Taoism enlightenment: absolute happiness

I understand and even agree with the implicit meaning of your words that reveal in many aspects an Ancient Wisdom which I very much respect...
...nevertheless I think that the root deep meaning of such words (like nothingness) needs to an extent to be polished and clarified in order for us (Human beings) to have a better grasp on the true ideas present in those ancient words and the philosophy's that they really were trying to convey.
In such light I will reply to you :

1 - Instead of Nothingness you probably meant the opposite, that is, to be "EVERYTHING"...or to be shapeless and ready to occupy all forms...note that there is no real shapelessness also, but only forms in permanent transition, like water...so one must be careful, in retrieving the true meaning on what one is reading and trying to presently understand...



...To be enlightened, to use your own terms, is having the "goodness" of accepting the necessity of the "badness" for the purpose of renovation in a world in constant flux and change...the forces of Chaos in their destructiveness bring on the regrowth of new forms of order, thus allowing the permanent realigning of the algorithms of life, in new shapes, new systems, with new meanings, ever more adapted to present circumstances...the closest example in Occidental History and tradition we have here to that very kind of thinking were the Druids in Northern Europe before the rise of Christianity...
...in short and to resume, be wise, be neutral, don´t interfere to much in the natural processes of the World, flow with it and not against it ! (again one must have a relative caution in retrieving the proper meaning in such words, as they are not against action itself, but instead in favour of balance...)

关于 (Guānyú) Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

Answer F Albuquerque:

I read your post 3 times but I don't understand. I have to translate it into Vietnamese & I get you. Nevertheless, the thing I tell you only is to read what I post in this forum more. I quote my book Taoism: the Source of Happiness to post here. You may find the whole book by searching in lulu.com , free. What you write don't illustrate nor go the right way to Taoism. What to do is to reach the chaos by meditation (zen).

Now we turn to Daoism:
Another point is that Daoists never feel they are lonely. I must confess that I see around me, in real life, on internet, in books, I don’t see any Daoist. The only Vietnamese Daoist I know is Eastern philosophy professor Cao Xuan Huy, but he died. I want to exchange thought with another Daoist but I have’nt found anyone. However , I always feel calm inside, feel self confident inside, althought anything happens, as my mind is a chaotic mass of yin and yang, not yin only, or sadness, for me to feel bad as I have no heart to heart person to talk with. I am never sad. Even I want so, I can’t be sad. Always “happy”, and this happiness doesn’t depend on environment, on anything, and very strong, very realistic. I have a close friend who went to settle in US in 1994. We often exchange news via internet. I was enlightened; I informed him and described the truth in a friend forum in internet. He wrote that I was arrogant, and could not distinguish theories. I did not debate with him in a hurry, leaving his article in the forum more than a fortnight for everyone knew that somebody was talking about me with disadvantage. Then, I refuted that I had left the article on internet for more than 20 days to show that Dao has no form, and as Dao has no form, Dao is patient. Then I betted with him. I wrote:”You send to us 50 USD (cheap) to hire the cutest whore and let her stay in the same room with me; the room has sex video. The whore wears whatever, ao dai, or bikini. I will watch the video, my eyes open widely, but I won’t need the whore. Our friend will witness this and inform you by phone. You may test me times and times, whenever you want. The second test is about money, not to much. You know that I “love” internet (Daoists love nothing, so I put love in quotation marks) and “love” PC. You buy a second hand laptop Pentium III on net, 400 USD, send to Vietnam to me. I “like” laptops because I watch video, listen to music, read ebooks wherever, whenever I want. When tired of learning, I take the laptop, lying in bed to continue to learn, very comfortable. But even though you send the laptop to me to exchange the sentence “Hieu sees no nothingness,” you’ll fail. I can’t say that because it doesn’t express my mind.” My friend was forced to admit that I was enlightened, not to lie to myself, not to deceive myself. Needing no beautiful girls, Daoists are always happy. If I live among a group of beautiful girls, naked, still I am calm, not hot even I have an ordinary sex life, strong sex life. My sexual acts happen only when I want, so I can marry a woman but no beautiful woman, Britney Spears, Miss World, Miss Vietnam, … may have affects on me. That is a small test, perhaps it seems indifferent. But my big test is strong, like this: all treasures, all villas, good wine, all movie stars, luxury cars, private air planes, v.v… all that mankind considers good, worthing to dream of, all those used to exchange a declaration of mine:”Hieu sees no nothingness,” that person will fail as it doesn’t express my mind. A gold mine can’t exchange a “yes” of a Daoist. If someone gave me hundred of billions of USD to exchange my nothingness, for me to live an ordinary life, ignorant, I would not care. So Daoists never commit adultery or “beautiful woman plot” or to work as a gigolo. Living among a group of beautiful women around, I see I am happy already, very true. To have or to have not those women, doesn’t matter. And I see those beautiful women are the chaotic combines of yin and yang, the chaotic combine of goodness and badness, of glory and shame, having no firm nature, i.e, nothingness. It’s impossible to love and to die for a beautiful woman. So Romeo and Juliet were wrong. Shakespeare is refuted. He is not my genius. And Nguyen Du, the highest point of Vietnamese poetry, too, is refuted. I laugh at what Nguyen Du wrote. “When people are sad, landscapes are not happy,” oh, Daoists, they are never sad. I look at whatever lanscape, even gloomy mountains and forests, or the inside of a jail, I see they are all the same, all are “interesting’. Liet Tu, ancient Chinese Daoist, wrote this state of mind of a Daoist in the story Many Ways to do Sightseeing:

