Thirteen
The tiny particles which form the vast universe are not tiny at all.
Neither is the vast universe vast.
These are notions of the mind, which is like a knife,
always chipping away at the Tao,
trying to render it graspable and manageable.
But that which is beyond form is ungraspable, and
that which is beyond knowing is unmanageable.
There is, however, this consolation:
She who lets go of the knife, will find the Tao at her fingertips.
-Lao Tzu
7 comments:
ah ha, i think he agrees
'He' who?
Lao agrees with Buddha or what we've been talking about lately that once you quit asking Why, you will begin to know just by being quiet, observing, meditating. Weird post I put on there, must have been partly dreaming zzzzzzz
Ah, ok. Yeah I agree that Lao and Buddha thought a lot alike (or didn't think, heh). I consider Taoism to be almost like an atheist, original version of Buddhism, more like the spirit of what Buddha really taught that the way it was interpreted by various people who followed him. Some kept it simple but some made it semi-supernatural. Taoism is clean in that the only "God" if there is one is the Tao, which is everything. And the moment you or I or any other part of the Tao starts to question other parts of it, we try to force what is really a unified whole into a dualistic box. Me and you. Us and them. Life and nonlife. Matter and energy. In my heart I believe it's all really the same thing, and needs no explanation because who or what else is there to do the explaining to? Nothing.
Good point and good philosophy I think.....it keeps us from getting frustrated.
i don't think one can find better wisdom anywhere than the Tao. Buddhism, though complicated by thousands of years of mutation and misunderstanding (i assume) does spell out a path to achieving peace more completely than Taoism or Zen (very similar), but the goal i believe is exactly the same. It's like the Buddha tried to expound on the Tao to make it more understandable to the layperson, then got totally misunderstood by those same people because can somebody who doesn't get it ever get it?
No, they just ritualize it as a number of steps you must take, a number of things you must not do, and so on. The original insight behind why those rituals were made gets lost.
Of course, some people see through these rituals and DO get it, but despite them and not because of them. At least, that's my thought. It does help to have someone put you in the right location facing the right way sometimes, even though it's still you who has to see.
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