Commentaries as a supplement to your reading

[bruce]

Thanks for your input, Jesed and Brad. I'll have to kick this around some more, but so far what you?re saying seems remiss.

To me, indeed the Dao is not a thing, and therefore is before manifestation as though it isn't. I can not think of anything more beautiful or more feminine than that.

Creation needed a place to be.
In the beginning, Word.
Before the Word, Dao.

I think there?s a semantic oxymoron here. If I say Dao is feminine, you?ll say the Dao can?t be named or defined, and you?d be correct. But if duality, and manifestation thereby, arose, it was born. And if it was born, then what was it born of if not a woman?

 

[bruce]

Political correctness is never something I concern myself with, Nicky.

 

[bruce]

PS: I believe that's the innate lure of the Virgin Mary, in her localized archetypal form. She bore life, and yet was a virgin.

I dunno, guys. Dao sure seems like a chick to me.

 

[luz]

"Although when I think of feminine traits I tend to think of someone nagging me to take out the trash, make more money and be someone I'm not."

Lol, but that is not true!!

More and more women are taking the trash on their own, making more money and being someone they are not!!

 

[bruce]

Still chewing on this one. Are you? Or is your mind made up?

Shifting from universal to individual tao. Are we not a maiden? Is it our place to lead? Do we not give birth? Or tend to things in our care? Is this not nature?s way?

Show me, please, but not with words someone else has spoken, somewhere back in time.

 

[heylise]

Before masculine and feminine, nature reproduced. She had many ways to do this, but we'd call them rather feminine if we had to call them anything. I can see Bruce' point.

I know it is not something you can give a name. There has to be some kind of difference in order for any names. Back then this difference was not yet, but now looking back, from out our own difference-now, I think it is not masculine or feminine, but it is feminine - and that makes sense to me.

 

[heylise]

Not that I think dao is reproduction. Just to make clear how "before masculine and feminine" feels to me.

LiSe

 

[bradford_h]

You all know what guys are like.
Bruce just wants Dao to be feminine so he can have sex with it.

 

[bruce]

I have sex with her all the time!

Honestly though, it really doesn't seem so complicated to me. Creation had to have a place to occur, just as we did. And before creation there was.....

 

[bruce]

Hi LiSe,

I don't understand the difficulty with Dao as a she. Just because the phenomenal world hadn't yet been created doesn't mean that the blueprint of creation wasn't inherent in an as yet unborn state. The unborn state has no name because it hadn't been created yet. It is, as though it isn't. Returning to this unborn state is returning to the Dao.

 

[matt]

Tao is feminine and masculine, yin and yang, its the composition of these two primal energies in perfect balance. The Yin and the Yang are just the polarised harmonics letting us see the dynamic by which the whole moves. Much like when the Tao Ching says the feminine and the masculine are two rivers flowing from the same ocean, the only reason we cannot speak of it (it is nameless) is because we are not yet in a pure state of energy where the Universe exists as one ocean rather than two rivers interpenetrating.

Our scientists have long sought a unification of all known forces in the Universe, which would be known as the Grand Unified Theory, where all forces - nuclear, electro-magnetic and gracitational - would be merged into oneness. In theory (of course they can only presume) they believe electrons would be free and independent instead of orbiting the nucleus, that negative and positive forcs would no longer be polarised, but resonate with each other equally, that the quarks and gluons that make up the nucleus of atoms and bind their forms would also become equal with everything around, it would be a particle heaven of balance. For me, this is Tao, all energy, yin and yang, as one energy, not two.

 

[bruce]

Matt, I'd call that the evolved or manifest Tao. But what about before creation or manifestation?

"Yet mystery and reality
emerge from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness born from darkness.
The beginning of all understanding."

Darkness is Yin, no?

 

[heylise]

To me it feels as if everything which is as yet unnamed is feminine. Male has to do with names. This feminine has not much to do with ?a woman?, much less with nagging about the garbage bin. It just is this deep underlying base of everything before creation. So deep, that it cannot be named. Darkness, yes.

LiSe

 

[bruce]

I hope y?all will forgive my tenacity. I?ve given much thought to this over the years, and what I?ve presented is merely my assessment thus far. Maybe I constructed the whole idea because the Universe seems like a much friendlier and receptive place through this view. The last thing I see each day is a view of the starry sky through my bedroom window. When I lie there contemplating the underlying universe, it sure seems like a Universal Mother, baring all things, caring for all things. But like I said, that could just be my own preferred way of perceiving.

At any rate, I?ve said too much.

 

[jesed]

Another aproach, now from Cristianism: (Talking about the Mistery of Trinity) "We said there are 3, not because there are 3, but just to say something".

TKK, the later aproach of yinn/yang, this Trinity issue, even the Science with the Big Bang, are telling something alike: The state before distintions can be well named with our distintions lenguage.

That is what i wanted to mean. Not that I think the Dao is the Great Void neither that Tao is or not female. Only we cann't complete know.

Now, again back to TTK: the fact that Dao ACTS in femenine way, doesn't necesarly means tha Dao IS femenine; isn't?

