GENIUS FORUMS

Perhaps we should examine another translation. I am familiar with a few of Thomas Cleary’s translations of Eastern texts and have been generally impressed with his work. His translation is available online ( http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/Eng ... y_TTK.html ) and here are sections 4 and 10:

4

The Way is unimpeded harmony; its potential may never be fully exploited.
It is as deep as the source of all things;
it blunts the edges, resolves the complications, harmonizes the light, assimilates to the world.
Profoundly still, it seems to be there:
I don't know whose child it is, before the creation of images.

10

Carrying vitality and consciousness, embracing them as one, can you keep from parting?
Concentrating energy, making it supple, can you be like an infant?
Purifying hidden perception, can you make it flawless?
Loving the people, governing the nation, can you be uncontrived?
As the gate of heaven opens and closes, can you be impassive?
As understanding reaches everywhere, can you be innocent?
Producing and developing, producing without possessing, growing without domineering: this is called mysterious power.

This translation of the phrase in section 10 suggests “flowing with circumstances,” not reacting to the ebb and flow.

clyde

From Wiki

"Cleary's recent translation of the Qur'an has been praised by Muslims who know English and Arabic"

Enough said really. The dude just wants an income.

I'm no longer interested in "ultimate reality," dummy! :)

Bullshit.

Many people want Reality to be paradoxical because they have a number of attachments which conflict with one another on a logical level. Instead of resolving the conflict by challenging their attachments, and abandoning them if needs be, they instead try to sweep the issue under the carpet by pretending that contradictions are inherent in Reality itself. It is a form of diminishing one's consciousness.

Paradoxes will alweays exist when one takes a one sided viewpoint. You for instance tend to completely be oblivious to the paradoxes you words create.

There are no paradoxes when one can encompass dualistic poles as causal reality, and everything in between as effect reality.

I'm not particularly fond of the Cleary. Like several other translators, he tries to make the Tao Te Ching a poem, full of flowery, seductive language. A lot of people swear by the Cleary, but it's not my favorite. I think he's imposing his ideas about what the TTC should be onto the text, which is fine for an adaptation, but not for a translation.

Jamesh wrote:

I'm no longer interested in "ultimate reality," dummy! :)

Bullshit.

Bless you.

Bullshit.

I can understand why you'd say that, but I have to insist that I'm really not interested in the concept of "ultimate reality." I would be interested in it if I thought there was any way I could grasp it intellectually, but I don't think there is, so I don't have any desire to bang my head against a wall.

I didn't quit looking for "ultimate reality" because I lost interest in what that concept points to. I quit pursuing it conceptually because I realized that it is trans-conceptual. Losing interest in the concept of "ultimate reality" is an effect of that cause.

When you see that the finger is pointing to the moon, you lose interest in the finger.

Unid,

I think he's imposing his ideas about what the TTC should be onto the text, which is fine for an adaptation, but not for a translation.

What would you consider the right approach, then? A literal translation? You don't think the translator has to try to read the writer's mind? Because I do.

There is ambiguity in language that is impossible to decipher with 100% certainty.

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Nat (since we are addressing posts to ourselves now, hehe):

You were the one who created this division, when you said:

"Dealing with phenomena on a conventional or a "spiritual" level, as circumstances dictate. A period of contemplation on the Three Marks of Existence doesn't do much to change a flat tire, nor can a lug wrench lead to much philosophical insight, unless maybe you're a mechanic at the monastery."

Can you clarify?

Yeah, I messed up there. I shouldn't have created that distinction by using those terms. The later clarification (about being mindful and such) is a better expression of my view.

I don't see the connection. How does mindfulness of the moment translate into "opening and closing the gates of heaven"?

Responding to things as they arise. Moving with the ebb and flow of circumstances. Adjusting one's approach as the situation calls for. Being receptive and spontaneous, which is why woman is mentioned, in my view.

Taoism is explicitly "flowy" in its approach. To deny this is to break with almost every mainstream authority on the subject, although I don't expect you to mind that.

The book is too simple and direct to admit of multiple meanings. There is only one true meaning of the Tao Te Ching - namely, the wise meaning intended by Lao Tzu.

