Tao in Manly P. Hall's Thought in Moby Dick, in Lao Tzu and in American Indian
Presented on: Thursday, October 23, 1980
Presented by: Roger Weir
Symbolism
Presentation 4 of 12
Tao in Manly P. Hall's
Thought in Moby Dick, in Lao Tzu and in American Indian
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, October 23, 1980
Transcript:
The date is October 23rd, 1980. This is the fourth lecture in this series by Roger Weir on symbolism. The subject tonight is Dao in Manly Palmer Hall's thought in Moby Dick, Lao Tzu and in the American Indian. Roger Weir.
Was called evil in Tibet. They call the image of the Galpo (sp?) someone whose face is painted and half white and half black. You're there and I'm here. And it's the image of loggerheads and we have to do everything we can to sort of mitigate that. I, uh, I have not made a point of it, uh, here at PRS that I used to insist on the chairs being moved from whatever position we find them into some other position. I don't care what other area it is. To start to reconstruct the given immediately to our design. If any of you ever feel like moving during the course of events, just move. I, I'm an advocate that you have to be in the right seat. And sometimes you realize that you're not in the right seat and you have every right to get up and move. Uh, I'm extremely sensitive to those things and towards the end of my professional teaching career, I was even demanding that lights be turned down because sometimes there are things that we have to hear, and we don't want to have bright lights. Um, I once conducted a tremendous seminar, uh, from the point of, uh, there being a tremendous amount of camaraderie, we had candles. We had candlelight because it was a subject that required subdued natural lighting. That's all it was to it. Everyone knew that. And we got the lights turned out. And this was in one of these in space aged buildings. It was a building that was 15 acres under one roof. Three huge levels carpeted with orange carpeting. And there were no walls. The so-called room dividers where purple, bright, brilliant, purple like your sweater. Beautiful, beautiful, gorgeous, bright purple. But the expanse of acres and acres of orange carpet and purple produce this terrible effect.
I will try next week to bring us a few things like a candle and some flowers or something to mitigate this. One excellent thing here when Manly lectures the flower arrangements and display are extraordinary. And the woman who does them has done them for years and years. And she was the most delightful, humble, humane sort of person if you meet her and talk with her. But, uh, if you were in attendance on Sunday notice the flower arranging. It is extraordinary. Real high caliber art form called Ikebana in Japan. But floral arranging is quite an art. Somewhat like portrait painting in the renaissance. It gives a flair of a distinctive key tone to a personality. **inaudible word** personality is comically elegant without trying. That's just the nature.
Before I get started, how are we doing on the ceremonial cycle? Are you people having a, a chance to meet the other people who are studying the same ceremony as you are? Are any of you...have any of you talked with anybody else who is doing the same ceremony? Eric is...
**inaudible comment from the room**
Talking.
Comment from the room: **inaudible word or two** with Linda but she's not here. But with **inaudible word or two**
Uh huh.
Comment from the room: **inaudible word or two** come back here now.
Uh huh.
Comment from the room: Decide whether to come back or no...
One of the most difficult things, and if you've read Manly's Spiritual Centers in Man, the primal quality of quote advancement is continuity. Continuity in itself is the most difficult to sustain. And it is the quality that is most needed in any endeavor, especially in these kinds of endeavors. Because it's only against a continuous backdrop that subtlety begins to disclose itself. And without continuity the mind, which just loves to **inaudible word** to reality and pridefully shows its photographs as if that were true. Uh, **inaudible word** all over the place and does not see reality, but rather sees sort of little sections and tries to force that upon us as living complete individuals.
Yeah.
Comment from the room: Is that, is that what is **inaudible few words** when I'm trying to spot things.
Yeah.
Comment from the room: **inaudible word or two ** categories.
Yeah. Right and the thing as you awaken at any course of events you've been coming for that last series and that series about 16 times. You're beginning to sense, um, that the interval between are just as important as what is given. The duration. The spacing. In order for there to be an articulation at all, anything formal, anything recognizable, there has to be a back **inaudible word**, an interval. Some of you I know are professional musicians and you know it well that the rhythm and the pacing between the notes is just as important as the note. The same thing in terms of articulation spiritually. We have to have a sense of timing and proportion. And so, continuity is a primal virtue.
And, uh, one of the purposes for having a ceremonial cycle in the first place was to ensure continuity. And by involving all of the tribes, that is all of the human beings who lived with you in a particular time-space vector, will constitute a magic circle as we would call it from the **inaudible word**. You know that the **inaudible word** symbol that I've been showing form the Navajo, which has...you'll see it later on in the slides. It has two circles.
The only way in which the spiritual insight, which is symbolized by the opening to the East, which is not an opening which is drawn, but is an opening which is there by virtue of the fact that the rest of the form is continuously there. Hence the interval, the spiritual opening is there by nature. It is not me, but it's implicit guaranteed because the form is continuous, and everything has been done. And that's why a ceremonial cycle like this, everything is important. Every little detail. Um, people bend over backwards to make sure that everything is done just right. And they take a great deal of pride and care and love in their part because they know that if they're doing well, that no one else has to worry about that particular aspect. And if the form is complete, the ceremony and the ceremonial cycle at large will be efficacious beyond doubt. Because of this notion that buying, attending to the form, the formless will be there. I think Carl Jung once said, summoned or unsummoned God is there. That is if the vessel, if the container, if the quality of presence is there, the divine is there. There's no question about it.
