transient
joys can be beautiful and very rewarding - but only if the ground of the
experience is inner peace.

In truth, here's a confidence, I estimate
> every human, even the innocents that die young thanks to an oversight
> of the Almighty (careless as he is) - all humans have the
> time that's needed to reach "the highest". Life is "the highest".

I agree wholeheartedly. But Life contains within itself a secret, a
treasure that needs to be unwrapped. And only a moment of time is needed
to unwrap it.

But to reach that point - a some humility is needed, a little ability to
untangle yourself from the mummified wisdoms of the past, and tune in to
the living wisdoms of the present.
Your own inner guide is wiser than Gurdjieff, or Gautama - because they
were then, and you are now. You don't need translation, or
interpretation, or explication - you just need to learn how to listen to
your own inner self.
>

[noname]

Ummmmmmm <tony.ki...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm still uncertain as to whether when replying to Ummmm I'm replying to
tony or Bill. They were both absent for a while, then both returned at the
same time. And I'm just not that freaking bright. But since I tend to
reply to what is written rather than who writes it, there's probably no big
deal, just a little mystery, which is not a bad thing.

> On 11/09/2016 3:37 PM, liaM wrote:
>> On 9/11/2016 4:50 AM, Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>
>>> Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -
>>> means you don't give up until you've found it.
>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.
>>
>>
>> Aim for the highest may not be so simple.. Do you mean "Enlightenment"?
>> That, in fact, imo, is the simplest to achieve, if one is of age to
>> understand the 4 Noble Truths and follow the way to achieve liberation.
>> No hocus pocus is needed. One or a few kind teachers, maybe.
>
> If it's so simple, why don't more people achieve it?
> Could it be that over three thousand years of muddled transmission &
> mis-translation the original message has been warped beyond recognition?
> The recipes don't work anymore?
>

I hold the opinion-de-jour that the recipes have been shaped by everyone
who transmitted them, due to the simple fact that their conceptual network
was non-identical to that of the person who originally wrote the recipes.
When water flows through a pipe filled with krud, it isn't as pure on the
other side. Maybe it turns blue on the other side of the different place,
but unless the admixture leaves it totally changed, it still acts like
water. Water with more of this, less of that, but water nonetheless. So
the few who can see the water in the old recipes may be able to cook up a
better result when using them, while others, basing their work on the color
of water (that has been turned blue over the years), might not fare as
well.

> In the same way as Jesus's teaching that "the Kingdom of Heaven is
> within you" has been completely forgotten by modern Christianity.

Organized religion may be called non-profit but somebody is paying the
upkeep on the churches and preachers and whatever, which gives organized
religion its own motivations, disconnected from, in some cases
diametrically opposed to, the message its founder tried to impart.

With regard to what Jesus is said to have said, consider the idea that what
"kingdom" means to the common man, basically another description for a
geographical area within which certain characteristics adhere, what
"kingdom" means to its King is not the same.

Likewise what "Heaven" means is something an individual might profit from
considering. Most of the crap I was told about "Heaven" by
organized-christianity leaves me ready to hurl, with all that "goodness",
and all that "Love", embodied in the very form of "Heaven", it seems like
Hell is where I'd be more likely to encounter those few truly real and
earthy people I've encountered during life; anything has to be better than
listening to a choir of Angels playing bad harp music and singing praises
to some made-up-being that is supposedly almighty but still needs the
praise of the doll-toys it claims to have made out of mud. Frankly, the
Heaven described by Organized Christianity is nothing I'd care to be
involved in, and it's the last placed I'd expect to find Jesus, unless he
developed a taste for harp music at the very end, you know, after hanging
out with a bunch of drunks and prostitutes, and getting crucified by the
establishment, while his disciples looked on powerless, proof of-itself
that they were, none of them, able to move any fucking mountains to save
flealess leader. They were, bluntly put, the mark of his failure.

>>
>> For me "the highest"is a life well led through its seven or so stages.
>> A Japanese guru years back asserted that each stage has its flowering,
>> he was referring to actors' lives in his troupe, from the youngest to
>> the oldest.. And the last flowering, of the oldest actor.. perhaps one
>> who plays a maiden in the Kabuki, is the best.
>>
>> But I prefer Gurdgieff's view, that humans are endowed with
>> potentialities that not everyone has the chance and the will to
>> realise to their fullest. To have known creativity, to have experienced
>> fusion with one's contemporaries, to have worked hard and succeeded
>> (or failed) in Love, Sex, Music, Children, Kindness, Gourmet cooking,
>> Zen or Buddhist Enlightenment, to have considered God - or not,
>> to have found out who one's parents are or were, etc. etc. is part of
>> "the best"
>
> All the paths in this bucket list lead to happiness of one kind or
> another. (if they don't make you happy, why pursue them?)

Sometimes we think we need to disclaim all desire, rather than just
attachment to desire, and in those places it might be quite sufficient to
suffer-less as a long-term-prelude to enjoying-more. Freedom from desire
doesn't mean you don't desire, it just means you've learned to listen
instead of just talk.

> But they all lead you out, away from your essential self, not in towards it.
> There may be a path that leads inwards, towards your true being.

If there was no true path, nobody would have been able to find it.
Occasionally some at least seem to have found it. From that one might
conclude that it exists.

> And it may be that the experience of who you really are is more
> enchanting and engrossing - more fun, in other words, - than all the
> other paths put together.

I find that it isn't so much about what I really am, as about what that
which I really am gets to do, in partnership with what I am not. When we
are so busily involved with what we are not, that we forget what we are,
there's an edge there, between self and other, and when one stands there on
that edge, seeing both sides at once, cool shit is the order of the day.

> To put it another way - instead of following a whole lot of pursuits in
> the outer world, in order to find happiness, why not first find
> happiness in the inner world?

Ask Stephen Hawking, if he's still alive. He's the genius in the
wheelchair. Apparently more interested in thinking deep thoughts than
figuring out why his body is kicking its own ass. Or maybe he has it all
figured out and is just about ready to wave the wand and say "shazaam!"

> Then you can still have all the other things if you want to pursue them

When everything worth pursuing is found delivered along with the morning
paper, why pursue?

> - but because your happiness isn't dependent on them, it doesn't matter
> if your friends die, or your lover leaves, or your children grow up, or
> your taste buds get too old to appreciate gourmet cooking. Everything
> 'out there' changes, all the time.

It fucking matters. It hurts to lose someone you love. Emotions don't
stop driving their freight-train through your heart. The big difference is
that you can see another side of it, and that keeps you from falling down
and not getting back up. You feel the same emotions, but they don't lead
you around by reins anymore.

> There is something inside you that is constant, untouched by time. To be
> in touch with that is 'liberation'.
> There is a light inside of you - to see it is 'enlightenment'
> There is clarity and peace inside of you - to bathe in it is 'samadhi'
> To realise that this is true is 'satori'.
>
> I'm not much of a foodie, but my guess is that it beats gourmet cooking
> every time - and doesn't give you indigestion or make you fat :-)
>
>>
>> So little time, so much to do.
>
> Well, that's the problem with bucket lists - the list grow longer, and
> the time grows shorter, and hope slowly turns to despair, as you begin
> to realise that none of the avenues you've wandered down has actually
> resulted in lasting happiness. Transient joys, perhaps, yes. Transient
> joys can be beautiful and very rewarding - but only if the ground of the
> experience is inner peace.

The "oops, too late" buzzer never makes a peep when you are in harmony,
events conspire with you and you get done on time, which is obvious once
you recognize that when the thing is done, that's when on-time is, not as
some measurement's tick.

>
> In truth, here's a confidence, I estimate
>> every human, even the innocents that die young thanks to an oversight
>> of the Almighty (careless as he is) - all humans have the
>> time that's needed to reach "the highest". Life is "the highest".
>
> I agree wholeheartedly. But Life contains within itself a secret, a
> treasure that needs to be unwrapped. And only a moment of time is needed
> to unwrap it.
>
> But to reach that point - a some humility is needed, a little ability to
> untangle yourself from the mummified wisdoms of the past, and tune in to
> the living wisdoms of the present.
> Your own inner guide is wiser than Gurdjieff, or Gautama - because they
> were then, and you are now. You don't need translation, or
> interpretation, or explication - you just need to learn how to listen to
> your own inner self.

Gee, that sounds like a great synopsis for a wonderful curriculum,
presumably to be delivered at some later date, in recompense for cash,
check, or money-order.

I have a theory. It says we're as free as we choose to be. It also says
that if we are, we're gonna run smack into those who don't want us to be
quite that free. This happens around the end of the month, when the rent
comes due, or at 3am when the neighbor's dog wants to bark.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[Nobody in Particular]

On 9/11/2016 2:53 AM, Ummmmmmm wrote:
> On 11/09/2016 3:37 PM, liaM wrote:
>>
>> So little time, so much to do.
>
> Well, that's the problem with bucket lists - the list grow longer, and
> the time grows shorter, and hope slowly turns to despair, as you begin
> to realise that none of the avenues you've wandered down has actually
> resulted in lasting happiness. Transient joys, perhaps, yes. Transient
> joys can be beautiful and very rewarding - but only if the ground of the
> experience is inner peace.

Recently, i've been looking at the Mandelbrot set again.
You can zoom in anywhere, and discover more and more fantastical and
beautiful images. I used to spend quite some time in the past zooming in
deeper and deeper at different points. Back then, computers were a lot
slower, and if you zoomed too much, the time required to render a
picture became prohibitive. Zooming in to about 10^26, the original
Mandelbrot set is expanded to approximately the size of the known
observable universe, so it's clearly impossible to ever see all of it.
Now, with computers being so much faster, somebody made a video of a
zoom to 10^1429.
I've been looking at life, experiences and bucket lists in that light. I
could fill the bucket with all sorts of to do's, just as i used to
collect promising areas of the Mandelbrot, to be explored at some future
time. But what's the point? There's an infinite world of experiences
"out there". Really, walking downtown is the same as walking in
Katmandu, if i set aside the ego's judging. Going to "exotic" places is
just zooming in at a different point of the Mandelbrot. I can "zoom in"
right where i am and discover incredible beauty in the leaf of the
flower in front of me.
No need for a bucket list; that's just more of the Mandelbrot set called
"life".

[brian mitchell]

Ummmmmmm wrote:

>In the same way as Jesus's teaching that "the Kingdom of Heaven is
>within you" has been completely forgotten by modern Christianity.

Where is this "within"?

It isn't distributed through the flesh.

It isn't sequestered in the accumulation of thought and experience.

So where?

Point to it, please.

[noname]

[Nobody in Particular]

On 9/11/2016 3:02 PM, noname wrote:
> <nothing>

Question: You seem to be doing that a lot recently, following up a post,
but with no comment at all.
Just wondering what i'm missing, what that means.
Is it a case of "The sage remained silent"?

[Ummmmmmm]

On 12/09/2016 3:31 AM, noname wrote:
> Ummmmmmm <tony.ki...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm still uncertain as to whether when replying to Ummmm I'm replying to
> tony or Bill. They were both absent for a while, then both returned at the
> same time. And I'm just not that freaking bright. But since I tend to
> reply to what is written rather than who writes it, there's probably no big
> deal, just a little mystery, which is not a bad thing.
>
>> On 11/09/2016 3:37 PM, liaM wrote:
>>> On 9/11/2016 4:50 AM, Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -
>>>> means you don't give up until you've found it.
>>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.
>>>
>>>
>>> Aim for the highest may not be so simple.. Do you mean "Enlightenment"?
>>> That, in fact, imo, is the simplest to achieve, if one is of age to
>>> understand the 4 Noble Truths and follow the way to achieve liberation.
>>> No hocus pocus is needed. One or a few kind teachers, maybe.
>>
>> If it's so simple, why don't more people achieve it?
>> Could it be that over three thousand years of muddled transmission &
>> mis-translation the original message has been warped beyond recognition?
>> The recipes don't work anymore?
>>
>
> I hold the opinion-de-jour that the recipes have been shaped by everyone
> who transmitted them, due to the simple fact that their conceptual network
> was non-identical to that of the person who originally wrote the recipes.

I think the recipe was first corrupted the moment it was written down. A
secret which is transmitted from one living human heart to another can't
survive being modulated into written words or dead formulae.

I'm not a praying sort of a person, but the first time I ever prayed, at
about age 8, was after hearing a sermon on a priest about Heaven.
When I went to bed I prayed that if I died in the night, I wouldn't have
to go to Heaven. It sounded unbelievably dull and boring.
Nothing I've heard/read about the Christian Heaven in the 70-odd years
since then has caused me to change my mind.

But the space of light & peace inside of me - that's a different story.
I'm rather fond of going there.

unless he
> developed a taste for harp music at the very end, you know, after hanging
> out with a bunch of drunks and prostitutes, and getting crucified by the
> establishment, while his disciples looked on powerless, proof of-itself
> that they were, none of them, able to move any fucking mountains to save
> flealess leader. They were, bluntly put, the mark of his failure.

Jesus didn't fail - he succeeded in telling the truth about what a human
being is. Of course the priests had to have him bumped off - he
threatened their livelihoods.

I agree. That's what I should've said. I was writing too fast. Of course
it matters. But to know that one can get up & walk on, that matters too.

You presume wrong. Anyone who thinks they can trade truth for money is
asking for trouble.

>
> I have a theory. It says we're as free as we choose to be. It also says
> that if we are, we're gonna run smack into those who don't want us to be
> quite that free. This happens around the end of the month, when the rent
> comes due, or at 3am when the neighbor's dog wants to bark.

I have another theory. We all choose to be free.We love to feel free.
We're wild birds at heart. The moment someone leaves the door open a
crack, we'll be off.

