Subtitles
during the last two sessions and I've 00:00:01
during the last two sessions and I've been talking to you principally about 00:00:04
the philosophy of the lobster book the 00:00:08
daodejing and now I want to shift today 00:00:12
over - drums er this drums are 00:00:12
supposedly no lived about 300 BC and maybe a little earlier than that and he 00:00:36
is a very very remarkable person because 00:00:43
the drums are booked 00:00:45
he's also more exactly his name is 00:00:50
Shuang Jew but his book sometimes called 00:01:06
simply the drums a book is quite unique 00:01:10
in the whole history of philosophy 00:01:13
because he's almost the only philosopher 00:01:16
from the whole of antiquity who has real 00:01:20
humor and therefore he's an immensely 00:01:24
encouraging person to read but part of 00:01:28
his humor is the art of exaggeration and 00:01:34
you always have to allow for that you 00:01:37
always have to realize that he's 00:01:39
slightly pulling his own leg he is as in 00:01:44
a group of people who are enthusiastic 00:01:45
for something you know but have humor 00:01:48
who very often find that when they're 00:01:50
talking among themselves they carry 00:01:53
their own ideas to ludicrous extremes 00:01:56
and raw with laughter about it and 00:02:00
drunker does that now for example he has 00:02:06
a great deal to say about the value of 00:02:09
the useless life 00:02:09
the whole notion of something of life any moment in life or any event in life 00:02:15
being useful 00:02:20
that is to say serving the end of some 00:02:22
future event in life is to a Taoist 00:02:25
observe because nothing is useful at all 00:02:31
the universe is viewed as purposeless 00:02:34
and useless through and through because 00:02:38
it's it's a game more than that our game 00:02:43
doesn't really convey the sense of this 00:02:46
when a taoist sage is wandering through 00:02:48
the forest he isn't going anywhere 00:02:52
he's just wandering when he watches the 00:02:55
clouds he loves them because they have 00:02:58
no special destination 00:02:59
he watches birds moving around he 00:03:02
watches the waves lapping on the shore 00:03:04
and just because all this is not busy in 00:03:08
the way that human beings are busy 00:03:10
because it serves no end 00:03:13
other than being what it is now it is 00:03:16
for that reason that he admires it and 00:03:18
it is for that reason that you get the 00:03:20
peculiar styles of Chinese painting in 00:03:23
the tongue song and later dynasties 00:03:26
where nature in its way would wandering 00:03:32
nature is the main subject when we say 00:03:38
that something is without purpose 00:03:40
that's a put-down phrase say well it's 00:03:44
no future in it what's the use now we 00:03:47
say what's the use and we need very much 00:03:54
to realize that that question reflects 00:03:58
our insanity what's the future in it 00:04:04
what's the use the joy for the Taoist is 00:04:08
that things have no use and the future 00:04:11
is not important 00:04:11
now you can exaggerate this and drunks are does in a very humorous way by 00:04:18
describing the ideal useless man he's a 00:04:24
back and he's so deformed that his chin 00:04:28
rests on his navel and so on and but he 00:04:34
says now this man is very admirable he's 00:04:36
found the secret of life because when 00:04:38
the social service workers come around 00:04:40
he's the first to get a free handout and 00:04:43
when the military officers come around 00:04:45
to conscript people for the army he's 00:04:47
the first to be rejected therefore he 00:04:51
lives long and he also describes the 00:04:55
case of some travelers came across an 00:04:59
enormous tree fantastic thing and they 00:05:03
said never did anyone see such a tree so 00:05:05
they went up and looked at it at the 00:05:06
first day tested the leaves and found 00:05:09
that they were rough and disagreeable 00:05:10
and no good to eat then they looked at 00:05:13
the branches and found that they were 00:05:15
all twisted and absolutely no good for 00:05:19
using a sticks then they examined the 00:05:21
wood and found it was full of piss and 00:05:23
absolutely useless for a carpenter so 00:05:26
nobody had disturbed this tree it was 00:05:30
not used for cutting down or any purpose 00:05:32
whatsoever and so it grew to an enormous 00:05:34
size and was of great age 00:05:34
Oh Johnson is here pulling our legs he is not exactly asking us to take all 00:05:43
that literally but this is his way of 00:05:49
doing things then also he describes the 00:05:51
behavior of the high form of man and he 00:05:55
says the man of character that is in 00:05:59
this case the word death we were 00:06:01
