TAO

10/13/76

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

  1. Consciousness
  2. Freedom

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

  1. Invisible decision - maneuver

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

JESUS

PRINCIPLE


Faith Hunter Warrior Wise Man

toward Self Action Love

faith Person Social toward

Detached Engagement. faith

Stop

the

world


THE TAO

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.

THE WAY CATEGORIES

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.

THE WAY

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


THE CHRIST EVENT UNIVERSE

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 Universal Event

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

  1. Preface to God ­ Proto ­ Personal

II. The greatest of these is love.

  1. Achilles Heel

III. Lust of flesh and pride of life

1.

  1. Buddhism: desires of flesh
  2. Sinocism: wanting to be somebody

IV. Incarnational Experience: Way of Life ­ grounded Kung Fu

Practical ­ Way of living

l . In everyday ­ no trance ­ but life

  1. In all (sacred and profane) not substance but relation
  2. Objective­ no in self ­ though conscious of object

Conclusion

The Hunter Warrior, the General, the saint, the wise man