Best wishes

 

[martin]

Interesting...
I wonder if it is at all possible for us to think genderless. As Lise said, for naming there has to be some kind of difference. Are our names and concepts, even the most neutral ones, not all biased towards the male or the female, or towards the yang or the yin?
If that is true it would perhaps imply that what is exactly inbetween the two, the perfect fifty-fifty, the perfect neither-this-nor-that, is unthinkable and unspeakable.
But then what the hell am I talking about?

 

[bruce]

Jesed

Martin

 

[matt]

"Matt, I'd call that the evolved or manifest Tao. But what about before creation or manifestation?"

In essence, all yin and yang IS Tao because they both originate from the same place, but obviously we are talking about Tao in its purest sense, which is why I believe Tao cannot just be attributed to Yin only. The combined forces of yin and yang in perfect balance isnt really evolved Tao anymore that our universe's polarisations is de-evolved Tao. Tao is that which everything is born, everything returns to when it dies and everything that 'is' before it manifests. The process of manifestation is Tao in creative action, I don't think when the Tao Ching says Tao is 'non doing' we should take it too literally, although we all have our own views of the commentaries.

Bruce, I do understand your comment about an evolved Tao however, energy resonates on many different harmonics, like musical notes, by the interaction of the fundamental yin and yang. But there is only one harmonic that is without sound as we know it, and that is the source of all other harmonics, where yin and yang do not exist as separates and they cannot be differentiated, that is Tao. Tao existed before our Universes polarisation, and still exists during it.

Darkness by definition is Yin yes, although its not pure yin, because even particles exisiting in darkness have positive attributes (yang). Every atom has its positive and negative, and darkness is not without atomic matter, or for that fact dark matter. The Universe works on this energy dymanic of yin/yang even on the tiniest level, even when it appears something is completely 'Yin' (water being another example), then there are always yang based energies giving the Yin its life, just like a woman gifts the man the power of his own heart.

The eternal Tao is the source that nourishes and allows all these yin/yang energy interations, it has no bias to negative or positive, feminine or masculine, because both are just different parts of the same whole. In our known universe, there is no such thing as pure yin or yang (yet, there will be one day when energy unites), there are only yin to yang rations, and essences that represent their dominant yin to yang characteristics. Im not trying to come across as scientifically minded, because the whole process of life is a beautiful one for me. When a woman falls in love with a man, then her way of inspiring him would be a wonderful array of feminine beauty with yins exquisite design, but it will only manifest with yangs magic wand. And the reverse it with a man (of course considering we are talking about archetypal females and males). However the one constant between them, the one simplicity, is not their own actions in gifting their love to each other, it is Love itself. Love isnt created or made by anyone, it is just something we allow to shine through us if we have an open heart, love is always there lingering effortlessly in the background of our noisy world, waiting patiently for us to smile and let love in. In human terms, Love is the Tao, it is neither feminine or masculime, yin or yang, its expressions are unique depending on whom allows it to bless their souls, and Love is the composition of both energies. Hmm, sorry ive rambled on a bit, I wonder if any of this will make any sense.

 

[bruce]

It makes fine sense, Matt. I don't really disagree with anything you've said, and you've said it very well, imo.

I guess what I was attempting to express was much simpler, and I probably placed too much emphasis on it, as though saying "this is how it is," which of course is contrary to Dao in the first place.

Having spent a couple of decades in Christianity, embracing afterward the feminine aspect of the Divine was difficult, and it was a breakthrough of inner understanding for me when it did happen. My enthusiasm no doubt reflected this.

Anyway, Matt, it's great to hear your voice of creative reasoning on the forum.

 

[matt]

Thanks Bruce, if we do indeed found out one day that the Tao is feminine, then I'll be more than happy, we'll both be making love to it

 

[bruce]

As intimacy goes, there's still little doubt in my mind of the gender quality, Matt. Only a woman can be so mysterious.

 

[bruce]

Just one comment on Nicky?s original question. Wilhelm (with commentaries) has received a lot of bad rap on this board. While there are some aspects to Wilhelm that I believe miss the mark, there are also many great pearls of insight and wisdom within the commentaries. There?s continuity and structure to Wilhelm, throughout. It also has limitations. I especially like Micheline?s comments on this, earlier in this thread. You eventually construct your own inner Yi, based on how readings have played out in your own real life.

Nicky, imo, it isn?t whether commentaries, in general, are good or helpful, but of the writer?s understanding and also the particular commentary. No-one bats a thousand, and the value of commentaries vary from one to the next. There are also layers of understanding that a classic commentary will possess. It?s the kind of thing that changes and grows along with your understanding and personal development. At least that?s how I rate a good commentary.

 

[cguleff]

Hi All!

On the gender issue, there is another alternative suggested by Rabbi David A Cooper in his book entitled, "God Is A Verb." He presents "Ein Sof" as a force or a process exisitng beyond the realm of such human qualities as male/female, and suggests using the term "God-ing" to describe this concept. He compares "Ein Sof" to his understanding of the Tao in Eastern thought.

Chris

 

[kevin]

Hi Chris

or a gerund perhaps?

--Kevin

(Seasonal good humour)

 

[cguleff]

Kevin,

Thanx for the humor -- really need it this year!

Chris

 

[kevin]

Then may you have it by the barrow load

--Kevin