Seeing: Quotes for Gardeners and Aesthetes

 

Seeing
Looking, Watching, Seeing, Sight
Vision, Perspective, Observing

Quotes for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

Spirit of Gardening Website

Quotes     Links     Recommend Reading     Home

Seeing     Hearing     Touching     Tasting     Smelling

Air     Earth     Fire     Water     Five Elements     The Five Senses    

Mind     Spirituality     Druids     Taoists     Tantrics     Process Philosophy

Months and Seasons     Gardening     Cloud Hands Blog 

 

On Not Resisting Temptations

Test, try, experiment - within reason.
Manage your pleasures and desires.
Be open to thinking and feeling in new ways.
Sometimes ignore what other people tell you to do or not to do.
Old values are not necessarily better values.
What is "bad" in one generation may be "good" in later times.
Enjoy the pleasure of eating apples.
When someone tells you not to ask, sometimes ask and ask again.
With only one life to live - be bolder.
Don't resist the temptation to improve, to change, to grow.
Like water, enjoy going downhill in new directions.
Embrace intellectual pleasures.
Be suspicious of people who talk too much about guilt and punishment.
Some failures are inevitable, just get up and move on.
Thinking and doing are often more advantageous than believing.
Many people associate sexual pleasure with 'sinfulness': nonsense.
Succumb to temptations to laugh more often.
If you can't take advantage of temptations then you are not free.
Remember what works for you.
When your tempted to be compassionate, act on the impulse.
- Mike Garofalo, Pulling Onions


"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."
- Oscar Wilde

"The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come your way again."
- Korman's Law

"For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"If we resist our passions, it is more because of their weakness than because of our strength."
- François, duc de La Rochefoucauld

"Most people want to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch."
- Robert Orben

"What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don't want to discourage it completely."
- Franklin P. Jones

"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones."
- John Maynard Keynes

"If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down."
- Mary Pickford

"The most useless are those who never change through the years."
- James Barrie




Willpower, Resolve, Determination, Progress

Senses

Epicureans and Hedonists

One Old Philosopher's Notebooks

Pleasures

God's Own Eye

                 The Fireplace Records, Chapter 31

God's Own Eye

Master Seung Sahn liked to write short enigmatic mystical poems.  He once wrote:

"Who sees the All as nothingness,
as nothing all that is,
sees everything through God's own eye.
Enlightenment is this."  (WWSF #63)

"The God who is pure emptiness
is created as form,
becoming substance, light and darkness
the stillness and the storm."  (WWSF #64)

It is quite unusual, also rare, for a Zen Buddhist to refer to the Christian God to support his own mystical theological-philosophical views.  Although, belief in and references to supernatural beings of various kinds is quite common in popular-folk Buddhism. 

Emptiness, nothingness, or the void are common themes, concepts, tropes or cliches in Zen Buddhist Koans and discussions.

Maybe Master Seung Sahn was playing on the sentences from the German Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, who once wrote: "To be full of things is to be empty of God.  To be empty of things is to be full of God. The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me."

Avalokiteshavara, a supernatural being, has a thousand hands with one eye in each hand.  Lin-Chi asked, "Which is the real eye?"  (IF 95)

The "Eye that grasps the Universe" is for Zhaozhou an Eye that is empty of defilement, free of attachments, untainted by conceptualizing, and beyond being and non-being. A clear-eyed neutral realistic objectivity--- seeing things as they are? (DSMS #291)

Yunyan contended that the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion had eyes and hands all over its' (his/her) body. Yes, we can "see" (understand/feel) our world with our hands, even with our eyes closed. (BOS #54)

Eyes, seeing, watching, observing, viewing, and overall vision are essential for surviving, learning, moving, and being-in-the-world. 

We love to use sight as a metaphor in poetry about spirituality.  Soren Kierkegaard wrote "All human speech about the spiritual is essentially metaphorical speech." Nietzsche said, "Truth is a mobile army of metaphors." 

The same Eye between God and a Person? 
Is it the same God between two million persons seeing in a spiritual way; or, are there two million Gods? How many eyes does God have? Is God blind in one eye like Sartre. Is God blind in two eyes like Ray Charles or Helen Keller? Does God have a Third Eye like yogi adepts? Is God nearsighted or far sighted and needs spiritual glasses? Are these two Transcendental Eyes looking through each other a pleasant fiction, a distorted double vision, an empty darkness, a blurred visual hallucination, an unfocused metaphor?

