Yes it does....still ...are there others??
yeah... I had been told though it is customary to pick a chinese name?
Taoism cosmology
- Thread starter Lamson
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Nick the Pilot
Well-Known Member
"...it is customary to pick a chinese name?"
--> I would say it is. When someone asks you in Chinese what your name is, it's just a heck of a lot easier for everyone if you pronounce it in a way they can understand. They are not going to understand you if you try to pronounce it in an English way. If you are speaking in Chinese, that is. If you are speaking in English, then say it the English way.
--> I would say it is. When someone asks you in Chinese what your name is, it's just a heck of a lot easier for everyone if you pronounce it in a way they can understand. They are not going to understand you if you try to pronounce it in an English way. If you are speaking in Chinese, that is. If you are speaking in English, then say it the English way.
Nick the Pilot
Well-Known Member
I thought it would be good to continue a discussion about the real Tao Te Ching.
Tao Te Ching line 2:
無名天地之始. 有名萬物之母.
Wú míng tiān dì zhī shǐ. yǒu míng wàn wù zhī mǔ.
In silence, the heavens and earth began. From the Unmanifest and the manifest came the heaven and earth. The manifested Word [the Third Logos], the mother of all things, that from which all things have evolved.
---
Genesis 1:1
...darkness was over the face of the deep... And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
---
These two quotes say the exact same thing, and show a commonality of this story in several major religions.
Tao Te Ching line 2:
無名天地之始. 有名萬物之母.
Wú míng tiān dì zhī shǐ. yǒu míng wàn wù zhī mǔ.
In silence, the heavens and earth began. From the Unmanifest and the manifest came the heaven and earth. The manifested Word [the Third Logos], the mother of all things, that from which all things have evolved.
---
Genesis 1:1
...darkness was over the face of the deep... And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
---
These two quotes say the exact same thing, and show a commonality of this story in several major religions.
Nick the Pilot
Well-Known Member
I do not think Taoism gives a reason why we were created.
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From a Christian POV I think Eriugena's fourfold division of nature offers a comparative text:
That which creates and is not created (ie the Triune God);
that which creates and is created (ie Primary Causes or Ideas);
that which is created and does not create (ie Temporal Effects, created things);
that which is neither created nor creates (ie God to Itself).
So the dichotomy of:
'(Conceived of as) having no name,
it is the Originator of heaven and earth;
(conceived of as) having a name,
it is the Mother of all things.'
is addressed in the fourfold nature, as the First and Fourth.
Eriugena followed the Mystical tradition of St Denys/the pseudoAreopagite, his genius was to recognise the primary determination of all nature and metanature is in the manner in which things may be said to be or not to be (Periphyseon, I.443c-446a). According to him, things accessible to the senses and the intellect are said to be, whereas anything which, ‘through the excellence of its nature’ (per excellentiam suae naturae), transcends our faculties are said not to be.
According to this classification, God and the Tao, because of their transcendence or absoluteness, can be said not to be, that is it cannot be spoken, because they transcend all categories of definition.
(The four 'divisions' are not a hierarchy in the usual sense of higher and lower orders. Rather the first and fourth division refer to God as the Beginning – en arche – and End of all things, the Alpha and Omega. The second and third express the unity of the cause-effect relation.)
Again, with regard to the manifest world, the Tao uses the term 'Mother' whereas Scripture uses such terms as 'Memra' (Hebrew, 'Word') and Arche (Greek. 'Principle') or Logos (Greek). Both Memra and Logos have a their correspondence in the sound symbol 'Aum' in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.
That which creates and is not created (ie the Triune God);
that which creates and is created (ie Primary Causes or Ideas);
that which is created and does not create (ie Temporal Effects, created things);
that which is neither created nor creates (ie God to Itself).
So the dichotomy of:
'(Conceived of as) having no name,
it is the Originator of heaven and earth;
(conceived of as) having a name,
it is the Mother of all things.'
is addressed in the fourfold nature, as the First and Fourth.
Eriugena followed the Mystical tradition of St Denys/the pseudoAreopagite, his genius was to recognise the primary determination of all nature and metanature is in the manner in which things may be said to be or not to be (Periphyseon, I.443c-446a). According to him, things accessible to the senses and the intellect are said to be, whereas anything which, ‘through the excellence of its nature’ (per excellentiam suae naturae), transcends our faculties are said not to be.
According to this classification, God and the Tao, because of their transcendence or absoluteness, can be said not to be, that is it cannot be spoken, because they transcend all categories of definition.
(The four 'divisions' are not a hierarchy in the usual sense of higher and lower orders. Rather the first and fourth division refer to God as the Beginning – en arche – and End of all things, the Alpha and Omega. The second and third express the unity of the cause-effect relation.)
Again, with regard to the manifest world, the Tao uses the term 'Mother' whereas Scripture uses such terms as 'Memra' (Hebrew, 'Word') and Arche (Greek. 'Principle') or Logos (Greek). Both Memra and Logos have a their correspondence in the sound symbol 'Aum' in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.
If one was to get all sage on one's backside, one would come out with some comment like 'who asks?'
My initial response to the metaphysical question 'why is there anything at all?' is 'why not?' in the sense of 'what is there to stop It manifesting Itself in every mode and possibility of its potentiality?' The relative is not other than the Absolute, it's an aspect of the absolute. If the Absolute is truly absolute it will manifest itself in every way it is, even in relative-ness and contingency, both being illusory, real from where we are, but not from where It is.
The point is there is no 'need', there is nothing to determine that the Tao must be the origin and source of all, it just is. If there was something necessitating it, then that would render the Tao subject to a greater-than-itself.