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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Religions & Faiths > Taoism

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  #1  
Old 07-04-2024, 12:05 PM
Sonolil
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I'm finalizing my relationship with Taoism.

Generally speaking, I'm trying not to engage in forums these days. I don't want to speak about what I don't know or even what I firmly believe in that may not apply for others.

I know that's ironically Taoist, however, that's not why I'm here. I came here because I know how I clearly feel about Taoism now.

It's an invitation that I'm going to now largely decline.

In the past, say during my youth largely spanning 15 years, I have been accepting of Taoism. I was not "Taoist" per se but I liked what it said. I was brought up in a Confucian country, which stringent rules I found too restrictive and even impractical. Taoism was one of my retaliations against it. But I have always wondered why Tao Te Ching speaks of the Tao, when Tao cannot be spoken of. And why, if I shouldn't adhere to past dogmas and their teachers, why I shouldn't be doing the same with Laozi.

I shouldn't. We shouldn't, I think, but I don't speak for you. But I do for me.

This paradox plagued me for some time in my youth. And then I got angry, perhaps irrationally, as I got more defensive over the years, at Taoism.

In the past couple of years, the answer has revealed itself to be quite simple.

It's just an invitation to a lifestyle.

When it said the Tao spoken is not the Tao, I should've just taken Laozi's word for it. Even that it can't be spoken, is not the Tao.
It's my fault that I'm irrationally angry at it. I cannot fault him for existing and voicing his truths, when he was so polite about it.

It's just an invitation. If I accepted it and didn't like it, that's my fault.


After knowing that fact, I've decided much more recently, to largely decline that invitation. I lived it, and didn't like it. I want to try a different lifestyle.

Note "largely." I won't be going against the sayings completely. They have their usage. But I want to get to the Wisdom directly.


I'm not sure entirely why I'm saying this here but I'm saying it anyway. Perhaps it's just my own invitation. Perhaps it's just that; a statement. Maybe it's an affirmation of sorts that I require.

All I want to say is, I want to believe there can be Tao in words as much as there can be in silence.
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  #2  
Old 08-04-2024, 10:36 PM
FallingLeaves FallingLeaves is online now
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Quote:
All I want to say is, I want to believe there can be Tao in words as much as there can be in silence.
from a philosophical standpoint, I started looking for the reasons not to make words. And boy are there a lot of them!

The problem being, each reason I could find, was an attempt to avoid some specific outcome that I might have earlier deemed 'bad' or even 'evil'. So To deliberately try not to say words, because I know the outcome of doing that, and I want to avoid it, is really what I was up to when I wanted to not say words. It wasn't such a desire to not say words as a desire to get the outcomes that come from being silent??????

I think the tao te ching has various admonitions about not being dependent on outcomes as well though... so really, if I am going to take something like the tao te ching seriously, and base my own activities on the activities it seems to say are of benefit, and avoid the activities it seems to abhor, that is just another failing on my own part. Yeah if I go about doing certain things it talks about not doing there are going to be consequences to me and to others... and maybe even I would say some of those consequences are distasteful either to me or others... and I know it... but just the fact I want to avoid certain consequences doesn't seem in and of itself a good reason to be taking such teachings to heart as a kind of road map for what my life going forward should be like. At least not to me.

So I talk when I want and I shut up when I want even though a certain path is talked of as 'beneficial' over the other one in those teachings... and again maybe what happens when i go about doing that isn't always so great, but honestly, it beats the heck out of trying to force-fit myself into being something I'm not just to get along with this particular group of people's aspirations for how things should be...

