Taoism enlightenment: absolute happiness

@Cyracuz,

if life is simplier balanced? how then can it not be proven 1 million percent to try to be good ALL the time and turn back when you fall rather than just 50/50

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@XXSpadeMasterXX,

to me being good 99% of the time to go along with 1% evil and seeking a higher power when i fall makes me balanced...

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@XXSpadeMasterXX,

Good for you. For myself I find "good/evil" to be far too simplistic for categorizing my experience. I am struggling to find and keep a good balance of selfishness and selflessness, as the first seems neccesary and the latter is preferable.

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@Cyracuz,

I personally think if complete opposites balancing each other out is what you base you philosophy on...to sum it up Good/evil is simplistic but in the words of your own views is the MOST complete as well...it doesn't get anymore extreme or father apart or so drawn together in certain ways than Good and Bad... and like you have posted to me previously if your religion makes you positive then it good...but in opposites balancing out the bad in that in my opinion is that your lacking the belief in a higher Power. just my take

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@XXSpadeMasterXX,

Don't mix up good/evil with good/bad. Both are subjective judgments, but the latter is understood to be so, and therefor useful. I can say that I think my food tastes bad, but I don't think the food is evil. That would be ridiculous of me.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz, I too find the good/evil contrast "too simplistic for categorizing my experience." Bad is the absense of good, e.g., my food does not taste good therefore it tastes bad--but not evil. Evil is absolute, a quality like the character of Satan, not just the absence of virtue--at least I do not think so right now. Good and bad refer to judgements about concrete events, experiences and things. Evil, like virtue, is purely abstract. By the way, I appreciate your recognition that while the distinctions good/evil vs. good/bad are both subjective the latter is more useful because it is more likely to be recognized as subjective (while the former is seen to be an objectively absolute, almost metaphysical difference).

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@JLNobody,

Even the actions of Adolf Hitler was done from a desire to do good. It was just his beliefs that were messed up, but he wasn't evil. The muslims who stone people to death for blasphemy or the christians who kill people for being homosexuals are not evil people. Their beliefs are just malevolent, which seems to me to be a contradiction of their motives for having those beliefs in the first place.

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@Cyracuz,

Yes. I see two general sets of reasons why people do what I consider to be bad: (1) they are greedy, pursuing more wealth and power than they legitimately need at the grave expense of others, and (2) they are pursuing what they incorrectly take to be good.
Of course much of the time what we consider "good" is mere rationalization, serving to justify actions that we actually believe to be "evil" but in our interest. We have to distinguish between our interests and our values.

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@JLNobody,

I see (1) as a specification of (2). One of many things people can believe to be good.
But I agree that we have to distinguish between our interests and our values. And in my opinion there is a great divorce between them in the world today. Securing our interests goes at the expense of our values, and rationalization and trivialization of that fact doesn't do anything for me.

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@JLNobody,

I think you're touching on an important distinction, that between doing good/evil and being good/evil.

I'm not sure it's helpful to consider people to be either good or evil, but instead their actions. I think identifying people as such is an anachronistic hold-over from religious thinking. Just my opinion, of course. Could be wrong...

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@FBM,

Maybe evil is to good what darkness is to light, or cold to heat.
Darkness is just the absence of light. Cold is just the absence of warmth.

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@Cyracuz,

a perfect example of how having faith in God produces new and incomprehensible boundries...in the Bible it is said on earth...that evil and good are complete oppossites (abstracts if you will) same with darkness and light...and it mentions hell will be hot but makes no mention of Heaven being cold...for then by your philosophy and views it is shown that in one aspect the teaching in the Bible work out but in the belief in Heaven REQUIRES one to take a LEAP of FAITH so to speak...to comprehend things you simply can not in this realm in Heaven not being very cold as an abstract to hell being very hot but that Heaven will be complete and be utter Euphoria...and if you deny this leap of faith...how then can you make the connection from what the Bible says about the other abstracts being correct to your own philosophical theories. in one hand but then say deny that there REQUIRES a LEAP of FAITH to accept Heaven is incomprehensible? and no matter how much studying or research or INWARDNESS searching you do...it SIMPLY CAN'T be FOUND WITHOUT the AID of GOD...(Jesus)

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@Cyracuz,

I wouldn't argue with that. But I think we make up those values as we go along. I don't think they're inherent qualities of anything in particular. As far as I can tell, phenomena don't really have inherent qualities. We attribute them, or the mind does, as an interpretive reflex. I could be wrong, of course.