discussing yesterday the man of 00:06:03
character lives at home without 00:06:05
exercising his mind and performs actions 00:06:08
without worry the notions of right and 00:06:11
wrong and the praise and blame of others 00:06:14
do not disturb him when within the four 00:06:17
seas all people can enjoy themselves 00:06:19
that is happiness for him when all 00:06:22
people are well provided that is peace 00:06:24
for him sorrowful in countenance he 00:06:27
looks like a baby who has lost its 00:06:28
mother appearing stupid he goes about 00:06:31
like one who has lost his way he has 00:06:33
plenty of money to spend and does not 00:06:35
know where it comes from he drinks and 00:06:37
eats just enough and does not know where 00:06:39
the food comes from this is the demeanor 00:06:42
of the man of character then by contrast 00:06:46
the hypocrites of those people who 00:06:48
regard as good whatever the worldA 00:06:50
claims as good and regard as right 00:06:52
whatever the world acclaimed was right 00:06:54
when you tell them that they are men of 00:06:56
Dao then their countenance the 00:06:59
countenance is changed with satisfaction 00:07:01
when you call them hypocrites then they 00:07:03
look displeased all their lives they 00:07:06
call themselves men of Dao and all their 00:07:08
lives they remain hypocrites they know 00:07:11
how to give a good speech until 00:07:13
appropriate anecdotes in order to 00:07:15
attract the crowd but from the very 00:07:17
beginning to the very end they do not 00:07:18
know what it's all about they put on the 00:07:21
proper garb and dress in the proper 00:07:23
colors and put on a decorative experia 00:07:25
pearance in order to make themselves 00:07:26
popular but refused to admit that 00:07:28
they're hypocrites Tom but this 00:07:35
explanation of the man who is stupid in 00:07:41
countenance and appearance and is 00:07:43
wandering about as if he had lost his 00:07:45
way and doesn't know anything of course 00:07:47
it's based on the text and loud sigh 00:07:48
where he says the people of the world 00:07:50
are merrymaking as if 00:07:51
taking of the sacrificial feasts as if 00:07:54
mounting the Paris in spring I alone am 00:07:57
mild like one unemployed like a newborn 00:08:00
babe that cannot yet smile unattached 00:08:03
like one without a home the people of 00:08:05
the world have enough and despair but 00:08:07
I'm like one left out my heart must be 00:08:10
that of a fool being muddled nebulous 00:08:13
the vulgar are knowing luminous I alone 00:08:17
am dull confused 00:08:18
the vulgar are clever selfish assured I 00:08:22
alone depressed patient as the sea 00:08:25
adrift seemingly aimless the people of 00:08:28
the world all have a purpose 00:08:30
I alone appear stubborn and uncouth I 00:08:33
alone differ from the other people and 00:08:36
value drawing sustenance from the mother 00:08:38
capital M that mother nature so there is 00:08:49
about you to see the character of the 00:08:52
taoist sage as depicted by zhang xue'er 00:08:54
something of the fool because the fool 00:09:00
is the person who doesn't know enough to 00:09:08
come in out of the rain 00:09:09
who doesn't compete everybody else gets 00:09:13
before him to the prizes the material 00:09:15
prizes of life and even to the spiritual 00:09:17
prizes the fool is to see the person who 00:09:21
isn't going anywhere he sits by the road 00:09:24
and go leaving a bubble bubble-butt the 00:09:29
fool is like a mongolian idiot child who 00:09:33
isn't interested in survival who will 00:09:41
take a plate of food and run his finger 00:09:44
round in it and make a wonderful slash 00:09:46
with this view and then watch it dripped 00:09:48
from the tip of his finger he won't eat 00:09:50
for quite a while and then he'll play 00:09:51
with it in all sorts of ways 00:09:52
then he's attentional would be 00:09:54
distracted by something else and he'll 00:09:55
chase after that to see but he if so 00:09:58
long as you don't cross him this is the 00:10:00
case of the mongolian idiot he remains 00:10:02
the most wonderfully friendly swinging 00:10:05
kind of a 00:10:06
and but he has no ambition he doesn't 00:10:10
fight for himself and nobody can ever 00:10:13
get him to so The Fool has always been 00:10:18
used as a kind of analog of the sage 00:10:22
there's a Hindu verse which says 00:10:24
sometimes naked sometimes mad now as a 00:10:27
scholar now the fool thus they appear on 00:10:30
earth the freemen and if you read the 00:10:34
biographies of the early life of sri 00:10:36
ramakrishna or sri ramana maharshi they 00:10:39
are absolutely wild now not all of this 00:10:44
you see again just as in reading John so 00:10:46