My suggestion, repeated too often I suppose, is that it's not freedom or
liberation that's illusory, it's the cage. Recipes for dismantling the
cage, picking the lock, persuading the jailor to open the door, etc.
just make the illusion stronger.
We're born free. That freedom stays at the core of us all our lives - we
just need to shovel away all the shit that's been piled on it.
>

[Ummmmmmm]

Sorry, can't do it.
I've thought hard about this (would like to do it if I could)

You (and everyone on this ng) have an inner life. You experience it.
If you walked up to someone in the street and said "Can you point to my
inner life?" - they wouldn't be able to. It's private to you.

That said, I've a feeling that if you met a Sage or a Master (in real
life, not in a book or a movie) and asked them the same question, they
might be able to do just that - & probably in (and with) a twinkling of
an eye.

Unfortunately, I'm neither a sage or a master, just a student. So you'll
have to point it out to yourself. The fact that you can make such a
request, seriously it seems, shows that you really do know where it's at.

[Nobody in Particular]

On 9/11/2016 8:31 AM, noname wrote:
> Ummmmmmm <tony.ki...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm still uncertain as to whether when replying to Ummmm I'm replying to
> tony or Bill. They were both absent for a while, then both returned at the
> same time. And I'm just not that freaking bright. But since I tend to
> reply to what is written rather than who writes it, there's probably no big
> deal, just a little mystery, which is not a bad thing.

I'm not Ummmmmmm, i'm a nobody. Never posted as another name (well, at
least not in maybe 20 years)

[noname]

Try "the sage is using a newsreader that has some bugs".
Try "the sage's newsreader is running on an operating system that has some
bugs".
Try "the world is keeping the sage out of the trouble those posts would
have caused".
Try "who fucking knows".

If the foo shits, wear it. <g>

Really, I have no clue. Nor do I really need one. I think all the above
are more-or-less true. Especially the last one, "who fucking knows".

This morning earlier, my keyboard quit entirely. Okay, so I grabbed the
other one, and it didn't work either. So okay maybe the tablet is hosed,
maybe I'll need to take it in for repair/replacement. But let's try a
power-cycle first. Woo hoo, now both keyboards work. Apparently iOS is
not as stable as linux in terms of being able to run pretty-much-forever
without a reboot.

But it's been weeks, I think, since I turned this thing off. Possibly long
enough to explain all the blank posts. How can I know if the two are
related? If the problem goes away, maybe that was its cause. Maybe not.
The horse came back with a friend and the kid fell off and broke his leg
just before army "recruitment" day. Beats me.

However, like I said, I really don't need to know. When I read something
to reply to, I reply. The post makes it all or in part or not at all.
Shit works out exactly as it must, I deal with what is next, and
everybody's happy, right?

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

Absolutely, the nature of language itself guarantees that. Still, there's
nothing I'm aware of that makes it impossible for a "recipe" to be used if
the terminology is simple enough and common enough that the reader actually
understands what was written. It might be necessary for the
writing/reading cycle to be fairly short so that language doesn't evolve
out from under the recipe. It might be possible under some set of
conditions. Or maybe not, some things can't be known until they're tried,
which is what the manifestation is all about imo, a place where things can
be tried out more easily than in a world of pure concept. You can think up
anything, decide how you think it would work, but if you can actually get
it to work in the manifestation, it's real.

The TTC addresses the uncodifiability of Tao briefly and it's always
translated cryptically imo, [cf
http://terebess.hu/english/tao/gia.html#Kap01] But, a recipe for finding
Tao, is much simpler than Tao itself, miles of orders of magnitude simpler.
And here "simpler" comes into focus and I notice that it is actually Tao
that is the simpler of the two from one side, and the recipe is simpler
from the other side. Go figure.

>A secret which is transmitted from one living human heart to another can't
> survive being modulated into written words or dead formulae.

I'm not sure there's any "secret" involved, unless you profit by not
telling anyone what is right in front of their faces. And since it is
right in front of their faces, there's no profit in telling them it's there
either, the gain is found when you can somehow get one of them to look.
That's what it's all about, looking and listening, instead of projecting.
And then of course what happens inside your head when you're looking and
seeing.

As for the "living human heart" one might say it's just a pump. Dead
formulae no, dead written words no, words written in current language maybe
not so much. Modulation has lots of factors that affect transmission,
basically 3 of them: too-much (over-modulation), not-enough
(under-modulation), and not-clear (distortion). Just like most other forms
of communication. Not to mention the variatations that occur in all those
at different levels of signal-strength. The less distorted the input
signal is, the better.

Here's how I see that: them what can, does; them what can, learn; shit
works out according to Tao.

Golly, I think liaM is 78 also; but I'm losing my memory so maybe you're
both just really old.

Ever wonder about the saying, "the good die young"?

Maybe that's why women color their hair.

>
> But the space of light & peace inside of me - that's a different story.
> I'm rather fond of going there.

That kind of thing, plus the human-heart thing, gacks me to perceive you as
one of those touchy-feely-know-nothings who talk about Universal Love and
other angelic dogshit; pardon my bluntesty, I'm easily confused.

>
> unless he
>> developed a taste for harp music at the very end, you know, after hanging
>> out with a bunch of drunks and prostitutes, and getting crucified by the
>> establishment, while his disciples looked on powerless, proof of-itself
>> that they were, none of them, able to move any fucking mountains to save
>> flealess leader. They were, bluntly put, the mark of his failure.
>
> Jesus didn't fail - he succeeded in telling the truth about what a human
> being is. Of course the priests had to have him bumped off - he
> threatened their livelihoods.

We don't see his mission in the same way. I'm not inclined to expound on
that atm, maybe another time if someone wants to revisit it.

If people weren't just naturally sloppy in our communication, the
original-original-guy who first awakened and tried to write it down would
have succeeded and we'd have reached the state of universal awakening eons
ago.

Or maybe he did and we did but everybody fell asleep again. Shit happens.
We don't have to understand most of it, know how many feathers are on the
near side of the duck flying far overhead, etc.

Don't respond to "that sounds like" with "you presume". It's rude because
you are assuming that I presume what it sounds like and believe what I
posit.

>>
>> I have a theory. It says we're as free as we choose to be. It also says
>> that if we are, we're gonna run smack into those who don't want us to be
>> quite that free. This happens around the end of the month, when the rent
>> comes due, or at 3am when the neighbor's dog wants to bark.
>
> I have another theory. We all choose to be free.We love to feel free.
> We're wild birds at heart. The moment someone leaves the door open a
> crack, we'll be off.

I see no conflict there but I do see a presumption that humankind is caged
by something and wants out.

I've heard it echoed before, more than once; it appears to be true for the
few who care, and false for the rest.

>
> My suggestion, repeated too often I suppose, is that it's not freedom or
> liberation that's illusory, it's the cage.

That's the way it might seem to a man in jail, until he tries going home
for dinner.

> Recipes for dismantling the
> cage, picking the lock, persuading the jailor to open the door, etc.
> just make the illusion stronger.

If you can show the jailer his own cage you'll both be home for supper.

> We're born free. That freedom stays at the core of us all our lives - we
> just need to shovel away all the shit that's been piled on it.
>>
>
>

That's what we're here for, to shovel the shit. I sometimes feel like the
little guy in the Rocky And Bullwinkle cartoons, the guy at the end of the
parade, shoveling up the elephant shit. Mindless repetitious work like
shoveling up shit is fantastic as a form of meditation.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

Nobody in Particular <nob...@invalid.com> wrote:

Thanks, I need all the clues I can get just to keep track of what day it
is.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[Ummmmmmm]

There's a difference between the 'recipe' and what it offers.

Consider the Buddha as a compassionate person (Living Master) who met
someone dying of thirst in the desert. That person *might*, if he was
severely conditioned, have said "Please help me - I need a beer/cup of
tea/fanta/ cappucino . . . "

Gautama said "You need water" (this his recipe for curing extreme thirst)
Then he hands him a jug of water. (transmits enlightenment).
The jug happens to be blue pottery with a yellow incised pattern of
sunflowers.

For the next three thousand years scholars debate the various ways in
which a sage might say "You need water" How can the recipe be
interpreted? What sort of water was involved. Or the appropriate way to
ask a sage for a beer or a coffee.
They also debate whether a yellow jug with a pattern of bluebells
might've worked as well, or better. Or whether the water would've cured
thirst if it had been in a tin mug, or a glass jar.

No-one has the water. Only a living Master can provide that. How it is
delivered is entirely up to him/her. No recipes are required.
It's as simple as "You need water?" "I have water"

>
>> A secret which is transmitted from one living human heart to another can't
>> survive being modulated into written words or dead formulae.
>
> I'm not sure there's any "secret" involved, unless you profit by not
> telling anyone what is right in front of their faces. And since it is
> right in front of their faces, there's no profit in telling them it's there
> either, the gain is found when you can somehow get one of them to look.
> That's what it's all about, looking and listening, instead of projecting.
> And then of course what happens inside your head when you're looking and
> seeing.
>
> As for the "living human heart" one might say it's just a pump. Dead
> formulae no, dead written words no, words written in current language maybe
> not so much. Modulation has lots of factors that affect transmission,
> basically 3 of them: too-much (over-modulation), not-enough
> (under-modulation), and not-clear (distortion). Just like most other forms
> of communication. Not to mention the variatations that occur in all those
> at different levels of signal-strength. The less distorted the input
> signal is, the better.

Or one might say, the simpler, the better. Less chance of any
'modulation' occurring. "I'm thirsty" can be expressed without words.
Water can be offered without a word. If transmission is silent,
distortion caused by language can't occur.

A matter of taste. You like shit. I haven't checked, but I think the
word occurs in every post of yours I've read in the last few months.
I like light & peace (quite likely the words occur in all my posts)

I never talk about Universal Love. What I talk about is very particular.

You like to think. I like to feel (experience) - so I'm a
touchy-feely-know-nothing. That's fine by me.

Angelic dogshit implies the existence of angel dogs. An interesting
thought, but I'd prefer to hang out with an angel cat. I like their
aloofness and self-possession. Pack-animals (humans in particular) cause
most of the planet's problems IMO. We can be cool cats if we choose.

The original-original guy *didn't* try to write it down. He wasn't that
stupid. Words/concepts have always been too blunt. Transmission of
awakening is extremely precise.

Some who didn't quite get it, tried to write down what they thought was
happening to others.
Then later wise guys memorised what the failures had recorded, and set
themselves up as Masters. When they met thirsty people in the desert
they offered them a choice of recipe books and dry drinking utensils.
For a fee. Thus a religion was born.

I stand corrected. Probably :-)

>
>>>
>>> I have a theory. It says we're as free as we choose to be. It also says
>>> that if we are, we're gonna run smack into those who don't want us to be
>>> quite that free. This happens around the end of the month, when the rent
>>> comes due, or at 3am when the neighbor's dog wants to bark.
>>
>> I have another theory. We all choose to be free.We love to feel free.
>> We're wild birds at heart. The moment someone leaves the door open a
>> crack, we'll be off.
>
> I see no conflict there but I do see a presumption that humankind is caged
> by something and wants out.
>
> I've heard it echoed before, more than once; it appears to be true for the
> few who care, and false for the rest.

I think everyone cares. Deep down. Nobody wants to be a robot, or a
zombie, or a wage slave. No sane person anyway.
On the other hand, I guess it's possible that whole civilisations can
go insane. There does seem to be at least one country where nearly the
entire population seems to have flipped its lid.

>
>>
>> My suggestion, repeated too often I suppose, is that it's not freedom or
>> liberation that's illusory, it's the cage.
>
> That's the way it might seem to a man in jail, until he tries going home
> for dinner.
>
>> Recipes for dismantling the
>> cage, picking the lock, persuading the jailor to open the door, etc.
>> just make the illusion stronger.
>
> If you can show the jailer his own cage you'll both be home for supper.

Exactly. Man has become a self-caging animal. If we could all understand
this, we'd be home free.
I'm an optimist - I think it will happen.

>
>> We're born free. That freedom stays at the core of us all our lives - we
>> just need to shovel away all the shit that's been piled on it.
>>>
>>
>>
>
> That's what we're here for, to shovel the shit. I sometimes feel like the
> little guy in the Rocky And Bullwinkle cartoons, the guy at the end of the
> parade, shoveling up the elephant shit. Mindless repetitious work like
> shoveling up shit is fantastic as a form of meditation.

Agreed - water-blasting the drive! Very slow, but wonderfully relaxing.

>

[noname]

Anybody can hand around recipes.

>
> Consider the Buddha as a compassionate person (Living Master) who met
> someone dying of thirst in the desert. That person *might*, if he was
> severely conditioned, have said "Please help me - I need a beer/cup of
> tea/fanta/ cappucino . . . "
>
> Gautama said "You need water" (this his recipe for curing extreme thirst)
> Then he hands him a jug of water. (transmits enlightenment).
> The jug happens to be blue pottery with a yellow incised pattern of
> sunflowers.
>
> For the next three thousand years scholars debate the various ways in
> which a sage might say "You need water" How can the recipe be
> interpreted? What sort of water was involved. Or the appropriate way to
> ask a sage for a beer or a coffee.
> They also debate whether a yellow jug with a pattern of bluebells
> might've worked as well, or better. Or whether the water would've cured
> thirst if it had been in a tin mug, or a glass jar.
>
> No-one has the water. Only a living Master can provide that. How it is
> delivered is entirely up to him/her. No recipes are required.
> It's as simple as "You need water?" "I have water"
>

Who knows, maybe you have a blue jug with yellow flowers.

Your logic there is incorrect, proximity is not evidence of affection.