Something from Sextus Empiricus, a Pyrrhonian Sceptic:

Quote:

The Sceptic, in fact, had the same experience which is said to have befallen the painter Apelles. Once, they say, when he was painting a horse and wished to represent in the painting the horse's foam, he was so unsuccessful that he gave up the attempt and flung at the picture the sponge on which he used to wipe the paints off his brush, and the mark of the sponge produced the effect of a horse's foam.

So, too, the Sceptics were in hopes of gaining quietude by means of a decision regarding the disparity of the objects of sense and of thought, and being unable to effect this they suspended judgment; and they found that quietude, as if by chance, followed upon their suspense, even as a shadow follows its substance.

We do not, however, suppose that the Sceptic is wholly untroubled; but we say that he is troubled by things unavoidable; for we grant that he is cold at times and thirsty, and suffers various affections of that kind. But even in these cases, whereas ordinary people are afflicted by two circumstances, -- namely, by the affections themselves and, in no less a degree, by the belief that these conditions are evil by nature, --the Sceptic, by his rejection of the added belief in the natural badness of all these conditions, escapes here too with less discomfort. Hence we say that, while in regard to matters of opinion the Sceptic's End is quietude, in regard to things unavoidable it is "moderate affection." But some notable Sceptics have added the further definition "suspension of judgment in investigations."

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/sextus_empiricus02.htm

Emphasis mine.

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@FBM,

Do you see where God was getting at when he said be simply minded??? Did you ever hear the term Too smart for your own good? and this theory most definatly applies here and is possible by your own philosophy...for at one hand Knowledge is good (yin), but take it TOO far it is bad (yang)...

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@XXSpadeMasterXX,

XXSpadeMasterXX wrote:

Do you see where God was getting at when he said be simply minded??? Did you ever hear the term Too smart for your own good? and this theory most definatly applies here and is possible by your own philosophy...for at one hand Knowledge is good (yin), but take it TOO far it is bad (yang)...

Where did he say "be simply minded"? Why would I want to be simple-minded, anyway? Doesn't sound too enticing. Wink

Just kidding.

Pyrrhonian philosophy is/was far from simple and the same can be said for Buddhist philosophy (not the religion). That's where much of the approach I mentioned came from. But I do agree with you that too much of a good (yang) can turn into a bad (yin). (You got those switched.)

But the Taoist principle is that the yin and yang are just two aspects or perspectives of the same whole. Not really different, not quite the same, etiher. Just depends on prevailing conditions, including how you look at it. Balance and keeping with the natural flow of things is the Way (Chinese: 道; Korean: 도)

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@FBM,

Where do you have it from that yang is good and yin is bad?
I thought both are neither. They are eachother, one the cause of the other, and they are one. At least that is how I have come to understand it...

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@Cyracuz,

Same here.

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@Cyracuz,

Same here.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Where do you have it from that yang is good and yin is bad?
I thought both are neither. They are eachother, one the cause of the other, and they are one. At least that is how I have come to understand it...

The point is that they aren't inherent qualities. For specifics, you can attribute whatever duality you like, good/evil, good/bad, male/female, wax on/wax off, etc. And, yes, as I said above, the idea is that they constitute perceived aspects of a greater dynamic unity, the Tao.

Yin is associated with the dark, negative, female, nurturing, etc. Yang is bright, positive, etc, etc. XXSpadeMasterXX had them switched.

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@FBM,

Thanks FBM. I think I understand you a bit better now.
But I still don't like the inherent bias in assigning them to specific dualisms. Not inherent to yin and yang, but inherent to the assigner. By doing this assigning it seems to me we are "disarming" the transcendence of this greater dynamic of unity.

1 Reply

Taoism enlightenment: absolute happiness

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