--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Lao Tzu said, "From wonder into wonder life will open." > > He didn't say, "From wonder into certainty and knowledge > > of the truth life will open." Many theists do. I think > > I'd rather go out drinkin' with Lao Tzu. > > Nice tie-in with a less evangelical version of man's thoughts > on reality.
Less evangelical and less goal-oriented. In Taoism, one aspires to flow with the Way, not to "get someplace." The Lao-tzu quote I use to open Road Trip Mind is, "A good traveler has no fixed destination, and is not intent upon arriving." Same idea. Taoist philosophy is more concerned with appreciating the beauty of what is than with trying to figure out *why* or *how* what is is. Some folks seem to want to find out the "answers" to the "questions" of life. Lao-tzu would probably suggest, as I did, that life has never *asked* them any questions. It merely is. In some circles, appreciating what is is considered a more refined art that understanding what is, and certainly a more refined art than convincing oneself that one understands what is. It probably all comes down to predilection. No "good" or "bad" or "best" or "worst" about it, just predilection. Some folks seek answers to what they perceive as questions. Others just groove on what they perceive as groovy. :-) > Last night I was at a concert by Rory Block, my favorite > female blues guitarists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdPZTOXwh8 > (I already sent you this link Turq) She was doing a show with Robert > Johnson's grandson who is a preacher and his 30 person gospel choir. > I was seeing the show with my Buddhist Thai friend. After Rory tore > it up with her great blues, the preacher started his preaching with > the choir singing behind him. His message was was so bombastic and > assumptive concerning what anyone in the audience might already know > about reality or life, that we eventually just left. It was > insulting and presumptuous especially since the audience was there > to hear Rory's blues. I find most attempts to "save" someone or convert them to a belief system insulting and presumptuous. An olde comedy troupe from the 60s and 70s called the Firesign Theater used to have a routine about The Blinding Light Church of the Presumptuous Assumption. I always liked that. The assumption that your beliefs *need* evangel- izing is perhaps the greatest presumption anyone could make. :-) For me, beliefs are best shared -- NOT evangelized -- by just throwing them out like spaghetti against the fridge, to see if they "stick." If they do, cool. If they don't, cool. The spiritual bookstore metaphor I mentioned some time ago...you just put your book on the shelf and see what happens. To take that book and thump it while preaching hellfire and brimstone to those who *don't* want to buy it, or to chase people in an airport trying to sell it to them, seems a tad...uh...excessive. I think that most people have an intuitive resistance to evangelists; I know I do. The louder they preach and the more they try to convince me of the "rightness" of their beliefs, the more I suspect that the person they're trying to convince is *themselves*, not me. > On talking with my Thai friend we discussed how his religion doesn't > suppose that everyone else needs to be "saved". He had a hard time > even understanding why the preacher was so assertive and rude to > attempt to make us believe something by force of will and a lot of > people shouting at us. I share his incredulity. > I liked your points about life's "answers". As if it posed questions. :-) > I am comfortable with the idea that using "life" and "meaning" > is just a linguistic error. My > life has the meaning I create > for it. I feel the same way. Again, possibly predilection. Some folks seem to be seriously threatened by the concept that life might have no meaning whatsoever. I find that concept liberating -- it frees me to find whatever "meaning" that suits the moment, and then to allow it to change as the moment changes. > It takes work but like home cooking over ready-made fast food, > it is much more satisfying. That's the thing -- it takes work. Some folks seem to want to be spoon-fed "the answers" so that they don't have to *do* the work. The TM organization, to name just one spiritual org, seems to thrive on providing "the answers." Have you ever heard Maharishi say, "I don't know?" Remember, "Every question is a perfect opportunity for the answer we have already prepared?" It's a way of life. There are other ways of life. Again, as I see it it's a matter of predilection -- some folks seek answers in life and others just seek to live life...and live it well, as an artform. I've found that the further I can immerse myself in life, the fewer "questions" it poses, the more satisfaction I find *in* life, and the more life opens itself to even *more* satisfaction. It's as if appreciating it without seeking to "understand" it "enlivens" life, and life begins appreciating you back. :-) The Lao-tzu quote that opens this post was paraphrased by my man Bruce Cockburn once in a song that has become almost a credo for me: Listen to it, US only, at: http://play.rhapsody.com/brucecockburn/sunwheeldance/lifewillopen?didAutoplayBounce=true Life Will Open Waves can't break without rocks that dissolve into sand We can't dance without seasons upon which to stand Eden is a state of rhythm like the sea Is a timeless change Turn your eyes to the world where we all sit and dream Busy dreaming ourselves and each other into being Dreaming is a state of death, can't you see? We must live through who we are If we can sing with the wind song Chant with thunder Play upon the lightning Melodies of wonder Into wonder life will open We are children of the river we have named "existence" Undercurrent and surface pass in the same tense Nothing is confined except what's in your mind Every footstep must be true If we can sing with the wind song Chant with thunder Play upon the lightning Melodies of wonder Into wonder life will open
