Tactical thinking and social action led us to TAO
The ur image of the Chinese is related to social and practical.
Mao will be written as a dynasty. We may be in between dynasties.
It might last 200 or 500 years.
In scripture, news, the question is "Where have
we been impacted profoundly today?"
Blakely's translation is a good job. The way is a
void.
We should follow up on JWM's talk on transparentization.
We are articulating a new religious mode; the new religious mode
and the event of profound awareness. We cannot avoid the Christ
Question head on.
Because we are using phenomenological method in which
we are dealing with radical experience on Empiricism (Yung had
a uniformed aide stop JWM, so the Governor could give his speech).
We have to push our hand through all forms of mysticism which
many deny as mysticism. Early Sinocism was mysticism. Lao dealt
with it in the context of Confucianism. The best writing JWN ever
did was on the Achilles heel of mysticism.
1. Triangle of trinity. We have never decided about the triangle. We fell through the social into the spiritual.
Summer '71 it gave us light.
Tillich talks about the unconditioned. You move into
concretion. The Trinitarian formula is one step this side of reality.
Luther says that reason is a whore. We create a whole (leap of
faith) enabling us to abstract. Abstraction is a secondary function.
It is invented by man. He had to be tactical first, for he had
to eat. Then he abstracted.
Christianity lost the capacity to abstract.
This is doing or social. It is divine activity in
terms of confrontation. The son is awareness of happening. Being
proceeds from the father and the son. It is the holy spirit. It
does not exist. Far less has been done on the holy spirit. It
subsists in intensification.
In writing, we must deal with the holy spirit. The
holy spirit is prior to the father and son, and it proceedeth
from the father and son. It is contained in being itself, which
is the preface to God.
2. Achilles heel of mysticism: "but the greatest of these".
Faith beyond faith
Love beyond love
Hope beyond hope.
They come together. Union is in the category of spirit.
Hope is the residue of the holy spirit.
Faith is the residue of the Christ. Love is the residue
related to God. Christian is profound love and benevolence. If
you do not care about the children in Africa, you are not in relation
to God. I am in disre1ation to the sovereign of history if I care
about one more than another. If my spouse comes before the 85%
of the world I am in disrelation to the eternal . The Achilles
heel of mysticism is love, not faith or hope. It is not Jesus.
It is not the holy spirit. I can manipulate the Holy Spirit. The
greatest of these is love, father, the one creator. I cannot be
reduced to God and vice versa. Union is not as important as care
of the neighbor.
Three sources carry the church today.
1. evangelicals: Jesusology
2. spirit
3. Those who see "the greatest of these -"
3. Lust of life, lust of flesh, pride of Life. The
Buddhists are of Hinduism. We live in a reduced world when we
have a gap of protestant and catholic. In Buddhism, the desire
was to stifle desires of the flesh. They picked the wrong set
of propensities. The Stoics put emphasis on the sense of honor.
What needs to be averted is not desires of the flesh, but the
propensity to be someone. God shares all, but not his sovereignty
and glory. He offers his being but we cannot sit on his throne.
We are creatures. When we are aware of ourselves as God's creatures,
it does not take away creatureliness. We die like cows. Pain and
jarring never goes away, tho we must not live out of that. If
we saw Gautama, we would raise this issue. The lack of control
of the flesh, we need it for the world to operate as a community.
It will be controlled when we control wanting to be someone.
Some think they would have a better life or succeed
more if they had another spouse. Phillyism is found in the desire
to prove yourself. The Chinese understood this better than Buddhism.
We need to think this through.
4. Incarnational existence. We have the Hunter Warrior,
the Saint (great figures in of history), the General, Other World
charts (we drew together statements of abstract categories. That
had to do with the Saint). Maneuver is the key. Then we can move
to abstract categories. Lao Tzu is the wise man. All are dealing
with the same reality. It is taking with depth seriousness the
profundity of humanness, not comparative ideas. We need to bring
together the reality they are pointing to.
It is everyday life. There is no inducement, not
even on Sunday morning when someone preaches a great sermon. That
is not the real Christ happening. Sunday morning is a rehearsal
of the everyday Christ happening.
We cannot allow, the profane and sacred to be reduced
to one another. The sacred takes place in the profane. The key
is related to substantial versus the relational. Incarnational
experience (of the TAO) is not subjective but objective reality.
