Mix and Match
The most common phrase being uttered at me while growing up was: "Use your head."
From failing math problem sets to squirting and consequently breaking the TV with a water filled rubber glove that to my dismay had a hole in it, I was repeatedly told to "use my head."
Now that I'm older, using my head is something that goes without saying. But like I always believe, there is a danger to excessively doing something that is even seemingly positive. What if I'm guilty of using my head too much?
In my spare time, also dubbed time I should spend doing work at work, I have taken to reading materials on buddhism and taoism. And by materials, I am mostly referring to wikipedia. Gimme a break, I can't get into complicated religious texts if I have to do work, it's more like mini breaks to prevent my brain from excel overload. Anyway, the idea of wu wei in taoism is confusing, almost like a self defeating concept. If wu wei literally means non-action, then why doesn't everyone just drop what they're doing and wait for life to happen. Like everything else, I decided this needs a closer inspection. While I haven't had the time to get the real answer from deep philosophical books, confounded by the sad reality that I may have forgotten how to read, I came to a realization of my very own. It may be something as simple as silencing the mind, a deceivingly easy task. In order to understand the Way, find inner peace, achieve nirvana, whatever mumbo jumbo, we have to find a way to make life stop, step out, and observe. Most of the time, we're too caught up, in ourselves, in someone else, in our jobs, in our worries. It's like being that objective bystander, but even in situations involving yourself. I wonder if that would feel literally like an out of body experience. I'll let you know if I ever get there.
Wu wei has very little to do with the kind of action we would normally associate action with. It's active in that there is definite effort involved, but again effort here doesn't mean the kind of effort we normally apply. In fact if you haven't underst00d what I've been saying, it's probably not even explainable in human terms. All I know is that words and common truths are man made, man made strays farther from nature every minute. There is a direction in life, but it's not lucid because we're using the wrong map. Does that make sense? Did I just ask if my blog entry makes sense?
It is important to slow down life, because life as we know it is actually chaos.
PS. I hold strong resentment towards people who claim to be buddhist, taoist, or any religion for that matter because they've done their reading. In order to declare yourself religious, you'd have to be actively practicing. Otherwise you're just another reason for why people are so cynical about religion. Debating theology in my opinion is almost always the biggest waste of time, because it's always open to misinterpretation, humans arguing human made terms. I'm not actively practicing any religion in particular, but I like to mix and match.
From failing math problem sets to squirting and consequently breaking the TV with a water filled rubber glove that to my dismay had a hole in it, I was repeatedly told to "use my head."
Now that I'm older, using my head is something that goes without saying. But like I always believe, there is a danger to excessively doing something that is even seemingly positive. What if I'm guilty of using my head too much?
In my spare time, also dubbed time I should spend doing work at work, I have taken to reading materials on buddhism and taoism. And by materials, I am mostly referring to wikipedia. Gimme a break, I can't get into complicated religious texts if I have to do work, it's more like mini breaks to prevent my brain from excel overload. Anyway, the idea of wu wei in taoism is confusing, almost like a self defeating concept. If wu wei literally means non-action, then why doesn't everyone just drop what they're doing and wait for life to happen. Like everything else, I decided this needs a closer inspection. While I haven't had the time to get the real answer from deep philosophical books, confounded by the sad reality that I may have forgotten how to read, I came to a realization of my very own. It may be something as simple as silencing the mind, a deceivingly easy task. In order to understand the Way, find inner peace, achieve nirvana, whatever mumbo jumbo, we have to find a way to make life stop, step out, and observe. Most of the time, we're too caught up, in ourselves, in someone else, in our jobs, in our worries. It's like being that objective bystander, but even in situations involving yourself. I wonder if that would feel literally like an out of body experience. I'll let you know if I ever get there.
Wu wei has very little to do with the kind of action we would normally associate action with. It's active in that there is definite effort involved, but again effort here doesn't mean the kind of effort we normally apply. In fact if you haven't underst00d what I've been saying, it's probably not even explainable in human terms. All I know is that words and common truths are man made, man made strays farther from nature every minute. There is a direction in life, but it's not lucid because we're using the wrong map. Does that make sense? Did I just ask if my blog entry makes sense?
It is important to slow down life, because life as we know it is actually chaos.
PS. I hold strong resentment towards people who claim to be buddhist, taoist, or any religion for that matter because they've done their reading. In order to declare yourself religious, you'd have to be actively practicing. Otherwise you're just another reason for why people are so cynical about religion. Debating theology in my opinion is almost always the biggest waste of time, because it's always open to misinterpretation, humans arguing human made terms. I'm not actively practicing any religion in particular, but I like to mix and match.
posted by Mix at 12:37 AM
1 Comments:
Yep, it makes sense. There's actually a Taoist group on Facebook, but I left that group because all it did was talk about theory.
I don't think you've reached the over thinking point yet, so fear not =)
I guess the problem with philosophies such as Taoism is that it has so much to do with personal understanding, so one person really can't communicate with another person his or her own view point on such matters. Part of what hinders this is just the fact that it's rather abstract and you're in a realm where words don't have a role, which is why the book of Tao opens with the line: The Tao that can be talked about is not the true Tao, the Way that can be discussed is not the true Way.
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