Tien??

[G.NiN.]

hi. i'm new here so if i'm asking something that's already been discussed - i'm very sorry. also if my question is stupid - sorry. i haven't read too much about taoism but i guess i know a few things. i've read stuff from diferent places and books, and there is this one thing that i recently noticed and isn't very clear to me. it's not something of great importance (i guess), but i will keep trying to find an answer untill i get things straight :)
so can anyone tell me what you know or what is your own oppinion about the concept of 'Tien'. as i understand it can be 'Heaven' but as i also understand Taoism, that wouldn't be quite appropriate. or would it? i don't know. i've also read somewhere that it can be translated as ' Nature' or something of that sort.
so how can anyone explain to me the term 'Heaven' in The Tao Te Ching?

thanks

[slinklikegroove]

I don't see Heaven being discussed in the literal sense, I see it being discussed in more of a figurative sense. When I read the Tao Te Ching I try to take it all in, in a strangely vague way. As I'm reading I try and take a step back and look not at the words but what the words are attempting to convey. The Tao Te Ching has been translated and it is completely impossible for there to be a perfect Chinese - English translation. I would think some is lost in translation even though great writers have translated the text. Many try and keep the cadence of the original Chinese poetry, some are too wordy, some are too hasty. I take everything with a grain of salt when I read it. I have 4 versions of the translated english text, all of em are different and you get a better idea of what is trying to be conveyed by reading different versions of the book.

[G.NiN.]

i know that u r right and that i shouldn't think of stuff like that (and i don't even find it that important either) but it still seemed a bit odd.
actually when i first read a few parts of the book, and not knowing as much as i know now about it, i found the whole thing a lot more beautiful. now i know i'm going in the wrong way but i don't know exactly why and it's hard to look at it the same way and #%%#@ http://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/mad.gifhttp://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/mad.gif....bla blabalbal .....i don't know if u can unerstand me so i'lll stop now http://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

thanks again

[slinklikegroove]

I wouldn't say that I'm right. There are many ways you can interoperate that. I don't think there is a right or a wrong, it just IS. The book IS beautiful. It is simple yet profound. What is troubling you with it now? What has changed for you as you have given more thought to the material?

[BlackBillBlake]

so can anyone tell me what you know or what is your own oppinion about the concept of 'Tien'. as i understand it can be 'Heaven' but as i also understand Taoism, that wouldn't be quite appropriate. or would it?
If you look at the I Ching you'll find numerous references to 'heaven. In my view it stands for the creative principle.

[slinklikegroove]

i haven't gotten around to the i ching yet and i'll be picking up a copy of it this week. are there any obscure/semi-obscure books you think i should look into?

[BlackBillBlake]

Can't think of any off hand. As for the I Ching, I recommend the translation by Richard Wilhelm - it has all the subsidiary material like the Great Treatise included which is omitted from most editions. A simpler, but good traslation, is by Thomas Cleary, but this gives only the basic text.

[dirtydog]

hi. i'm new here so if i'm asking something that's already been discussed - i'm very sorry. also if my question is stupid - sorry. i haven't read too much about taoism but i guess i know a few things. i've read stuff from diferent places and books, and there is this one thing that i recently noticed and isn't very clear to me. it's not something of great importance (i guess), but i will keep trying to find an answer untill i get things straight :)
so can anyone tell me what you know or what is your own oppinion about the concept of 'Tien'. as i understand it can be 'Heaven' but as i also understand Taoism, that wouldn't be quite appropriate. or would it? i don't know. i've also read somewhere that it can be translated as ' Nature' or something of that sort.
so how can anyone explain to me the term 'Heaven' in The Tao Te Ching?

thanksAllan Watts once wrote a book titled, "This Is It." I'm now going to mangle and damage his insight, but the basic idea I got out of it was as follows.
What you see is what you get. This is it. Look around you. This is your universe, or your corner of it. It is not supernatural. It is here and now. It is all there is and there is nothing else. It is banal and disappointing, miraculous and complex beyond anyone's comprehension. It is the product of a god who is everywhere about us but can never be found. Deal with it.

I hope I haven't answered your question.

[dirtydog]

i haven't gotten around to the i ching yet and i'll be picking up a copy of it this week. are there any obscure/semi-obscure books you think i should look into?Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, recommended. Only problem is, it's not in the least obscure.

The i ching is the attempt of semi-learned orientals to build a philosophy on a foundation of six digit binary numbers. Well, who am I to knock it, I mean, if it works for you, okay, it works for you. It's not for me to say that it's better than, or worse than, two dice, or a roulette wheel, or a palm reader. Whatever gets you through the night.