Don't you mean the wise meaning perceived by David Quinn?

I disagree with you here. I think many passages in the Tao Te Ching can be reasonably interpreted as having multiple levels of meaning. I don't think it's a one-dimensional work.

Everyone already does this as a matter of course, sages and fools alike. For example, when a fool chokes himself up with worries, he is only thinking of his worries. Or when a Hitler thinks about dominating the world, he isn't thinking about things that are irrelevant to this. Or if he is, then that is what he is thinking about.

Wisdom is something other than simply doing whatever one happens to be doing.

I wasn't clear. The specific thoughts that are absent (or at least not consciously reinforced) in the person of insight are those that relate to false concepts about reality - such as attachment to results, ego considerations, etc.

So what do you think Lao Tzu means by "playing the role of woman" in connection with "opening and closing the gates of heaven"?

Addressed above.

If the abandoning of the concept of wisdom is done before the abandoning of all other attachments, whether it to be to concepts or feelings or people, then it is very foolish.

The concept of foolishness relies on the concept of wisdom for its meaning.

Abandoning the concept of wisdom before, say, one has abandoned an attachment to a girlfriend is merely a case of pandering to the short-term pleasures of one's ego. It isn't a wise action.

That is a value judgment based on your beliefs about the nature and wisdom of relationships.

It does for me, and I venture to say that it did for Lao Tzu.

Reality only fails to compute for deluded people who are still the victims of their own contradictory thinking.

All thinking is inherently contradictory. It is not possible to have a non-dualistic thought. A=A demonstrates this.

Many people want Reality to be paradoxical because they have a number of attachments which conflict with one another on a logical level. Instead of resolving the conflict by challenging their attachments, and abandoning them if needs be, they instead try to sweep the issue under the carpet by pretending that contradictions are inherent in Reality itself. It is a form of diminishing one's consciousness.

Please provide an example of a non-dualistic thought or concept.

Shahrazad wrote:Unid,

I think he's imposing his ideas about what the TTC should be onto the text, which is fine for an adaptation, but not for a translation.

What would you consider the right approach, then? A literal translation? You don't think the translator has to try to read the writer's mind? Because I do.

There is ambiguity in language that is impossible to decipher with 100% certainty.

-

I know, but there's a difference between doing your best to be faithful to the intended meaning (as a translator should) and slathering your own preferences all over it (as in an adaptation).

I see your point. But there is a trade-off between maintaining style (elegance) and accuracy. You cannot increase one without decreasing the other.

I have observed that the Bible translations that appeal the most to religious people are those that give them accuracy at the expense of style. Maybe the TTC is in the same category as the Bible and should be translated literally.

-

I can understand why you'd say that, but I have to insist that I'm really not interested in the concept of "ultimate reality." I would be interested in it if I thought there was any way I could grasp it intellectually, but I don't think there is, so I don't have any desire to bang my head against a wall.

Ok, the term “ultimate” is clearly an adjective, it describes the degree that something is only that something.

Any attempt your mind makes to understand anything is more or less adjective, it is an attempt to define more and more. Therefore either your mind has stopped calculating its relationship to everything else or it has not. It is impossible for it not to continue to calculate relative to present experiences so therefore it illogical for you to say that you no longer seek ultimate reality.

What you no longer seek is to define reality as ONLY a black and white issue. Once you remove the fundamentalist concept that reality is only A OR B, but rather that it is varying combinations of A and B then you are understanding the reality of finite Things. At this point you can then add back a black and white (or dualistic) ultimate and infinite CAUSAL reality, then you in fact do understand all realities.

Understanding does not mean "grasping" something or holding it in one's conscious mind, but it does mean you have a frontal lobe/emotionally positively verified memory. With regards truth, that is all we can ever do.

Oh, okay. If you want to call that "ultimate reality," then you can do so. I'm just not interested in applying the term. I don't have a term for reality beyond "reality," and I'm not even using that as a concept, but only as a term of convenience. It's a way of saying "that." Or "this," if you prefer. Or "this/that." Or "popsicle monster."

