Is he right about the Tao Te Ching?

Is he right about the Tao Te Ching?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    That is the truth. Eastern philosophy is meaningless gobbledygoo.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    why are antivaxers on the same tier as flat earthers?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      both deny Science and ignore objective, verified facts

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Ligma

        What are the source of “objective” facts?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You forgot trannies, it's all in the same pocket of weird woo woo

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      because Big Pharma(PBUH) is an infallible and just Totem
      #justcattlethings

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Filtered. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this guy has only even seen the Stephen Mitchell "translation," which is actually garden variety boomer swill

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >The Tao that can be articulated is not the real Tao
    >spends entire book trying to articulate the Tao
    Bravo Chinaman, bravo.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >The fish that can be named is not the real fish
      Wow! What a moron! This isn't a fish, it's just a book about a fish!

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Your analogy proves you did not get it.

        Something that can’t be told directly, only hinted at, is perhaps the core of all literary fiction and certainly all poetry. To have an entire thread of brainless twats scoffing at the notion wouldn’t be so strange if not for the designation >IQfy.

        Isn't it rather remarkable that you realize full well that the Chinaman's pocket philosophy has the same core as literary fiction and poetry, yet you still get insulted when it is made fun of for purporting to be philosophy?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Something that can’t be told directly, only hinted at, is perhaps the core of all literary fiction and certainly all poetry. To have an entire thread of brainless twats scoffing at the notion wouldn’t be so strange if not for the designation >IQfy.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's Dao de jing. You definitely haven't read it nor has he because both of you got the title wrong. Frick off from this board and never come back stupid fricking idiots

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Idiot.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Some quotes were memorables
    - Avoid the extremes, have moderation
    - The simplest the better
    - If you try hard in what you are not naturally good you might fail and hurt yourself

    I also enjoyed the entry 20 : common people. « Common people are joyful-they celebrate feast days and hold festivals in spring time» (...) «Scholars scowl like babies that have not learned to smile» (...) «Common people have plenty; scholars are never satisfied». That chapter is interesting and reminded me of a text i read in college about intellectual pursue that never lead to hapiness. I think it was Kant or Freud who wrote it. The Tao Te Ching is more like general wisdom common to all people. I just ignored the parts when he talks about the Tao

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No, it's about the law of assumption.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    He's right the Western "Daoist" community is shit and full of smelly hippies. Honestly I think the issue is that Westerners don't really care about the religious aspect of Daoism even though that's a huge part of it in China.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is the same with most alien movements. Right now on IQfy there are buddha larpers going on about nihilism and the (false) anti-ontology instead of things actual buddhists care about. Or Guenongays focusing on stuff that aspiring suffis in their madrassas might talk about twice in their lives.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The Dao De Jing filters almost everyone who reads it, but I get why.
    The DDJ is not mere practical advice to be applied. Dao can't be accurately explained or interpreted because Dao is that which is simply and clearly present when thought stops, when conceptualizing and interpreting cease altogether. How could you expect to think and talk about something that's only recognized when you stop thinking? The sense of being an individual (in this case separate from Dao trying to understand or find Dao) is what thinking feels like, so you'll never get what the DDJ is going on about via thinking. First perceive what's actually here right now without referring to thought — which is nothing like anything you can imagine or expect, and it's also just this exactly as it is already. Then the DDJ will begin to make more sense past the superficial or intellectual interpretations.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I don’t get it, and in so doing understand completely

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >First perceive what's actually here right now without referring to though
      The feeling of pins stuck in my lungs, mild headache, muscular fatigue.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >The feeling of pins stuck in my lungs, mild headache, muscular fatigue.
        This is all thought.
        Sorry about the pain though, that sucks.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >This is all thought.
          It is direct experience translated into words so I can communicate it to you. Pain is not thought, nothing in my post was originally thought. I suppose you prefer it if people keep silent, so then you can pretend the masses of suffering people don't exist, because that helps to justify your eclectic "esoteric" worldview.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Depends on what exactly you mean by "you".
            Of course it does. That's what your entire incomprehension boils down to.

