Good And Evil

[Anonymous]

Hi Guy!

I’m not offended in any way, sorry if my comment led you to think I am!

Bruce is surely irrelevant? I know I mentioned him within the thread, but that was in the context of the fact that we are discussing a lecture that was produced by him and trying to make sense of what he is saying. Much as one might read a second book by the same author to make better sense of a first book. I was not holding up him up as any kind of special example in what I wrote, nor would I necessarily agree that he is somehow more ‘spiritual’ than anyone else on this forum simply because of the breadth and depth of his knowledge and length of his practice. He may well be, but that cannot be established by such things alone–who he is in his essence surely determines this, not how much he has studied.

I don’t think any genuine questions should not be allowed here.

The Tao is the source of all above/below etc and as such is not itself above/below anything or even every thing. We are all really straining language beyond its limits here! I’m off to meditate and eat biscuits (cookies!) instead! (I will check the thread later at some point though as I find such discussions interesting and enjoyable nonetheless.)

Kind regards,

Colin

[Anonymous]

Hi, Guy. You’re right: it’s better to reply to the post than the general thread. However, I’ve got all your posts up in a separate window and I’m going to reply to several of them.

Yes, I think I expressed myself poorly in my earlier reply. Let me try to be more clear:

To reply directly to your first question: does the tao produce evil impartially and without conscience? I would say: no, the tao does not produce evil. Humans produce evil by their actions in the world. Nothing the tao does is evil. I don’t think a natural disaster is evil. I don’t think hurricane Sandy is evil, nor is a star going nova and destroying hundreds or thousands or worlds.

To me, that basically says it all. I was trying to say that the way you discussed good and evil sounded like you were talking about it as an abstract entity. I don’t think good or evil exist on their own. People do good or evil through their own agency.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard Bruce talk about evil in his workshops here in Boston or one I went to in CA. And all his books. I’m trying to remember, but nothing comes to mind.

I think your assertion that the distinction between good and evil manifestly exists and is obvious is not entirely true. There are a lot of gray areas in people’s motives and in the way they act. Certainly, some actions are completely and obviously evil – the holocaust comes to mind – but sometimes people do things that cause suffering more from ignorance than evil intent. These distinctions aren’t always so clear.

Part of the taoist view is that a thing exists only in relations to its yin or yang pair. And that we only see ugliness when we recognize beauty. This certainly has implications for the perception evil, though I know in one of your posts you said you’re not stating a perception of good or evil.

Your question: is the tao conscious? I would say yes, but that’s my limited understanding. The tao is unfathomable and beyond our intellectual grasp.

You state the position that if the tao is conscious then it must condone evil. I just don’t know see that this follows in any way from what you’ve said. I’m not sure what the Latin term for this is in classic argumentation, but I think you’ve made a leap that is unwarranted and not supported by any facts or suppositions. You obviously value reason, but I think you’ve left a step out of your logic chain here.

I think Bruce’s emphasis on morality has to do with the greater responsibility we all have when our actions come from a deeper consciousness than just ordinary, mechanical awareness. Also, the more chi and internal power we develop, the greater care we need to take in acting in the world so as not to harm others.

At any rate, my understanding is only slightly more developed than my ability to articulate it, so this has been a useful sequence of posts to help me to think a little more deeply and try to articulate things a little better. Thanks for bringing it up, Guy.

[Anonymous]

Hi Matthew, I would have left it there, but I cannot if I have left a gap, unintentionally, in my reasoning. As for bringing it up, I would not even think we have scratched the surface. But never mind…

If we are talking about natural disasters, I have already covered that point, and by the way, I am sincerely thinking of you at this time.

As for the gap: a thread of my argument is that consciousness, reason, and will or intention, are innate human capacities. Either the Tao is the most wondrous and great, in which case it must contain all things within itself and more, or it is a blind force, and therefore a sort of slave to creatures who possess things higher than it has.

If it has will, then is the universe as we know it (being derived from the Tao), an act of will by the Tao or just an automatic, machine-like happening?

But whatever, subject closed…

[Anonymous]

Hi, Guy.

