The ancient Masters were profound and subtle,
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it;
all we can do describe is their appearance.
They were careful
as someone crossing an iced-over stream.
Alert as a warrior in enemy territory
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.
Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
-Lao-tsu, Tao Te Ching
36 comments:
"The gods help those who help themselves."
-- Some Old Greek Dude
Confucius said.. Ice melt under pressure and water very deep beneath. Bird able to fly but not so solitary man.
Overdetermination is what they call it, I think.
How about when Achilles comes back to the fighting and he's standing on some giant fucking boulder and his armor's gleaming in the sun and Athena's standing right behind him and HIS FUCKING HEAD IS ON FUCKING FIRE!!!
Man, I'd turn fucking tail and get the hell out of there and I mean pronto!
I'm sorry. What was that again about mud or something settling to the bottom of something or other?
All well and good, but did Lao-tsu know when to use a Phillips screwdriver and when to use a Frearson screwdriver? I rest my case.
" when to use a Phillips screwdriver and when to use a Frearson screwdriver?"
Left-handed or right-handed screw driver?
A non-Phillips is called a Frearson?
Tom Clancy's publisher confirms to the NYT that he died last night in a hospital in Baltimore.
Rest In Peace.
Obama is politicizing the White House Web Site.
I like the image of mud-settled clarity, but I find in this life you often have to be prepared to take action on your best guess while the water's still murky.
Yes, CF, but try to do so mindfully :)
WFB's son, Christopher, is famous for disliking Tom Clancy's work.
Per Lem's link to Whitehouse.gov:
Because Congress did not fulfill its responsibility to pass a budget, ...
It was NOT a fucking budget. No budget was processed. A lick spittle short term Continuing Resolution is all it was....and we'd right back at this point in December.
This is how the Democrats want it...a periodic pissing contest they can game for publicity.
@Aridog: I understand the frustration but they are also hoping to get people on the right mad about the lies -- mad enough to lose tempers and look bad.
He who fling mud lose ground.
Philips screwdrivers were designed to auger out, for machine installation of auto windshield frames.
Somehow it stayed as a viable design.
Ancient Chinese secret?
We need more Calgon!
It was NOT a fucking budget. No budget was processed. A lick spittle short term Continuing Resolution is all it was....and we'd right back at this point in December.
Aridog, keepin' it real, yo!
(Sorry, I've got BrBa and Jesse Pinkman on the brain.)
lol, you got me, chick. But I'd forgotten it was a Calgon commercial.
Thanks, rh.
Ice, what did you think of the final song?
Chick, I mean I knew it was from a commercial.
Ice, what did you think of the final song?
Okay, but they got through the entire series without using "No More Mr. Nice Guy", and that seems wrong.
My favorite use of a song on that show was the way they used The Peddlers "On a Clear Day". Unfortunately I can't find a bit with the actual clip.
I was just telling a drinking buddy that the I Ching is just hippy-dippy astrology-for-hipster-douchebags rubbish. If you want to impress me, break out the Dao De Jing.
Icepick, I thought the song really worked...I was in a semi-daze as the camera drew away. The final outcome was so right.
Mitch, you are too cool for school :) But I was thinking of looking into the I Ching for benefit of acting on chance, that is learning to let go of attachment...do I have the general idea right?
Ice, thanks for the song link. Amazing. My son likes this one:
Truth
I see that seeing the middle seasons will be necessary on more than one level.
See, the final song didn't really hit me because (a) I didn't know it previously and (b) I have a hard time hearing lyrics these days. That last is partly because I've never cared about lyrics all that much, being more interested in the music itself. And it is partly that as I'm getting older my hearing is getting worse, and the noisier the environment the more trouble I have making out distinct words. And all songs that aren't a Capella are song over a fair amount of noise.
Sorry to hear that about your hearing.
I think the song definitely was more meaningful to those who were more familiar with it. A sort of weird nostalgic echo ensues back and forth between past and present. And this song was never a particular fave of mine. Just background music at the time.
