道結論 Tao Conclusion #30
(full version)
© Tao Conclusion - bone structure of Daodejing #36 (English commas added).
Copyright ©2019 August 04, 2019
One Pearl
Qinren's{1} voice in Daodejing is the one pearl. 'Deep-quiet, deep-dark, it middle be essence, it essence great-extent real, it middle be true.' (Daodejing #21) Several Qinren sentences are very descriptive of the nature of 'tao' from the firsthand point of view. Of all known writings of all known ideologies and philosophies, only Qinren's words appear to have been written from firsthand experience and firsthand observation.
The patterning of Qinren's words suggests that the words were written long before the Confucian era, as well as written from a different dialect. Within the Book of Lieh-Tzu it is said that one of the Qinren sentences was from The Book of the Yellow Emperor, which was allegedly written several hundred to over a thousand years before Confucius, which appears to lend further weight that Qinren's words are amongst the oldest within existing tao texts.
Five Principles
Five core principles{2} judge all topics, and are very strict during all examinations of all ideologies: [1] firsthand experience, [2] firsthand description from firsthand experience, [3] all knowable things in Nature are composed of three or more ingredients that create the created thing, [4] all knowable things in Nature are different: there exists nothing known in Nature that is identical, the same, or equal to anything else, and [5] Nature is not flat.
Two of the numerous additional principles are [6] self-observation and [7] no self-mutilation. If the first five principles are unable to confidently judge a writing due to the writing being too vague or too short, then the latter two principles help to distinguish the writing's underlying concept, which then enables the whole to be judged by the first five principles.
Of all known ideologies of all known eras, all failed to meet the five principles. Finding any writing, or any individual's words, that meet the five principles, is very rare, and very precious.
The Qinren writings meet the first four principles, but do not fully meet the fifth principle of 'Nature is not flat'. The failure of meeting principle number five might be due to Qinren not having written a sufficient enough quantity of words that would clarify that Qinren was aware that Nature is not flat, or, not all of Qinren's writings were preserved, or, plausibly, Qinren may have assumed that his descriptions automatically carried with them the inference of a curved Nature, but either way, the question of Qinren's awareness of curves will remain open and unanswered. Nevertheless, Qinren's meeting four of the five principles is still remarkable and unmatched by any other public writing.
Possible Parallel
Heshanggong's commentaries include a very interesting style of description: 'Capable it nature middle, again have nature, natural chi have thick thin, remove emotion, remove desire, observe middle peace, this call aware tao, key it entrance-opening door.' (Body Way, section #31) The 'chi'{3} word is not ideal for use in today's cultures, but the word appears to have been a suitable term for an era where there may have not existed other analogies of the 'essence' within firsthand tao. Other translated sections of Heshanggong's writings appear to drift into philosophical imaginations, but the one quote is worthy of attention as having possibly been firsthand, or assembled from Qinren quotes, or perhaps copied from another person who may have had firsthand experience. Heshanggong's description hinges on whether the 'remove' word was intended to be an act that occurred before the 'aware tao' or whether the 'removing' was a natural response of the 'aware tao' itself. If Heshanggong had intended to infer that the 'aware tao' was a product of destroying emotions, then Heshanggong's claim fails principle #7 — no self-mutilation — which then fully and permanently voids all of Heshanggong's words within all of his writings. Due to Heshanggong's writings being predominately metaphysical wanderings, then the plausibility of Heshanggong's description being from his own firsthand experience is very small.
Descent
The common sequence within all ideologies and all philosophies, is of one man speaking of a topic, then many scholars adding additional words while claiming that the additional words meet and agree with the first man's words, and then other men place the first man's words alongside of the scholars' words within a single book while claiming that the combined words all agree with the other: 'the book of truth'.
Similarly is observed within Confucianism. Confucius spoke of ideas, but his students had no firsthand experience nor firsthand understanding with the topics, and so the students attempted to merely mimic Confucius' words while the students apparently believed that crudely paraphrasing memorized words was true truth itself. Later, scholars placed Confucius' words alongside of the contradicting students' words within a book, and then claimed that the book was the book of Confucianism.
