Thursday, September 20, 2012

Tao of Zen

Or Zen of Tao
The Tao is that which is natural
The Zen is that which is the essence
The Tao of Zen is that which is natural in its all essentials
The Zen of Tao is that which is the essence of all that is natural

Tao of Zen
That which is essential may not be thoroughly natural
And that which is unnatural may not be wholly embraceable
And therefore we are left which is embraceably natural
And we live life which is naturally bareable.

Zen of Tao
The Tao is the natural way
That which flow with the tides and the wind
And the energy and Chi which courses through
Our veins and brains and then
We feel we are awake, alive
And Zen, basic and ultimate
And extreme.

Sorry, the above is an immediate reaction to the comments by walla about things which seem so impossible to grasp as if they are so intimately intertwined. But then when we dispense with thoughts and logic and we learn to feel, we realise that we really do know without thinking when we think we are all so knowing. To realise is to realise but the truth, and the truth can be pretty or ugly depending on your sense of hygiene. And hygiene is a modern concept propagated to reduce the immunity of human beings so that more medicines can be consumed and render our health absolutely deplorable such that we can lie in bed and not having to work with perfect excuse. But idleness is not heaven when the mind cannot rest, and that is why the emptiness is that which we strive for, running on empty, running into the blank haze, completely on trust and by instinct, when the senses are heightened and logic loses its grip.

So, what do we really do in life. Do we follow the daily news which gets nastier and nastier as if this is what the viewers want, or do we get in touch with ourselves, say hello to us and rest peaceful when our stomachs are neither too full or completely empty. Oh, how nice is it is feel nothing, when there is no pain from the sting of angry wasps nor envious men. It is when we go with the flow in apparent nothingness that there is inner quiet when money is a chore and ideas are a pain. But a little stir gives us thoughts which actualise into actions which we hope we do no harm to others or ourselves. We do not write things for public consumption which we regret later. It is hard to know when we write stupid things, especially when we try to write things which we have not read anyone else having written before and we try very hard not to plagiarise without proper acknowledgement. We cannot be too careful in public, and then we withdraw into our own privacy.

But, really, the world news today are nothing new. They are what have been expected in the months and years before, when past actions produce effects which are long in ripening. The flooding of the world with American dollars to shore up the national accounts while worsening the welfare of many in the name of good economic policy. The experts have no good ideas, only old ideas in dull minds trying to look depress as if in apology. Those on boats are happy as the tide rises, while those whose feet are on the ground are getting all wet. Even Noah's ark shall rest on the mountain top surrounded by scenes of destruction. Even those who survive shall suffer.

As the son tries to hold onto power, the jesters play their funny tunes trying to look smart. The people are not fooled, for they can feel the rising tide. While the rich drink themselves to death, the poor scrounge around the bins looking to empty bottles. Good food is reduced to pulp for the juice to be burned in cars, while the acid in the stomachs of the poor drills a hole through the wall. Words are written which are not worth reading, and thoughts crumble to dust which spread like worms in the net. Words are spoken which jar the ears, and the people look but refuse to see. We therefore shut up and contribute silence to the noisy world, so that no bad thought arises.

When the Tao becomes Zen
The Zen is the Tao
That which is basic and natural
Is the way to go.

2 comments:

walla said...

You can't get this anymore - ice shavings compressed into a ball sweetened with rose syrup.

What was just a cold sphere during those innocent times we later learned could be quantified. To the sensation of cold which is an electroneural impulse from the hand to the brain, we have added the theoretical notion of mass. Recently the Hadron Collider issued some hope that we finally have the first inklings of Higg's boson, the source of mass.

We have also intuitively learned the entire mass of that icy sphere of yonder days is as if concentrated at its core's central point. This of course denotes another concept, symmetry, for at any other location inside the sphere, the symmetry would be broken.

So what was an ice ball in the hand in our memory has now expanded to the globe on which we now stand.

This planetary globe is one of gazillions spun out by a single massive explosion a long time back that had happened at one primeval point.

That explosion is called the big bang whose event created the planets and stars we detect today and they are still moving outwards from ground genesis. But in time their energy will be spent out into the void and they will become cold.

Meanwhile we learn the financial sector too had a big bang. As with the creation of the universe, it started by creating diversity which gives rise to the notion of evolution, or survival of the greediest.

This man-made big bang too has fizzled out on our human timescale during which process many theories were overturned until we have become convinced that change is the only constant in our little human universe, an axiomatic cliche redolent of the original equation for force between masses whose balancing of variables requires the presence of a numerical constant, unchanging and essential, taoistic and zenlike, majestic and yet relegated to the background but that is again because the human mind has been focusing only on the variables in the equation as it is their constant changing around which attracts attention thereby banishing boredom, itself the bane of the global evolutionary movement.

So starting from an ice ball, we have arrived at the bipolar yin-yang tension between constant and change.

Monads and language games aside, does the atom of change contain a nucleus of constants?

To answer this question, it may be fruitful to observe our pumpkin-shaped cactus.

As it grows, out pops from its curved surface little cactuses. As they get bigger and weightier, they drop off and roll down the side to rest on their own but near their parent. While more do so according to the same success factor of birth, less will survive as the space for their growth diminishes from increasing population.

The very factor of success then becomes the same factor of failure because of the constancy of space.

walla said...

2/2

So more space is needed for evolutionary change but that will mean constants will also be needed to mediate the variables in the equations of life's multifaceted evolutions, whether these be physical, biological, social, aesthetics, perhaps economic.

The out-flowing planets have plenty of space between themselves to share out. Yet like ideas such as the financial big bang, they will inevitably dim as their energy dissipates. Soon there will only be the silence of zen, the sound of tao, and perhaps the life of pi, an ever-changing constant.

Where does all this leave us mortals? We try to hedge all our bets through a constant integration of all variables to find the eternal grail of symmetry.

But mortal life is short and each is only allowed one throw of the dice so that we take the optimal and logical step by seeking the meekest path - we disdain the cumulative method of new ideas for the integration of all thoughts into the presumed permanence of one feeling as propulsion into the world of zen-like tao.

Alas, to feel one must be conscious but to think one must not be unconscious so that to feel one must think which however pulls us back to the very temporal world we seek to escape from by sheer silent feeling. Unless of course it is not necessary to think in order to know but then again the moment one knows something the instantaneous feeling of that moment has changed. Like the uncertainty principle.

Thus, we must return to the constants.

A lot of the problems in the world since ground genesis must be due to our departure from recognizing and assimilating the constants of the world in which we were born and from which we will soon depart.

As to what these constants are, we shall have to await the next episode to be provided by the blogger, perhaps with a helpful comment or two from that white-haired legal eagle.

Some liquid courage may help lubricate their next journey. Make that two more, barman:

http://is.gd/Oli7rN

Breakfast Readings:

http://is.gd/wc7rcY
http://is.gd/UMCwHo
http://is.gd/8O1ih5
http://is.gd/plKHo0