Me, age 3, actually fishing... sort of.

The fish are biting and I’m reeling ‘em in, I’m just not posting ‘em. Posting requires so much clean up to make ‘em fit for reading.

Finishing the last chapter of the Tao Te Ching was the catalyst I guess I needed to reevaluate things. I’ve wondered for a while now why I post in the first place.

I mean, the Taoist point of view has to be among the oddest and most ironic subjects to speak on. After all, he who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know.

So I have to ask myself, if I don’t know, why reveal my ignorance? On the other hand, if I do know, why am I speaking? To be fair, that pithy “He who knows…” statement is not the whole story. On the positive side, trying to write coherently is a fascinating challenge for me, and my observations do appear to benefit a few people. Simply put, I am composing and performing ‘music’, as seen from a mysterious sameness point of view anyway. Now certainly, my ’songs’ are music to nearly no ones ears, but that is just as it should be. Meaning, a Taoist ’song’ seeks to poke through the bio-hoodwink and sing it as ‘it’ is, not as we want ‘it’ to be. Popularity would just be symptomatic of singing it off-key, Taoist-wise.

Tao Te Ching, Word for Word

I just ordered a handful of my just completed translation (see below). We’ll use it here at our monthly meeting along side D.C. Lau’s translation. I think having the nearly literal version to refer to along side D.C. Lau’s version will be helpful. I notice that all translations bear an inherent problem due to relative word meaning. Meaning, when translating the Chinese to English, one must choose one word among several related meanings. Each of these can mean something different in the mind of the beholder – translator and reader alike. On top of this tenuous situation, rest an even fuzzier one for pseudo translations (like Steven Mitchel’s for example), which are actually interpretations of authentic translations. The benefit of correlations is that the process bears none of these problems. The whole responsibility of discerning meaning lies with the bewildered mind of ‘correlator’. Maybe that accounts for its great ‘popularity’.

Next step

I will continue to reevaluate my translation over time to make it more readable when possible, yet with any luck, also more accurate. Still, that may just amount to moving the furniture around the room. Now, with that disclaimer, anyone wishing a copy can buy direct from the printer Lulu. Lulu doesn’t ship abroad, so if anyone outside the USA wants a copy we can work something out. I’d really appreciate any comments, questions and criticisms with an eye to making it better. Great perfection here we come.

Is redundancy the name of the game?

I feel like I’ve said it all before, ad nausium. Still, a constant echo seems to be useful to counteract the bio-hoodwink. Reviewing the view I see in my most balanced moments helps anchor me in my less balanced ones. From what I can tell, that is a common human practice. Forgetting what we truly want of life is all-too-easy!

Adventures of aging

I never remember any old people telling me how fascinating aging was or would be, although if they had, it probably wouldn’t have registered, i.e. one can only understand what one already knows. I seem to be having increasing difficulty remembering things. My mind is becoming blanker. That has some interesting effects; insight seems to flow like water through the void my mind is becoming. This ties into the sleep on it and blind spot issue John Clease spoke about.

On the other hand, I could just be seeing myself more as I actually am rather than the ‘genius’ I once liked to think I was. Yes, that old ‘Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty‘ issue. That offers a twist on the idea of a ’self fulfilling prophecy’. What you think is so prevents you from seeing what is actually so, which make it more like a ’self fulfilling prophecy bubble‘.

Another possibility is that I could be experiencing the beginnings of Alzheimer’s and the hole it produces in memory lead to my final days of insight before the mind’s curtain falls. Speculating is such fun, especially given how life usually turns out differently from anything we think. It is an adventure, that’s for sure!

Recovering alcoholics continue to say, “I’m an alcoholic”, even as they stay on the straight and narrow moment-to-moment, day to day, year to year. Likewise, I would have to say I’m a thinker, recovering from certainty in thought moment-to-moment, day to day, year to year. (Really! I’ve sobered up a lot. You should have seen me before.)

Of course, just like alcohol, certainty is not bad by itself.  It is all about the circumstances and magnitude. Intuitive certainty that induces me to jump out of the way of an oncoming bus, or avoid food that smells ‘off’, benefits me without fail. Certainty’s affect on thought is where things go awry. Stillness and impartiality fly out the window once the emotion of certainty begins to back up thought. At that point, the blind-spot overtakes perception and difficulties multiply.