The pattern is repeated within all -ism books. A John might write 'it is within you', while a Paul might write 'it is outside in the heavens', but scholars placed both writings into one book while claiming that there was no contradiction, and that the book was 'the book of truth'.
Qinren wrote of firsthand experiences, other men added their beliefs of -isms, the men twisted words around with the attempt to make Qinren's words agree with the -ism's, other men invented wild metaphysical claims that claimed that Qinren's words agreed with the men's dark hearts of superstitions, pantheism, religion, sorcery, alchemy, divination, and magic, and then other scholars, ignoring the contradictions, placed all of the words into a single book while claiming that the book was the true truth book of Taoism.
Qinren's words are the only words that meet all but the fifth principle; all other 'accepted tao' writings fail all principles.
The Qinren tao began beautifully and logically, but, as is the nature of man, anything that is left open for the public to touch, the thing will be dirtied, perverted, and eventually destroyed. And so also is the history of Qinren's tao.
Four Tao
[1] Qinren tao, [2] personal tao, [3] living tao, and [4] metaphysical tao. Similar to common ideologies, if all of the different 'styles' of 'taoism' were counted, there would likely be over ten general classifications plus dozens of general variations within each classification. The four types of tao given here are loosely grouped by how individuals participate in their own lives.
Tao One
Tao one is the voice of Qinren within Daodejing.
The tao of Qinren is one tao, but described from several different angles. The two angles that might be easiest to think of are [1] the tao 'physics' principle of how Nature was created through the combining of ingredients, and [2] how the conscious combining of one's own inner ingredients is able to create a new inner quality. The logic is simple: wheat bread requires the ingredient of wheat (not corn), and virtue requires the ingredient of honesty (not deceit nor selfishness). If an individual chooses quality inner ingredients, then so will the individual inwardly become quality.
All known coherent ideologies and logics share a similar concept: 'Honest person-ist, thing him finish. Begin not honest, not-have thing. Is therefore junzi honest, him be expensive(precious). ...Place connect(have) become thing, become self benevolence, become thing know, nature him goodness, together outside inside him way.' (Zhong Yong #26)
'...cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.' (Mat. 23:26)
The Qinren tao is described to be of a type of inner virtue that, when sufficiently thorough, self-creates a self-state popularly thought of as the 'taoist enlightenment'. The item most useful of attention is that the inner ingredients and inner self-creation exist before the experience of the self-state: the self-state is not and cannot be created from the outside.
Tao Two
Tao two is the personal tao{4}. A personal tao follows no ideology, nor accepts any teaching to be an authority over one's own life. The personal tao is acquired independently without knowledge of 'tao'. The personal tao has no name, nor cares to invent a name, but for the moment it is useful to call it 'personal tao' so as to distinguish it from the three other types of 'tao'. The personal tao simply does what is logical by choosing a quality goal of self-betterment and then choosing the quality ingredients to accomplish the goal.
The idea of and the firsthand experience of a 'personal tao' would have remained private and never spoken of outside of the individuals' own immediate circle, but with the discovery of Qinren's words, the Qinren tao is then able to be compared to and found to have parallels to the personal tao. One of Qinren's descriptions of 'essence' much too closely resembles one of the personal tao's self-state descriptions, plus the surrounding events within the Qinren tao also have parallels to the personal tao's self-state events: absence of gross emotions, absence of gross sensory perceptions, and a pervading sense of tranquil peace.
Using Heshanggong's sentence as a pattern, and then inserting Qinren's descriptive wording, would give an idea of one form of the personal tao self-state: 'Middle nature, the natural essence is observable of a density, gross emotions are observed to have become absent, gross sensory perceptions are observed to have become absent, desire is observed to have become absent, self-observe middle tranquil-peace, the outward expression is observed to be the product of the inner ingredients, no name is given to any portion, the middle essence is (use Qinren's description here), the center observes.'
No magic, no supernatural powers, no promised nirvana, no self-mutilation, no beliefs, but rather self-creating within a similar method of how Nature creates.
A related Confucian quote suggests a parallel: 'Happy anger, sorrow joy, it have-not expressed, call it middle. Express and always middle temperate, call it peace.' (Zhong Yong #1)
The personal tao meets and agrees with all five principles plus all other principles.