Also not obscure is Be Here Now by Ram Dass, Lama Foundation,1973. But this guy is pure, and an ordinary jerk off artist like myself can't deal with it. Ram Dass is talking about doing really heavy spiritual work here. It's simple in some ways but he's not talking about the easy path here, he's talking raja yoga, total dedication. He's talking (page 102)
EXCEPT YE BE CONVERTED AND BECOME AS LITTLE CHILDREN, YE SHALL NOT ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
so like I say, I'm not pure enough to deal with that right now, but it sounds like you're a serious seeker. Go for it.

[BlackBillBlake]

Neither Nietzche or Alan Watts were really taoists.


The i ching is the attempt of semi-learned orientals to build a philosophy on a foundation of six digit binary numbers.

With the I Ching, one has to see the difference between the underlying mathematical structure on one hand, and the fact that it is also a book of 'wisdom teachings'. After 30 years of using and reading it regularly, I can testify that the wisdom is very very deep, and seemingly has layers and layers of meaning which are almost inexhaustible.

Tradition holds that the manin parts of the Ching were written down by King Wen and his son, the Duke of Chou. Niether were scholars, semi-learned or otherwise, but warrior kings.
To describe the later confucian comentators as 'semi-learned' is merely cultural prejudice.

Nice try at defining Tao BTW - keep trying, eventually the mind will give it up.

[dirtydog]

Thanks, Black Bill.

Like I say, I don't have any special insight, I'm just another wing nut trying to get by.

I suspect that anyone who is described as a warrior king has used a lot of threats, intimidation and slave labour to get his castle built, in a feudal society. That would apply to China, Japan, Europe and a lot of other places. If you successfully steal enough from lots of people, you will be considered wise.

As for Tao, or unnameable essence, I wouldn't try to define it. Sit long enough by the side of a glacier and you will hear the wind.

[BlackBillBlake]

Read the story of Wen and Chou before you leap to conclusions.

But it's only a tradition anyway - no one actually knows the origin of the Ching. It had existed for a long time prior to being written down.
Some, Terrence McKenna for example, believe the Ching is actually only a fragment of something else, a larger system,which has come down to us.

Sit long enough by a glacier and you'll most likey freeze.

[Birmingham]

tien = heaven / sky

tien is the long male; earth is the enduring female. long and enduring because they don't exist for themselves. together, i call them the world.

[rocsolid]

the concept of heaven a la tao te ching is not some all happy no shit palce the way christians view it, it is simply the other side of life, the stuff you cant see often, the energy, i guess wherever all the ghosts go, its just the supernatural part of the universe( the absolute is trying to know itself, it created polarity, so if theres a natural side of the universe its going to need an opposite)

[Mountain Valley Wolf]

The word Tien or Tian is much older than Taoism. It comes from a Ural-Altaic root----the language family that stretches from Turkish to Chinese, Korean, and Japanese (though there is still a theory that Japanese is in a family of it's own---it has many Ural-Altaic roots). Hungarian is also part of this family. In fact, this root probably goes back to a super-language family that included Sumerian, and the Indo-European languages.

For example, you have the word Thunder in the English (think tiander). An is Sumerian for sky, and also represented the Sky-God. Anu literally meant and the Sky God, and heaven. Deities were referred to as Dingir in Sumerian, which is connected to such words as deity, deva, deos, or deus, Zeus, and even Thor. In Turkish you have the word Tanri for God, and also for heaven, and Dingil means axle. What do the roots din~ and Tan~ have in common, and why does that connect to dingir (deity)? It refers to the tree of life, or the celestial axis that pierces the heavens, the earth and the lower worlds of ancient shamanic cosmology. It is the path that God would take into our world, or us into his. In many ways, it represented the sky god himself.

Accross Siberia, Mongolia, and so forth, you have the Ural Altaic tribes that believed in the Ten, Tengere, and the Tengri----the sky-god, father sky, heaven, in some ways, the sun. Notice the similarity again to dingir, and dingil.

In Ancient China, Tian was the sky god and heaven. At some point it was merged with Shangdi (The Heavenly Emperor is how I would roughly translate it), and connected to the Jade Emperor. Stories of the Jade Emperor himself are filled with shamanistic references. The Jade Emperor appeared in literature sometime after the establishment of Taoism, but his stories are certainly older. There is also the Tiangou a Chinese godlike sky demon that I think evolved from the Paleolithic/Neolithic gods. In Japan, the Tengu is a demon, but is also connected to the gods and can be benevolent.