Now, really, does even a postulated God of Emptiness (God = Pure Emptiness) give birth to Substance, to Forms, to the realities of sunlight and darkness, man and woman, toads and ravens?  I am doubtful, even if obviously charmed. 

Maybe all this emptiness talk is just about negation. God was lonely, wanted to be creative, wanted to watch something, rejected being alone, and negated his present to create a future. So, It/He/She created ex nihilo the ordinary world. But, in this view, God is not emptiness; It/He/She is Something that rejected the emptiness of aloneness, negated his unpleasant solitude, and projected Somethings into existence. The Ten Thousand Things of Taoist ontology were born from the Dao embracing Change, rejecting and negating undifferentiated Nothingness.  

Ah ... the mysteries of ontology keep us wondering. I need a long walk!

Comments, Sources, Observations

Emptiness has little creative potency.
Somethings give birth to somethings.
Emptiness is not a metaphor for something.
Emptiness may make room for somethings to play.
"God" is maybe another metaphor, analogy, or acronym.
Emptiness is a lonely affair.

Emptiness is the subject of over 50 Zen Koans.

Meetings with Master Chang San-Feng 

Zen Master Raven

Sunyata, Emptiness, Void, Nothingness

Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans/Stories. 

Subject Index to 1,975 Zen Buddhist Koans

Zen Buddhist Koans: Indexes, Bibliography, Commentary, Information

The Daodejing by Laozi

Pulling Onions  Over 1,043 One-line Sayings by Mike Garofalo

Chinese Chan Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans

The Fireplace Records  By Michael P. Garofalo

Or

Mind Writing Slogans, Part II, by Allen Ginsberg

   II Path (Method, Or Recognition)
 
1.  "No ideas but in things." "... No ideas but in the Facts." — William Carlos Williams
2.  "Close to the nose." — William Carlos Williams
3.  "Sight is where the eye hits." — Louis Zukofsky
4.  "Clamp the mind down on objects." — William Carlos Williams
5.  "Direct treatment of the thing ... (or object)." — Ezra Pound, 1912
6.  "Presentation, not reference." — Ezra Pound
7.  "Give me a for instance." — Vernacular
8.  "Show not tell." — Vernacular
9.  "The natural object is always the adequate symbol." — Ezra Pound
10.  "Things are symbols of themselves." — Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
11.  "Labor well the minute particulars, take care of the little ones.
      He who would do good for another must do it in minute particulars.
      General Good is the plea of the Scoundrel Hypocrite and Flatterer
      For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars." — William Blake
12.  "And being old she put a skin / on everything she said." — W. B. Yeats
13.  "Don’t think of words when you stop but to see the picture better." — Jack Kerouac
14.  "Details are the Life of Prose." — Jack Kerouac
15.  "Intense fragments of spoken idiom best." — Allen Ginsberg
16.  "Economy of Words" — Ezra Pound
17.  "Tailoring" — Gregory Corso
18.  "Maximum information, minimum number of syllables." ─ Allen Ginsberg
19.  "Syntax condensed, sound is solid." — Allen Ginsberg
20.  "Savor vowels, appreciate consonants." — Allen Ginsberg 
21.  "Compose in the sequence of musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome." — Ezra Pound
22.  "... awareness ... of the tone leading of the vowels." — Ezra Pound
23.  "... an attempt to approximate classical quantitative meters . . . — Ezra Pound
24.  "Lower limit speech, upper limit song" — Louis Zukofsky
25.  "Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, Logopoeia." — Ezra Pound 
26.  "Sight, Sound and Intellect." — Louis Zukofsky
27.  "Only emotion objectified endures." — Louis Zukofsky

-  Mind Writing Slogans, Part II, compiled by Alllen Ginsberg, 1926-1997. 

Allen Ginsberg. "Mind Writing Slogans," copyright © 1993 by Allen Ginsberg, in
What Book: Buddha Poems From Beat To Hiphop, Gary Gach, ed., copyright © 1998, Parallax Press.]