But "reality" is the most convenient of these. If you want to add the "ultimate" qualifier, go for it.

David,

Jason: Why should I care if the buddha's enlightenment matches the realization I have had, I was after truth not the buddha's seal of approval.

David Quinn: Well, I wasn't really talking about the buddha's seal of approval as such. That is meaningless herd-stuff, which I am not interested in.

Instead, my intention was to point to the existence of the highest truth. I am urging you guys not to settle for second-best. Settling back into mundane, ordinary life minus philosophic thoughts isn't the enlightenment that the buddhas spoke about. Nor is it the one that I speak about. There is a mode of existence which is far greater and more interesting than this.

That's not the problem though from my perspective, I obviously don't see it as settling for second-best. Since I believe I found truth, how could I think I was settling for second best?

Although you don't explicity mention it in your reply to me, it is understandable and reasonable that one could frame "settling back into normal, ordinary life" sans philosophical torment, as being caused by a psychological motivation for peace over truth. However, on the other hand, you also have to understand that I started with the hopes of bliss and an end to all suffering, and I was somewhat let down finding that truth didn't entail that. If you want to take psychological motivations into account, look at that too.

So the argument could be made that the psychological evidence actually points to me fulfilling my principle of truth above all else - even though I endured years of philosophically-induced suffering and torment and despite the fact that the hoped for bliss and end of suffering were not obtained, I still accepted what I found to be ultimately true.

Scott: What buddhas?

DQ: Gautoma, Nagarjuna, Huang Po, Hakuin, Hui Neng, etc.

And also Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Diogenes, Socrates, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc.

These were all buddhas - or more accurately, bodhisattvas.

J: David you rope in so many famous and influential old philosophers and religious-types as one of your own that I can't help but consider the possibility that you do so just as a recruitment tool. e.g. if you claim Jesus then you can more easily capture the christians who come here and so forth

DQ: Do you disagree that the men listed above had freed themselves from conventional thinking and were intimately familiar with infinite consciousness?

You know what, having given it some more thought there is the chance I was wrong. I may not be knowledgeable enough about these philosophers. But assuming I am:

I would single out Diogenes, Socrates and Nietzsche as being seriously questionable. In a response to Scott you explainend Socrates by appealing to descriptions of his life - I find that weak. I doubt you could mount any stronger a case for Diogenes. And specifically with all three I doubt you could make a convincing argument that they attained the same enlightenment you offer.

I don't know Hui Neng, I tend to agree with Scott about the Dao De Ching. Some of it certainly seems to agree with your ideas, some of it seems way off(which you explain by saying another person added it), and some of it is just too easy to interpret in a million different ways, like the "merge with the dust" bit that you translated - it's like a Rorschach inkblot test.

Your inclusion of Jesus has always been one of the major problems for me.

But I'm not sure it worthwhile getting into the technical details of exactly which passages they wrote or what actions they took that make you believe they would agree with you. I'd probably just challenge your interpretation and we'd be back to square one, with me wondering whether you were really giving a particular interpretations just to further your own goals. The fact that we only communicate through text on a screen every so often also adds to the problem. Instead of that, I'll tell you what - I'll take you at your word. Forget it, it's probably stupid of me to bring these things up, it's only been a suspicion. I like you, I think you have admirable qualities, everything else tells me you are a worthwhile and genuine guy.

There is also possibly error-inducing psychological motivations for me here, I will admit to having some serious competitive urges to "beat" the QSR - I think the truth I found is right, I want what I see as truth to spread, I think QSR are wrong, I don't want theirs to spread. Instead of focusing on this compeition I should just address the actual philosophy.

I got into quite a combative and competitive mode on my last longer visit to this board, and I don't think it was good for anyone, especially me. Tactics to win became far too primary a force in my writings. I feel a like these posts about your integrity are starting down that path again, and I don't want to go there.

Also, some of those who I originally thought were sheeple seem to be less so now, so one of my reasons for being quite anti-QSR has subsided. I'm not sure if that is due to them having been here longer and having more time to express their own voices, or whether it is down to my higher level of interest and interaction with the board which has made me more aware of the varying viewpoints that exist here.

