'The Dao is that from which nothing can depart ...'
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 Robbydharma |
'The Dao is that from which nothing can depart ...' |
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Posts: 9 (04/17/08 02:54 PM) No Holiness |
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Laird Shaw |
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Posts: 114 (04/17/08 09:38 PM) |
I like the analogy with swimming in a river. It's the best explanation of the Dao that I've heard yet. One thing troubles me though - the destination
of the river. If it's taking you to hell, then you're going to want to do your best to swim against it, aren't you? Or even better yet, to get out
of it onto the solid banks where you can trudge back to a better place.
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Dan Rowden |
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Posts: 108 (04/17/08 09:53 PM) |
Swimming against the Tao is really a nonsensical concept.
The Dao is that from which nothing can depart ...One can advocate for a conscious awareness of the nature of the Tao - which of course I do - but talk of swimming against it is like talk of being divorced from Reality. I mean, that would be a seriously neat trick. |
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Laird Shaw |
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Posts: 115 (04/17/08 10:00 PM) |
So then in practical terms what exactly does it mean to "be in alignment with the Dao"? Let's take a simple situation - say, a dinner party. How
would someone who is in alignment with the Dao behave any differently around the dinner table to someone who is not? Would s/he be more or less involved in the
conversation? Would s/he be more or less opinionated? Would s/he crack more or less jokes? I mean, what exactly changes when you align yourself with the Dao?
Or is it more in the mindset than in the behaviour?
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Dan Rowden |
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Posts: 111 (04/17/08 11:14 PM) |
Isn't behaviour largely governed by mindsets? But yes, it's the mindset that changes. Specifically, one ceases to be attached; one ceases to grasp at
phantoms thinking them to be real. Non-attachment is the body of wisdom. Wisdom springs from the well of knowledge and understanding, but is not, itself,
either thing. It is simply freedom from grasping.
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vinny the hack |
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Posts: 1677 (04/17/08 11:56 PM) Administrunktorbot |
Isn't behaviour largely governed by mindsets?Yes and no. Most of us have a good understanding of right and wrong, yet large numbers of people do wrong. You might argue that to do wrong then, is their mindset. I would counter with: they mean to do right, but so often cannot help themselves.
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. --Dean Martin
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Dan Rowden |
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Posts: 112 (04/18/08 12:13 AM) |
Which means they have a mindset that overturns what reason they have. Cognitive dissonance, and all that....
And I reject the idea that people have an "understanding" of right and wrong. They simply have lesser and greater memes in operation. |
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vinny the hack |
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Posts: 1679 (04/18/08 12:21 AM) Administrunktorbot |
So, when someone says the knew they had done wrong, which happens quite a bit, why do you imagine they say such a thing?
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. --Dean Martin
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Dan Rowden |
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Posts: 113 (04/18/08 01:29 AM) |
One meme wins over another.
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Robert Larkin |
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Posts: 3301 (04/18/08 02:31 AM) sui generis |
Laird Shaw wrote: Very unusual remarks in a conversation about Dao. That the Dao would be taking you to hell certainly suggests a Christian's comment and I suppose we
could ask if that was the spirit in which the reply was written. Where narrator Alan Watts offered the alternatives swimming with the river and swimming
against it, here there is swimming against the Dao being suggestive not of resisting life but of reasonably resisting a negative current as if it were somehow
the river's fault one was going to hell.
Last Edited By: Robert Larkin
04/18/08 02:59 AM.
Edited 1 times.
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Robert Larkin |
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Posts: 3302 (04/18/08 02:57 AM) sui generis |
Dan Rowden wrote: Are ignorance and sagehood the same? There ought to be some distinction somewhere to serve the momentary purpose, and whyso isn't swimming against the
river adequate for that purpose? Especially so perhaps when Watts pointedly said 'the Dao is that from which nothing can depart ...' and which
satisfies your criticism.