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 35

Daodejing, Laozi
Chapter 35   


"One who holds fast to the Great Symbol
Gains the whole world
Bestows purest peace
Serenity and bliss.
Yet the hasty wayfarer
Attracted only by outer characteristics
Tastes Tao and is not aware of it
Sees Tao and does not perceive it
Listens to Tao and does not hear it.
But whoever
Grasps and holds it
Amid impermanence
Is grasped by the permanent
And attains duration."
-  Translated by K. O. Schmidt, 1975, Chapter 35



"Reside in the center
where understanding does not require words or images,
and folk will come to you to be taught
how to be serene.
Where there is good music and food
people stop to rest and regain their energy.
But though the Tao seems unmelodious or even bland
it is an inexhaustible source of refreshment."
-  Translated by Crispin Starwell, Chapter 35


"To him who holds to the Great Form all the world go.
It will go and see no danger, but tranquility, equality and community.
Music and dainties will make the passing stranger stop.
But Tao when uttered in words is so pure and void of flavor
When one looks at it, one cannot see it;
When one listens to it, one cannot hear it.
However, when one uses it, it is inexhaustible."
-  Translated by Ch'u Ta-Kao, 1904, Chapter 35 


"The owner of the biggest image attracts the whole world.
When all who come have been safely settled,
The world will then be peaceful.
Melodious music and delicious food
Can only attract passers-by.
But the Way is, when put into one's mouth, tasteless,
When looked at, colorless,
When listened to, uninteresting,
And, when used, limitlessly bountiful."
-  Translated by Liu Qixuan, Chapter 35 


執大象, 天下往.
往而不害, 安平大.
樂與餌, 過客止.
道之出口, 淡乎其無味.
視之不足見.
聽之不足聞.
用之不足既. 
-  Chinese characters, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 35


zhi da xiang, tian xia wang.
wang er bu hai, an ping tai.
le yu er, guo ke zhi.
dao zhi chu kou, dan hu qi wu wei.
shi zhi bu zu jian.
ting zhi bu zu wen.
yong zhi bu zu ji.
-  Pinyin Romanization, Daodejing, Chapter 35 

"Hold the Great Symbol
and all the world follows,
Follows without meeting harm,
And lives in health, peace, commonwealth.
Offer good things to eat
And the wayfarer stays.
But Tao is mild to the taste.
Looked at, it cannot be seen;
Listened to, it cannot be heard;
Applied, its supply never fails."
-  Translated by Lin Yutang, 1955, Chapter 35 

"Apprehend the inimitable conception, you attract the world;
coming it receives no harm, but it tranquil, peaceful, satisfied.
Like transient guests, music and dainties pass away.
The Tao entering the mouth is insipid and without flavour;
when looked at it evades sight;
when listened for it escapes the ear.
Yet, its operations are interminable."
-  Translated by C. Spurgeon Medhurst, 1905, Chapter 35 


"The owner of the biggest image attracts the whole world.
When all who come have been safely settled,
The world will then be peaceful.
Melodious music and delicious food
Can only attract passers-by.
But the Way is, when put into one's mouth, tasteless,
When looked at, colorless,
When listened to, uninteresting,
And, when used, limitlessly bountiful."
-  Translated by Liu Qixuan, Chapter 35 

"El Tao carece de forma y aroma;
No puede ser visto ni oido,
Y su aplicación no puede ser agotada.
Si ofreces música y comida
Los extraños se detienen a tu lado;
Pero si estás de acuerdo con el Tao
La gente del Mundo te mantendrá
En seguridad, salud, compañía y paz."

-  Translated by Antonio Rivas Gonzálvez, 1998, Capítulo 35 


"If you offer music and food
Strangers may stop with you;
But if you accord with the Way
All the people of the world will keep you
In safety, health, community and peace.
The Way lacks art and flavor;
It can neither be seen or heard,
But its benefits cannot be exhausted."
-  Translated by Peter Merel, 1992, Chapter 35

"Hold fast the idea of "The Great,"
Then all men will be drawn to you.  
They will come to you and receive no hurt,
But rest, peace and great calm.
When you provide music and exquisite food
The traveller will stay with you gladly.
When the Tao flows out from you to him
By his palate he does not detect its savour,
By his eye he cannot perceive it,
By his ears he cannot hear it,
But in using it he finds it to be inexhaustible." 

