Existence Taoism Quotes

To Taoism that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the possibility of growth and change there can be no Tao. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist.

All attempts to create something admirable are the weapons of evil. You may think you are practising benevolence and righteousness, but in effect you will be creating a kind of artificiality. Where a model exists, copies will be made of it; where success has been gained, boasting follows; where debate exists, there will be outbreaks of hostility.

...you'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are. We will let a selection from the writings of Chuang-tse illustrate: Hui-tse said to Chuang-tse, "I have a large tree which no carpenter can cut into lumber. Its branches and trunk are crooked and tough, covered with bumps and depressions. No builder would turn his head to look at it. Your teachings are the same - useless, without value. Therefore, no one pays attention to them." ... "You complain that your tree is not valuable as lumber. But you could make use of the shade it provides, rest under its sheltering branches, and stroll beneath it, admiring its character and appearance. Since it would not be endangered by an axe, what could threaten its existence? It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else and do not use it in its proper way.

Well-being, or wholeness, implies integrity and harmony between all existing elements, providing freedom for the whole.

The infinite possibilities that exist in any given moment cause infinite possibilities in response. The wording is correct here; the possibilities exist already, and have already caused the existing possibilities of response.

Intellectual knowledge exists in and of the brain. Because the brain is part of the body, which must one day expire, this collection of facts, however large and impressive, will expire as well. Insight, however, is a function of the spirit. Because your spirit follows you through cycle after cycle of life, death, and rebirth, you have the opportunity of cultivating insight in an ongoing fashion. Refined over time, insight becomes pure, constant, and unwavering. This is the beginning of immortality.

The apprenticeship to passivity—I know nothing more contrary to our habits. (The modern age begins with two hysterics: Don Quixote and Luther.) If we make time, produce and elaborate it, we do so out of our repugnance to the hegemony of essence and to the contemplative submission it presupposes. Taoism seems to me wisdom’s first and last word: yet I resist it, my instincts reject it, as they refuse to endure anything—the heredity of revolt is too much for us. Our disease? Centuries of attention to time, the idolatry of becoming. What recourse to China or India will heal us?

It comes out from no source, it goes back in through no aperture. It has reality yet no place where it resides; it has duration yet no beginning or end. Something emerges, though through no aperture - this refers to the fact that it has reality. It has reality yet there is no place where it resides - this refers to the dimension of space. It has duration but no beginning or end - this refers to the dimension of time. There is life, there is death, there is a coming out, there is a going back in - yet in the coming out and going back its form is never seen. This is called the Heavenly Gate. The Heavenly Gate is nonbeing. The ten thousand things come forth from nonbeing. Being cannot create being out of being; inevitably it must come forth from nonbeing. Nonbeing is absolute nonbeing, and it is here that the sage hides himself.

Master Dongguo asked Zhuangzi, "This thing called the Way - where does it exist?" Zhuangzi said, "There's no place it doesn't exist." "Come," said Master Dongguo, "you must be more specific!" "It is in the ant." "As low a thing as that?" "It is in the panic grass." "But that's lower still!" "It is in the tiles and shards." "How can it be so low?" "It is in the piss and shit!

The ability to remain constant, whole and playful, even while working technically, concentrating and upholding urgency, is essential to achieve a state of balance that will allow for this to happen. This has to come to life, and cannot stay just an idea or hope or intention or imitation, or ignored. The guarantee and proof that this balance and power is real is in its actualization. That is, that it manifests in functional reality. As in any intention, whether that be vague or specific, an ambition or desire, a goal or state of being, a question or hope, a curiosity or purpose, there exist natural and unnatural obstacles to its realization.

The three masters are K’ung Fu-tse (Confucius), Buddha, and Lao-tse, author of the oldest existing book of Taoism.

The best leaders of all, the people know not they exist. They turn to each other and say 'We did it ourselves.

The surface is just as real as what lies beneath it. They reveal one another. None exists without the other, so none is superior or inferior.

What is a leaf? Just the fact that a single thing exists is a miracle beyond all words. For if you look at a leaf very very closely, you will see that it is filled with wondrous planets brilliant stars and endless space.

One could make a nice link between imagination and spirit. To make that link, all we need is some inspiration. Essentially, imagination has the innate potential to compel or inspire and to set in motion causation. That’s why it exists.