The character used for Tien is a picture of the sky over a man (I believe that is right without checking it's origin in my books, it looks like the character 'big' with a roof on it, but the way it looked later, and the way it started as a pictograph are not always the same). It is still used in references to heaven, sky, and so forth. Weather, for example, can be written with tien and the character chi, as in the chi that flows through you.

How does this apply to the Taoism of Lao Tsu? Perhaps only symbolically. It is more significant to the popular Taoism of the common Chinese people, which I wrote about in the thread, 'Why do you think Taoism has not caught on as much in the West'---if you want to read more about that, check it out there.

Now here is something different to ponder---the celestial axis is a spiritual center point to the universe, where all time, and all points, connect together. If the concept of heaven, and god are linguistically and thus conceptually connected to the axis in Ural-Altaic thought---is it possible that the Tao, as the Way, or Path, is also an archetypical symbol of the celestial axis.

The axis is symbolized in many ways, from a vertical pole or tree, a mountain (and the cave inherently within), to a fire and the smoke (often combined with a hole at the top of a yurt), to a bridge, or even the milky way. It is up through the axis that the shaman makes his way to the spirit world. Is it possible that the path, that cannot be spoken, is, among other things, the celestial axis?

The Tao encompasses many things, but this could certainly be one of them. Taoism did emerge from the Shamanism of China handed down from it's paleolithic/neolithic Ural-Altaic ancestors. And if you think about it, the bear dance performed by ancient Taoist priests in bear skins, danced out the shape of the Big Dipper----which points to the pole star (or in more ancient times, the void near the pole star) that all people of the Northern lattitudes associated with the celestial axis---the center of the universe. The Yin-Yang symbol is, after all, a representation of the dualistic universe spinning on its axis.

[dirtydog]

That's cool. In the culture I live in (I don't count myself a part of it), the only shamans and priests are Christian. Christianity deserves rejection unless you've been brainwashed otherwise. Other than Christianity, there is no spiritual tradition in Alberta in 2009, except maybe Wal-Mart.

We have a crying need here for shamans wearing bearskins (synthetic, please)!

Mountain Valley Wolf: Your signature quote is good. The cloud is obscuring what is beyond it. To call the cloud 'hidden' calls for a sense of humour, unless you have a roof over your head.

[famewalk]

Clouds in the Art of it; you guys must be bemoaning and growning about the Glass world achitecture.

[zombiewolf]

My feeling is that when Lao Tsu's wisdom was revealed, some emperor quickly decided that the attitudes that would grow from this philosophy would not be conducive to industry, or the production of wealth of any kind. So began a campaign to corrupt Lau Tsu's teachings by polluting it with Confucianism. With subtle insinuations of acquiescence to class divisions, along with a healthy dose of reverence for the state, Confucianism was the perfect foil for the perceived indigence of Taoism. Furthermore, I believe many of the later Taoist authors were actually in the employ of these emperors who were interested in furthering this goal.
And so that brings us to "Peoples Taoism". Chock full of Ghosts and spirits, God and Heaven, Rituals, incense, other various meditational paraphernalia...(.All great stuff for western tourists)
It's now no different then any other b.s. religion. Starts out good, but ends up being used to control people. Anybody wonder why china has never been able to rid itself of Totalitarianism?
We're facing a similar problem today, right here in America, I think.




ZW

[Mountain Valley Wolf]

Zombiewolf, I do agree with you that Confucianism corrupted Chinese thought. And Confucianism certainly could have influenced the evolution of Taoism. Likewise, many Taoist priests or authors over the years have certainly been self-serving with profit motives in mind---this is no secret to Chinese folktales, movies, and the like. And Confucianism became an ideal institution for politicial exploitation, just like any religious institution----though certainly better than popular Taoism, since Confucianism was based on the regimental State-oriented goal of achieving perfection through proper morals, duty, action, thought, etc.

In Jungian terms Confucianism can be viewed as a product of an inflated persona---i.e. the product of someone who is so ego-centrically focused on his own persona, that he expects all others to live up to the standards of his own inflated persona (which typically he himself cannot do). As this person's persona grew, the rest of his psyche shrunk in significance---his life grew meaningless----hence the driving thirst for meaning----an ideal candidate to lead an institution.

