Taoism and Free Will

FireGarden · 28th January 2003, 10:17 AM

Now that I've tempted Whodini back

My understanding of Taoism
Crypticly: The ideal of Taoism is to "do nothing" except act!
That is: You act in accordance with the universe. "Yielding to the natural flow" is a good quote. When a situation presents itself, you perform the appropriate action. A kind of cause and effect.

Add to this the general Buddhist goal of eliminating the ego.
Would it then be correct to say that in Taoism people DO have free will, but the goal is to lose it?

In this way, free will switches from the positive image it has in Western eyes to something .... else. I don't know... Not "bad". Maybe just something distracting.

It's like that story where a caterpillar gets asked how it co-ordinates all its legs while walking. It starts to describe the process but then trips over its own feet because it's become too aware of the process. Anyone who plays a musical instrument will know that an important part of learning to play well is to "forget" about a lot of what you're doing. And that "forgetting" is a natural act - as long as you don't get hung up on the process!

But OTOH,
If you don't monitor your playing, you'll just repeat the same mistakes over and over. So the ego must get involved in order to reprogramme the "natural flow". How else could learning be achieved?

Anyway, that'll do for a start
Please note that this is not a thread for the discussion of the existence of free will. I've got Soubrette all ready to police for me (I wish!) So don't even try!

28th January 2003, 10:26 AM

GP

Quote:

Would it then be correct to say that in Taoism people DO have free will, but the goal is to lose it?

If all you do with your Free Will is yield to what the laws of physics (your ego) is compelling you to do then you might as not have any Free Will. NOT yielding to TLOP/ego IS using your Free Will. It is only FREE if it does not yield to TLOP/ego - this appears to the ego as losing its Free Will, but in fact the ego never had any Free Will to begin with.

Star Of The Sea · 28th January 2003, 11:12 AM

I consider myself a Taoist, however as one of the central ideas of Taoism is the impossibility of defining the Tao, it makes dogmatic assertions about the tenets of it impossible. However I'll give it a try

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodPropaganda
Add to this the general Buddhist goal of eliminating the ego.

This is not really a Taoist concept. The ego is also part of the Tao, and can conform to it, in a manner similar to a wild animal.

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodPropaganda
Would it then be correct to say that in Taoism people DO have free will, but the goal is to lose it?

In this way, free will switches from the positive image it has in Western eyes to something .... else. I don't know... Not "bad". Maybe just something distracting.

Ancient Chinese philosophy does not really have the same conception of time and cause/effect as we do, therefore the issue of 'free will' does not really come up in the Tao Te Ching or the Chuang Tzu etc. This is also why, despite many great advances in technology and civilisation, China eventually reached a point of stagnation- Confucianism also had a lot to do with this.

However, reading your question with modern Western Taoist eyes (!), I would say that the Tao is free will- the Taoist concept of 'wu wei' (untranslatable, but can be described as 'action through inaction' or 'doing through not-doing'). The Tao is also not free will, too....

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodPropaganda
It's like that story where a caterpillar gets asked how it co-ordinates all its legs while walking. It starts to describe the process but then trips over its own feet because it's become too aware of the process. Anyone who plays a musical instrument will know that an important part of learning to play well is to "forget" about a lot of what you're doing. And that "forgetting" is a natural act - as long as you don't get hung up on the process!

Exactly. This is known in martial arts as 'no-mind'. It can also be observed in the way that the countless cells of the body act as one whole despite being involved in vastly different systems, or a whole colony of termites acts as though one entity.

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodPropaganda
But OTOH,
If you don't monitor your playing, you'll just repeat the same mistakes over and over. So the ego must get involved in order to reprogramme the "natural flow". How else could learning be achieved?

The same reason why martial arts have kata or set forms that must be rigorously repeated, or jazz musicians must perfectly master their instruments in the traditional way before they can improvise. Basically, you have to know the rules in order to break them. Or put scientifically, you have to learn motor skills for the motor to work without the brain constantly telling it to.

Of course, no-one can speak for the Tao, or give a concise answer about Taoism's perspective on any given thing. After all, words are finite.

Luke

Franko · 28th January 2003, 11:19 AM

Quote:

one of the central ideas of Taoism is the impossibility of defining the Tao

That is called a Special Plead, and it is a Logical fallacy.

If you can't define something than you don't comprehend it, and if you don't comprehend it, then you cannot explain it.

In other words, your inability to comprehend something is no reason for me to believe that "something" is true.