> I like light & peace (quite likely the words occur in all my posts)
>
> I never talk about Universal Love. What I talk about is very particular.
>
> You like to think. I like to feel (experience) - so I'm a
> touchy-feely-know-nothing. That's fine by me.
>

You really don't know shit about what I like and don't like.

> Angelic dogshit implies the existence of angel dogs.

Your logic totally sucks ass, which says something about your level of
understanding.

You're trying to use the blue jug. It isn't about the blue jug. Forget
about the blue jug.

> An interesting
> thought, but I'd prefer to hang out with an angel cat. I like their
> aloofness and self-possession. Pack-animals (humans in particular) cause
> most of the planet's problems IMO. We can be cool cats if we choose.

I don't give a shit what your favorite color is, either.

You're talking out your ass. The first guy to awaken and try to write it
down, tried to write it down. If there was no such guy, there was no such
guy; if there was, he tried to write it down. It's that simple, read the
words.

> Words/concepts have always been too blunt. Transmission of
> awakening is extremely precise.
>

Maybe, and maybe that's exactly the problem. Or maybe not, and that's
exactly the problem. I think not. I think codification gives rise to blue
jugs bowed down to by people who have fooled themselves.

> Some who didn't quite get it, tried to write down what they thought was
> happening to others.
> Then later wise guys memorised what the failures had recorded, and set
> themselves up as Masters. When they met thirsty people in the desert
> they offered them a choice of recipe books and dry drinking utensils.
> For a fee. Thus a religion was born.

Religion was born at the point where somebody decided the blue jug with
yellow flowers was the significant item.

Stand wherever you like. Do whatever you like. Know that the world can't
be fooled by someone who fools himself.

>>
>>>>
>>>> I have a theory. It says we're as free as we choose to be. It also says
>>>> that if we are, we're gonna run smack into those who don't want us to be
>>>> quite that free. This happens around the end of the month, when the rent
>>>> comes due, or at 3am when the neighbor's dog wants to bark.
>>>
>>> I have another theory. We all choose to be free.We love to feel free.
>>> We're wild birds at heart. The moment someone leaves the door open a
>>> crack, we'll be off.
>>
>> I see no conflict there but I do see a presumption that humankind is caged
>> by something and wants out.
>>
>> I've heard it echoed before, more than once; it appears to be true for the
>> few who care, and false for the rest.
>
> I think everyone cares. Deep down. Nobody wants to be a robot, or a
> zombie, or a wage slave.

Furniture is what just gets moved around, people tend to thrash a bit and
get pissy about being used as furniture.

> No sane person anyway.
> On the other hand, I guess it's possible that whole civilisations can
> go insane. There does seem to be at least one country where nearly the
> entire population seems to have flipped its lid.
>
>>
>>>
>>> My suggestion, repeated too often I suppose, is that it's not freedom or
>>> liberation that's illusory, it's the cage.
>>
>> That's the way it might seem to a man in jail, until he tries going home
>> for dinner.
>>
>>> Recipes for dismantling the
>>> cage, picking the lock, persuading the jailor to open the door, etc.
>>> just make the illusion stronger.
>>
>> If you can show the jailer his own cage you'll both be home for supper.
>
> Exactly. Man has become a self-caging animal. If we could all understand
> this, we'd be home free.
> I'm an optimist - I think it will happen.

What you think does not make something true. You think it will happen?
Fine: prove it, happen it.

>>
>>> We're born free. That freedom stays at the core of us all our lives - we
>>> just need to shovel away all the shit that's been piled on it.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> That's what we're here for, to shovel the shit. I sometimes feel like the
>> little guy in the Rocky And Bullwinkle cartoons, the guy at the end of the
>> parade, shoveling up the elephant shit. Mindless repetitious work like
>> shoveling up shit is fantastic as a form of meditation
>

> Agreed - water-blasting the drive! Very slow, but wonderfully relaxing.
>
>>
>
>

You're quite cute. Maybe not so good for much, other than preaching lace
doilies, but quite cute.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[{:-])))]

Ummmmmmm wrote:

> {:-]))) wrote:
>
>> To think there is what is called the one true reality
>> independent of all viewers might be called a
>> sort of hypothetical situation.
>
>Agreed. To 'think' that there is one true reality independent of all
>viewers is a hypothetical situation.
>
>On the other hand, to *know* the one true reality, is to know that it's
>the same for everyone.

Two people will experience any
so-called event, or, reality, different.

Hence, there is no, "same" for everyone.

>This is not a hypothetical, but an actual situation. The universe, as it
>exists here and now.

To presume there is a thing, the universe,
or any so-called thing, is a presumption to begin with.

It's called carving the Uncarved Block.
It's a myth within a myth standing on guilded legs.

If you taste some so-called thing, someone else can't.

What you tasted is gone by your tasting of it.

Two people can't eat the same candy.

If a tree falls in the forest, it sounds as it sounds to you.
To an ant it sounds different, feels different, looks different.
To a bird in the air, it's all different as well.
It's not the same sound, sight, etc.

To, "know" what it actually sounds like and looks like and
feels like and smell like plus all other senses that could exist
if only they did exist, would take an infinite number
of hypothetical eyes, ears, noses, feelers,
sensors of all kinds and does not exist, actually.

Your universe, here and now, is not my universe here and now.
What anything means to you is not what it means to me.

- in actuality

[{:-])))]

noname wrote:

>There is a choice, between the existence of free-choice, and its
>non-existence.

That's one way to see so-called, the existence of ... .

It can be akin to saying there's a choice between
the existence of the top and bottom of your foot.

On the one side is free-choice.
On the other side there is no free-choice.

How people choose to carve the Uncarved Block
can be a choice, if they can choose to begin with.

When they aren't busy carving it up,
then, perhaps, they are doing something else.

- naturally

[{:-])))]

> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>
>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.

I might not know who anyone's, "we" happens to be
when someone uses the first-person plural pronoun, nor why.
Perhaps that one is seeking agreement
for some insecurity.

Realizing a view of how nothing matters,
it doesn't matter how high or less than highest high one aims.

When it is known there is no ultimate point nor purpose, one is free.

Being entirely free of, "having to aim"
one is free indeed.

Being liberated can be totally liberating.

Words, such as, enlightenment, freedom, liberation, et al
might mean something, or other, given a deep ending.

Knowing is a part of speech as it wells.

[liaM]

Very true. The dharma is not something to be dangling idle on
newsgroups. It's something to seek to complete. Buddhism is
pro-active. Leave the fucking burning house. Get to understanding
what the causes and antidote to suffering. Make samsara obsolete.
And go on to harder things to do in life. Write your
book. Go door to door for the Dems or for Bernie. Paint, make music,
learn to make a great omelette.

[{:-])))]

liaM wrote:
> {:-]))) wrote:
>>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>
>>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.
>>

>> ...

>> Realizing a view of how nothing matters,
>> it doesn't matter how high or less than highest high one aims.
>>
>> When it is known there is no ultimate point nor purpose, one is free.
>>
>> Being entirely free of, "having to aim"
>> one is free indeed.
>>
>> Being liberated can be totally liberating.
>>
>> Words, such as, enlightenment, freedom, liberation, et al
>> might mean something, or other, given a deep ending.
>>
>> Knowing is a part of speech as it wells.
>>
>
>
>Very true. The dharma is not something to be dangling idle on
>newsgroups. It's something to seek to complete. Buddhism is
>pro-active. Leave the fucking burning house. Get to understanding
>what the causes and antidote to suffering. Make samsara obsolete.
>And go on to harder things to do in life. Write your
>book. Go door to door for the Dems or for Bernie. Paint, make music,
>learn to make a great omelette.

To be a human being can be to simply be.
One does not need to do anything. No wei is the Way.
Even to be is not a need. So say Wu to wei.

With Taoism in mind, there is always something higher
and always something lower. To reach the highest high
reminds me of trying to be the most yang.

If anything, Taoism would suggest the opposite.
Water seeks its own level as rivers flow to the sea.
Seeking less and less and allowing all things to be
one might eventually arrive at wu-wei.

It don't get much more downhill than that.

I don't know if Ummmmmmm is familiar with the TTC.

[{:-])))]

brian wrote:
>Ummmmmmm wrote:
>
>>In the same way as Jesus's teaching that "the Kingdom of Heaven is
>>within you" has been completely forgotten by modern Christianity.
>
>Where is this "within"?

Eden is in the heart-zone.

Modern Christianity has not forgotten it.

Why people write what they write can be interesting.
They say stuff that simply isn't true. Maybe I take sayings
too literally at times and not literally enough at other times.

Completely forgotten sounds Taoist to me though.

At least I can relate to that much.

It's, like, totally star dust, and golden.

[{:-])))]

>>>>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>>>> On 11/09/2016 3:37 PM, liaM wrote:
>>>>>>> On 9/11/2016 4:50 AM, Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -
>>>>>>>> means you don't give up until you've found it.
>>>>>>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>>>>>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Aim for the highest may not be so simple.. Do you mean "Enlightenment"?
>>>>>>> That, in fact, imo, is the simplest to achieve, if one is of age to
>>>>>>> understand the 4 Noble Truths and follow the way to achieve liberation.
>>>>>>> No hocus pocus is needed. One or a few kind teachers, maybe.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If it's so simple, why don't more people achieve it?

Most people already know it.
Yet they may quite often ignore it.

Knowing how desire/suffering goes, they go anyhow.
One might think they enjoy it, even if they say they don't.

Being involved, they go all in.
Going all in, they forget how things go.

Round and round they go.
When they get tired, they opt out.

Having forgotten how it went, they begin to seek.
Having been given the answer, it's too simple for some.
So they don't accept it. Those are the few.

More of them do achieve it and move on.
Some stay stuck in achieving and achieving to no end.
Some reach the end and care to share to no end.

Those who reach the end may end up not posting.
They have moved on to some other beginnings.
Some stay and post about Taoism, God, or
some other stuff they have in mind.

Two achieve, basically, nothing.

- ultimately

[noname]

{:-]))) <wu...@wuji.net> wrote:
> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>> {:-]))) wrote:
>>
>>> To think there is what is called the one true reality
>>> independent of all viewers might be called a
>>> sort of hypothetical situation.
>>
>> Agreed. To 'think' that there is one true reality independent of all
>> viewers is a hypothetical situation.
>>
>> On the other hand, to *know* the one true reality, is to know that it's
>> the same for everyone.
>
> Two people will experience any
> so-called event, or, reality, different.
>
> Hence, there is no, "same" for everyone.

You keep making this same logic error. Yes, everybody experiences things
differently, but what they are experiencing is the same actual universe,
which doesn't care how many people experience it in how many ways, it is
simply what it is.

>
>> This is not a hypothetical, but an actual situation. The universe, as it
>> exists here and now.
>
> To presume there is a thing, the universe,
> or any so-called thing, is a presumption to begin with.
>
> It's called carving the Uncarved Block.
> It's a myth within a myth standing on guilded legs.
>
> If you taste some so-called thing, someone else can't.
>
> What you tasted is gone by your tasting of it.
>
> Two people can't eat the same candy.

More of the same logic error. Two people can look at the same painting.
What they see is the same painting. What they perceive is not the same
perception. What they experience is not the same experience. But the
painting is just the painting, it's the same to everyone who sees it,
though what they see is always different.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[Wilson]

It boils down to that old philosophical question, "Is there a reality
outside of the experience of reality?"

The tree that falls alone in the forest would perhaps say, "Yes. And by
the way it was noisy as hell".

[brian mitchell]

It's an old question because there's no way of knowing, since
everything refers back to our experience ('our' in the general human
sense). One can take a reasoned position on the question, but that's
all. And a different reasoning will likely arrive at its own
conclusion.

[liaM]

You use words. There are taoists who use weights which
they attach to their testicles. Are you an adept of Neidan?

[Nobody in Particular]

On 9/15/2016 4:07 PM, noname wrote:
> {:-]))) <wu...@wuji.net> wrote:
>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>> {:-]))) wrote:
>>>
>>>> To think there is what is called the one true reality
>>>> independent of all viewers might be called a
>>>> sort of hypothetical situation.
>>>
>>> Agreed. To 'think' that there is one true reality independent of all
>>> viewers is a hypothetical situation.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, to *know* the one true reality, is to know that it's
>>> the same for everyone.
>>
>> Two people will experience any
>> so-called event, or, reality, different.
>>
>> Hence, there is no, "same" for everyone.
>
> You keep making this same logic error. Yes, everybody experiences things
> differently, but what they are experiencing is the same actual universe,
> which doesn't care how many people experience it in how many ways, it is
> simply what it is.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is by the quantum physicist Bernard
d'Espagnat, the teacher of Alain Aspect (of the famous Aspect Experiment):
"The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is
independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with
quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment."
-- Bernard d'Espagnat

You appear to take the opposing view.

[liaM]

What facts ? What experiments ?

[Nobody in Particular]

Facts: Objects do not exist independently from being observed.

Experiments: Literally thousands and thousands of experiments in many
labs all over the world. Just google "Bell's theorem experiments" and/or
"EPR experiments".

[noname]

What makes us think that any tree ever falls alone in a forest, or that the
world must have had a beginning?

This is not a cute quip, it's a serious question, something that deserves
to be thought to the floor and pinned down.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

I agree with that in its entirety, I think, except for the part about there
being no way of knowing.

Sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut: the Sherlock Holmes character
knew that when you eliminate everything that is false, what remains is
true; what he didn't mention is that the number of possibilities that can
be true is unlimited, even if we (humans) have not thought of them all, or
even if we cannot think of them all because some are beyond our thinking
capabilities.