- Translated by Isabella Mears, 1916, Chapter 35 

Chapter 35, Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Chapter and Thematic Index (Concordance) to the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

English Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Spanish Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Taoism: A Selected Reading List


A Philosopher's Notebooks 

Feeling the Touch, Touching to Feel

"There are several basic kinds of touch that you may experience:  Intimate -- Here, your pressure receptors respond to a handshake, hug or kiss. If the person giving the touch is someone you care about, you'll probably feel warm and comforted. Your pressure sensors send the feeling of how hard the embrace is, and your brain interprets the nature of the touch as soothing.  Healing or therapeutic -- This type of touch is often associated with massage or acupuncture. Sometimes, the pressure is gentle and meant to soothe sore muscles. Other times, the pressure is deep in order to work out knots. Despite differences in severity of pressure, you likely to be aware that the outcome is healing, so your body allows you to relax.  Exploratory or inquisitive -- We all learn about the world through our sense of touch. Many people test out foods, fabrics or other objects by feeling different textures. Sometimes it's possible to rely solely on the sense of touch. This is why it's easy for you to reach into your bag and find a pair of keys without looking. You know the cold feeling of the metal key and hard smooth feel of your plastic key chain.  Aggressive or painful -- Of course, we all know that touch can also equate to pain if the pressure is too much and the intent is wrong. A handshake that's too firm can be uncomfortable instead of reassuring."

-  Psychology of Touching

"The hand is so widely represented in the brain, the hand's neurologic and biomechanical elements are so prone to spontaneous interaction and reorganization, and the motivations and efforts which give rise to individual use of the hand are so deeply and widely rooted, that we must admit that we are trying to explain a basic imperative of human life."
-  Frank R. Wilson, M.D., The Hand, p. 10

“If a thing can be said to be, to exist, then such is the nature of these expansive times that this thing which is must suffer to be touched. Ours is a time of connection; the private, and we must accept this, and it’s a hard thing to accept, the private is gone. All must be touched. All touch corrupts. All must be corrupted."
-  Tony Kushner, Homebody/Kabul

"Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together."
-  John Ruskin 

Touching

The Five Senses 

Dao De Jing, Laozi, Chapter 14

Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu

Chapter 14


"Look for It, you won't see It: It is called 'fleeting'.
Listen for It, you won't hear It: It is called 'thin'. 
Grasp at It, You can't get It: It is called 'subtle'.
These three lines
       are about something that evades scrutiny.
Yes, in it everything blends and becomes one.

Its top is not bright
Its underside is not dim.
Always unnameable, It turns back to nothingness. 
This is the shape of something shapeless
The form of a nothing
this is elusive and evasive. 
Encountering It, you won't see the front
Following It, you won't see Its back.

Keep to the Tao of the ancients
And so manage things happening today.
The ability to know the ancient sources,
this is the main thread of Tao."
-  Translated by Michael LaFargue, 1992, Chapter 14 



"When you're sitting, trying to get in touch with the Softness, the One important thing, it evades your grasp─like a spirit that appears here, then there, then is gone.  You think you see it, then it recedes into nothing.  This is the only way to describe the presence that is formless.  But in this practice we achieve a oneness.  And we come in contact with the deep sources of all things, the ancient sources that enable us to handle whatever comes to us today."  ...  "I take "know the ancient sources" of things to mean gaining an intuitive understanding of the deep truth about affairs.  (As often, "ancient" serves to express what we more commonly express by images of "depth" or "Origin."  (Note that here Tao is not the name of the ancient source that one knows, but of the practice by which one comes to know it.)  It seems very unlikely that "these three" refers to the three different things mentioned [i.e., seeing, listening, grasping] which "become one."  It makes more sense to suppose that "these three" refers to the three line saying, which is about a presence or mental quality incapable of being grasped through close mental scrutiny.  in this mental space everything is Merged, "blends and becomes one."  This observation is a partial basis for my solution to the puzzle about the meaning of Chapter 1, reading literally "these two, merged."  That is, it refers to the previous two-line saying in Chapter 1, which is (partly) about the state of "not desiring," which identifies with a mentally Still state called t'ung/"The Merging.""
-  Michael LaFargue  


The Tao of the Tao Te Ching.  A Translation and Commentary by Michael LaFargue.  State University of New York Press, 1992.  Detailed glossary, extensive bibliography, 270 pages. This translation is based on the oldest version ( 168 BCE) of the Tao Te Ching found in King Ma's tomb - the famous Magwandali manscript.  81 Chapters arranged in a topical order by the author.  Chapter 14, pp. 80-81. 


The Tao and Method: A Reasoned Approach to the Tao Te Ching.  A translation and commentary by Professor Michael LaFargue.  New York, SUNY Press, 1994.  640 pages.  Detailed index, bibliography, notes, and tables.  An essential research tool. 