“Before now, Liet Tu liked going out to do sightseeing very much. Ho Khau Tu asked:
- You like to do sightseeing, but what does doing sightseeing deserve to like ?
Liet Tu answered:
- Gladness of sightseeing is to see things I haven’t seen before. Others do sightseeing, they only enjoy the appearance of things, but for me, I do sightseeing to enjoy inside changes of things. Oh, doing sightseeing! None can distinguish those two kinds of doing sightseeing.
Ho Khau Tu said:
- Your enjoyment of sightseeing is like others, why do you say not like ? Whenever you enjoy appearance of things, you also enjoy inside changes of things. You only know to enjoy changes of things outside but you do not know to enjoy changes of yourself. You only do sightseeing to things outside but not observe yourself. Doing sightseeing, all you have is perfection of things outside; observing you yourself is to do perfection to yourself. Attaining perfection of you yourself is the very perfect doing sightseeing and having perfection of things outside is the imperfect enjoyment of sightseeing.
After hearing that, all his life, Liet Tu did not go out to do sightseeing and he considered himself he did not understand the true doing sightseeing. Ho Khau Tu still said:
- That is the perfect doing sightseeing! The most perfect doing sightseeing is do not know where to go; the most perfect enjoyment is do not know what to enjoy. Thus, you may do sightseeing to anything, you may enjoy anything. That is the doing sightseeing I want to say. So, that is the most perfect doing sightseeing and that is also the most ideal doing sightseeing!”
(cont)

One must question the true meaning in words instead of simply accepting a given definition, that is, to explore the implications they bring in with an open mind...

Taoism is about the path, and the path is about questioning every step you give, in your way to enlightenment...

There is no such thing as Nothingness. You cannot reach nothingness if you are n´t already "there"...no place, no thing, no Quest...Nothingness is not reachable, not something that you can run to get into...think on that !

Absolute happiness is this taste of coffee I'm having now while typing.

My meaning in this obscure statement rests on the adjective, absolute. I was not talking about relative happiness or pleasure. That taste experience was incomparable and eternal. In the sense of linear time it no longer exists, but it can never be denied or un-done. The same applies to the experience that is my life and that is me now. Life as experienced is absolute, whole and "perfect"; as conceptualized it is relative, dualistic and "unsatisfying."

Nothingness is real, but only when perceiving Oneness, we see nothingness. We see nothingness because the world is impermanent, no self nature. Nothingness and everythingness are two sides of Tao. Normal people see only everythingness. Don't you see everythingness has no self nature, that's everything is not good nor bad? Nothing is always good.

If nothingness is real and good that would make nothing something wouldn't it?

