from Verse Eighty-SixWhen the Way and virtue are present, there is vigilance and diligence, a constant alert for danger and destruction. When the Way and virtue are absent, there is indulgence and sloth, so destruction can come at any time.~ Wen-tzu: Understanding the Mysteries ~
Upon reading the above passage, I am hearkened back to a famous sports adage -- Championships are borne of good defense.
I think it's less important which team sport someone refers to, be it football, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, rugby or lacrosse. The teams that tend to win frequently are those who stress defense.
The problem with stressing offense is that every team has off days. It could be because of the weather, the field, being out-of-sync or a myriad of other reasons. If your team is built on the premise of outscoring the other team and your team isn't scoring, you're in big trouble!
However, if your team stresses defense, then you're in every game or match. Yes, your team may not score many points, but if you can keep the other team from scoring at all or scoring very little, then you always have a chance to win.
I think the same kind of strategy is important to our everyday lives. If you're prone to always skate on the edge, there will be times when you will trip and fall right off the map. It's as if you're almost daring calamity and tragedy to visit you.
If, on the other hand, you focus on the internal and stay to the middle of the road, you will be less likely to be blindsided by events and circumstances. When ruts do appear in the road, you will have the time and foresight to step around them.
This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.
I think it's less important which team sport someone refers to, be it football, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, rugby or lacrosse. The teams that tend to win frequently are those who stress defense.
The problem with stressing offense is that every team has off days. It could be because of the weather, the field, being out-of-sync or a myriad of other reasons. If your team is built on the premise of outscoring the other team and your team isn't scoring, you're in big trouble!
However, if your team stresses defense, then you're in every game or match. Yes, your team may not score many points, but if you can keep the other team from scoring at all or scoring very little, then you always have a chance to win.
I think the same kind of strategy is important to our everyday lives. If you're prone to always skate on the edge, there will be times when you will trip and fall right off the map. It's as if you're almost daring calamity and tragedy to visit you.
If, on the other hand, you focus on the internal and stay to the middle of the road, you will be less likely to be blindsided by events and circumstances. When ruts do appear in the road, you will have the time and foresight to step around them.
This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.
I am not sure that verse was about football.
ReplyDeleteMy wife says I miss nothing.
She is right. Always alert.
A life filled with threats and dangers has done that for me.
A life filled with tao has put it in perspective.
Certain political outlooks wish to disarm and make unready. To throw open the gates and let mortal enemies inside the walls.
This will be fine, they say, because all those outsiders, once inside, will be just like us.
Fortunately, an open gate works both ways.
I will serenely walk - arm in arm with my wife - off into the sunset.
Knowing that the mess I left behind me was beyond my remit, or my ability, to avert.
I'm certain the verse, when written, wasn't about football in the least. My point here, re this series, is NOT an attempt to tell you what was on the writer's mind. No, I'm writing about themes that jump out at me when I read the passages. No more. No less.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I believe your wife is incorrect. We ALL miss things. There is far too much information and stimuli afoot for ANY person to account for it all. Even IF a person could account for it all, it still would be filtered through the subjective lens of the ego which would, therefore, distort it.
While it is possible my wife may be incorrect, it seems not your place to say so.
ReplyDeleteYou may well miss things.
I may not.
You may well filter everything through the subjective lens of ego.
I may not.
You may be content with a distorted view of things.
I may not.
One thing I have often observed about consciousness:
If one does not have it, one can not know what it is.
One may use the word, while never grasping its meaning.
We do agree, that all are one and one is all. Even though the majority are unaware of this. Shall we make a point of focusing on that?
That might serve.
If you are human -- maybe you think you aren't? -- you miss things. It comes with the territory. To suggest otherwise is pompous and arrogant -- two things Lao Tzu & Chuang Tzu warn against.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, my wife was just reading your words.
ReplyDeleteShe described them as:
Pompous. And arrogant.
I think it is not your intention to so appear.
But somehow that is what comes across.
Possibly, in your view of things, we are all identical. So we all view things as you do. Maybe nobody can achieve what you, yourself, have not achieved.
Consider this: You are only where you are, what you are, when you are.
Each is on their own unique journey. None travel at the same pace. None may necessarily arrive at the same destination.
