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DiscoStu

The Named Is The Mother of All Things

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this is from the tao te ching chapter one, just curious what you suppose this means?

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The key to this statement is that all ‘things’ are illusion. They are simply a construct of the ego, or lower self. For example, disco stu is the mother of all things, the part of our infinite self that is named is our lower self, or ego. This is what gives rise and meaning to the ‘things’ of our mundane physical reality.... There is more beyond our egos, but in that level of awareness ‘things’ don’t exist, just energy/love/light...

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There is more beyond our egos, but in that level of awareness ‘things’ don’t exist, just energy/love/light...

dont you need a "thing" to exist in order to love it? how can love exist at the "higher self" if there's no things there to love?

 

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Love is recognising something as ourselves. Though, that is usually a subconscious realisation from the perspective of ego. From the higher perspective, that is the realisation that you and a ‘thing’ are not seperate at all. So, ‘things’ then cease to exist as an external, and all is ‘you’. ‘You’ exisiting in the dimensional perspective of “I is”, which is ‘higher’ then the perspective of “I am”, which in turn is a dimension beyond “I”.

 

I = I am my thoughts

I am = I am the observer of my thoughts.

I is = I am without the I, just am or is.

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i'm not sure if you're referring to the "lower self" as lower because it's a bad thing or not, or whether we should recognise or ignore it. a bear running at me a at 60km/hr ready to tear my face of is a "thing" external to myself, and recognising it as such is probably a good thing. food is a "thing" external to myself, why why i need to procure it and put it in me (make a part of myself if you will). so there's not really "no external things" just that the external and internal are not completely separate, but also not completely the same. 

 

but back to the original quote. i don't think he's referring at all to any kind of ego here, mores so the fact we give existence to things by conceptualising them (i use conceptualise and name here in the same sense, in that if we can conceptualise something we can name it, and if we name something it must be necessarily conceptualised). this too goes for the "higher self", in that you conceptualised and named something which is apparently above the "lower self" but naming things is an illusion so the higher self is an illusion too?

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I'll give it a go, Stu....

 

 
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
 
Thus, constantly free of desire
One observes its wonders
Constantly filled with desire
One observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders
 
Interpretation
The Tao that can be completely explained or expressed in words is not the constant, eternally unchanging and true Tao.
 
If the name of this Tao can be defined with words, then it is not the constant, eternally unchanging name of the true Tao.
 
Names did not exist prior to Creation. The nameless Tao is therefore the source of the universe.
 
Once it manifests itself as the physical universe, it can be named. Everything is derived from it through natural processes. It is therefore the mother of all things.
 
I do not pretend to fully grasp what this is saying, because to do so (my understanding is) you have to experience the true Tao. And to do this, you have to get past the ego. (I can't even meditate properly yet, because I can't shut my ego up :)). Sometimes I think I start to get the gist, then other times I just close my eyes and shake my head. As far as what "The named is the mother of all thing" is about, the last line of the interpretation sums it up for me, in the sense I get what it is saying, not necessarily what it means.
 
I feel like I run in circles trying to understand this stuff, sometimes, most of the time. To describe what the statement means, you need to use names. But you can't name that which cannot be named. I guess that's what is meant by the first line of the interpretation.  Perhaps to understand it, you must experience it; it cannot be explained....  

 

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I think they're talking about whatever started it all and is it all. You could call it a god if you want. In Toaism its Qi, Named, or sometimes the One. Not something to be worshiped but instead cultivated.

Edited by Crop

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On 09/10/2017 at 7:02 AM, MountainGoat said:

The key to this statement is that all ‘things’ are illusion. They are simply a construct of the ego, or lower self. For example, disco stu is the mother of all things, the part of our infinite self that is named is our lower self, or ego. This is what gives rise and meaning to the ‘things’ of our mundane physical reality.... There is more beyond our egos, but in that level of awareness ‘things’ don’t exist, just energy/love/light...

MoutainGoat I was really digging this, but isn't love just a chemical reaction in your physical body, yet another illusion constucted by the ego?

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On 08/10/2017 at 9:35 PM, DiscoStu said:

this is from the tao te ching chapter one, just curious what you suppose this means?

all are potential possibilities with equal potential to not be ... until named

then they ... are / become

 

it's a killer but so hard to help it tho but it can often be caught in the "brewing" [of being named]...

and so easy to forget and then realize wahay it happened again.