It is transparently objective, not subjective, though it comes
through consciousness. It is objective to consciousness. We come
at this through epistemology. There is no consciousness save an
object, and vice versa.
The guy who tries to be someone has not allowed the
profound happening to happen. The future is as open as it was
as if something else has happened.
1. Life is: the finality of the TAO I. Mystery
1. Mystery Trans II. Consciousness
2. Fate Divine Economy III. Care
3. Death contingency IV. Tranquillity
4. One (spirit) Unity Wholeness
2. Life is: the thinking of the TAO
design
awareness
3.
4.
3. Life is: the action of the TAO
1. Engagement
2. Concern
3. Creativity
4. Totality
4. Life is: the presence of the TAO: Plethora
1. Peace
2. Hope
3. Joy
4. Eternality
The TAO is not personsal or individual or psychological,
but is objective, social, universal. It is cold and impartial,
though it cares cares for all. The particular is cared
for because it is a part of the all. So the TAO is mighty and
merciful. It is both. All men know or can know its might. The
Christ underscores its mercy. Underscores because all men can
know this but here is a delicate, fragile knowing
the second paradox or the third. This is profound awareness. This
is double profundity; a triple awareness; aware of the not me,
the final other, and the impartial concern.
THE WAY
` 1. Beyond God
GREATEST 2. Love
HONOR 3. Tao and Buddhism
4. Incarnate
I. No credit
II. Competition
IV. Winner: not whether but how to
Love Engaged Detached
towards Social Personal Faith
love Action Self toward
The General Saint love
Turn
to
world
Faith Hunter Warrior Wise Man
toward Self Action Love
faith Person Social toward
Detached Engagement. faith
Stop
the
world
3. INVISIBLE DECISION. The leader has already made
a decision at any time because he has decided about his life.
He does not have to disclose the decision and keeps it open. Therefore,
he can change the decision 1,000 times. One who rushes out has
only one decision. He keeps toying so then the curtain comes down,
he moves quickly. "If you were to be shot ",
you keep that decision open. The leader is never without a model.
When someone comes in and dumps a problem on you, know it is only
a contradiction. When someone jars me into awareness, I realize
we do not have a model. There is no criticism without a model.
The question you ask is, "If you were President, what would
you do?"
4. CONCERN, NOT WITH LEADERSHIP, 0R C0MMNITY, 0R
CLARITY, BUT ONLY EFFECTIVITY.
He comes across as a fanatic. In the midst of the
revolution, you come away with effectivity, the effective realization
of your revolution. The man of faith only decides to goof off
going to the movies. That is the way you handle the problem of
seeing a football game. You are out to deliver. The only question
is what did you accomplish. We are not interested in side stories
or why you did not accomplish, except to learn relative to the
future.
You keep away from personality, psychology, charisma.
With the TAO, we need to talk back. With the Art
of War we need a careful transposition of each chapter, like Chapter
7. We need an equivalent of what we came up with the Hunter Warrior.
The Hunter Warrior will be helpful in India and Malaysia.
4. INCARNATIONAL LIFE. Spirit only exists in actuality.
The Other World in the midst of This World. Undelimited engagement
in the historical process (social pioneering, building the earth,
keepers of history), not this order, family, nation. What to do
with the recluses, charismatics, manipulating awe (that is not
what life is about). Incarnational existence. Greatest is love.
Love and incarnational existence walk hand in hand. We are headed
toward this, not town meeting or social demonstration. These could
be wrong, but pointing in the way you come at it.
Practical CONSEQUECE. In doing the General and Tao
(if General is to be embodied, as well as the TAO, aha), we all
will end up generals and wise ones. We came out as saints and
hunter warriors. We grew three and four feet at a time. These
are not just intellectual exercises.
Who is a leader? Not marching. at the head of a column
or head of the table. We want to do 16, then 4 x l6, then
?
1. Never a competitor. Think through sports. JWM
was a blocking back. Mansfield was a steel town. I learned in
track and was a state champion in an Ohio State tournament. It
was the first race I ever won. Winning a race has to do with guts.
People cheered me and I found guts. I did not possess it. A good
sportsman never competes. Competition is a western invention.
A good sportsman is out to win, to be effective.
Life is tension, but not in competing. It is competing
with death or wrestling with God. Tension IS creativity. Not one
creative thing ever came out of competition. A leader does not
let luxury of competition rule him.