you mustn't take it too literally these 00:10:51
things are said by way of a kind of over 00:10:53
stress to correct another kind of over 00:10:58
stress in the opposite direction when a 00:11:02
Japanese scholar many years ago 00:11:04
explained the teaching of Buddhism to me 00:11:09
he said something I had never heard 00:11:11
anybody else say that the Buddha taught 00:11:14
for example that life is suffering in 00:11:17
order to correct the wrong view that it 00:11:20
ought to be pleasure he said that there 00:11:23
everything is impermanent in order to 00:11:26
correct the wrong view that reality 00:11:27
lasts forever in time so the idea of the 00:11:33
middle way is set up in this fashion by 00:11:37
going to one extreme in order to correct 00:11:40
another and this is a very common Asian 00:11:43
technique and it is found especially in 00:11:45
Zen where teachers when they are asked 00:11:49
about something sacred we'll always 00:11:51
answer in terms of something secular 00:11:53
what is the Buddha the tree in the 00:11:57
garden then when you ask about something 00:12:00
secular they answer in terms of 00:12:02
something sacred the see as there's a 00:12:06
master and his student working in the 00:12:09
field and they are using a knife to 00:12:10
prune and the student suddenly says to 00:12:14
the master give me the knife and he 00:12:15
gives it to him point first 00:12:18
and so he says that please let me have 00:12:20
the other end the teacher says what 00:12:22
would you do with the other end see the 00:12:24
question immediately turns into a kind 00:12:26
of a metaphysical thing so this and play 00:12:34
back and forth between the extremes has 00:12:38
its interior design the awakening of the 00:12:43
mind to polarity that I was talking to 00:12:45
you about yesterday this thing of mutual 00:12:48
arising drugs that tells a story about 00:12:52
this he says a certain keeper of monkeys 00:12:55
said with regard to their ration of nuts 00:12:57
that each monkey should have three in 00:12:59
the morning and four at night but at 00:13:02
this the monkeys were very angry so the 00:13:04
keeper said they might have four in the 00:13:06
morning and three at night with which 00:13:07
arrangement they were all well pleased 00:13:10
now the number of nuts was the same he 00:13:13
goes on to say but there was an 00:13:14
adaptation to the likes and dislikes of 00:13:17
those concerned this then successes is 00:13:23
the way of convict of the sage they're 00:13:27
basically drones as philosophy is a 00:13:29
philosophy of relativity he makes a 00:13:35
great deal of the point the apps are 00:13:39
there is no absolute standard of great 00:13:42
or small of important or unimportant 00:13:42
there is a story for example of a sort of golf on TV Blatt a banquet and the 00:13:52
speeches are being made after dinner and 00:13:58
somebody gets up and says that the human 00:14:00
being is the highest of all human of all 00:14:03
creatures that the whole world serves 00:14:06
humanity and a lot of pompous nonsense 00:14:11
the small boy gets up and says that 00:14:13
since Tigers feed on human beings it's 00:14:16
quite obvious therefore that human 00:14:18
beings exist for the service of Tigers 00:14:18
which one sir you must get the point of view that small things are as big as big 00:14:31
things can be and big things are a 00:14:37
smaller small things can be everything 00:14:40
can be looked at as great or small 00:14:47
important and unimportant and all the 00:14:50
steps between because his conception of 00:14:54
the world is essentially cyclic in his 00:15:00
idea of the circle and Taoist and Zen 00:15:04
teachers have a whole method of teaching 00:15:07
by circles and drawing circles the 00:15:12
center of a circle is any point on the 00:15:16
circumference you can begin anywhere 00:15:20
there's a cone in Zen Buddhism which 00:15:22
asks the question indra built the 00:15:25
seamless tower where did he start now a 00:15:31
seamless tower is like a sleeve with no 00:15:34
no seam on it it's a continuous cylinder 00:15:40
of cloth so the continuous cylindrical 00:15:43
tower is the seamless tower where do you 00:15:46
start so in the same way where does the 00:15:52
circle start of the circle of life the 00:15:53
cycle of life the interdependence of the 00:15:56
bees and the flowers the interdependence 00:15:58
of long and short you see it all 00:16:00
circular and so there is there is 00:16:06
nowhere and there is everywhere that it 00:16:09
can begin in the same way when he 00:16:14
discusses the organs of the body he 00:16:17
makes the catalog of all these organs 00:16:19
and says now which do you prefer 00:16:19
