Category Archives: Taoism - Page 2

The Freedom of Emptiness

Posted by on August 3, 2010 No comments

I’d like to continue from a previous post,  about The Cult of Knowledge.  I’d like to do a little musing.

I was musing on the Taoist idea of emptiness recently, emptiness in Taoism doesn’t mean the same thing as we Westerners are used to.  It’s more the idea of a space filled with potential.  In fact it’s emptiness that gives things their value.

Don’t believe me?  Consider a cup.  There’s a handle, and possibly a nice pattern, but what makes it a cup is the space for the drink, the emptiness where the contents must go.  In fact the handle wouldn’t be much use without a hold in the middle would it?  It’s the same with more or less anything you look at, the emptiness it what gives a thing value, the thing that really brings it to life.

Okay, let’s start working back to the subject of my previous post.  I suggested last time that knowledge wasn’t the be all and end all, that the fixation with the accumulation of knowledge could be a bad thing.  Which is, as far as I am concerned, true.  There’s nothing worse than a know it all, and the know it all misses a lot because his or her head is full.  But I will allow a short Zen story to illustrate my point:

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor’s cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. “It’s overfull! No more will go in!” the professor blurted. “You are like this cup,” the master replied, “How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.”

In the martial art of Taijiquan, we are not taught lists of counters and blocks.  Rather, we are led to a way of moving and being.  Not rigid and full, but flexible and empty.  It is this emptiness that frees us to react.

How does this relate back to my point on knowledge?  Consider that knowledge provides a space, it can frame an area, in the same way as our cup.  Within this framework, we deploy our skills and abilities, we adapt and change.  These qualities are the things that make this knowledge actually useful.

When we hoard too much knowledge, it  will fill the space, thus putting us in a position of inflexibility.   We may be unable to innovate and unable to move, we suffer “Paradigm Paralysis”, becoming so fixated with current models and knowledge that we cannot see beyond them and it.
Creative Commons Acknowledgement.

The yellow cup image is by Eric Brian Ouano and is under by-nc-nd.

Spirituality and Religion

Posted by on November 9, 2009 2 comments

Quite some time ago (in 2006 in fact), I commented on the difference between Spirituality and Religion.  Over time I’ve stuck to my guns, that they are NOT the same thing, and I’ve seen a few comments around the place that have made me want to revisit this old territory for a quick post.

I like to define Spirituality as a sense of that which is common between us, regardless of Religion; that we are not islands in the world and that we are not separate from, but intertwined with the world around us.  It provides a sense of the sacred in the world, that some things go beyond our materialism, and that we should look beyond the daily grind and the “rat race”.

Some of what I just said can be said of what it though of as Religion.  I think that Religion is a set of rites, rituals and customs that sit on top of Spirituality, that provide more of a framework and structure.  To a degree this is needed, I don’t argue that point, but it is not a good thing it it should grow to stifle things.

The comment that spurred me to write this was that if you have Spirituality without Religion you just have a vague feeling of goodwill, in my view, that isn’t accurate and is quite derisive.  I’ve come to realise more and more over time that there’s a lot more to a simple Spirituality then a vague feeling of good will, it seems to be a much more intuitive thing and it also seems more feminine to my sense of it.  As any Taoist or Zen Buddhist will tell you there is a thing that can be dimly sensed that is beyond being articulated in words, that can only be glimpsed intuitively and can’t be grasped by reason as is the case with the scriptures of a by the book religion.  Further to this, you must do the glimpsing yourself, a priest cannot do the work for you, you must work to your own salvation!

To try to bind it in scriptures is (as Alan Watts so brilliantly said) to walk into the restaurant and eat the menu instead of the meal.  My own conclusion that has been spurred by the comment I read, is that Spirituality without religion is quite valid if difficult to grasp and also not so easy to fit into neat categories with names.  It can live without overt Religiousness quite happily.   Religion without Spirituality on the other hand is doomed from the outset.  It would seem to me to be a set of scriptures and rules and rituals that have had the original point somehow lost along the way, if this is the case, then is religion without spirituality a hollow soulless shell?

How much do we really know?

Posted by on October 21, 2009 1 comment

I was reading a thread on a forum the other day, a guy had commented on the new “Ardipithecus ramidus” fossil find and said “so much for creationism” or words to that effect. The results were quite predictable, and as boring as usual, everyone jumped in and a blazing great argument started.