And, since everything we know, every piece of "factual data" that we own,
is based on our own experience at interacting with reality, it is easy to
make ourselves the center of everything and state that nothing actually
exists beyond our own experience. Some people don't fall into the
"THEREFORE I AM GOD!" trap at that point, but some do. Sometimes you see
people like that standing on a street-corner preaching "The End Is Near" or
"Find Life Through Jesus", sometimes they are incarcerated for "their own
good" by The State which men have placed above themselves.

In any case I think it boils down to a matter of faith, or maybe belief is
a better word. If you don't believe something even to the death, you
really don't believe it. And when you do believe something, even when
being wrong means you will actually die, sometimes you live.

People sometimes say that "mental culture is frivolous". It isn't, it's
deadly serious. Of course if you believe things that are true and are
willing to do exactly the job before you, even if it results in your death,
that makes the seriousness anything else a frivolous matter; you're totally
committed to doing the job no matter what, so anything else is a laughing
matter in comparison. Your car breaks, your wife leaves, you get fired,
there's no reason for suffering over trivial shit like that. Liberation
from slavery to desire. It's a good thing. Get some today at a store near
you, only $1 more than you have, but maybe you can borrow the money to buy
it and become free from slavery to desire to become a slave of your
obligations instead.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

Water does not seek its own level as rivers flow to the sea.

Rivers flow to the sea because water can only exist at its own level.

Water is real, rivers are things men conceive when they observe water
existing at its own level.

The facts remain the same.
One is more true than the other.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

Nobody in Particular <nob...@invalid.com> wrote:

He said the facts of experiments, and the quantum-mechanics theory which
was derived from those facts, conflicts with the theory that an actual
reality exists. Is my paraphrasing correct or incorrect?

What he did not say, at least not in that quote, is that he assumes
physical reality to be continually existent.

I do not make that assumption, in fact I say it is just the opposite:
physical reality, the whole physical universe, flickers into and out of
existence on a regular basis, and that occurs every time a sentient being
chooses this instead of that. It manifests into physical existence, as
necessary, in order to comply with the wishes of every sentient being.
(Quite a mess has been made of it, ay?)

Therefore (and I use that word humorously here) there is no conflict
between what he is saying and what I am saying, even though we are saying
different things. Unless you prefer to conflate them into a single thing,
and then one of our views is correct and the other incorrect.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[noname]

Nobody in Particular <nob...@invalid.com> wrote:

That's a conclusion, not a fact. The facts are the results of the
experiments.

>
> Experiments: Literally thousands and thousands of experiments in many
> labs all over the world. Just google "Bell's theorem experiments" and/or
> "EPR experiments".
>
>
>

Wouldn't "two slit experiment" bring up the same info?



--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[Wilson]

The facts and the experiments that were conducted by human consciousness
of course.

So apparently we have human consciousness "proving" that nothing exists
outside of the experience of human consciousness.

Damn that snake.

[liaM]

Thanks.

[{:-])))]

liaM wrote:

>You use words. There are taoists who use weights which
>they attach to their testicles.

I am unfamiliar with such a Taoist technique.
Sounds painful. Do they drill holes in their nuts?
And then screw bolts thru them? Torque to specs,
with small wrenching sounds. As the crowd goes wild.

> Are you an adept of Neidan?

Unfortunately, my knowledge of Neidan is scant.

I keep telling myself to study it more, for jargon-sake,
since I speak of it in this Taoist newsgroup often enuf
to warrant using terminology associated with it
instead of Indian yoga vernacular.

The word, adept, is a good one.
What exactly it means might make for a story.

- in the cauldrons

[{:-])))]

noname disagreed:
>> {:-]))) wrote about how:

>
>>> If anything, Taoism would suggest the opposite.
>>> Water seeks its own level as rivers flow to the sea.
>
>Water does not seek its own level as rivers flow to the sea.

Figures of speech often skate on thin ice.

>Rivers flow to the sea because water can only exist at its own level.

The highest high best of the best is akin to water.
Seek to evaporate and not to condense when falling.

>Water is real, rivers are things men conceive when they observe water
>existing at its own level.
>
>The facts remain the same.
>One is more true than the other.

One is the one that emerges from Tao.
The rest is history.

[liaM]

:)

I'm sure it's a passing phase. Humanity's self-conscious adolescence.

[{:-])))]

noname wrote:

> {:-]))) wrote:
>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>> {:-]))) wrote:
>>>
>>>> To think there is what is called the one true reality
>>>> independent of all viewers might be called a
>>>> sort of hypothetical situation.
>>>
>>> Agreed. To 'think' that there is one true reality independent of all
>>> viewers is a hypothetical situation.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, to *know* the one true reality, is to know that it's
>>> the same for everyone.
>>
>> Two people will experience any
>> so-called event, or, reality, different.
>>
>> Hence, there is no, "same" for everyone.
>
>You keep making this same logic error.

Semantics tend to vary.
Logic tends to be logical.

> Yes, everybody experiences things
>differently, but what they are experiencing is the same actual universe,
>which doesn't care how many people experience it in how many ways, it is
>simply what it is.

Logically, that appears to me to be an assertion. A premise.
If the premise is granted as being the case, then, logically,
what follows might be true, and sound and not simply valid.

If I drink a glass of water, then you can't drink it.

Logically, that results since I already drank it.
You are drinking a different glass of water.

That sounds logical, and sound, to me.

You might assert it's the same water.
And I, in this case, would say, no, it isn't.

If we go swimming in a river of water,
you might claim it's the same water we're in,
except, actually, it isn't. Nor was it the same yesterday.
Nor will it be the same water tomorrow.

You may assert seeing is different from drinking
or swimming. And that the river is really not conceived.

Yet in another post you asserted, "Water is real, rivers are things
men conceive when they observe water ... "

>>> This is not a hypothetical, but an actual situation. The universe, as it
>>> exists here and now.
>>
>> To presume there is a thing, the universe,
>> or any so-called thing, is a presumption to begin with.
>>
>> It's called carving the Uncarved Block.
>> It's a myth within a myth standing on guilded legs.
>>
>> If you taste some so-called thing, someone else can't.
>>
>> What you tasted is gone by your tasting of it.
>>
>> Two people can't eat the same candy.
>
>More of the same logic error.

Semantics affect logic.

> Two people can look at the same painting.

That's an assertion.

>What they see is the same painting.

So you say. And that's okay.
I say nay and neigh. Two horse a round.

> What they perceive is not the same
>perception. What they experience is not the same experience. But the
>painting is just the painting, it's the same to everyone who sees it,
>though what they see is always different.

The painting ages over time. It is not the same today
as it was yesterday nor as it was when being painted.

When it dried, it was different. As it ages it changes.
When it is 1000 years old, it is not the same as it was.

To think or to have thought it is or was can be thought.

To suppose, or assert, that two people on the same day
are seeing the exact same painting can be supposed,
presupposed, asserted, claimed, stipulated, etc.

When someone touches the painting, that changes it.
Paint sticks on the finger and the finger prints itself
on to the painting which makes the painting different.

If one shreds the painting to shreds and then claims
it is the same painting, that's a claim.

Logically, it might sound good.

Semantics are what makes it sound.

- context rules the daze and the knights

[noname]

In other words the experiments prove that they never existed? Go figure.
<g>

> Damn that snake.
>
>
>



--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[{:-])))]

Wilson wrote:

>It boils down to that old philosophical question, "Is there a reality
>outside of the experience of reality?"

It's easy to imagine there is.
The idea tends to be compelling with
in some forms of thought.

>The tree that falls alone in the forest would perhaps say, "Yes. And by
>the way it was noisy as hell".

Fallen trees are pentiful to see by the sea.
Exactly what they sounded like, is, like, it varies.
Exactly how they sounded depends on where one fell.

Exactly how they looked when falling depends up
on how one looks, or would have looked, down or at,
from which side, and all at once, from every angle.

There is no absolute frame of reference.

Yet one could imagine a reality and realities outside
of one's imagination at any given time-frame.

A path can be said to exist when no one walks it.

In the Zhuangzi there is a note that says paths are made
by those who walk them.

Assuming there is a path, however it got there, and exists
even when no feet happen to be on it, can be assumed,
or presumed, or taken as a given, if one cares to.

For me, as a barefooter, on this, now, dirt path, it feels
as it feels to me, to the soles, my soles, as they walk it.

For another, who is always shod, the dirt path is different.
It might be painful, since the, now, dirt path is gritty.

How hard or soft a gritty dirt path, "really" is, how hot
it is or not so hot it is, in the middle of summer, or cold
in winter, depends on an experience of it.

And all the other variables, in the equations, of it.

People imagine all sorts of paths.
Some may say there is some Eternal Way.
Others may say, nay. While a horse says, neigh.

[{:-])))]

noname asked and wrote:

>What makes us think that any tree ever falls alone in a forest, or that the
>world must have had a beginning?

Those of us who think about such things may begin,
at some point, by pondering a large tree, a ponderosa pine.

We, us, who think, may stand alone, by virtue
of there being no others to speak of, standing in a stand of trees.

When all the others are sitting, or have fallen, one standing
is able to remain as long as one is able to stand, alone.

When that last one falls, it falls, all by itself.
Unless it was pushed, by the wind. Or an axe got to it.

When the woodsman begins to chop a tree, he stands.
He plants his feet on the ground, to begin with.

He need to start somewhere, so he picks up his axe.
And that can be called, the beginning.

Now the Zhuangzi also has a story about the beginning.
It was told long ago, yet it remains, now, as it ever was.

Standing in a book, Zhuangzi begins to speak his thoughts.
Whether there was a beginning of the beginning or not,
he reached a conclusion, so he said, in his writing.

Those interested in Zz's Daoism may see it in Chapter 2.

>This is not a cute quip, it's a serious question, something that deserves
>to be thought to the floor and pinned down.

Trying to pin down the Eternal Now, Existence, Being, Forever
might take less than a day, or even a moment.

First, catch the butterfly by its wings. Being careful
not to damage the butterfly in the process. Then, with care,
stick the pin through its body. And there one has it.

Stuck in a book, forever. Seriously.

Looking back in time, assuming time exists, people see.
Those who look in a special Way, see stars. Moving.
They see galaxies, all moving. Most all are moving away.

An expanding cosmos is observed. That is what gives, us,
a distinct impression that there was a time when time began,
when, we, those of, us, who look thru telescopes and see,
the cosmos in this certain, special, fashion of seeing.

When one opens one's eyes and sees, Now, how
eternal Now is, Now appears to have always been.

Two views may vary.
The top of the foot is not the bottom.
Side-views are also able to exist in Ways.

To carve an Uncarved Block and go round
and round in terms of either/or can be easily done and fun.

Beginning or no-beginning. Both.
As wells of neither well as well.

[{:-])))]

noname asked:
>Nobody wrote:
>> liaM wrote:
>>> Nobody wrote:
>>>> noname wrote:

>>>>> {:-]))) wrote:
>>>>>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>>>>> {:-]))) wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> To think there is what is called the one true reality
>>>>>>>> independent of all viewers might be called a
>>>>>>>> sort of hypothetical situation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Agreed. To 'think' that there is one true reality independent of all
>>>>>>> viewers is a hypothetical situation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On the other hand, to *know* the one true reality, is to know that
>>>>>>> it's the same for everyone.

I know for a fact,
there is nothing like epistemology.
Friday told me. And he carried a badge.

>>>>>> Two people will experience any
>>>>>> so-called event, or, reality, different.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hence, there is no, "same" for everyone.
>>>>>
>>>>> You keep making this same logic error. Yes, everybody experiences
>>>>> things
>>>>> differently, but what they are experiencing is the same actual universe,
>>>>> which doesn't care how many people experience it in how many ways, it is
>>>>> simply what it is.
>>>>
>>>> One of my all-time favorite quotes is by the quantum physicist Bernard
>>>> d'Espagnat, the teacher of Alain Aspect (of the famous Aspect
>>>> Experiment):
>>>> "The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is
>>>> independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with
>>>> quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment."
>>>> -- Bernard d'Espagnat
>>>>
>>>> You appear to take the opposing view.
>>>>
>>>
>>> What facts ? What experiments ?
>>
>> Facts: Objects do not exist independently from being observed.
>
>That's a conclusion, not a fact. The facts are the results of the
>experiments.

Facts are myths people stick in their hats.
And that's a fact. If one can imagine such a that.
In a hat, there once was a cat. Named after a Schroeder.

>> Experiments: Literally thousands and thousands of experiments in many
>> labs all over the world. Just google "Bell's theorem experiments" and/or
>> "EPR experiments".
>
>Wouldn't "two slit experiment" bring up the same info?

To an extent, yes.

Bell's proposal has verified how there are no hidden variables.
And, so, it deflates objections to various, "classical"
views of, "objective reality" as such as
such may be seen in Ways.

So-called, "classical" interpretations of QM, QCD, QED et al,
simply cannot explain the phenomena. It's altogether too phenomenal.

To think the world exists without you, is, in fact, hypothetical
thought served on a plate of mythological thought flowing.

To know it might be subjected to a question
of how one might know such a critter.

Seeing as how one sees.

- sea waves

[{:-])))]

noname had written:

In actuality, people do experiments.
In actuality, people interpret the results.
In actuality, people are involved at all times.

To suppose things would be different
if there were no people interpreting what they call, facts,
can be called, The Great Supposit Ion Oratory, and,
I call it an ionic pentameter.

It's kinda like calling, dibs,
or, bullshit, or late for dinner, or a taxi.

In a lab oratory, many things can be retrieved
by lab orator retrievers.

>What he did not say, at least not in that quote, is that he assumes
>physical reality to be continually existent.

With QM, or some other sort of Field, theory,
particles and their anti-particles emerge and submerge, virtually,
all the time at all times in a Great Sea of Quanta, soup-wise.