I am a little surprised that this process isn’t more widely recognized. Especially in that we have been aware of this for ages. The clearest example is probably represented by chapter 71, to know yet to think that one does not know is best; not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty. Buddha’s also speaks to this. Much of his Noble Truths and Eight Fold Path addresses the role the mind plays in our lives.

Of course, I should be more surprised by my own naiveté.  There is simply no way that we can impartially evaluate anything that offers us pleasure. Pleasure is the bait, as Buddha said, and it creates a blind-spot around the source of that pleasure.  Can merely understanding that we intoxicate ourselves with thought help anyone sober up? I would guess probably not.

Just like the other ways we have to drink ourselves silly—shopping, eating, drugs, and so on—understanding is seldom sufficient. We must viscerally know, and such depth of knowing only comes through personally reaching rock bottom. Isn’t this a process, like  chapter 36 points out, if you would have a thing laid aside, you must first set it up? Only when a thing is fully set up are we ready to lay it aside ⁽¹⁾. Why should an addiction to certainty-of-belief be any different?

Alas, our addiction to certainty-of-belief is somewhat different and more challenging. There are obvious physical consequences to all other addictions: a glutton’s obesity; a shopper’s debt, a smoker’s cough, a drunkard’s hangovers. Not so with thought, other than the neurotic impulses from which we suffer. And even if we recognized our addiction to certainty-of-belief, what are we to do? Other sources of additions are external and can at least be kept out of reach, if not eliminated. Thinking is internal. I suppose that explains the popularity of psycho-pharmacology. Well, at least that is an improvement over getting a lobotomy.

So, if you are fed up with certainty-of-belief, then try out correlations as a sort of do-it-yourself virtual lobotomy. They may help detoxify your mind from the weight of its preconceptions as they did for me. Also effective, needless to say, can be delving the depths of the Tao Te Ching and the age-old ‘yogic’ practices (I mean yoga in the broadest sense: meditation, pranayama, bhakti yoga, hatha yoga, Buddhism, and so on.)

⁽¹⁾ That’s not altogether true. The power of an addiction is symptomatic of the degree of disconnection we feel. The more secure our sense of social connection, the less sway an addiction has upon us. Thus, improvements in our sense of connection must take some of the steam out of the ‘set it up in order to lay it aside’ process.

As I see it, thought (language, words and names) has left us with a unique sense of disconnection compared to other animal. That is the price we pay for the powerful advantages that thinking (imagination) affords us. I find it ironic that we attempt to reconnect via thought (belief in particular promises to reconnection with the One). I never found that actually worked. It is like building a castle of belief on the shifting sands of the void.

On the other hand, maybe that’s just me. After all, belief is really a symptom of deeper realities, not a solution. A loosening of certainty in belief just reflects changing realities and a declining need to hold on to any particular belief. Goodness, I suppose my thoughts on belief are shifting. Shifting sands indeed!

When I first brought this up with my family they all rolled their eye… “yeh, right” they said. However, constant brain-washing finally brought them to see my point. Brain-washing? Well, not exactly. Just offering concrete examples over time helped sell my case (or are they just humoring me).

I understand, but do I know? is a recent post that attempts to deal with this off-the-wall point of view. And yes, all this may seem bizarre, but then knowing and understanding are mysterious, bottomless issues. Anyway…

Low and behold Science News comes to the rescue again (kind of) with a recent article, Geometric minds skip school. It seems Amazonian villagers grasp abstract spatial concepts despite lacking formal math education. They know geometric principles intuitively. Sure, my views on knowing and understanding are more radical, but then I don’t have a bunch of skeptical peer reviewing scientists looking over my shoulder.

I regard all the advanced knowledge civilization prides itself on as actually being based in innate knowing, as this research implies. The emergent property principle may help support and give deeper context to the view that we only truly understand what we already innately know. Also, what often passes for understanding is merely mimicry as noted in Learning What You Know. (Although, mimicry can certainly be a step on the path to understanding.)

Here are a few excerpts from this article for those whom the link fails to work.

In a South American jungle, far from traffic circles, city squares and the Pentagon, beats the heart of geometry.

Villagers belonging to an Amazonian group called the Mundurucú intuitively grasp abstract geometric principles despite having no formal math education, say psychologist Véronique Izard of Université Paris Descartes and her colleagues.