I have to admit to being something of an agnostic on all of this, I take the view that there is much we don’t know and will possibly never know.  As much as many would like to cling to a holy book and proclaim that this is certainty, it isn’t and I’ll refer the reader to my essays for more on that.  In many ways I can make a similar observation of the scientific orthodoxy, science seems to get a revolution every so often and is quite defined by the unknown.  I’m also not the first to observe that science seems to be gaining it’s share of fundamentalists, and I feel that a fundamentalist attitude does science no justice at all.

I’ll also step aside from the row surrounding the much misunderstood and misrepresented theory of Evolution, other than to observe that it seems to be producing the goods in a very practical sense across a number of fields and that its opponents have produced no science of their own that I’ve seen and seem to do nothing but throw mud.

So I’ll move towards the whole question of a creator prior to the beginning of the universe.  Now this, of course, assumes that there was a discrete beginning and that the whole thing doesn’t move in some kind of cyclical way that would make for a very interesting line of investigation.

Now, for what I can see of it everything we have regarding events prior to the big bang is pure conjecture, nobody really knows. It seems to me that every debate I’ve seen boils down to a “yes it was / no it wasn’t” with nobody willing to budge an inch. Now, this sort of thing is one of the questions that the Buddha described as being a net, I can see why, all it does it cause upset and you can never really settle the argument no matter which side you’re on.

But it makes me realise, that many people are shouting certainty from a position of not really knowing.  My sense of things is that true liberation and real courage is to openly admit that you don’t know and possibly never will.  Then get on with something more relevant.

Big brother, big government, let’s get smaller.

Posted by on October 14, 2009 2 comments

I see that in the wake of their party conference, the UK Conservative party is talking about small government.  Well, it’s about time!  We’ve seen the effects of big top heavy government in the UK for a few years now, and it’s been a complete drain on the country.

Lao Tzu warns us specifically about this, Taoists don’t go for meddlesome Big Government, the flaws are too obvious and if we’re being honest about it the long march over time towards intrusive and overbearing big institutions is going to bury us if we’re not careful.

We have the sight in the UK, of government quangos, full of bureaucrats beefing up the ranks of the middle managers, increasing the number of highly paid Chiefs.  Yet the people providing the services are the first to feel the cull.

I saw the news today about the introduction of body scanners at Manchester Airport, the first airport in the UK to have them.  Not satisfied with no end of personal data, we now have to face the prospect of being electronically undressed before going on a plane.  It is optional, for now, but for how long?  This is how they do it, draw the line somewhere that nobody would argue too much, then push it to where you REALLY want it, arguing continuity all the way.

It’s time to get smaller.  Why do we need a huge bureaucracy?  It seems to me that the work of big government is to an extent self generating busy work, we could lose quite a few management postitions and some very much overpaid executives and be no worse off.  We need to honestly ask if some of the things that our government does are even needed.  As Lao Tzu correctly spotted all those years ago, big government is not good government.

Watching with a growing sinking feeling

Posted by on October 7, 2009 2 comments

We seem to be having something of a false dawn in the UK, in terms of the economy.  There is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, but I have the funny feeling that it’s a flamethrower.  I’ve been looking round various financial forums, keeping an eye on some blogs, and wondering how the heck we let ourselves sleepwalk into this mess.

We’ve all been quite blind, and it’s interesting to watch the global reaction.  It seems, at least to me, that there is a feeling of waking up but also a desire for “just 5 more minutes”, people are not letting go of the old illusions easily.  Who can blame us?  It’s the start of a very long journey, and it will not be easy.  Watching the U.S. reaction to Obama, I’m inclined to think that there are some there who underestimated how change would happen.  It’s going to be a long and difficult road, there is no shortcut.

I was mulling the Tao Te Ching again, of all the books of philosophy/spirituality in the world, I find this one the most worthwhile.  I found a verse that says it all:

Holding a cup and overfilling it
Cannot be as good as stopping short
Pounding a blade and sharpening it
Cannot be kept for long

Gold and jade fill up the room
No one is able to protect them
Wealth and position bring arrogance
And leave disasters upon oneself

When achievement is completed, fame is attained
Withdraw oneself
This is the Tao of Heaven

We have tried to fill the cup to the brim, in our greed we have tried to extend the cup, we’ve tried to use complex financial methods to outfox reality.  Reality always wins, you can’t beat it.  Those in positions of wealth and power have behaved arrogantly, and the consequences are now being visited on all of us.

