@Setanta,
ha ha. Funny! In your opinion, I am wrong, but I quoted Maximus very carefully from the book History of the World by Chinese authors. In my view point, I don't know if you are right or wrong as I work scientifically. Besides, no neet to curse me sh*t as I am not the good or bad, but I am nothingness, sounding like you hit a bag of cotton. My emotion doesn't hurt me. Read this story to know how gurus, zen masters, taoists, enlightened Buddhists treat their enemy:
There is a story named “Really?” in the book Gathering sand and stones by zen master Muju in Japan.
“Zen master Hakuin was praised as he lived a stainless life. A Japanese family having một food store near where Hakuin lived had a beautiful girl. Suddenly, one day, the parents found the girl was pregnant.
The parents got angry. The girl didn’t confess who man she had had sex with, but after much trouble, they found out Hakuin.
Being indignant extremely, the parents went to the master. Hakuin only uttered the word:”Really?” then stop.
After the child was born, he was carried to Hakuin. Then, Hakuin lost all his honour, but not sad. Hakuin took care of the child carefully, begging milk and necessary things of neighbours for the child.
A year later, the girl could not stand any longer. She told the truth to the parents that the real father of the child was not Hakuin but a young man selling fish in the market.
The parents went to Hakuin immediately, apologized. The asking for forgiveness was lengthy, and they begged him to bring back the child home. Hakuin gave them the child and uttered only :”Really?””
Enlightened people lived humanely that way. They see calamities or lucks all are nothingness, therefore they are never sorrowful. They are always happy. Buddha , who is great, is like that, also nothingness. Enlightened Taoists are similar, very close to Buddist zen masters, also always happy, and they also have the degree to show gratitude to their enemies, not grieved when in a calamity, when being slandered, not to play a trick back to their enemies like ordinary people. Consequently, Taoism (Daoism) is a very valuable philosophy, world outlook. People who are enlightened in Taoism, i.e they see the truth, they have very strong practical effects. Their happiness doesn’t depend on the environment, richness or poorness.
@taoist11,
You're so full of **** it's coming out of your ears. You don't "work scientifically." You've got a hobby horse to ride, and you'll produce the most eggregious and silly justifications for it--there's no "science" to it at all.
You can tell all the silly stories you want to, it will not alter that good and bad are subject judgments--your stories prove nothing.
all i know about good and bad can be summed up in this little ditty
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
When she was good
She was very, very good
But when she was bad
She was better
Enlightenment:
To uncover the light that shines in all of us.
The light is truth,
Be true,
=
@Setanta,
Hello Setanna,
No need to curse me as I treat you the way I treat myself. Be calm, friend! I have another version of the story Maximus, so I don't know you are right or wrong. However, history is not a correct science, and if my story were wrong, it is just only a small part of the whole doctrine I am posting. Did you read Taoism, I mean did you read Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu? Seems you did not since you don't understand what is badness or goodness.
The bad is yin and the good is yang. In general, what are negative are yin and what are positive are yang. Badness, weakness, back, softness, shadow, women, shame, failure … are yin. Goodness, front, hardness, light, men, glory, victory, … are yang. One law of Taoism is “yin is yang and yang is yin.”
It seems difficult to understand. For example, if yin is yang and yang is yin, then men are women and women are men ? That’s right. In women there are germs of boys and in men, there are germs of girls. Poison is yin, but if we use it to kill flies, to kill malicious persons, it becomes good therefore it is yang. Bread you have every day is good, but not absolutely good. In bread, there is yin: you eat bread 7, 10 times as much, surely you get ill, or more than that, you die. Bread in this situation is bad, or yin. Our house, we live in it, we love it, thinking that it is good, or yang, but it is still yin since I have seen many siblings fighting with one another over the house. The house in this case seperates siblings, very bad. To lose is to win. Germany and Japan failed in the World War II but now they are powerful coutries. At the beginning of the 20th century, China was the prey for other countries to share, most of its people were unhappy, but now (2006), China is a powerful country. The inner world (your soul, your thought) is the outer world and conversely. This is difficult to understand but it is true. Let’s consider inner world is yang. It is yang because your thoughts are the most rapid in the world. In the nature, the highest speed is light, but to move from the Sun to the Earth, it takes 8 minutes with the speed 300.000 km/h. But your brain, while thinking of affairs of your family, it takes only less than 1/10 second to think of the Sun. Because thoughts move with such an extreme speed, we say thoughts are more positive, or yang, whereas the outer world moves more slowly, or more negative, or yin. Taoism says the inner world and the outer world are oneness. Dealing with our affairs, our happiness is dealing with happiness of the society (outer world), and conversely, water moves up, boats move up or when the society is richer, we become richer. Similarly, Buddha says Buddha and human beings are oneness:” I am a Buddha already; human beings are Buddhas will be”. Children who are abandoned, and are brought up by animals, i.e living far apart from human society, but living in animal society, when being brought into human society, they have no humanity; they cannot wear clothes, always tear things apart; they don’t understand and they can’t speak human languages; they eat like animals. Those children only reflect animal societies, not human society. Our inner worlds are the reflection of the society. It’s up to each individual that that reflection is close to the truth or not.