On the other hand, Lao Tsu was a highly individuated person---very self-actuated, having come to terms with, and achieved balance between both his conscious and unconscious.

Hence very different from Confucious---certainly unaffected by the persona of Confucius, and therefore, Confucius would see him as---how was that? The uncontrolled dragon flying to the heavens? Or something like that...

But at the same time----the animistic traditions that gave birth to Lao Tzu's philosophy, and at the same time, the Popular Taoism of the masses, was in place long before Lao Tzu put brush to paper. The ancestral worship, the I-Ching, an extensive astrology, all the gods and spirits, and even Tien----were all handed down from a rich animistic spiritual tradition.

When I speak of spirituality, I define that as opposed to institutional religion. Animistic spirituality tends to be free of morals, rules, and codes. It is not the product of political motives. Instead, it is a powerful one-on-one relationship with the universe.

What I think has changed over the years, is the ritual knowledge and spiritual relationship that spawned the deep understanding of the universe that Lao Tzu had. The ancient Taoist dance of Yu that I have written about is one example of this. The ecstatic relationship may have been lost. Like the ecstatic relationship of the Soma eaters---the Aryan shamans---that was lost to time. I think that many Hindu practices such as Yoga and Hindu meditation are attempts to recreate the ecstatic experience of these ancients. It's possible that Taoism suffers some of the same fate.

This is not to say that meditation and the like is useless, or ineffective. But the ecstatic experience can be a bit different, and tainted by the institution.

But within any religion, there is buried that core of spirituality that can lead people to that ecstatic experience---the key is digging through all the institutional b.s. The less institutional a religion is, the easier it is to achieve a profound relationship with the universe. Popular Taoism fits in the less institutional category.

[Mountain Valley Wolf]

Oh---and I can certainly see why there would be political motive to corrupt Taoism.

I have written elsewhere of how confucianism moved China to the cultural revolution. It also gave power to the Japanese emperor and empowered a political regime there that lead to Word War II. The Japanese educational system even today embraces confucian fudamentals---though Confucianism itself is not referred to. I would never put a kid through the Japanese educational system. It does not conduce originality, or thinking outside the box. For centuries after Japan imported the civilization of China into their own lands, the Japanese were somehow succesful in staying in toouch with their kokoro--their spirit or heart. But I think in many ways they lost that in the 20th Century--giving way to the Confucian objectivism.

The Chinese had the Taoism of the masses to temper the Confucianist ethic---but the Cultural revolution did its best to cleanse China of the ancient ways of the popular Taoism---leaving the religion of the State in a clean sterile Confucianist framework.

So even while popular Taoism grew into an istitution and was subject to exploitation by the State, it still had a useful and very viable purpose against the cold objectivism of Confucianism.

[Mountain Valley Wolf]

Also I should mention that the divinity of the Emperor is much older than either Confucius or Lao Tzu. It grew out of ancestor worship. In my basement I have two ancestral paintings---The Qing dynasty Emperor and Empress (I'll have to double check the dynasty---but I'll take a picture of them and stick them on my gallery, if anyone wants to see them). They were hung in a shrine somewhere in China, and referred to as Ancestors because many Chinese, especially peasants, did not have the means to set up their own shrines, or have their own graveyards, etc. The Emperor and Empress were the ancestors of everyone, and thus people could go to a shrine and honor the ancestral paintings, in a way of honouring their own ancestors.

We also see Imperial Divinity in Japanese Shinto, which today, is probably the least institutional of any religion. The Japanese Emperor was a direct descendant of the Shinto Gods. (I write more about that on my posts about Shinto). But more siginificantly, the Imperial families of both countries evolved from Shamans. The Chinese Emperor Yu would change into a bear, while his wife drummed. Tradition claims that he did superhuman things in this form. If I remember correctly, at the end of his reign, he turned into a dragon and flew to the heavens. These are all typical of how ancient stories of shamans get tangled up in a cuture's mythos. (Also, the dragon is one of the serpent aspects connected to the axis mundi, flying to the heaven is a common element of Shamanistic spirit journeys, and the use of the drum for journeying is especially Ural-Altaic in tradition). All subsequent Emperors are incarnations of Emperor Yu as the Dragon God.