And I think primordially that humankind has always known this. Sometimes just intuitively, other times quite discursively. There are times in human civilization where, our time is one of them, where there have been individuals who quite adequately able to characterize intellectually the, as we would call it, the phenomenology of the noumenon. And bringing the other side, the hidden, the invisible, into manifestation.
I think that, um, possibly this, uh, this character of spirituality, simple and basic as it is produces most of the difficulties that we experience in starting because we are constantly looking for identifiable objective steps. Um, and when they're not there, we become impatient thinking that we're getting nowhere. But the fact is, and again, Mr. Hall alludes to this many times throughout his writing, **inaudible word or two** you'll see it. If you just explore **inaudible word**. What happens is that spiritual movement is invisible largely to the kind of screening process that we use to comport in daily life. It just does not register or show. But one of the first indications that there is movement, that there is development, that you are in fact, uh, the tried-and-true right says waking up, is that you began to have an attenuation of the sense of awareness. That you're cognizant of objective reality begins to have a reverberation. that there begins to be a tenor or tone in the individual. That there is a fence there. Not a sense that one could delegate in terms of words necessarily, but a sense that is perceptible as the relational feeling tone. And you begin more and more to have the sense that this is a pattern and I in my moving am patterning in a meaningful way. And in talking with persons of like motion, you sense a sort of a camaraderie. Spiritual kin.
Well, the difficulty that seeps in then is this, uh, elusive criteria is what is happening real or is it just my imagination? Or is it just circumstance? And so, the problem comes up of appearance and reality. How can we tell? How do we know? Well, a quote from a poet tonight direct yourself to that. And this quotation, um, is really not a poem. It's quotation out of his writing. This individuals name is Basho, **inaudible few words**. Basho is the inventor of the aquatic form haiku. Inventor in the sense that he's the first one to take, uh, the beginnings. There used to have a, um, a tradition in Japan where poets would sit around together, and someone would start off with a verse and then everyone around the circle would add to the verse. And they called that renga, linked verse. You write uh, a stanza and I'll write one to join it. Somebody else will. And in this way, we link ourselves together. The first verse in the renga, the link, was the haiku.
And Basho being of a samurai family background, who by Basho's time in the 1600's were rather dispossessed. Um, the gun has a silenced the story. Basho used language like his ancestors used a sword. He used it as, uh, without thinking to create a split second of insight, which would allude the critical mind and give you the flash of insight of an experience as it really is before you have a chance to chew on it, or digest it, or transform it. Because the problem is what is real? Is it just appearance or is it reality? Well, how so? Well, how about this quotation then from Basho visa vie this problem.
All who have achieved real excellence in any art possess one thing in common. That is a mind to obey nature. To be one with nature throughout the four seasons of the year. Whatever such a mind sees is a flower. And whatever such a mind dreams up is the moment. It is only barbers mind that sees other than the flower. Merely an animal mind that dreams of others than the moon. The first lessons for the artist is therefore how to overcome such barbarism and an animality to follow nature. To be one with nature.
Our **inaudible word** then is to constantly keep as a backbone to whatever movement that we're participating in, whether it's intellectual or feeling, or **inaudible word**, is to tutor ourselves, to have a cognizance that this is happening for real in a natural context. And that we can always take nature in the most basic direct way. These objects are what they seem to be. We are what we seem to be. And we can use that as a referential realm for any imagery that we choose to, I'll use the word manipulate, but I don't mean it coldly. I mean in a playful sense. And I don't mean childish. I mean manipulate in the sense of trying to figure out. Any imagery that we use to try and figure out must have a natural referential realm. And if that is so then we all share the same context. And thus, we all move in the same horizon of meaning. And it is very important.
There are unfortunate individuals who were very clever or whose minds have been trained to be very fast. Or whose natural condition permits them to think that private realms would be superior to nature. That a world that I might make or choose to live would be superior to the one that I would have to share in common with others. This is a tragedy. And the realization that one has lived in an unnatural context was the very essence of tragic realization. So, what we strive to do, minimum, is to live in this realm, in this context. And to see a flower as a flower. To see a moon as a moon. We may go on from there but if we go on from there we go on from there in a natural way and not in anything forced or illusory.
This is of course the primal statement of Dao. And when it comes to investigating Dow and Manly Hall's Thought or Dao in Moby Dick or Dao in the American Indian as advertised tonight, Dao refers to nature. Now we can get subtle very quickly and say, well, it's some essential quality. Well let's not do that. Let's let it be and just call it nature.
The second word in the title of the famous book then it presents the Dao, usually The Tao Te Ching. Tao Te Ching. Tao means power in the same way that we would think of amperage of electricity. It is a force, but it is a force in a way in whichever Aristotle would have spoke of **inaudible word**, that nature is never static, but it's constantly emerging. That **inaudible word or two** physics is the study of nature emerging. That nature is always emerging. And the reason in the notion of Dao that is trying to conceive what is Dao? The nature of Dao discursively in the mind is that there is change happening all the time. And it is happening because there has been some kind of a vibration set in motion because of a splitting in the process of cosmic unity. And we have to just assume that this is a splitting as The Tao Te Ching says happens about the time that the mind begins to use language. About the time that we can put a name on something and know that we mean that. We have already entered into a natural realm where there is a constant changing flux. And so that the nature of Dao in that mode, that is the mode that we live in in our normal natural lives, Dao means constant changing.