Each knows what they know, when they know it.
The reason I keep coming back to your blog, even though I often find it rather unpleasant, is that I gain new insights with each visit.
I am not your adversary, even though you may choose to believe that I am.
I am one of the readers of your words. And what is a writer, in the absence of readers?
You're not my adversary? Fooled me. Almost every comment you leave is an attack of some sort.
ReplyDeleteIktomi, the Baroness and Donna (to name three) often disagree with things I write -- which is perfectly fine -- but they don't attack in their disagreement.
From reading one of your blogs, I see that you often have trouble getting along with people. Of course, in your eyes, it's always the other person's fault. Might I suggest you take a look in the mirror? Maybe it has something to do with the way you choose to engage others.
I repeat: I am not your adversary.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading one of my blogs.
Yes I often have trouble getting along with others.
It leads me to investigate why that is.
Might I also suggest that you, too, look in a mirror?
I engage others like I engage with others: just as you do.
Only our reasons for doing so differ.
Please write a post outlining why you are interested in taoism. And what you gain from that interest.
I suspect that both our reasons and results are quite different.
My view is that any philosophy is worthless without some practical application of that philosophy.
You appear to preach it without manifesting it. To pontificate without understanding. To point with eyes closed.
You might think I am attacking you because my honesty does not mesh with your script. But I have no issue with you: only with what you write.
If you tried to see what I am doing here, you might get a feeling that I probably am much more interested in your well-being than you are, yourself.
Either now, or later, you may see that I am - at the least - a catalyst, to encourage a reaction to take place. That is the very reason I often have trouble "getting along" with others.
I make them uncomfortable.
I cause them to take a look at the baggage of many years. I horrify them by daring to suggest it might be useless.
If you truly believe that we are "one", then stand up for what you believe. Accept that, uncomfortable as I may make you feel, I am no different than you: I am a part of the whole.
Is it "them and us"? Or is it just "us"?
I will not engage you in conflict.
But I will happily dance rings around you until you, yourself, descend from your taoist podium, and join the dance.
Crow,
ReplyDeleteWhere you and I differ, in my estimation, is that you think you're better than others (you've got everything figured out) and I admit that I have the same faults and foibles that everyone else suffers from -- I am not better nor worse.
Your position, in and of itself, reeks of arrogance. It's like you carry a big neon sign around that has an arrow that points at you and says "Sage here!"
I don't pretend to be a sage and I have written several posts stating that I am not a sage. I'm just a guy in Southwest Washington who is interested in the philosophy of Taoism and who tries to utilize it imperfectly in my own life.
I've written tomes about my shortcomings and blemishes.
Well: fair enough.
ReplyDeleteYou are not the only one to read me like that.
You are wrong, but I concede your point.
You do not accept that I could actually be what you refer to as a sage. Sages are not supposed to behave as I do.
Whatever.
Being a sage means nothing to me.
Knowing that I know what I know does.
And knowing that very few people know much of anything also does.
Did you know: an Indian Guru used to visit my website for years. I told him he was nuts: he had it all backwards. Gurus don't live in London. He figured he knew better.
No: I don't act humble.
No: I don't act like a sage.
No: I don't act like people expect me to act.
In fact I don't act at all.
And that is what this is all about.
What I had hoped to convey to you was simply this:
You just can't be a taoist and a leftist. You will never get anywhere.
But that is for you to discover.
What I can say, from true, real experience is this:
Taoist meditation can transport the adept from life to afterlife to between-life and back, at will.
One can see all. Know all. Be all.
One can exist outside of time. Inside any creature, on any world, and be anything.
One can know god and know one is god.
Take it or leave it.
Believe what you want to believe.
That's the way it is.
My final response on this thread is a paraphrase of a verse in the TTC: Those who think they know, don't. Those who know, know they don't know half as much as they think.
ReplyDeleteMay I just add that in my opinion, getting along with people in today's world is no virtue. I've alienated lots of people by not agreeing with their dogmatic leftist points of view (I am not implying you, RT, are like them, since you've always been amenable to discussion with me). And since they are the ones whose ideas are deemed acceptable, it's I who don't get along with them rather than vice versa.
ReplyDelete