Chuang and earlier Zen living

 "Heaven does not discriminate" I'm glad that page and quote came up. I love it. It says so much that is important. Heaven is the Universe, the thing, force, that makes everything happen, from the Big Bang (and the thing that caused the Big Bang), right up to me writing this right now. Humans in earlier times personified it, like they personified the sun, the moon, the wind, and so on in ancient Greek Gods, or believed that everything was imbued with life force, as they do in Japan's religion-philosophy, Shinto. Others just recognise it as a flow or path, which is how I interpret Taoist and Buddhist views on this matter. The important thing is that it says, the thing that causes everything, just unfurls naturally. It's not aiming to help one being, one tribe, one species, one planet, one galaxy, one universe because it prefers it, and it's not aiming to punish one being, tribe, species, planet, galaxy, universe either. It doesn't discriminate. Now unfortun...

  In harmony and ease! My intentions are now aimless. I go nowhere and have no idea how I got there. I go and I come and I don't know why. I have been, I have gone. I have no idea when my journey is over. I wander and rest in limitless vastness. Relax and chill out about life. Stop having goals, aims, ambitions. Accept the flow of existence and what it brings, good and ill. Enjoy the experiences as they come, wander where the flow takes you, and rest all the time while you do so. 

All forms of life are guided by it, though they do not know it. Attend to your body, concentrate upon the One, and the perfect harmony of Heaven will be yours. Rein in your understanding, unify your stance and the spirit will dwell in you. The Tao will be your dwelling place. You will seem like anew-born calf and you won't try to understand the reason why. Not inclined to pursue questions. Obscure, obscure, deeply dark, heartless, no advice forthcoming. Life is not yours to have, it is the combining harmony of Heaven and Earth. Your innate nature and destiny are not yours to have, they are constructs given you by Heaven and Earth. This section re-emphasises the philosophical perspective that there is one universal flow of cause and effect, a constant and endless chain of changes. We think we are free to think and choose but this is a delusion. We are the effects of change and we are unwitting and unaware causes of change. Everything we think, say and do is caused by external events...

What was so great about these masters as to be worthy of special attention? They take painstaking care, but to what end? They are useless to the world! None of this makes the people any better. Indeed what happens is that the people become more ambitious for gain. The consequences of this will remain for a thousand generations. A thousand generations later you will still have men who will eat each other! So many so-called gurus, personal advisors, life coaches and the like peddle glitzy junk. Good at marketing to the ambitious masses, hungry for fame and riches, which leads most to predictable disappointment and a miserable life. Then it becomes part of the society's culture, and the wrong direction multiplies, as does the mentalhealth problems.

He risks no disaster from Heaven, nor complications from things, no accusation from anyone. In life he floats, at death he rests. He does not consider and plan, nor design for the future. He shines but is not seen. His spirit is pure and without blemish. Empty, selfless, calm and detached, he is in harmony with Heaven's Virtue. For the heart to be without sadness and happiness is to have perfected Virtue. To be one and changeless is to have perfected stillness. To encounter no opposition is to have perfected emptiness. To have no dealings with anything is to have perfected indifference. To have no feelings of dissent is to have perfected purity. Free from contamination, still and level, never changing, detached and acting without action, is to follow the Tao of sustaining the spirit. Only the Tao of true simplicity guards the spirit. Simplicity means no mixing. The one who manifests simplicity and purity can be called the true man. This is about non-attachment, non-engagement, what...

I have heard of leaving the world open to its own way and not interfering. We let the world be, fearful of spoiling its innate nature. Are people too cheerful? If so they harm the yang. It makes them restless, moving here, moving there, plotting to no purpose, travelling for no good reason or result. The consequence of this is that the world becomes concerned with mighty goals and plots, ambitions and hatred. This is one of the fundamental maxims of Chuang. Don't interfere with the way of existence, even if you feel bad about certain aspects eg. Russian invasion of Ukraine. Let things take their own direction. Don't get involved. All things have a start point and all things end. Often our good intentions make matters worse, not better, and as there's no way of predicting the future, or the effects of our own intervention, it is better, wiser, and simpler, to stay nonattached from such things. We all think fun and cheerfulness are good but here he is challenging that notion....

From the dirt you have life, and when the dirt is different in form it is called different. You try to express this difference in words though it is not a subject for words. But it is certain that this is not something you can understand. We have fame and fortune, with people thinking they can determine what is really important. People think that they are the model of propriety and therefore try to make others see them like this, even to the point of dying for their views. They consider success as meaning they are famous. Perfect behaviour does not discriminate amongst people. Perfect knowledge makes no plans. Suppress the whims of the will and untie the mistakes of the heart. Unblock the flow of the Tao. We distinguish between things but they are all really part of the one universal whole, which is a constant flow of change. It is hard to embed this in our minds and live out the consequences of what this means for us in everyday life, in terms of   plans, hopes, work, politics, et...