|
Post by withinsilence on Nov 25, 2013 19:07:43 GMT
What is this teaching saying? It talks about the Mean and then labels some as stupid and worthless? This seems very contradictory of a spiritual teaching.
|
|
|
Post by gurthbruins on Nov 26, 2013 9:44:26 GMT
I feel more positive about the quote. For some reason it appeals to me. I can't quite understand it. Just possibly could that be the intention? After all, the quote seems to imply that the whole philosophy of the mean is false, which could surely hardly be the case?
|
|
|
Post by withinsilence on Nov 26, 2013 15:14:35 GMT
I was fishing somewhat by casting a negatively lured response. I actually printed this quote so I could meditate/contemplate on it. Its message is deep, subtle, and not easily seen. I am not sure if I even truly understand it, but how I see it is: Mean I take to represent the "middle way/path" that of allowing, flowing, accepting, like water gently returning back to its source and as it goes/flows back to the source it is naturally purified through the coarse, yet it doesn't "do" anything, it "happens" all of its own accord. How does muddy water return to its natural state? How does a busy mind return to stillness? How does an overly toxic body return to health? How do the sides of the scale return to perfect balance? So for the quote: "Walked" is to apply effort, the Mean or Way of Dao is to flow naturally, effortlessly, genuinely, thus the wise don't strive and struggle through life, they flow like water, effortlessly flowing where the current of life takes them, hence there is nothing to be walked as separate from the Mean, it is one and the same, "the Way." "Understood" is of the past, understanding is now, once one has reached understanding the Mean, there is no need to dwell on it or stay there, or to identify a "you" as separate from "it" thus to move past it is to live "the way", as IT, (as the Mean or Way) gently flowing in/with the river of life. All IS in the Mean, imbalance results in and is a part of the Mean. Without opposites the Mean is and with opposites the Mean is, everything originates from neutral and can move forward or backward, yet that which moves either direction always returns to center, in fact I don't think "IT" ever leaves it, "IT" just experiences that it does. This seems to be the human path: from ignorance to suffering, from suffering to seeking, from seeking to understanding, from understanding to the end of seeking which is to have gone beyond the divided minds dualistic perceptions of separation (ignorance) and to live AS virtue or Te or De. Can you see a cyclical nature in this? Te/De is pure, refined, balanced, harmonious, undivided consciousness, seeing all as infinitely varying expression of Tao. I say varying and not varied because All Is in constant flux, ever changing.
|
|
|
Post by gurthbruins on Mar 11, 2014 5:26:52 GMT
Lynn Sheil, on the Facebook group "Fight Club...":
"Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain--This Life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies." ~ The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
· March 9 at 10:32pm near Eastleigh, United Kingdom You, Mark Hall and Steve Barker like this.
Gurth Bruins: A flower capable of reincarnation would have far less value than a unique, once-only event. Thank God for real and total death!
|
|
|
Post by gurthbruins on Mar 11, 2014 6:41:09 GMT
Gurth Bruins, on the Facebook group "Fight Club...":
Why don't people just try to understand other people, instead of trying to put them right?
|
|
|
Post by gurthbruins on Mar 12, 2014 6:24:28 GMT
Gurth Bruins, on the Facebook group "Pantheism":
<< Is conflict peace? War and peace are dualities. By dualities I mean things that cannot exist without their 'opposites'. There can be no good without evil, no evil without good, no long without short, no black without white, and so on. And no values without these dualities. So we should not try to evade or neutralise them. >>
|
|
|
Post by gurthbruins on Mar 12, 2014 6:29:08 GMT
On the Facebook group 'Home', Mar 6 at 5.09pm
Gurth Bruins:
<< It seems there are two kinds of people: Those who depend on
themselves without the confirmation of other people as 'plumbline' (this word will do),
and those who need confirmation from other people, whom they look up to as spiritual
authorities. (e.g. the written words of Muhammad or the authors of the Bible). These
words were written by men. I believe most people lack the confidence in their own
powers to be in the former class, and so need the prophets of the scriptures, or other
men's opinions.
People like Krishnamurti say: "Reject all spiritual authorities and stand on your own
feet in spiritual matters" but I must confess I think this is a tall order for most people,
who are just not up to it. >>
|
|
|
Post by gurthbruins on Mar 12, 2014 7:05:31 GMT
On the facebook group "Pantheism":
Gurth Bruins
Karl Popper, my beloved semantic saviour... I ended up saying: << if more people realised that whenever anybody uses any word, it means exactly what he thinks it means, much of the futile and pointless debate in the world would fall away. >>
|
|
|
Post by gurthbruins on Apr 20, 2014 14:40:08 GMT
DEFINE HAPPINESS
It's all in the attitude of gratitude.
- Terri Wrigley
|
|