"What you don't see when you look
is called the unobtrusive.
What you don hear when you listen
is called the rarefied.
What you don't get when you grasp
is called the subtle.
These three cannot be completely fathomed,
so they merge into one:
above is not bright, below is not dark.
Continuous, unnameable, it returns again to
     nothing.
This is called the stateless state,
the image of no thing;
this is called mental abstraction.
When you face it you do not see its head,
when you follow it you do not see its back.
Hold the ancient Way
so as to direct present existence:
only when you can know the ancient
can this be called the basic cycle of the Way."
-  Translated by Thomas Cleary, 1991, Chapter 14


"Looked at, but cannot be seen -
That is called the Invisible (yi).
Listened to, but cannot be heard -
That is called the Inaudible (hsi).
Grasped at, but cannot be touched -
That is called the Intangible (wei).
These three elude our inquiries
And hence blend and become One.

Not by its rising, is there light,
Nor by its sinking, is there darkness.
Unceasing, continuous,
It cannot be defined,
And reverts again to the realm of nothingness.

That is why it is called the Form of the Formless,
The Image of Nothingness.
That is why it is called the Elusive:
Meet it and you do not see its face;
Follow it and you do not see its back."
-  Translated by Lin Yutang, 1955, Chapter 14  




視之不見名曰夷.
聽之不聞名曰希.
搏之不得名曰微.
此三者不可致詰.
故混而為一.
其上不皦其下不昧.
繩繩不可名.
復歸於無物.
是謂無狀之狀.
無物之象.
是謂惚恍.
迎之不見其首.
隨之不見其後.
執古之道.
以御今之有.
能知古始.
是謂道紀.-  Chinese characters, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 14


shih chih pu chien ming yüeh yi.
t'ing chih pu wên ming yüeh hsi.
po chih pu tê ming yüeh wei.
tz'u san chê pu k'o chih chieh.
ku hun erh wei yi.
ch'i shang pu chiao ch'i hsia pu mei.
shêng shêng pu k'o ming.
fu kuei yü wu wu.
shih wei wu chuang chih chuang.
wu wu chih hsiang.
shih wei hu huang.
ying chih pu chien ch'i shou.
sui chih pu chien ch'i hou.
chih ku chih tao.
yi yü chin chih yu.
nêng chih ku shih.
shih wei tao chi.
-  Wade-Giles Romanization, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 14


"We look for it but do not see it:
    we name it "subtle."
We listen for it but do not hear it;
    we name it "rare."
We grope for it but do not grasp it;
    we name it "serene."
These three cannot be fully fathomed,
Therefore,
They are bound together to make unity.
Of unity,
its top is not distant,
its bottom is not blurred.
Infinitely extended
and unnameable,
It returns to non-entity.
This is called
"the form of the formless,"
"the image of nonentity."
This is called "the amorphous."
Following behind it,
    you cannot see its back;
Approaching it from the front,
    you cannot see its head.
Hold to the Way of today
    to manage the actualities of today
    thereby understanding the primeval beginning.
This is called "the thread of the Way.""
-  Translated by Victor H. Mair, 1990, Chapter 14 


"When you look, it isn't there
 Listen and you cannot hear it
 It seems to be beyond your reach
 Because you are so near it
 This single source of everything
 Appears to be an empty image
 Though it cannot be understood
 You can see its naked visage
 Follow it to nothingness
 Approach it where you have no face
 From nowhere to infinity
 This vacant image leaves no trace
 From never to eternity
 This naked face is what you are
 An empty, vacant, open door
 Forevermore ajar"
 -  Translated by Jim Clatfelder, 2000, Chapter 14   


"Se le llama invisible porque mirándole no se le ve.
Se le llama inaudible porque escuchándole no se le oye.
Se le llama impalpable porque tocándole no se le siente.
Estos tres estados son inescrutables y se confunden en uno solo.
En lo alto no es luminoso, en lo bajo no es oscuro.
Es eterno y no puede ser nombrado, retorna al no-ser de las cosas.
Es la forma sin forma y la imagen sin imagen.
Es lo confuso e inasible.
De frente no ves su rostro, por detrás no ves su espalda.
Quien es fiel al Tao antiguo domina la existencia actual.
Quien conoce el primitivo origen posee la esencia del Tao."   
-  Translation from Wikisource, 2013, Tao Te Ching, Capítulo 14


"Look at it: nothing to see.
Call it colorless.
Listen to it: nothing to hear.
Call it soundless.
Reach for it: nothing to hold.
Call it intangible.
Triply undifferentiated,
it merges into oneness,
not bright above,
not dark below.
Never, oh! never
can it be named.
It reverts, it returns
to unbeing.
Call it the form of the unformed,
the image of no image.
Call it the unthinkable thought.
Face it: no face.
Follow it: no end.
Hold fast to the old Way,
we can live in the present.
Mindful of the ancient beginnings,
we hold the thread of the Tao."
-  Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1997, Chapter 14 