Mundurucú adults and 7- to 13-year-olds demonstrate as firm an understanding of the properties of points, lines and surfaces as adults and school-age children in the United States and France, Izard’s team reports online May 23 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

U.S. children between ages 5 and 7 partially understand geometric space, but not to the same extent as older children and adults, the researchers find.

These results suggest two possible routes to geometric knowledge. “Either geometry is innate but doesn’t emerge until around age 7 or geometry is learned but must be acquired on the basis of general experiences with space, such as the ways our bodies move,” Izard says.

Both possibilities present puzzles, she adds. If geometry relies on an innate brain mechanism, it’s unclear how such a neural system generates abstract notions about phenomena such as infinite surfaces and why this system doesn’t fully kick in until age 7. If geometry depends on years of spatial learning, it’s not known how people transform real-world experience into abstract geometric concepts — such as lines that extend forever or perfect right angles — that a forest dweller never encounters in the natural world.

Which path leads where?

A few months ago a new member Dan asked me, “So, I’d like to ask, do you have any life advice for a man approaching 30″?

One problem with that question was too many things came to mind. So I turned the question over to my subconscious. Oddly, I find not thinking about tricky issues is the best way to resolve them. Of course “not thinking about” doesn’t mean disregarding. I suppose the ‘not thinking about’ phase helps the mind get through its blind spot.

Finally, up bubbled something worthy of the question. Overall, nothing feels more important to me than understanding. While stressing the importance of understanding seems obvious, it may not be as simple as it sounds.

As I’ve said before, true understanding may only be possible for that which you already know intuitively. Knowing comes with maturity (time and circumstances) and not from any external particulars, per se. Knowing moves from inside out, not from the outside in. If I’m correct, how can we ever teach or learn from each other? Naturally, there’s more to this.

Just consider how methodically we are culturally and linguistically ‘brain washed’ (albeit in the nicest possible way) from birth onward. As a result, much of what we think and ‘know’, is derived from preconceptions that we’ve been trained to believe to be true and real. Now, if what we teach and learn are along the lines of our ‘brain washing’, things usually go smoothly enough. On the other hand, understanding anything outside our cultural and linguistic ‘box’ is another matter. That can be a fearsome experience which is why few people peer into the darkness willingly.

Actually, we all know anyway!

Even so, we can’t help but sense that darkness. ‘To know yet to think that one does not know‘ actually speaks to this silent, universal knowing. While all life feels the mystery, only we have names and words for which to think about it. We can’t help but try to cognitively shine light on (explain, describe, interpret) the mysterious mirror feeling—including right now as I write and you read this. Truth to tell, all our thinking never unravels the mystery. Instead, we end up cultivating a sense of self and pseudo security as we follow the paths for which we feel an innate affinity (e.g., religion, art, sports, business, science, etc.).

Our difficulties begin when we get overly certain in what we think (i.e., to think that one knows will lead to difficulty). I regard certainty as merely a symptom of a desperate need for the security believable answers promise us. Honestly, this is the dynamic that drives me to ponder life (and death) and write about it. Still, using cognitive certainty to shore up my innate insecurity doesn’t overly impair me, as long as I know and understand what is driving my certainty in the first place. In other words, it is by being alive to difficulty that one can avoid it.

If we’re not alive to this difficulty, we end up putting all our eggs in one cognitive basket and hang on for dear life. The resulting blind spot puts what we might otherwise ‘know’ just beyond our mind’s eye. Put another way, thinking enables us to focus on the trees; this blinds us to the forest. This is not to say thinking is bad; it is just more dangerous than we imagine. It is like a loaded gun with no safety in the hands of monkeys. Much of our problem stems from not realizing that we, like all animals, are supposed to feel somewhat insecure. Being on fear’s razor edge aids survival. Dulling this by relentlessly thinking that we know is no different than refining foods to enhance our eating pleasure at the expense of nutritional value. Both quickly become cases of willfully innovating while ignorant of the constant, and it comes back to bite us.

We’re too clever for our britches

Finding enough humility to acknowledge that thinking that that one knows will lead to difficulty can help avoid ‘thinking ourselves into a corner’. This is an important step in understanding what is beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world. This is difficult because our self identity is created and maintained by the beliefs and paths to which we cling and follow. As Buddha put it, “The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things”. “Things” is often considered to be material objects. I find that our mental “things” play at least as large a role in this illusion.