Unidian,

Jason:So searching for ultimate reality is actually part of ultimate reality, I just didn't realize it at the time.

Unidian: Yes, I wouldn't object to that. But I don't call it "ultimate reality." I also don't imply "ultimate reality" by calling it "ordinary reality." I call it whatever it is in the present moment. Right now, it's "banging on keyboard with fan blowing and annoying Fear Factor TV show in background."

I agree, and you make a good point, and I just see it as a different way that each of us has decided is the best way to communicate these issues. There is a decent case for not referring to it as ultimate reality. The bit about it being simply what is "right now" is absolutely spot on with me.

U: These concepts such as "ultimate reality" and "ordinary reality" are what the Tao Te Ching asks us to un-learn. Everything is ultimate reality. Everything is ordinary reality. The two are one. Everything is what it is.

I agree with this, but I don't want to pretend that nothing at all has changed, because I do now possess a conceptual(at least) understanding that I previously did not have, so there is certainly some difference.

J: If there is no longer a conceptual distinction, is there any distinction at all? If so, what? It seems to me, that the fact the you speak of an awakening means there must be a distinction of some sort. You must at least have concepts in your mind about having come to the end of your search.

U: I'm using concepts to communicate, but that doesn't me an they arise in my mind when I'm not communicating. If I'm sitting outside staring at a tree, I'm just staring at a tree. What concepts arise here? Which ones need to? I don't even have to think "tree" to stare at a tree, although I do have to use the tree concept to communicate this experience to anyone else.

Yes, but when you're talking to me about having had an awakening then certain concepts are arising in your head about having had an awakening. The concepts that help to underpin my realization aren't constantly in my conscious mind, but whenever I think or talk about the nature of reality or my realization they tend to arise.

There is this problem that I've seen in some people who make some of the claims that you do(and I do), where they assert that they have realized the truth, yet they then go on to assert that literally nothing has changed. This seems like it is either dishonest or, more likely, lacking in mental clarity. I don't know that you are actually doing this, because I'm not sure I fully understand your position yet, so it could just be a difference in the way we express things.

There must be an change of some sort which occurs to differentiate between the state of "before realization" and the state of "after realization". You(and I) claim we are "after realization"(or words to that effect). In my case, "after realization" is distinguished(partly) by having certain concepts and memories in my mind. Not that these concepts themselves are ultimate reality. All I want to know is, do you agree with that? Do you have certain concepts and/memories which are necessary for the continued existence of your realization?

I hope my interrogation isn't annoying you, cos I really think we might be in agreement about all this, and it excites me to find others.

U: "Awakening" is one of those god-awful religious terms that gives people all sorts of unproductive ideas. I only mentioned it because it's still marginally better than "enlightenment." But better still is "un-learning," a term Taoism uses. When we un-learn all unnecessary distinctions, we aren't bothered with such things anymore. The mind becomes quiet.

Or, more realistically, we are no longer consciously reinforcing our unnecessary distinctions all the time. It can still take quite a while for the subconscious mind to settle down, re-wire itself, and start adjusting to the new approach.

What you seem to be talking about is the negative aspect, if you will, the withering away of the old and incorrect concepts and questions. But surely that can only occur in the presence of positive aspects, the correct concepts which were necessary to show that the old concepts were incorrect in the first place.

Of course, as the old incorrect concepts weaken and die off, the new concepts don't have to take such a conscious place, as they work their way more and more into the subconscious area of your mind. So I agree that part of the process is an end to the continual attempts to figure out what reality "really" is.

But on the other hand, if all you do is forget the incorrect concepts, and have no correct concepts to take teir place, you would effectively become ignorant again, you would become like you were before philosophy had entered your mind, and you could potentially take up the entire journey again. You must have some correct concepts stored somewhere in your head to stop this occuring. I suppose a subconscious understanding could prevent you making the journey again.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by "unnecessary distinctions".

U: That's why (in my view), a lot of younger types like myself still screw up a lot more than one might expect. Even when the conscious part of the "un-learning" process is over, there's a lot of stuff lingering below that can really only be dissolved by time.

