Tao Te Ching chapter 20 - empty mind

[luecy7]

A Buddha is a free one...

With freedom is responsibility.

You are an impediment to silence, you have pursued conversation instead of permitting silence. Even in a jail cell, you have more freedom than in your house. This you seem to be boasting about?

You really don't behave like a person who wants silence. If you want it, then you know where to find it.

You are about as far from religiousness as a person can possibly be, and yet you think you know something of religiousness... it is laughable, it did not take long to know I am wasting my time being around you. Yet, you continue to waste my time on here by addressing me, still you have not let go.

If you are free to direct your time, then I have not wasted your time. With the freedom you claim, you are responsible for how you spend your time. I certainly have not thought of you as a waste of my time.

 

[Lunitik]

With freedom is responsibility.

With freedom is true response-ability. It does not relate to duty, it is simply to understand more deeply and respond, no more simply chaotically reacting as the instincts insist, and yet no need to plan because you do not need to attempt to shape anything yourself.

You really don't behave like a person who wants silence. If you want it, then you know where to find it.

Going out on your patio, enjoying nature, being one with the trees and the birds and the wind, this is where I found silence when I was staying with you. Communing with the trees along the road and near your work, this was my silence. You are only aware of the peripheral though, you are ignorant to the essence of this place.

If you are free to direct your time, then I have not wasted your time. With the freedom you claim, you are responsible for how you spend your time. I certainly have not thought of you as a waste of my time.

You do not understand freedom at all, for you it is in relation to something - not being restricted. This is not what I mean by freedom, by freedom I mean there is no relation at all, because you are the whole. You are extended to the whole of the universe and beyond it, even sitting in your room motionless. The restriction is the body, not where the body can go or what is done with the body. This wall people create between inner and outer is the prison which spirituality tries to break down - it is a perception that this is you and that is something else, it is false.

All is an expression of love, nothing else exists, nothing else can exist. When two pure loves commune, there is no longer two, the love merges and becomes a single whole. Nothing is lost, except that which is false, the concepts of mind. This is where you go on missing, you talk about creating a whole out of two halves - compromise - where as sharing means two wholes have merged and only added to each ones energy. You go on making everything less, chopping away at everything, this is utterly against spirituality, spirituality is to realize the whole, it is a growing not a shrinking.

 

[Lunitik]

You have provided no growth, you have disputed and expressed only pettiness, yet somehow this expression of smallness from you is supposed to be spiritual? You do not love yourself, you still punish yourself for things in your past, yet this is spirituality for you? You cower to the whims of others, but this is supposed to be a meaningful existence?

The spiritual man is disconnected from his past utterly, because he realizes the past is a dead thing. He does not concern himself with the future either, because it is not yet born. He lives utterly in the present, because nothing else is possible. This proved impossible to express to you because you think you are already a spiritual man - you are not. When I realized the impossibility, that you cannot even understand that plants and trees are as alive as you, in fact more joyous and loving than you, it showed me it was not worth staying there.

You are utterly closed, this is why you say "Conscientious Objector", to object is the opposite of spirituality. It is a very immature way to live, although it is necessary in the adolescent years, it is time to move past that stage though, to say yes to existence, to be open to what is... you know nothing of it right now and I am not the one to show you.

 

[luecy7]

With freedom is true response-ability. It does not relate to duty, it is simply to understand more deeply and respond, no more simply chaotically reacting as the instincts insist, and yet no need to plan because you do not need to attempt to shape anything yourself.

I witnessed that you deny your response-ability, and you cling to and chaotically react to your flesh's instincts. A person who watches their mind and body, thinking to themselves that it is responsible and that they can merely just watch it behave in a sinful manner without taking responsibility for it... in my view, behaves as a hellish demon.

Going out on your patio, enjoying nature, being one with the trees and the birds and the wind, this is where I found silence when I was staying with you. Communing with the trees along the road and near your work, this was my silence. You are only aware of the peripheral though, you are ignorant to the essence of this place.

So now you confess that you had freedom at our house, though you still denied it at the time by claiming to be a victim of the advertisements for smoking, and my any mention of the term, "smoking". As you said, you would necessarily have to go out on the back deck any time that I mentioned "smoking". A slave to my words, in your view, because you deny responsibility.

You do not understand freedom at all, for you it is in relation to something - not being restricted. This is not what I mean by freedom, by freedom I mean there is no relation at all, because you are the whole. You are extended to the whole of the universe and beyond it, even sitting in your room motionless. The restriction is the body, not where the body can go or what is done with the body. This wall people create between inner and outer is the prison which spirituality tries to break down - it is a perception that this is you and that is something else, it is false.