And the symbol for Dao is the Tai Chi. This symbol here. The yin-yang symbol. And what this symbolizes is Dao.
This quality...for some of you you've ran across this in the self-improvement lectures, but this quality of presenting an all-inclusive symbols is excellent for a mystical contemplation. But if we wish to develop some way of apprehending our situation and the world in a little more detail, we have to break this down into a more usable framing. And the Chinese mind simply took a continuity and a break. A divided mind and undivided mind. By that is we can say something is, or something is not. A motion continued, or it's stopped.
It's easy for us in our mental simplicity to think of the as simple opposites. But I would rather encourage you to stand one step aside from the frame of reference that sees this as opposition, that sees polarities as conflict elements. Yes and No. positive and negative. Male and female. This is the very subtle but telling mistake. It is a quality of arrogance that doesn't emerge until it's very far down the line but when it emerges it becomes, uh, almost a **inaudible word** almost like one of those Chinese puzzles that the more you try to not see it as a problem, the more **inaudible word** it becomes. It's maddening. And literally most people who get to that point either make a leap of faith and say, well, I'll get to that another time. Or they deny that, uh, the problem has any validity. That they haven't risen above that sort of thing.
One way to **inaudible word or two** is not to see yin-yang as polar opposites in some kind of a conflict situation. It's just as easy to characterize it as a complementation. They're complimentary. And together they form Dao. What they form elements of movement and rest. Movement and rest. And movement and rest, that is a duration, or it cease, have possible combinations which can be illuded to. There can be all movement, a continuous duration, which we could style as a Chinese style, creative. It is that with does. On the other hand, and literally, uh, complimenting, it is that which allows what does to do. And it is the receptive. So that whenever there is that creative, there is a receptive. It would be almost the epitome of foolishness to try to distill pure creativity out of the Dao. It would be a nonsensical thing. And useless and meaningless.
In-between the perfect balancing of doing and letting do, between yin and yang, all kinds of combinations. To the Chinese mind the major differences could be symbolized by what is called the lesser yin and the lesser yang. That is a sort of a so-so iffy way in which doing and non-doing are somewhat balanced. Theoretically 50/50. But it could be expressed either with a yang line on top or a yang line on the bottom. The lesser yin and the lesser yang extremely mysterious because they're almost interchangeable. And because of the nature of their mutability, by the time we get to the trigram, you will see that this tendency manifests itself again in a parallel movement of meaning. Because with these, with these four phenomena, these four **inaudible words**. The Chinese mind trying to express the manifestation of Dao, that is of nature and **inaudible word or two**.
Take in the combination with this scheme, a second scheme which is not up here on the board. And that is that in between Heaven and Earth is man. And that Heaven encourages men form an internal **inaudible word**. And that this pact of making the triad, making a three, making a stable manifestation of form into a triangle, into a triad, into a three, a Trinity. That's the first stable formation in what we would call objective reality. That's the first time in which we could say a **inaudible word** emerge.
And so, this sign of designated in the triad induced the Chinese to take this game and project it up, amplify it out by adding a third line. Let's make a third line here and a third line here. And that gives us a permutation in the eighth triad here. And that's how the Chinese name for the eight is Bagua. **inaudible word** uh, eight trigrams.
This of course is a fantastic usable systemizing of a symbolic language to describe physical reality. And in order to apply the broadest kind of conception to this the Chinese endowed this particular Bagua with several kinds of designations. For instance, they use the familial, uh, designation. This whole yin is like a father and so this yang like a mother. And then there were daughters and there were sons. And there were youngest sons, middle sons, and oldest sons. Youngest daughter, middle daughter, and oldest daughter. And the progression, just in family metaphors, was that receptivity grows from the youngest daughter into the middle daughter and into the oldest daughter and matures in its manifestation as a mother image. And the same thing for the yin. The youngest son matures into the middle son, into the oldest son into what a father would be in terms of metaphorical description of a quality of manifestation. Yang. Yin.
The lesser yin and the lesser yang interchangeability **inaudible word** perilous in the fact that the middle daughter and the middle son instead of acting in this progression of the rising up the line in the chain, acted as if they were interchanging with the opposite column of meaning. That is **inaudible word** the visible that very frequently as if it were in a receptive. I almost hate to use the metaphor feminine mode of change and leave. The **inaudible few words** axis. This comes back to the fact that lesser yin and the lesser yang have an ambivalence. And it goes back to the fact that the Tai Chi had a bit of yang right in the middle of the receptive. a bit of receptivity right in the middle of the **inaudible word**.
The **inaudible word** between these qualities is the same thing as the entrance of spiritual life into say in Navajo **inaudible word** symbol. That in mans position in this kind of a scheming is always that kind of transmutation **inaudible word** where in creativity or receptivity finds a interchangeable point in time-space. So that the human being, from the Dao standpoint, is not a rational animal at all but is a cosmic interchange point for energy. Which gives you quite a different view of human nature.
