Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable unto the house of Israel.It is interesting to me that the word parable means a simple story illustrating a moral or religious lesson. However, as we see at various points throughout the Bible, the people often were confused as to how each parable should be interpreted. When we get to the New Testament, there are several cases in which the disciples -- the confidants of Jesus -- had nary a clue what his various stories meant!
~ King James version ~
My words are easy to understand and easy to perform,
Yet no man under heaven knows them or practices them.
~ from Verse 70 of the Tao Te Ching ~
While the TTC is somewhat straightforward, the Zhuangzi can be likened to many of the parables in the Bible. Part of the problem with all these texts is that they are ancient and so modern eyes often lack the relevant context.
One wonders if the disciples of Chuang Tzu were just as mystified as the disciples of Jesus when attempting to interpret their stories.
If you're interested in reading more from this experimental series, go to the Tao Bible Index page.
without a doubt they were. it's me, jesus. right here. you need to quit being jealous, no riddle. why do you define your daily cultivation of "tao" by what's going on in politics with occupy wall street or any other issue? make up your own issues!
ReplyDeletei like chuang tzu way better than the bible and i'm jesus and i don't care. that whole crucifixion thing is like a night at the bar that got all fucked up. i'm really quite sorry for it, but at the same time "who gives a fuck!?"
when something's over it's over. what's stupid is you guys persecute christians philosophically by considering buddhism and taoism as "special alternatives" to christianity. completely wrong!
if you can't see the oneness of all religions, you're hanging onto some revenge fantasy against people from your town and you're "dualistic" and not seeing totality.. so a lot of those christians in town are fuckers, let it be!
let it go, you must find within what your opinion is on the fly and it can't be related to winning or losing on TV with the marxism and the labor rights.
hell if you have food - fuck the kids in another country who don't - it isn't your responsibility unless directly you could give them food. it is the responsibility of some governor somewhere and not your fate and actually AGAINST your fate to worry about such things.
you're not wandering you're interfering with such things. when you truly wander others take notice and apply it to their lives without being told to. and then such common sense things as feeding starving sweatshop workers or what have you, happens AUTOMATICALLY.
hence the phrase "reform yourself, that is all."
but i've obviously fucked this up tonight in boredom looking for sentimental entertainment value in old taoist thought.
but hey -
"you can't talk about it, you can't NOT talk about it."
yours truly,
Maitreya Jesus Christ Blake Badker
see ya in church biatch
peace i'm outta here.