it says which one comes first and which one follows which one rules and which 00:16:28
ones are servants he said it seems that 00:16:33
there may be a governor in all this but 00:16:36
nobody could ever find it this is a very 00:16:39
strange passage into answer which I've 00:16:41
seen translated in many different ways 00:16:43
there is an absolutely absurd 00:16:44
translation of drugs on the market now 00:16:47
published in mental books by a professor 00:16:49
of Chinese at Harvard and it is 00:16:52
absolutely ridiculous the whole thing is 00:16:55
made by man who is unsure in an ex 00:16:57
missionary and keeps talking about God 00:17:03
well there is no expression in drunk 00:17:05
self of God there is this expression gen 00:17:14
lung which has almost the same meaning 00:17:21
as the spontaneity of itself so this 00:17:26
means not that something is so through 00:17:30
the power of heaven now heaven Chen is 00:17:30
means simply the universe as you look out from Earth which is does it where 00:17:43
the center or the base everything else 00:17:49
the whole expanse of the cosmos is chen 00:17:52
heaven and there is no connection in the 00:17:56
idea of heaven with some sort of 00:17:58
personal ruler of the universe so the 00:18:03
notion of god you see as we understand 00:18:05
it is really very foreign indeed to 00:18:08
taoist thought and when you see somebody 00:18:11
translating this of god it is gives a 00:18:15
very wrong impression of this teaching 00:18:17
for example there is a passage in which 00:18:22
should' asked jung saying can one get 00:18:26
the dow so as to have it for one's own 00:18:28
and the sage answers your body is not 00:18:34
your own 00:18:35
it is the delegated image of 00:18:38
young and you know missionaries 00:18:42
translate God because they've read in 00:18:44
the Bible man has made an image of God 00:18:46
your life is not your own 00:18:48
it is the delegated adaptability of 00:18:51
heaven your your offspring are not your 00:18:58
own 00:18:59
they are the delicated seeds of heaven 00:19:05
you move you know not how you are at 00:19:08
rest you know not why these are the 00:19:11
operations of the ways of doubt so how 00:19:15
could you get Dow so as to have it for 00:19:17
your own similarly there's the passage 00:19:21
which says when a drunk man falls out of 00:19:24
a cart though he may suffer he does not 00:19:26
die because his spirit is in a condition 00:19:29
of security he does not suffer from 00:19:32
contact with objective existences if 00:19:35
such security may be got from wine 00:19:38
how much more from kin from being in 00:19:46
accord with the spontaneous rhythm of 00:19:50
the universe that's really what it means 00:19:50
but in the anxiety of missionaries and missionaries have been you see the Great 00:20:00
Western they've been the foundation of 00:20:04
Chinese scholarship in the West to 00:20:06
translate the Scriptures into Chinese 00:20:08
they studied Chinese they were the first 00:20:11
people to study Chinese and they have 00:20:13
constantly therefore had an interest in 00:20:15
slipping Chinese Christian ideas into 00:20:20
Chinese classics just in the same way as 00:20:23
when you read Monia Williams's sanskrit 00:20:25
dictionary which is the base dictionary 00:20:27
for sanskrit study for centuries it's 00:20:30
all made up with a missionary bias but 00:20:34
this the notion you see of God in the 00:20:37
sense of the personal ruler of the world 00:20:40
is totally foreign to Chinese thought 00:20:43
there isn't even an idea in Chinese 00:20:46
thought of the law of nature as we have 00:20:51
it 00:20:52
see the the motions of the body the 00:20:57
harmony of the organism is not what it 00:20:59
is in obedience to a law the the Chinese 00:21:08
do have an idea of law this is the word 00:21:12
sir this is an interesting character 00:21:20
nowadays written this way 00:21:20
but originally written like this 00:21:29
this is a drawing of a sacrificial iron cauldron with a knife decided and it 00:21:53
comes from a time when the laws were 00:22:07
inscribed on the sacrificial cauldrons 00:22:09
so that when people came to offer their 00:22:12
sacrifices they would read the laws a 00:22:12
certain fate is objected to this and said that if the people know what the 00:22:20
laws are in the fixed terms of writing 00:22:27
they will develop a literature spirit at 00:22:31
it to say they'll start haggling about 00:22:32
what it really says and as you know that 00:22:35
is the principle occupation of lawyers 00:22:37
and they said that to be the easy thing 00:22:40
is the tomb you mustn't write it down 00:22:42
like that and so the the doll is 00:22:48