"Look, it cannot be seen,
So it is called invisible.
Listen, it cannot be heard,
So it is called soundless.
Touch, it cannot be caught,
So it is called elusive.
These three cannot be examined,
So they unite into one.  
Above it there is no light,  
Below it there is no darkness.
Endlessness beyond description.
It returns to non-existence.
It is called the shapeless shape,
The substance without form.
It is called obscurely evasive.
Meet it and you do not see its beginning,
Follow it and you do not see its end.
Hold on to the ancient Way to master the present,
And to learn the distant beginning.
This is called the unbroken strand of the Way."
-  Translated by Stefan Stenudd, Chapter 14


"Looking for it, it cannot be seen -
Being formless, it is called Yi, the invisible.
Listening to it, it cannot be heard -
Being soundless, it is called Hsi, the inaudible.
Grasping at it, it cannot be reached -
Being subtle, it is called Wei, the intangible.
These three; imperceptible, indescribable -
Mystically united and elusively perceived
as an undefinable oneness.

As the oneness ascends - no light appears.
As the oneness descends - no darkness is perceived.
Unceasingly, continually, form eluding definition,
Evasively reverting to spirit - to nothingness.
The form of formlessness.
The image of imagelessness.
The oneness remains nameless.
Meeting it, it has no part which is front.
Following it, it has no behind.

Encompassing the ancient Tao,
Present affairs are mastered.
Knowing the primal nature of mankind
and the universe,
Is to know the essence of Tao."
-  Translated by Alan B. Taplow, 1982, Chapter 14 


 "Plainness is that which cannot be seen by looking at it.
 Stillness is that which cannot be heard by listening to it.
 Rareness is that which cannot be felt by handling it.
 These, being indiscernible, may be regarded as a Unity of the Tao.
 It is not bright above nor dark beneath.
 Infinite in operation, it is yet without name.
 Issuing forth it enters into Itself.
 This is the appearance of the Non-Apparent, the form of the Non-Existent.
 This is the unfathomable mystery.
 Going before, its face is not seen; following after, its back is not observed.
 Yet to regulate one's life by the ancient knowledge of Tao is to have found the path."
 -  Translated by Walter Gorn Old, 1904, Chapter 14

A typical webpage created by Mike Garofalo for each one of the 81 Chapters (Verses, Sections) of the Tao Te Ching (Daodejing) by Lao Tzu (Laozi) includes over 25 different English language translations or interpolations for that Chapter, 5 Spanish language translations for that Chapter, the Chinese characters for that Chapter, the Wade-Giles and Hanyu Pinyin transliterations (Romanization) of the Mandarin Chinese words for that Chapter, and 2 German and 1 French translation of that Chapter.  Each webpage for each one of the 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching includes extensive indexing by key words, phrases, and terms for that Chapter in English, Spanish, and the Wade-Giles Romanization.  Each webpage on a Chapter of the Daodejing includes recommended reading in books and websites, a detailed bibliography, some commentary, research leads, translation sources, a Google Translate drop down menu, and other resources for that Chapter.   

Chapter 14, Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Chapter and Thematic Index (Concordance) to the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

English Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Spanish Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Taoism: A Selected Reading List

A Daoist Druid's Final Journey  

An Old Philosopher's Notebooks

Sensual-Organismic Awareness

"Organismic awareness is what we - on the Ego Level - ordinarily, but clumsily, refer to as seeing, touching, tasting, smelling and hearing.   But in its very purest form, this "sensual awareness" is non-symbolic, non-conceptual, momentary consciousness.  Organismic awareness is awareness of the Present only -  you can't taste the past, smell the past, see the past, touch the past, or hear the past.  Neither can you taste, smell, see, touch or hear the future.   In other words, organismic consciousness is properly timeless, and being timeless, it is essentially spaceless.  Just as organismic awareness knows no past or future, it knows no inside or outside, no self or other.  Thus pure organismic consciousness participates fully in the non-dual awareness called Absolute Subjectivity."
-  Ken Wilber, Spectrum of Consciousness, 1977, p. 115

