suppose I were in an Eastern mood? Well now, if you asked a Zen-Master whether the Tao exists, he would probably give you a good blow with his stick. Now I, being of a somewhat more mild disposition, would probably just smile at you (perhaps in a somewhat condescending fashion) and offer you a cup of tea.
To understand the true meaning of the term “Tao” one must sample hundreds and thousands of cases in which the term is actually used. And this is not all. To understand the concept of Tao, one must also be thoroughly familiar with Taoist poetry and painting (as well, perhaps, as calligraphy) in which Taoistic feeling has found its most concrete and vivid embodiment. In short, to understand the meaning of “Tao” one must be thoroughly steeped in the whole philosophy and arts of Taoism. After you have done this, after you have sampled thousands of uses of the word “Tao”, you might try your hand at being clever and framing one single definition to cover this whole multitude of cases. But even if you succeed, how utterly empty your definition will be to those who have not had your concrete experience of actually living through this philosophy!
However, I digress. It is not quite clear just what I am digressing from, since this whole discussion is getting fantastically vague as it is, but I have a feeling that I am digressing from something.
I hate people who talk too much. When I’m in company, I like to be the one to talk; others should just respectfully listen!
“A high official from Shang said to Confucious, “You are a sage, are you not?” “A sage!” replied Confucious in astonishment, “How could I venture to think so? I am a man with a wide range of learning and information, but I would hardly say I am a sage!”
some of them worship him and others don’t,* but they seem pretty well agreed that worship of the Buddha—whatever value it may have on its own account—is irrelevant to the problem of enlightenment. Indeed, one often “worships” something as a substitute for understanding it!
The fourth Gospel is the only one in which Jesus claimed—or appeared to claim—to be the incarnation of God. He said, “The Father and I are one”. Did Jesus add, “The Father and you are not one”?
The most remarkable thing of all is that people have sometimes sworn to me that I must be telepathic and have refused to believe me when I swore to them that I am not! I told them over and over again, “This is really a trick! It has a perfectly simple mechanical explanation, and any of you could do it yourself, if you knew the explanation (which professional ethics forbids me to disclose).” But they refused to believe me! And so I think the reason some people insist on Buddha being a deity is their simple need to deify somebody or something. And so they take it out on poor Buddha!
I also love the idea of a pair of birds, so beautifully innocent and free from any notions of “reverence” or “worship” making a nest in a statue of the Buddha. The “Buddha nature” of the statue is so delightfully irrelevent to its suitability as a bird-nester.
I find it painful to have to reject any religion—even atheism. I wish I could accept them all even though they all contradict one another. Each is a composite of many strains, some good, some bad, some indifferent. The best I can do is to pick the finest veins of each and synthesize them as well as I can. In particular, the above passage on Saint Paul emphasizes just that aspect of Christianity which I love.
my entire ethical philosophy can be paraphrased in one brief sentence: “Kindness cannot be taught by harshness—not by any amount of harshness.”
All I am really trying to say to them is, “I wish you would let yourself alone and stop beating yourself on the head; I believe you would be better off.”
MORALIST: Ah, I’ve caught you! You are being inconsistent! On the one hand you say that all the things which happen are good enough for you, and yet you admit of a particular happening that it is not good enough for you. So plainly you are inconsistent! TAOIST: Oh, for God’s sake, come off it! You the great logician have caught me in an inconsistency! I affirm a universal statement and yet I deny an instance! Tut, tut, isn’t that just terrible! MORALIST: Well, what do you have to say for yourself? TAOIST: What do I have to say for myself? Mainly that you are a first-class dope!
MORALIST: Well, if this is not what your poem means, then I am still puzzled as to what it really means. TAOIST: Why do you work so hard trying to find its meaning? Can’t you just accept it for what it is, and simply say “It’s a good poem” or “It’s a rotten poem”?
Several days after I completed this chapter, there was a storm during the night and the wind blew out many of the screens from the porch. Next morning I was standing there looking at the desolation, and my wife came down and said: “Well Raymond, are you still satisfied with whichever the way the wind blows?”
“When the wrong man does the right thing, it usually turns out wrong”.
moralists such a threat? What do you really have against us? Is it merely what you already said about our hiding our subjectivity behind a cloak of objectivity? TAOIST: No, it is far more than that! You may remember George
George Berkeley’s penetrating criticism of philosophers, “They first raise a dust, and then complain they cannot see.”