Buddha had it right in his Eight Fold Path. While each ‘fold’ affect the other, notice which fold comes first—understanding! As understanding deepens and broadens over time, our actions follow naturally. I can’t really see what else can be ‘done’. The doing arises out of the knowing. Willfully doing anything would be like putting the cart before the horse. This may partly explain the Taoist frequent call to ‘action-less action’. Chapter 43 sums it up well:

That is why I know the benefit of resorting to no action. The teaching that uses no words, the benefit of resorting to no action, these are beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world.

There’s a silver lining though

Our thoughts and actions are driven by the needs or fears we feel right now, without much sense of the long term, big picture, balanced understanding. So what hope is there? I’ve found being hesitant and tentative in what I think helps me keep balance. Mind you, it’s okay to lose balance. That’s only human. However, it is invaluable to recognize when I do. Here are some ‘tells’ I use to warn me when I’m losing balance:

• Any strong sense of attraction or aversion, likes or dislikes, needs or fears (emotion) tells me that whatever I think I am seeing is actually simply a reflection of that emotion. It’s not that; it’s this.

• Any perception that make differences appear significant (makes mountains out of presumable mole hills). Remaining alive to the relative nature of judgment helps avoid taking a cognitive ‘wrong turn’ and ending up in the ditch.

• Impatient are we? Feeling the impulse to resolve it now, get it done, fix it ‘yesterday’ are excellent indications of imbalance. Going with my impetuous flow is usually looming disaster. Count to ten, take a deep breath, go take a nap, sleep on it.

In summary: which path shall it be?

They both look the same, but...

The ultimate value of understanding lies in how it helps us with a central choice we are faced with each day, even each moment, throughout life. “Do I want to feel happy or to feel a sense of well being?” I expect many folks regard these synonymous. Not necessarily, at least as I define those words. Happiness is more up beat, stimulating, fun, pleasurable, ‘high’ on life. Somewhat conversely, well-being is even, cool and calm, down-to-earth, impartial, balanced. Simply put: We chase after happiness; we return to well-being.

Buddha’s prescription of life comes down to this choice, happiness or well-being. Recognizing the difference requires Right Understanding, as Buddha calls it. All in all, Buddha’s Four Noble Truths is the best road map I’ve come across for choosing the path of well-being over happiness. Use it from the bottom of your heart is my advice.

'He who conquers self...'

The details of Buddha’s Four Noble Truths vary somewhat depending on the source. I recently dug up the source for the version that I found most useful. Why useful? Mostly because it was the most sensible and succinct I’d seen.

Nevertheless, I had a minor problem with how the Third Noble Truth was stated, and long ago changed a word or two. Rereading my original source makes me want to revisit this and ponder why I revised in the first place. Here is the sequence of events:

The original says: “He who conquers self will be free from lust. He no longer craves and the flames of desire find no material to feed upon, thus they are extinguished.“

I changed the “conquers self” to “surrenders self”. I was immersed in the Bhagavad-Gita at the time which preaches surrender, e.g., “no man can be a Yogi who surrenders not his earthly will”. Perhaps the idea of ‘conquering self’ felt to aggressive to me.

A few years ago I thought back on that and changed it back to what I thought was the original, i.e., “He who extinguishes self will be free from lust…” Recently I came across that old book and retrieved the original ‘conquers self‘ phrase.

There is some chicken and the egg irony in this. The Second Noble Truth point out that “the illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things. The desire to live for the enjoyment of self … (and so on)” So just how is one suppose to ‘conquer’ an illusion? If something isn’t real, then what does conquer mean, in practice. It certainly is not the same as conquering a physical enemy coming at you with guns a-blazing.

Another peculiarity is the notion that, as the Third Truth say, “…the flames of desire find no material to feed upon thus they are extinguished”. The “material” would seem to be the self, which after being conquered is no more and thus desire has nothing to feed upon. However, as the Second Truth says, the self originates and manifests itself in clinging and desire. Lust creates the illusion of self, yet conquering self frees you from lust. This feels a little chicken and the egg-y.

I get past the chicken and egg dilema by simply keeping actively aware that my sense of self is caused by my desires and fears. The illusion has a hard time withstanding such constant clarity. Conquering self is just maintaining enough perspective to avoid being completely hoodwinked by biology, the bio-hoodwink⁽¹⁾ as I call it. In other words, the more aware I am of how biology is pulling my strings, the less convincing the illusion become. Conquering self is really a matter of seeing how the trick works. Once you clearly know how the trick (magic, illusion) works, it can no long captivate you. When the illusion of self no longer captivates, it has been conquered—or at least you’ve established a truce.