 

some things are better left unsaid is a common one I hear ;) but in a way if they're not said then they aren't "birthed into existance" (or rather face level and open and not hidden and "it's" [whatever it be at the time] pretended non-existance back to a layer oft ignored and to most : zilch/

 

e.g. that quantum shit of changing when viewed is similar , as viewed it becomes,.. when unviewed it could take it or leave it .. or probably more precisely ; it could take anything or leave anything and one of those infinite possibilities (maybe more than one by feels) is nothing. .. or back to the main topic : - un named

- the viewing could induce the mind to "name" what it sees one way or other maybe a word maybe a feel maybe a frequency of unusual/unique pitch as a label [name] and thus it becomes.

 

so never say bad things that might happen to the person saying and happening-ed .. lest they do :)  .. is a nice rule but tricky to keep , especially when distracted or if something happens to piss off/ enrage.

 

knowing this is a bit of a power that could corrupt hence 'saying things that could happpen' - into future existance..

not that it always works but when it does be sure to have been sure when saying /having said especially with intentions relating to that knowledge ... lest it backfire I guess .. and it does.

 

by the way it's deeper than the word from the mouth audially , thinking it can still be recieved by others and that weird thing ... usually encompassed by a "dammit how did they know what I was thinking and trying not to say"

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On 09/10/2017 at 6:05 AM, DiscoStu said:

this is from the tao te ching chapter one, just curious what you suppose this means?

Hi DiscoStu 'Tao Te Ching' is a hard read, made worse by the fact its older than the bible and written in a language notoriously hard to translate. If this is your first look at Taoism, I am excited for you, but recomend you start with a practical manual. My favorite is 'The Tao of love and sex,' by Jolan Chang; he covers many of the main concepts wrapped in a subject that everyone has an interest in. Once you get your head around the day to day practical applications of Taoism you'll be ready for Lao-Tze and all his deeper shit.

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Hey thanks for the suggestion but ive been "studying" zen for some years in chinese and sanskrit for some years so the ideas are not all that foreign. Im not a super  fan of peoples general introductions to topics and prefer always to read the source texts. I have thomas clearys translation of the tao te ching here but its shockingly bad so i mansged to get a bilingual app on my phone which is great so im kind of translating a line a week at a time. Slowly but surely but im kind of learning ancient chineze at the same time. But anyway i  started this topic more to just generaye discussion rather than looking for an answer

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Quote

The way molds myriad beings but is ever formless. 

Silent and unmoving it totally comprehends the undifferentiated unknown.

No vastness is great enough to be outside it,

No minuteness is small enough to be inside it.

It has no house but gives birth to all the names of the existent and non-existent.

 

 

this is from thomas cleary's translation of the wenzi so i don't know how accurate it is. 

how do you understand this?

Edited by DiscoStu

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13 hours ago, DiscoStu said:

 

this is from thomas cleary's translation of the wenzi so i don't know how accurate it is. 

how do you understand this?

I'll have a stab. As I understand the Tao it's ment as a way of life for the masses.

 

14 hours ago, DiscoStu said:

The way molds myriad beings but is ever formless. 

The way is mutable and can be adapted to all situations.

 

14 hours ago, DiscoStu said:

Silent and unmoving it totally comprehends the undifferentiated unknown.

Still your mind and you will understand how.

 

14 hours ago, DiscoStu said:

No vastness is great enough to be outside it,

No minuteness is small enough to be inside it.

It permeates all things.

 

14 hours ago, DiscoStu said:

It has no house but gives birth to all the names of the existent and non-existent.

On it's own it is nothing, but without it everything becomes meaningless.

 

 

Then again I've already had a few.

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Things are named, reified, therefore the named are the 'generator' of things (i.e. the material world). The Tao is only called Tao because it is a fairly generic, common noun, meaning way, road or path essentially. The name is not the thing, it is just a name and all that.

 

As far as the Tao goes, it is not Qi, although Qi can be cultivated from jing, or physical vitality I guess, then Qi can be sublimated to shen, or spirit, then shen can merge with the Tao, or way. Worth remembering that wu-wei, or non-doing, is essential to attaining the way, which means any cognising or theorising on an intellectual level pushes you further away from the Tao, which exists effortlessly, as it always has, as it always will, beyond thought, beyond space, in-between, inside and outside. I guess I tend to conceptualise it as a kind of guiding blueprint that underlies existence. 

 

For anyone interested in really getting some deeper insight I would recommend QiGong and Tai Chi Chuan, as both are based on an understanding of yin and yang, and the goal is merging with the Tao. Experience is the best teacher, and the mind is a fool.

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