The Five Senses

Time and Processes in Philosophy

A Repost from the Cloud Hands Blog from 2017

Powers of Scents

"Of all the ingredients we employ in the creation of a garden, scent is probably the most potent and the least understood.  Its effects can be either direct and immediate, drowning our senses in a surge of sugary vapor, or they can be subtle and delayed, slowly wafting into our consciousness, stirring our emotions and coloring our thoughts."
-  Stephen Lacey, Scent in Your Garden, 1991

"Scents bring memories, and many memories bring nostalgic pleasure.  We would be wise to plan for this when we plant a garden."
-  Thalassa Cruso, To Everything There is a Season, 1973  


"The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of recognition, for old memories and old connection. "
-  Lewis Thomas 

The Five Senses

Primacy of Sight

"Sight is valued above all other senses.  True, we can be persuaded that touch and hearing are more basic─the one to survival, the other to the acquisition of language.  Nevertheless, sight enjoys primacy.  It immediately gives us a world "out there."  Self, without a world, is reduced to mere body.  All senses give us a world, but the visual one has the greatest definition and scope.  This expansive visual world is both sensual and intellectual.  It is sensual, not only because of its colors and shapes, but also because of its tactile quality: we can almost feel what we see─smile with pleasure as we look at a fluffy blanket.  It is intellectual because somehow to see is to think and to understand: sight is coupled with insight, and to exercise the mind is to see with "the mind's eye."  Perhaps most important of all, the primacy of sight rests on a simple experience.  Open our eyes, and the world spreads before us in all its vividness and color; close them, and it is instantly wiped out and we are plunged in darkness.  One moment, the world is an enticing space inviting us to enter; the next, it collapses to the limit of our body and we are helplessly disoriented."
-  Yi-Fu Tuan, Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture, 1995, p. 96. 

Vision, Seeing, Sight: Quotations, Facts, Poems

The Five Senses

Wisdom Within Our Flesh

"The human body is not an instrument to be used, but a realm of one's being to be experienced, explored, enriched and, thereby, educated."
-  Thomas Hanna

"There is deep wisdom within our very flesh,  if we can only come to our senses and feel it."
 -  Elizabeth A. Behnke

"He who feels it, knows it more."-  Bob Marley  

 "The hand is the cutting edge of the mind."
-  Jacob Bronowski


'The Heavenly Level is the function of feeling."
-  Cheng Man-ch'ing

"No matter how closely we look, it is difficult to find a mental act that can take place without the support of some physical function."
-  Moshe Feldenkrais  

"I would have touched it like a child
But knew my finger could but have touched
Cold stone and water.   I grew wild,
Even accusing heaven because
It had set down among its laws:
Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch."-  W. B. Yeats  

Touching, Feeling, Sensation: Quotations

The Five Senses

Bodymind Theory and Practices, Somaesthetics

Self-Massage 

Body-Mind-Spirit Movement Arts

Lunge Exercises, Yoga Lunges, Taijiquan Lunges

Falling on Deaf Ears

 The Fireplace Records, Chapter 12

Falling on Deaf Ears

 "Mulla Nasreddin was at the teahouse one afternoon when Arif the Hakim Doctor walked in. “How are you, Mullah? I hope you and your family are well,” Arif asked politely. 

“I’m fine, thanks, Arif, but I’m worried about my wife, who seems to have become very hard of hearing. Is there any cure for her problem?” asked Nasreddin.

“Well, some degree of age-related hearing loss is normal,” Arif said. “If you bring your wife to my dispensary, I can check her hearing and prescribe the necessary treatment. But before you do that, you can try this simple test. When you go home this evening, call out to your wife from the gate and see if she hears you. If not, then try speaking to her from the front door and keep reducing the distance until she responds. This way you will be able to gauge how serious her hearing deficiency is.”

Nasreddin thanked the doctor for the free medical advice and headed home. Calling out to Fatima from the gate in the front yard, Nasreddin said loudly: “I’m home, dear. What are we having for dinner?”

 Getting no reply, Nasreddin opened the front door and yelled: “I’m home, dear. What are we having for dinner?”

 Still getting no response, Nasreddin pushed open the kitchen door and repeated loudly: “What’s for dinner, dear?”

Fatima, who was stirring a large pot on the stove, turned to face her husband. “Are you deaf, Nasreddin?” she said angrily, wiping her hands on her apron. “For the third and last time, I repeat: we are having fish stew and pilaf, followed by apricot halva for dessert. And, Nasreddin, please get me some more kindling for the kitchen stove fire.”

Mulla Nasreddin could not hear her very well.  He had a sudden insight.    