One final thought on Buddha’s Second Truth. I am inclined to rephrase it this way: “He who conquers, surrenders and understands self will be free from lust. He no longer craves and the flames of desire find no material to feed upon, thus they are extinguished.” The conquering comes first as you wage battle with yourself to ‘get your act together’. Next comes the surrendering when you realize that conquering your self is not possible, at least in the normal wage war sense of the word. Finally, seeing what is actually taking place, and understanding how a bio-hoodwink is always pulling strings diminishes the “illusion of self” enough to return to one’s roots and just be who you naturally are.

(1)bio-hoodwink: I coined this term for the trick biology plays on perception. See Peeking in on Nature’s Hoodwink. Chapter 65 says: Of old those who excelled in the pursuit of the way did not use it to enlighten the people but to hoodwink them. The oldest ‘of old’, when it comes to living things in nature, is the biological process of life, ‘hoodwinks’ and all.

For example, a bio-hoodwink tells the brain that the richer the food (and the more you eat) the better. This was the case in the wild before we cleverly devised ways around natural limitations in order to make food as rich and plentiful as we wished. Alas, the bio-hoodwink is inherited and out of sync with human willful innovation. The only counter-measure we have against this is understanding, which explains why Buddha put Right Understanding at the head of his Eight Fold Path.

We, like all social species, always have some form of governance. Social species need their ‘alpha male’ (even if that’s the queen bee in a bee hive).

Being a more complicated species than bees, hierarchical governance is multi-layered. Even within our species though, the more ’sophisticated’ the culture/civilization, the more layers. Hunter gather groups have the simplest – no courts, parliaments, congresses, or special interest clubs.

Just as a pyramid needs its base, a social hierarchy (’pyramid’) relies on the support of the governed. To be viable, a government must have the “mandate of heaven”, as the Chinese used to say. Viewed from a symptoms point of view, the particular governing system a society adopts must reflect the inherent needs of that society. Although, I think this tends to be seen the other way around. For example, democracy is usually seen as the ’cause’ of modern progress and freedom. Not so as I see it. Instead, it is a symptom of the kind of governance that is conducive for this current era’s way of life. Democracy is a story about what we love, not about what is. And as we know, love is blind.

Whether a governance system is benevolent or ruthless probably has little to do with whether it is a democracy or not. After all, under our ‘democratic’ system, we had slavery, killed countless Indians, destroyed the environment, and so on. And our ‘free speech’ is dominated by those with the loudest mouth, or the fattest wallets.

In the end, it is all about power. The big powerful dog is the leader of the pack. Civilizations have more sophisticated ways to express power. In a capitalist country like ours, money is the big power brokers, just like religious, socialist, or communist ideologies have been in other lands. Jim Cramer⁽¹⁾, a veteran of Wall Street, had an interesting and insightful observation on this aspect in a recent video interview.

This episode of “Stop Trading, Listen to Cramer!” begins with a short interview with a Russian expert on nuclear power, then Cramer comments. His frustration with the ironic discrepancy with what we say and what we do is palpable. The struggle to accept how things actually are, rather than the myth (story) we want to believe is a fascinating endeavor. Fascinating in part for how difficult it is!

⁽¹⁾ His goal is to help people participate successfully in the stock market, and a capitalist economy. I began experimenting with the stock market during the 2009 crash. I’ve found it to be a most effective way to actually apply and test Taoist theory to real world practice–the Dao of Dow as it were.

Yoga, shakuhachi, tai chi, and the like are all effective expressions of marching forward when there is no road. But they happen over time, the feedback is constant but never grabs you by the balls. The stock market, on the other hand, offers visceral feedback when attempting to apply what is beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world. Why? Perhaps it is the putting your money where your mouth is. Money is a universal, ancient representation of ’survival’–the more you have, the better your chances of raw survival (though not by any means happiness, of course).

Now I’ll stop and save the rest of this Dao of Dow story for another time.

This short lecture, John Cleese on creativity, shows he may be a ‘defacto taoist’ or perhaps a ‘natural taoist’. Meaning, anyone who has this contrarian point of view  is a ‘taoist’, although they may never have  heard the word Taoist.