            You both hallucinated a whole lot I didn't say and don't believe. The sensation of pain is real, as is the experience of suffering, it's just not what you think it is. What I'm talking about essentially has nothing to do with metaphysics or anything esoteric and makes no prescriptions for belief or behavior. I'm simply stating a fact that can be experienced: the sense/feeling of self/"me"/"I" that you believe yourself to be is not you. This is even obvious on an intellectual level as you can be aware of this sense/feeling meaning it's an object, not you the subject.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I'm not talking about anything metaphysical either. I'm just stating what it is, not what I think it is. "It" is bad, awful, painful, these are all things that are there before the thoughts arise.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I didn't mean to imply that pain should merely be put up with, but rather that thought is very elusive and subtle. If there are unpleasant and harmful sensations it's not wrong to want to try to avoid them. But the sense/feeling of being a separate "experiencer" of these pains is an illusion; the feeling of being a separate experiencer arises with thought. Realizing this wouldn't stop the pain, nor would it mean to not remove it if possible, but it does mean that there is then only the pain sensations and no conceptual suffering added onto them. I apologize if it seemed I was being dismissive, if you haven't had this perceptual shift then it's absolutely valid that the pain and suffering feels very real to you and I'm not suggesting you merely pretend otherwise.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >dude it's just something you can't predicate anything of
      >stop thinking bro
      Why are all easterners like this? Even the founders of apophatic theology understood the necessity of not going full moron (like the Gnostics and arguably Palamas).

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Notice how you cannot help but compulsively and immediately go to thought to dismiss what I say.
        To use potentially misleading terms that may make more sense to you: everything you ever experience is your consciousness, and this consciousness is what you actually are. This is not inherently a metaphysical statement, it's perfectly compatible with even the most atheistic materialism (I'm not a big fan but see Sam Harris). There's no real distance or separation between you, your attention, and whatever object (including mind, thoughts) your attention is on; you and that object are that attention. Thought obscures this. The sense of being someone in your head or body using attention to look out at objects is just what subtle, habitual, and incessant thinking feels like.
        Have you ever experienced the flow state? What I'm talking about isn't too dissimilar, but it's far more profound and unconditionally available at all times.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >le Dao is about wilfully turning yourself into an NPC
      It is very enjoyable learning more about Chinese philosophy, because it really seems like a caricature of itself.
      Also, this just sounds like babby's first phenomenology.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Obviously the mind can't know or conceive what the mind getting out of the way is like. So it conceptualizes it as something intelligible, something knowable, such as that it would mean you'd be unintelligent or an NPC. The fact is that everything you do already happens without the need for thought. You can still think after the fact as long you recognize the nature of thought, it's just then no longer compulsive or incessant and is purely practical or for enjoyment. Why you might want this is because your natural state when not obscured by thinking is unconditional happiness. But to be clear, that doesn't mean you then won't care about fixing unfavorable or unpleasant circumstances. Also read this

        Notice how you cannot help but compulsively and immediately go to thought to dismiss what I say.
        To use potentially misleading terms that may make more sense to you: everything you ever experience is your consciousness, and this consciousness is what you actually are. This is not inherently a metaphysical statement, it's perfectly compatible with even the most atheistic materialism (I'm not a big fan but see Sam Harris). There's no real distance or separation between you, your attention, and whatever object (including mind, thoughts) your attention is on; you and that object are that attention. Thought obscures this. The sense of being someone in your head or body using attention to look out at objects is just what subtle, habitual, and incessant thinking feels like.
        Have you ever experienced the flow state? What I'm talking about isn't too dissimilar, but it's far more profound and unconditionally available at all times.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Without reading the Chinese, and paying attention to wordplay and deep, schizophrenic metaphors you see throughout world literature and culture you simply won't get it

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    he is right in that it is one of the most easily bastardized texts, but not that it is essentially meaningless

    it is by far one of the most profound texts of philosophy but it is not a LEADING text, i.e. it does not 'lead' the reader well to the state of being that is spoken of. it rather acts much more as a description of the mode of being and natural thoughts and perceptions of one who has stopped interfering with the natural way of things (primarily through desire).

    when you have abandoned desire (that is, for random pleasures, distractions, ambitions, fame, and so on) and are content with nothing except the bare essentials of food, shelter, clothes, and medicine, then any action pursued will not be for some gratification that is held at the END of that action, hence when you DO act it will be entirely natural to the situation because the only reason you have to act is because you 'have' to, so to speak. so it won't feel like you doing it anymore, just the 'dao' moving you. and all will be put in its correct place because you were already satisfied before you even pursued the action - hence its results cannot effect you either way. whereas if you act out of desire, no matter how much you satisfy it, the whole framework of gratification requires a root dissatisfaction which only grows and grows the more you feed it - hence, the more you express desire the more you become out of tune with the natural order.

