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Originally Posted by Prokopton
Well I may be mistaking you, if you say that:
... then it appears the essence of Tao is freedom from 'ritualization', and ritual in general is not a word I've never seen you use positively.
Still, everything else you say is certainly true. The origins of the Tao seem to some scholars now to be as much shamanic as philosophical, but as for what Taoists (or I) would call 'Tao', your definition is spot on, as I say.
Please elaborate if you feel like it -- which preconceptions and intentions are useful in your opinion, or result in usefulness, and which don't? (Or according to your opinion of Taoist opinion?) Personally I don't think preconceptions or intentions always determine usefulness, nor do I think that it is possible to say which preconceptions and intentions are bound to result in usefulness and which are not. (Although as always with the Tao, we can notice patterns.)
There isn't, as I said. Usefulness or lack is simply that -- although extremely important of course, it doesn't need to have a connotation of heresy, which implies 'only one correct way' or deviation therefrom. I think we probably agree that the idea of 'only one correct way' is not really at home in the Taoist tradition.
I'm not saying all these are wrong Gem, just that what the Taoists such as Lao-Tzu meant by Tao is much more as defined by TzuJanLi -- the universal, macrocosmic self-creating complex system.
Exactly, 'Tao' and all its associated concepts (such as yin/yang, the 5 elements, etc.) were always open to the use of all and the means of a lot of experiment -- just exactly as with western notions that grew from similar brews of shamanism and philosophy. The only proviso, as TzuJanLi mentioned, might be that something which turns out to work is probably better than something that doesn't!
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Wow. That sounds pretty farout "the universal, macrocosmic self-creating complex system."
Yes of course, if it works then then that's the way, like practicing the piano works and one can play music, there is no other way to learn piano but the doing of it, and there is something in that, because practice is only the persuit of perfection, so the journey is started knowing there is no actual end game, thus the path does not lead to the one who walks it.