Call it, zero-point energy.
Or vacuum crap to be swept under a rug.

>I do not make that assumption, in fact I say it is just the opposite:
>physical reality, the whole physical universe, flickers into and out of
>existence on a regular basis,

Except the regularity is highly irregular and unpredictably uncertain.
Except, it can be predicted to any desired degree of accuracy.

If it were totally predictable, it would not be entirely probabilistic
nor statistical by virtue of the facts as they have been observed
by the experiments which involve the maths, which,
are the creations of the people who are
totally involved in the projectiles.

Regurgitation-wise.

> and that occurs every time a sentient being
>chooses this instead of that. It manifests into physical existence, as
>necessary, in order to comply with the wishes of every sentient being.
>(Quite a mess has been made of it, ay?)

Wish knot want knot.

>Therefore (and I use that word humorously here) there is no conflict
>between what he is saying and what I am saying, even though we are saying
>different things. Unless you prefer to conflate them into a single thing,
>and then one of our views is correct and the other incorrect.

I'll take, door number, opinions vary.

Explanations vary.

Experiences vary. Realizations vary.

What varies varies.

To, "know" how things vary, and
that things do, in fact, vary, might very be Taoistical.

But I wouldn't hang my left testical on it.
That would only be right.

- imo

[Nobody in Particular]

My bad. You're right. The conclusion "Objects do not exist independently
from being observed" results from the result of the experiments.

>> Experiments: Literally thousands and thousands of experiments in many
>> labs all over the world. Just google "Bell's theorem experiments" and/or
>> "EPR experiments".
>>
>>
>>
>
> Wouldn't "two slit experiment" bring up the same info?

Kinda, sorta.
I would say that Bell's theorem experiments are a subset of two slit
experiments.

[{:-])))]

noname wrote:
>Ummmmmmm nottony wrote:
>> noname wrote:
>>> Ummmmmmm nottony wrote:
>>>> noname wrote:
>>>>> Ummmmmmm tony wrote:
>>>>>> liaM wrote:
>>>>>>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>>>>>>

... excisions not included ...

>>>>>>>> Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -
>>>>>>>> means you don't give up until you've found it.

>>>>>>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>>>>>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.

If the best or highest are akin to water,
then flowing down may be how to let one's self go
as far as the TTC, in chapter 8, goes.

And yet, in cross-posts, maybe Taoism isn't the topic.
And pointing to some Taoist text is a no-no, for sum.

And yet, why post to a Taoist group,
if one does not care to see Taoist material presented,
discussed, nor mentioned, mites be a wonder.

>>> ... there's nothing I'm aware of that makes it impossible for a "recipe" to be used if
>>> the terminology is simple enough and common enough that the reader actually
>>> understands what was written. ...

Redding comprehend shuns matter.

>Anybody can hand around recipes.

Not all ovens are plugged in.
Some might not be plumbed, nor any fuel available.

>> Consider the Buddha as a compassionate person (Living Master) who met
>> someone dying of thirst in the desert. That person *might*, if he was
>> severely conditioned, have said "Please help me - I need a beer/cup of
>> tea/fanta/ cappucino . . . "
>>
>> Gautama said "You need water" (this his recipe for curing extreme thirst)
>> Then he hands him a jug of water. (transmits enlightenment).
>> The jug happens to be blue pottery with a yellow incised pattern of
>> sunflowers.

People tend not to be in dire need of knowing
what is defined as, enlightenment, below.

The picture painted on a straw-jug
does not hold water.

The light inside of people, most normal people, burns bright.
It is not dimmed by the world. Most people love life.
They don't have any major problem with it.
And they tend to make more life.
Naturally. Ziran. Tzu-jan.

People who seek enlightenment have lost their Way.
They are the few, as compared to the many who are okay.

Though many do complain about the world, they don't seek
to escape nor to transcend world-processes nor to evolve out
of being in the world, to reach some higher woo-woo high.

Eclectics and syncretists may. And many of those do.
They see similarities among all the so-called paths.
They might even conclude they're all the same.
That there is one Path. And spread their
own brand of woo in the world.

Taoism might call Tao, Wu.
Especially Neo-Taoism.

>> For the next three thousand years scholars debate the various ways in
>> which a sage might say "You need water" How can the recipe be
>> interpreted? What sort of water was involved. Or the appropriate way to
>> ask a sage for a beer or a coffee.

Those folks have time to spare. They aren't in dire need.

>> They also debate whether a yellow jug with a pattern of bluebells
>> might've worked as well, or better. Or whether the water would've cured
>> thirst if it had been in a tin mug, or a glass jar.
>>
>> No-one has the water.

Tao is available at all times.
Birds fly. Fish swim. People are as well.

Obscure references may mean something. Or not.

>> Only a living Master can provide that.

Tao cannot be given, so it may be said.
Yet Tao may be obtained, such has been written.

Cook Ting got it. The bugcatcher got it. The swimmer,
the woodsman, the wheelwright, none of them needed
some living Master to provide it to them.

The swimmer grew up around water.

I don't see Taoism as saying,
"Only a living Master can provide that."

Though there are a few Masters in Taoist texts.

>> How it is
>> delivered is entirely up to him/her. No recipes are required.
>> It's as simple as "You need water?" "I have water"

The living Master freely dispenses.
Few may be able to receive the Way it is, at a given time.

If it worked for all who thirst, none would thirst.
And they would not thirst for more.

It would be a quick-fix. Over and done with.

>Who knows, maybe you have a blue jug with yellow flowers.

Water is free at streams near to all.
It doesn't necessarily require someone to have a glass
in order for someone else to drink one's fill.

Yet some, for whatever factors are involved, need glasses.
And they need the hands of a living Master to hand it to them.

Then they may see, and drink, and be satisfied.
Perhaps one glass does it for them.

Yet others are more thirsty. Or, maybe the water was
not enough proof in its spirit-content. Eighty-six percent
might be more than 3.5 or 6. Yet the pure stuff might kill
if a whole glass was consumed all at once. Cud be.

>>>> A secret which is transmitted from one living human heart to another can't
>>>> survive being modulated into written words or dead formulae.

Esoteric transmissions survive easily enough.
Those who have ears, hear them, naturally.

>>>>> ... what "Heaven" means is something an individual might profit from
>>>>> considering. ...

Semantics loves two play.

>>>> But the space of light & peace inside of me - that's a different story.
>>>> I'm rather fond of going there.

That can be exactly what the word, Heaven, means,
if that's what the word means, and one uses it as such.

>>> That kind of thing, plus the human-heart thing, gacks me to perceive you as
>>> one of those touchy-feely-know-nothings who talk about Universal Love and
>>> other angelic dogshit; pardon my bluntesty, I'm easily confused.
>>
>> A matter of taste. ...

Words, as Tang likes to reiterate, are mere.
Except, obviously, they aren't mere.

A word, Heaven, or a phrase, light & peace, gaks.

A matter of semantics.

If words were mere-words, there'd be no gakking.

Nor would there be any grokking.

Words work. But not always.
Words might very well enlighten very well. But not always.

>>>>> Sometimes we think we need to disclaim all desire, rather than just
>>>>> attachment to desire, and in those places it might be quite sufficient to
>>>>> suffer-less as a long-term-prelude to enjoying-more. Freedom from desire
>>>>> doesn't mean you don't desire, it just means you've learned to listen
>>>>> instead of just talk.
>>>>>
>>>>>> But they all lead you out, away from your essential self, not in towards it.
>>>>>> There may be a path that leads inwards, towards your true being.
>>>>>
>>>>> If there was no true path, nobody would have been able to find it.

There are as many true paths as there are those who walk them.
To suppose there is only one, or they are all the same,
can be what one supposes at times.

>>>>> Occasionally some at least seem to have found it. From that one might
>>>>> conclude that it exists.

Many have found what works for them.
A line of least resistance for one can be said to be
the same line as for someone else.

When someone is in the Zone, it could be called
the same Zone as when anyone else is in, the Zone.

Or it could be said to be different, in various Ways.

Tao can be singular or plural.

>>>>>> And it may be that the experience of who you really are is more
>>>>>> enchanting and engrossing - more fun, in other words, - than all the
>>>>>> other paths put together.

Sat, chit, ananda has been said to be.

>>>>> I find that it isn't so much about what I really am, as about what that
>>>>> which I really am gets to do, in partnership with what I am not. When we
>>>>> are so busily involved with what we are not, that we forget what we are,
>>>>> there's an edge there, between self and other, and when one stands there on
>>>>> that edge, seeing both sides at once, cool shit is the order of the day.
>>>>>
>>>>>> To put it another way - instead of following a whole lot of pursuits in
>>>>>> the outer world, in order to find happiness, why not first find
>>>>>> happiness in the inner world?

My inside and my outside plus a fine line
are sometimes seen as being all of me.

To think my outer-world isn't me
and that I am only what's inside of my full-of-holes skin,
tends to be a normal frame-of-reference as wells.

Full of holes, being holy, can be what skin is, for some.
It's the sacred line between one and not-one.

Some are think. Others thin.

>>>>>> Then you can still have all the other things if you want to pursue them

Holding fast to the center does not preclude bumps in the road.

>>>>>> - but because your happiness isn't dependent on them, it doesn't matter
>>>>>> if your friends die, or your lover leaves, or your children grow up, or
>>>>>> your taste buds get too old to appreciate gourmet cooking. Everything
>>>>>> 'out there' changes, all the time.

My happiness changes quite often, ziran. Tzu-jan.
Usually it floats above glass-half-full, naturally.
Yet that might just be me.

To presume anyone else or everyone else
need not be as he/she is or they are, can be presumptuous.

>>> If people weren't just naturally sloppy in our communication, the
>>> original-original-guy who first awakened and tried to write it down would
>>> have succeeded and we'd have reached the state of universal awakening eons
>>> ago.
>>
>> The original-original guy *didn't* try to write it down. He wasn't that
>> stupid.
>
>You're talking out your ass. The first guy to awaken and try to write it
>down, tried to write it down. If there was no such guy, there was no such
>guy; if there was, he tried to write it down. It's that simple, read the
>words.

The original-original guy who knew that those who know don't say,
didn't say, cuz he knew how saying goes and sayings go.

>> Words/concepts have always been too blunt. Transmission of
>> awakening is extremely precise.

When someone gets a point, he/she gets it.

It doesn't matter how it's gotten.
There is no one and only one, one way to get it.

Yet it could be said it's all the same.

Semantics enters into play. Again and again.

>> Some who didn't quite get it, tried to write down what they thought was
>> happening to others.

There can be plenty of that going on, and/or appearing to.

People speak/write from where they're at.
People hear/listen/receive from where they are at as wells.

>> Then later wise guys memorised what the failures had recorded, and set
>> themselves up as Masters. When they met thirsty people in the desert
>> they offered them a choice of recipe books and dry drinking utensils.
>> For a fee. Thus a religion was born.

Religion has left a bad taste in lots of people's mouths.
Religion has left a good taste in lots of people's mouths.

Some people have a bad experience and generalize it.
Some have a good experience and generalize it.

Some want everyone else to get on a band-wagon.
The same band-wagon. Why they want that can be psychological.

>>>>>> There is something inside you that is constant, untouched by time. To be
>>>>>> in touch with that is 'liberation'.

With Taoism, that might be called the center, axis, pivot, hub, etc.

I don't know the Pinyin or Wade-Giles Romanization.
If I can remember, I'd like to remember, to know it.
First I'd need to find it. Hence, a quest.

>>>>>> There is a light inside of you - to see it is 'enlightenment'

Using the light is mentioned in a Taoist text. I've seen that.
It's best to use clarity. Walking two roads can also be seen.

>>>>>> There is clarity and peace inside of you - to bathe in it is 'samadhi'
>>>>>> To realise that this is true is 'satori'.

Lao Tzu was muddled.
Lieh Tzu fed the pigs and washed dishes.
Chuang Tzu laughed at least once.

Having Tao, knowing Tao, using Tao,
being able to do, to not do, to do with ease, effortlessly,
spontaneously, there might be joy of various sorts found in Tao.

Being at the center and being at peace
might differ from ecstatic boundless joy found in being.

>>>> We're born free. That freedom stays at the core of us all our lives - we
>>>> just need to shovel away all the shit that's been piled on it.

To know freedom requires knowing what is not-freedom.

Children are free. Newborns are cared for. Figuratively speaking.

Yet neither might appreciate being free.

It can be said, they don't know it. Or, that they
know it without knowing it.

After being weighed down, after releasing what holds them, they
may float up, and know that they know, in various Ways.

Forgetting about both, free and not-free, can also be a Way.

>>> That's what we're here for, to shovel the shit. I sometimes feel like the
>>> little guy in the Rocky And Bullwinkle cartoons, the guy at the end of the
>>> parade, shoveling up the elephant shit. Mindless repetitious work like
>>> shoveling up shit is fantastic as a form of meditation

I regurgitate quite often, here.
Some people don't like the looks of it,
or the smell. After taking in food for thought, at times,
and digesting it, there is a kind of waste product that emerges.

Garbage in, garbage out. Another figure of speech

gone for a skate on thin ice

[Tang Huyen]

On 9/12/2016 8:02 PM, Ummmmmmm wrote:

> No-one has the water. Only a living Master can provide that. How it is

> delivered is entirely up to him/her. No recipes are required.
> It's as simple as "You need water?" "I have water"
>

> [snip]
>
> I never talk about Universal Love. What I talk about is very particular.

