Verse Seventy Five

From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 11:07 pm

Verse Seventy Five
Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English, 1972

Why are the people starving?
Because the rulers eat up the money in taxes.
Therefore the people are starving.
Why are the people rebellious?
Because the rulers interfere too much.
Therefore they are rebellious.

Why do the people think so little of death?
Because the rulers demand too much of life.
Therefore the people take death lightly.

Having little to live on, one knows better than to value life too much.

Verse Seventy Five
Herrymon Maurer, 1985

When people are starving,
Their rulers are taxing them heavily.
That is why they are starving.
When people are hard to govern,
Their rulers are something-doing.
That is why they are hard to govern.
When people make light of death,
Their rulers make much of life.
That is why they make light of death.
Not interfering with life
Is better than glamorizing life.

Verse Seventy Five
Brian Browne Walker, 1996

What makes people go hungry?
Rulers eating up all their money in taxes.
What makes people rebellious?
Rulers who can't stop interfering.
What makes people take death so lightly?
People taking life too seriously.
Those who enjoy life are wiser than those who employ life.

From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Tue May 12, 2009

The people starve when taxes take
The bulk of what they earn
When leaders interfere too much
There comes rebellion in return

The people do not fear to die
If leaders rob their lives
By taking only what you need
Everybody thrives

It's a pretty timely message -- especially if you expand taxes to mean the thievery of the banking industry in collusion with the government. In the US, the financial interests have owned the government. They paid for it, so it's theirs.

Maybe someone can help me see an esoteric meaning here. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Jim

From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009

Quote:
Maybe someone can help me see an esoteric meaning here. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Sounds about right Jim.

Steve

From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Thu May 14, 2009

I suppose this verse is about excess, and we can all be involved in excess. Living in excess can lead to (an early) death. This is the opposite of seeing that enough is enough. Years ago I wrote this poem:
Excuse me! Excuse me!
Am I missing something here?
Will someone please explain to me,
Make it very clear?

I sincerely want to know.
This isn't a rebuff.
When I see that I am everything,
Isn't that enough?

Seeing that we are complete as we are brings satisfaction. Then it becomes hard for the addictive desires that tax our lives to take control. Seeing demonstrates our wholeness and returns our lives to us.

Jim

From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Thu May 14, 2009

Quote:
Seeing that we are complete as we are brings satisfaction

This is it , right now we are home and complete,
warts and all, as the saying goes.
It's easy to forget. Thanks for the reminder.

Quote:
Seeing demonstrates our wholeness and returns our lives to us.
We never left our lives but we seem prone to a variety of wrong views.

You should publish a book on your seeing insights and dao de jingle Jim
some people would definitely benefit from it.

Re: another book, I'm half way through listening to the audio book " God is not Great " by Christopher Hitchens.
No other book has ever turned me away from religious institutions and mumbo jumbo so much.

From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Fri May 15, 2009

Quote:
Seeing that we are complete as we are brings satisfaction

I re-read this and wanted to add
Seeing that we are complete as we are in one direction,
as aware, awake, space built open.
leaves us free to do whatever needs to be done outwardly.

Though inward and outward are really hard to define in a concrete way,
i.e. where do you finish and where does the world begin
and freewill is dependent on a separate individual,
which is hard to define too
as we all seem to exist dependent on conditions, not as completely independent individuals .

The first paragraph is one way of thinking about and Seeing the relative and absolute but
Lao Tzu was right, this stuff is hard to put in to words !

Any thoughts welcomed.

From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Fri May 15, 2009

Hi Steve,

I am trying to write something on Dao and Seeing. I'm not very disciplined about it though.

I like your question: Where do you finish and where does the world begin? That should really be an experiment in itself. Just moving my hand from three feet out in the world closer and closer to my Eye, I can't find a boundary between the inner and outer. I'm a single presence or awareness -- with an inward and an outward view. The Dao has a yin view and a yang view. I've come across some authors (Hans Georg Moeller, Diane Morgan, Jonathan Star, and JC Cooper) who write about this same idea, seeing Dao as a single presence with two aspects. Many other writers at times imply the same thing. But do they See it as a fact, the Fact? I think that requires the experiments. They know something and write about it eloquently, but they don't point to it with their finger. That's what's needed to make it real. This is what Douglas called the Grand Design but in Daoist terms.

I think free will is an after-the-fact illusion. We're free to do what our mind process tells us to do. The process depends on so many conditions. It's partly conscious and partly not conscious. If we're given the freedom to explore and weigh various views of the world, we may just get it right. But that depends on many circumstances. I don't want to say that conditions are all accidental. I can't prove there's any kind of grace in the world. The grace I see has not been given equally to everyone. Maybe that's okay. Maybe we're here to share the grace we've been given. I'm certainly grateful that Douglas shared the grace and vision that he was given. Why it came to me, I have no idea. Grace or accident? What appears to be luck and accident is much more than that. Progress and growth is built into this universe. All that is, and all that will be, was latent in the beginning. The Big Bang is still banging! It's not finished yet. We are in the midst of it. We are it. Compared to that, what a pitiful thing individual "free will" would be. It would be like disowning existence itself to set out on your own. It's a real dead end, as I see it.

