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To: alt.magick.tyagi From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (mordred) Subject: Re: Taoism and Confucianism Date: 29 Jun 1995 17:39:03 -0700 [from alt.philosophy.taoism: millerjew@aol.com (MillerJew)] ~Subject: Taoism and Confucianism >>>>James Chiang wrote: I'm fairly new to the study of Chinese philosophies, but I find it very interesting. I was wondering if someone could outline the major ways in which Taoist thinking differs from Confucian thinking...... I'm a bit muddled in this can someone strighten me out?<<<< Wow! How to condense 2500 years of tension and harmony into one or two pages? (for me, 25 years of books strewn around and under my keyboard trying to answer this :-). But here's a quick sketch on Confucius and the Taoist thinking and how I see each of their values mete. I am sorry not to put in Confucianism, instead "Confucius", but I think you can get some ideas going... CONFUCIUS (because Confucius came before Confucianism :-) did not see us as an ultimate atom nor a societal cog on the wheel, nor some puppet to a god, nor some contract with society designed to maximize individual pleasure. He does not talk in the his "Analects" about society nor the individual. He talks of what it is to be a human, and he says that human is a special being with unique dignity and power deriving from and embedded in li ( benevolence). Confucius felt it's not enough for us to merely eat, breath, drink, and enjoy sensual satisfaction. Animals do this. To become civilized is to establish correct human relationships, defined by tradition, convention, and rooted in respect and obligation. Confucius did believed that a human is holy, but not holy by excellence of Absolute possession, nor for own's self, nor independent of others, as if a 'object' of the divine. Nor does he care about the 'awakening', nor the 'flowering' of an individual as the central theme. Instead he advocated the flowering of HUMANITY within the ceremonial acts between ourselves. Our self-cultivation is true, to be chiseled and polish like a gem, but no more central than the preparation of "good will to all others" is central. It is this interfusion (this vessel) through our identification in "jen" (two as one/or as Chang said, "fellow-feeling"), that is central. This jen cultivation between us and our fellow human's is the central CORE to Confucius thought. He said: "Seek not every quality in one individual!." Thus, all the elements and relationships and actions we endow to each other, "for each other", is in itself sacred and holy, (even though each of us have our own special characteristics). A Confucian sympathizer, Herbert Fingarette, quoted a line from Confucius (or Confucian text) to above effect so well, I can only verbatim it, (that): "The noble man is the man who most perfectly having given up self, ego, obstinacy, and personal pride follows not profit but the Way. Such a man has come to fruition as a person; he is the consummate Man. He is the Holy Vessel." TAO-------> In the highest sense I know, Tao is not a religion, but rather, the undefinable, "Uncomprehensible" (TTC 1) ROOT, that created us and all. Yet is free from all human descriptions and concepts because Tao came before the human. The Lao Tzu ( and that period) further clarified Tao, philosophically, by saying it is the primoridal 'perfection' of everything (that is existent and germinating). Tao is the immediate expression and actualization of It's perfection, present in every person, animal, ecological, ---> beyond, at every moment. From the expressed forms manifested out of Tao, all religions have sprung; All ecologies. All thoughts. I think we may not know the complete fullness of Tao but we may know much. Tao, reflected, shadowed, created "Mother" nature; as Prodigy of Tao, to us, in which we may know Tao's handiworks. Our thinking is born out of our earth matter as it is in the divine. Chuang Tzu (3BC), his greatest disciple, expanded him, but (technically) clarifying interfusion and identification to quicken our self-realization to the Tao. Expanded Tao to us, by detailing to us, the need for an intuitive awareness of the process of differentiation from nondifferentiation, the realization that the multiple diversities of existence emanate from the unity of the Absolute realm of Tao. He shows us the way of creating to "Te" (insight). ("Te", which needs not intellectual explanation in terms of process, but by us using intuitive reflecting on material forms). Through such intuitive/intellectual contemplation, he showed us how "The fishing net is used to catch fish; let us have the fish and forget the net. The snare is used to catch rabbits; let us have the rabbit and forget the snare. Words are used to convey ideas; let us have the ideas and forget the words." Sincerely, Zhou Resources: TTC "Creativity and Taoism" by Chang Chung-yuan, Harpers, 1963. "Confucius--The Secular As Sacred" by Herbert Fingarette, Harper, 1972. "Works of Chuang Tzu", Ch XXVI. "The Ethics of Confucius" by M.M. Dawson, The Knickerbocker Press, London, 1915.
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