... the Great Way, the Tao, is an organic flow to all of the energy and life in the universe. For the most part, it is a subtle undercurrent, moving slowly along beneath all things. It is certainly possible to swim upstream in a slow current and successfully make it to wherever you are headed without being swept away. You will certainly be conscious of the energy you use up swimming against the current. If you were to pit yourself against that slow river and try to swim upstream, against the current, you would need superhuman endurance to go very far, for the river does not tire or even TRY to move you. Even superhuman endurance is weak in comparison to the power of the slow steady river. The Tao can be thought of as a river of life. All living things exist in and are part of the Tao, part of a greater whole. Individual organisms are all part of the ebb and flow of life within the Tao. The whole and entire point of that is seeing if I get a smile from Rowden for having mentioned a primer but then not insisting he is in need of it. |
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Laird Shaw |
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Posts: 116 (04/18/08 03:03 AM) |
Robby I guess I am thinking of it from a Christian-like perspective. From that perspective, a lot of the material world is out to trick people into
doing the wrong thing believing that they're doing the right thing, or simply not caring anymore, and to align with the Dao and "swim with the
current" might be seen as conformity with that which is wicked in the material world. From the Christian-like perspective, it might be necessary to fight
against the trends of the world in order to do the righteous thing.
I wonder whether one can be in alignment with the Dao and still be an activist or a protester. What do you think? |
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Dan Rowden |
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Posts: 115 (04/18/08 03:05 AM) |
The whole and entire point of that is seeing if I get a smile from Rowden for having mentioned a primer but then not insisting he is in need of it. 
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Dan Rowden |
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Posts: 116 (04/18/08 03:09 AM) |
Laird,
I wonder whether one can be in alignment with the Dao and still be an activist or a protester. What do you think? Best you wonder in what way one can and/or cannot be in alignment with the Tao. Leave the moral and political shit till later. |
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Robert Larkin |
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Posts: 3303 (04/18/08 03:16 AM) sui generis |
I wondered, Laird, if you consider yourself a Christian; I thought you had once suggested it and forgive me for not remembering definitely.
I'll ditto Dan's answer with the inclusion of the Daoist adage let them burn a million years. Krishnamurti had it - and I never quote U. G. - you cannot help before you are beyond help. |
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vinny the hack |
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Posts: 1680 (04/18/08 03:26 AM) Administrunktorbot |
One meme wins over another.That may be, but it doesn't necessarily indicate one's failure to distinguish right from wrong. You can do wrong and know you have done so. In fact, there is a specific psychological explanation for the very few people who truly cannot distinguish right from wrong, specifically, they lack empathy. They cannot relate their actions to the pain of others. It doesn't describe people in general.
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. --Dean Martin
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Laird Shaw |
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Posts: 117 (04/18/08 03:36 AM) |
Laird: I wonder whether one can be in alignment with the Dao and still be an activist or a protester. What do you think? That's exactly what I'm wondering with that question. Do you have an answer? Robby, no, I don't specifically consider myself to be a Christian. There is too much death and destruction in the OT at the hands of God to reconcile Him with the merciful, loving God of the NT, and furthermore I can't fathom how an omnipotent, benevolent being could permit the immense suffering in this world. I am open to variations on the theme, however, and a lot of the time I believe in concepts of absolute good and evil; heaven and hell; mostly due to experiences that I've had. It's these ideas that lead me to question what exactly it means to be in alignment with the Dao and whether it could, from the perspective of someone who believes in evil, be akin to failing to resist temptation and succumbing to the wickedness of the world. Putting those ideas aside, however, it seems that aligning with the Dao is akin to adopting a sort of "go with the flow" attitude, and that's what leads me to question whether people who agitate for change in society could consider themselves Daoists - they're hardly going with the flow. I'm interested in your reaction to that. Dan has failed to enlighten me on the question. |
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Dan Rowden |
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Posts: 118 (04/18/08 03:44 AM) |
Think in terms of the flow of Nature. How can one be outside that? One can't. That is the Tao.
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Laird Shaw |
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Posts: 118 (04/18/08 03:48 AM) |
So then everybody is already in alignment with the Tao - there is no way to be outside of it. Where's the sense in that?
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Dan Rowden |
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Posts: 119 (04/18/08 03:52 AM) |
We have evolved consciousness, which leads us to want to know what the fuck that means. It's not really any more complex than that.
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Robert Larkin |
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Posts: 3305 (04/18/08 04:00 AM) sui generis |
Laird Shaw wrote: I would think if anyone believed in evil he could be worried by any concept; thought can't reassure itself of a damned thing, Descartes relying
ultimately on an undeceiving God for his reassurance; I have an undeceiving magic rock for mine.
The Laozi contains observations on effective government and so the point is not to refuse involvement but to
involve oneself (as a Daoist) when one knows what the hell one is doing. The Daoist model of the good life is small communes as I recall although calling
Daoists Communists might be a stretch. I'm too lazy to look it up; maybe tomorrow. |
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