If only a living master can provide the spark, so to
speak, then the Buddha would have never
awakened and become a Buddha. He had had
teachers in meditation, but they only taught him
meditation and not awakening. Only on his own
did he awaken. And he had to discard all that he
had known, all that he had learnt, to awaken,
which was firstly to reconcile with himself
(whereupon he became a Stoic sage), and
secondly to quiesce all mentation, whereupon he
arrived at non-doing. The same non-doing was
independently discovered by Daoist masters in
China, and more recently at the cusp of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by French
Quietists (Madame Guyon and her student
Fénelon).

It is not as simple as "You need water?" "I have
water", but if I get it aright, it is as simple as just
relaxing and being serene, though (here is a
paradox) pushed all the way. For that, no teacher
is needed, rather it is just doing it oneself until
one gets to non-doing (another paradox).

Christianity talks about Universal Love, but I
scarcely see it in that light. What you talk about is
very particular, you say, though what you talk
about is something of a commonplace (iow a
universal), even if hard, namely bald, straight
concentration, shorn of insight. And insight is what
helps us awaken, in part or whole. It is to discard
all that we have known, all that we have learnt. On
the contrary, you are stuck solid in your (presumed)
concentration, and your mind is hard like a rock.
(All the usual disclaimers ...)

Tang Huyen

[Tang Huyen]

On 9/13/2016 2:00 AM, noname wrote:

> Stand wherever you like. Do whatever you like. Know that the world can't
> be fooled by someone who fools himself.

Pretty good there, noname dear.

Have you ever had any inkling that it might apply
back to you? I have scarcely detected any glimmer
of self-reflection in you, even less self-criticality.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

Tang Huyen

[liaM]

Looks to me your snare has ensnared you, Tang.
Noname is far more a navel-gazer than you.

[noname]

You are wrong. Sorry to put it that way, but "incorrect" doesn't seem
right, and my word-finder is bored.

It isn't that I am humble, or even that I lack in arrogance, but that I
accept my own stupidity when the world shows it to me, which is quite
often. If every time my thinker attempted to lure me into fantasy it was
required that I stopped and wrote it down, I'd spend my whole life sitting
writing things down. Sometimes usenet feels like that, but then it's
different than a mere notebook.

However, even though my thoughts attempt to go wrong ten times for every
step I take, the steps lead to the next thing. And that is quite fine with
me. It isn't much, but it is something, and the more steps one takes the
fewer remain, before or after. Mastery of desire does not require the
eradication of desire, only its inability to choose on behalf of the
individual, which might be a good definition of slavery in general.

People talk about "enlightenment" or "awakening" as though it was something
magical, when it is no more magical than the rest of the world. Some
people may even seem to get smarter after awakening, not because they are
any more intelligent, or their brain works faster, but because it has less
work to do, it is no longer necessary to figure out every little thing
because every little thing fits with everything else without contradiction.
That everything fits in with everything else might be one reasons for the
silly grins.

There's plenty of reflection even in a black hole, the way things get
sucked into it speaks realms about them.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[Ummmmmmm]

On 16/09/2016 9:33 AM, {:-]))) wrote:

> liaM wrote:
>> {:-]))) wrote:
>>>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>>

>>>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.
>>>

>>> ...
>>> Realizing a view of how nothing matters,
>>> it doesn't matter how high or less than highest high one aims.
>>>
>>> When it is known there is no ultimate point nor purpose, one is free.
>>>
>>> Being entirely free of, "having to aim"
>>> one is free indeed.
>>>
>>> Being liberated can be totally liberating.
>>>
>>> Words, such as, enlightenment, freedom, liberation, et al
>>> might mean something, or other, given a deep ending.
>>>
>>> Knowing is a part of speech as it wells.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Very true. The dharma is not something to be dangling idle on
>> newsgroups. It's something to seek to complete. Buddhism is
>> pro-active. Leave the fucking burning house. Get to understanding
>> what the causes and antidote to suffering. Make samsara obsolete.
>> And go on to harder things to do in life. Write your
>> book. Go door to door for the Dems or for Bernie. Paint, make music,
>> learn to make a great omelette.
>
> To be a human being can be to simply be.
> One does not need to do anything. No wei is the Way.
> Even to be is not a need. So say Wu to wei.
>
> With Taoism in mind, there is always something higher
> and always something lower. To reach the highest high
> reminds me of trying to be the most yang.
>

> If anything, Taoism would suggest the opposite.
> Water seeks its own level as rivers flow to the sea.

> Seeking less and less and allowing all things to be
> one might eventually arrive at wu-wei.
>
> It don't get much more downhill than that.
>
> I don't know if Ummmmmmm is familiar with the TTC.

Yes I am. I've read at least 6 different English translations. Most
completely different from each other.
For those who haven't had actual experience of the state of mind in
which the Tao becomes a luminously self-evident presence, it can be a
source of optimism.

But when the ancient sage saws off the branch of the tree he's sitting on -

"Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"

- I have to laugh.What sort of person is speaking?

To read the TTC as a handbook of enlightenment is as sensible as using a
photograph of the sun to light up a dark cellar. The photograph may
remind you that the sun exists, or used to exist. It doesn't help you
read the labels on the wine.
>

[Marquard Dirk Pienaar]

In this statement the writer "spoke", therefore according to
his own statement what he "spoke", for us, is from "those who speak
[who] do not know. Is that why you have to laugh?

[{:-])))]

It could be you. It could be me. It was Zz, once, up on a time.

The sort who knows how to speak of it is to play as two play.

The sorts who know how to ping can evoke a pong.

The net of the table is vast, not everything makes it over the net.

>To read the TTC as a handbook of enlightenment is as sensible as using a
>photograph of the sun to light up a dark cellar. The photograph may
>remind you that the sun exists, or used to exist. It doesn't help you
>read the labels on the wine.

Drinking wine one time, one has tasted wine.
To go back and drink wine a second time might be what some sorts do.

Some people who love wine might swim in it.
Yet others would say wine is for drinking.
And not just any wine will suffice.

Another may call some people snobs.
Or see them as being in such a the light of day or at night.

>>>>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>>>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.

To suppose there is a we, and to be sure to aim
for the best bottle of wine might be what some do.

Beer drinkers might be of a different sort, who know,
not all beer tastes the same, and yet, most any will do
when thirsty for beer.

I prefer the dark, the stouts,
yet I drink them all from time to time.

Kinda puts me in mind of Caguama, this morning.
Maybe after sunrise, after the store opens.
There could be one in front of me.

[{:-])))]

Marquard wrote:

> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>
>> "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"
>>
>> - I have to laugh.What sort of person is speaking?
>
>In this statement the writer "spoke", therefore according to
>his own statement what he "spoke", for us, is from "those who speak
>[who] do not know. Is that why you have to laugh?

TTC 56 has its context.
Taking a saying out of context can be fun, and funny.

"If people didn't laugh, it wouldn't be Tao"
goes a saying to be found in another passage
within a batch of passages within the book, of sayings.

"He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man."

Another passage speaks of water, of it seeking the lowest.
The best are said to be akin to water. The sea is the lowest.
All rivers flow to it.

Another saying says that to stand on tiptoes is not advised.

Ummmmmmm spoke of not letting oneself, himself, down.
As if he was concerned, and not entirely free.

Being entirely unconcerned might be the lowest Way.
Yet one who is unconcerned entirely is unconcerned
with what is highest, lowest or in between all things.

In the middle of TTC 56 is a third passage.
It may be seen as being a technique.

Techniques are able to be techniques. Dao are dao.

The DDJ opens with a phrase, a caveat, prehaps.

- dao ke dao fei chang dao -

[noname]

{:-]))) <wu...@wuji.net> wrote:
> Marquard wrote:
>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>
>>> "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"
>>>
>>> - I have to laugh.What sort of person is speaking?
>>
>> In this statement the writer "spoke", therefore according to
>> his own statement what he "spoke", for us, is from "those who speak
>> [who] do not know. Is that why you have to laugh?
>
> TTC 56 has its context.
> Taking a saying out of context can be fun, and funny.
>
> "If people didn't laugh, it wouldn't be Tao"
> goes a saying to be found in another passage
> within a batch of passages within the book, of sayings.
>


> "He who has achieved this state
> Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
> With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
> This therefore is the highest state of man."

When you have no friends, finding a way to survive society can be
difficult, even if you have no enemies other than society itself; society
spurns the friendless as an alien cell that needs to be isolated and killed
for the health of itself. To avoid being killed in such isolation, one can
offer supplications to the unfeeling exterior-selves called society, or one
can stand before world-as-whole and call its bluff; beware of this, the
world does not fire blanks, and it can smell your bluff from miles away.
Though it is greater than the individual self, the world is not the enemy
of the self, rather its loving parent. Paradox is not contradiction, it is
an indication that the truth is to be found at a higher level.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[Marquard Dirk Pienaar]

On Thursday, October 6, 2016 at 2:20:13 PM UTC+2, undifferentiated wrote:
> Marquard wrote:
> > Ummmmmmm wrote:
> >
> >> "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"
> >>
> >> - I have to laugh.What sort of person is speaking?
> >
> >In this statement the writer "spoke", therefore according to
> >his own statement what he "spoke", for us, is from "those who speak
> >[who] do not know. Is that why you have to laugh?
>
> TTC 56 has its context.
> Taking a saying out of context can be fun, and funny.
>
> "If people didn't laugh, it wouldn't be Tao"
> goes a saying to be found in another passage
> within a batch of passages within the book, of sayings.
>
> "He who has achieved this state
> Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
> With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
> This therefore is the highest state of man."

The quotes make it seem as if the TTC was the result
of an anthropological hermeneutic type process.

Hermeneutics
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

Hermes was an Egyptian "god".
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus

Confucius called Lao Zi who wrote the TTC a "dragon".
Lao Zi was an historian employed by the King of Zhou.
Who was the subjects of Lao Zi's writing? Wasn't
the circumstances similar to the circumstances
in Europe with the conflict and cooperation between
"spiritual" leaders and the aristocracy?

[{:-])))]

Marquard wrote:
> undifferentiated wrote:
>> Marquard wrote:
>> > Ummmmmmm wrote:
>> >
>> >> "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"
>> >>
>> >> - I have to laugh.What sort of person is speaking?
>> >
>> >In this statement the writer "spoke", therefore according to
>> >his own statement what he "spoke", for us, is from "those who speak
>> >[who] do not know. Is that why you have to laugh?
>>
>> TTC 56 has its context.
>> Taking a saying out of context can be fun, and funny.
>>
>> "If people didn't laugh, it wouldn't be Tao"
>> goes a saying to be found in another passage
>> within a batch of passages within the book, of sayings.
>>
>> "He who has achieved this state
>> Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
>> With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
>> This therefore is the highest state of man."
>
>The quotes make it seem as if the TTC was the result
>of an anthropological hermeneutic type process.

Some scholars see the TTC as an accreted text.
Many authors. Not just a lone, Lao Tzu. Many Lao Tzu.
Many, old guys, named, Old Sir, collectively.

From there being a lone to all-one can take
and make an l of a difference, plus a bit of space.

Tzu can mean, Sir. Lao can mean, Old.

When some one says, the Old Guys said,
it can mean there were some old guys
who said many sayings, in contexts.

>Hermeneutics
>From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics
>
>Hermes was an Egyptian "god".
>From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus
>
>Confucius called Lao Zi who wrote the TTC a "dragon".
>Lao Zi was an historian employed by the King of Zhou.

In the Zhuangzi is mentioned Lao Tan, and Lao Tzu.
Legends and references vary.

>Who was the subjects of Lao Zi's writing?

Yin Hsi.

>Wasn't
>the circumstances similar to the circumstances
>in Europe with the conflict and cooperation between
>"spiritual" leaders and the aristocracy?

No.

>> Another passage speaks of water, of it seeking the lowest.
>> The best are said to be akin to water. The sea is the lowest.
>> All rivers flow to it.
>>
>> Another saying says that to stand on tiptoes is not advised.

Depending on the context, so goes the interpretation.

I could have answered the questions different.
Saying yes, instead of no.
And seeing similarities instead of differences.

>> Ummmmmmm spoke of not letting oneself, himself, down.
>> As if he was concerned, and not entirely free.

Hence, the context of the passage.

>> Being entirely unconcerned might be the lowest Way.

To contrast with what Ummmmmmm had said.

>> Yet one who is unconcerned entirely is unconcerned
>> with what is highest, lowest or in between all things.

Leaving his wisdom at the gate,
as Yin Hsi (the gate-keeper) requested of Lao Tzu,
Lao Tzu was free of all wisdom, he'd let go of his knowledge.

He did not seek higher nor lower. He simply vanished.

One of the sayings written down was to forget about knowledge.
Do away with wisdom. Set it aside. Yet why say that
might be something to seek, or to know.

>> In the middle of TTC 56 is a third passage.
>> It may be seen as being a technique.

Looking into the middle of TTC 56, one may observe the passage.

>> Techniques are able to be techniques. Dao are dao.
>>
>> The DDJ opens with a phrase, a caveat, prehaps.
>>
>> - dao ke dao fei chang dao -

After beginning with a caveat, an interpretation can be
that what follows is the uncommon (fei chang) dao of the DDJ.

It is unlike other dao. Different from European circumstances.
Different from Buddhist teachings. Different from Confucians.

To see the differences can be to see Daoism as Daoism.
To see the similarities can be to see what is common.

Fei chang can mean, not common.

Given: dao ke dao fei chang dao.
Which can mean, the dao that is spoken is an uncommon dao.
The name (ming) that is being used is an uncommon ming.

DDJ 1 goes on to mint a coin as it coins its phrases.
Denominations of them vary.

[Ummmmmmm]

Yes.
But i think there must've been a mistranslation or misinterpretation
somewhere along the way.
Probably what was meant was something like "Those who go on and on and
on about enlightenment are clearly unenlightened - but those who
actually know cut to the chase & get on with it"

TTC is nicely free of posing and prosing.