Franko · 28th January 2003, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Elephant:
If all you do with your Free Will is yield to what the laws of physics (your ego) is compelling you to do then you might as not have any Free Will. NOT yielding to TLOP/ego IS using your Free Will. It is only FREE if it does not yield to TLOP/ego - this appears to the ego as losing its Free Will, but in fact the ego never had any Free Will to begin with.

Well if the Ego never had any "free will", then what did the Ego have?

What is the purpose of the Ego? Does it have a purpose? Why is it needed?

Star Of The Sea · 28th January 2003, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Franko
If you can't define something than you don't comprehend it, and if you don't comprehend it, then you cannot explain it.

Franko, that is a very, very moving and concise definition of Taoism. In fact, it is almost word for word the very first lines of the Tao Te Ching. Coincidence?

Quote:

Originally posted by Franko
In other words, your inability to comprehend something is no reason for me to believe that "something" is true.

No-one is asking you to believe anything. No-one said Taoism was true. There has never, in thousands of years, been such a thing as a Taoist missionary. No-one has ever been killed in a Taoist holy war- take it or leave it.

To quote Raymond M Smullyan:

At all costs, the Christian must convince the heathen and the atheist that God exists, in order to save his soul. At all costs, the atheist must convince the Christian that the belief in God is but a harmless and primitive superstition, doing enormous harm to the cause of true social progress. And so they battle and storm and bang away at each other. Meanwhile, the Taoist Sage sits quietly by the stream, perhaps with a book of poems, a cup of wine, and some painting materials, enjoying the Tao to his hearts content, without ever worrying whether or not Tao exists. The Sage has no need to affirm the Tao; he is far too busy enjoying it!

Luke

28th January 2003, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Franko

Well if the Ego never had any "free will", then what did the Ego have?

Unfree will.

Quote:

What is the purpose of the Ego? Does it have a purpose? Why is it needed?

It was put there by physical evolution as a survival mechanism. Creatures with no ego do not strive for survival and reproduction. True altruism is evolutionarily useless.

FireGarden · 28th January 2003, 04:27 PM

Star Of The Sea

Quote:

I would say that the Tao is free will- the Taoist concept of 'wu wei' (untranslatable, but can be described as 'action through inaction' or 'doing through not-doing'). The Tao is also not free will, too....

I'd kind of built up an impression of 'action through inaction' as being when you don't conciously interfere with the process of what you're doing. Like when I play guitar, I don't think about moving my fingers - they just move to play the notes I select. I very rarely select notes individually, I play in phrases. Just like I'm now typing words not strings of letters.

This has to be a limitation on free will to some extent, otherwise my righting mite look lyk this. But it's also an enhancement of free will - because now I don't have to worry about rules of grammar etc, I just think about what I want to say. I follow the rules, but I'm more free in the way that I follow them because I have mastered them. That must make me more flexible.

So I can kind of understand the paradox of the Tao both being and not being free will. But I still don't understand the Tao!!

I'm surprised about what you said about ego in Taoism.
From a page that Plutarch linked to in that other thread Zen and Taoist stories

Quote:

Full Awareness
After ten years of apprenticeship, Tenno achieved the rank of Zen teacher. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous master Nan-in. When he walked in, the master greeted him with a question, "Did you leave your wooden clogs and umbrella on the porch?"
"Yes," Tenno replied.
"Tell me," the master continued, "did you place your umbrella to the left of your shoes, or to the right?"
Tenno did not know the answer, and realized that he had not yet attained full awareness. So he became Nan-in's apprentice and studied under him for ten more years.

So in Zen you should be paying attention to everything you do. Acting through habit (mindlessly) is bad. Of course this may not be what acting with 'no-mind' means (I take it more as "being in the zone"), but "no-mind" hardly seem like the peak of awareness.

Quote:

Franko, that is a very, very moving and concise definition of Taoism. In fact, it is almost word for word the very first lines of the Tao Te Ching. Coincidence?

28th January 2003, 04:37 PM

To me, it is like being in a large (understatement) river. You can swim around (or choose to stand still), but you can never ever seem reach the banks of the river, and there are no ends to the river.

Like a fish is in an ocean of water, we are in an ocean too. Although we are so used to it, and that is why we never feel it or talk about it.

Star Of The Sea · 28th January 2003, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodPropaganda
But I still don't understand the Tao!!

If you ever think you understand the Tao, then you don't understand it at all.....!

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodPropaganda

So in Zen you should be paying attention to everything you do. Acting through habit (mindlessly) is bad. Of course this may not be what acting with 'no-mind' means (I take it more as "being in the zone"), but "no-mind" hardly seem like the peak of awareness.

