XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: cuddly@mindless.com   
      
   On 12/26/2016 8:16 PM, Tang Huyen wrote:   
   > On 12/26/2016 11:09 AM, liaM wrote:   
   >   
   >> Interesting response, Tang.  Trust me to keep digging   
   >> and disturbing your peace.  Your words and tone deserve my   
   >> application to reach in and uncover what's behind "mere   
   >> words on a screen".   
   >>   
   >> Be warned :) !   
   >   
   > I can't see what my words and tone   
   > deserve, but it's your call.   
   >   
   > You can't disturb my peace by mere   
   > words on a screen, dear. But please   
   > keep to mere words on the screen   
   > and onboard only.   
   >   
   > Blast away and have fun. Don't tone   
   > down anything.   
   >   
   > Tang Huyen   
   >   
   >   
      
      
   Another teaching that's overlooked is that of compassion as the sharing   
   of joy.  I'd add Confucius's definition "Music is what unifies",   
   as a corollary to compassion in joy or misery.  Sharing is the key.   
      
   The Pali says check out hospices and cemeteries.  I gather this was to   
   develop the consciousness all humans share the same "Birth, copulation   
   and Death" cycle.  Perhaps this is what Tang misses in his previous   
   quotes concerning learning compassion the old way.  A Bikkhu going   
   begging with bowl and robe, fed from the donations fellow humans, and   
   continuing with meditations visualizing sharing, does something else   
   than fantasize about compassion.  He undergoes a practice which plants   
   the seeds to compassion.  He practices.   
      
   In the past, I've asked Tang if he's meditated, with no response ever to   
   my question.  Now I know he hasn't.  He's not the practicing kind. To   
   him, as he asserts, it is an exercise in futility.  Welcome to Tang   
   Huyen's mind :   
      
    >> In the early canon, the monk is taught to go out to beg for   
    >> food (bhikkhu means beggar), and to come back, eat it,   
    >> then sit in meditation, spreading the four divine attitudes,   
    >> friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equability to   
    >> all directions, essentially filling the whole universe with   
    >> said attitudes. Such exercise is purely subjective and   
    >> strictly sentimental, as no effect on the outside world is   
    >> produced. Therefore it is an exercise in futility, in   
    >> disregard to the intention.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)