Truth, or mystery basically, seeks the expression of itself. That is, evolution exists to create more mystery, not to answer or end the existing mysteries. This is why with every “truth” revealed, or every answer given, all that actually occurs is the creation of yet a more complex and mysterious question.

These five values are the organic origins of what could be called intuitive conscience. They are also what we experience personally as our core, essential yearnings, however distorted or confused we may interpret them: to care and be cared for; to share equally in freedom and responsibility; to belong, and to trust that what we belong to will continue; that there exists an objective hierarchy of virtue and wisdom; that there exists that which is unquestionably sacred or divine.

Bells Ring, Drums Resound When a bell is struck it rings, when a drum is beaten it resounds. This is because they are solid outside and empty within. It is because they have nothing inside that they are able to ring and resound. What I realize as I observe this is the Tao of true emptiness and ineffable existence. True emptiness is like the inner openness of a bell or a drum; ineffable existence is like the sounding of a bell or a drum when struck. If people can keep this true emptiness as their essence, and utilize this ineffable existence as their function, ever serene yet ever responsive, ever responsive yet ever serene, tranquil and unstirring yet sensitive and effective, sensitive and effective yet tranquil and unstirring, empty yet not empty, not empty yet empty, aware and efficient, lively and active, refining everything in the great furnace of Creation, then when the dirt is gone the mirror is clear, when the clouds disperse the moon appears; revealing the indestructible body of reality, they transcend yin and yang and Creation, and merge with the eternity of space.

Ceux d'entre nous qui ignorent le secret consistant à régler au plus juste leur propre existence sur cet océan tumultueux de tracas absurdes que nous appelons la vie, ceux-là vivent dans un état de souffrance permanente - tout en s'efforçant, mais en vain, de paraître heureux et satisfaits. Nous chancelons en tentant de conserver notre équilibre moral, et nous voyons des signes précurseurs de tempête dans chaque nuage flottant à l'horizon. Quelle joie et quelle beauté; cependant, dans le déferlement des vagues qui roulent vers l'éternité ! Pourquoi ne pas pénétrer l'esprit de la vague, ou comme Lie-tseu, chevaucher l'ouragan lui-même ?

Yet, in my estimation, a middle path exists between abject gullibility and mocking cynicism regarding the “Elder ways.” Yes, much of contemporary Paganism, whether of the North, South, East, or West, has been recovered in recent times, albeit in many cases from genuinely ancient remnants. But, then, what belief system is not an amalgamation of ideas from across time and space? What we know of Christianity today bears little resemblance to its early or even medieval manifestations. Taoism had many forms and interpretations. Likewise Buddhism. Belief systems always do. Modern Paganism in all its varieties harks back to the most ancient times, but its form is in reality the product of a long accumulation of influences. What modern Paganism really does is provide a medium, in the common form of the ceremonial circle, within which threads and traces of ancient ways can be reclaimed. It is about a set of philosophies or practices—such as animism, animal totemism, seasonal celebration, chanting, and spellcraft—that share a common ancestry in shamanism and have surfaced far and wide and in many cultural guises across the centuries. If the ways have been broken, it is because their practitioners were persecuted. My own opinion is that rather than having to mount everything in an antique frame, we should recognize that Pagan tradition consists of a variety of subtle and subversive threads woven through history.

The gnarled pine, I would have said, touch it. This is China. Horticulturalists around the world have come to study it. Yet no one has ever been able to explain why it grows like a corkscrew, just as no one can adequately explain China. But like that tree, there it is, old, resilient, and oddly magnificent. Within that tree are the elements in nature that have inspired Chinese artists for centuries: gesture over geometry, subtlety over symmetry, constant flow over static form. And the temples, walk and touch them. This is China. Don't merely stare at these murals and statues. Fly up to the crossbeams, get down on your hands and knees, and press your head to the floor tiles. Hide behind that pillar and come eye to eye with its flecks of paint. Imagine that you are the interior decorator who is a thousand years in age. Start with a bit of Tibetan Buddhism, plus a dash each of animism and Taoism. A hodgepodge, you say? No, what is in those temples is an amalgam that is pure Chinese, a lovely shabby elegance, a glorious new motley that makes China infinitely intriguing. Nothing is ever completely thrown away and replaced. If one period of influence falls out of favor, it is patched over. The old views still exist, one chipped layer beneath, ready to pop through with the slightest abrasion. That is the Chinese aesthetic and also its spirit. Those are the traces that have affected all who have traveled along China's roads.