And this energy in Chinese is alluded to as chi. Chi. The closest metaphor to it is internal light. That there is an internal light, which metaphorically does what light does. It illuminates. It has a modulation. It sometimes acts as if it is a particle stream and sometimes as if it's a wave phenomenon. It has all the qualities that we would have escribe to external life. And because of this, uh, parallel and this rather, um, tempting synonymity between external life and internal life, to a Daoist the world of external nature is what we would call in contemporary psychological terms, our unconscious. That to a Daoist our unconscious is not something hidden within the person, but if that very real manifestation of cosmic nature, which is right out there. And that if you were to go inside to your real nature beyond the personal, you would discover this nature that's out here all the way to the stars and the galaxy and beyond.
So that the presentation of a human being to adopt instead of having some kind of a portrait of the person's face and all Rembrandt style accoutrements. You usually would have some trees and some rivers. And maybe way down here, you might have a **inaudible word or two** a person. Not to belittle the person but rather to say that the perspective is like that because the extent of the cosmic realm beyond the personal. Of course, there is almost infinitely greater than what the personal could be designated as. And this would be a Dao viewpoint. And so that the purposing of self-development to the Chinese Daoists would be literally to generate the circulation of light inside until it shown clearly to be another star in **inaudible word**. Another galaxy in the **inaudible word**. And that that would be what a human being would be. Not at all this. And this, uh, notion incidentally extends to, uh, Buddhism as well as Daoism. Hence the phrase sentient being because human being is not the only form in which intelligence and spirituality can manifest. It's sufficient for us, but it's not the only one.
Well, this, uh, this produces, this kind of an observation produces a very strange kind of a phenomenon when we look at, um, most ideational schemes of events. Most intellectual schemes of understanding life are seen to be not only inadequate, but irrelevant to the actual process, which is in fact going on and can be observed via the individual.
And so as we were talking about last time, if we have a kind of a philosophy where they like **inaudible word**. Where there is some kind of a subjective versus objective **inaudible word**, a demonym and a neuonym. And that kind of a, of a thought comes down through, um, a. will and representation and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche and **inaudible word** uh, Apollonian etc. All the way down to where we're going to get with a**inaudible word** the third. The whole notion that I might express to myself that I am here, and objective reality is somehow out there. And my problem is to establish a relationship with it through some systemizing of my mind is just putting coats and coats and coats of paint over the grain of the wood. And it does not matter one-bit what color I paint it. I am doing a wrong activity. And it's increasingly absurd to this, like someone or argue with someone, because they prefer red to green, because the whole notion of painting over reality, the grain of nature is totally irrelevant. And produces a kind of a sickness at heart essentially in human beings. We, we have, uh, a wonderful phrase in the Old Testament, I think it's in **inaudible word**, hope deferred maketh the heart sick. And the hope is always that we will manifest naturally to our real self. That we will become that which we really are. And the fact that we are not, and increasingly have no chance to be is intuit by ourselves that something is wrong. That's how it creeps up. Something is not right. Not working. But if we're habituated to looking out there for something which we can take and use in here, we're going about it in the wrong way, and we're on a paralleling line. And we never have a chance to see the kind of enter play, which is expressed so well in the symbol of the Tai Chi.
A couple of translations of the first verse of The Way of Life or The Tao Te Ching gives you some idea of how far afield translations can go. And this phenomenon of radically different translations comes from the fact that people are trying to make these translations from this kind of a split-up sense of self.
This one is made by Chinese from the Chinese themselves. And this is what they come up with. There is something evolved from chaos, which was born before Heaven and Earth. It is inaudible and invisible. It is independent and immutable. It is all pervasive and ceaseless. And may be regarded as the mother of Heaven and Earth. There was something which proceeded the birth of the universe. When the primary cause is **inaudible word** the effects maybe understood. One's whole life can't be secure if knowing the effect, one still holds fast to the primary cause. I do not know its name and call it truth or a Dao. If I must describe it, I will say that it is great, accurate far-reaching and cyclical in its motion. Thus, truth is great. Heaven is great. Earth is great. And the **inaudible word** is also great.
Et cetera. This is not only misleading. It is irrelevant. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what we are in a position now at least within some accuracy access Dao as a motioning and a **inaudible word**. And then their play of that.
A little better translation is this one that we have had around by Witter Bynner. He gives this **inaudible word**. He gives this kinds of language. It's the poet's language, as opposed to, uh, almost political by **inaudible word**.
Existence is beyond the power of words to define. Terms may be used but none of them absolute. In the beginning of Heaven and Earth there were no words. And whether a man dispassionately sees to the core of life or passionately sees the surface, the core and the surface are essentially the same. We're making them seem different only to express appearance. If names be needed wonder names them both. From wonder into wonder existence opens.
But this too presents problems. Both the attempts and there are about 50 attempts in the English language alone. There's about 20 in French, et cetera, et cetera. These attempts are attempts to in a blocking way, in a static kind of a way, to try to manipulate words, language. To stand for in some hopefully metaphorical way a meaning which they're pointing to. Which is not in nature but is in a conception, an internal subjective conception, of what this is about. That is to say that there is a whole realm of learning, which is useless because it chooses in this referential context, the world of the mind of the individual.
