Elbereth

I don't have the book with me, but I remember in "The Tao of Pooh" calls Confucianists "Confusionists" or something like that.

logansluf, you said what I was planning to say about Confucious in "The Book of Chuang Tzu." Btw, I recommend that those interested read this along with the Tao-Te Ching, as it is quite humorous. Although, I found "The Tao of Pooh" (by Benjamin Hoff) funnier.

I quite agree with whoever said up there that you get something out of the Tao-Te Ching every time you read it. I was perusing it today and found this:

To understand others is to be knowledgeable;
To understand yourself is to be wise.
To conquer others is to have strength;
To conquer yourself is to be strong.
To know when you have enough is to be rich.
To go forward with strength is to have ambition.
To not lose your place is to last long.
To die but not be forgotten - that's true long life.
--Tao-Te Ching, 33

I think I'll have to read both books again...

boneyard bill

DejaVudew asks:

My personal opinion is that Eastern religion is easier for a modern Western secularist to accept than Western religion because it sees the natural and the divine as existing on a continuum. There is no sharp break between the heavenly and the earthly in Eastern thought. "Samsara (earth) and Nirvana (heaven) are one." Is a popular saying in Mahayana Buddhism. For both Hinduism and Buddhism one must "realize" one's divine nature or one's Buddha nature. In Christianity the divine nature (the Holy Spirit) must "enter" from without through a miraculous act of divine grace. It isn't there from the beginning because this world is forever severed from the divine world.

Taoism distinguishes heaven from earth even less than Buddhism in that it doesn't even seem to bother to claim that they are a unity. The Tao is simply the Tao and governs everything.

Ironically, the Eastern approach seems to derive from an implicit, or sometimes explicit, philosophical idealism. While the Western approach requires a miraculous intervention because Western religions all seem to presuppose a materialistic universe. Pre-Christian Western philosophies such as Platonism and Stoicism were more idealistic and hence did not need to posit divine intervention.

boneyard bill

DejaVudew writes:

I would recommend The Spectrum of Consciousness by Ken Wilbur. He's very New Agey so he has a lot of stuff about quantum mechanics, and Freud, and Jung. But you can skip all that if you want and just read the parts about Eastern religion and philosophy. His depictions are very easy reading and, as far as I can tell from my subsequent study, he's pretty accurate.

LianaLi

How do I know this is going to get people "screaming" at me for not looking at the taoists/daoists properly. But here's my two cents:

The daoists are the deconstructionists (as far as I understand deconstructionalism) of the confucian and/or eastern philisophical view point. Their principles ran almost exactly counter to confucian values, for they wanted to achieve order through the self. Whereas confucianism focused on the self as a starting pointfor creating order, which radiated outwards in a lead by example sort of format. Taoism, on the other hand, (and I realize that I take very shallow intepretations of the texts. I'm well aware that there's a wealth of knowledge to be extrapolated from the texts, but I really lose patience with the absurd metaphors) mocks confucianism for its rigorous social structure, and moves to tear these things down, like government, ancestor worship, the elaborate rituals, and guidelines for behavior, WITHOUT proposing any other alternative.

That drives me batty. As much as I mock confucianism for being much too idealistic, atleast it TRIES to do something, as a social system. Daoism... I just don't get. It's NOT meant to be some sort of text for social conduct, so why use it that way? If anything, I dislike it more. Maybe I'm just trying to hard, I can easily see Chuang-tzu telling me that I am looking too hard for meaning when there is none.


-Liana

Elbereth

LianaLi:
From what I understand, Taoism came about before or at the same time as Confucious, so I wouldn't agree that Taoists attempt to "deconstruct" the confucian view point. I agree, Chuang Tzu mocks Confucious. Chuang Tzu seems to comment that Confucious thinks too much to understand the Tao.
I think the other things you said were right, but Taoism doesn't seek to tear down government. Actually, a good amount of the Tao-Te Ching describes how best to run a government. It may seem like they're anti-govt. because Lao Tzu says the "king" should rule without appearing to rule, and that those who don't want to rule are best suited to rule.
I'm not really up on my history of Taoism so I don't know how the texts have been interpreted. I don't see them as texts for social conduct, more like guidelines for how to rule, the nature of the Tao, and stories (in Chuang Tzu) about how to understand the Tao.
I can understand the source of your frustration/confusion. Perhaps you would (not) like this:

To know you don't know is best.
Not to know you don't know is a flaw.
Therefore, the Sage's not being flawed
Stems from his recognizing a flaw as a flaw.
Therefore, he is flawless.
-Tao-Te Ching, 71

LianaLi

Confucius lived around the time of 551 bce to 479 bce. Laozi, to whom the Taodejing is atributed, may have lived around the third century bce. Zhuang Zhou, whose writtings about the Taodejing serve as one of the major intepretations of the tao, lived circa 370-300 bce.

As for taoism, it drives me nutty because it preaches against confucian practices, but suggests no solutions. Taoism mocks the practices and confucian ways, but it has no clear suggestions about how to rule.It suggests, in highly ambigious passages, that one should rule without ruling, that authority is achieved without asserting authority, ect ect ect. In other words, it directly states that one accomplishes everything by doing nothing, which makes no sense to me. Confucian practices prescribe a high, idealistic standard to rule by example. Daoism prescribes inaction in order to achieve anything, which makes no sense.

I would agree, that I probably think too much, like Confucius, to truly understand how to follow the way, but that makes about as much sense to me as to do nothing. If following the way entails following the natural order of things- then that goes directly against government, because government is about asserting and maintaining social order. The two purposes are directly opposed.

That drives me nuts, when trying to discern the "recommended way" to rule according to Daoist principle. Makes no sense to me.

The texts undergo alot of interpretations throughout the years. I find the literal interpretations of Zhuang Zhou's passages hysterical, as it led absurd alchemic practices in the attempt to attain eternal life. It also gets mingled with buddhism and attaining nirvana melded with the pursuit of the way. It makes for kind of muddy interpretations every once in a while.


About the quote- I like about as much as I liked it when I first read it, which is not at all. The Taodejing drives me nutty because it is so ambigious, and people come up with this idea that it's a text for government, when it's anti-governemnt, because government seeks to establish order instead of simply following the natural "way." Makes no sense to me. It makes sense in a sort of historical context, in that daoism is a response to restrictive government rules and standards (like confucianism and legalism) but anything more than that, and it looks like only extrapolation to me.

-Liana, who likes legalism for its practical views on dirty old human nature

boneyard bill

LianaLi writes:

Both Taoism and Confucianism arose during a period of great disorder in China. There was no central government and the country was overrun by feuding warlords and bandits. Against this background a school of political philosophy known as "realists" arose. They're basic view was that a strong and very authoritarian government was necessary to preserve order. Confucianism and Taoism are both response to that school. Confucianism argued that extreme authoritarianism could be avoided if "te" or virtue could be instilled in the social order.

Taoism is much more individualistic. On one level it is a political critique of realism, and argues for a rather laissez-faire approach by government. But on another level it is much more profound. It tells us to follow nature. But we need to follow nature properly understood. Following nature does not mean following our impulses and passions. It means copying nature, and the examples from nature that Taoism cites are the lowly, the weak, and the unpretentious. The palm tree that sways with the wind survives when the stolid oak is uprooted. Water gives way to everything and puts up no resistence and yet, in its relentless flow, wears away mountains. This is the way of the Tao. And humans should act this way as well by being humble, and yielding. Don't get stuck in egotistical ambitions or offended by apparent slights. Just move on, like the Tao, and take life as it comes. It's really very much like Buddhism but not as somber and more optimistic. Zen is basically Taoism imposed on Buddhist metaphysics.

That, at least, is Taoism as I understand it. I'm no authority, but I think this account is accurate as far as it goes.

LianaLi

Where's a smiley with a lightbulb lighting up when you need one?

Boneyard Bill-

That interpretation of Daoism makes much more sense than, well, the texts that I've read.


-Liana

boneyard bill

LianaLi writes:

Could it be that the texts are over-intellectualizeing the issue? I think Taoism is saying something like this:

What you see is truth. And what you believe about what you see is falsehood.