If you pass on through the meadows with their thousand flowers of every color imaginable, from bright red to yellow and purple, and their bright green grass washed clean by last night’s rain, rich and verdant—again without a single movement of the machinery of thought—then you will know what love is. To look at the blue sky, the high full-blown clouds, the green hills with their clear lines against the sky, the rich grass and the fading flower—to look without a word of yesterday; then, when the mind is completely quiet, silent, undisturbed by any thought, when the observer is completely absent—then there is unity. Not that you are united with the flower, or with the cloud, or with those sweeping hills; rather there is a feeling of complete non-being in which the division between you and another ceases. The woman carrying those provisions which she bought in the market, the big black Alsatian dog, the two children playing with the ball—if you can look at all these without a word, without a measure, without any association, then the quarrel between you and another ceases. This state, without the word, without thought, is the expanse of mind that has no boundaries, no frontiers within which the I and the not-I can exist. Don’t think this is imagination, or some flight of fancy, or some desired mystical experience; it is not. It is as actual as the bee on that flower or the little girl on her bicycle or the man going up a ladder to paint the house—the whole conflict of the mind in its separation has come to an end. You look without the look of the observer, you look without the value of the word and the measurement of yesterday. The look of love is different from the look of thought. The one leads in a direction where thought cannot follow, and the other leads to separation, conflict, and sorrow. From this sorrow, you cannot go to the other. The distance between the two is made by thought, and thought cannot by any stride reach the other. As you walk back by the little farmhouses, the meadows, and the railway line, you will see that yesterday has come to an end: life begins where thought ends.

While Daoism presents the attaining of immortality through the meditation and withdrawl into oneself as the highest destination of human beings, it does not in that connection declare that the soul persists intrinsically as such and essentially, that the spirit is immortal, but only that human beings can make themselves immortal through the process of abstract thinking in immediate consciousness, and that every man should do so. The thought of immortality lies precisely in the fact that, in thinking, human beings are present to themselves in their freedom. In thinking, one is utterly independent, nothing else can intrude upon one's freedom - one relates only to oneself, and nothing else can have a power upon one. This equivalence with myself, the I, this subsisting with self, is what is genuinely immortal and subject to no alteration; it is the unchangeable itself, what has actual being only within itself and moves only within itself. The I is not lifeless tranquility but movement, though a movement that is not change; instead it is eternal tranquility, eternal clarity within oneself. Inasmuch as it is first in Buddhism that God is known as the essential, and is thought in his essentiality - that being within self, or presence to self is the authentic determination - this being within self or this essentiality is therefore known in connection with the subject, is known as the nature of the subject, and the spiritual is self-contained. This essential character also pertains directly to the subject or the soul; it is known that the soul is immortal, that it has within itself the power of existing purely, or being purely inward, though not yet of existing properly as this purity, i.e. not yet as spirituality. But still bound up with this essentiality is the fact that the mode of existence is yet a sensible immediacy, though only an accidental one. This is immortality, that the soul subsisting in presence to self is both essential and existing at the same time. Essence without existence is a mere abstraction; essentiality or the concept must be thought as existing. Therefore realization also belongs to essentiality. But here the form of this realization is still sensible existence, sensible immediacy.