The Blind Spot

This idea of backing off in order to move forward, and the humorous way he talks about the “blind spot”, parallels core Taoist principles.

For example, his comments about the “blind spot” are simply another way of saying, Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty. His take on this also parallels chapter 70’s My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no one in the world can understand them or put them into practice.

I’d like to take this a little further though, and drill down deeper if I can. What causes the “blind spot”, and why does “sleeping on it” work, are questions that come to mind. No sooner do I wonder why, than the word ‘agenda’ comes to mind. My agenda, more than anything, blinds me to the big picture. When I “sleep on it”, I am backing away from the urgency of my agenda for a while. That distance allows me to see more broadly and create a way around the current problem. That distance allows me to see more forest, rather than just trees; I can at least begin to peek around any blind spots I have.

The next question: what gives birth to my agenda in the first place? Clearly fear and need play a huge role. These two words address the core drivers of emotion. My agenda is born from my desires and ideals which are simply the thinking side of need⁽¹⁾. What I think blocks out or otherwise skew perception to favor these emotions – and voila I’ve created my person agenda, with serious blind spots sure to follow.

How do I know when a blind spot is currently blinding me? Any stimuli out in the world that directly impacts my agenda, hidden or known, will produce symptoms. One of the most evident symptoms is anger, or its counter part flight (i.e., fight or flight). And beneath that, of course, lie my core fears and needs. Using any sign of anger as a symptom of a probable blind spot can tell me volumes about myself. Here is where the courage of self honesty comes in, and where the difficulty lies. Fortunately, difficult things in the world must have their beginnings in the easy. The “easy beginning”, in this case, is simply accepting that anger is a symptom of my “blind stop”, and therefore an essential eye-opener, if I really value being true to myself.

Seeing past my blind spot is only half the journey. I also have what I’d call a “crippled spot”. Here, ironically, emotion is essential to ‘live true’, and practice what I preach. I call it will (though not “free will” mind you). This parallels Buddhas Eight Fold Path: First comes seeing my possible blind spot (Right Understanding, Right Mindfulness). Next comes remembering my possible blind spot (Right Attentiveness, Right Concentration), and finally comes living according to what I see (Right Effort, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood).

To sum up: Emotion is what veers my life onto by-paths; emotion is what enables me to follow the way. As with everything else in life, there are two sides to each issue. Making emotion (desire, need, fear, etc.) the ‘villain’ is as shortsighted and foolish as being ignorant of their overwhelming influence on my life.

⁽¹⁾ Viewed more closely, desire seems to be a amalgamation of instinctive emotion (’gut’ need) and thinking. Without that thinking side, we’d be moved by spontaneous need just like all other animals. Need (and its source spring, fear) is the driving force behind all action. Without it we’re dead—literally. It is the thinking side of desire we could (and should) have misgivings about. Thinking beats the drum of emotion, easily making mountains out of molehills (of need and fear).

The common view is to see all this as being what makes us unique, special, superior, advanced… “higher beings” no less. Looking at this from a symptoms point of view helps me avoid such a “pat myself on the back” biases.

For example, my yoga contortions are simply a convenient, efficient way for me to compensate for the lack of nature’s pushback. Nature is always pushing back on living creatures in the wild, preventing them from willfully innovating to the point of imbalance. When doing yoga in India, I noticed how it was only the wealthy Indians, by and large, who had the time, inclination, and need to do yoga. The lower classes had their hands full with basic survival.

All cultural taboos and ethical proscriptions are symptomatic of our effort to find balance. Namely, we follow taboos and proscriptions as a means to counterbalance the instability wrought by civilization. Not civilization as it is commonly defined, however. Seen more deeply, civilization is simply the result of an overwhelming use of tools and language. The resulting disconnection from natural forces creates severe sociological and psychological instability. Oddly, all this goes on without us ever having any underlying sense of why. Perhaps this is one reason why a tipping point eventually comes, and a new set of taboos and proscriptions replaces the old ones.

Generally, the activities we pursue most, are driven by the natural instinct to take the easy way. In the wild, this seldom leads to difficulties. Natural difficulty is already pushing back. In civilized life, we’ve stripped away as many nature-induced difficulties as possible. However, the original instinct to take the easy way remains part of our DNA. As a result we swing dreadfully out of balance.