[Tao Te Ching verse from www.Taoism.net and Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths in 2006]

Intellectual striving

Posted by on September 26, 2009 1 comment

One of the things I’ve learned on my journey through Taoism and Buddhism is the futility of intellectual striving, I’d realised that it’s often better not to force the mind, but to let it take its own time.

I’m reminded of the idea the we have two parts to our minds, one like a searchlight and one like an illuminating candle.  The searchlight mind is the part of our mind that is calculating and intellectual, logical.  The other, less focussed mind is more intuitive and less logical, in the West I really don’t think we trust this one as much, which is a big mistake in my view.

I’ve relearned this lesson the hard way as a consequence of having spent a few weeks revisiting my old Anglican thought, which led to a re-assessment of why I left.  In short it’s been mentally stressful, and is an experience I’m not eager to repeat.  The problem is that as I’ve said previously it just seems to be one huge argument based on essentially unresolvable questions, in essence a wilderness of opinions.  The Buddha had a series of questions he would not answer, when drawn, he said they were like a net and weren’t really relevant to what he was trying to do.

He compared our situation there to that of a man shot with an arrow, who refuses all treatment till he knows all about the arrow, the bow it was fired from, the character and caste of the archer, etc, etc.  This man will die of his wounds before he gets any answers, and what good does that do him?  Our situation is urgent and lots of speculative arguments do us no service at all in resolving it.

The searchlight part of our mind is the part that runs after answers, often heedlessly.  The less focussed more “illuminating” (and never were quotes more needed) part is our inner Sage or Buddha, who if we will only listen, can save us so much trouble.

Hereditary Guilt

Posted by on August 31, 2009 1 comment

I’ve been keeping an eye on the growing campaign for the British government to apologise for the treatment of Alan Turing.

I support this campaign, and have already signed the petition linked to above. But it’s not just because I think Turing was treated abysmally badly, but also because I think we still harbour the sort of tendencies that led to Turing’s treatment and that needs to be highlighted.  We need to stop writing people off because of one bad thing, it seems that as soon as we realise that they’re not perfect there’s hell to pay, our treatment of high profile media figures is a perfect example of this.  Lao Tzu, Buddha and Jesus all warn us away from this behaviour, and while I’m not sure what Psychology has to say on the matter I can’t see it being particularly favourable.

What’s been equally interesting is comments I’ve been reading on the story, the feeling that maybe the British should apologise for everything from the Empire onwards.  Of course, if that sort of thing is acceptable, then the old colonial powers (yes, all of them, it wasn’t just us Brits) will be apologising for the next hundred years!

But the point I’d like to make is that the current generation can’t be held responsible for things that were done by past generations, I appreciate that people are hurt or national pride (and I think that this is mostly pride) has been injured, but once reasonable amends have been made (like the symbolic apology above) we need to move on and drop the blame game.

Of course, this failure to forgive grudges is mirrored in the doctrine of original sin.  I’ve been reading about the history of both the middle eastern religious movement and also the Bible, and it’s fascinating to see how the way the people have regarded the text has changed and to be honest, it tells you more about people than it does about God.

As for original sin, there are questions over how literally the story of the Garden of Eden was intended to taken, with the strong possibility that it was never intended (as with much of scripture) to be read literally.  My own feeling is that it is not.

The doctrine was heavily influenced, but not originated, by St Augustine of Hippo, the idea being that Adam’s sin is passed down to all of his descendants.  Now quite aside from the fact that several churches disagree with this doctrine, there is another problem.

Consider that our reasoning powers, the ability to have the kind of awareness we do, are evolved right there into our nature.  This would put that doctrine in the position of condemning a person simply for being Human, so along comes the Church with the cure.  Nice setup isn’t it?  I’ll also point out right here though that not all churches accept original sin, I don’t believe in tarring everyone with the same brush.

But, let’s face it, Evolution does rather torpedo the Eden story and with it original sin.  I prefer another reading of it, which is that the great weight and inertia of human history, culture and society have combined to put us in a position where we often fall short.  This sounds very much like Karma and is also the position of many Orthodox Churches.

To summarise?  We need to stop writing people off for not being perfect and once people and countries have apologised, stop guilt tripping them indefinitely.  Finally we need to realise that the sins of the fathers do not fall onto the shoulders of their sons.  If we’re to have a healthy future, we have to let go of things.