You say: "We never left our lives but we seem prone to a variety of wrong views." I like Douglas's saying about going back to the place we never left. We just no longer notice the obvious. Words and education lead us to a third-person view of the world and ourselves. Why wouldn't it? We get our leaning from people who legitimately see us as third persons. It's understandable that we get the wrong view and get the view wrong. It takes a certain genious to figure out what has gone wrong. Luckily for us, Douglas had that genious and more. He broke out of the third-person trap with a simple vision, and it affected him so positively that he wanted to show others how to escape the trap. I think he'd say that we really aren't "others." We're really a single presence. Call it God or Dao or the Nameless.

Jim

From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Sat May 16, 2009

Quote:
We're really a single presence.

Functioning as the many.
So notice the place you never left and trust that intuitively,
as the big bang continually unfolds
in the country of everlasting clearness.

( the Douglas cliche's just poured out tonight, along with the big bang ! )

Steve

From: simon
Posted: Sun May 17, 2009

Nice discussion, nothing in particular to add, except a confirmation:
I sent a friend currently in New Zealand the still point video (via facebook)
Having done the experiment he then invented a listening version, lying on his bed, turning his head from side to side.
He discovered (i translate from the French)
"So I am nowhere or everywhere"

Simplicity
very Tao, very present, very here...

From: Keeping-Dog-Eye
Posted: Thu May 21, 2009

Quote: where do you finish and where does the world begin?

Just to say hi to all the posters on this thread, and toss my tuppence into the stream!

It struck me that the above question is inherently dualistic. The moment the 'You' or 'I' appears there is a separation giving birth to duality. If I believe my thoughts and conditioning then I am a 'person', an individual separate from this object full of other separate things: ie the world. This is false reality. There is no split, no separation, what I am is not my name, my body, the 'I' which I have been told that I am is not really me. What I am is a manifestation of the eternal 'Self' from which all emanates. There is no seer and nothing seen, no subject and object, just eternal presence. This one eternal emanation of which my appearance is a manifestation exists outside mind-made concepts like 'begining and ending'. The true imperishable Self which I am is perpetual, never born, never dying. Once the ego is seen for what it is, an obstacle obstructing the One source from realising itself, then the question, Where do I finish and where does the world begin? is rendered meaningless.

Godbless one and all and keep up the engaging posts. Love and Being un-negated to all
_________________
'This' is all there is - isn't 'It' miraculous!

From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Thu May 21, 2009

Hello Keeping-Dog-Eye,

I'm glad you joined in the conversation.

Do you consider the following statement dualistic?

I'm a single presence or awareness -- with an inward and an outward view.

I never minded this kind of dualism. I don't think the Tao Te Ching minds it either, since it's full of this kind of "dualistic" references.

To see what is as eternal presence doesn't prevent me from seeing that some of this presence is really eternal and unchanging, and some of it is in eternal flux. I can see how this could look like dualism, but the dualism is secondary to the single presence. Unity can only happen when there are at least two 'things' to unify. That's how I read Taoist 'dualism.' Without that kind of 'dualism,' what's the meaning of two-way seeing? What do the experiments mean? Can we even speak of the near side view and the far side view in the Tube experiment?

What do you think?

Jim

From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Thu May 21, 2009

Thank you for your input.
The benefit of the forum is you see your opinions more clearly when they leave your thoughts and appear on the screen.
Ultimately if you take the side of the One AND negate the Many it's a very dualistic position which is popular in certain circles at present.

Another Question.
How can the One function with out it's many manifestation as the Many?
Question.
Can you answer that question if there is ONLY the One and NOT the Many
Question:
Does not the One include the Many as part of it's Oneness.

Quote:
It struck me that the above question is inherently dualistic.

Yes. How can you live without duality it comes from the Source.
As long as you answer when your name is called your dualistic.
No problem just normal life.
It seems to be a problem when you try to cling to the Dualistic view or Oneness.

There is that which is born and dies and the Source of being which is a mystery I can't say much about.

I have to go now. Lets Talk later

Steve

From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Thu May 21, 2009

No problem just normal life.

I got life, mother
I got laughs, sister
I got freedom, brother
I got good times, man

I got crazy ways, daughter
I got million-dollar charm, cousin
I got headaches and toothaches
And bad times too
Like you

I got my hair
I got my head
I got my brains
I got my ears
I got my eyes
I got my nose
I got my mouth
I got my teeth
I got my tongue
I got my chin
I got my neck
I got my tits
I got my heart
I got my soul
I got my back
I got my ass
I got my arms
I got my hands
I got my fingers
Got my legs
I got my feet
I got my toes
I got my liver
Got my blood

I got my guts (I got my guts)
I got my muscles (muscles)
I got life (life)
Life (life)
Life (life)
LIFE!