tranquil and tumultuous thoughts, or some observations mixed with a Zhuangzian rabbit hole:
"Free of past and present, he could enter the unborn and undying, what kills all life without death, begins all life without beginning. It is something that sends all things off and welcomes all things in, destroys all and completes all. Its name is Tumultuous Tranquility. This Tranquil Turmoil! It reaches its completions, comes to takes its shapes, only through its turmoil.”
2/2
Confucius* said, "Make your will one! Don't listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don't listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit [qi]. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit [qi] is empty—and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind."
#Zhuangzi (Watson)
*Zhuangzi puts his words in the mouth of Confucius, something he’s fond of doing. These are not actual quotes from Confucius.
the journal part of this is called “free and uneasy” as a play on a phrase in the Zhuangzi, “逍 遥 游 (xiao yao you)” which is usually translated “free and easy wandering.” It’s also the title of the first chapter of the #Zhuangzi
It describes a way of engaging with the world, a way that is responsive to the endlessly changing natural processes in the world. It also suggests an attitude best suited to navigating those constant transformations with ease.
and I appreciate the name suggestions everyone gave sorry I didn’t use any of them, I settled on “radiant doubts” to keep the theme going. Inspired by this passage from #Zhuangzi
“Thus the Radiance of Drift and Doubt is the sage’s only map. He deploys no single definition of what is right, but instead entrusts it to the everyday function of each thing.”
"Once upon a time, I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhou. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man." - #Zhuangzi, Ch 2 tr Burton Watson
This made me think of #ZhuangZhou and you @nathanlovestrees
If you haven't seen Jesse Welles yet, buckle up and get ready for a ride!
https://youtube.com/shorts/f4kd3fiz3gc?si=5rZcogl8WO82HOsB
The penumbra said to the shadow, "First you were walking, then you were standing still. First you were sitting, then you were upright. Why can't you decide on a single course of action?"
The shadow said, "Do I depend on something to make me as I am? Does what I depend on depend on something else? Is my dependence like the case of the snake's skin or the cicada's shell? How would I know why I am so or not so?"
(Ziporyn translation)
"...the Course that gives no guidance, the Course that is not a course—who ‘understands’ these things, what could know them? If there is some kind of knowing of them, it could only be what we might call the Heavenly Reservoir: poured into without ever getting full, ladled out of without ever running out, ever not-knowing its own source. This is called the Shadowy Splendor.”
(Ziporyn translation)
From Zhuangzi’s Outer Chapters, written sometime in the 4th to 2nd century BC China, making a very similar argument to what I’m saying about love in Socrates:
https://www.bryankam.com/p/love-abstractedly
“The unipede adores the millipede, the millipede adores the snake, the snake adores the wind, the wind adores the eye, and the eye adores the mind.”
#Zhuangzi from Chapter 17, Autumn Waters, Ziporyn translation
Ruo of the Northern Sea said, “You cannot discuss the sea with a well turtle, for he is limited in space. You cannot discuss ice and snow with a summer insect, for he is fixed in his own time. And you cannot discuss the Course with a nook-and-corner scholar, for he is bound by his doctrines. Now that you have emerged from your dusty banks and had a look at the great ocean, you finally realize how hideous you are! Only now can you be spoken to about the Great Coherence.”
“If right were really right, it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument. Forget the years; forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!"
#Zhuangzi (Watson translation)
Huizi said to Zhuangzi, "Can a human being really be without the characteristic human inclinations?"
Zhuangzi said, "Yes."
"But without the characteristic human inclinations, how can he be called a human being?"
"A course gives him this demeanor, Heaven gives him this physical form, so why shouldn't he be called a human being?"
#Zhuangzi chapter five, Ziporyn translation
3/3 Instead, allow whatever is brought by the ears and eyes to enter into you without obstruction, kept always outside of the mind's understanding, and even the ghosts and spirits will seek refuge in you, not to mention human beings!”
#Zhuangzi (Ziporyn translation)
2/2 Look into that closed room, the empty chamber where brightness is born! Fortune and blessing gather where there is stillness. But if you do not keep still—this is what is called sitting but racing around. Let your ears and eyes communicate with what is inside, and put mind and knowledge on the outside. Then even gods and spirits will come to dwell, not to speak of men!”
#Zhuangzi (Watson translation)
2/2 …So what words other than spillover-goblet words, harmonizing through their Heavenly Transitions, could remain in force for very long? All beings are seeds of one another, yielding back and forth their different forms, beginning and ending like a circle, so that no fixed groupings apply. This is called the Heavenly Equality, the turning of the Heavenly Potter's Wheel. It is this equality of the turning of the Heavenly Potter's Wheel that we see in their Heavenly Transitions.”
Sir Sunflower said, "But where did you learn of this?"
Lady Solostride said, "I learned it from the son of Aided-by-Ink, who learned it from the grandson of Caught-in-Recitation, who learned it from Look-and-See, who learned it from Heard-in-a-Whisper, who learned it from In-Need-of-Labor, who learned it from There-in-the-Singing, who learned it from Dark-Oblivion, who learned it from Joined-in-the-Void, who learned it from Doubt-Beginning."
#Zhuangzi (Ziporyn translation)
“It is not as if the mind is first required to know all the alternating states and then actively selects for itself from among them the one to be taken as master and teacher. For the mind to be able to do that before any completed form has already taken shape in it, to make such an affirmation or negation about which form it will regard as right and which as wrong without already having taken some shape—that would be like leaving for Yue today and arriving there yesterday.”