It's really all just psychology. Thank heavens the Western psychological industry hasn't really caught on, or they'd regulate it and you'd have to have a license to practice Zen.

I think I know what you mean here, I find myself very easily regressing back to the ideas from the later(but incomplete) stages of my philosophical journey, especially when I get in discussions on this forum. I find I have to consciously refocus myself on exactly what I finally realized at the end of the journey. I still mess it up at times and include things in these conversations that I shouldn't. I put it down to habit, and a lack of total integration of my realization. When I'm focused I realize just how little I really have to say, the truth I found is so utterly simple and straightforward.

J: The sense that I get from you, is that your realization is about a certain amount of exclusion, such as the exclusion of attachment to concepts and the exclusion of a conceptual overlay. Maybe it's just the way you're explaining it, but I think we differ about this. All I say is: ultimate reality is right here dummy! That's it. As long as you know that, you've got it, at least to some depth of understanding - it may alter your subconcious and so forth after you know it for a while. Although you might have to have been on a serious search for truth for it to have any real meaning, impact or worth.

U: I'm no longer interested in "ultimate reality," dummy! :)

It's not about excluding anything, but rather including everything in "emptiness," as Nagarjuna and other sources point to. Everything is dependently-arisen and empty of inherent existence, including all concepts. Even emptiness is empty, so things are just as they appear, nothing more, nothing less.

I'd have to slightly reword that to "things are just as they are." Because, to me, the reference to "appereance" has connotations that suggests that everything is appearance. I also prefer to go in the other direction with "emptiness", because to me it is intuitively and experientially more correct to describe my existence in postive terms, so I would tend to go for something like "wholy complete" or "full".

U: A=A. The tree is conceptualized as "the tree" because we distinguish it from everything else. Tree is generally a useful distinction for various purposes, such as acquiring firewood. Ego (inherently-existing separate self) is an example of a distinction that is generally not useful, so we can choose to stop consciously reinforcing it.

Unfortunately I see a possibly disagreement here. A=A means, to me, that whatever is, simply is. I also call it suchness. To suggest that there are specific and inherent outcomes from A=A, like your idea of the non-inherent existence of the ego and the tree, really seems to miss the mark.

You seem to be saying that things lacking inherent existence is a fundamental truth.

I am saying that the single fundamental truth is "things are just as they are". So yes you can go ahead and think that things lack inherent existence, just don't mistake that for the fundamental truth of reality which is "things are just as they are."

Although the problem I am seeing might simply a product of your particular choice of words. I wish we could just trade direct thoughts so we didn't have these communication issues.

J: Come on, I am also one of those people who is plagued by the philosophical urge, and there is no way I'd be saying I only invested five dollars in the search for ultimate reality. Come on. I invested more like almost my entire lifes savings.

U: I think it's kind of pointless to have a pissing contest about this, but if it's somehow helpful to you, I guess I could clarify. I'm not talking about 5 years of playing around, but 5 years of full-time thought 8-12 hours a day most days, allowing for occasional sabbaticals to spend the whole day playing video games or whatever. Before that, it was maybe only 2-4 hours a day for several more years. I'm happily unemployed since age 24, and I'm 32 now. :)

I didn't mean to make it a pissing contest, it's just that I threw almost my entire life into this quest for truth, it took over my existence. Saying that you invested five dollars into the endeavour made is sound like you didn't put much into it.

I'm unemployed too.

U: Thanks for the responses and the opportunity to babble.

No worries, but I hardly consider it babble, I am engrosed in this conversation. Please don't tell me you're going to stop with it, I want to know more about your "un-learning".

I had a pretty lengthy reply to this which I lost due to a browser crash. I'll have to get back to you later.

Unidian wrote:I'll have to get back to you later.

Ok, but don't be too long, I'm really enjoying this discussion.

Basically, I think that before insight, we don't know what we can and can't know, so we're clouding immediate experience with all kinds of ideas and concepts. After insight, we know what we can and can't know, so we're no longer doing that.

It's basically an epistemological realization, as I discuss here.