I'm sorry, but I'm not understanding this, but today is Monday so I'm a little off my rocker. We have finished Confucius' Analects and have moved on to Taoism by reading the Tao Te Ching. I have a feeling I'm going to learn a lot about many different cultures and religions; first we read about Lord Krishna in The Bagavad-Gita, Teachings of God in the Bible, Confucianism in the Analects, and now we are on the Tao Te Ching. Maybe my teacher is on a secret quest to convert us all. All jokes aside though, this book is pretty deep:
"Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil." (2)
Many of these balances are mentioned, like " long and short contrast each other". Based on this, I think that Taoism has a lot to do with equal balances of things. In class we had a discussion about why there is evil. I wrote that I thought there was evil because we need an equal amount it, since there can't be too much good in the world; maybe I should convert (my teachers evil plan is working).
I am really liking this book. It is like poetry, and I especially like it because it really makes me think. It also shows a nice view of women:
"The valley spirit never dies;
It is the woman, primal mother.
Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth." (6)
Men vs. women is a recurring argument in my class, and I like this citation because it is saying that women are the root of everything. Yay for women! relax, I'm not a feminist, I'm just trying to prove a point.
Heaven has been mentioned many times so far. I always thought that when you die you end up on the golden stairway to heaven. And as you take those steps, you are trying hard not to wet your pants from the fear of the unknown upstairs. When you open the door to heaven, all you see are clouds and you are filled with such joy and everything is okay now. After reading up to chapter twelve, I still have that same mental image, minus the fear. Theres something calming about the text from this book and I'm liking it a lot so far. Its going to keep me thinking about the stairway to heaven
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