I watched when you raised the term, 'freedom'. I watched how you used it, and what you used it in response to. I know full well your working definition of the term, 'freedom'. You deceive yourself. Your wholeness is your aloneness. Your freedom is your solo control. As someone tells you what to do, you have a total meltdown. That does not jive with your false dichotomy.

All is an expression of love, nothing else exists, nothing else can exist. When two pure loves commune, there is no longer two, the love merges and becomes a single whole. Nothing is lost, except that which is false, the concepts of mind. This is where you go on missing, you talk about creating a whole out of two halves - compromise - where as sharing means two wholes have merged and only added to each ones energy. You go on making everything less, chopping away at everything, this is utterly against spirituality, spirituality is to realize the whole, it is a growing not a shrinking.

That would be mildly interesting if there were a love that you communed with. You prefer to be alone and think to yourself that you are communing with the universe, with existance, with everyone, with the ultimate. Your claimed union, communion, and wholeness, is your alone-ness. Even around people, I think you are alone, because you have mentally preferred to deny all responsibility for your actions.

Just because a guy gets married with a girl and helps raise a family, does not mean that they are not whole. A few organs, like the reproductive organs, are obviously not very functional being alone. Are your reproductive organs whole by being alone with your body? Similarly there are other organs like the ears... not so productive alone when there is nothing to hear. Similarly the lungs, the heart, the brain, the arms, the hands, the legs, and the feet... they may seem to be whole being confined to your way of life, stuck with each other under your will. I say they are likewise impotent. Your will is that they remain alone, idle, uncommitted, and away from any others like them. They are even opposed to each other. For example your lungs suffer to support your brain's nichotine habit. If someone else tells your feet what to do, you will go ballistic. Your hands and feet idle because you prefer to give them very little to do.

I suggest that your closest communion, with other loves, is playing a game of soccer... at least as you have described it. Then, you are willing to follow some symmetrically agreed to rules, and interact, and do. With your parents, I was hearing a highly non-symmetric relationship, as you prefer it. You tell your step dad where you want him to take you. He does. If he tells you where he wants you, there is a rebellion... I am sure he gets an ear full from you: 'freedom', 'wholeness', 'commune', etc... You often cite Webster: have you looked up the words 'commune', 'whole', and 'freedom'?

 

[luecy7]

The spiritual man is disconnected from his past utterly, because he realizes the past is a dead thing. He does not concern himself with the future either, because it is not yet born. He lives utterly in the present, because nothing else is possible.

Perhaps if the man wishes to be evil. I submit that the past, present, and future, were never alive, and never will be.

This proved impossible to express to you because you think you are already a spiritual man - you are not.

There is absolutely nothing that you can say or do, that can take away from my past, and my past interactions with others. You can only add to yours. You agree?

When I realized the impossibility, that you cannot even understand that plants and trees are as alive as you, in fact more joyous and loving than you, it showed me it was not worth staying there.

I don't point to the moon, or the sun, or the earth, and say it is alive. I don't consider any flesh, anywhere, to be alive. The flesh, the trees, the plants, and the rocks, are not alive.

You are utterly closed, this is why you say "Conscientious Objector", to object is the opposite of spirituality.

How silly. Perhaps you would prefer that I change it to, "Conscientious Subjector".

 

[Lunitik]

I witnessed that you deny your response-ability, and you cling to and chaotically react to your flesh's instincts. A person who watches their mind and body, thinking to themselves that it is responsible and that they can merely just watch it behave in a sinful manner without taking responsibility for it... in my view, behaves as a hellish demon.

I responding forcefully, not chaotically.

So now you confess that you had freedom at our house, though you still denied it at the time by claiming to be a victim of the advertisements for smoking, and my any mention of the term, "smoking". As you said, you would necessarily have to go out on the back deck any time that I mentioned "smoking". A slave to my words, in your view, because you deny responsibility.

I had no freedom when you were around, it was the rare moments you weren't there that I had something like freedom. Indeed, it was usually when I was smoking a cigarette that it was there.

I watched when you raised the term, 'freedom'. I watched how you used it, and what you used it in response to. I know full well your working definition of the term, 'freedom'. You deceive yourself. Your wholeness is your aloneness. Your freedom is your solo control. As someone tells you what to do, you have a total meltdown. That does not jive with your false dichotomy.

Wholeness is certainly independence.

That would be mildly interesting if there were a love that you communed with. You prefer to be alone and think to yourself that you are communing with the universe, with existance, with everyone, with the ultimate. Your claimed union, communion, and wholeness, is your alone-ness. Even around people, I think you are alone, because you have mentally preferred to deny all responsibility for your actions.