We see three men standing around a vat of vinegar. Each has dipped his finger into the vinegar and has tasted it. The expression on each man's face shows his individual reaction. Since the painting is allegorical, we are to understand that these are no ordinary vinegar tasters, but are instead representatives of the "Three Teachings" of China, and that the vinegar they are sampling represents the Essence of Life. The three masters are K'ung Fu-tse (Confucius), Buddha, and Lao-tse, author of the oldest existing book of Taoism. The first has a sour look on his face, the second wears a bitter expression, but the third man is smiling. To Kung Fu-tse (kung FOOdsuh), life seemed rather sour. He believed that the present was out step with the past, and that the government of man on earth was out of harmony with the Way of Heaven, the government of, the universe. Therefore, he emphasized reverence for the Ancestors, as well as for the ancient rituals and ceremonies in which the emperor, as the Son of Heaven, acted as intermediary between limitless heaven and limited earth. Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time. A saying was recorded about K'ung Fu-tse: "If the mat was not straight, the Master would not sit." This ought to give an indication of the extent to which things were carried out under Confucianism. To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering. The world was seen as a setter of traps, a generator of illusions, a revolving wheel of pain for all creatures. In order to find peace, the Buddhist considered it necessary to transcend "the world of dust" and reach Nirvana, literally a state of "no wind." Although the essentially optimistic attitude of the Chinese altered Buddhism considerably after it was brought in from its native India, the devout Buddhist often saw the way to Nirvana interrupted all the same by the bitter wind of everyday existence. To Lao-tse (LAOdsuh), the harmony that naturally existed between heaven and earth from the very beginning could be found by anyone at any time, but not by following the rules of the Confucianists. As he stated in his Tao To Ching (DAO DEH JEENG), the "Tao Virtue Book," earth was in essence a reflection of heaven, run by the same laws - not by the laws of men. These laws affected not only the spinning of distant planets, but the activities of the birds in the forest and the fish in the sea. According to Lao-tse, the more man interfered with the natural balance produced and governed by the universal laws, the further away the harmony retreated into the distance. The more forcing, the more trouble. Whether heavy or fight, wet or dry, fast or slow, everything had its own nature already within it, which could not be violated without causing difficulties. When abstract and arbitrary rules were imposed from the outside, struggle was inevitable. Only then did life become sour. To Lao-tse, the world was not a setter of traps but a teacher of valuable lessons. Its lessons needed to be learned, just as its laws needed to be followed; then all would go well. Rather than turn away from "the world of dust," Lao-tse advised others to "join the dust of the world." What he saw operating behind everything in heaven and earth he called Tao (DAO), "the Way." A basic principle of Lao-tse's teaching was that this Way of the Universe could not be adequately described in words, and that it would be insulting both to its unlimited power and to the intelligent human mind to attempt to do so. Still, its nature could be understood, and those who cared the most about it, and the life from which it was inseparable, understood it best.

Tao exists prior to and beyond any religion; including Taoism...

[T]he world is a system of inseparable relationships and not a mere juxtaposition of things. The verbal, piecemeal and analytic mode of perception has blinded us to the fact that things and events do not exist apart from each other. The world is a whole greater than the sum of its parts because the parts are not merely summed - thrown together - but related. The whole is a pattern which remains, while the parts come and go, just as the human body is a dynamic pattern which persists despite the rapid birth and death of all its individual cells. The pattern does not, of course, exist disembodiedly apart from individual forms, but exists precisely through their coming and going - just as it is through the structured motion and vibration of its electrons that a rock has solidity.

[S]een as a whole the universe is a harmony or symbiosis of patterns which cannot exist without each other.

Idolatry is right in so far as the worshipper is aware that the object of his worship is a manifested form of God and that, therefore, by worshipping the idol he is worshipping God. Once, however, he forgets this fundamental fact, he is liable to be deceived by his own imagination and ascribe real divinity to the idol (a piece of wood, or a stone, for example) and begin to worship it as a god existing independently of, and side by side with, God. If he reaches this point, his attitude is a pure tashbih which completely excludes tanzih.

The relative existence is - to use a favorite metaphor of Ibn Arabi - the Absolute Existence as reflected in the mirror of relative determinations.

The most salient feature of Ash'arite atomism is the thesis of the perpetual renewal (tajdid) of accidents. According to this theory, of all the accidents of the things there is not even one that continues to exist for two units of time. Every accident comes into being at this moment and is annihilated at the very next moment to be replaced by another accident which is 'similar' to its being created anew in the same locus. This is evidently the thesis of 'new creation'. Now if we examine Ibn Arabi's thought in relation to this Ash'arite thesis, we find a striking similarity between them. Everything is, for Ibn Arabi, a phenomenal form of the Absolute, having no basis for independent subsistence (qiwam) in itself. All are, in short, 'accidents' which appear and disappear in the one eternal-everlasting Substance (jawhar). Otherwise expressed, the existence itself of the Absolute comes into appearance at every moment in milliards of new clothes. With every breath of God, a new world is created.