So we can't just blame Confucianism for the institutionalization of Taoism (though I don't deny it played its part). Another culprit is the start of agriculture, and the rise of agricultural centers---this represented the dawn of civilization and the rise of the institution. It was through this that the hunter-gatherer spirituality that lasted from the paleolithic, began to develop into the institution of religion. This is because it was at this stage that the group philosophy became neccessary for survival of the sprouting communities. This was a change from the hunter-gatherer socieities where the philosophy was more individual-based. Subjective spirituality became objectivistic religion. This was the start of what lead to the disenchantment of the universe---in the West, in Communist China, in so called modern socieites, etc. (I write more about that in my posts on Shinto as well).

[zombiewolf]

[quote=Mountain Valley Wolf.

So we can't just blame Confucianism for the institutionalization of Taoism (though I don't deny it played its part). Another culprit is the start of agriculture, and the rise of agricultural centers---this represented the dawn of civilization and the rise of the institution. It was through this that the hunter-gatherer spirituality that lasted from the paleolithic, began to develop into the institution of religion. This is because it was at this stage that the group philosophy became neccessary for survival of the sprouting communities. This was a change from the hunter-gatherer socieities where the philosophy was more individual-based. Subjective spirituality became objectivistic religion. This was the start of what lead to the disenchantment of the universe---in the West, in Communist China, in so called modern socieites, etc. (I write more about that in my posts on Shinto as well).[/quote]

Now, This is an angle I hadn't really thought about. See,I am inclined toward the theory that paleo-man was forced into agriculture, by way of the elimination of the Megafuana. I see it as possible, that it was a conscious decision for them to not only eliminate the monsters that threatened their lives, but also to eliminate competition in hunting. The human brain developed the Atlatl and made man the most feared predator on the earth. Unfortunately for them, reduction of the Megafuana led to booms in ruminant populations, which led to overgrazing and ultimately again to a reduction of ruminants. The objectivist had fucked up. So mans paradigm of life changed from one of abundance to one of scarcity. Possibly those early shaman carried on the memory of past abundance and tried to develop some kind of "magic" to help man get back to "Eden".

I'm not a scholar on the subject by any means, But I am definitely effected by your perspective, Mountain cloud, and I will have to think about this some more, in this new light.
Thanks, man.

ZW

[Mountain Valley Wolf]

That is very interesting Zombiewolf----the saber tooth tiger and the cave bear did not survive man, Nor did the mammoth, a ruminant, though perhaps dangerous in it's own right. I will have to think over your points some more too.

As I mention in some of my posts, I am working on a book that deals with the dawn of man's primal language and primal spirituality, and what I think gives a clue to how man's spiritual thought evolved from a common point based on these linguistic clues. The one word root that is most universal in almost all languages is the root that refers to the vulva. I trace this not by just a single root word, but by a constellation of vocabulary and concepts that make up the archetypes surrounding this one word.

Because the language is so prevalent and universal, it validates another theory that before the invention of writing, man's thought process was based on those aspects of the mind and emotion that today we label as feminine----feeling, intuition, subjectivism, logic, etc. (For example, check out the book, The Alphabet and the Goddess). I think this fits Jung's concept of early man as using a psyche that was strongly influenced by the unconscious----the archetypes, and collective uconscious, which is really what we experience as intuition.

The invention and advancement of writing forced man to think in linear terms---from a to b to c, as opposed to a and c and b (or b and c and a, etc). This trained man's mind to think in terms we label as the masculine side: objectivism, analytical, empirical, etc. It seems to me that while the feminine aspects point more to the Jungian unconscious, the masculine side points more to the conscious mind. Indeed Jung felt that man's conscious mind developed more as he advanced in knowledge and culture. The ego is that part of the psyche that filters not only the constant stimulus and noise from our environment, but also the emotions, thoughts, and memories that reside in our unconscious. The ego determines what is allowed into conscious perception. The masculine aspects must therefore limit the flow of the unconscious through the ego (or we can also say increases the strength or size of the ego).

I therefore think the traditions of the shaman come from a period when man was more subjective, and tuned into his unconscious mind----the magic of the shaman is his ability to manipulate the archetypes of his unconscious. (That is my Jungian explanation. Through things I have witnessed during my travels, and my own experiments in trying to induce Shamanic states of consciousness, etc, and despite my attempts to remain logical and objective, I have seen numerous things that defy logic, and break down the laws of empirical objectivity, or even how we see reality. So for me, there is definitely more to it than manipulation of archetypes within the mind).

This feminine nature is also the feminine spirit of the valley that Lao Tzu writes about.