Of course, Zen and Taoism are quite different in many respects, although Zen Buddhism (or Chan Buddhism in Chinese) is pretty much a direct cross between Buddhism and Taoism.

My understanding of 'no-mind' is accepting everything that enters the senses with complete openness, and not applying a filter of conscious thought to it. In this way, it is 'the peak of awareness'. One finds a great deal of clarity and finds acting in the appropriate way extremely easy this way, because the mind acts or rather reacts instantly without first translating everything into thought, analysing it, and then translating it back out again into kinetic energy.

regards,

Luke

28th January 2003, 06:28 PM

----
I'd kind of built up an impression of 'action through inaction' as being when you don't conciously interfere with the process of what you're doing. Like when I play guitar, I don't think about moving my fingers - they just move to play the notes I select. I very rarely select notes individually, I play in phrases. Just like I'm now typing words not strings of letters.
----

I like it. Kind of like a controlled accident.

BroodingSkill · 28th January 2003, 08:52 PM

Wow, the Tao, I used to consider myself a Taoist for a while, when became a skeptic I turned my back on all religous things. They did not help, I discovered I would never achieve enlightnment or become one with the Tao because it entailed too much suppression of , in my view, my natural inclinations( selfishness, women, the need to contend with society, to name just a few), but I did do my home work, so here are some thoughts use them or discard them as you will, they are only my opinion and regurgitated versions of others opinions.

The Tao, one why to think of it, is to view it as the elimination of all opposites, the Tao does not contend because it is all and nothing. A paradox, to be sure, but the Tao is the ultimate paradox. It is a hard thing to wrap the mind around, cause there's nothing there, and everything.

Wu Wei, nonaction, not-doing "Tao does not act, yet there is nothing that it does not do", It doesn't mean just sitting on your butt, it means the Tao acts without conscious thought, it is the emptiness that accomplishs everything. I know more paradox but what can you do?

Lao Tzu, certainly the one person most indentified with Taoism, but his words are not the sole authority by any means, it has been reconded by some scholars and practicing Taoists that the Taoist Cannon numbers in the thousands, no one really knows for sure.

Anyway I can't think of anything more to say but I will leave you with some of Lao Tzu's words and let you make up your own mind.

Without going out your door,
You can know the ways of the world.
Without peeping through your window,
You can see the Way of Heaven.
The farther you go
The less you know.

Thus, the sage knows without traveling,
Sees without looking,
And achieves without Ado.

My words are very easy to understand,
and very easy to practice:
But the world cannot understand them,
nor practice them.
My words have an Ancestor.
My deeds have a Lord.
The people have no knowledge of this.
Therefore, they have no knowledge of
me.
The fewer persons know me,
The nobler are they that follow me.
Therefore, the Sage wears coarse clothes,
While keeping the jade in his bosom.

28th January 2003, 09:32 PM

----
They did not help, I discovered I would never achieve enlightnment or become one with the Tao because it entailed too much suppression of , in my view, my natural inclinations( selfishness, women, the need to contend with society, to name just a few),
----

I don't see anything in the Taoist canon that talks about supressing natural inclinations.

I think Taoism talks about avoiding society as much as possible, or at least not letting it control you. -But that doesn't mean all Taoists have to live on the top of a mountain.

Just do the best you can with what you've got.

----
Lao Tzu, certainly the one person most indentified with Taoism,
----

And Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) also.

----
The farther you go
The less you know.
----

----
Therefore, the Sage wears coarse clothes,
While keeping the jade in his bosom.
----

I like those.

BroodingSkill · 28th January 2003, 09:54 PM

I don't see anything in the Taoist canon that talks about supressing natural inclinations.

I think Taoism talks about avoiding society as much as possible, or at least not letting it control you. -But that doesn't mean all Taoists have to live on the top of a mountain.

Just do the best you can with what you've got.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is to some extent true but like all things Taoism has its reclusive adherents( the Dragon Gate sect, for one) and it's more public adherents( the Celestial teachers, for another, though they are considered religous Taoists by some). What sources I could find tended to recommend renouciation. I guess it depends on what flavor works for you. Total renouciation of society was not for me and in the end renoucing it with myself while living in it, didnt work either. It's a moot point anyway as I have turned my back on Taoism, for good.

I look back at all the woo woo beliefs I had aquired with my facination with Taoism and just shake my head. To name a few, Chi, Chi Gong, Internal Martial Arts, I Ching, Healing, Acupunture,
Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taoist meditaion, Taoist internal Achemy, Taoist Astrology, and more. The upside was that I picked up some Chinese history and cultural appreciation I might never have acquired. So maybe it wasn't all bad, but I still won't go back.