[{:-])))]

Ummmmmmm wrote:
> Marquard Dirk Pienaar wrote:

>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>{:-]))) wrote:
>>>> liaM wrote:
>>>>> {:-]))) wrote:
>>>>>>> Ummmmmmm wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?
>>>>>>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ...

>>>>>> ...

>>>>>> Knowing is a part of speech as it wells.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Very true. The dharma is not something to be dangling idle on
>>>>> newsgroups. It's something to seek to complete. Buddhism is
>>>>> pro-active. Leave the fucking burning house. Get to understanding
>>>>> what the causes and antidote to suffering. Make samsara obsolete.
>>>>> And go on to harder things to do in life. Write your
>>>>> book. Go door to door for the Dems or for Bernie. Paint, make music,
>>>>> learn to make a great omelette.
>>>>
>>>> To be a human being can be to simply be.
>>>> One does not need to do anything. No wei is the Way.
>>>> Even to be is not a need. So say Wu to wei.
>>>>
>>>> With Taoism in mind, there is always something higher
>>>> and always something lower. To reach the highest high
>>>> reminds me of trying to be the most yang.
>>>>
>>>> If anything, Taoism would suggest the opposite.
>>>> Water seeks its own level as rivers flow to the sea.
>>>> Seeking less and less and allowing all things to be
>>>> one might eventually arrive at wu-wei.
>>>>
>>>> It don't get much more downhill than that.
>>>>
>>>> I don't know if Ummmmmmm is familiar with the TTC.
>>>
>>> Yes I am. I've read at least 6 different English translations. Most
>>> completely different from each other.

I would assume all of them had a TTC 56 in them.

>>> For those who haven't had actual experience of the state of mind in
>>> which the Tao becomes a luminously self-evident presence, it can be a
>>> source of optimism.
>>>
>>> But when the ancient sage saws off the branch of the tree he's sitting on -
>>>
>>> "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"
>>>
>>> - I have to laugh.What sort of person is speaking?
>>
>> In this statement the writer "spoke", therefore according to
>> his own statement what he "spoke", for us, is from "those who speak
>> [who] do not know. Is that why you have to laugh?
>
>Yes.
>But i think there must've been a mistranslation or misinterpretation
>somewhere along the way.

What do the six different English translations say
in their versions of TTC 56, to provide a context?

>Probably what was meant was something like "Those who go on and on and
>on about enlightenment are clearly unenlightened - but those who
>actually know cut to the chase & get on with it"
>
>TTC is nicely free of posing and prosing.

Some readers suggest Tao is beyond language.
Some go so far as to suggest Tao is beyond comprehension.
They might say Tao is beyond conception.

And yet, Taoist texts are full of examples of
what might be, presumably, Tao.

>>> To read the TTC as a handbook of enlightenment is as sensible as using a
>>> photograph of the sun to light up a dark cellar. The photograph may
>>> remind you that the sun exists, or used to exist. It doesn't help you
>>> read the labels on the wine.

To read the TTC as a book of poetry
or a book of sayings can be a Way if not the Way
from time to time.

Are you familiar with any other Taoist texts?

Fish that are happy might blow bubbles.
Yet Zz knew it by perhaps a different Way.

[Ummmmmmm]

You still don't get it, do you?

Bear with me while I circle around the subject again.

Here we are, you and I, in a dark - pitch-dark - cellar, which we have
been told contains some excellent wine.
You are carrying a book which contains 81 pictures of the sun. Photos,
paintings, line drawings, etchings. You ask me,"Are you familiar with
books of pictures of the sun?" To which I answer "Yes, I've seen lots of
them"
You say, "Let's compare our picture books, so we can figure out which
photo of the sun will light up this cellar most efficiently"

I resist the temptation to curtly and succinctly offer my opinion of
this suggestion. After all, you've been brought up on picture books,
you're addicted to picture books, and you're convinced that "Light" is a
property of picture books. You are also convinced that your picture book
is the most comprehensive, reputable, trustworthy picture book around.
I do, however, say "You have a flashlight in your jacket pocket. We're
all issued with a flashlight when we enter the vineyard"

You will soon, I suspect, ask me "Do you have a book of pictures of
flashlights? So I'll know if I've got the right one? The best model? The
most reputable manufacturer? Or know what button to press to turn it on"

So maybe I'm sitting in the sun drinking a vintage sparkling cuvee,
while you're online ordering a braille edition of "The Complete Guide to
Antique Flashlights, Flambeaux & Chandeliers"

What am I trying to say here? That Knowledge is real. It exists now, in
you. It doesn't matter a tinker's cuss whether Lao-Tsu or Gautama or
Jesus experienced it 2 or 4 or 6 thousand years ago or not. Or whether
their thousands of imitators simulated their enlightenment accurately or
not.
The living Light lights up this actual moment. If you bury your head in
the dust of ancient immortals you'll miss it. If you find a way to look
within inside yourself, you'll find it.
And then you can choose whatever wine you like. Or single malt or
Armagnac if you prefer.

[Marquard Dirk Pienaar]

On Thursday, October 6, 2016 at 9:29:19 PM UTC+2, Marquard Dirk Pienaar wrote:
> On Thursday, October 6, 2016 at 2:20:13 PM UTC+2, undifferentiated wrote:
> > Marquard wrote:
> > > Ummmmmmm wrote:
> > >
> > >> "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"

This statement is paradoxical. The writer (speaker) could be
giving his opinion about "those", including himself, or only
about others as "those". The bottom line is, he gives and opinion
about people, including himself or not, it does not matter who he
refers to. He 'says' self, his opinion cannot be trusted because,
if he 'knew', he would not have written it, according to his own
opinion. Imo he wrote about others who he saw were silenced by the
Caiaphaci.

It could be about the difference between heuristics and hermeneutics.
Heuristics are not searching for knowledge. It is giving knowledge.
Heuristics are thus honest communication; transferring information.
Hermeneutics, imo, is searching for knowledge, for example "searching
for the Truth" by 'reading' hermeneutically and writing hermeneutically.
Reading heuristics and writing heuristically is thus the preferred way.

Of course, reading heuristically does not include reading the writings
of the silenced, unless they publish self and they are 'sustained'
by the publishing. It happens that people are isolated and then
the people who isolate, read the writings of the isolated. I have heard
of a human who has a whole library of such writings. It is disgraceful,
and rampant, isn't it?

[{:-])))]

I get all that.
Why you assume I don't is probably my lack
of being able to communicate that I do.

What I was asking about was the phrase, above,
and what its context was.

It could be said,
those who get what you're saying don't speak of it.
And those who speak of it don't get it.

Tang could have been saying the same exact thing
when he said that's what spiritual masters say.

And yet, here you are, speaking of it.
Tang excuses himself with sneaky disclaimers.

You might say, "Those who go on and on and

on about enlightenment are clearly unenlightened - but those who
actually know cut to the chase & get on with it"

and if you were to say that, and go on and on and on about it,
then it might be clear, to you, what you're saying
and doing or not doing and getting or not.

Some people get it, and write picture books.
Inside the picture books are people who get it and
go on and on about it. Others speak of the picture books
and assume no one else gets it.

You might be one of any number of the above.
Given a context. Such as TTC 56, if you get the picture.

Here, in this bamboo grove, wine has been passed around
in a bottomless jug for years and years and, if one can picture it,
the campfire has been a place of gathering for those who
get it and they may or may not speak of it however
they choose to or choose not to.

[{:-])))]

Marquard wrote:
> Marquard Dirk Pienaar wrote:
>> On Thursday, October 6, 2016 at 2:20:13 PM UTC+2, undifferentiated wrote:
>> > Marquard wrote:
>> > > Ummmmmmm wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak"
>
>This statement is paradoxical.

Superficially, it may appear to be.
Taken out of context, naturally.

> The writer (speaker) could be
>giving his opinion about "those", including himself, or only
>about others as "those".

He could have said, those who are silent, don't speak.
And those who speak of silence, aren't.

TTC 56 can be called, the context.
Without knowing the context, speculation can exist.

How wild any speculation might be might be
a subject of speculation.

>The bottom line is, he gives and opinion
>about people, including himself or not, it does not matter who he
>refers to.

It could be said, Jesus wept.

And then, the bottom line might be said to be anything.

It doesn't say why Jesus wept. Nor where. Nor when.

To say the context doesn't matter can be said.

> He 'says' self, his opinion cannot be trusted because,
>if he 'knew', he would not have written it, according to his own
>opinion.

Taken, out of context.

> Imo he wrote about others who he saw were silenced by the
>Caiaphaci.

Your opinion can take anything out of context
and make it mean anything you want it to mean.

In the context of Jesus, there can be found at least one context.

Taking something someone said, out of context, can be done.
Why someone chooses to do that might be of interest, or not.

Maybe it has to do with Taoism, or not.

>It could be about the difference between heuristics and hermeneutics.
>Heuristics are not searching for knowledge. It is giving knowledge.
>Heuristics are thus honest communication; transferring information.

Knowing a context might make a difference.

>Hermeneutics, imo, is searching for knowledge, for example "searching
>for the Truth" by 'reading' hermeneutically and writing hermeneutically.
>Reading heuristics and writing heuristically is thus the preferred way.

Not knowing a context, and talking about something
might make sense. It can depend on what one is doing.

If one has an agenda, Taoism, perhaps, then a Taoist context
might be applied as a tool to determine what is said in a saying.

If one has some other agenda, then, taking a saying out of context
and applying it to whatever context one's agenda is, can be done.

>Of course, reading heuristically does not include reading the writings
>of the silenced, unless they publish self and they are 'sustained'
>by the publishing. It happens that people are isolated and then
>the people who isolate, read the writings of the isolated. I have heard
>of a human who has a whole library of such writings. It is disgraceful,
>and rampant, isn't it?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

The Chuang-tzu can be called a library, or a book.
It might be seen as a Taoist text.

Being gnarly can be the Way. And useless, to sum.

Such a Way may afford a tree to live in peace.

But to apply that Way to a honkless goose was shown
to be how TTC 1.1 can be true.

When Jesus wept, I don't remember why.
Maybe it was when he looked over at Jerusalem.
And then he tripped out about all the killing over time.
And then he told himself, this would be the last time.

When Lao Tzu tasted vinegar, he smiled. He didn't say a word.

He didn't need to say anything. His smile spoke volumes.

Taoism might be a topic of a newsgroup.

Then again, maybe the topic is not of interest.

Some people want to talk about how life sucks.
Some want to talk about how life is great.

Zz laughed when he thought about it.

Exactly what it he laughed about
is given in the context.

[noname]

Those who don't know, claim; those who don't say, have little time for
saying, they're busy livng it instead of flapping their yaps about how
great it is and how everybody should be doing it just like they say so they
can observe an example of how it's done in order to know what to imitate.

Dressing up like the Pope doesn't make you the Pope, it just makes you some
fop in a silly costume.

--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[{:-])))]

noname wrote:

>Those who don't know, claim; those who don't say, have little time for
>saying, they're busy livng it instead of flapping their yaps about how
>great it is and how everybody should be doing it just like they say so they
>can observe an example of how it's done in order to know what to imitate.
>
>Dressing up like the Pope doesn't make you the Pope, it just makes you some
>fop in a silly costume.

Another saying goes, those that can, do.
Those that can't teach.

Sometimes it appears there are those here.
Or at least those who appear to be.

Now, it could be that any of some readers will read those
as referring to one or the other if not both.

Neither says anything about doing what
nor about teaching what.

Ummmmmmm speculated in response to Marquard's comment.

I'd asked him about the context, to which he told a story
about some wine he found in a cellar and a picture book.

As if he wasn't writing a picture book,
if you can picture that.

Marquard seems uninterested in the context either.

So there are those, apparently.

[Ummmmmmm]

Every now and then a stupid idiot comes by & offers a taste of a new wine.
Some try it.
Others notice that the bottle has no label on it. No Alc.% content. No
date. No vinter's signature. No mention of the terroir, or the varietals.
They know, instantly, that it's not worth drinking.
Probably poisoned.
They'd smash the bottle, if they could. To preserve the health and
serenity of the bamboo grove.
Very wise, IMO. Stick with the tipple you know won't get you drunk.

[{:-])))]

You certainly appear to have some preconceptions you carry around.

>They'd smash the bottle, if they could. To preserve the health and
>serenity of the bamboo grove.
>Very wise, IMO. Stick with the tipple you know won't get you drunk.

We used to pass around a bota-bag.
It could be called a new-skin. We weren't snobs.
We trusted each other.

Maybe you drank some piss out of a bottle you found once.
That's been known to happen. And it left a stain on your self.

I don't know anything about terroir nor varietals.
If I'm looking for a buzz, whatever those things are, don't matter.

Soda-pop wine is fine by me.
It doesn't matter if it's in a bota-bag, chilled, or warm.

Were you always a connoisseur, of Taoism?

Or, do you assume, with your fine wine, and your flashlight
in hand that Taoism is the same as all other wines out of hand?

What's your opinion of the Chuang-tzu?
Not everyone here likes it much.

Of the six TTCs you read, did you have a favorite?

Or do you really not care at all about Taoism?

If not, why exactly are you here, in a Taoist newsgroup?

Passing a bottomless jug around a campfire in a bamboo grove
some take a swig and puke. Others like the taste.

One guy here knows accounting for ideas.

- at present

[Ummmmmmm]

Isn't it obvious? To have this conversation with you.

Have you ever thought about the phrase "The Way and its Power"?
Did it ever occur to you that it's not by following a Way that you
arrive at Power?
That if someone transmits the power to you, then the Way, the Tao,
becomes self-evident? Not the other way round.