From the point of view of Ibn Arabi, the atomism of the Ash'arites, though it is not a perfect description of the real structure of Being, does grasp at least an important part of the reality. Mentioning together with the Ash'arites a group of sophists knows as Hisbaniyyah or Husbaniyyah, he begins to criticize them in the following manner: The Ash'arites have hit upon the truth concerning some of the existents, namely, accidents, while the Hisbanites have chanced to find the truth concerning the whole of the world. The Philosophers consider these people simply ignorant. But (they are not ignorant; the truth is rather that) they both (i.e. the Ash'arites and the Hisbanites) are mistaken.

First, he criticizes the sophists of the Hisbanite school. The Hisbanites maintain that nothing remains existent for two units of time, that everything in the world, whether it be substance or accident, is changing from moment to moment. From this they conclude that there is no Reality in the objective sense. Reality or Truth exists only subjectively, for it can be nothing other than the constant flux of things as you perceive it in a fixed form at this present moment. Though the Hisbanites are right in maintaining that the world as a whole and in its entirety is in perpetual transformation, they are mistaken in that they fail to see that the real oneness of the Substance which underlies all these (changing) forms. (They thereby overlook the fact that) the Substance could not exist (in the external world) if it were not for them (i.e. these changing forms) nor would the forms be conceivable if it were not for the Substance. If the Hisbanites could see this point too (in addition to the first point), their theory would be perfect with regard to this problem. Thus, for Ibn Arabi, the merit and demerit of the Hisbanite thesis are quite clear. They have hit upon a part of the truth in that they have seen the constant change of the world. But they overlook the most important part of the matter in that they do not know the true nature of the Reality which is the very substrate in which all these changes are happening, and consider it merely a subjective construct of each individual mind. Concerning the Ash'arites, Ibn Arabi says: As for the Ash'arites, they fail to see that the world in its entirety (including even the so-called 'substances') is a sum of 'accidents', and that, consequently, the whole world is changing from moment to moment since no 'accident' (as they themselves hold) remains for two units of time. And al-Qashani: The Ash'arites do not know the reality of the world; namely, that the world is nothing other than the whole of all these 'forms' which they call 'accidents'. Thus they only assert the existence of substances (i.e., atoms) which are in truth nothin, having no existence (in the real sense of the word). And they are not aware of the one Entity ('ayn) which manifests itself in these forms ('accidents' as they call them); nor do they know that this one Entity is the He-ness of the Absolute. This is why they assert (only) the (perpetual) change of the accidents. According to the basic thesis of the Ash'arite ontology, the world is reduced to an infinite number of 'indivisible parts', i.e., atoms. These atoms are, in themselves, unknowable. They are knowable only in terms of the 'accidents' that occur to them, one accident appearing in a locus at one moment and disappearing in the next to be replaced by another. The point Ibn Arabi makes against this thesis is that these 'accidents' that go on being born and annihilated in infinitely variegated forms are nothing but so many self-manifestations of the Absolute. And thus behind the kaleidoscopic scene of the perpetual changes and transformations there is always a Reality which is eternally 'one'. And it is this one Reality itself that goes on manifesting itself perpetually in ever new forms. The Ash'arites who overlook the existence of this one Reality underlies all 'accidents' are, according to Ibn Arabi, driven into the self-contradictory thesis that a collection of a number of transitory 'accidents' that appear and disappear and never remain for two moments constitute 'things' that subsist by themselves and continue to exist for a long time.

