XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: tanghuyen@gmail.com   
      
   On 9/9/2016 6:36 AM, {:-]))) wrote:   
      
   > If someone asserts, Tao is Wu, someone else may ask how that's known.   
   > I might quote the TTC and suggest some passage or other.   
   > Someone else may ignore that and dismiss it as not counting.   
      
   Not counting is a big commonplace in theology,   
   specially Islam, where Allah is beyond accounting.   
      
   Less rarefied theory and practice in many religions   
   take not counting as the gateway to salvation, or at   
   least peace and tranquillity, as all offences are   
   forgiven and let go of, and no longer accounted for,   
   as if they had never occurred. In less dense   
   language, dropping is favoured and accumulation   
   is no longer in fashion. Piling up is not recommended.   
   One empties one's mind of all grudges, all concepts   
   and frameworks (all of which are results in various   
   forms of accounting), and ultimately of one's self or   
   "I", which is the biggest and baddest account of all.   
      
   If I may say so, Daoism and Buddhism are summed   
   up in not counting. Stoicism famously advocates   
   not counting when it says of God: "What kind of life   
   will a wise man have if he is abandoned by his friends   
   and hurled into prison or isolated in some foreign   
   country or detained on a long voyage or cast out   
   onto a desert shore? It will be like the life of Zeus, at   
   the time when the world is dissolved and the gods   
   have been blended together into one, when nature   
   comes to a stop for a while; he reposes in himself   
   given over to his thoughts. The wise man's behaviour   
   is just like this: he retires into himself, and is with   
   himself." A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic   
   Philosophers, Cambridge: Cambridge University   
   Press, 1987, I, 277, item O, from Seneca, Letter 9.16   
   (SVF 2. 1065), text on II, 276: "qualis tamen futura   
   est vita sapientis, si sine amicis relinquatur in   
   custodiam coniectus vel in aliqua gente aliena   
   destitutus vel in navigatione longa retentus aut in   
   desertum litus eiectus? qualis est Iovis, cum resoluto   
   mundo et dis in unum confusis paulisper cessante   
   natura acquiescit sibi cogitationibus suis traditus.   
   tale quiddam sapiens facit: in se reconditur, secum   
   est."   
      
   Is it the case that the Stoic God (Zeus) just sits there   
   and eats up all scenery like a bad and grumpy actor   
   who has lost his plot? No, he represents symbolically   
   the most blissful state of all sentient beings, in that   
   he does not bother to take anything into account.   
   The wise man's behaviour is just like this: he retires   
   into himself, and is with himself. He is the Ding an   
   sich, or, as Brian says: "Singularity would come   
   closest, in the sense of 'only this'." Wholly bald, with   
   no frills. Full stop. Boom, that's all.   
      
   Tang Huyen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)