described as would slur we would 00:22:55
translate literally lawless but it means 00:22:59
of course transcending this kind of law 00:23:02
which is a specific law positive law I 00:23:08
think is the correct legal term so there 00:23:13
is no notion in the Taoist philosophy or 00:23:17
if one might almost say in Chinese 00:23:19
philosophy as a whole for the certainly 00:23:21
includes Confucianism no notion 00:23:23
whatsoever of the world as responding to 00:23:27
a boss so the body in other words does 00:23:33
not have in it a ruling organ it's order 00:23:37
is the consequence of or the operation 00:23:43
of every part of it existing together 00:23:45
simultaneously arising mutually there's 00:23:50
no governor now the difficulty you see 00:23:53
in Jones's philosophy the difficulty 00:23:56
with human beings is they begin to think 00:23:59
in terms of governing and ruling 00:24:03
and they set out to dominate themselves 00:24:06
and their surroundings and invariably 00:24:11
this leads to a mess he tells the story 00:24:14
of an ancient man by the name of polo 00:24:19
polo was a great horse trainer this is 00:24:24
where we get the word polo from but he 00:24:27
said polo absolutely ruined the nature 00:24:30
of horses horses were nice charming 00:24:35
creatures like Dean Swift's winnings 00:24:38
before polo interfered and ruined their 00:24:41
nature then he says in other places a 00:24:45
good carpenter doesn't need a square or 00:24:47
a compass he works without it and this 00:24:55
is fantastically true of Japanese 00:24:58
carpenters you should see one of the 00:25:02
fascinating things in jointed Japan is 00:25:04
these old-style carpenters working from 00:25:07
the roughest architectural clouds you 00:25:09
could imagine and with the strangest 00:25:12
instruments that they have an uncanny 00:25:14
knack of fitting things by feel and by I 00:25:18
a great story is told of ceremonial 00:25:25
raising of the rich pole of a new temple 00:25:28
and it was being done by a certain guild 00:25:32
of carpenters and there was a rival 00:25:33
guild in town which had not got the 00:25:35
contract and they were very sore about 00:25:37
it so during the night one of the 00:25:40
members of the rival guild came and he 00:25:42
chopped off six feet or so of the 00:25:44
ridgepole 00:25:45
and so when the master craftsman came in 00:25:48
the morning and all the priests had 00:25:50
arrived for the ceremony of raising the 00:25:51
roof beam he looked at it and said 00:25:54
somebody has interfered with this 00:25:57
it must be our enemy guild they've cut 00:25:59
off six feet of the roof beam anyway he 00:26:02
said never mind I will put it right and 00:26:04
he took his hammer and ceremonially 00:26:06
struck the beam then said raise it and 00:26:09
it was raised and it fitted exactly 00:26:09
the story is of course that the master carpenter knew that this would happen 00:26:18
and he made the beam too long those sort 00:26:28
of stories are always associated with 00:26:30
the art of carpentry he needs no square 00:26:40
you see because his sense of skill that 00:26:49
is in his AAG organism in his nerves in 00:26:52
his senses is much more subtle than 00:26:56
anything that could be made with 00:26:57
instruments there are all kinds of 00:27:03
stories about the artists of the Far 00:27:06
East excelling in this kind of thing of 00:27:08
knowing with tremendous precision 00:27:11
exactly where something should go so a 00:27:17
master is decorating a ceremonial tea 00:27:22
room and he's with his student and the 00:27:25
student wants to know where to put a 00:27:26
hook for hanging a bamboo vase for 00:27:30
flowers on the wall and the master says 00:27:33
there and the student makes a little 00:27:34
mark somewhat later student rubs out the 00:27:38
mark gets rid of it but he remembers by 00:27:41
a tiny little secret prick 00:27:44
in the cloth where it should go and then 00:27:48
he says to the teacher excuse me sir but 00:27:50
I forgot where you said that thing 00:27:52
should go and the teacher says it was 00:27:54
there and he puts his finger exactly on 00:27:56
the same spot isn't he that's the sort 00:27:58
of thing that is admired without the 00:28:02
slightest calculation you see now he 00:28:04
goes on and says drawn sir explains at 00:28:09
length that music has been ruined by the 00:28:12
five notes says the five notes will make 00:28:16
a man deaf and the five colors will make 00:28:18
a man blind now what does this mean 00:28:18
it's well it's the thinker is that if you think there are only five notes you 00:28:29
can't hear if you think there are only 00:28:34
five colors you can't see moments you 00:28:37