I found what I think is the best short, written description of the Tao and thought you might find it interesting. It’s written by Livia Kohn and was published in the Jan 2012 issue Yang-Sheng magazine. Here it is:

The Dao can be described as “organic order”— organic in the sense that it is not willful and order in that it is clearly manifested in the rhythmic changes and patterned processes of the natural world. Not a conscious, active creator or personal entity, but an organic process that just moves along, the Dao is mysterious in its depth and unfathomable in its essence. But beyond this, as order the Dao is also predictable in its developments and can be discerned and described in ordered patterns. These patterns, the Chinese call “self-so” or“nature” (ziran), the spontaneous and observable way things are naturally. Yet while Dao is very much nature, it is also more than nature. It is also the essence of nature, the inner quality that makes things what they are. It is governed by laws of nature, yet it is also these laws itself.
In other words, it is possible to explain the nature of the Dao in terms of a twofold structure. The “Dao that can be told” and the “eternal Dao.” One is the mysterious, ineffable Dao at the center of the cosmos; the other the Dao at the periphery, visible and tangible in the natural cycles.

[Anonymous]

Hi Matthew, if this becomes tiresome to you, please let me know, because I have no other way of knowing…

You are assuming of course that I am asserting things that I am not. I am not asserting that there is a force of evil independent from human beings, or that the Tao is conscious or willful etc.. I am just asking questions about certain problems that are verifiable in our experience.

I found that what your previous post boils down to is ‘No the Tao is not conscious, willful or personal’. Full stop. No reason or explanation, but just a complete denial.

Let me back-track a bit: I understand the general model. The Tao begets the yin and yang dualism of the observable universe, itself remaining whole and undifferentiated. It is beyond time, being the eternal Tao. So there is a sharp disctinction between the observable universe, governed by yin/yang dualism, and a certain something we can’t quite put our finger on, but can perceive with our minds. Right? Let me ask you this: If the Tao is beyond time, and the universe is not, then does the universe have a beginning and an end?

If the eternal Tao is mysterious in its depth and unfathomable in its essence, how can we be certain that it is not conscious or willful?

[Anonymous]

Hi, Guy. It’s an interesting thread. I like the way Livia Kohn lays it out. That’s what accords with my own understanding. Your questions have made think things in a different way, and thays been valuable. i sent Kohn’s description notmin in support of my position so much as what i i feel intuituvely to be true and thought you might find it intersting as well.

To take a slightly different tack, I’m finding the meditations in this group extremely powerful, making these abstract concepts tangible and experiential. Perhaps we’ll arrive at our best understanding through sitting rather thank thinking (though I have to admit I like to think about this stuff). I don’t have the answers to the questions you pose. At this point I’m really working on deepening my meditation practice and working on taiji and Bagua. Maybe the answers will come to me later. If you have any epiphanies you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them.

Best of luck with your own practice.

mjn

[Anonymous]

Hey, guys! Interesting thread! I figured I might as well throw in my two cents worth. I think these are all questions many people struggle with at some point. I can’t say that I have found any answers at this point, but rather my relationship to these subjects is always changing and evolving.

First of all, to be blunt, I do believe some of these questions are unanswerable, at least in an intellectual sense. So I may not be able to give you the answers you are looking for, but I can explain my experience.

Think of spirituality as a mountain expedition. The goal is to reach the summit of a mountain, let’s say Mt. Everest, and the summit represents the Tao, the ultimate goal of Taoism. Now to get to the base of the mountain, or at least to a place where you can start hiking, you will need to take a vehicle, like a van. The van represents the intellect, and reason. It’s great, maybe even necessary, to get you to a certain point, but at some point if you want to summit, you will have to abandon the van, and walk. The walking is the actual practice, the meditation. Because no matter how hard you try, no matter how many people you ask, you just cannot drive to the summit of Mt. Everest. I’m not a very experienced practitioner in the big scheme of things, not even one of the most experienced on the forums, I’m pretty sure. But these things have become more obvious the more I’ve practiced, and your relationship to the subjects we have been discussing will change and shift if you continue with the practice. So I can’t answer a lot of your questions, but I hope this helped.

You posed an interesting question when you said you find it strange that practitioners like Bruce, who are supposedly closer to the Tao, emphasize morality. I know I wrestled with that one a while. Here’s my take:

To meditate, you must work towards making the mind more clear. Bruce talks about putting red dust in a glass of water, stirring it up, and watching it settle. Whether you are doing concentration practice, clearing blocked energy, or calming the mind, the result is eventually more clarity. To progress in one’s meditation, you must make your mind a place where the practices can take root and grow, like you need good soil so plants will grow. In a way, it’s just basic meditation common sense. Now a question: You come back home in the evening. You did something that day that you don’t really feel good about, maybe you snapped at the 90-something year old lady in the grocery line when she started counting out pennies for her groceries. When you sit down to meditate, how does your mind feel? Speaking for myself, my mind feels much more cluttered and uncomfortable if I think I have done something that might have harmed someone in some way, even if unintentional. And if I did something kind? My mind feels much more relaxed and open when I sit down to meditate. It’s even in the language: people speak of having a ‘clear conscience’.