However this may be, the preceding explanation has at least made it clear that the Way has two opposite aspects, one positive and the other negative. The negative side is comparable with the metaphysical Darkness of Ibn Arabi. In the world-view of the latter too, the Absolute (haqq) in itself, i.e., in its absoluteness, is absolutely invisible, inaudible and ungraspable as any 'form' whatsoever. it is an absolute Transcendent, and as such it is 'Nothing' in relation to human cognition. But, as we remember, the Absolute in the metaphysical intuition of the Arab sage is 'Nothing', not because it is 'nothing' in the purely negative sense, but rather because it is too fully existent-rather, it is Existence itself. Likewise, it is Darkness not because it is deprived of light, but rather because it is too full of light, too luminous-rather, it is the Light itself. Exactly the same holds true of the Way as Lao-tzu intuits it. The Way is not dark, but it seems dark because it is too luminous and bright. He says: A 'way' which is (too) bright seems dark. The Way in itself, that is, from the point of view of the Way itself, is bright. But since 'it is too profound to be known by man' it is, from the point of view of man, dark. The Way is 'Nothing' in this sense. This negative aspect, however, does not exhaust the reality of the Absolute. If it did, there would be no world, no creatures. In the thought of Ibn Arabi, the Absolute by its own unfathomable Will comes down from the stage of abysmal Darkness or 'nothingness' to that of self-manifestation. The Absolute, although it is in itself a Mystery having nothing to do with any other thing, and a completely self-sufficient Reality-has another, positive aspect in which it is turned toward the world. And in this positive aspect, the Absolute contains all things in the form of Names and Attributes. In the same way, the Way of Lao-Tzu too, although it is in itself Something 'nameless', a Darkness which transcends all things, is the 'Named' and the 'Mother of the ten thousand things'. Far from being Non-Being, it is, in this respect, Being in the fullest sense. The Nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The Named is the Mother of ten thousand things. This passage can be translated as follows: The term 'Non-Being' could be applied to the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The term 'Being' could be applied to the Mother of ten thousand things. Whichever translation we may choose, the result comes to exactly the same thing. For in the metaphysical system of Lao-Tzu, the 'Nameless' is, as we have already seen, synonymous with 'Non-Being', while the 'Named' is the same as 'Being'. What is more important to notice is that metaphysically the Nameless or Non-Being represents a higher - or more fundamental - stage than the Named or Being within the structure of the Absolute itself. Just as in Ibn 'Arabi' even the highest 'self-manifestation' (tajalli) is a stage lower than the absolute Essence (dhat) of the Absolute, so in Lao-Tzu Being represents a secondary metaphysical stage with regard to the absoluteness of the Absolute. The ten thousand things under Heaven are born out of Being (yu), and Being is born out of Non-Being (wu).

Absence is all existence seen as one undifferentiated tissue (reality, as we have seen, prior to our names), while Presence is that same tissue seen in its differentiated forms, the ten thousand things (reality differentiated by our names). And it should also be emphasized that both terms, Absence and Presence, are primarily verbal in Chinese: hence, that tissue of reality is seen as verbal, rather than the static nominal: a tissue that is alive and in motion.

To Taoism that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the possibility of growth and change there can be no Tao. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist.

There is an actual and palpable hierarchy of emotional, mental and physiological intensity that corresponds to the actual capacities and limitations of human beings. In other words, there does exist a real and definable scale of suffering, and of joy.

The sweet spot is a term used by audiophiles and recording engineers to describe the focal point between two sources of sound, where an individual is fully capable of hearing the audio mix the way it was intended to be heard by the musicians. Different static methods exist to broaden the area of the sweet spot. Sound engineers also refer to the sweet spot of any sound-producing body that may be captured with a microphone. Every individual instrument and voice has its own sweet spot, the perfect location to place the microphone or microphones in order to obtain the best sound. In tennis, baseball, or cricket, a given swing will result in a more powerful impact if the ball strikes the racquet or bat on the sweet spot, where a combination of factors results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort. The actual sweet spot on a racquet or bat is a very small area, where dispersing vibrations and spin in multiple directions are canceled out, resulting in a perfect contact point between incoming and outgoing energies.

Through the realization of the potentials and possibilities within and outside of you, one connects imagination with reality. What could be becomes so. You transform what exists, causing not only its evolution, but determining to a large part the course of its evolution. It’s a kind of alchemy in that what you create has not existed before, you give birth to other potentials and possibilities, which continues and expands the program. Perhaps more importantly, the very core of existence is touched and celebrated, that being creation itself.

Your purpose, and its specific expressions, expands and accelerates as it becomes more similar to Nature’s purpose. The tools you need to apply it you collect along the path in discovering what that is. Time is there to provide you with the “opportunities” to find more creative responses to things like frustration, confusion and self-righteousness. As you gently, oh so gently and delicately, adjust to the requirements that exist in your actual circumstance, you are given the tools needed to surpass them.

There exists a direct link, or harmony, between the past, the present and the future. This has been misinterpreted, or exaggerated in both directions, either by the assumption that everything is random, or that there is already a predetermined destiny. There is an actual link, and there is a lot of mystery or room to play and invent.