END OF SIDE ONE
We would call it basically on the street, egotism. But it's more than that. And it is in a tragic mode, even in **inaudible word**. In a lighter mode it's actually a buffoonery to think that by using symbolic language, which on the surface seems okay, we'll take it and we'll use it. But on closer investigation, turns out to be a, a very childish status, kind of a referring back to mental game plan that has literally been imagined. That are like cartoon bubbles that people carry around with them and try to force us to participate in the comic strip of events in order to just keep that manifestation going on.
Whereas on the other hand, when nature is the true context, when a flower is a flower. When a moon is a moon. When we have that shared realm of context, our symbolism, even though on the surface, seems to resemble that of the other way. It is noticeably different and the purpose and intent of it increasingly go home instead of off into these kinds of **inaudible word** curlicue realms of ideations.
Now, the tragic thing is, is that there's no end to the kind of schemes that the mind can dream up and believe and **inaudible word**. And use a **inaudible word** masquerades as imagery that habitually charms us and deceives us. It takes literally, and the old Greek word is **inaudible word**. It takes a metanoia. It takes a change of mind. I guess we would, we would put the emphasis today on the heart. It takes a change of heart to say that you're going to catch yourself in the midst of living in an erroneous way. That the whole process of living, not just to think but feel all these things. The whole thing meshes together. That this somehow has to be brought to one's attention in at least one of two basic ways. That is, we want to maneuver ourselves into a position where we can see an end. That the realm in which we've been operating in is but a man and there's not our true fit. We want to be able to see and end. We may not be able to see the whole thing, but at least some indication that this film that we've been showing ourselves in our minds in is not the real thing. And then the question when we become convinced to that is what to do about it.
The other way, of course, a much more exotic and as Mr. Hall would say dangerous way, is to dissolve totally the forming power of the mind. To transcend above the capacity to make forms and ideations and so forth. And just let the whole structure literally dissolve away. This takes extraordinary courage. It takes the courage of the fool who would step off into nothing, pure nothing. You will not fall. The chains of Heaven suspend the sentence. And it is true. But there is nothing whatsoever that would convince you except the sheer courage of the belief that that is so. Because every indication throughout the six realms, that is the realm of the senses and the realm of thought, say this is impossible because they are all pointed in their purposing. And they're directing to make forms manifest. And if you hold that or try to hold that introspection, they rebel. It is the one thing which they cannot do. And they will send every alarm up that they can don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do that.
And so, in a time honored with human beings who've gotten to this stage where you're going to look for it. You're going to see it for what it is. And we're going to have a clear vision through, go for the fruit. That is to create a circumstance where in oneself and one's companion together can see an end. Can see a break in the continuity of habitual illusion. And the way to do that of course, is to set up a continuity that is airtight, nature-based from which one can position oneself to wait for one of those breaks. One of those flaws. One of those hiatuses in nature. That is the intellectual nature. Because there, there are moments where the advertising doesn't quite fit. There are moments where the programming doesn't quite jive. And if we are ready, we can see through the pause. Through the presence of the pause. Through the spiritual insight, the real Dao, and the real working.
The ceremonial cycle of the Hopi Indians, right, is a continuity, which they keep together for themselves to help create the chances during the entire year for anyone to observe. The same thing with The I-Ching, which is the Dao expression of The Tao Te Ching. All of these systems are to allow us a chance to create a real continuity that being positioned there we might observe the break in the phony work. And this of course is, um, extraordinary, uh, feet and when it happens, you will occasionally have individuals, um, who will make a translation like this of t The Tao Te Ching.
The reason that can be reasoned is not the eternal reason. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. the unnamable is of Heaven and Earth, the beginning. The nameable becomes of the 10,000 things. The mother. Therefore, it is said, he who desirethness is found the spiritual of the world will sound. But he who by desire is found sees the mere shell of things around. These two things are the same in source, but different in names. They're sameness is called a mystery. Indeed. It is a mystery of mysteries. Of all spirituality it is the door.
Now that translation was made about over 80 years ago. It was made by D.T. Suzuki the great Zen master as a young man about two or three months after he had his first awakening. In Japan, uh, in the zen tradition, it's often called Satori. What it is, is, uh, an awakening up to what we have been talking about. The realm of nature. The realm of art. Participation as a transmuting dynamic within that context that forms a fulcrum by which meaning manifests itself and reverberate in all things. Suzuki wrote, um, of his experience later on in life, he lived to be 97. He wrote just the year before he died, he said, when I stepped out of the Zendon, the meditating room, the trees were all transparent and so was I. And that's exactly the quality of that interior visioning. The circulation of life extends not just to oneself, but to any part of the realm of nature. All of the cycles are there. And from that kind of stance, he comes and makes this kind of a, kind of a translation. It's in print and it's still available after all these years.
