Why be proud?

[Hexadecimal]

Can I make a flower grow?

I once thought so; I can plant a seed, water it, keep it in the light, watch for parasites.

I started to ponder: I asked myself, can I make a seed exist? Obviously not; I can make things, but I cannot create. I need materials to work with. This thought followed with the water; I can gather it, but I cannot bring it to exist. And even more so with the sun! All I can do is stand in its presence, let alone create a star! Even the parasites that I watch so closely for cannot be willed away; I must use a mind and body that I did not create in order to fend them off.

It occurred here that I am not the beginning and the end. So I looked further into things: the seeds come from gardening supply chains, the water from the city water works, the light from the sun, the parasites from nature. The supply chains gather seeds from already existing flowers, which come from nature. The city water works gather their water from sources in nature, and then recycle it to conserve natural resources. It turned out that all the materials I use to grow a flower came from nature; including my mind and body.

Now, nature and all its laws came from the universe. And the universe, I am told, has existed eternally in one form or another. It turns out that I am but a tool. The seed, the water, the light...they all exist without me. I cannot grow a flower on my own. I cannot even exist on my own. Everything else can exist without me...but not I without it.

[Hare_Geist]

Well aren't you Hellenistic.

[Hexadecimal]

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

Well aren't you Hellenistic.

Hey Geist, how have you been lately? I haven't done much of the totse thing lately at all...been working, praying, meditating, paying old fines, making amends, building my life...ya know, the usual things an ex-drug user/drinker has to do to enjoy life.

I'm walking through life with the Tao te Ching, Bible, and the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a much smoother walk than my seven former companions could provide (alliteration to the seven deadlies...)

[Hare_Geist]

Originally Posted by Hexadecimal

Tao te Ching

You know the trick is not to conceptualize it, but to "submerge" yourself in the "prereflective stage", don't you? It's a lot like reading an eastern Martin Heidegger or Henri Bergson and is really simple to grasp when you know how.

[Hexadecimal]

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

You know the trick is not to conceptualize it, but to "submerge" yourself in the "prereflective stage", don't you? It's a lot like reading an eastern Martin Heidegger or Henri Bergson and is really simple to grasp when you know how.

You grasp the Tao by letting it grasp you. Much the same way that you find god by letting it find you. It rules the heavens and earth and is present everywhere in between...to find it, you simply have to stop searching and see that it's always been there.

Turns out I've been walking with the Tao/God my entire life...I just wasn't aware of it before. Funny how when you search for Truth all you can see is your searching instead of the simple Truth right in front of you...this often leads to the notion that one is searching for something that cannot be found...which is in a way true: you have to admit you're lost and completely incapable of finding (thus baaing for the Shepherd) before the Shepherd will come find you. After all, why waste your time finding that which isn't lost?

[Hare_Geist]

Stop ass-raping the Tao. It's a subtle ontology, not a monocentric theology.

[Hexadecimal]

Thus, when the Way is lost there is virtue
When virtue is lost there is humaneness
When humaneness is lost there is rightness
And when rightness is lost there is propriety.
Now "propriety" is the external appearance of loyalty and sincerity
And the beginning of disorder.

(When the eternal is lost, there man thinks himself perfect,
when he finds he is not perfect, he thinks himself selfless,
when he finds he is selfish, he thinks himself moral,
when he find he is immoral, he becomes mannerly,
he appears as a gentle sheep on the outside yet inwardly is a ravenous wolf,
and here he will commit harm)

Thanks to the truth of that, however, once you admit you are broken you're finally in a position to be fixed.

And I'm not ass-raping anything...I've placed my entire trust into the TtC; if the revelations I've received as to its meaning were incorrect it would have yielded some sort of problem for me.

[AngryFemme]

Why is that in order for a person to get past his own misgivings and bad deeds, it is necessary to judge the rest of mankind as harshly as one has to judge themselves in order to realize that there's a better person inside just waiting to be revealed?

I'm glad to hear you've given up drugs and drinking, but sad to learn that you've replaced those addictions with the notion that you're somehow above everyone else in terms of your strategy for living a good life.

[Hexadecimal]

Have I judged anyone in this thread? I've posted a bit of prose, a part of a verse of the TtC along with my understanding of it and how it has been applied in my life. So far I've done nothing but share some of my experience.

[JesuitArtiste]

Originally Posted by AngryFemme

Why is that in order for a person to get past his own misgivings and bad deeds, it is necessary to judge the rest of mankind as harshly as one has to judge themselves in order to realize that there's a better person inside just waiting to be revealed?

I'm glad to hear you've given up drugs and drinking, but sad to learn that you've replaced those addictions with the notion that you're somehow above everyone else in terms of your strategy for living a good life.

*shrugs*

I didn't feel judged.