28th January 2003, 10:05 PM

----
I look back at all the woo woo beliefs I had aquired with my facination with Taoism and just shake my head. To name a few, Chi, Chi Gong, Internal Martial Arts, I Ching, Healing, Acupunture,
Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taoist meditaion, Taoist internal Achemy, Taoist Astrology, and more.
----

I guess I don't view a lot of those as "woo-woo", certainly not aspects of qi, qigong, and defintely not internal martial arts, meditation, and parts of TCM.

Although, it is certainly a "buyer beware" area considering the amount of misleading information out there on these areas.

It is also incredibly difficult to figure out what is truly Chinese, and what is really American. With so-called 'Chinese food" it is easier.

FireGarden · 29th January 2003, 12:05 PM

Star Of The Sea

Quote:

'no-mind' is accepting everything that enters the senses with complete openness, and not applying a filter of conscious thought to it.

Aha!
Now I get it.
That's not what I do when playing guitar with "no-mind"

What I do is more like auto-pilot. There are times when I ask myself "Is this the first chorus or the second?" Which is clearly an error that Zen would want corrected.

Whodini

Quote:

I like it. Kind of like a controlled accident.

If I'm on auto-pilot, then that's what it is!
Taoism sounds to me like it wants auto-pilot. But Zen wants my mind free from the details so I can concentrate on the big picture.

Quote:

I think Taoism talks about avoiding society as much as possible, or at least not letting it control you. -But that doesn't mean all Taoists have to live on the top of a mountain.

Surely, if you HAVE to live on top of a mountain to avoid society then you ARE letting it control you.

BroodingSkill
Many parts of Buddhism are intended as an investigation into your own subjective outlook. I'm not sure if you're supposed to literally believe that there is a "Tao" out there.

One of the things I like about Buddhism is that there is very little you have to believe in. I can only think of enlightenment.

In fact there is a story on that page I linked to that shows that you don't have to (shouldn't) believe the masters! Greatest Teaching
How much more skeptical do you want a religion to be?

(Not that I'm suggesting you return to Taoism - I'm not even a Buddhist myself. I'm just questioning the association of "woo-woo" with religion. Especially in an age when it's possible to pick and choose what you want from every religion.)

Franko · 4th February 2003, 08:07 AM

Quote:

]Elephant:
If all you do with your Free Will is yield to what the laws of physics (your ego) is compelling you to do then you might as not have any Free Will. NOT yielding to TLOP/ego IS using your Free Will. It is only FREE if it does not yield to TLOP/ego - this appears to the ego as losing its Free Will, but in fact the ego never had any Free Will to begin with.

Franko:
Well if the Ego never had any "free will", then what did the Ego have?

Elephant:
Unfree will.

Isn’t: Unfree will = Fate?

If not, then what is the specific difference?

Quote:

Franko:
What is the purpose of the Ego? Does it have a purpose? Why is it needed?

Elephant:
It was put there by physical evolution as a survival mechanism.

You sound like a Pseudo-Materialist suddenly. It’s odd, because I thought you claimed not to be a pseudo-materialist?

Quote:

Creatures with no ego do not strive for survival and reproduction.

What about the Omniconsciousness (or are you calling it Metamind these days?)? The OC doesn’t have an ego does it? Yet it survives …

So my original questions still stand … unanswered.

What is the purpose of the Ego? Does it have a purpose? Why is it needed?

Quote:

True altruism is evolutionarily useless.

Yeah … but in a meta-sense of the word isn’t the exact opposite True?

28th January 2003, 10:17 AM	#1
FireGarden Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Spannungsbogen -- without a visa Posts: 5,043	Taoism and Free Will Now that I've tempted Whodini back My understanding of Taoism Crypticly: The ideal of Taoism is to "do nothing" except act! That is: You act in accordance with the universe. "Yielding to the natural flow" is a good quote. When a situation presents itself, you perform the appropriate action. A kind of cause and effect. Add to this the general Buddhist goal of eliminating the ego. Would it then be correct to say that in Taoism people DO have free will, but the goal is to lose it? In this way, free will switches from the positive image it has in Western eyes to something .... else. I don't know... Not "bad". Maybe just something distracting. It's like that story where a caterpillar gets asked how it co-ordinates all its legs while walking. It starts to describe the process but then trips over its own feet because it's become too aware of the process. Anyone who plays a musical instrument will know that an important part of learning to play well is to "forget" about a lot of what you're doing. And that "forgetting" is a natural act - as long as you don't get hung up on the process! But OTOH, If you don't monitor your playing, you'll just repeat the same mistakes over and over. So the ego must get involved in order to reprogramme the "natural flow". How else could learning be achieved? Anyway, that'll do for a start Please note that this is not a thread for the discussion of the existence of free will. I've got Soubrette all ready to police for me (I wish!) So don't even try!
	__________________ When Americans talk about freedom, it’s our secular code word for salvation. There’s no salvation outside the church; there’s no freedom outside the American way of life. -- James Carroll B'tselem Tony Karon's blog

