Calm Human Nature

[Dillinger]

I've been re-reading Lao Tzu - "Tao Teh Ching" (The Way of Life)... a translation that I haven't read before, by Witter Bynner - its excellent. I wanted to post this quote, the first saying:

Existence is beyond the power of words
To define:
Terms may be used
But are none of them absolute.
In the beginning of heaven and earth there were no words,
Words came out of the womb of matter;
And whether a man dispassionately
Sees to the core of life
Or passionately
Sees the surface,
The core and the surface
Are essentially the same,
Words making them seem different
Only to express appearance.
If name be needed, wonder names them both:
From wonder into wonder
Existence opens.

I just think that's wonderful! And it makes me wonder about the nature of words and how that is all we truly have here, online - is words - our words... cybersouls reaching out to communicate...

Before the internet there were no words,
words came out of the womb of html

*smile*

Its just another part of existence. Opening up...

And, writing more than 2,500 years after Lao Tzu first expressed these thoughts, Octavio Paz said much the same...

People, words, people.
I hesitated:
up there, the moon, alone.

And...

If the world is real
the word is unreal
If it is real the word
the world
is the cleft the splendor the whirl
No
the disappearances and the appearances
Yes
the tree of names
Real unreal
are words
air they are nothing
Speech
unreal
makes silence real
Being still
is a strand of language
Silence
seal
scintilla
on the forehead
on the lips
before it evaporates
Reality and its resurrections
Silence rests in speech.

 

[Ask For More]

Lao Tzu makes much more sense....I find the order and wording of the second quote way too confusing! Or is that an internal pun designed to sucker the reader?

 

[Guest]

Lao Tzu - as much as it might sound like poetry to our modern ears - was a simple, plain speaker. Octavio Paz however is a poet and a mystic - as such (both poets and mystics having this tendency) he tends to obscure his meanings - partly to make the reader truly think...

 

[Morden]

the word is a conduit to an experience. The word itself meaningless. Only in delivery does the sustanance of life beath into its form. Though in delivery still the lacking implement of meaning may be lost to interperatation. In so realising this why do we relly so so on that which is fluid and never true its purpose.

 

[Dillinger]

Don't know what happened but that was me who posted as "unregistered."

 

[Barb Dwyer]

The power of words is 'supersized' in the cyberworld.

Isn't it amazing how in this technological age of instant communication suddenly our interpretive skills are reduced and our verbal interaction/intercourse reverts back to the most basic and primal exchange?

We cannot rely on visual stimuli or other indicators as to the mood, tone or intent in this medium. We see only black and white. We can only go by how we interpret someone else's words.

Yet we still feel. We are moved. We are touched. Our emotions are stirred. By mere words.

You know something? That is wonderful!

Thanks for those calming words.

 

[Dillinger]

Well said, Morden...

And Barb - "Yet we still feel. We are moved. We are touched. Our emotions are stirred. By mere words. " --- EXACTLY!!!

I'm travelling on business this week - not sure how many opportunities I'll get to be online - could be more than I expect and could be very infrequent...

So - let me leave one more saying from Lao Tzu...

Can you hold the door of your tent
Wide to the firmament?
Can you, with the simple stature
Of a child, breathing nature,
Become, notwithstanding,
A man?
Can you continue befriending
With no prejudice, no ban?
Can you, mating with heaven,
Serve as the female part?
Can your learned head take leaven
From the wisdom of your heart?
If you can bear issue and nourish its growing,
If you can guide without claim or strife,
If you can stay in the lead of men without their knowing,
You are at the core of life.

 

[Andra_Jenny]

Twisting words,
Twining thoughts,
Pictures of thought held captive.
The paper thier prison,
The ink, finer than steel chain.

 

[unusuallyconfused]

It sounds very thought provoking and inspirational. I wish it could touch me so elequently like it touches you. I can't seem to grasp it.

 

[Andra_Jenny]

It?

The void?

If you exclude everything on this board.

What is left?

 

[Merelan]

Here goes... I too tried to read his words when I was younger, and could not follow them. My Mom, bless her, got me a copy of the Tao of Pooh. Yes, that silly bear. I read it, then tried rereading The Way. It made much more sense then. The Tao of Pooh helped me understand the basics.
The secret... don't try too hard to understand.

 

[Dillinger]

It sounds very thought provoking and inspirational. I wish it could touch me so elequently like it touches you. I can't seem to grasp it.

Just relax into it - meditate on it... find a calm quiet place - and just "feel" it... don't "try" to understand... just... be...

 

[Dillinger]

Re: It?

The void?

If you exclude everything on this board.

What is left?

If you exclude everything then... everything is still left.

 

[Dillinger]

Here goes... I too tried to read his words when I was younger, and could not follow them. My Mom, bless her, got me a copy of the Tao of Pooh. Yes, that silly bear. I read it, then tried rereading The Way. It made much more sense then. The Tao of Pooh helped me understand the basics.
The secret... don't try too hard to understand.

Exactly. One of the first books to get me thinking this way was "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - a few acid trips didn't hurt either.

 

[cymbidia]

Alan Sondheim...

... has written extensively, and for years, on the philosophy and psychology of net communication, including the forms of instant communication (IRC, MSN messenger, etc), bulletin boards like this, and email. His outlook is partly academic but always quixotic and interesting.

For all the years i've been online, i've thought of those who communicate so satisfyingly in this medium, who "get it" and don't view the net as simply a tool, like a hammer or a Cuisinart, as virtual "Queen of the slipstream" (using Van Morrison's lyrical positing of the concept).

These people, you, me, so many millions of others, have
... " crossed many waters to be here
And you drink at the fountains of innocence
And experienced, you know very well "

In recent years, avs have added a visual element to the slipstream game of words. Avs that indicate something about our so-personal dream worlds are idealized pics of perfection and beauty, or, (more uncommonly) show us as we are, warts and all.

I *DETESTED* the preponderance of avs when they first cropped up 5 years ago or so, and left a long-time net "home" because they had so rabidly infested the place. I've gotten over it, as you can see, and now view them with benign amusement. They're fun, or can be. They show us bits of each other before a word is exchanged, whether for good or ill. They're just more bits and bytes of exchanged data.

Still, always, endlessly, the slipstream is the Realm of Words Shared, mine to you and yours to me. Until the last moment of the Great Compression, that moment in the far future when the Universe finally collapses back into an infinitely heavy ball of elements smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, the slipstream will endure.

Om Mani Padme Hum