Lots of things keep turning up over and over again. For example, Walt usually loses his weapon of choice at some point in confrontations with bad guys. Tuco's men take away the fulminated mercury (and I don't believe it was supposed to appear as if it exploded in mid-air now, but that's another discussion); Tuco takes away the ricin when he abduct Walter and Jesse; in the final episode Jack's men take away Walt's key fob. But somehow, he always manages to get the weapon back, sometimes because the "bad guys" just don't know what the weapon is.
This can be extended to the bit with Mike coming to kill Walter, and then letting Walter call Jesse - the phone is the weapon in that case.
Having watched a lot of it through the summer, and both the end and the beginning last week, they definitely could have taken the show along the path of it all being a fever dream, had they wanted. There were signals here and there that it could have been such, including some parallels with Walts life early in the series before he had really broken bad. But there was no way they could have done so in one hour, not without leaving everyone feeling cheated. So best that they didn't.
Sorry to hear that about your hearing.
It's no biggie. It's been a congenital thing in my family for many generations, and in my case is manifesting as tinnitus at this point. I've been expecting it. And it does seem to be hitting me a little less hard than it hit my mother, so that's good. I can still hear most things, but sometimes with noisy movies or TV shows the captioning helps. (I also live in a noisy house, but that's another story, and one not worth telling.)
And ultimately, I've heard lots of Bach and Beethoven, and musicians less talented but pretty entertaining, so I'll be fine if my hearing does go.
And I just got around to reading the lyrics to that Badfinger song. I can see how it works for the finale. But I don't believe I've ever heard that song before Sunday night!
Mitch, you are too cool for school :) But I was thinking of looking into the I Ching for benefit of acting on chance, that is learning to let go of attachment...do I have the general idea right?
I guess that's the philosophical justification for the I Ching, but if you want to act on chance, just get yourself a set of dice or Two-Face's defaced coin.
As for letting go of attachment... that's more Buddhism than Daoism. Merge the two together and you get Zen. But you have to take away the Buddhist obsession with nonbeing to get to Dao, whose nonaction is based on a very tangible reality, that from which nothingness and manifestation arises. A proper Daoist would say that your garden-variety Buddhist is too much yin, I suppose.
It's easy to approach the Dao De Jing as a poetic gloss on Plato's cave of chained philosophers. I've seen people claim that Daoism is the religion of science, but those people look at artifacts like the Dao De Jing and think that's the whole of the matter, not seeing the folkways upon which the high-minded books rise like foam on a great coarse, crass cultural wave. Of stuff like the I Ching, I guess, and things far less respectable. ^_^
"just get yourself a set of dice"
I know. I got the I Ching and dice idea recently reading The Book of est!
I am re-visiting Zen after many years, and as you know it is very much about nonbeing; Buddhism without the gods.
But thanks for the tip on the Tao/Dao. Interesting:
"whose nonaction is based on a very tangible reality, that from which nothingness and manifestation arises."
But Zen does not deny reality, per se, but sees it as the flip side of nonbeing...can't have one without the other...?
Ice, I saw a top youtube comment that says something like 'and then Jesse wakes up in chemistry class.'
There are so many things to notice. I never noticed the losing things, maybe because I've never watched the whole thing.
Plot hole: it would have been safer and more of a sure thing if Walt activated his car key gismo right after he cuts the engine.
But Zen does not deny reality, per se, but sees it as the flip side of nonbeing...can't have one without the other...?
This is why the other religions can't stand Zen, he's like a member of the Dao family wandering around the Buddhist family reunion with a misleading nametag. Also, as impossible as nailing jello to the wall.
I am re-visiting Zen after many years, and as you know it is very much about nonbeing; Buddhism without the gods.
Yes, but are they also without the asura, demons and hungry ghosts? For a religion which doesn't believe in existence, they have a truly astounding array of fanciful and inventive cosmology, like gnosticism on a rice-wine bender.
I think that a modern Zen does not contain ghosts, demons, etc. Here in America. Cafeteria Zen.
Deborah, he can activate the gun then, but he doesn't know who's in the line of fire at that point. He needs to wait until he knows most people are in the line of fire.
And the Jesse comment is good stuff!
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