Now, I can see how that can sound rather cold, like “I would knock you flat, but it would be bad for my meditation”. But I think it’s also true, and practical. I think it’s part of almost every meditation tradition -you won’t make much progress if you go around doing people harm.

I’ve discovered there’s another side of this which is an important part of the picture. Again, going back to this idea of being ‘one with the Tao’ in Taoism, or being enlightened in Buddhism- there’s this idea of not being separate. If the Tao is non-dual, there is no self, no other. If you are truly able to experience this, or so they tell me, it is quite natural to help, not harm, other beings. Harming others would make about as much sense as getting up in the morning and deciding, “Hey! I think I’ll chop off one of my own fingers with a butcher knife before I have my coffee this morning!” It becomes natural, spontaneous, to help, not hurt others. It’s already present in all of us – it’s those moments when we respond to someone without thinking. Like if a child falls out a window, and someone walking by catches him. You know that person didn’t have time to think – it happens in like, two seconds! And as we all progress on this path, we have the ability to act less from “Hmm. This is probably the good thing to do, so I guess I should do it…” and more from that spontaneous, natural place that tends to shine through when the mind is clear. In my opinion, this is why teachers still talk about ethical and moral behavior, even when they are closer to this “Tao” deal than we are. What seems contrived in the beginning can turn into something spontaneous further down the road.

Whew!! That’s a lot of words. As I said before, these are some of the things that helped me get a little more of a grip on some of the questions you have been asking, Guy. I don’t know if it helped or not, but I would be interested in your input either way. Fun conversation, though! Good to go at a little bit of intellectual sparring from time to time!

[Anonymous]

Hi Catherine,

Thank you for taking the time to write that! I thought your response was very clear and articulate and I really enjoyed reading it!

I like one of the examples given by a Buddhist teacher, Huai-Chin Nan. He talked about how someone might have a deal great of anger or impatience internally but they might be able to force themselves externally to act like they are patient or compassionate. And while it is probably better then lashing out at people, this is not how meditation works. Meditation is a practice that allows you to transform your inner world.

What is it inside of you that is making you so angry? There is something there, some kind of energy in your system. Whatever this thing is, it is just a piece of red dust. Now, what happens if you were to get rid of this piece of dust? Lo and behold, something changes deep inside of you. You notice the external events that used to make you so angry, no longer do so. Furthermore, you actually *feel* compassionate towards the other person, when you normally would have felt anger towards them

Isn’t that cool? Whereas before, your naturally unthinking reaction was waves of anger, now your natural unthinking reaction is compassion. When I notice changes like that in myself I want to jump for joy! It is soooo cool! I’m actually changing my inner world.

Another example, that stuck with me over the years was an article that I read in the Boston Globe. They were interviewing a local mobster that had just been sentenced to prison. And he was asked “Don’t you care about the pain that you’ve caused your victims?”. He reply was “No, no one cared about me when I needed help. So why should I care about other people?”. He then went on to talk about how he been raped and molested by several sets of foster parents. How his own parents had beaten him and abandoned him. He went on and on, he had been treated so terribly by so many people when he was young and defenseless.

It really struck me. I now understood why this person acted the way he did. He had all this powerful red dust inside of him. All his internal shit was driving him to behave this poorly. These energies inside of him had haunted him every day of his life. Perhaps he could have forced himself to act kindly, but he would have had to fight that monumental struggle day in and day out.

If he could remove this red dust, then he would act compassionate because that’s how he would naturally feel. He wouldn’t be externally contorting himself to avoid prison. Or to avoid the many other bad consequences of his actions. He wouldn’t be doing any sort of cost benefit analysis. He wouldn’t think “Well, if I punch this guy, then I’ll have to deal with these problems”. He would just feel compassionate. If he felt that way, then he’d naturally want to act that way. This is how morality naturally emerges as a consequence of meditation.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Janak – I liked the example you gave from the Buddhist teacher. I guess the bulk of my understanding, at least what I wrote here, comes at least in some part from Buddhism. I think it’s worth noting that Bruce has never gone into this much depth on the subject of the philosophy of Taoism before – or at least to the best of my knowledge. I’ve always found him more practice focused, and the majority of class time has been spent on that and not so much on satisfying peoples’ intellectual curiousity. He’s always said that the Buddhists were much wordier than the Taoists, even hinting that the Taoists looked down on too much intellectual activity in spiritual practices. But I’ve found the wordiness of Buddhism has been very helpful in helping me grasp these more difficult concepts. Both Taoism and Buddhism are essentially aiming for the same thing, although they have different approaches. Finding the right balance between philosophy and experience/practice seems important, at least in my experience.