In the realm of the hunter gatherers, it is easy to think that it was man that predominantly hunted, while women did the gathering---it would make sense as they needed to attend to the children as well. It also makes sense that sooner or later women would accidentally drop seeds and notice that they sprout. I could see farming develop at first as a means to enhance the gathering process---if the seeds were planted nearby by the women---they would not have to go as far to gather, and they didn't have to worry about not finding what they needed. However this allowed for plants to become a more significant food source, especially when game became scarce due to seasonal factors, over-hunting, etc.

Around this same time, the Aurochs (ancestor to the ox and cow) was imported from Europe into the Middle east and Africa. Once again, this provided a ready source of meat just as planting had done for berries, seeds, and other plant foods. This could all result in a natural revolution from nomadic hunter gathering to a stationary agricultural community. The Great Mother, naturally inspired by the Mother archetype---empowered by the experience of man as infant, and these memories imprinted on the collective unconscious, soon gave way to the cultic figure of the Mother Goddess----as the rise of villages required collective thinking for survival---and the need for the institution. And this need was to ensure fertility---the magic and power of the womb.

Eventually the male god rose in power, and the power of the feminine began to diminish even more. The seeds for this downfall of the mother were sewn in the birth of agriculture (i.e. the rise of the institution). But the power of the male rose further as writing developed.

In a recent post in the Shinto thread, I talked about some of this too. The language pointing to the rise of the male sky god---for example, the Ural-Altaic rise of tan, ten, or tien, came later in man's spiritual development. Tien was not only heaven, but was the sky god itself. The t~ roots representing the masculine (for example, the Old Mongollian for penis was tibhe, this evolved into the modern Mongollian, chiv, the same word in Japanese is Chinpo, pronounced chimpo (a child's word, like peepee is chinchin)---notice the connection with tien and chin).

But the feminine root begins with k~ (The old Chinese word for the feminine aspect is kun (which comes directly from the original root of the feminine) referring to the feminine aspect of the universe. This is used in Feng Sui, Astrology, the I-Ching, etc.). Since Japanese is the furthest East of the Ural-Altaic languages, it makes sense that it would include many older roots and language forms than the Ural-Altaic langages closer to the Ural-Altaic homeland (the languages closer to the source undergo more diversification and change, hence the furthest out could be older). In Japanese the native word for heaven is ama, not Tien or Tan (though ten is Japanese adopted from Chinese). But ama is related to middle to old Korean Hanar (k~ devolves into g~ and h~, so think of Kanar in Old or proto Korean, and Kama as a root for heaven in Japanese). Hanar also became the Korean word for sun, ha, and the same Japanese word, hi. This suggests a trail for the Japanese word for god, Kami, to be an older feminine root, that still fits the Ural-Altaic concept of the sky-god as it relates in the more recent masculine root, tien.

Here is something to support that---the Ural-Altaic sky god is commonly associated with not only the sky, but the sun. Japanese Shinto too has traditions that point to ancient sun worship (though the sun is a Goddess in Shinto). Another Ural-Altaic group, the Yakut (or Sakha) of Siberia, have the traditional Ural-Altaic sky god, Tangara----but the Yakut word for sun is, Kun.

On the universal myth of the Garden of Eden, or the Golden Age, I see this as a combination of 1.) the proverbial 'grass is always greener on the other side' sentiment along the lines of the myths of the power of the ancients telling us that it must have been great back then; and 2.) an unconscious desire to return to that time when the unconscious mind had the most power over the psyche---something that is not only buried in the collective unconscious as distant memories from mankind's primal past, but also memories within our own past of the womb, and early days as an infant with our mother.

But I must mull over your comments. After all, even chimpanzees go on military raids against other family pods---which are very much like those of the modern military guerilla raid, with all the hand gestures, crouching, etc

[Mountain Valley Wolf]

BY the way, I was trying to locate some things in my office today and found a book which deals with the origin of Chinese characters----I opened it up and did confirm that the character for heaven is a straight line, like a ceiling that extends outward over man (the lower portion of the character means, man. That is what I thought even though the lower portion of the character is eqivalent to the Chinese character for large).

But here is something that I thought was interesting----the origin of the character for King (mandarin, Wang; Cantonese, Wohng) is that the vertical line represents the mediator between, heaven, the top horizontal line; Earth, the lower horizontal line; and man, the middle horizontal line. Thus we can compare this to a common petroglyphic symbol of the vertical line as axis mundi, or world tree, and the three lines of the different worlds of the indigenous universe----lower, middle, and upper worlds. The King is symbolically represented as the axis mundi.