But the interesting part here, um, he had in the back conscientiously given us the characters and the translations of The Tao Te Ching. So that we see that for every character, there was some attempt to give a word. And at the beginning, the character that represents Dao is used, um, well, it's the second character, and then it, it, it is the, um, third character. And then it is the fifth character. And then it is the seventh character. So that the odd number of characters is the same word, the same character, Dao. And that interchange with this, that is just repeating over and over again that, that braided in with that, because the **inaudible word** is a statement that is Dao as a statement of receptivity. Just if you want to create receptivity in a language one can just say over and over again in some sort of a series the same thing. It creates a sense of that way to receive a juxtaposition. And braided with that, juxtaposed with that, first is the character which means you realizing. Realizing. And the next one is a character that means that can. You go from realizing that can. And the third one is not. And the fourth one is eternal.
So that at the beginning you have the statement that Dao, Dao, Dao. Four times Dao. Dao, Dao, Dao, Dao. And against that backdrop is braided in the words that means realizing that can, is not, eternal.
Now, if we, even as Americans late in this **inaudible word** century. Even in, in our neurotic society we can still comport to those phrasings in English and to that patterning of Lao Tzu and we can begin to spark our sense of reading between the lines of thinking with the words and extending it out to meaning. We can see that what's being symbolized here is that the very root of language as a personal realm, inner braids with a concept which stands for the totality of everything together all times ever. And that somehow meaning requires the participation of what we can think of and what really is combined together in an interplay. That man and Heaven interplay together begin to form meaning.
And the glimmerings of that discovery that that is true. And it's true today. It will be true tomorrow. If you want to do something else for 20 years and come back to it, it's still true. It was true in 600 B.C. when Lao Tzu wrote it and it's true now. It's true whether we're Chinese or American. It's true whether we live on this planet or any other planet you want to name. That meaning, the core of the expression of any symbolic presentation is engendered in this process of art cooperating with what we can prescribe and do with what really is. And that the inner braiding of reality with what we can contribute in our acting produces between them a vibration, which we designate as meaning. And that in order for us to transmit that to each other, we for convenience sake give shaping to core of meaning, which we call symbol and share them between ourselves. And hold them up for posterity for our children to see and learn for their children 20 generations from now to see and learn regardless.
And in this way symbolism, from the Daoist perspective, they come to something extraordinarily different from the kind of symbolism which you hear most people talking about from some kind of habitual, static, dead minded view. And this is the understanding of symbolism that permeates Mr. Hall's great book, that skirts into Melville's Moby Dick, that comes into the experience of The Book of Hopi and realms and realms and other things which we might investigate and probably will. The prime requirement with this observation of what we're doing as beings requires that we actually do something. That we don't remain and some kind of a limbo, but we actually do something. So that there is this inter braiding action. So that we do create the vessel of presence. And that, uh, in our doing that we try to pattern it as much as we can within the realm of naturalness. That whatever images we use we take natural images to beginning with. Where they might go, we don't know, but at least we give them a, a good beginning. A good parentage. A\ good nourishing. And on that level, I think Joseph Campbell once used a phrase that I liked, he called it an image base. Use your image base as that, which reflects that immediately, primordially to that which is natural. And whatever ideational shaping you give to that image base your symbolism will tend to be rooted into reality and will grow, grow real experiences.
Now at that level, I think we'd better have a coffee break.
Sure, I think that will be fine. I think we canvasing to see where we are in terms of ceremony. And that will be **inaudible word**, yeah. Are you needing more sources? More material?
**inaudible comment from the room**
Ok. If you get to that point, just ask. I, I never give out too much information, I hope. But, uh, if you get a place where you would like to have more information, I can tell you where to find it.
**inaudible comment from the room**
Oh. (laughter) **inaudible few words**.
...cycle, which we're going to learn from are not here. And so, we cannot construct the form. And so, the vessel to create the presence of meaning will not be established. So that we will now try to find someone who will come and will investigate the form so that when the time comes to contribute that to the **inaudible word** have that element there because it's absolutely necessary. So, I'll put that out. If somebody does not have a ceremony. If he's going to come. We'd like to have you work on and read on, think on experience a little bit with what you can **inaudible word**. Just put that out. And this is good for you to know because this is very interesting. And, in a, any process of learning, there has to be continuity, but particularly in the one that I am endeavoring to present to you. It's very, very indispensable.
On the Neiman Katrina, we have Mary, and we have, um. Is that, uh, Benford **inaudible word**. He's not here so its just Mary. In the flute ceremony, we have Christine and Colleen, and now your friend. And, uh, the big antelope, is um, **inaudible word**, who was here, but has left temporarily. And Gabrielle who usually comes. And then **inaudible word**, Barlof Porqual, Pauline, **inaudible word**. Okay.
We need to, uh, we need to keep track of this. If any of you need more information. I have thrown out a lot of information. If you need more, I can help direct you. Or the PRS librarian can help direct you. There are other institutions and other resources available. And, uh, if you, if any of you get to the point where you feel that you have got to talk to somebody who is in the native American tradition of the Hopi we'll also try and arrange some contract for you. But for the purposes here better if you try in yourself to struggle with experiencing putting together that meaning of that ceremony by yourself, as much as you can. Because one of the primary things that we are realizing here and must realize here is that if left to ourselves from scratch, we can work our way through to liberation. Is that what you want to call it? Enlightenment? That we do not have to stand in line for experts. That we do not have to depend on waiting until the right leader comes along. That we can, by ourselves with our own mountain. And by certain insights and **inaudible word** and by just having some sort of a master of ceremony as I am for you, you can learn from scratch to build out an experience towards finding meaning.