say this is a problem we have in music 00:28:41
that we've got a notation which is our 00:28:47
chromatic scale and the stave the way we 00:28:54
can write music is limited to that 00:28:57
possibility but there are all kinds of 00:29:03
subtleties between every one of our 00:29:05
notes same way in writing our rhythm we 00:29:09
have to go in steps from whole note half 00:29:12
note quarter note eighth note sixteenth 00:29:15
note so on and we can increase the value 00:29:18
of each by one half by dotting it but 00:29:22
that's the limit of our rhythmic 00:29:23
expression whereas in all oriental music 00:29:28
you have an infinite continuum both of 00:29:33
tone and of rhythm they make the most 00:29:37
extraordinarily complicated rhythms and 00:29:39
the way you learn music is not from 00:29:42
notation not from measures but from the 00:29:45
living body of your teacher 00:29:47
demonstrating the ways of playing 00:29:49
instruments so you follow the teacher 00:29:51
the man instead of what it says in a 00:29:55
book so the whole principle then is one 00:30:07
of not a success in life through not 00:30:16
pushing it around through not trying to 00:30:18
govern it he tells a story as a matter 00:30:24
of fact if to answer has a very funny 00:30:26
trick a lot of his wisdom he puts into 00:30:28
the mouth of Confucius he said the 00:30:31
Confucius was one day doing this and he 00:30:33
ran into loud sir and they had an 00:30:35
argument and loud so one but then the 00:30:37
next time 00:30:37
he talks about Confucius teaching flout 00:30:40
sirs doctrines mister the immense 00:30:43
confusion of everybody but it said one 00:30:45
day Confucius was standing by a river 00:30:48
where there was a tremendous cataract 00:30:51
plunging down and he suddenly saw an old 00:30:54
man coming out of the forest who fell 00:30:57
into the river and suddenly disappeared 00:30:59
him into the cataract and he said oh 00:31:02
they are too bad probably some old 00:31:03
fellow tired of life who want to put an 00:31:05
end to it all 00:31:06
the next moment way downstream the old 00:31:09
man gets out of the water and starts 00:31:10
bouncing along and Confucius is amazed 00:31:13
and he sends one of his disciples to 00:31:16
catch this fellow before he disappears 00:31:18
he said sir I was thinking that you 00:31:21
would going to commit suicide and now 00:31:23
it's suddenly fine but you came out of 00:31:26
that cataract alive do you have some 00:31:27
special method by which you do this no I 00:31:30
have no special method said the old man 00:31:32
I just go in with the world and come out 00:31:35
with us well because I don't resist the 00:31:38
water I entirely identify myself with 00:31:40
water so you see here he is utterly 00:31:44
utterly relaxed just rolling around in 00:31:47
the torrent and not resisting in any way 00:31:51
and so he is preserved he goes with the 00:31:56
stream rolls with a punch or whatever 00:31:59
you want to call it again of course 00:32:03
there is exaggeration in a story of this 00:32:08
kind just as there's the exaggeration in 00:32:11
the story of the hunchback and the tree 00:32:13
and so on because 00:32:13
true roue or letting go non-interference it doesn't mean for example flabbiness a 00:32:27
lot of people when they think they're 00:32:34
relaxing merely become flabby and if 00:32:38
that is so you know you would that the 00:32:42
perfectly relaxed person would slowly 00:32:44
become jello and would spread out on the 00:32:48
floor and finally drip through into the 00:32:50
basement relaxation you see is this is 00:33:01
simply something that happens when 00:33:03
there's too much yang in you too much of 00:33:06
the positive you need to balance off to 00:33:08
the in and the trouble is that human 00:33:11
beings in their anxiety to control 00:33:13
things exhibit too much young too much 00:33:17
aggressiveness too much of the male 00:33:19
principle they need the balance of the 00:33:21
female and so all these exaggerations in 00:33:25
the direction of let things go let 00:33:27
things happen don't interfere are 00:33:29
stressing the in point of view to 00:33:32
compensate for the excessive yang and 00:33:36
furthermore the difficulty always comes 00:33:39
i remember reading a book called you 00:33:41
must relax 00:33:42
the difficulty always arises when one feels I must relax I've got to let go 00:33:50
and let things happen how on earth do I 00:33:57
do it I even in trying to relax I'm all 00:34:04
tense because I'm anxious that it must 00:34:06
happen and maybe it won't and how do you 00:34:09
do it 00:34:10
you see if you can't achieve full way 00:34:16
like that what you have to understand is 00:34:20