but ironically I think that is part of it too. Taoism speaks to me of something beyond the aspirations of what we think we should be like and directly to the idea of there being, somehow, a self that is something more than what we envision ourselves as. Although admittedly, a species like us that wants to know the correct way of going about everything has a hard time getting beyond aspirations of who to be next and into something deeper... and maybe that is one of the many reasons to just shut up and not say anything, you know that others are so used to thinking in terms of the aspirations of what their future selves should be like that even if you try to describe something that is somehow more than that they'll just be lost in trying to perceive it along the lines of their usual perceptions about life: in terms of their aspiratiosn for the future. So it isn't like you get anywhere by talking about such things and maybe it is a bit like stirring the pot a bit too lol.... which there is a passage about how stirring the pot may not be such a good thing either... but... sometimes the pieces get stuck together too i think and just letting muddy water settle isn't the entire answer lol...

so anyway for me it is more a matter of what i want to say or not say anymore, than it is the outcomes I see happening as a result of either silence or noise...

well it makes sense to me anyway lol....
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  #3  
Old 09-04-2024, 12:11 AM
Miss Hepburn Miss Hepburn is offline
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Hi, All the words above and this was all that stood out to me.
''But I want to get to the Wisdom directly.''

Good! I support you in this..
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Prepare yourself for the coming astral journey of death by daily riding in the balloon of God-perception.
Through delusion you are perceiving yourself as a bundle of flesh and bones, which at best is a nest of troubles.
Meditate unceasingly, that you may quickly behold yourself as the Infinite Essence, free from every form of misery. ~Paramahansa's Guru's Guru
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  #4  
Old 26-04-2024, 11:52 AM
Sonolil
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Well... the consequence is that we all die anyway, though our spirits may live on. My spirit living on is a 100% fact to me as far as I'm concerned. But that may have nothing to do with this topic.

Generally speaking, that's the thing. It's our life and death. Whether we "focus on manifestations or the mystery" whether we want or not want, it's all Tao anyway. So for me, it's less of "I'm not speaking or speaking because I want or not want something" and more... "it's my life and I saw things differently."

It's yours to find the Meaning of life. That is, in my dictionary, it's yours to find Truth and Love it. But we can do it together, if you want.

What I don't necessarily like about Tao Te Ching the BOOK, is that it tends to make up down and down up and the reality I found was not always like that. And that was what ired my initial anger. But I also did find that it is true sometimes, and not so easily dismissible.

In the end, I just chose Wisdom the way I know it. Be curious and cherish what you know, but trust the Dark Unknown as good. Embrace Truth but maintain Innocence. That sort of thing. Harder than it sounds at times, but... it really didn't get any better than that no matter what.
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  #5  
Old 26-04-2024, 11:58 AM
Sonolil
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn
Hi, All the words above and this was all that stood out to me.
''But I want to get to the Wisdom directly.''

Good! I support you in this..

Why thank you. It's not like I have any other choice, apparently.
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  #6  
Old 07-05-2024, 07:06 AM
Maisy Maisy is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonolil
All I want to say is, I want to believe there can be Tao in words as much as there can be in silence.

Silence is also a word and concept. But I think I know what is being pointed at. A state in which the opposites of words do not exist. There is neither silence nor noise. Neither emptiness or fullness. Just the now as it is and as it has always been before the word or symbol for it.
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  #7  
Old 11-05-2024, 01:18 AM
yasha yasha is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FallingLeaves
others are so used to thinking in terms of the aspirations of what their future selves should be like that even if you try to describe something that is somehow more than that they'll just be lost in trying to perceive it along the lines of their usual perceptions about life: in terms of their aspiratiosn for the future.
This is a powerful observation.

No matter our age or situation, we look to the "future".

Then one day we die and take with us all the possible futures...

Perhaps it's best to simply "be".

This is the essence of mindfulness.
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  #8  
Old 20-05-2024, 02:53 PM
FallingLeaves FallingLeaves is online now
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for me i couldn't try to get to some place to just be without looking off into the future as to how to get there.... and without a lot of exploring of what that means and what molds I have to fit into if I'm gonna do it properly.

But there is a problem with that kind of singlemindedness that we have with our goals and with the future.... it is kinda like, draping a cloth in front of your eyes and then not even realizing it is there and you can't see past it.

There are some things you just can't learn while you are doing that... yet people do that and then in theirresulting blindness assume they know anyway...
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