Asian Philosophy is Eloquent

[Racoon]

Among the most beautiful works of Poetry and Literature stands the " Tao Te Ching "

[orbsycli]

i have read this.
my mom got it for me, and i just love it.
it rests on the shelf.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Racoon

Chapter 4

The Tao, pours out everything into life-
It is the cornucopia that never runs dry.

It is the deep source of everything -
it is nothing, and yet everything.

It smooths round sharpness
and untangles the knots.

It glows like the lamp
that draws the moth....

Tao exists, Tao IS
but where it came from I do not know.

It has been shaping things
from before the First Being,
from before the Beginning of Time.

This sounds curiously like Gravity is the 4th Dimension by K.B. Robertson. The words I highlighted in red & read as a single sentence. The cornucopia is mathematically constructed as a series of straight lines turning at right angles to themselves as they expand at the square of their rate in three dimensional space.
___The planar analog of the spiral is derived by superimposing a vesica piscis whose long axis is the length of a larger vesica psicis' short axis & at right angles to it. Continuing this in either direction, i.e. smaller & larger additions & joining particular vetices results in the Archimedian Spiral. I'll see if I can't find the example drawing on the web. It is tedious to construct by hand with compass & straight edge, but enlightening.

Fascinating - Spock

[Turtle]

___Here is the construction as I described above. Two spirals -one left, one right- extending at one end smaller & smaller without bound while expanding at the other end without bound so as to form a cornucopia. Completely determined on the vesica piscis & prompted by the Tao De Ching. Truth is Universl; it's wherever you find it.

http://hypography.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=660&c=3

[Khan N. Singh]

it seems to me like a lot of Eastern philosophies are just more eloquent when it comes to describing the contradictory nature of the infinite vs. our own finite existence.

all philosophy seems to try and want to address the finite of us, and the infinite beyond.

some try to question our existence, and use that to start. some define our existence as the only truth, and use that to start. some define the infinite existence (a God for example) as the starting point. some describe the nature of our finite existence as a starting point. some (like this one) seem to describe the nature of an infinite existence as a starting point.

all different approaches to the same thing, no?

[BluesMan]

Originally Posted by Racoon

Chapter 11 of Tao Te Ching:

Thirty spokes on a cartwheel
Go towards the hub that is the centre

- But look, there is nothing at the centre
and that is precisely why it works!

If you mould a cup, you have to make a hollow:
it is the emptiness within that makes it useful.

In a house or room, it is the empty spaces
- the doors, the windows - that make it useable.
They all use what they are made of
to do what they do,

but without their nothingness they would be nothing.

One of my favorites.

[BluesMan]

Can't remember the source?

"Although a fool associates with a wise man, he no more comprehends the truth, than the spoon tastes the flavor of soup."

[BluesMan]

Found it!
Dhammapada 5
64. Though all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he no more comprehends the Truth than a spoon tastes the flavor of the soup.
65. Though only for a moment a discerning person associates with a wise man, quickly he comprehends the Truth, just as the tongue tastes the flavor of the soup.

[TheBigDog]

So it is better to be a tongue than a spoon?

Bill

[infamous]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

So it is better to be a tongue than a spoon?

Bill

Ahhh yes, but even better the mind than the tongue that understands the taste................Infy