Of high importance is that the personal tao does no harm to one's self. There is no 'self-mutilation' of destroying one's mind, destroying one's emotions, and destroying one's sensory perceptions while with the extreme selfishness of desiring supernatural powers. Similar to the Qinren tao, the personal tao is aimed for self-betterment, not aimed for self-gain.
It is important to note that the absence of sensory perceptions has what could be misconstrued to be parallel within the process of entering the common dream state. A common sequence of entering a dream state has the sensory perceptions become highly attenuated prior to dreaming, but the sensory perceptions do not become fully absent: an individual can still be woken by noises, aromas, light, and touch. Dream states also include gross emotions and desires while losing cognitive coherence with Reality. Within forms of the personal tao's self-state, however, gross sensory perceptions are fully absent, gross emotions are fully absent except for the sense of great tranquil-peace, and the mind remains fully conscious, fully aware, fully cognizant, fully in touch with Reality, and has full conscious control over all motions, all thoughts, and all choices. The personal tao's self-creations and self-states are not a 'state of altered mind', nor any other ad hoc metaphysical excuse frequently given by scholars who have no firsthand experience with the topic.
Also important of noting is that the Qinren tao achieves recognition because Qinren's writings appear to parallel the known personal tao: the authenticity of the Qinren tao is judged by the personal tao, the firsthand personal tao is not judged by the Qinren tao. The firsthand personal tao is the sole authority. The Qinren tao is written, and therefore has no authority.
Tao Three
Similar within all ideologies, there are individuals who are sincere of their goals of self-betterment, the individuals live a life that is honorable, and the individuals would likely exhibit a similarly good heart regardless of which ideology they followed. The living tao merely points to how some individuals participate in their own lives while also holding ideals that are popularly interpreted to be taoist. Although the living tao does not meet the five principles beyond possibly having a degree of firsthand experience, still the living tao holds the potential of someday achieving a personal-like tao primarily because the individuals participate in their own lives.
Tao Four
Tao four is given the name of 'metaphysical tao'. A brief definition of what 'metaphysical' implies: "abstract philosophy, speculative, reasoning from theories or abstractions, above or beyond the material world, fantastic or oversubtle imagery" (The Winston Dictionary, The John C. Winston Company, ©1943, P. F. Collier & Son Corporation Publishers, New York). Similar to dream states, metaphysical tao possesses no rational thinking, no logic, ignores the laws of Nature, is continuously self-contradicting, makes no sense, is all imaginary, made-up fantasies, is vacuous of meaning, and is vacuous of usefulness. An individual's following of metaphysical tao begins with the personal ingredients of intense greed, selfishness, and lust for supernatural powers. The core ingredients permanently preclude metaphysical tao from ever creating a quality product. The mind of metaphysical tao is contradictory, confused, weak, and unable to think coherently. All scholarly writings of all forms of tao are metaphysical.
All variations of metaphysical tao fail all five principles, as well as fail the sixth, seventh, and all others.
Of the many thousands of suitable 'metaphysical tao' references within various 'tao' writings, one quote is ample enough to illustrate the whole of metaphysical tao's mindset:
"...replied Tzu Ch'i ... Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, caution and remorse, come upon us by turns, with ever-changing mood. They come like music from hollowness, like mushrooms from damp. Daily and nightly they alternate within us, but we cannot tell whence they spring. Can we then hope in a moment to lay our finger upon their very cause? ...So far we can go; but we do not know what it is that brings them into play. ’Twould seem to be a soul; but the clue to its existence is wanting. That such a power operates is credible enough, though we cannot see its form. It has functions without form. ...Only the truly intelligent understand this principle of the identity of all things." (Musings of a Chinese Mystic, Lionel Giles, ©1906{5}).
For any man to claim that his own emotions could not be consciously observed, while he also claimed to understand principles of observation, he proved of himself to know nothing of the topic, as well as proved that the whole of his ideology was the made-up imagination of a very small mind. But, so goes the remainder of metaphysical tao also, an unending stream of wild imaginations and crazy claims that make no sense and can never describe anything from the firsthand point of view.