And anything whether it's in the Hopi realm, or the Chinese realm or the realm of the open ocean, it makes no difference. The reason for this, the reason for the emphasis on it an my underscoring of it now is that this is the core of courage. The belief, if you will, that you can do it. The sense that with any intelligent questing group, you can get to even some of the more larger forms of meaning we have to have that confidence. We have to have that courage. It is a spiritual virtue without which we cannot do. And there are junctures along the way where that is absolutely indispensable because that's all that there is. In certain realms that all that there is. We want to have it and we want to know that it is there.
Um, very often in terms of, uh, put this out. Very often in terms of the feeling experience, which we have in ourselves when we're dealing with ultimate. When we're dealing with the primal structures of reality. And we do grow. And we do find ourselves becoming attenuated and more subtle.
There are experiences where the entire cycle physical perception fills up. And if you feel that that's the danger or you feel that that cannot be, or you must not commit that you get into all kinds of complications, which are unnecessary. And it's like the vessel that may fill up to the top. There are times we have to let ourselves be filled and that's it. And to have the experience as many techs or witnesses may say, to have the experience of floating over the waters of our filled upness. Of being there behind the total solid form of **inaudible word**. That there is in fact much more to us than what psycho physically we may be. And this incidentally is the reason why Mr. Hall constantly, um, put in a caution against psychics. Against being involved and being enamored with psychic capacity and psychic power. That that realm actually interfered and is irrelevant to spiritual growth. It is of interest objectively like botany would be an interest of a subject that is not a realm where one can peacefully language and not have something to go astray.
And one way to get through that, to go through that and not be trapped in that is you have this, uh, capacity to have what we would call spiritual courage. I once searched for an image of spiritual courage, and I came up with a children image out of a, out of a book. It was a Knight on a horse with a lamp, and he was rushing into a huge lion's mouth. And there's some times when our positioning in life is like literally walking into the lion's roar. And if you do not have spiritual courage there, cannot float free and be, and go through, uh, you can think of 10,000 reasons why you should have cringed and turned it back. And like Arjuna in and The Bhagavad Gita you will think that you're enormously clever because all these reasons are good reasons. And they are good reasons. And you should turn back if you believe them. But the thing is not to believe them. Do not believe them.
Well, I've got some slide images here which I think are important. First thing though let me give you just a few words. Um, Bagua and the eight trigram. I-Ching is the, um, change. Ching the book. Te, power. And then there's the Chinese word Jen. Jen is, uh, human hearted. That is to say that with all of these discussions with all the presentations, that there it...we must maintain and insist that others maintain a certain proportion, which is human, human hearted. That Jen. **inaudible word**. Human heartedness gives us the sense that all of this regardless of where it goes is for us here to share. And that the etiquette that's there is there between like beings, human beings. And it may be that there are those, uh, Daoist dragon beings who roamed freely. There must be humans among ourselves here and now. Let's keep the human heartedness, chi or **inaudible word**, chi. The light, the energy inside. And The Secret of the Golden Flower is quite interesting. And if some of you are interested Lu **inaudible word** Tang who wrote The Golden Flower, his lineage has been passed down for 76 generations. And the 76th person of that generation lives in Los Angeles **inaudible word or two**. Everybody here might **inaudible word or two**. So those are a few words. Um, and there's a word for the hexagram.
If some of you all helped me with this down **inaudible word**. I've got the slide images which I think will be of use.
First off, I've got some images from a **inaudible word** from a Daoist manuscript **inaudible word** discover in the PRS library. And we're working on a translation now. And start to, uh,
**inaudible comment from the room**
Yeah. I've talked to **inaudible word** and I've talked to **inaudible word** who **inaudible word** the Daoist book of days every year. And as soon as we can, I hope before this class is over. We may have to wait until the, um, the winter semester quarter. The manuscript has been in the PRS Library for an undetermined length of time. **inaudible word** and unmarked parcel **inaudible word**. It is, uh, very much like architect blueprint, white printed ink on dark blue or kind of sky-blue paper. This rather is **inaudible few words** eternal **inaudible word**
And these are all **inaudible word or two** symbols. This one is **inaudible word** and Buddhist influence with the dark **inaudible word** chakra in the center. And the, um, eight trigram designations on the outside. Kind of like the **inaudible word** from the great **inaudible word** tradition who think nothing of putting Buddhism and, uh, I-Ching together **inaudible word** 500 years and coming up with a new image.
Here you can see the tai chi and here you can see what seems to be the **inaudible word** designation. And incidentally the animal designation from the so called **inaudible word** astrology is a complete misnomer. Traditional Chinese astrology is based on happenstance and **inaudible few words** which is a different kind of a, uh, organization.
These are the **inaudible few words**. We are beginning to see the Bagua interspersed in what appears to be a continuous linking of alchemical shaped vessels, which are very much like that infinity sign that **inaudible word or two**. Which we have designated as, from time to time, as sort of a **inaudible word** Hermetic symbol very close to the tai chi.