[Anonymous]

Hi Catherine, this is very interesting, it really is.

I am getting the impression now that these questions are either unanswerable, unimportant (or ‘idle intellectual curiosity’) or as being unworthy of consideration, because of course the spiritual practice is the only thing of importance, and therefore it is unecessary to tax our brains with these problems.

This from the Taoists, who have a very highly developed philosophy of their own.

But I am right with you in certain respects. The world carries on as it does, and we all, as individuals and societies, have to deal with the torrent of events that press in on us at every moment, and demand constant work and striving. That is the reality, that the world imposes itself on us, and demands intelligent action and thought. Demands it. So much for mere intellectual curiosity.

Where I’m absolutely with you is that in meditation or prayer or whatever, intellectual activity becomes a positive hindrance, and chronic polarisation or conflict in the inner world is the problem meditation seeks to solve. Right?

But one cannot meditate continuously in this world, and these problems remain, and demand attention. Do you get my point? You can go to a mountain (not as in your analogy by the way) and meditate and remove oneself from the world and all that is in it. But the world still remains. One could almost make the argument that meditation is some tragic form of escapism or denial, or some selfish running away from shouldering the heavy burdens of living in the world…

[Anonymous]

……I used to think meditation is somewhat ‘escapist’ and practiced ‘meditation for personal health’. Now I find my various meditative practices (most from the Energy Arts stable, with some some ‘Mindfulness’ and Tibetan lineage stuff thrown in) help me engage with the worlds problems in a much more empathic, meaningful and productive way, whilst simultaneously beginning to appreciate wider realities.
I’ve very much enjoyed reading all the posts in this thread, definitely one of the most interesting for some while! Exercising our intellects on these topics is fun – giving our monkey minds (literal?) something to focus on, perhaps so they’ll be less intrusive during the next meditation practice! And to continue with the talking apes strand, it could be quite interesting to explore the concepts of good and evil in the context of evolutionary behavioural biology, evolution being a tangible manifestation of the ‘everything furthers’ quality of the Tao. Come to think of it, three and a half thousand million years of evolution of life on Earth has spawned talking apes that talk to each other about all manor of stuff, including where did good and evil spring from, and why bother with trying to know the unknowable? Sorry folks, I’ll have to cut it there, I’ve got to do the washing up!

[Anonymous]

Hey, Guy!

I guess I’ll start from the bottom of your post, and work up…As for the statement “one cannot meditate continuously in this world”, I think the answer is well, yes you can. Bruce often talks about the ultimate goal as being exactly that – to do these practices 24hrs a day. Meditation is not just sitting on a cushion – I think it’s just that in the beginning (and possibly for a very long time thereafter), just because it’s so much easier to learn meditation this way. This is why the Taoists teach sitting, walking, lying down and sexual meditation. Many Taoists DO engage with the world, are very active in the world, and yes, put all the things into practice that Lao Tzu talks about.

And I think meditation CAN certainly be a form of escapism, or running away. I think in most traditions at least it isn’t supposed to be that way, but that doesn’t mean that some people don’t use it as such.

Intellect, conceptualization and reason are useful tools, but only if used appropriately. As you said, too much intellectual activity during meditation can be a problem, not because intellect is inherently bad, but because it is not useful in that particular situation.

If you are helping in a disaster relief situation, where you have to manage and juggle all sorts of resources and find the fastest way to get water and supplies to victims – then you definitely need to engage your intellect! Intelligence, reasoning, discernment all become paramount.

Look, we all understand how to work with our intellect. We’ve been practicing that our whole lives. Learning the other side of things – being able to come from a place of stillness, and the multitude of skills you gain from Taoist meditation (and other forms), these are things that are quite foreign to us at first. We don’t have any experience with them. So it’s fine to ask questions, it’s fine to discuss things, but I think it’s also important to realize the limitations of intellectual thought when it comes to subjects like the Tao. That’s why I think Bruce plays down the importance of these things. It’s not that discursive thought is not important in many life situations, it’s that we’ve GOT that part down! We’re very good at speculating. If you’re really good at one thing, and really lousy at something else – wouldn’t it make sense to emphasize the thing you are not good at? Isn’t that reason…?

