We've been discussing a lot of Taoist principles lately. One of these is not to force any given situation. So, I'd be interested to get your take on two situations.
Situation #1
You're walking down a street on the outer edge of your community. As you come around a corner, you see a kitty cat on the side of the road. It appears fairly obvious that it has recently been hit by a car. There is some bleeding and the cat is behaving as if it is in a considerable amount of pain. There are no houses on this block and (OMG) you've forgotten your trusty cell phone. What, if anything, will you do?
Will you try to find help? Will you try to scoop the cat up to take to a local veterinarian or try to doctor it yourself as best you can? Or will you leave it be because all beings die eventually?
Situation #2
You are walking in a local park toward mid-evening. As you come down your path, you hear a scream not too far away. You quicken your pace and soon discover a man attempting to rape a woman. What, if anything, will you do?
Will you try to find help? Will you try to intervene in the hopes of warding off the attack? Or will you do nothing because the act of intervening would be trying to force a certain conclusion?
I'm interested not only in your answer for each situation, but your rationale viz-a-viz Taoist principles.
Situation #1
You're walking down a street on the outer edge of your community. As you come around a corner, you see a kitty cat on the side of the road. It appears fairly obvious that it has recently been hit by a car. There is some bleeding and the cat is behaving as if it is in a considerable amount of pain. There are no houses on this block and (OMG) you've forgotten your trusty cell phone. What, if anything, will you do?
Will you try to find help? Will you try to scoop the cat up to take to a local veterinarian or try to doctor it yourself as best you can? Or will you leave it be because all beings die eventually?
Situation #2
You are walking in a local park toward mid-evening. As you come down your path, you hear a scream not too far away. You quicken your pace and soon discover a man attempting to rape a woman. What, if anything, will you do?
Will you try to find help? Will you try to intervene in the hopes of warding off the attack? Or will you do nothing because the act of intervening would be trying to force a certain conclusion?
I'm interested not only in your answer for each situation, but your rationale viz-a-viz Taoist principles.
This is good, keeping things concrete. Good call.
ReplyDeleteFor #1, I'm sure I would help. There's no threat to myself, and it's in my power to do so.
For #2, hard to say. I'd like to say I'd help, try to stop the guy, but I'm also sitting safe in my room right now. I'm not a big guy, and it's hard to say in honesty how I'd really react to such violence in a real situation.
as for Taoist principles, well, the point in my mind isn't to live by principles, but spontaneously. Act in the moment, and all that. In either case I wouldn't be thinking about "forcing certain conclusions" though. The idea of "letting things take their course" is tricky because I am part of those "things" and their course-taking.
I've been thinking, too. I think a lot of the problem with activism and the despair is being lost in abstractions. "world poverty" is a concept, a concept that is far too big in scope to really deal with as an individual. Perhaps it's best to leave such abstractions behind (thus my dislike of the news), and focus on specific cases. I can't stop the worldwide destruction of our forests, but I might be able to get involved in a local tract of woods that is going to be developed. and so forth. Bring it all back to reality, out of mental models...
Sorry to ramble on.
As an old cat lady, I would of course help the cat, assuming the cat is not in the middle of the freeway, and since I don't carry pepper spray, and I would certainly call 911 and be a willing witness. I would do these actions because I can, it's in my immediate sphere of influence.
ReplyDeleteI do these not because I ought to (Confucian duty?) but out of ai xin, a loving heart. When you are in tune with the Tao, you act compassionately naturally. When you're not, that's when things become forced. This is what TTC19 is about, really.
Brandon put it all very well.
I expect you to extrapolate these situations to a global scale: tiger extinction and stoning of adulterous women by the Taliban. I'm not THERE, but I do what I can to point out the shit that goes on.
Which it always will.
For me, it's fairly simple. In both cases, I hope that I would step in without taking time to think about it. It's not a matter of forcing a given situation, or altering it's course, but acting within my nature of a compassionate being. When I am true to myself, I'm acting in harmony with the Tao.
ReplyDeleteI'd tread on the cat's head and kick the guy square in the bollocks.
ReplyDeleteIn the process of saving the birds life he starved some ravens of their next meal and he brought a lame cat back to life who happened to be carrying a terrible disease that later wiped out the species. So for compassions sake he killed the cat.
ReplyDeleteIn the process of kicking the rapist in the nut sack he gave the woman time to turn and pull a nail file from her bag which she used to stab the rapist repeatedly in the neck. This he was party to murder but the law looked kindly on him. As penance he bought and raised a cat.
A cat which I rescued after he died.
ReplyDeleteWhich was hit by a car on the freeway...
ReplyDeleteHa, yes and this 3 legged cat was such a burden that he could not send his kids to school.
ReplyDeleteThe kids grew up with ill education and became monks.
The monks were good to all people but one day the monastery was burned by an arsonist.
The ashes from the fire gave rise to a new fungus which swept the area.
A scientist found something in the fungus which went on to become a magical medicine in the case of relieving shock as caused in road accidents.
And the raped woman rode off on Uncle Zhou's horse, which went on to win a bajillion dollars in a horse race in Hong Kong which she donated to a cat shelter.
ReplyDelete