In the comments section of last night's Tao Bible series entry, Psalm 2:9, Baroness Radon asked the following question:
When we humans utilize a form of the word destroy, we mean that, whatever the form of the substance or object is, we radically alter that form into something unintelligible. For example, when we say a fire completely destroyed the forest, we mean that the fire rendered the various trees and other plants into nothing more than gases and ash. This plant life didn't actually become nothing; it simply was broken down into its constituent elements.
So, while I recognize that various manifestations of Tao come and go -- forms are rendered formless and being becomes nonbeing -- I don't think that's the same thing as utterly obliterating or destroying it. It merely changes it from one essence to another.
Further, if Tao is the source of all and a person accepts the notion that all things eventually return to the source, then how could the source itself be utterly destroyed?
Besides, wouldn't nothing still be something?
But in five element theory there are the creative and destructive cycles...do you choose to dismiss them from your Taoist perspective?A person's answer to a question of this nature turns on how one understands the concept of destruction. Here is how I see it.
When we humans utilize a form of the word destroy, we mean that, whatever the form of the substance or object is, we radically alter that form into something unintelligible. For example, when we say a fire completely destroyed the forest, we mean that the fire rendered the various trees and other plants into nothing more than gases and ash. This plant life didn't actually become nothing; it simply was broken down into its constituent elements.
So, while I recognize that various manifestations of Tao come and go -- forms are rendered formless and being becomes nonbeing -- I don't think that's the same thing as utterly obliterating or destroying it. It merely changes it from one essence to another.
Further, if Tao is the source of all and a person accepts the notion that all things eventually return to the source, then how could the source itself be utterly destroyed?
Besides, wouldn't nothing still be something?
See also my comment in your previous entry on Psalm 2:9.
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at the YinYang symbol then you see that when one side is almost non existing, destroyed if you will) the other side is at its maximum and holds the seed of creating the one side again.
That way everything is in balance and seesawing around a common centre. Think circular instead of linear.
And what of the creative cycle?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nicholas...although I'm not so sure seesawing is quite the right word, though there is rising of yang and falling of yin in the taiji (the yin-yang symbol). But indeed, it's circular, cyclical.
Also, five element theory is not exactly about "Elements" (in some Aristotelian way), but metaphors for movement and relationships.
The source is not destroyed; returning to the primal yang in the wuji, is not destruction.
"Besides, wouldn't nothing still be something?"
Non-being gives rise to being.
Oh, I just read NIcholas's previous post where this all started.
ReplyDeleteI understand his point, although the cycles are commonly called creative/destructive; my Chinese teacher called them "generating (creative); controlling (with the destructive concept), and overacting and insulting (where things become really imbalanced.)
It all describes how the universe works.
I'm still not sure I follow. I mean, who ever said anyting about "nothing"? A burnt forest isn't nothing, it's CO2 and heat and light. (Which is, interestingly enough, what it started out as). Or in Psalm 2:9, a pot dashed to pieces isn't nothing, it's pieces. A tribe slaughtered to the point of it ceasing to be an entity isn't nothing, it is corpses, captives, and a few wandering refugees.
ReplyDeleteYet in that post you didn't seem to agree that the Tao would allow such a sort of destruction. But it obviously must.
The only thing I agree with in that post was that the Tao doesn't DEMAND or ORDER that we go and destroy this or that tribe, or anything for that matter.
I think the difference here is perspective. I look at this issue more from a scientific position. One of the branches of science (of course, I can't remember which one) posits that energy doesn't disappear; it merely transforms itself.
ReplyDeleteI've read that some theorists contend that no new energy is created. All the energy we and nature utilize has been around since the beginning of time. It gets used, dissipates and then is used again in a different form.
So, while a current manifestation may be obliterated, the essence remains and becomes a different manifestation. It is from this perspective that I contend that nothing actually is destroyed completely or absolutely.
As with any discussion, it all comes down to definitions of terms. This is where nearly all disagreements seem to come from.
ReplyDeleteDestruction in the sense of "causing something to cease to exist utterly" I agree doesn't happen, not to physical things. Conservation of energy (the branch of science is physics)
Symbolically, a thing can be totally destroyed. For a tribe to disband or be ruined by war, it ceases to exist completely and utterly. In name, that is. But the individuals that composed it don't, even the dead ones.
Thus the problem is in thinking about things, classifications, not the underlying nature/Source.