    the problem is both that the text is not very good at leading, so it ends up being picked up by most as a belief, world-view, or theory without the corresponding existential import, training, and transformation. and it is doubly bad as well because the description itself is aware of the fact that describing it is virtually useless as it depends on existential appropriation, which forces it to speak in riddles which abound in fools giving wayward interpretations.

    yet when that state is achieved it is one of the most accurate descriptions which outlines what the ordinary person cannot understand, that the movements of body, speech, and mind do not require 'you'. hence all the contradictions - acting (the movements of body, speech and mind) without acting (without the interference of the SELF always imbued with desire)

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      A Daoist could express this in three characters. You’re clearly doing it wrong

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        probably cos im not a daoist innit

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Now you’re getting it

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >that the movements of body, speech, and mind do not require 'you'.
      Without "you" the body is just a lifeless and motionless husk rotting away in a furrow.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Even western traditions value ecstatic experience, losing oneself in contemplation of God or art.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Depends on what exactly you mean by "you". But in any case the sense of being a self/"me" isn't you, rather it's just what thinking feels like.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Depends on what exactly you mean by "you".
          Of course it does. That's what your entire incomprehension boils down to.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >it's another religion that is all about being content with what you have and accepting that the king/cheiftain/boss takes your money and fricks your wife because self-respect is for plebs who still have a self
      Fascinating stuff.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The richness of classical Chinese is rooted firmly in the open-endedness (but not meaninglessness, they are two totally different things, the latter would be affirming proper contraries, the latter encompasses the ineffable without exhausting the ineffable, which is not only impossible, but if attempted would result in contradiction) of their characters and semantic system. Tao Te Ching translations are at the very least one step away from this open-endedness compared to the original, and so even though the translation is more concrete and firmly rooted than the original, it is in its own way less meaningful.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The commentary and exposition apparatus required to bridge the source language gap is large enough for that to be a valid take albeit a shit take

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's a text for a (basically ethnic) religious tradition that is 100% closed off and alien to westerners, hence why any western attempts to understand it come off as smelly hippy nonsense

    Different religions grew around different cultures and are basically designed for the different mindsets that come with them. This is why Asian Christianity and Western Buddhism come off as so weird

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >17
    >In the highest antiquity, (the people) did not know that there
    >were (their rulers). In the next age they loved them and praised
    >them. In the next they feared them; in the next they despised them.
    >Thus it was that when faith (in the Tao) was deficient (in the rulers)
    >a want of faith in them ensued (in the people).
    >How irresolute did those (earliest rulers) appear, showing (by
    >their reticence) the importance which they set upon their words!
    >Their work was done and their undertakings were successful, while the
    >people all said, 'We are as we are, of ourselves!'
    >80
    >In a little state with a small population, I would so order it,
    >that, though there were individuals with the abilities of ten or a
    >hundred men, there should be no employment of them; I would make the
    >people, while looking on death as a grievous thing, yet not remove
    >elsewhere (to avoid it).
    >Though they had boats and carriages, they should have no occasion
    >to ride in them; though they had buff coats and sharp weapons, they
    >should have no occasion to don or use them.
    >I would make the people return to the use of knotted cords (instead
    >of the written characters).
    >They should think their (coarse) food sweet; their (plain) clothes
    >beautiful; their (poor) dwellings places of rest; and their common
    >(simple) ways sources of enjoyment.
    >There should be a neighbouring state within sight, and the voices
    >of the fowls and dogs should be heard all the way from it to us, but I
    >would make the people to old age, even to death, not have any
    >intercourse with it.
    So rulers should be secret shadow leaders that plebs don't even realize exist but are manipulated by into thinking they are living that way by their own accord?
    And then the plebs should be uneducated and not even know how to count without using objects, live in tight-knit self-sustaining communities, and never know life beyond simple farming?
    Mucho basado, perchance?

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I remember being 18-22, and enamored with all sorts of cringy mysticism as well. I used to meditate two hours a day, read the Tao on a weekly basis, and at one time, even read it in its entirety while obliterated on mescaline.
    This thread truly brings back the memories. The unfettered cringe of youth. Shine on kids, but absolutely make sure you get at least a bit of pussy out of it - in retrospect, you will realize that was what made the cringe worth it.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Everyone ITT is right about everything btw

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    he's talking complete shit

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No

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