28th January 2003, 10:26 AM	#2
Guest Posts: n/a	GP Quote: Would it then be correct to say that in Taoism people DO have free will, but the goal is to lose it? If all you do with your Free Will is yield to what the laws of physics (your ego) is compelling you to do then you might as not have any Free Will. NOT yielding to TLOP/ego IS using your Free Will. It is only FREE if it does not yield to TLOP/ego - this appears to the ego as losing its Free Will, but in fact the ego never had any Free Will to begin with.
Guest Posts: n/a

28th January 2003, 11:12 AM	#3
Star Of The Sea Scholar Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Glasgow Posts: 61	Re: Taoism and Free Will I consider myself a Taoist, however as one of the central ideas of Taoism is the impossibility of defining the Tao, it makes dogmatic assertions about the tenets of it impossible. However I'll give it a try Quote: Originally posted by GoodPropaganda Add to this the general Buddhist goal of eliminating the ego. This is not really a Taoist concept. The ego is also part of the Tao, and can conform to it, in a manner similar to a wild animal. Quote: Originally posted by GoodPropaganda Would it then be correct to say that in Taoism people DO have free will, but the goal is to lose it? In this way, free will switches from the positive image it has in Western eyes to something .... else. I don't know... Not "bad". Maybe just something distracting. Ancient Chinese philosophy does not really have the same conception of time and cause/effect as we do, therefore the issue of 'free will' does not really come up in the Tao Te Ching or the Chuang Tzu etc. This is also why, despite many great advances in technology and civilisation, China eventually reached a point of stagnation- Confucianism also had a lot to do with this. However, reading your question with modern Western Taoist eyes (!), I would say that the Tao is free will- the Taoist concept of 'wu wei' (untranslatable, but can be described as 'action through inaction' or 'doing through not-doing'). The Tao is also not free will, too.... Quote: Originally posted by GoodPropaganda It's like that story where a caterpillar gets asked how it co-ordinates all its legs while walking. It starts to describe the process but then trips over its own feet because it's become too aware of the process. Anyone who plays a musical instrument will know that an important part of learning to play well is to "forget" about a lot of what you're doing. And that "forgetting" is a natural act - as long as you don't get hung up on the process! Exactly. This is known in martial arts as 'no-mind'. It can also be observed in the way that the countless cells of the body act as one whole despite being involved in vastly different systems, or a whole colony of termites acts as though one entity. Quote: Originally posted by GoodPropaganda But OTOH, If you don't monitor your playing, you'll just repeat the same mistakes over and over. So the ego must get involved in order to reprogramme the "natural flow". How else could learning be achieved? The same reason why martial arts have kata or set forms that must be rigorously repeated, or jazz musicians must perfectly master their instruments in the traditional way before they can improvise. Basically, you have to know the rules in order to break them. Or put scientifically, you have to learn motor skills for the motor to work without the brain constantly telling it to. Of course, no-one can speak for the Tao, or give a concise answer about Taoism's perspective on any given thing. After all, words are finite. Luke
	__________________ Ignoring Ad Hominems. www.snowblood.com "Your head's like mine, like all of our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was, big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over..." -Grant Morrison

28th January 2003, 11:19 AM	#4
Franko Master Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 2,338	Quote: one of the central ideas of Taoism is the impossibility of defining the Tao That is called a Special Plead, and it is a Logical fallacy. If you can't define something than you don't comprehend it, and if you don't comprehend it, then you cannot explain it. In other words, your inability to comprehend something is no reason for me to believe that "something" is true.
Franko Master Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 2,338

28th January 2003, 11:21 AM	#5
Franko Master Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 2,338	Quote: Elephant: If all you do with your Free Will is yield to what the laws of physics (your ego) is compelling you to do then you might as not have any Free Will. NOT yielding to TLOP/ego IS using your Free Will. It is only FREE if it does not yield to TLOP/ego - this appears to the ego as losing its Free Will, but in fact the ego never had any Free Will to begin with. Well if the Ego never had any "free will", then what did the Ego have? What is the purpose of the Ego? Does it have a purpose? Why is it needed?
Franko Master Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 2,338

