The Comparison of life

#1

I was just thinking about it. Everything in life a comparison by which we judge things for example good and evil, success and failure, love and heart break. The point is that for us to realise one thing there is an opposite that we must have either experienced or seen. The world is in a perfect balance but not every one is in balance. I have no real idea what I'm getting at here but I'm just wondering would we have an emotion if there wasn't an emotion opposite to it?

Would the term good have any relevance if there was no evil? Would our emotions mean anything if the coin didnt have two sides to it?

What do you all think about it??

#2

It is damn hard, if not impossible, to imagine a life without duality...In fact, I don't think that it could be considered life at all...I mean, how could it..? Our breathing, our heartbeat...Damn near everything is done in pairs...

It is actually too hard for me to concieve...

#3

actually, NONE of that is done in pairs, its grouped into pairs by the functioning of information process, ADC. 0 and 1, man... Thus we think in duality, by using a base dichotomous system.

I can escape Duality and experience Universitality [Tai Wu Chien Tao; or the Great Mystery of the Formless Force], but then no one can understand me and I cease to be able to function in the conventions of the world, and can really only operate outside of it. So, what is the point, really? This is why the Tao can only be contemplated when compared to the Tai Te [Highest Virtues and Discipline], which we call Tao, though it is not Tao.

Tao is nameless and formless. Even that which we call Tao is Not the whole of the Tao; Just as the name a person is given at birth is not the sum total of the essence of who the person will become.

vertical,
raum

#4

I agree with Raum's first line.
Due to imperfection everything is different, then you catalogue all the stuff and after that you put them in groups and finaly you judge them.
That's why we call things equal when they're not identical, or we can develop analogies.

#5

...which is essentially what I said...

#6

It's the Law of Opposites as Boeme said. "In order for 'Yes' to be 'Yes' there has to be a 'No' or 'Yes' would have no meaning."

Seems right to me.

#7

I would say there is a better illustration, passed to me from a teacher, by way of his own studies... it goes back pretty far.

It's the difference between "and" and "but."

Look at these two sentences:

I want to go play but I have to work.

I want to go play and I have to work.

The first sentence opposes work and play, and establishes work as opposed to desire - a necessary evil. The second acknowledges one as a desire and the other as a necessity as important as the desire to play.

As a thought exercise, I once avoided speaking negative words (no, not, none, contractions including 'nt, but) for a whole month. The results were conclusive,.. If I accidentally let one slip, I would bite my thumb (right on the nail-ow). and hard, for the thumb is the basis of the strength in the hand, enabling disciplne and the anatomical sign of our ability to use tools and develop sentience. It proved one thing to me:

Change the way you talk, and you will change the way you think, which changes the way you live.

I was working at a bookstore at the time, and people would come up and say "Do you have this book" (and if we didn't) I had to find a way to keep from saying know, but still maintain communication with a customer.

"Are you looking for that book, or is the subject of the book interesting enough for you to consider titles we have on our shelves? If it is this book in particular, I might suggest [another bookstore]."

It was a trip, and my whole life flipped on its head. I was a lead bookseller in a month and three days.

So, then I did the same with personal references (me, my, I, mine, etc.) for a month. A few weeks later, I was a supervisor.

Not just at work, mind, 24 hours a day, with friends and a girlfriend...

As a result the thing that was most learned is that there is no place in true unity for negativity and selfishness. Our experience of it is part of the refining process to rid us of it.

vertical,
raum

#8

Huh...very interesting. So you try to get rid of duality?

#9

That is quite interesting raum.

#10

trash,

by the end I had gotten rid of duality, in terms of self and other, and in terms of yes and no. From there I maintained silence complete silence for two weeks, and experienced no duality whatsoever in my thought patterns.

i also got kicked out by my housemates, who thought I had went completely insane.

I have every confidence there is a reason I was told inn my prayers that the time for those like me of sequestering ourselves away in a private sanctuary to achive the highest octaves of human thought were at an end, for the sake of all humanity.

I also think this is why I have met nothing but ill fortune when trying to buy a house. I must be in a position to need society, or I simply do not interact with it, and dwell in a state I can only call Tao, and no that is simply not the name for it.

Look up Boddhisatva, and Boddichita..

vertical,
raum