h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Tao of Lao-Tzu (Chinese)- First Chapter.(excerpt)

Since we've been talking about existence and the void and stuff like that on the Zen Poem thread, it makes this much easier to relate to and understand, for me at least. I'm not claiming that it's true. Neither am I claiming that it's false. Neither am I claiming that it's neither. Tao means the way, the truth, or something. Line one of verse two shows how langage and discussion miss the point in this view. See my Heidegger Article, A656787.


The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.

The unnameable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the
manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

The key to understanding seems here to be the abandonment of desire, for chocolates, for sex, for companionship or love etc. Desire, longing, was for the Buddha the root of all suffering.

Jab

There's a line in a Seth book (by Jane Roberts) where Seth says something like, "To desire not to desire, that is impossible."

I myself rather like looking forward to the next thing, to whatever it is I long for next. Desire can be so intense as to be unpleasant, especially if there is no way to attain what you want. But it can also I think be sweet. I would not, I think, be a very good Buddhist. But I was an even worse Catholic.

I think that desires tend to grow weaker as you grow older.
Maybe Buddhism is not for young people?

Dubman him say:

"This philosophy is only to get your cool & passion, the rest is only literature,the thing should be to be a real person"

zdt

part of one of my sayings

I WISH for a little and I get "nothing"..I WISH for "nothing" and it comes true


I'm me, what else do I want

Brilliantly summed up Prof. Glad you're back. We need you.

To desire not to desire may be a contradiction. To cease desiring isn't, but can take lots of mind training.

I'm not a Buddhist, on similar grounds to JEllen and Terri, but I can certainly learn from it. The Buddha said that all is unsatisfactory. Or suffering as it is commonly translated. The actual word is 'dukkha'. To desire is unsatisfactory/suffering/dukkha, but to achieve your desire is also unsatisfactory/suffering/dukkha. Proof - you sooner or later go on to desire the next thing. And nothing lasts.

The Prof idea is closer to happiness.

One of our stupidest (but near universal) desires is not to die. Perhaps having given this up alone would account for such happiness and equanimity as people like the Dalai Lama show?

Jab

Before someone comes down on me like a ton of bricks, the poem isn't a Buddhist one but a central text of Taoism, a Chinese religion - that's why I put (Chinese) down to describe it.

Paul, you may be right, it's possibly easier for older people to give up desire, but they may have many more nagging regrets that they desire to be free from.

I also wanted to make the point with the poem that the reality we live in according to the poem is only our reality, constructed with the senses, and that the real reality is unknown to us - 'darkness' or the void - which we can't discuss because we have no words for it or experience of it. If you want a more modern version, look up the philosopher Kant, whose work is the basis of much continental philosophy. Or the Wittgenstein quote in my article.

Cheers,

Jab

Jab, you'll get nothing but from me.
No tons of bricks at all.

I think Taoism is responsible for the "Don't push the river, it flows by itself" saying. I love that wisdom!

As for reality being unknowable or hard to know, I subscribe to the
existentialist idea that the nature of God (if there is one) is not knowable for us in this life.

Regrets? I am vigilant against letting any of them ruin my day.

If the time comes when I no longer have any desires, I will gracefully accept that. I don't know how to get rid of them actively, though. We are all surrounded by advertising, which whets our desires, so we'll buy stuff.

Thanks Paul!

That 'don't push the river' saying is so good! Such a lot of wasted effort worrying and so forth when life goes on by itself. There's also the famed Heraclitus saying on the way things are always changing 'you can't step into the same river twice'.

Reality and God - what I can't stand is all those preachers who think they know God's mind - 'God wants you to do this', 'God wants you to do that'. Although there is an argument for knowledge through revelation, I hardly think it applies to them.

You can't get rid of desires passively - it's very active, as in giving up hard drugs. In fact, as you say, we're surrounded by advertising, hoping to crank up desire - you might say to make consuming our drug, to rely on present society as a drug. It takes a lot of guts and mind training to give up desire - it can take years of hard meditation, like in unheated Zen monasteries in the mountains all winter, for example!

Jab

There was a Zen saying that I had wanted to post here, but I forgot it. I just remembered it" Hell is not punishment. It is practice."

There seems to be a lot of thinking going on here!
before !!

the only thing I excel in(101.5%), is idiocyit don't pay well, but why change perfection = true

Let's hear it from the 'old-time religion' too:

"Love of Money is the root of all evil."

= desire for things??

The Bible - New Testament - St. Paul's letter to St. Timothy (Timothy 1:6)

Jab

Prof: you're exceeding perfection there!

Jab

of course!I'm a Yorkshireman

it's in our genes

Ah, but Yorkshiremen only wash their genes in de spring...

zdt

That often?

Jab

save water, bathe with a friend

I'm not good at Biblical quotations, but this one is written in the front of my address book:

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares"

(Hebrews 13: 1-2)

Dubman & i were discussing the river type thing earlier, we've both travelled a lot & know quite a bit about different cultures (he is originally from a small Algerian village, they fled during the war, now scattered all over France & Ireland); he was saying "in Africa/Asia, the philosophy tends to be "slowly but surely wins the race", in the West, we are so bombarded with "quick, quick, get a new....whatever, people zap through life, their attention span goes, most people just can't focus, they multi-task."

It's quite bizarre 'cos he's a very new friend & patience is just an alien concept to me, the only time i do focus is when making art stuff or music.

zdt

I think he meant spring as a place, not a time.

Or maybe not.

And then again......

But maybe I was right the first time.....


Or not.