Our intellect, in order to make sense of what it perceives, functions by discriminating, dividing, comparing, measuring and categorizing. We see things, not as they are (connections), but as we've come to "know" them (objects).
"[In modern physics], one has now divided the world not into different groups of objects but into different groups of connections ... What can be distinguished is the kind of connection which is primarily important in a certain phenomenon ... The world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the whole."
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, p. 107
These concepts we've been exploring therefore have their limits. They are representations for our mind; parts of a map, not the territory.
Given the vastness of possible connections between events, can we expect to comprehend all that is? No. But we can open our perspective, see nature's ways, and adapt to them.
"You can't know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life."
-Tao Te Ching
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4 comments:
"You can't know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life."
-Tao Te Ching
I love that! Thanks. what number is that in the Tao Te Ching? I just bought me the Gia-fu Feng version.
That text was from #14. I am on a thread there with these recent posts.
I have a fondness for the Stephen Mitchell version. First love, I guess.
You'll have to fill me in on your impression of the Gia-fu Feng version. I may have to break habit.
Habit for me is like finding a good restaurant. I keep going back and miss the opportunity to experience others.
# 14 in the Gia-Fu Feng:
Fourteen
Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.
Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao
at the book store i went to they had only one version. I enjoy reading the different versions on-line...A lot of people say they prefer the Stephen Mitchell version.
Thanks!
Thats a good idea...to find different versions online. I was able to google a Gia-fu Feng version.
I have a pocket version of the Stephen Mitchell version that pretty much travels with me whereever I go. I find it's a good source for quiet meditation.
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