My teacher said, "Mulla Nasreddin is often portrayed as a gentle dimwit.  His little tales intrigue us with humor, cleverness, stupidity, and puzzling remarks. Many Zen Koans seem rather dumb, nonsensical, puzzling, and illogical, but seldom as off base as the crazy wisdom of Nasreddin." 

A Student's Considerations:

Look into your own skills and limitations first.
Hearing and listening are not the same.
Get closer and speak softly.  Don't yell so often.
Listen to yourself talking more carefully.
Think and reason before making a judgment.
Ride a donkey or horse--- or walk.
What's with that big hat on Mulla Nasreddin's head?

 

 Related Links, Resources, References

Mulla Nasreddin (1208-1285) 

The World of Mulla Nasreddin. Translated with commentary by Idries Shah. Kindle Scribe, 2020, 493 pages. VSCL, Kindle E Book.

Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans/Dialogues.

The Daodejing by Laozi    Best? 

Pulling Onions  Over 1,043 One-line Sayings by Mike Garofalo

Chinese Chan Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans

Taoism

Buddhism

Fireplaces, Stoves, Campfires, Kitchens, Pots, Firewood

Chinese Art

Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong

Meditation Methods

Zen Koan Books I Use

Song Dynasty, China, 960-1279  

Koan Database Project

Brief Spiritual Stories, Dialogues, and Encounters
Zen Buddhist Koan Collections
Bibliography, Quotations, Indexing, Notes, Resources
Research by Michael P. Garofalo

The Fireplace Records By Michael P. Garofalo

Sit Quietly: Focus and Forget

"Teach us to care and not to care.
Teach us to sit still."
- T.S. Eliot

"You are sitting on the earth and you realize that this earth deserves you and you deserve this earth.  You are there - fully, personally, genuinely."
-  Chogyam Trungpa

"Remain sitting at your table and listen. 
Do not even listen, simply wait, 
be quiet still and solitary. 
The world will freely offer itself 
to you to be unmasked, 
it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy 
at your feet."
-  Franz Kafka


"Sit quietly
focus and forget
rest with the great achievement.
The ancient child asks
"what is the great achievement?"
It is beyond description in any language
it can only be felt intuitively
it can only be expressed intuitively. 
Engage a loose, alert, and aware
body, mind, and sound
then look into the formless
and perceive no thing.
See yourself as a sphere
small at first
growing to encompass
the vastness of infinite space. 
Sit quietly
focus and forget then
in a state of ease and rest
secure the truth of the great achievement.
Employing the truth will not exhaust its power
when it seems exhausted it is really abundant
and while human art will die at the hands of utility
the great achievement is beyond being useful.
Great straightness is curved and crooked
great intelligence is raw and silly
great words are simple and naturally awkward. 
Engaged movement drives out the frozen cold
mindful stillness subdues the frenzied heart.
Sit quietly
focusing
forgetting
summon order from the void
that guides the ordering of the universe."
-  Tao Te Ching, Chapter 45, Translated by John Bright-Fey, 2006



"There are many matters and many circumstances in which consciousness is undesirable and silence is golden, so that secrecy can be used as a marker to tell us that we are approaching the holy."
-  Gregory Bateson, Angels Fear




Sitting in the Garden

Zuowang Meditation

Spirituality and Nature

Depoe Bay in Oregon

Headed down to Depoe Bay
today, Sunday.

Going all back roads, new ways, over the coastal range
ending in the Siletz River bay. 
Going alone, Karen stays home with two friends from Grants Pass. 
The smells of the sea are drawing me!
 

Siletz River in Oregon 2012

Moolack Beach Area
South of Beverly Beach State Park, Oregon
July 2021

Lost Creek Beach
South of South Beach State Park, Oregon
July 2021
I can stretch out in the back of my Ford Escape,
and get out of the cold wind.
Sitting, walking, and reading for many hours by the sea shore.  
I sipped a large cafe mocha and chewed a delicious biscotti.  

Enjoyed the views and sounds of the surf.

Tried to walk down
             a steep trail

to the sea shore,
             almost slipping,
so I sat down,
let other hikers pass;
then crawled up on all fours
          back up the rocky hill
                                            until
I could stand on sandy soil
              without wobbblliing,
and retreat to places safe.    

Something easy at 25
is not so easy at 75;
especially if your 75
and stoned on Blue Dream Fives. 

-  Michael P. Garofalo
   Moolack Beach, Oregon, July 2021