Of further descent is the pervading idea within metaphysical tao that people must achieve callousness, uncaringness, cold hearts, and extreme selfishness while with an -ism's belief of escapism. A prime example:
"When Lao Tzŭ died, Ch‘in Shih went to mourn. He uttered three yells and departed. A disciple asked him, saying: "Were you not our Master's friend?" "I was," replied Ch‘in Shih. "And if so, do you consider that a sufficient expression of grief at his loss?" added the disciple. "I do," said Ch‘in Shih. "I had believed him to be the man of all men, but now I know that he was not. When I went in to mourn, I found old persons weeping as if for their children, young ones wailing as if for their mothers. And for him to have gained the attachment of those people in this way, he too must have uttered words which should not have been spoken, and dropped tears which should not have been shed, thus violating eternal principles, increasing the sum of human emotion, and forgetting the source from which his own life was received. The ancients called such emotions the trammels of mortality." Musings of a Chinese Mystic - Selections From the Philosophy of Chuang Tzu, by Lionel Giles (©1906).
Qinren spoke of virtue and warmth of heart. All coherent ideologies also speak of similar ingredients as Qinren's. Metaphysical tao, however, shuns love, shuns caring, shuns thoughtfulness towards others, shuns kindness, shuns gentleness, shuns virtue, shuns warmth of heart, shuns creative harmony with people, shuns creative harmony with Nature, and shuns all things good and creative while focusing almost entirely upon pompous self-gain. There is no excuse for metaphysical tao's sickness, and no lenience will be given.
Within a scale of which ideologies are most coherent and best agree with Nature's way, Qinren and personal tao are at the top, and living tao is above the middle, while sciencism and metaphysical tao are at the bottom.
People who can do tao, do tao... people who cannot do tao, believe in metaphysical tao.
Self-state Clarification
A common belief is that 'tao' is all about acquiring a fantastical self-state of enlightenment, and that the individual then dwells within 'permanent enlightenment'. The belief has numerous problems: [1] if an individual were to find the self-state's tranquil-peace to be the ultimate goal, then the individual is self-centered and only cares for self-pleasure, [2] the self-state is merely as a first step event that marks present progress: creativity has no boundaries, and the current self-state is relatively tiny compared to what is possible, [3] a focus of aiming to achieve the self-state simultaneously precludes aiming for self-betterment, which in itself would prevent the self-state from occuring, etc..
Simply stated, the Qinren tao, personal tao, and living tao walk a lifetime journey of self-betterment while sometimes being rewarded with a self-experience that marks the person's progress. However, the metaphysical tao merely wants the reward without the individual having made a single step of their own.
Conclusion
Of all the ancient Chinese texts that I have looked at, Daodejing was the most disturbing because of the different voices deceitfully attempting to force-fit Qinren's words into their own sick beliefs. Most Confucian quotes are wonderful of simple logic and self-thinking, while some poems are very pleasing of imagery, and the Qinren words are very beautiful, but the other texts, especially within Daodejing and Chuang Tzu are so intensely contradictory and nonsensical that it harms a mind to attempt to make sense of words that were written without sense.
Zhong Yong, Li Ren, Da Xue, and Qinren's words, all worthy of being read. Most all other texts are the mere descent from what was once good, into what is now bad.
Also important of stating is that 'tao' is an invented name with an imaginary definition. In real life, there is never a 'tao', but rather there is simply one's own self interpreting this Reality by what the sensory perceptions perceive, and by how the mind chooses to interpret the senses. The normal human creature is not much different from any other mammal; selfishly eating, selfishly mating, selfishly hoarding, and selfishly destroying. The unfixable global pollution is the product of all -isms combined: no -ism is innocent of having participated in the descent of man and Nature. The Qinren, personal, and living ways, are choices of attempting to step out of the mindless mammal instincts, while choosing a rationalized self-betterment that betters the planet and all life. No magic, no supernatural powers, just a self-effort to be smarter than common animals.
Most humans have been trained to believe in an evolution that occurs accidentally through chance mutations, while the trained belief also believes that one's own choices and behaviors have no influence upon one's descendents. For as long as the people continue to believe in what they were trained to believe, man will continue to devolve. An intelligent man plants trees for future generations, and likewise, an intelligent man chooses creative behaviors of today to become the behaviors of future generations. Man does have the choice to evolve himself, but, it still remains a choice; a choice that is intellectually impossible for most people.