28th January 2003, 11:54 AM	#6
Star Of The Sea Scholar Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Glasgow Posts: 61	Quote: Originally posted by Franko If you can't define something than you don't comprehend it, and if you don't comprehend it, then you cannot explain it. Franko, that is a very, very moving and concise definition of Taoism. In fact, it is almost word for word the very first lines of the Tao Te Ching. Coincidence? Quote: Originally posted by Franko In other words, your inability to comprehend something is no reason for me to believe that "something" is true. No-one is asking you to believe anything. No-one said Taoism was true. There has never, in thousands of years, been such a thing as a Taoist missionary. No-one has ever been killed in a Taoist holy war- take it or leave it. To quote Raymond M Smullyan: At all costs, the Christian must convince the heathen and the atheist that God exists, in order to save his soul. At all costs, the atheist must convince the Christian that the belief in God is but a harmless and primitive superstition, doing enormous harm to the cause of true social progress. And so they battle and storm and bang away at each other. Meanwhile, the Taoist Sage sits quietly by the stream, perhaps with a book of poems, a cup of wine, and some painting materials, enjoying the Tao to his hearts content, without ever worrying whether or not Tao exists. The Sage has no need to affirm the Tao; he is far too busy enjoying it! Luke
	__________________ Ignoring Ad Hominems. www.snowblood.com "Your head's like mine, like all of our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was, big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over..." -Grant Morrison

28th January 2003, 12:04 PM	#7
Guest Posts: n/a	Quote: Originally posted by Franko Well if the Ego never had any "free will", then what did the Ego have? Unfree will. Quote: What is the purpose of the Ego? Does it have a purpose? Why is it needed? It was put there by physical evolution as a survival mechanism. Creatures with no ego do not strive for survival and reproduction. True altruism is evolutionarily useless.
Guest Posts: n/a

28th January 2003, 04:27 PM	#8
FireGarden Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Spannungsbogen -- without a visa Posts: 5,043	Star Of The Sea Quote: I would say that the Tao is free will- the Taoist concept of 'wu wei' (untranslatable, but can be described as 'action through inaction' or 'doing through not-doing'). The Tao is also not free will, too.... I'd kind of built up an impression of 'action through inaction' as being when you don't conciously interfere with the process of what you're doing. Like when I play guitar, I don't think about moving my fingers - they just move to play the notes I select. I very rarely select notes individually, I play in phrases. Just like I'm now typing words not strings of letters. This has to be a limitation on free will to some extent, otherwise my righting mite look lyk this. But it's also an enhancement of free will - because now I don't have to worry about rules of grammar etc, I just think about what I want to say. I follow the rules, but I'm more free in the way that I follow them because I have mastered them. That must make me more flexible. So I can kind of understand the paradox of the Tao both being and not being free will. But I still don't understand the Tao!! I'm surprised about what you said about ego in Taoism. From a page that Plutarch linked to in that other thread Zen and Taoist stories Quote: Full Awareness After ten years of apprenticeship, Tenno achieved the rank of Zen teacher. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous master Nan-in. When he walked in, the master greeted him with a question, "Did you leave your wooden clogs and umbrella on the porch?" "Yes," Tenno replied. "Tell me," the master continued, "did you place your umbrella to the left of your shoes, or to the right?" Tenno did not know the answer, and realized that he had not yet attained full awareness. So he became Nan-in's apprentice and studied under him for ten more years. So in Zen you should be paying attention to everything you do. Acting through habit (mindlessly) is bad. Of course this may not be what acting with 'no-mind' means (I take it more as "being in the zone"), but "no-mind" hardly seem like the peak of awareness. Quote: Franko, that is a very, very moving and concise definition of Taoism. In fact, it is almost word for word the very first lines of the Tao Te Ching. Coincidence?
	__________________ When Americans talk about freedom, it’s our secular code word for salvation. There’s no salvation outside the church; there’s no freedom outside the American way of life. -- James Carroll B'tselem Tony Karon's blog