The second law is nothing, nobody, no phenomenon is out of yin and yang. Everybody, everything, every phenomenon is the struggle and unity of opposite sides, i.e, yin and yang. In a body, if assimilation is positive or yang, then that body also has catabolism, which is negative, or yin. Digestion is yang and excretion is yin. In a vehicle, there are moving parts are yang and standing still parts are yin; hard parts are yang and soft parts like tires are yin. Lastly, everything is made of atoms. In an atom, the nuclear is motionless is yin and electrons moving very fast are yang. Yin and yang struggle with each other and unite with each other and produce everything, everyone, every phenomenon.
Another law is yin and yang are relative. There is nothing is absolute yin and nothing is absolute yang. Therefore this leads to another famous law is “There is yin in yang; there is yang in yin.” For example, in a human body, digestion, in the aspect of supplying food, it is positive, or yang, so excretion, which supplies nothing, is yin, but in the aspect of releasing poisonous substance, excretion is yang and digestion is yin. Is a wooden table yin or yang ? In compare with the floor, it is higher, or more “positive”, or yang, but in compare with the roof, it is lower, or yin. In compare with bread, to a person, the table is yin since it does not supply food, or negative. But the table, to a termite, is yang as a termite can eat the wooden table. Yin and yang are not absolute. (cont)
@taoist11,
Quote:There is nothing is absolute yin and nothing is absolute yang
I have just begun to see.
@laughoutlood,
As I understand it there is absolute yang and yin and relative yang and yin. Like zen, taoism is not dualistic (e.g., that yang is either positive or relative).
@taoist11,
I didn't curse you, and i'm calm. The point, which i'm not surprised you missed, is that you are just making things up to suit your propaganda. It doesn't matter what you or i or anyone has or has not read--good and bad are subjective judgments, they do not describe absolutes which exist.
@Finn dAbuzz,
So, what? I didn't curse him, and i am calm. Saying that someone is full of **** may be unpleasant, but it is neither cursing them, nor is it "uncalm."
What do you think this proves? All i see proven here is your obsession with trying to make me out to be a bad guy. You're so silly.
@Setanta,
Accursed words. Trippingly.
Scatology, actually . . .
Naw, there's no animus there . . . i got nothin' against the boy, just the bullshit he's tryin' to peddle . . .
I just don't see the point.
What's the point of slicing the world into the two broadest categories that exist and then being like, 'but there's some exceptions, WHOA, who would have thought that? Aren't I wise? '
@taoist11,
What creates yin and yang ? That is oneness. What is oneness? Oneness is a familiar cencept in Eastern philosophy. Goodness always goes with badness, consequently, goodness and badness are oneness, like two sides of a note. Similarly, the front and the back are oneness; the inner and the outer are oneness; blessing and disasters are oneness; glory and shame are oneness; etc. In general yin and yang are oneness. All are oneness; nothing is out of oneness. Oneness is the universal truth, or Tao (Dao). To be enlightened in Daoism is to see oneness. Oneness is the united of everything. Since two elements of oneness, yin and yang, are not clear, as there is yin in yang and there is yang in yin, oneness is chaotic, not clear. In conclusion, Dao is the unity of yin and yang. Yin and yang are two sides of Dao. Dao differentiates into yin and yang.
How is Dao like ? Chuang Tzu writes:” For Tao has its inner reality and its evidences. It is devoid of action and of form. It may be transmitted, but cannot be received; It may be obtained, but cannot be seen. It is based in itself, rooted in itself. Before heaven and earth were, Tao existed by itself from all time. It gave the spirits and rulers their spiritual powers, and gave Heaven and Earth their birth. To Tao, the zenith is not high, nor the nadir low; no point in time is long ago, nor by the lapse of ages has it grown old. “ (Quoted from Chuang Tzu by Lin Yutang).
Dao is based in itself, rooted in itself therefore Tao is the cause of itself, not anything else is the cause of it. Taoism is a philosophy which is different from other religions, having the view point that the universe, all things, living beings are born by God. Tao is the chaos of wills and things having no wills, like stones. If we say that living beings are born by minerals and compounds, that is we use the low to explain the high. Thus, in the beginning, there were germs of living in Tao. Similarly, in the beginning, in Tao, there was consciousness in a jumble with things having no consciousness. And this exists before us, before heaven and earth, as a consequence Dao is transcendental. Dao has no beginning, no end and always exists, i.e, Dao is everywhere, Dao is everything, Dao is everytime. Dao is oneness, just one. Although one, but it is also the most because things and phenomenons, although abounding, can’t not go out of Dao. Dao is a reluctant name since Dao has no form. Speaking and writing must have some form, i.e, some sound, some words. Existing in a form, speaking and writing are limited, cannot express the thing having no beginning, no end, no form, limitless, the most precise but also the greatest. Consequently, even trying the best to say, to write or any way, we cannot express Dao.
As Dao is marvellous, and hard to point it out, Lao Tzu used the concept non-being (non-existence, nothingness) to express Dao. He wrote:”Everything is born by existence; existence is born by non-existence.” Existence and non-existence are two sides of Dao. But to persons not enlightened, they only see being. Enlightened persons see both being and non-being. Seeing non-being, enlightened persons are very different, different revolutionarily in compare with non-enlightened persons, even geniuses. (cont)
@taoist11,
enlightenment doesn't know what it is.