This fits right in with Emperor Yu as shaman/emperor/dragon. The rising and falling dragon is clearly the serpent connected with the axis mundi. Considering that the Chinese dragon was also connected to underground water, and when it rose to the sky, it created rain, likewise ties these motifs to the very dynamics needed for the earliest stages of agricultural, and village development around the world. We see this same theme surrounding the serpent from the Middle East, accross Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. It is the rainbow serpent, the horned serpent, the feather serpent, and so forth.

In Kansas there is a petroglyph carved into rock that has the same three horizontal lines. There is a vertical tree that rises up through the lines----it's roots below (or around) the lowest line and the branches rising up accross the highest line. Accross this tree and these lines of the animistic universe----a horned serpent rises up.

The Chinese character for King is very old---certainly older than Emperor Yu----and the character for emperor is different still from that of king. But there is obviously a connection between king and emperor. This character could very well point to a very early spiritual structure much like that of the Japanese (and their divine lineage of the imperial line), in which the kings of the earliest communities were shamans---those individuals who literally do move up and down the world tree.

I should point out that the very first envoys from China to Japan, during the days of the Yamato Empire----came back to China and reported that the Yamato people were ruled by a Japanese shamaness (Princess Himiko) who they gifted a special seal from the Chinese Emperor. This seal was found at a dig in Nara---Japan's oldest capital. So there is plenty of reason to believe this story from ancient China.

[Indy Hippy]

I just recently got a copy of the Tao Te Ching myself. So far it is makin' for some very interesting reading. I converted to Taoism from Christianity only a couple weeks ago and I am studying vigourously to learn what I can. I am a firm believer that the tryad to enlightenment is love, knowledge, and peace.

IH

[zombiewolf]

Mountain valley wolf,
I get what you're saying, but I think as far as intuition vs.reason, I think reason had tipped the scales long before the advent of written language.
I think the invention of the Atlatl, not to mention highly developed edge technology,(knapped projectile points) Illustrates fairly advanced use of logic based on studied observation.
That the Clovis point was around so long wasn't because paleo man Or "Clovis man" was slow to innovate, It may just have been the Clovis point size, shape and most importantly weight, was the most efficient for it's purpose and so represented the pinnacle of it's development as a projectile point specifically for the atlatl dart. ( later arrow points show much more variance)
We also have plenty of evidence to believe that hunter gatherer had a better diet and far more liesure time.
In short I believe paleo man may have had much more rational intelligence than we give credit.

Indy Hippy, I'm not sure there is anything to covert to, But Taoist forum can always use more traffic! Looking forward to your input!

ZW

[Mountain Valley Wolf]

Zombiewolf, are you trying to say that women can't invent things???!! (JUST KIDDING! JUST KIDDING! (Couldn't help myself...)).

No---and in case anyone gets me wrong---the feminine elements of the mind does not insinuate that this is only how women think. We all have varying degrees of what we label as male and feminine aspect of thought-----anyway...

You make some fine points Zombiewolf. Early man was very knowledgeable. They even did trephining---essentially a form of brain surgery as early as the paleolithic. After all, their minds were human too.

I think that when we refer to intuition in the human sense, that it is not as mindless and impulsive as the inherited intuition of the animal world (though sometimes I have gotten that impression too from Jung's comments on 'primitive man', and how he sees them). In other words I think we can have intelligence and a certain understanding of logic without having the linear thought methods that writing induces.

While primitive man was very innovative at developing the atlatl, aerodynamic spear points, and other amazing things, there were few early cultures that understood the concept of zero, and any higher level of mathematics did not develop until after a writing system evolved. At the very least---it took the advent of agriculture and the institutions before mathematics evolved beyond measuring the cycle of the moon.

In fact there are things that point to a keen knowledge of the movement of the stars and sun as well as far back as the paleolithic. SO they were intelligent and very observant of the world around them. Their astronomical concepts are deeply buried in early myths---but here again that points to a understanding that emerges more from the unconscious than the objective train of thought.

Another example of the lack of linear thought can be found in the art work that early man left. There is no clear linear sense of beginning and end. Figures are drawn on top of each other in a composition that is almost chaotic. Still a clear theme can be found in this work. And once again harkens to the language of the uconscious---almost Kafkaesque or dream like.

I think a good part of that early logic was induced by both the power of the archetype, and the power of reason. Our own dreams try to act out or solve problems at a very high and accurate level even in our modern complex lives, though because it is in the symbolism of the archetype, it is largely misunderstood. Jung and a lot Jungian followers have come accross amazing things in dream research. On the other hand, we can see surprising levels of reason even in animals. Certainly humans would be expected to achieve much higher levels of reason, even if that reason is induced, discovered, or enlightened, by the archetype.

