Asealdor

Paramedic/Pilot StudentThe " UNITED STATES " Is More Divided Than In The Year 1861Local Artpage 40 Lao-Tzu describes the operation of Tao as "production without possession, action without self-assertion, development without domination."It has been observed that Chinese civilization, which values gentleness and yielding, is a plant civilization, as opposed to Western civilization, which is modeled on animal life and characterized by struggle, conquest, and the survival of the fittest. This observation is fitting if we take the Tao Te Ching to be the fundamental expression of Chinese civilization; its secret is its idea of Tao, modeled on the life of a plant.Just as a living plant is tender and yielding, so is Tao weak and yielding. With plants the hidden roots support the visible leaves and flowers, which return to the roots upon perishing. Likewise, Tao is the hidden root, the non-being from which all beings spring and to which all beings return. The life of a plant is conditioned by seasonal rotation. So is the movement of Tao in four stages; great (summer), disappearing (fall), far away (winter), and return (spring). In the same way does the Taoist model spiritual life after a plant. A living plant is tender and pliant, while a dead plant is stiff and hard; one who is with Tao is also tender and pliant, while one who departs from Tao is stiff and hard. The plant kingdom is a quiet kingdom that sleeps in beauty; Taoist quietude is the spiritual condition for regeneration. A plant grows at its own pace. One must not, like the farmer in the Mencius, help the growth of the corn stalks by pulling them up. In the same way the Taoist allows events to unfold according to their inner rhythms; he acts by non-action (wu-wei), which is acting with, not against, the inner rhythms of things. A plant is always renewing itself; the Taoist celebrates perpetual childhood.The religion of the Tao Te Ching is a reversal of the whole religious process of humankind. From the very first chapter onward it may be said to be the divinization of the Receptacle (Chaos or Nothing) which has been repudiated by religions and philosophies of the axial period. The Tao Te Ching is a religious text of homecoming to the world, born of the love for Tao as the mother and cradle of all beings. In one set of symbols or another, humans must make peace with the world in which their lot is cast. We need to invert Plato's allegory of the cave and descend from the stratosphere of the unchanging Absolute, through the realms of science and culture, to touch finally upon the earth where the chemistry is perfectly suited to support life in its biological, cultural, and spiritual expressions. There is need to make the world sacred again. The divine is not away from the world, but is the very life pulse of the world. Time is not the moving image of eternity, but its very unfolding. Finite beings are not separate from the infinite ground, but its very fulfillment.Peace between humans and nature, and among nations and states, comes from the realization that we all have the same origin, live in one common environment, and share the same destiny. Such a religious consciousness must play an important role in shaping the religion of the future, a future which in Brian Swimme's story of the universe is called the Age of the Earth. To usher in the Age of the Earth we need to justify our love of earth. As the voice of the primordial ground that has given rise to all, the Tao Te Ching shall serve as the credo of this new religion of Earth.Author Ellen M. ChenHemp SpaceDoorsJustice For All! Not Just The MasonsThe Child Is Grown, The Dream Is OverTime Is Up!