28th January 2003, 04:37 PM	#9
Guest Posts: n/a	Re: Taoism and Free Will To me, it is like being in a large (understatement) river. You can swim around (or choose to stand still), but you can never ever seem reach the banks of the river, and there are no ends to the river. Like a fish is in an ocean of water, we are in an ocean too. Although we are so used to it, and that is why we never feel it or talk about it.
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28th January 2003, 05:38 PM	#10
Star Of The Sea Scholar Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Glasgow Posts: 61	Quote: Originally posted by GoodPropaganda But I still don't understand the Tao!! If you ever think you understand the Tao, then you don't understand it at all.....! Quote: Originally posted by GoodPropaganda So in Zen you should be paying attention to everything you do. Acting through habit (mindlessly) is bad. Of course this may not be what acting with 'no-mind' means (I take it more as "being in the zone"), but "no-mind" hardly seem like the peak of awareness. Of course, Zen and Taoism are quite different in many respects, although Zen Buddhism (or Chan Buddhism in Chinese) is pretty much a direct cross between Buddhism and Taoism. My understanding of 'no-mind' is accepting everything that enters the senses with complete openness, and not applying a filter of conscious thought to it. In this way, it is 'the peak of awareness'. One finds a great deal of clarity and finds acting in the appropriate way extremely easy this way, because the mind acts or rather reacts instantly without first translating everything into thought, analysing it, and then translating it back out again into kinetic energy. regards, Luke
	__________________ Ignoring Ad Hominems. www.snowblood.com "Your head's like mine, like all of our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was, big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over..." -Grant Morrison

28th January 2003, 06:28 PM	#11
Guest Posts: n/a	---- I'd kind of built up an impression of 'action through inaction' as being when you don't conciously interfere with the process of what you're doing. Like when I play guitar, I don't think about moving my fingers - they just move to play the notes I select. I very rarely select notes individually, I play in phrases. Just like I'm now typing words not strings of letters. ---- I like it. Kind of like a controlled accident.
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28th January 2003, 08:52 PM	#12
BroodingSkill Thinker Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: the Good ole 559 Posts: 178	Wow, the Tao, I used to consider myself a Taoist for a while, when became a skeptic I turned my back on all religous things. They did not help, I discovered I would never achieve enlightnment or become one with the Tao because it entailed too much suppression of , in my view, my natural inclinations( selfishness, women, the need to contend with society, to name just a few), but I did do my home work, so here are some thoughts use them or discard them as you will, they are only my opinion and regurgitated versions of others opinions. The Tao, one why to think of it, is to view it as the elimination of all opposites, the Tao does not contend because it is all and nothing. A paradox, to be sure, but the Tao is the ultimate paradox. It is a hard thing to wrap the mind around, cause there's nothing there, and everything. Wu Wei, nonaction, not-doing "Tao does not act, yet there is nothing that it does not do", It doesn't mean just sitting on your butt, it means the Tao acts without conscious thought, it is the emptiness that accomplishs everything. I know more paradox but what can you do? Lao Tzu, certainly the one person most indentified with Taoism, but his words are not the sole authority by any means, it has been reconded by some scholars and practicing Taoists that the Taoist Cannon numbers in the thousands, no one really knows for sure. Anyway I can't think of anything more to say but I will leave you with some of Lao Tzu's words and let you make up your own mind. Without going out your door, You can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, You can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go The less you know. Thus, the sage knows without traveling, Sees without looking, And achieves without Ado. My words are very easy to understand, and very easy to practice: But the world cannot understand them, nor practice them. My words have an Ancestor. My deeds have a Lord. The people have no knowledge of this. Therefore, they have no knowledge of me. The fewer persons know me, The nobler are they that follow me. Therefore, the Sage wears coarse clothes, While keeping the jade in his bosom.
	__________________ Extraordinay claims...blah blah...extraordinary evidence.

28th January 2003, 09:32 PM	#13
Guest Posts: n/a	---- They did not help, I discovered I would never achieve enlightnment or become one with the Tao because it entailed too much suppression of , in my view, my natural inclinations( selfishness, women, the need to contend with society, to name just a few), ---- I don't see anything in the Taoist canon that talks about supressing natural inclinations. I think Taoism talks about avoiding society as much as possible, or at least not letting it control you. -But that doesn't mean all Taoists have to live on the top of a mountain. Just do the best you can with what you've got. ---- Lao Tzu, certainly the one person most indentified with Taoism, ---- And Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) also. ---- The farther you go The less you know. ---- ---- Therefore, the Sage wears coarse clothes, While keeping the jade in his bosom. ---- I like those.
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28th January 2003, 09:54 PM	#14
BroodingSkill Thinker Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: the Good ole 559 Posts: 178	I don't see anything in the Taoist canon that talks about supressing natural inclinations. I think Taoism talks about avoiding society as much as possible, or at least not letting it control you. -But that doesn't mean all Taoists have to live on the top of a mountain. Just do the best you can with what you've got. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is to some extent true but like all things Taoism has its reclusive adherents( the Dragon Gate sect, for one) and it's more public adherents( the Celestial teachers, for another, though they are considered religous Taoists by some). What sources I could find tended to recommend renouciation. I guess it depends on what flavor works for you. Total renouciation of society was not for me and in the end renoucing it with myself while living in it, didnt work either. It's a moot point anyway as I have turned my back on Taoism, for good. I look back at all the woo woo beliefs I had aquired with my facination with Taoism and just shake my head. To name a few, Chi, Chi Gong, Internal Martial Arts, I Ching, Healing, Acupunture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taoist meditaion, Taoist internal Achemy, Taoist Astrology, and more. The upside was that I picked up some Chinese history and cultural appreciation I might never have acquired. So maybe it wasn't all bad, but I still won't go back.
	__________________ Extraordinay claims...blah blah...extraordinary evidence.