Generally, the activities we pursue that are difficult are driven by the natural inclination to want to feel life meaningful, ‘Right’ and in balance. Like a pendulum willfully riding the waves of fear and need, we swing one way and the other, constantly seeking the happier Middle Way. As I see it, there is nothing really “unique, special, superior, advanced” about us. All we are doing is struggling to maintain enough balance on the one hand, to compensate for all our success at freeing ourselves from Nature’s ruthless side on the other hand.

This is not such a flattering view of us, I know. We prefer the “positive” story we’ve created for ourselves, like how we are “created in Gods image” and the like. Does our self serving, self aggrandizing view serve us well in the end? I can’t help but think not really. Honestly considering life with as much impartiality as possible can only benefit us in the long run. After all, Right Understanding is the first fold on the Buddha’s eight fold middle way. Taking the effort to consider life from symptoms point of view is a step in that direction.

A World Filtered Blue

I know, that sounds odd. I suppose it parallels that equally intriguing One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know. The problem with thought lies in the preconceptions necessary to think, and of course speak. This sets up a wall of ‘understanding’ which hinders us from seeing anything outside that wall of preconception (i.e., ‘understanding’ requires relying on the preconceptions – words and names – instilled into our awareness as infants).

Words and names act as filters. Just imagine if, in infancy, your parents attached a permanent blue color filter to your eyes. The world you would see throughout your life would have a blue tint. Although, because you had never experienced the world without the blue filter, you’d never know the range of other colors out there. In other words, you can only know you are seeing a color if you experience it contrasted with another color. Information is contrast.

Thus, you would ‘understand‘ the world was blue, even while unaware you were seeing the world through a blue colored filter. Only your parents would know everything you saw was tinted blue. In this same way, the framework of language is a real impediment to seeing the world as it actually is. We ’see’ it through our language filter, which basically chokes of information about anything ‘other’.

Of course there are drugs to jar that filter a bit, especially the hallucinogenic ones.  However, they are just substituting one filter for another – the ‘drug’ filter. On the plus side, such drugs can jar the preconception’s filter and open up other angles to awareness. On the down side it can unhinge any mind  really dependent on the ‘normal’ filter. It is no wonder that drugs pose such a threat to the cornerstones of civilization ‘normal’ people.

The promise of Taoist ‘teachings’ is that they simply weaken the ‘normal’ filter – words and names. But let’s keep that just between you and me. We don’t want the ‘normal’ people to find out, freak out, and ban the Tao Te Ching., and burn the Taoists at the stake. Although, I imagine there’s no risk there. A ‘normal’ person would not understand the Taoist point of view well enough to perceive a threat in the first place.

I can understand why civilized people would be so worried by anything threatening normalcy. Just think how untenable massive populations of people living together would be if there was no common ground of language (words and names). This allows civilization to filter out the other shades of reality and get everyone marching to beat of the same drum (high entropy state⁽¹⁾ of minimum information and maximum uniformity).

⁽¹⁾ Entropy is a useful and perhaps odd way of understanding this situation. Contrast between individual ‘bits’ is what makes information. Such a state of distinctness or individuality is a low entropy state. There is a universal ‘pull’ on lower entropy states to increase in entropy, become more homogeneous, uniform. As entropy increases the situation becomes more stable.

As I see it, a native language is way of increasing entropy and thus stability. Other ways cultures increase entropy is by eating the same foods, wearing the same clothing styles, and of course, practicing the same religion! All are ways that increase uniformity and stability and so effectively increasing entropy. I guess thermodynamics offers a more fundamental way of understanding and explains the vigor behind revolutionary movements and rebellious teenagers. But, enough already, it’s time for dinner. Oh, one final thought: what does Using Yin and Yang to Pop Preconceptions do as far as entropy is concerned, increase or decrease it?

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1563)

Keith posted a link to this article, “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” in reply to my post Thinking Clouds Consciousness. Surely this is a no-brainer kind of question. Put simply, language and thinking are inextricably linked; it takes one to do the other. If you can, flip off the language switch in your mind. Well? When I do that, I’m unable to think.

Basically, my mind is that of a fool – how blank (and peaceful too)! Sure, the senses still work – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste – and I’d add one more, ‘a diffuse light of consciousness’. Although you could argue this ‘light’ is just the overall sum sensation induced by the five sense. Or perhaps it is what remains when thought holds firmly to stillness. Anyway, as the article “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” points out, the idea created quite a stir. If you like, read some of this article first to put what follows in context.