A humane person is one who is simply kind, sympathetic and loving. He does not believe that he should be so, or that it is his “duty” to be so; he just simply is. He treats his neighbor well not because it is the “right thing to do” but because he feels like it.
There is nothing like a naturalistic orientation to dispel all these morbid thoughts of “sin” and “free will” and “moral responsibility”. At one stage of history, such notions were actually useful. I refer to the days when tyrants had unlimited power and nothing short of fears of hell could possibly restrain them.
If you want to get the plain truth, Be not concerned with right and wrong. The conflict between right and wrong Is the sickness of the mind.
But I wish the theologians would finally learn that I am not punishing Adam and his descendants for the act, but rather that the fruit in question is poisonous in its own right and its effects, unfortunately, last countless generations.
I give nothing as duties, What others give as duties, I give as living impulses.
They were honest and righteous without realizing they were “doing their duty”. They loved each other and did not know that this was “love of neighbor”. They deceived no one, yet they did not know they were “men to be trusted”. They were reliable and did not know that this was “good faith”. They lived freely together giving and taking, and did not know that they were generous. For this reason their deeds have not been narrated. They made no history.
Someone once compared freedom with Zen by saying that freedom is doing what one likes; Zen is liking what one does.
It is a pleasure When, spreading out some paper I take brush in hand And write far more skilfully Than I could have expected. It is a pleasure When after a hundred days Of twisting my words Without success, suddenly A poem turns out nicely. It is a pleasure When, without receiving help, I can understand The meaning of a volume Reputed most difficult. It is a pleasure When, a most infrequent treat, We’ve fish for dinner And my children cry with joy “Yum-yum!” and gobble it down. It is a pleasure When, in a book which by chance I am perusing, I come on a character Who is exactly like me.
Most people hate egotists. They remind them of themselves. I love egotists. They remind me of me.
Silent and formless, changing and impermanent, now dead, now living, equal with Heaven and Earth, moving with the spiritual and intelligent; disappearing where? Suddenly whither?; all things are what they are, no one more attractive than others: these were some of the aspects of the Tao of the ancients. Chuangtse heard of them and was delighted. In strange and vague expressions, wild and extravagant language, indefinite terms, he indulged himself in his own ideas without partiality or peculiar appearance. He regarded the world as submerged and ignorant, so that it could not be spoken too seriously. So he put his ideas into indefinite cup-like words, ascribing them to others for authority and illustrating with stories for variety. He came and went alone with the spirit of Heaven and Earth, but had no sense of pride in his superiority to all things. He did not condemn either right or wrong, so he was able to get along with ordinary people. His writings, though they have a grand style, are not opposed to things and so are harmless. His phrases, though full of irregularities, are yet attractive and full of humor. The richness of his ideas cannot be exhausted. Above he roams with the Creator. Below he makes friends of those who, without beginning or end, are beyond life and death. In regard to the fundamental he was comprehensive and great, profound and free. In regard to the essential he may be called the harmonious adapter to higher things. Nevertheless, in his response to change and his interpretation of things, his reasons were inexhaustible and not derived from his predecessors. Indefinite and obscure, he is not one to be exhausted!
I would say that a truly egocentric person (in the best sense of the term) does need to have other people around. Take me for example; without other people around, who would I have to impress?
forbearing readers will let me off with just a few concluding remarks.
does this story really need finishing? Perhaps my more forbearing
If one goes crazy enough, even sanity—normally so gruesome—becomes bearable after a while.
I find the idea attractive and, in a strange sort of way, extremely useful. I also find the idea profound and highly suggestive. The only trouble is that when I try to explain just what it suggests I somehow get lost.
So let us assume that magic is the ultimate principle of the universe, and let us suppose that the planets exert a very important magical influence on our lives. The only question is, which planet exerts which type of magical influence? Assuming Mars and Venus affect us differently, how do I know which one affects us in which way? Who can tell me, the astrologers? My point is that even if we allow things like magic and the supernatural, we are still not committed to listening to the astrologers, for how do they know what laws govern magic or the supernatural?
“When the true sage rules, good things are accomplished, and the people all say, “We did it ourselves”
The Tao never commands, And for this reason, is voluntarily obeyed. By contrast, we might remark that the Judeo-Christian God does command, and for this reason is sometimes disobeyed.
Admirable is he, who when he sees lightning, does not say “Life goes by like a flash”.
As the philosopher Rudolph Carnap so aptly expressed it, “Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability.”