That's a rosette. The pattern in the center is very much like, um, a further extension of, uh, Manly Hall's emblematic cross. One of the great from **inaudible few words**. A cross in some modification. It's quite interesting.
And I show these because very often, um, we're, we're given instruction, and everything is supposed to be well known. And we're supposed to strive to get the meaning that the instructor or the teacher has given. And I think it's refreshing and honest and real to sort of share this beginning sense of wonder. No one really knows yet what is going on here.
And at this point for our purposes what's interesting is to see it, that we can have the urge to address it as something large and unknown from scratch with just what we can bring to bear and begin to have this as kind of a relational **inaudible word** in a euphoria is still beginning.
And of course, here the interpenetration of forms here in a pattern produce a shape. And that simplistic kind of a statement when taken with its full philosophic reverberation is quite an obstacle. Because when we do this in our active perception, without even mentioning our active conception, we use this **inaudible word** all the time. We make shaping of overlaying of patterns. **inaudible few words** change must be the ability to change our perception. The way in which we view.
That is very close to an alchemical vessel, transformative vessel. And notice that language is the perimeter of the container. This is the universal shape. The **inaudible word** the fusion energy uses a magnetic field, very, very similar to this kind of thing. Quite amazing.
And here, uh, part of a interlocking. If you follow through to the lines you will see, um, four large curly cues. Or phases of four celestial quadrants curling around the **inaudible word** from his nexus line radiates out to perimeter which evolves into quaternary **inaudible word**. It's a very interesting presenting of symbolic meaning. So those are the images.
This is actually a **inaudible word** of a whale from a Japanese perspective, **inaudible word**. And reading in your Moby Dick you get a sense of the absolute enormity of that creature that is at home in the ocean.
And this of course something you've seen before. This is an Indian artist whose name is **inaudible two words** Reed. This is a whale **inaudible word** by **inaudible word**. Just some images of **inaudible word or two**.
This is a Daoist image of the strange creatures that inhabit the oceans in reality. This is **inaudible word** Moby Dick. This is a dragon.
And this ends the Chinese perception now because we've delved into the background of **inaudible few words**. Wherever there is an image here of this receptivity, this underground, this below, this dragon, there is a compliment that forms with it always. And that's the **inaudible word** right there. And these two are part of one long scroll done by **inaudible word**. **inaudible word** was a 13th century Buddhist **inaudible word**. It is a very famous presentation of, uh, **inaudible word**. The tiger and the dragon. That is a consciousness is like a tiger. And you'll see a lot of Chinese scrolls of tigers. It is the personality that is **inaudible word**. And **inaudible word** of this is the dragon. Which is **inaudible several words** somewhere mysteriously is the realm of nature out there. And the dragon is really **inaudible word** there. In the old **inaudible word** out there. In that ocean out there. So here **inaudible word or two** dragon and the tiger.
This is by **inaudible two words**. This is a presentation of the tiger and the dragon only using a tree and a landscape myth. And he puts a couple of egrets down there, herons. Plus, a **inaudible word** on the tree against the mountain. Quite the tiger and the dragon. One is **inaudible word** um, convoluting, complicating **inaudible word**. The other has a receding, deceptive, contextual **inaudible few words**.
**inaudible few words** was always called one corner mom because he seemed to do all his positioning of everything all in one corner of the room.
By Max Ernst called The Tomb of the Poet. But here again we have quite an interesting thing of a late 20th century artist whose spiritual journeying and experiences finally towards the end of his, uh, his magnificent artistic career began to give us images of an archetypal and positive nature. And here is the brightness below and the shadowing above. And it's quite interesting to see all this **inaudible word** creative and receptive or conscious and unconscious presented this way. It's almost because of the shadowing **inaudible few words**. They have harlequin eyes and nose or a bird on its wings and **inaudible few words** patterning something that is just open because of its **inaudible word** of timing. And down below the great white light **inaudible word**. Not quite **inaudible word** shape and yet shaping. And all this again some sort of a progression of a natural evolution of **inaudible word** deepening Dao enlightenment.
These are symbols of emerging **inaudible word** The Book of Hopi. **inaudible several words** towards a **inaudible word** and motions must cover all complete. All the terrain must be traversed at the center is that which **inaudible word or two** by virtue of having run through an entire labyrinth, an entire maze. Or on the converse of that is that one gets out because one has **inaudible word or two** at all. **inaudible few words** direction of a natural progression of having gone through all forms with such an experience.
This slide and the next three slides following it will explore all together **inaudible word** idea of the progression of the metaphor that we're using. These four **inaudible words** are from sculptor Henry Moore. This is, this is what nature looks like in terms of marble. **inaudible word** and others have worked as **inaudible few words** by nature. Marble is there in the mountains. That's nature.
And this is **inaudible word**. And that mountain has been cut up into forms and shapes that are not yet **inaudible word** enough to be called individualistic but is somewhat transformed from nature. It is ritually **inaudible word**. And for **inaudible word** and **inaudible few words** in the photograph. In this ritual process it's going to mean do I have an image that is ritually. This way you don't get stuck **inaudible few words** which for some people is misleading because they can be then **inaudible few words** which is ritual....
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