As the Biblical Tower of Babel suggests, we’ve long had issues with language.

I find the general problem we face is one of being overly certain – we trust what we think, and easily end up with biased judgments. Although that is also just the nature of language… black and white are easier to wrap our thoughts around than fuzzy grey in-betweens (the “Shadowy, indistinct, Indistinct and shadowy“, the Tao Te Ching speaks of). Seeing only one side is easier and quicker than seeing all sides.

For example, the article quotes linguist Benjamin Whorf as saying, “Native American languages impose on their speakers a picture of reality that is totally different from ours, so their speakers would simply not be able to understand some of our most basic concepts, like the flow of time or the distinction between objects (like “stone”) and actions (like “fall”). ”

This fails to take into account how language rises from, and is linked to, primal human emotion. We all share the same emotional base –whether ancient Cro-Magnon or modern day City-Slicker, male or female, young or old. The impetus behind language is social connection with so called ‘communication’ coming in a distant second. All that we need, in order to have language feel fulfilling, is that speaker and listener feel they have been heard (recognized and accepted… ‘groomed’ with language, so to speak). Simply put, communication is something of a charade; social connection is the underlying reality.

All social animals have their way of social connection.

For us big brained apes, it is language. Just as the nit picking grooming that apes practice never gets rid of all the nits, so also, language never fully succeeds in communicating. It just gives us the illusion that it does so we can go away feeling connected. This benefit has a price: The more we trust language’s truth (i.e., names and words are real in their own right) the less able we are to perceive anything ‘other’. In other words, our belief in ‘word reality’ hinders our ability to ’see outside the box’. I’ll bet our need to trust language is tied to our need for social connection. To feel integral to the group we need to believe (i.e., trust, hold to, support, tout) the group-think of our tribe’s culture   (paradigm).

A basic home-schooling lesson I taught my kids from ‘day one’ onward was this: Things are never as they seem on the surface. Rather, we are mostly only seeing reflections of ourselves – our needs and fears. Failure to sense this leads to more by-paths than I can shake a stick at. Fortunately, just acknowledging this ‘house of mirrors’ is usually enough to allow us to ‘count to ten’. What’s more, there is no need (or possibility) to know precisely what is going on; being able to ‘take it with a grain of salt’ is enough.

Thought bubbles up from emotion.

Thinking is an emergent property of feeling, which in turn, flows from the shadowy, silent mystery within. Feeling drives thinking. Feeling is much broader and deeper than anything thinking can ’say’. We are at loss for words when it comes to our deepest experiences. Deepest? Okay, that is a misnomer. All experience reaches beyond anything words can ‘generalize’ if when we pop our preconceptions. Words are just the tip of the iceberg of consciousness. This may be a good example of chapter 70’s, My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no one in the world can understand them or put them into practice. While we may intellectually acknowledge that ‘words are just the tip’, we respond otherwise emotionally… and then cognitively, as emotion returns to stir and steer our thoughts.

Digging down into meaning

In my early 20’s I had free time to fill on a job site in Vietnam, so I took up learning Chinese characters. After a year I’d learned a few thousand and could understand the gist of many articles in Chinese newspapers. Even so, I never was actually reading them in Chinese. I understood the characters in their English translation. In other words, I was reading English written in another ’script’. Needless to say I forgot most everything after a few decades had passed.

About 10 years ago I returned to Chinese, this time to actually learn the language. While in Asia, I had learned to speak a number of languages at a ‘market’ or pidgin level. I picked them up more like a child does, listening and speaking, trial and error, without any awareness of process. This time around, with Chinese, I was curious to investigate my actual learning process in real time; exactly what was happening?

The emotional backdrop of word meaning has stood out especially strong. More to the point, word meaning is really an emotional experience – truly, totally, exclusively, utterly, infinitely. The more I have a feeling of the meaning, (and not a translation of English feeling) the more I truly understand, the living language (in this case Chinese). Understanding is not then really a cognitive experience, it is an emotional one. No wonder the Tao Te Ching has such a dim view of names and words.

The bottom line… again.

One of humanity’s strongest emotions, (if not the strongest) is the social imperative: feeling connected to our group. To understand and be understood is really just the need to connect socially, to feel accepted and to accept. So, indeed, things are never as they seem on the surface.