We survive largely because of the existence and recognition of high-end qualities—compassion, integrity, courage, humility, etc. These are how we perceive spirit. Even the most cynical and fatalistic bastard will snap out of self-absorption, abuse and hopelessness when confronted by an extreme expression of any one of these qualities. (Case studies show that this also applies even to rapists and murderers, not always, but more so than any other technique or therapy.) That is, beyond belief, the desire to feel good, or even hope or despair, there does exist an essential intuitive value system in each of us. This runs through and across every culture, and even every species. I don’t believe that those intuitive values are there to fool us into occupying ourselves so as to feel good while waiting for the inevitable to happen. Nature is not so decadent. Or cynical.

The essential war within, and the cause of suffering, begins with the presumption that yearning, impulse and curiosity, desire and question, exist so as to end them. To attain, to acquire, to answer.

Like everyone on the planet, one identifies and looks toward a vision of improvement or refinement, but/and one has to find a way to engage both of those—what is so, and what can be—with an appropriate harmony that is itself the hallmark of wholeness. In essence, we are looking to create a harmony between the existing elements, not a more severe dichotomy between what we want and what we should be doing.

The seed of all this is imagination. But when you think of imagination, it helps to view it more as it exists in the rest of nature, rather than as we tend to see it in humans. That is, that imagination is actual and a need, immediately searches for expression, and con- sequently, is intimately connected to yearning and its instantaneous application. This is also the case in human beings, but we generally associate it with unnecessary, or extra, expression, such as an ability to make something more attractive or stimulating (the current view of art, for example), or the creative use of “free time” (time left over after you have done what you had to do).

Like all things organically formed, there does exist a harmony, interrelated patterns, intuitive logic, and purpose, but these are subtle and you can’t find them exclusively by emotional or intellectual analysis. At first glance it’s all too complex and liquid-like, and our minds and emotions look for control and relief. To know water, you have to get wet; you can’t just sit back and analyze its components. So, do try to enjoy the swim, and don’t be afraid to just sit back and drink now and then—the water’s clean.

Resolution of conflicting interests within each of us—the desire to fulfill a personal purpose versus the desire to forget about it and just go have fun, for example—takes time and focus and application of a lot of qualities, like playing a difficult piece of music with two hands on the piano. Many people are looking for a simple pill to make that apparent dichotomy go away. Once they discover it doesn’t exist, it’s very frustrating.

As we move through time, we age, with the general speed of everything and the chaos that that produces in us in the form of anxiety, fear, confusion and negotiating an already-existing war, there is little time and space left to adjust to our developing relationship to yearning. In other words, as our needs are met, the question answered, we don’t then move on to the next question.

For, as Al-Qashani says, 'The fundamental ground of the possible things is non-existence. And existence is the Form of God. So if He did not appear in His Form, which is existence qua existence, the whole world would remain in pure non-existence'.

Thus we see that it is not strictly exact to regard the archetypes as non-existent. More exact it is to say they are neither existent nor non-existent. And, in fact, Ibn Arabi himself explicitly says so in a short, but exceedingly important article to which incidental reference was made in an earlier place. It is to be noted that in this passage he takes up a more philosophical position than in his Fusus in dealing with the problem of the archetypes. 'The third thing is neither qualified by existence nor by non-existence, neither by temporality nor by eternity (a parte ante). But it has always been with the Eternal from eternity....It is neither existent nor non-existent....But it is the root (i.e., the ontological ground) of the world....For from this third thing has the world come into being. Thus it is the very essential reality of all the realities of the world. It is a universal and intelligible reality subsisting in the Mind. It appears as eternal in the Eternal and as temporal in the temporal. So, if you say that this thing is the world, you are right. And if you say that it is the Absolute, the Eternal, you are equally right. But you are no less right if you say that it is neither the world nor the Absolute, but something different from both. All these statements are true of this thing. Thus it is the most general Universal comprising both temporality (huduth) and eternity (qidam). It multiplies itself with the multiplicity of the existent things. And yet it is not divided by the division of the existent things; it is divided by the division of the intelligibles. In short, it is neither existent nor non-existent. It is not the world, and yet it is the world. It is 'other', and yet it is not 'other'.