=

I agree that nothingness and everythingness are two sides of Tao. Indeed, I feel that when I die I will both become nothing (as most people fear about themselves, which is why they want to believe in an afterlife) and I will become everything. But, of course, I am (we are) and have always been, both.

In your "confused" view Communication in between things would be impossible...as if they did n´t share the same root they would not "perceive" each other.

1 - ...WHERE THERE IS A THING THERE ARE ALL THINGS...
2 - ...WHERE THERE IS A THING THERE CAN´T BE NO NOTHING...
3 - ...IMPERMANENCE OF FORM IS NOT IMPERMANENCE OF BEING...

taoist11 said: {Nothingness is real, but only when perceiving Oneness, "we" see nothingness.... "Normal people" see only everythingness. ...}

1: Is the knower of Tao separate from Tao? Is Tao anything "known" to the "knower"? Is not the knower and the known both Tao itself?
2: Is Tao saying that there are Normal and Abnormal people?
3: When you say "we" do you suggest the word "we" as separate thing from Tao or, it is Tao itslef being "we" in many different aspects?
4: Nothingness is a concept. Oneness is a concept. All concepts are dual. Tao is in charge for making all concepts (based on taoist teaching). Who are you and me to debate over things like this as long as taoist take Tao in charge to force our hand to do all these things. Oneness in nothingness and nothingness is oneness. Tao says so. There is neither you nor me .. (again based on Taoist teaching)
5: Free will has no meaning as long as you think Tao is The observer, the observed and the ability to observe.
6: What are you really trying to say? Do you want to say YOU KNOW TAO and its way? Then you contradict yourself. You can not be The knower of Tao as a separate entity from Tao.

I remember Siddhartha who who tried so hard to detacth himself from his pride and his ego. He succeeded, but then he became aware that his success at not feeling his pride and his ego resulted in another kind of pride over how good his ego was at ignoring itself. He had not progressed, merely changed.

Enlightenment is an elusive concept, and often, if you think you have it, that very thought is enough to make you lose it.
I am enlightened sometimes. Other times I am mired in my selfish motives and desires. Everyone is enlightened sometimes, but we invariably get pulled back into the attachments of our lives. But this is all good. Living without attachments is the closest you can come to not being alive without being dead. So it is not about forsaking all attachments, but rather understanding how we get attached to ourselves and our world in such a way that we can become the masters of our own existence rather than puppets of it.

(As I see it, of course )

all well up until the point of becoming "the masters of our existence" stuff...
...to where I stand all you can do, is awkwardly to watch and witness to the natural and necessary development of "yourself" in the world..."small mind" is an illusion, and in that knowledge resides the necessity of compassion understanding and goodness... to me this is the more enlightened we can get to aim for and beyond that point we just fall back on to pride prejudice and presumption...

Fil, you have more control over this that you seem to know or believe.

Kavehh asks: "What are you really trying to say? Do you want to say YOU KNOW TAO and its way? Then you contradict yourself. You can not be The knower of Tao as a separate entity from Tao".

You are right, but we must keep in mind that the grammatical structure of our language forces us to contradict ourselves even when we are trying to express our non-dualist understanding of Tao.
What if I say Tao knows me?

JLNobody: >>>You are right, but we must keep in mind that the grammatical structure of our language forces us to contradict ourselves even when we are trying to express our non-dualist understanding of Tao. What if I say Tao knows me?

Again that would be contradiction in terms. Thats why in taoism they try to bring the conceptual mind to "its dead end or stop point". As long as concepts are there, duality is there and dreamer confuses itself with the dream entities in its own dream. Both "Tao knows me or I know Tao" are dual concepts based on the separation between the knower and the known. Neither the observer nor what he observes is real. The dreamer is not and can not be a dream entity in its own dream. What the dreamer takes as the knower or do-er in the dream is actually nothing but the known (the whole realm of the dream). In buddhism, Taoism, and Advaita they do not try to awaken the personality (the dream entity within a dream world), but they do try to bring a serious deep stop in conceptual mind. [Krishnamurti].
What remains after that "noble silence" they call tao, nibana or tat twam asi (Terms which are not familiar to conceptual mind and therefore it can not work on them). The only way to know tao is being tao. Unreal can not know real. To see tao we can take ourselves as the observer of the universe.. But the observer is not and can not be tao. The observer and what he observes are both dream entities. Tao is not and can not be in any dream. Dream doesn't last. Unreal doesn't last. What comes and goes is not and can not be Tao. Then what is tao? As I mentioned: "Knowing tao is being tao!"
Take care dude.