Read Wesley and Bonhoeffer on sin, in trying to be
someone. Walters in competition is sinning.
A man of the Way does not find it necessary to compete;
he only is concerned with the other guys.
A guy in competition gives you a reason why he cannot
do it, or he blames the external situation. A man of the Way is
not depending on others, and has no reason to compete. JWM does
not lose his temper save he wants to be someone . A man of the
way never engages in an argument. When a person does, he is competing.
There is only one good, and that is God . A leader competes only
with God.
2. Never in Charge of anything. It is a flip - to
know if they are, because he is in charge of everything. He is
the Prime Minister of God . The wise one, the man of faith is
never in charge. The guy who does not intend to win has other
people work for him. Some bathe in the joy or that. The man of
the way never has to have any honor. The man avoids the times
when indirect honor is thrown at him.
I. The Way: its essence
II. The Wise Man of the Way is (qualities)
III. The Consequences of the Way
IV. The moral conduct
V. The means to community well being
VI. Caring for oneself
VII. Priorship
THE TAO
Mrs. Rau took JWM to see Mrs. Ghandi. She wrote a
chapter on the male and female principle in a book. Her husband
is writing the chapter on it in Hindu thinking. Her reflection
on the male/female dynamic was shocking.
In the TAO, the TAO is the female principle. In the
West we have grasped it as the male. They have both in the book.
Figuring it out is difficult. We need to work on reading it. Look
at 39, 4O, 52, 53, 38.
The TAO is a noun and a verb. It means making your
way, a path; it is a dynamic.
The virtues are not passive. Virtue means power.
The way is Great Defender of Local Man.
In 38, they tie together power and accomplishment,
not power and righteousness. Virtue is not something you strive
for; virtue is power that is not yours.
We strive for effectivity.
In #1, two things are inseparable; nature and unnature.
They are not separated but by name. You can separate them
being and non being.
You never experienced the spirit save in the concrete
situation. You are also participating in self.
He sees final reality in the female (they call it
nature.) Nature is the way things are. Female is a valley. Non
being is masculine.
Ontologically speaking, man is only man with a Roman.
Creativity is allowing things to be what they area
woman and a man.
Walk by him the man and thou comest to God. By him thou goest,
to him thou goest. Look not for any way except himself
by which to come to him. For if he had not vouchsafed to be the way
we should all have gone astray.
Therefore he became the Way by which Thou shouldest come
I do not say to thee, seek the way.
The way itself is come to thee: arise and walk.
St. Augustine
All cultures and histories "knew" of the
other, the way, the depth consciousness. The X event was a part
of all of this "knowing". It disclosed the white hot
center of the "know", and that core was the awareness
that we did not have to strive to be but that we already were
the past is approved, the future is open, all is good,
and I am significant. This is the ground of faith, the beginning
of love and the essence of hope. In the above sense, all societies
have had their own old testament. This is a combination of external
happening and internal awareness. These came together in certain
individuals and was articulated (significantly or insignificantly)
to the nations. The in depth "Messiah" awareness, the
salvific occurrence, but shed significance upon dead, or dim,
or hidden, or undeveloped awareness in all societies. Who callest
thou (me) Good? There is none good but the Father love
sovereign of History, the creator of all that is. However,
the Father and I are one. When I go, I will send the final spirit
which proceedeth both from the father and the son. The
preface of God himself. The Protothereness and meaning.
The cruciform life has two dimensions; the primary
and the secondary. Finally there is no distinction between the
two. The difference is a matter of intentionally focused strategy.
This is subtle, because after you are symbolically 33, there is
only one course. The category "symbolically" must be
taken with a grain of salt for it can doubly complex the situation.
Before 33 is to lay down your one life dramatically in principle;
afterwards it is a life of laying down your life. There can be
exceptions to both of these dimensions. Maybe the dramatic is
entirely circumstantial, so that age is not an issue.
LECTURE: NEW RELIGIOUS MODE AND CHRIST EVENT
Introduction: The Way of Life Lao Tzu
I. Triangle of Trinity
II. The greatest of these is love.
III. Lust of flesh and pride of life
1.
IV. Incarnational Experience: Way of Life grounded Kung Fu
Practical Way of living
l . In everyday no trance but life
Conclusion
The Hunter Warrior, the General, the saint, the wise
man