28th January 2003, 10:05 PM	#15
Guest Posts: n/a	---- I look back at all the woo woo beliefs I had aquired with my facination with Taoism and just shake my head. To name a few, Chi, Chi Gong, Internal Martial Arts, I Ching, Healing, Acupunture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taoist meditaion, Taoist internal Achemy, Taoist Astrology, and more. ---- I guess I don't view a lot of those as "woo-woo", certainly not aspects of qi, qigong, and defintely not internal martial arts, meditation, and parts of TCM. Although, it is certainly a "buyer beware" area considering the amount of misleading information out there on these areas. It is also incredibly difficult to figure out what is truly Chinese, and what is really American. With so-called 'Chinese food" it is easier.
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29th January 2003, 12:05 PM	#16
FireGarden Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Spannungsbogen -- without a visa Posts: 5,043	Star Of The Sea Quote: 'no-mind' is accepting everything that enters the senses with complete openness, and not applying a filter of conscious thought to it. Aha! Now I get it. That's not what I do when playing guitar with "no-mind" What I do is more like auto-pilot. There are times when I ask myself "Is this the first chorus or the second?" Which is clearly an error that Zen would want corrected. Whodini Quote: I like it. Kind of like a controlled accident. If I'm on auto-pilot, then that's what it is! Taoism sounds to me like it wants auto-pilot. But Zen wants my mind free from the details so I can concentrate on the big picture. Quote: I think Taoism talks about avoiding society as much as possible, or at least not letting it control you. -But that doesn't mean all Taoists have to live on the top of a mountain. Surely, if you HAVE to live on top of a mountain to avoid society then you ARE letting it control you. BroodingSkill Many parts of Buddhism are intended as an investigation into your own subjective outlook. I'm not sure if you're supposed to literally believe that there is a "Tao" out there. One of the things I like about Buddhism is that there is very little you have to believe in. I can only think of enlightenment. In fact there is a story on that page I linked to that shows that you don't have to (shouldn't) believe the masters! Greatest Teaching How much more skeptical do you want a religion to be? (Not that I'm suggesting you return to Taoism - I'm not even a Buddhist myself. I'm just questioning the association of "woo-woo" with religion. Especially in an age when it's possible to pick and choose what you want from every religion.)
	__________________ When Americans talk about freedom, it’s our secular code word for salvation. There’s no salvation outside the church; there’s no freedom outside the American way of life. -- James Carroll B'tselem Tony Karon's blog

4th February 2003, 08:07 AM	#17
Franko Master Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 2,338	Quote: ]Elephant: If all you do with your Free Will is yield to what the laws of physics (your ego) is compelling you to do then you might as not have any Free Will. NOT yielding to TLOP/ego IS using your Free Will. It is only FREE if it does not yield to TLOP/ego - this appears to the ego as losing its Free Will, but in fact the ego never had any Free Will to begin with. Franko: Well if the Ego never had any "free will", then what did the Ego have? Elephant: Unfree will. Isn’t: Unfree will = Fate? If not, then what is the specific difference? Quote: Franko: What is the purpose of the Ego? Does it have a purpose? Why is it needed? Elephant: It was put there by physical evolution as a survival mechanism. You sound like a Pseudo-Materialist suddenly. It’s odd, because I thought you claimed not to be a pseudo-materialist? Quote: Creatures with no ego do not strive for survival and reproduction. What about the Omniconsciousness (or are you calling it Metamind these days?)? The OC doesn’t have an ego does it? Yet it survives … So my original questions still stand … unanswered. What is the purpose of the Ego? Does it have a purpose? Why is it needed? Quote: True altruism is evolutionarily useless. Yeah … but in a meta-sense of the word isn’t the exact opposite True?
Franko Master Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 2,338