Then there is the amazing knowledge of medicine that we find among indigenous people. When you think about it----it would be rediculous to believe that this came about through centuries of people tasting different plants in the jungles and the moors, to see what happens to them. What kills them. Clearly there was a deep relationship with the spirit world, and knowledge was gained from this. There were a lot levels of this type of knowledge---ranging from calling game, to shamanic healing, to divination. In fact it was divination that gave birth to writing. Even if you don't buy into the belief of the spirit world, this has to be accounted for somehow----maybe the power of archetypes and the collective unconscious.

Of course none of us were there, so this is all theory, based on the clues left by ancient man. But this is how I see it based on my linguistic research, and other experiences I have had. I don't disagree with you----and I think you do make a good point. But this is the perspective I see it from.

I hope this makes sense---I am extremely tired and got to get to bed...

[famewalk]

testing, testing: bullshir.... Shucks. The bias was to be reckoned with the market in MInd.

[zombiewolf]

Even if you don't buy into the belief of the spirit world, this has to be accounted for somehow----maybe the power of archetypes and the collective unconscious

Schizophrenia, Psychedelic plants, the fractal nature of reality, and mans "intent" for pyromancy, plastromancy.

I understand some anthropologists have observed that the fractal patterns of cracks reveiled in the oracle bones very closely resembles some of the earliest Chinese characters. The "world tree" may have been one profound pattern of cracks.

If those diviners were "tripping" or in an otherwise "shamanistic state" I can understand why they would see some kind of meaning to those weird patterns of cracks. I know when I have taken LSD, I observed in myself, a high degree of suseptability to perceived hidden meanings in things. Many people report that when having a psychedelic experience they feel something profound is about to be reveled to them, but can't quite seem to get it. It is also a dominant trait of schizophrenia.

I really don't know what to make of all this, accept to say that we are really weird creatures, apparently living in a really weird world, at a weird time we call "Now". And I do dig weird!

I have to go now, I'm busy composing some weird music....:cool:

Have a weird day!:cheers2:


ZW :peace:

[dirtydog]

My feeling is that when Lao Tsu's wisdom was revealed, some emperor quickly decided that the attitudes that would grow from this philosophy would not be conducive to industry, or the production of wealth of any kind. So began a campaign to corrupt Lau Tsu's teachings by polluting it with Confucianism. With subtle insinuations of acquiescence to class divisions, along with a healthy dose of reverence for the state, Confucianism was the perfect foil for the perceived indigence of Taoism. Furthermore, I believe many of the later Taoist authors were actually in the employ of these emperors who were interested in furthering this goal.
And so that brings us to "Peoples Taoism". Chock full of Ghosts and spirits, God and Heaven, Rituals, incense, other various meditational paraphernalia...(.All great stuff for western tourists)
It's now no different then any other b.s. religion. Starts out good, but ends up being used to control people. Anybody wonder why china has never been able to rid itself of Totalitarianism?
We're facing a similar problem today, right here in America, I think.
ZW
Confucianism is of course the ultimate conservative doctrine. The current leaders of China are communist in name only, and Confucianism likely makes a great deal of sense to them.
I can't comment on Master Lao. Who could comment on Master Lao?
Much talk, much exhaustion.

[Mountain Valley Wolf]

Yes Zombiewolf, psychedelics were certainly a part of it. And Chinese writing is believed to be inspired by plastromancy----the cracks in the shell---maybe not entirely, but it certainly had its part. Meanwhile the alphabet in the Middle East too had its divinatory start. The Egyptian Hieroglyphics had their start because of the magic of engraving symbols which became names, etc. etc.

as far as something profound being revealed in the LSD experience----you should read some of the work of Dr Stanislav Grof----he has had patients and students who have had some pretty profound things happen while under the influence.

(Hey-----I dig weird music. One of my toys is a Korg MS 2000 Analog synthesizer----if Lao Tzu would have seen this----he would have rewritten the whole Tao Te Ching

The Tao that can be named is not the Tao that can be generated from several oscillators filtered, resonated, manipulated by attack, decay, sustain, and release, and modulated by a series of low-frequency-oscillators with depth, and feedback added in and possibly some white noise.

And if he got bored he could pick up my sitar---The Tao that can be named is not the Tao that can be played by a slide on a single string with multiple sympathetic strings vibrating under it...)