Heavy **** dude!
I mean it; your posts are rich in wisdom.
BTW: your statement that "in taoism they try to bring the conceptual mind to 'its dead end or stop point' describes very well the point of Rinzai zen's use of the koan: to stop the mind (i.e., let go of mental attaching).
BTW2: since (virtually) all speech is dualistic, (noble) silence is the closet one comes to describing the Tao (or Dharma).
BTW3: Yes, one cannot see tao. Perhaps the best kind of meditation or zazen is simply to sit (shikantazsa) or to effortlessly BE reality/dharma/tao/Brahma-atman, not to attempt thoughts about it.

Heavy **** dude!
I mean it; your posts are rich in wisdom.
BTW: your statement that "in taoism they try to bring the conceptual mind to 'its dead end or stop point' describes very well the point of Rinzai zen's use of the koan: to stop the mind (i.e., let go of mental attaching).
BTW2: since (virtually) all speech is dualistic, (noble) silence is the closet one comes to describing the Tao (or Dharma).
BTW3: Yes, one cannot see tao. Perhaps the best kind of meditation or zazen is simply to sit (shikantazsa) or to effortlessly BE reality/dharma/tao/Brahma-atman, not to attempt thoughts about it.

From a couple of pages ago, quoting Taoist11:

"Consequently, Taoism (Daoism) is a very valuable philosophy, world outlook."

So far, so good. The Taoist outlook, interpretive structures can be very valuable, though maybe not to all people in all cultures at all times.

The next part:
"People who are enlightened in Taoism, i.e they see the truth..."

Danger! Danger! This is where you're becoming dogmatic. This is the point at which a philosophy becomes a religion. Much the same happened in Buddhism.

"The" truth implies that there is only one, or that only one version of it is legitimate. Remember, there is nothing wrong or unnatural in the universe. Every atom is where it should be. If our concepts and interpretations tell us otherwise, then they're not in harmony with the way things really are. (Notice I said 'natural' and not 'healthy'.)

I would agree with you, but that doesn't mean we should sit back and adjust our understanding until we see a perfect world. Some use this as justification for looking away from the suffering and injustice of the world, but try as I might, that doesn't work for me. I still believe the world is perfect, and that it is myself and all the other people that are imperfect. But it is not only our understandings we need to adjust to see a perfect world, but also our actions..

I agree with the gist of what you say, but there is at least one point in what you wrote that may be problematic. It's the underlying, psychological separation of the self from the world/nature, as if we weren't as inherently a part of and an expression of the universe as Phobos or electromagnetism or the chicken gizzard I'm chewing right now. I don't see myself as a foreign body embedded in an 'other' universe; I see myself as a local expression of the whole, a point where the universe is aware of a very limited, narrow aspect of itself. An evolved observation point, like an eye on a stalk of a larger crustacean. How I came to be is a natural process and expression of the development of nature. How I feel and think and what I do are also the results of the same natural processes, as will be the dissolution of this body and consciousness.

The Taoist story that taoist11 told about the old guy with the horse (maybe 1st page?) is well-known throughout Asia. In Korea, it's known as 새옹지마 (Chinese: 塞翁之馬), or 'Sae-Oong's Horse'. Whether something is good or bad, or right or wrong is a result of how you look at it. If you patiently wait and observe long enough, you'll probably see what you used to think of as inherently bad may very well turn into something good and vice versa. A wise person, then, would suspend hasty judgements about what is good or bad, and instead hang around to see the actual results.

I once broke my leg so bad it was nearly amputated. A direct result was that I had to be hospitalized and immobile so long that I reflected on my life's goals and what it would take for me to die happy. Next thing you know, I'm traveling around the world, seeing and doing all the things I'd dreamed of, but never had the gumption to actually do. 새옹지마.