First empty your mind of Taoism - it has nothing to do with the Tao.
It's firmly rooted in the past (and when I say 'rooted' I mean ROOTED)
The Tao knows only the present.

Then get rid of the idea that it's not conceivably possible that someone
else might possess a secret that you don't share in.
The world is as mysterious now as it has ever been - and even though
thousands of dusty old books have been written about how mysterious it
is, it remains a mystery.

You too are a mystery. You have mysterious depths. Acknowledge that
there may be a room you have never dared to unlock.

"Knowing others is intelligence
Knowing yourself is wisdom" TTC 33

"Knowing that there's a part of yourself that you haven't met yet is the
dawning of wisdom" UMMM vii 217

"To know that somewhere on the planet is at least one person who is able
and willing to hand you the key to that room is terribly confronting to
the ego" UMM vii 218

[{:-])))]

Ostensibly, that is obvious.

>Have you ever thought about the phrase "The Way and its Power"?

Yes. A little bit. Not much tho.

Te is often translated as Virtue/Power.

Historically, what were two books of Lao Tzu; the book of Tao,
and the book of Te, were combined by some translator
to mean, "The Way and its Power" as they gave that title to
a version of the Tao Te Ching.

Wayley comes to mind, as a name, off the top of my head.
I don't know if that's correct. I could google it, I suppose.
But I think that's beside the point at this point.

It, the TTC, could have been transliterated as, "Way Power Classic"
if a translator cared to transliterate it and not spin it.

Or, "Way Virtue Classic"
or, maybe, "Way Integrity Classic"
if Te connotes some sort of integrity, wholeness, etc.

I'd probably go with door number three, integrity.

Some scholars suggest the word, Te, can be extended
beyond the human sphere. As any thing can have integrity.

The structural integrity of a tree, for example.
And being able to bend, to not break, might be involved.

Taoism can be an unusual philosophy, in my experience.
Given my knowledge and understanding of it.
In the ways that I spin it. For fun.

>Did it ever occur to you that it's not by following a Way that you
>arrive at Power?

Not that I recall.

I guess I'm not power hungry enough.
Usually I don't want any power, nor responsibility.

Power is a curious word to combine with Tao.

It might be interesting to me to read the translation
of the TTC where Power was used instead of Te.

TTC 38 would be perhaps of note.
Since that begins the Book of Te, traditionally.

TTC 38 may speak of Great Power, in some translator's mind.
But to say it like that might give an odd impression.
I wonder if that phrase was used.

I'd probably take a route that suggests avoiding Power
as Tao is more gentle, soft, water-like. A notion
of an ocean, the North Sea, and Jo
float into mind, on a sphere,
as Jo pointed out.

If you recall CT 17, Autumn Floods, I think that relates.

http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu1.html#17

Power suggests force, in my mind.

The Way of Taoism is basically a different Way, imo.

And the Way of Te, or Integrity, does not seek Great Power.

If one happens to be in a position of Power, as in
the Chuang-tzu's, Lover of Swords, it makes for a good story.

http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu3.html#30

When one emperor wanted to abdicate, the one to whom
he wanted to give his power to didn't want it.

http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu3.html#28

>That if someone transmits the power to you, then the Way, the Tao,
>becomes self-evident? Not the other way round.

You seem to be interested in having some power.

I'm fine with simply sitting and doing nothing. Wu-wei.
Or doing what is natural. Ziran. Tzu-jan.

I don't really care to be in charge of anything.

I'd rather be the guy doing the work, or having done it,
and now have nothing to do. Not a supervisor.

Being free, having retired, I like that.
Never was a supervisor. Never wanted to be in charge.

>First empty your mind of Taoism - it has nothing to do with the Tao.

Okay. So we are now not talking about Taoism. Nor Tao.

I had thought we were. My mistake.

We are now speaking of Power.

It has nothing to do with Tao nor Taoism.

That makes some sense to me.

>It's firmly rooted in the past (and when I say 'rooted' I mean ROOTED)
>The Tao knows only the present.

I thought we weren't talking about Tao. But, since you mentioned Tao,
I would say Tao doesn't know anything at any time.

Tao has no mind to know.

When you write, "It's firmly rooted in the past, ... "
you appear to be writing about Taoism.

But you said to empty my mind of Taoism.

Yet in the next sentence you bring it back to my mind
in my trying to follow your train of thought.

Maybe I should not interrupt so much.

>Then get rid of the idea that it's not conceivably possible that someone
>else might possess a secret that you don't share in.

Okay. You now seem to be telling me that you have a secret.
And that you have something that I don't share in.

You've got some nots in there. A sort of double-negative.

You seem to be telling me that you know something I don't.
And, in your view, Tao is able to know things.

And there's something about Power you mentioned.
Or, power, as your story was prefaced, to set the stage.

>The world is as mysterious now as it has ever been - and even though
>thousands of dusty old books have been written about how mysterious it
>is, it remains a mystery.

Now you appear to be talking about what you call the world.

And you find the world to be a mystery.

>You too are a mystery. You have mysterious depths. Acknowledge that
>there may be a room you have never dared to unlock.

There are lots of rooms I might not even know exist.

There is room inside my rooms for the whole Universe
when my ego expands to encompass All There Is.

That would be what I'd call a partial mystical experience,
to know that room in such a fashion of knowing.

If we were talking about Taoism, which you said to forget about,

I'd say that's the room the sage never leaves.
And I'd add some wu-xin, wu-ji, and wu-wei.

But, forgetting about Taoism again, getting back to your tale.

You seem to be pointing at something you have found, in you,
and it is a secret, in this scenario, hidden in a room, inside me.

And, in this picture you are painting, I don't know what it is.

I think I'm following your train of thought here.
But I might be on the wrong track.

You seem to be playing an imaginary game with me.

And you want me to pretend I don't know something
that you do know, and it's a secret, locked inside me.

I am able to play along with that.

>"Knowing others is intelligence
> Knowing yourself is wisdom" TTC 33

Okay.
I don't see any secret there.

>"Knowing that there's a part of yourself that you haven't met yet is the
>dawning of wisdom" UMMM vii 217

So, you seem to be saying that you have a secret.

It's something you know, but in this imaginary story you invented,
there is some part of myself that I have not met yet.

And now, since I accepted your invitation to assume
that I have not met some part of myself yet,
wisdom has now dawned in me.

You have now imparted wisdom into me?
Was that the idea?

>"To know that somewhere on the planet is at least one person who is able
>and willing to hand you the key to that room is terribly confronting to
>the ego" UMM vii 218

Now you seem to have created an ego of some sort.
The ego. I would assume the ego you write of is my ego.

And you're still talking to me
and didn't flip into some sort of generality
pertaining to all people.

So I'm going to assume it's my ego
that you have created in me, and it's outside a room, maybe.

And you have a key. Is that it?

You can get around my ego somehow, and give me a key,
to a secret room that you know exists in me
and that I, in this story, didn't know.

But, since you gave me wisdom, now I know.
And, you are going to give me the key.

That's a funny story.
It doesn't make me thirsty however.

Maybe I'll make some coffee.
Daybreak is still an hour or so from now.

As Tao knows.

Is there going to be a Chapter Two, in this tale?

Will {:-]))) open the door to his once secret room?

Stay tuned folks!

Get your tuning forks at the Concession Stand,
just past the Happy Fish Bridge.

>> Passing a bottomless jug around a campfire in a bamboo grove
>> some take a swig and puke. Others like the taste.
>>
>> One guy here knows accounting for ideas.

He seems to subscribe to how Tao decides stuff.

>> - at present

[Marquard Dirk Pienaar]

Integrity and integrated are related words. Therefore
in your paradigm things (words etc.) being integrated
into One is logical. Correspondence and coherence
relevant.

[{:-])))]

It does make sense to me,
what you wrote, above, in the middle.

Being One and All, and stuff like that there, tea,
in China and Tea Tephi, in Ireland.

Now the word, Ireland, is said to derive from Iberia,
with ia, meaning, land, and Iber stemming from Eber
from which the word Hebrew and the people were.

After sailing from Egypt to the Dardanelles, which
were named after Dara or Darda, a son of Tamar,
and founding Troy, Rome and other cities, their
sons and son's sons went on to Ireland, and
that is where the Red Hand sign is from.

As it was foretold, and predistined, and
must have been, such as it was, since it was,
foretold by Hosea, et al, in those old dead books.

That explains just about everything, integrity-wise.
How it all fits together and spells out why the Sun
never set on the Empire, because Tao decided, Way
before Earth was even formed, at the time.

Now, that age may have sailed.
And a New Age is upon us.

GNATs, I call them.
And they fly in the face of words.
But the words don't mind. Words don't have minds.

Memes are another story.
It's as if they have lives of their own.
But some people want to control them. To patent them.

Yet Tao will prevail.
Cuz everything happens according to Tao.
It must. It needs to. By necessity.

Given: sum pair of dimes.

[noname]

To foretell doesn't necessarily mean that something is predestined; nothing
is predestined.

But even though nothing is predestined, some things can be foretold. If
you walk far enough down the pier you will fall off the end, sorta thing.
If you keep hitting yourself on the head with a hammer, eventually you'll
manage to break it. If. Predestination contains no if. Nor choice. Nor
anything that's truly alive. Predestination is a gas-chamber for life, a
poison pill.

"If" is binary, either true or false. Things do, or they don't. When you
read the legends in the Bible about foretellings that came true, I think
you can be pretty sure that they're a miniscule fraction of the total
number of foretellings. History being recorded by the victors, that makes
it a sure thing, the bad ones get rubbed out. I could foretell a future
earthquake for California next Tuesday, if I issued such a guess I'd have a
pretty good chance of landing in the Bible Records Book along with all the
other foretellings that happened to come true, because there's been a whole
lot of shakin' goin' on lately. Hell's bells, guessing that California
will have another earthquake is close to a sure deal. That it will come
next Tuesday? I'd start out with 50% odds, either it will or it won't
happen on Tuesday, but in California? California is a big place with a lot
of faults.

>
> That explains just about everything, integrity-wise.
> How it all fits together and spells out why the Sun
> never set on the Empire, because Tao decided, Way
> before Earth was even formed, at the time.
>

I don't think so. Tao is not some sentient god to decide what will happen.
It is not a customer sitting at a table ordering drinks. It is more like
a barmaid, having just picked up an order at the bar, dancing her way
through the maze of people and furniture delivering the goods to the music
that is playing along with the rattle of glasses and the chatting of
customers and the everpresent football game on tv, and she is the very
definition of "grace", no matter what the music, and never spills a drop.
Tao isn't even like the barmaid, but more like the tune that's playing
while the goods make their way to those who asked for them. People,
individual sentiences, decide what they want, individually. Often they
don't realize it, they don't know what they've decided to order, they only
know what they want, they didn't get a menu when they came through the gate
of the womb, they're working with no manual so they can't RTFM. The order
is delivered in tune with the music. Harmoniously, according to Tao.
Never forced. Always just in the nick of time and always with the music.
And always exactly as ordered, to the letter; if you don't have a menu and
don't even know you're speaking a language, how you gonna know how much
horseradish is in the stew?


--
email: noname.123...@gmail.com

[Ummmmmmm]

You already have all the wisdom you will ever need. It is not necessary
to 'impart' it.
I have suggested that you may find it in a place you haven't looked at yet.

>
>> "To know that somewhere on the planet is at least one person who is able
>> and willing to hand you the key to that room is terribly confronting to
>> the ego" UMM vii 218
>
> Now you seem to have created an ego of some sort.
> The ego. I would assume the ego you write of is my ego.

No. Any old ego. The ego is the dragon which guards the entrance to the
secret room. Pointing out that it would be demeaning and humiliating to
accept the proposition that there could be *anything* you didn't know,
any door you hadn't yet opened.

>
> And you're still talking to me
> and didn't flip into some sort of generality
> pertaining to all people.
>
> So I'm going to assume it's my ego
> that you have created in me, and it's outside a room, maybe.
>
> And you have a key. Is that it?

No. The Master has the key. I'm not a Master. I have the key to my
treasure house - I go there as often as i want - but not to yours.

>
> You can get around my ego somehow, and give me a key,
> to a secret room that you know exists in me
> and that I, in this story, didn't know.
>
> But, since you gave me wisdom, now I know.
> And, you are going to give me the key.

No I didn't. Know you don't. No I'm not.
But hopefully you do know that the room exists, and that it can be unlocked.

>
> That's a funny story.
> It doesn't make me thirsty however.
>
> Maybe I'll make some coffee.
> Daybreak is still an hour or so from now.

Do you ever sleep?

[{:-])))]

noname wrote:

> ... if you don't have a menu and

>don't even know you're speaking a language, how you gonna know how much
>horseradish is in the stew?

You might have a taste of it, to find out.

[{:-])))]

noname wrote:

>To foretell doesn't necessarily mean that something is predestined; nothing
>is predestined.

Stories vary.

Premises, assumptions, presumptions, myths and facts,
woven together into a stew of words one may stew over.
Stirring in horses and radishes may add zesty meat flavour.
A flame standing under has no under standing.

With some stories, everything is predestined.
It's cause-effect and no free-choice.

With your story, free-choice exists.
And even though cause-effect also exists,
since free-choice is a variable, prediction is limited.
And predestination goes out of the picture window.

Some folks think their stories are facts.
And so, as they sew, for them theirs are.
That's the stew they've woven for themselves.

As if a stew of words were a stew.

If someone were to write a story, and,
within the story, the author had predestination
as a matter of fact and the acts actors acted out in
the story were all acts of sorts, then that is that.

Sew goes the story.