that you don't you don't have to do 00:34:22
anything there is no method of the old 00:34:23
man said that the meaning of wood sir 00:34:28
when you call the DAO is wolf sir or 00:34:30
lawless it means there is no method in 00:34:34
it that you can master and do it what 00:34:40
you have it's all based on understanding 00:34:41
or what our psychologists call inside 00:34:44
that you have to find out that there is 00:34:51
nothing that you do as an source and 00:34:58
cause of action separate from everything 00:35:00
else when you know that that there is no 00:35:07
separate acting you then there is no 00:35:10
need to try to relax the thing you have 00:35:16
to see is that the flow of the DAO as I 00:35:20
said yesterday with the illustration of 00:35:21
the bit people swimming in a strong 00:35:23
stream the flow of the DAO goes on 00:35:25
anyway just like the flow of time for 00:35:30
example you can get out of the present 00:35:32
moment you can think about the past and 00:35:35
you can think about the future but since 00:35:39
you do that thinking now the present is 00:35:43
inescapable all right now the present 00:35:47
moment it does doesn't it it has a sense 00:35:49
of flow time is going along life is 00:35:53
going along time actually the clock time 00:35:56
is simply a measure of flow a way of 00:36:00
going tick tick tick tick and Counting 00:36:03
the ticks and say well we've lived 00:36:05
through so many ticks but and 00:36:11
nevertheless this this in real time as 00:36:13
distinct from this ticking thing is ax 00:36:16
is a flowing and yet it still isn't that 00:36:20
fascinating it it moves but you're 00:36:24
always there it's always now never get 00:36:27
out of now all right now if you can feel 00:36:30
that see that you can't get out of now 00:36:33
and you never will see now it realize 00:36:40
that what we call now is the same thing 00:36:43
as Dow the Dow the course of things the 00:36:46
eternal now the presence of God anything 00:36:49
you want to call it see that's now and 00:36:51
you can't get out of it so there's no 00:36:55
need to get with it because you can't 00:36:57
get out think that's beautiful you you 00:37:02
just relax and you're there so that's 00:37:09
the principle of flowing you can make 00:37:11
her all kinds of very clever ways of 00:37:15
postponing finding this out it's 00:37:19
terribly simple that you can say well 00:37:22
this is a very spiritual matter 00:37:24
and I'm an unevolved person and it'll 00:37:29
take me a great deal of time to realize 00:37:31
this in a more than an intellectual way 00:37:33
that's an excuse for playing your own 00:37:37
game I'm not finding this out there are 00:37:42
all sorts of elaborate ways of doing 00:37:43
that and you can put it off by indulging 00:37:47
in the most complicated systems of 00:37:50
spiritual culture and yoga and so on and 00:37:53
so forth and that's alright I have no 00:37:55
objection to your putting it off if 00:37:57
that's what you want to do but actually 00:37:59
it's always here now just as you can't 00:38:02
get away from now you can't get out of 00:38:05
the towel 00:38:05
that's the humor of the whole thing and that's why drunk sir has his beautiful 00:38:13
light touch the he says the Heron is 00:38:28
white without a daily bath The Crow is 00:38:31
black without being painted in ink and 00:38:31
this is the same saying you know as in Zen in this spring landscape there is 00:38:39
nothing superior nothing inferior 00:38:47
flowering branches grow naturally some 00:38:50
short some long all they say a long 00:38:54
thing is the long body of Buddha a short 00:38:56
thing is the short body of Buddha there 00:39:01
are therefore you see blondes and 00:39:03
brunettes fat people and skinny people 00:39:07
tall people and short people cultured 00:39:11
people and vulgar people even the 00:39:15
Christian hymn says the rich man in his 00:39:18
castle the poor man at his gate God made 00:39:21
them high and lowly and ordered their 00:39:23
estate you know we don't think that now 00:39:26
because we've got too much social 00:39:27
conscience in I think I'm I probably 00:39:37
read this passage yesterday maybe I 00:39:39
didn't but he had a seed wrong so it has 00:39:43
this to say about it 00:39:43
those who say that they would have right without its correlate wrong or good 00:39:55
government without its correlate misrule 00:40:00
do not after him the great principles of 00:40:03
the universe nor the nature of all 00:40:05
creation one might as well talk of the 00:40:07
existence of heaven without that of 00:40:09
earth or the negative principle e'en 00:40:11
without the positive yang which is 00:40:14