There is only one being in existence, it is not this body but rather what you would consider the universe, yet there is no possibility of not being alone.

Just because a guy gets married with a girl and helps raise a family, does not mean that they are not whole. A few organs, like the reproductive organs, are obviously not very functional being alone. Are your reproductive organs whole by being alone with your body? Similarly there are other organs like the ears... not so productive alone when there is nothing to hear. Similarly the lungs, the heart, the brain, the arms, the hands, the legs, and the feet... they may seem to be whole being confined to your way of life, stuck with each other under your will. I say they are likewise impotent. Your will is that they remain alone, idle, uncommitted, and away from any others like them. They are even opposed to each other. For example your lungs suffer to support your brain's nichotine habit. If someone else tells your feet what to do, you will go ballistic. Your hands and feet idle because you prefer to give them very little to do.

You are conditioned to think you are the body, you are voicing yourself as a slave to your body, that you pursue things that permit your body to function in its ways... this is spirituality to you?

I suggest that your closest communion, with other loves, is playing a game of soccer... at least as you have described it. Then, you are willing to follow some symmetrically agreed to rules, and interact, and do. With your parents, I was hearing a highly non-symmetric relationship, as you prefer it. You tell your step dad where you want him to take you. He does. If he tells you where he wants you, there is a rebellion... I am sure he gets an ear full from you: 'freedom', 'wholeness', 'commune', etc... You often cite Webster: have you looked up the words 'commune', 'whole', and 'freedom'?

Soccer and any other sport permits what is called "the zone", it is not so different from meditation. I have actually been animated by God on the soccer field - so apparently God quite enjoys the game.

THAT is communion.

 

[Lunitik]

Perhaps if the man wishes to be evil. I submit that the past, present, and future, were never alive, and never will be.

The present is all that ever is alive.

There is absolutely nothing that you can say or do, that can take away from my past, and my past interactions with others. You can only add to yours. You agree?

There is also nothing which can be said or done that can make your past relevant ever again because the past is dead.

I don't point to the moon, or the sun, or the earth, and say it is alive. I don't consider any flesh, anywhere, to be alive. The flesh, the trees, the plants, and the rocks, are not alive.

Then I feel sorry for you.

How silly. Perhaps you would prefer that I change it to, "Conscientious Subjector".

"Ignorance Personified" would be more fitting.

 

[Lunitik]

I repeat: You had a realized man in your home, and you missed the opportunity.

You could have used the time to realize truth for yourself, instead you disputed the entire time, you asserted your experience over truth. This is really why I have left, your insistence that this petty life is significant when I was pointing at the true life...

What can I do, it is wrong to force it on anyone, it is their choice because it is a type of death - a death of everything they desire and believe. You are the whole, just as I am, you are too much attached to the part though, this is what is meant "divided". The whole is one, all is part of that, every atom contains the essence of life, every star, every galaxy, all comprises that life.

You asked me whether I can know what is happening in China... it is such a small way to think, basically still infatuated with the human form.

 

[luecy7]

I repeat: You had a realized man in your home, and you missed the opportunity.

You could have used the time to realize truth for yourself, instead you disputed the entire time, you asserted your experience over truth. This is really why I have left, your insistence that this petty life is significant when I was pointing at the true life....

So that is what your visit was for. Quite a few people were stumped. What realized man made you realize the truth of yourself? Maybe I should invite him over next.

 

[Lunitik]

So that is what your visit was for. Quite a few people were stumped. What realized man made you realize the truth of yourself? Maybe I should invite him over next.

Existence itself guided me to it.

I have told you when I pleaded for it to be revealed, and for near two years it was a constant revelation, drawing nearer and nearer until I disappeared into that - as a moth, dissolved into the fire.

 

[radarmark]

"Anyone willing to share how they apply the Taoism/Buddhism concept of "empty mind" to their daily life or personal belief system?" from Iowa Guy

--> This is how it was explained to me: We must continue to do good work, but we must learn to do good for good's sake, and not let it affect us in anyway. The biggest example is, we must not do good in order to get any reward for it. We must not do good even because it makes us feel good. We must do good, then turn and walk away, without deriving any benefit from what we have done. from Nick the Pilot.

I like that. The whole Dhyana/Ch'an/Zen no-mind school has been (IMHO) slightly twisted in the last 1,400 years. What Hung-jen and Hui-neng (fifth and sixth Ch'an patriarchs) were discussing really is "no-self". Drop the self, the ego, the I and witness the difference is a pretty good summary, I think. It is this monkey-mind shuttling from this to that from past to future that needs to be dropped.

