movingalways wrote:I agree that the waters are not really hiding, that it's a part of how we look and act, (as a man thinkest so is he) which is why I asked how you place the waters of consciousness/being in the philosophy of 'doing the right thing'. I understand the waters as being the enjoyment of distinctions for enjoyments sake, this is their righteousness. It's no secret that I am trying to counter the idea of wise misogyny with the idea of wisdom of all spirits of being.
Perhaps this zen story pens it down a bit:
- Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed.
As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out: "Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!"
"Brother," the second monk replied, "I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."
The water as being something to
cross, always changing, causes wariness and fear within the archetypal woman. She can only cross standing on someone else's shoulders (material provision) if she lets herself to be carried. The teaching about avoiding contact boils down to transcending being bothered by her necessity and see her as fleeting like the river itself. The woman as "something being carried". This is wise misogyny but it's hard to translate it in real situations and real people because the image of woman (or "opposite", anti-man) is a mirage, a passing perfume cloud which cannot even be "banned" or dealt with. She only fully exists in the symbolical realm. Opposing a physical gender would as nonsensical as opposing an arms or a leg if people did not exist themselves already fully in such symbolical realm or "heaven". Only when getting to earth there's the 'wisdom of spirit' which indeed counters all former notions.
Passing the river itself or carrying her over it is the same "right" and spontaneous thing to do. One reaction, one flow, one determination without settling on any training or teaching. But it's the same teaching that brought the monks there is the first place, right to the point of crossing.