The Qinren tao is not a thing to follow, nor a thing to learn, nor a thing to attain, but a way to become.
Footnotes
{1}: The popular name 'Laozi' is known to be an invented myth, and cannot possibly be the Daodejing author's real name. Therefore, to distinguish the good author's voice from the metaphysical authors' voices within Daodejing, I invented the name 'Qinren' to point to the voice within Daodejing that appears to be of the earliest writings, as well as being the only voice to speak of firsthand experience. Qinren is a fitting name because of 'qin' implying 'a seven string zither', and 'ren' implying 'person': Qinren, 'warm heart like soft guqin person'.
{2}: The five principles are my own, and, as written, are highly abbreviated for brevity. There are other core principles that include the sixth and seventh, but if a topic fails the first five principles, then there is no reason to bother evaluating the topic further.
{3}: The 'chi' mentioned by Heshanggong is often said to be 'life energy'. If Heshanggong's reference to an 'aware tao' was similar to the known modern 'personal tao', then the 'field' pointed to would likely not be described as a 'life energy', but rather perhaps be interpreted as the 'product field' of the ingredients within an accomplished tao. It would appear that a 'life energy' would remain relatively stable of tone but vary of intensities relative to changes of health (typically, a person's concept of one's 'me' remains stable of tone from health to death, else the 'me' would change, which also very strongly points to the implausibility that 'life energy' could possibly be electrical of nature because all electrical fields are unstable). The personal tao field, however, does widely vary of tone, intensities, shapes, and 'essence' relative to the personal tao's ingredients and degrees of qualities. Heshanggong's use of 'chi' was not ideal for modern readers, but good enough for individuals with firsthand experience to gather an idea of what Heshanggong's reference may have pointed to.
Useful of noting is that modern ideas of chi are wildly varied, contradicting, superstitious, metaphysical, and overtly silly. Among the common beliefs is that chi is 'electricity' as well as being the original yin-yang source of energy that created the Universe, which is silly because all EMF is a three-dimensional thing, which, obviously, is a created thing, and cannot be the originating thing that created the Universe. No less silly is of the scholarly skeptical belief that if their EMF-measuring devices cannot measure chi as an electromagnetic force, then therefore chi cannot possibly exist. All common beliefs of chi are philosophically explained relative to the person's current cultural beliefs, and no known reference to chi speaks of chi outside of superstitions and imaginations of things that the individuals have no knowledge of (no firsthand descriptions). Modern cultures still do not know what electricity is, nor gravity, nor magnetism, nor so much as know how animals migrate, and it is absurd for the people to claim that chi must be composed of things like electricity and magnetism, the very things that the people have no idea of what the things might be.
Also useful of noting is that a quality personal tao is composed of specific quality ingredients (e.g. honesty and caring), while scholarly-skeptical-metaphysical is composed of disquality ingredients (e.g. selfishness, vainglory, and hate). It is absurd for scholars to claim that a quality virtue cannot exist: the scholars claiming that nothing can be real unless they themselves are able to replicate the identical same tao through use of the scholars' ingredients of selfishness and hate. Perhaps the core idea here is to merely point to two choices: choose to become of an inner quality (which will self-create the 'aware tao'), or choose to selfishly desire the 'aware-tao' while believing that quality ingredients are unnecessary.
{4}: 'Personal tao' is my own phrase that is used to infer an 'aware tao' that is acquired naturally through an individual's goal of achieving a specific inner quality. A personal tao does not follow any teaching, nor does a personal tao care if it meets any variation of Taoism or any other ideology. Types of personal tao include daodeai (way of love) and chidao (harmony way). Examples include a virtue tao that creates an 'aware tao' that has close similarities to Qinren's (and Heshanggong's) descriptions, and the love tao creates an 'aware tao' that is far more intense and more strongly expressed outwardly than the virtue tao. Each flavor of personal tao is formed upon different ingredients which create different 'flavors' of 'aware tao' while sometimes sharing similar peripheral products.
{5}: The Giles translations within Musings are known to not be ideal, but still the translations are close enough to the original texts to help convey underlying concepts. Also, Giles' translations are very useful for illustrating the metaphysical tao's slant of mind.