clearly impossible if people keep on 00:40:16
discussing it without stop 00:40:17
as such people must be either fools or 00:40:20
knaves and of course one could always 00:40:24
reply to dranzer that there have to be 00:40:28
fools and knaves so that we can 00:40:30
recognize the existence of sages speech 00:40:42
is not mere blowing of breath it is 00:40:45
intended to say something only what it 00:40:47
is intended to say cannot yet be 00:40:49
determined it is their speech indeed or 00:40:52
is there not can we or can we not 00:40:54
distinguish it from the chirping of 00:40:56
young birds how can now be so obscured 00:41:00
that there should be a distinction of 00:41:01
true and false 00:41:02
how can speech be so obscured that there 00:41:05
should be a distinction of right and 00:41:07
wrong where can you go and find out not 00:41:11
to exist where can you go and find that 00:41:14
words cannot be proved the dowel is 00:41:18
obscured by our inadequate understanding 00:41:20
and words are obscured by flowery 00:41:22
expressions 00:41:23
hence the affirmations and denials of 00:41:26
the Confucian and the Meridian schools 00:41:28
each denying what the other affirms and 00:41:30
affirming what the other denies each 00:41:32
denying what the other affirms and 00:41:34
affirming what the other denies brings 00:41:35
us only confusion there is nothing which 00:41:38
is not this there is nothing which is 00:41:40
not that what cannot be seen by that the 00:41:44
other person can be known by myself 00:41:47
hence I say this emanates from that that 00:41:50
also derives from this this is the 00:41:52
theory of the interdependence of this 00:41:54
and that nevertheless life arises from 00:41:57
death and vice versa possibility arises 00:42:00
from impossibility and vice versa 00:42:02
affirmation is based upon deny 00:42:04
and vice-versa which being the case the 00:42:08
true sage rejects all distinctions and 00:42:10
takes his refuge in heaven that's in the 00:42:13
universe before one may base it on this 00:42:16
yet this is also that and that is also 00:42:19
this this also has its right and wrong 00:42:22
and that has its right and wrong does 00:42:24
then the distinction between this and 00:42:26
that really exists or not when this the 00:42:29
subjective and that the objective are 00:42:30
both without their correlates that is 00:42:33
the very axis of Dao and when that axis 00:42:37
passes through the center at which all 00:42:39
infinities converge affirmations and 00:42:41
denials alike blend into the infinite 00:42:43
one 00:42:43
hence it is said that there is nothing 00:42:46
like using the light see the axis of the 00:42:52
opposites is the perception of their 00:42:55
polarity the difference between them is 00:43:00
explicit but the unity of them is 00:43:04
interested the difference the explicit 00:43:10
difference between two ends of the stick 00:43:12
but the implicit unity that they are 00:43:15
ends of the same stick you see so that's 00:43:18
the axis the axis of tau is the you 00:43:22
might call it the secret conspiracy that 00:43:25
it lies between all poles and all 00:43:28
opposites which is implicit esoteric or 00:43:32
whatever you want to call it that 00:43:34
they're fundamentally one so that unity 00:43:40
whether it's between you and the 00:43:43
universe or whatever polarity you want 00:43:47
to take is not something that has to be 00:43:50
brought into being if one brings it into 00:43:54
being one assumes that it doesn't exist 00:43:56
that's called in Zen putting legs on a 00:43:58
snake or a beard on a eunuch there's 00:44:04
something unnecessary you see so it 00:44:08
exists it is always there and you can 00:44:10
see it so vividly and actually put 00:44:13
you're almost almost put your finger on 00:44:16
it insensitive 00:44:16
if you understand 00:44:18
the movement of the dowel is exactly the 00:44:20
same thing as the present moment now of 00:44:23
course if you try to grab the present 00:44:24
moment and gets get ready get ready with 00:44:28
your clapper and say now it's gone the 00:44:36
finer and finer you draw the hairline on 00:44:38
the watch you don't know exactly when 00:44:40
now is you could ventually get the point 00:44:43
where you can't see it at all see but if 00:44:45
you leave it alone and you don't try to 00:44:48
grab the moment as it flies but it's 00:44:51
always there being you don't have to 00:44:53
mark it and have to put your finger on 00:44:56
it because it's everything that there is 00:44:58
and so the present moment suddenly 00:45:00
expands and it contains the whole time 00:45:03
all past all future everything you'll 00:45:05
never have to hold on to it 00:45:05