Bruce is an intelligent guy – he has a very high IQ. He says Liu was the only person who made him feel really, really dumb. I think there is a reason some things are regarded as ‘idle intellectual curiosity’. Context is very important. Get Bruce talking about economics sometime…it will be apparent very quickly that he likes to engage his intellect from time to time! But I think there’s a reason why these teachers all try to steer us in the other direction when it comes to things like meditation. There are other meditation traditions as well that emphasize the intellectual side more than Taoism, like the Gelugpa tradition in Tibetan Buddhism. I think on the scale of things, these two are at opposite ends.

Meditation offers a way to engage effectively and immediately with the world, AND all its problems. The intellect is always at our disposal too, to apply when the situation calls for it. The balance you use each of these in would vary according to the situation.

Of course, this is just my attempt to put what I’ve learned along the way into words. I am no authority in these matters, nor do I claim to be. We’re all students on here, and I hope everyone keeps that firmly in mind when reading my replies! Just the usual caveat/disclaimer…

I wasn’t going to write that much this time, I really wasn’t…

[Anonymous]

Hi Catherine, your posts get better and better!

Listen, I understand that about meditation being a 24/7 thing, I really do – it’s the old “Wise man lives in town” thing. I get that, and it’s one of the really cool things of Taosim that attracts me so much.

But my point, really, and I think you know, is that it is possible to seek seclusion from the world, albeit whether standing, sitting, lying down, moving or during sex etc., and meditate to one’s heart’s content, but that is not possible if someone is forcing you to work like a slave or murdering your children in front of your eyes then torturing you to death!

And the problem of good and evil, or the mystery of existence, and the nature of this mysterious Tao, and reconciling the two, is not, to my mind at least, a merely intellectual problem that can be analysed. It is rather an integral part of the spiritual problem itself, something that demands a resolution.
It lies at the very heart of our souls, and defines our very existence.

To say that these questions cannot be asked or talked about or answered when it comes to meditation and the Tao is an evasion. If you do not know the answers, then say so. If you believe there are no answers, then say that!

[Anonymous]

Ok, maybe that was a little strongly worded, and I apologise, but am just a bit frustrated by the lack of clarity. Please forgive me.

You seem to be saying: “Well, I find that when I meditate, then I naturally want to act ethically, because through meditation, I have realised that to act badly would be like cutting off my own fingers”…or whatever. Or that a mobster’s behaviour can be explained by evil actions done to him, but if he could dissolve this red dust, then he would be transformed, and naturally act more compassionately.

Does this not suggest to you that as you approach the Tao in meditation, you are actually approaching the embodiment of ‘goodness’ or ‘righteousness’ itself? If you don’t think so, then maybe many who meditate simply become more evil by its practice, and this, from a dualist perspective, would be perfectly acceptable.

Is that true? Is it possible that by meditation it is posssible to become more and more thoroughly wicked and depraved? Would that not be seen as a considerable risk inherent in meditation practices, even though from a dualist perspective it would not be a problem?

[Anonymous]

Hey, Guy. It wasn’t my intention to be evasive, at all. I did state in my first response that I thought some of these questions are “unanswerable, at least in an intellectual sense”. Good and evil is a very expansive topic, and there have been more than one question posed in this thread. I really know very little about you or your background, so I admit I am guessing a bit as far as what may help you in terms of a response. Sorry if I missed the mark, or told you things you already know.

I think there have been a lot of good responses on this thread. Defining evil and planning how to eradicate it directly seems to belong more to the catagory of Western philosophy than to Eastern meditation traditions, at least in my opinion. The theory behind these things can get pretty complex, and I agree with Colin that we are straining the limits of language here a bit, in trying to describe a thing that, by its nature, cannot be described. I don’t think Lao Tsu was joking when he said “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao”. I have never been led to believe that the Tao is in any way an entity, or that it has any sort of preference, or wills anything to happen.

I still think this is an interesting conversation, and don’t want you to think that I don’t want to answer your questions. I am very hesitant to go off on a tangent again, because I honestly don’t know what would be helpful to you at this point. But if you want to ask me anything specific, I will try to answer to the best of my ability. Or if you want to ask me anything privately, feel free to send me an e-mail.

[Author]

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