XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen
From: wudao@wuji.net
brian wrote:
>noname wrote:
>
>>brian mitchell wrote:
>>
>>> That said, I did use the anecdote to piggy-back a question of my own
>>> regarding the form and substance of action performed by one that
>>> realizes their true nature. It doesn't seem to be a question that has
>>> caught the interest of anyone else, though.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I have no recollection of your question. Would you care to state it fully?
>> The snip of it that I see there does little to identify the question.
>
>__________________
>One time, the Master rose from his chair in the dharma hall, lifted
>his robes, and began dancing, saying to the monks, 'Look! Look!'
>When the astonished monks stared at him dumbfounded the Master said,
>'I am performing an action of the world without departing from the
>Way.'
>
>My question is: was the Master really dancing, the way young people
>dance in nightclubs, with intensity and absorbtion, with delight in
>the body and its allure? Or was he only imitating the outward form?
>_________________
>
>I should say that the question is not looking to be answered, only to
>be considered.
Okay.
>The anecdote sets up an ostensible duality between the world and the
>Way. The master is apparently denying any such duality by performing
>an action of the world without departing from the Way.
When eating, eat. When dancing, dance.
> Does everyone
>who dances automatically follow the Way?
If they dance automatically, wu-wei, then, yes.
If they dance like I dance, then, no.
I find a Way music often moves me. I may tap my feet or hands.
Usually I clap out of sync with others who clap.
Maybe that's cuz I'm syncopated
naturally by nature.
Once in a while I may automatically play air-drums
or air-guitar, or conduct an air-orchestra.
On the dance floor, I'm too self-conscious.
At home, alone, even then, for me to dance is very rare.
For me, to force my self to dance, is entirely not Tao.
Other people I know can't sit and must dance.
For them, it is only natural.
> Why then even talk about such
>a thing as the Way?
Taoism carves in its Unusual (fei chang) Way, aka, Dao, at times.
A Tao of Taoism has Tao to be, usually/always, wu-wei.
Hence, wei, yu-wei, Confucian wei,
premeditated, not-automatic, action, what I've termed wei-wei,
is not the Way of Taoism per se, by definition, axiomatically.
>If the master's dancing was of a kind with the ecstatic leaping up of
>Mt Sumeru, then he wasn't really performing an action of the world
>--the world in this case meaning the samsaric realm of ignorance and
>suffering.
Carving up the world in that fashion, it is as you say.
>If the master was dancing as the world dances, an act of social --and
>most often of sexual-- display, or as release of physical tension
>and/or constraint, can he also be in unremoved accord with the Way?
If his energy is dissipated or expressed via those whirls, then, yes.
Sexual people can be called perfectly natural.
Many people are centered at that chakra-level.
Everything people do can be seen as being natural
even if it is so-called artificial. People have hands and
may actually be artists.
When a Zen artist gets drunk and uses hair for a brush
it might look like a brush with death or with life.
>It is said that Samsara and Nirvana are not different, but that
>not-different doesn't mean they're the same.
Some people swim thru Samsara as did the swimmer at Lu Liang
Falls falling without a care in the breeze. Others struggle
as they try and swim upstream.
Some are as the salmon, naturally.
>Was the master really dancing?
In my mind, naturally. To paint a picture.
Look! he said, Look! See!
When Siddhartha held up a flower it had the power.
Only one was said to have seen it.
- at the time
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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