In the end it is not really mind that is dropped, but the manomaya (illusion of mind). In the really, really old Pali sutras citta and mano and vinnana (whicha are synonymous in the original Pali), through use become "mind" (citta), "mind-stuff" (mano), and "consciousness" (vinnana)--at least according to the Theravada translators I have met or read. It is manomaya and atavinnana that the Tathagatha was explaining as erroneous (self consciousness and monkey-mind).

I am not climing this is "true" and other interpretations are therfore false. Just saying that it is a different approach from which the tradition has been approached.

So look at the last two aggregates ("sankhara-khandha" and "vinnana-khandha") and realize they are empty of self. Practice this daily (groking that volition and consciousness are not self) and one can come to the state of no-mind. Which for me (and I may be wrong here) does not exclude using logic and reason as long as I do not identify self with them. A parallel process can be found in the writings of Whitehead and Heller (little known cosmologist who is also a Papal theologian), who drop "what we ususally call self" during really hard relexion on an issue (using logic and reason to model what we experience).

 

[luecy7]

Existence itself guided me to it.

I have told you when I pleaded for it to be revealed, and for near two years it was a constant revelation, drawing nearer and nearer until I disappeared into that - as a moth, dissolved into the fire.

I'd say existence is not a person, and a person is not existence. A person can learn of things by existence, but a person does not learn of a person by mere existence. As you described it in person, God showed you something. If you prayed to God, then why don't you thank God? If you prayed to existence, then why don't you thank existence? Instead you draw your own conclusions about yourself, from what you wish to conclude. The model you choose is guidance: something or someone guided you, and you did something like meditation to acheive.

As you testify, I currently have a different viewpoint than you. With our interactions, I check my actions, your actions, my inactions and your inactions, with the golden rule. From that I see things about behavior that you apparently do not. As you testify, I currently have a different viewpoint than you.

As you have also testified, the state of your mind and body is partly a product of your actions and your inactions. For example: meditation. Your preferred model of yourself is that you do nothing. You watch, but you do not do. You could never confess anything about your behavior, because you do not regard your behavior as being your behavior. Yet if you merely watch the behavior and do nothing, that is your behavior. As you have testified, the state of your mind and body is partly a product of your actions, and your inactions.

I happen to know that God not only see, but can also do. How do I know this? Interaction. No reason for you to be in denial with jealousy... with what you are judging to be mere existence, you have interacted too. As we agree, your interactions are different than my interactions, and we each proved this by interacting a little.

 

[brijesh]

Thanks to an earlier link from SG, I've been contemplating the Tao Te Ching. I'm curious to discuss an idea from chapter 20: "I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty"

I have read similar concepts in other Eastern writings. Krishnamurti taught of the importance of an empty mind, without the clutter of beliefs and knowledge. Buddhism also talks of emptiness of views and opinions. I'm reminded of the parable where the wise sage pours tea into the professor's cup until it overflows and keeps on pouring, to illustrate how we can't learn new concepts without an "empty cup".

But I am struggling with how to apply this particular wisdom to my daily life. Maybe I'm too ingrained in the "Western" idea that knowledge is good. I tend to think of the Sage as a wise old Socrates or Aristotle or Einstein type, one whose mind if filled with knowledge and can discuss various philosophies, sciences, and religious views; not like an "idiot" with an empty mind.

Anyone willing to share how they apply the Taoism/Buddhism concept of "empty mind" to their daily life or personal belief system?

How does knowledge (which I have always viewed as a good thing) relate to the concept of "empty mind"?

Dear Brother,
Brain ia a physical phenamenon. Mind is purely Logical phenamenon which borrows brain to get functionning. Mind means memory of past and imagination of future. It never get connected with here and now i.e. present. Existance is here and now and you can get connected with existance only when get ride off this memory or imagination.

Way of spirituality is to see the whole existance in a single complete unit. Way of mind is breaking the whole existance in smallest possible unit and see the truth.

Aarkimidies found the rule of flotting when he was taking bath. At that time he was not even thinking about his research.

Madam query was tired of research and one night she decided to stop research. That night she slept very freely without any future plan. He had all the necessory knowledge but coud not discovered discovery. In the night he wakeup suddenly and put some words,symbols on the notebook and again slept. When he wakeup in the morning, she saw the equation and was shocked. Radio activity was discovered.

Buddha tried his best to get truth for long time. He did all the possible meditations but failed. He got too weak to walk even. On that special night he just stopped all exercise. He dropped all the ideas. The miracle happened on that night only..

I has no experience / clue about truth or nirvana. I have just above said words. The above words are just indicative, there is no truth in words. Just understand the above words and drop them from your mind. When they will required, start functioning automatically.

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