Are you a Taoists ???

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Isn't that a cowinkydink?

The keepers of the Tao on WP are also quite enamored with
the Icelandic Queen of Pop!!

Keepers of the Tao!! I love it!

Beautiful picture of Bjork

Maybe she is "the Way"... ... ... (but to where I don't know)

There is something very cosmic about her

Yes, most definately. She is something else.

Watch no one ever visit this thread again
because of our Bjork fixation!

LOL!!

maybe I took things the wrong way, no harm done, as my gran used to say "it'll all come out in the wash" This is still my favourite thread Avery.

ps. I like Bjork too, she's like the ice queen guarding the ice caps perhaps surounded with polar bears

There is nothing more satisfying for someone as enamored as I than to transform a profound Taoism thread into a sudden and confusing homage to the Icelandic princess.

A few old watercolors of mine, to prove I’m not the fixated one here. You are.




There are some really great pictures of Bjork with a white polar bear, looking fierce, I remember seeing them somewhere...

I’m going to find some Tao now to bring this thread back on track…

The true men of old
Had no mind to fight the Tao
They did not try by their own contriving
To help Tao along.

- Chuang Tzu

Now,
Weapons are instruments of evil omen;
Creation abhors them.
Therefore,
One who aspires to the Way
does not abide in them.

The superiour man
at home honors the left,
on the battlefield honors the right.
Therefore,
Weapons are not instruments of the superiour man;
Weapons are instruments of evil omen,
to be used only when there is no other choice.

He places placidity above all
and refuses to prettify weapons;
If one prettiefies weapons,
this is to delight in the killing of others.
Now,
One who delights in the killing of others
Cannot exercise his will over all under heaven.

For this reason,
On occasions for celebration,
the left is given priority;
On occasions for mourning,
the right is given priority.

Therefore,
A deputy general stands on the left,
The general-in-chief stands on the right.
In other words,
They stand in accordance with mourning ritual.

The killing of masses of human beings,
we bewail with sorrow and grief;
Victory in battle,
we commemorate with mourning ritual.

Pixel8: I promise not to read into your messages for my own personal interpretation and then broadcast them like a dumbass microphone; it's annoying. Many have told me.

Nory: I thought I had fixation issues, but you, have taken the double-layer cake with extra icing and some ice cream. But I likey, and I am happy to know that someone shares so much with me [my very narrow interests].

All under heaven say that I am great,
great but unconventional.

Now,
Precisely because I am unconventional,
I can be great;
If I were conventional,
I would long since have become a trifle.

I have always possessed three treasures
that I guard and cherish.
The first is compassion,
The second is frugality,
The third is not daring to be ahead of all under heaven.

Now,
Because I am compassionate,
I can be brave;
Because I am frugal,
I can be magnanimous;
Because I dare not be ahead of all under heaven,
I can be a leader in the completion of affairs.

If, today, I were to
Be courageous while forsaking compassion,
Be magnanimous while forsaking frugality,
Get ahead while forsaking the hindmost,
that would be death!

For compassion
In war brings victory,
In defense brings invulnerability.

Whomsoever heaven would establish,
It surrounds with a bulwark of compassion.

I was looking over the thread today and realizing that a lot of people have came in and commented on it.

I thank all of you for visiting and looking into these posts.
I hope this has helped many organize their aggregates.
I know it's hard for the AS, our inner selves are usually misaligned or fragmented; a pejorative condition to the fast-paced world we exist in.

Thanks everyone.



J

Avery,

I've misunderstood peoples words so many times I could write a book, it's to your credit that you care,
don't beat yourself up, when I beat myself up about things I usually need booze etc to dull the pain which only adds to my misunderstanding
I think it's through navigating tricky misunderstandings that we really get to know each other more than when we think we agree

This is a great thread and genuinely hope it keeps on going

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

The unnamable 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.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

Cheers to the Taoism thread!

Many thanks to you too, Averick, for creating such an amazing thread for all to see.

It’s also become, I think, a very good introduction to the Tao for any passerby who happens upon it.

Some truly beautiful passages just posted above, from both.

A quote from Thomas Merton about being unconventional;

“We live with an ingrained irrelevance which is proper to every human being. The marginal person accepts the basic irrelevance of the human condition… (and struggles with) trying to seek something deeper than death, because there is something deeper than death, and the office of the monk or the marginal person, the meditative person, is to go beyond death. Even in this life to go beyond. To go beyond the dichotomy of life and death and to therefore be a witness to life.”

The Lotus in the Mud, the Chrysanthemum in the Frost


The stem of the lotus is hollow, so on emerging from the mud it is extraordinarily clean. The flower of the chrysanthemum is late, so on meeting the autumn frost it is extraordinarily fresh. When the inside is hollow, then outside things cannot leave their mark; when the flower is late, the energy is full and resistant to cold.

What I realize as I observe this is the Tao of cultivating the inward and being immune to externals.

The reason Creation can constrain us, the reason things can influence us, the reason calamity can harm us, is not that Creation can actually constrain us, or that things can actually influence us, or that calamity can actually harm us – it is all because we get emotional about what we experience. Encounters with things arouse our minds, like wind rousing waves in whatever direction it blows. If we know how to go ahead but not how to stay behind, if we know how to be forceful but not how to be yielding, we constrain ourselves, influence ourselves, and harm ourselves.

If you are actually able to be such that nothing occurs to you and not a single thought arises, always clear and calm, impervious to outside things, immune to external influences, you will be like a lotus that has emerged from the water, unstained by dirt. If you are actually able to hold back your talent and wit, being skillful but appearing clumsy, being wise but appearing ignorant, acting unobtrusively, first to yield flexibly, then calamity and fortune cannot reach you, criticism and praise cannot affect you. You will be like the chrysanthemum in autumn coming through the frost and cold.

- Liu I-ming (1737)

Thanks, Nory (and thanks also for you earlier citation of Merton). I was beginning to wonder when we would get away from quotations (there are only 81 chapters (pages) to the Tao Te Ching, and we will soon have transcribed the entire work onto this thread)

There are many translations and each one leads to a dfferent set of meanings. There have been economic versions. both socialistic and capitalistic ("Backwards down the path")

There are discordant (to me) phrases in the Tao te Ching (I call them "Satanic verses"). like "the wise are ruthless, They see the people as dummies." (Chapter 5: Gia=Fu Feng and Jane English) What does that mean?

I think the Tao te Ching reveals a very "democratic" philosophy, but there are several phrases, including the above, which seem to me to be elitist. This is not surprising since civilized spcoety in the 5th century b. c. had not been democratic for thousands of years and would not be democratic again until 2000+ years in the future.

Like the eightfold path and the sermon on the mount, the behavioral implications of Taoism are most fortuitous when many people are practicing them.