In a passage of the Fusus, in connection with the problems of the absolute inalterability of the cause-caused relationship in this world, Ibn Arabi discusses the 'eternity'-'temporality' of the archetypes in the following way. 'There is absolutely no way of making the causes effectless because they are what is required by the permanent archetypes. And nothing is actualized except in the form established for it in the archetypal state. For 'there is no altering for the words of God' (X, 64). And the 'words of God' are nothing other than the archetypes of the things in existence. Thus 'eternity' is ascribed to the archetypes in regard to their permanent subsistence, and 'temporality' is ascribed to it in regard to their actual existence and appearance.' These words clarify the intermediary state peculiar to the archetypes between 'eternity' and 'temporality'.

Among major religions only Buddhism and Taoism can unblinkingly encompass the universe—the universe “granulated,” astronomers say, into galaxies. Does anyone believe the galaxies exist to add splendor to the night sky over Bethlehem?

Mountains, planets, galaxies, they all consist of atoms, which do in turn consist of particles so minute that their existence may never be confirmed. Since everything in the world consists of things small, the minute is closer to the nature of Tao. And since most things in the world go by unnoticed, the hidden is also closer to the nature of Tao.

In the Joseon Dynasty, the name of science (science) was abbreviated to science for the past, and it was called science. In 1874, the Japanese philosopher Nishi Amane (西 周) in the article "Knowledge" For the first time. It was, of course, not the meaning of science at the time, but rather the expression of 'the scholarship of each subdivision.' [1] [2] In order to convey the meaning of science, There is also a claim that it should be called " The result of this controversy is what we call today. Science is a term that was named in the 19th century, but science did not begin in the 19th century. When people say science, they are wearing a white gown. I think that the titular geniuses are drawing a formula with a symbol that is difficult to understand and I think it is the specialty of the lecturers, but in reality science includes both natural and social sciences. In spite of the fact that natural science and social science exist, it is easy to think that science is first and then divided, but in reality, there is natural philosophy first, so "nature" This is because it precedes the word "science". From an etymological point of view, science is a method derived from the philosophy of a particular region. In classifying ancient philosophies, Greek philosophy is called natural philosophy because the Greek philosophy has a very unusual nature. He had a purpose to explain things happening in the world and to be immersed in it. What other philosophies say differently is that we have already accepted the Greek natural philosophy so naturally. Let's take an example. The philosophies of East Asia do not explain the work of nature, but rather the human behavior and morality, as seen in Confucianism and Taoism. Politics. Human psychology and correct behavior in numerous philosophical systems called disciples. While there is nothing to talk about the mindset of the monarch, the interest to describe nature itself is secondary or subordinate. Therefore, they are close to thinkers rather than scientists. The philosophy of the Middle East, too, had an interest in human afterlife and morality, as you can see from the birth of three modern religions. These are God's image and intention. history. We discussed greatness and property and explored the origin of the world, but that was not the object of inquiry, but the subject of revelation. So they can be called prophets but it's hard to see them as scientists. However, the intellectual class of Greece was different from other civilizations. They were not entirely interested in humans themselves, but surprisingly indifferent to other civilizations. Their main discussion topic was what the world consists of. They know that fire is the foundation of the world. Water is the foundation of the world. 4 Whether elements are the foundation of the world. Small and tiny atoms are fundamental to the world. The Idea, a concept that can not be materialized at all, is the foundation of the world. He persistently explored not the non-existent idea but the clay, the stuff that is filling it, the element of the world.

Mahayana Buddhism was exported to China and subsequently to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. In these societies, Buddhism was variously adapted, assimilated to the indigenous culture (in China, for example, to Confucianism and Taoism), and suppressed. Hence, while Buddhism remains an important component of their cultures, these societies do not constitute and would not identify themselves as part of a Buddhist civilization. What can legitimately be described as a Therevada Buddhist civilization, however, does exist in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. In addition, the populations of Tibet, Mongolia, and Bhutan have historically subscribed to the Lamaist variant of Mahayana Buddhism, and these societies constitute a second area of Buddhist civilization. Overall, however, the virtual extinction of Buddhism in India and its adaptation and incorporation into existing cultures in China and Japan mean that Buddhism, although a major religion, has not been the basis of a major civilization.20 *