/lit/ - Literature

>>22073645
Not caring is what happens anyway. Might as well get started early.

>>22073645
No it's not that simple but at the same time yes it really is that simple

>>22073649
spbp

>>22073645
>he thinks that's simple
look around you

>>22073645
Yeah.

>>22073645
Let's see you stop caring if it's so simple

>>22073649
>>22073672
>>22073698

>>22073718
>he thinks weed makes you stop caring
I bet you also think alcohol makes you a real social butterfly

>>22073718
DUDE

>>22073745
idc

>>22073751
you do

>>22073752
nah

>>22073698
if i cared id kms myself by now

To everyone in this thread, take a moment to notice where in your body you are holding tension, then take a couple of deep breaths in and out and let that tension melt away.

>>22073645
You should always do a historical-anthropological study of these sorts of philosophies, and see whether opium use was prevalent in the period and place.
Western stoicism, for instance, is explained entirely by opium abuse, and I would not be surprised if the same goes for Taoism.

>>22073835
Taoism is just poorly translated Scythian Buddhism perverted by a thousand or more years of Chinese authoritarianism.

>>22073891
Buddha and Laozi were born less than ten years apart.

if you're a monk living off alms doing fuck all sure
if you apply this thinking to every red blooded male and society trying to build civilization it's not so simple

anyone read his 'America' travelogue under Reagan '86?

>>22073912
Laozi is not a real person

>>22073994
Incorrect.

>>22073829
Don't try this. I did and pooped my pants.

>>22073994
Just like Buddha

>>22074004
Just not true

>>22073891
Lao Tzu refuted the life-denying hylic known as B*ddha

>>22073746
>DUDE
SNEED

>>22073645
>bro i don't care about anything
>but i will never shut the fuck up about how you shouldn't care about anything

>>22074014
Proof?

>>22074430
>Hylic B*ddha: t-there is nothing that isnt impermanent and decayi-
Tao Te Ching 35: Shut up bitch faggot! “The Tao is inexhaustible”
Tao Te Ching 32: “Tao is eternal, one without a second”

>Hylic B*ddha: all is le suffering and unsatisfa-
Tao Te Ching 29: No the world isn’t le suffering you teenage nihilist, “The world is Tao’s own vessel, It is perfection manifest”

>Hylic B*ddha: You don’t need any concept of any higher principle, just subscribe to my 10-part meditation and you can liberate yourself!”
Tao Te Ching 39: “From ancient times till now the One has been the source of all attainments”

>Hylic B*ddha: There is no chariot apart from nominalistic parts
Tao Te Ching 39: “The pieces of a chariot are useless unless they work in accordance with the whole (chariot)”

>Hylic B*ddha: There is no source of all samsara/universe
Tao Te Ching 37: “Tao does not move yet it is the source of all creation”

>>22074600
B*ddhacels will never recover from this

>>22073645
Yes. I've built my entire life around not giving a fuck about anything.

>>22073835
>Western stoicism, for instance, is explained entirely by opium abuse
Source?

>>22073645
yup

feel like shit? go for a run. Can't run? take a nap till you can. Repeat. PROFIT!

>just stop caring and you'll stop suffering
This is true, but there is something at stake when you are an embodied being in physical reality with the capacity to care, a purpose or a destination you can reach if you are willing to care and to accept the consequences of caring, and by letting go you also close that path off.

>>22073645
To me it's all about being alive so the answer is LIVING.
It makes me depressed how easy cancer or a psycho can kill me.
So unless I am caged in a 2 feet box or buried alive, or being raped, and I am of course STILL breathing, I am happy. More than happy.
"i think therefore I am" so motherfucker that means if I didnt yet kill myself, it means I have not yet went through such an ugly situation that would make me suicide, nor am I not yet killed by anything or anyone. So what the fuck is there left for me to care about?

>>22074620
It was revealed to me in a poppy dream

>>22073919
THIS
stoicmaxing is of better use

>>22073829

>>22074600
What's the real difference between Taoism and Christianity? No reddit replies please, someone who's actually familiar with both.

>>22075129
Based

>>22075919
>What's the real difference between Taoism and Christianity?
Christianity invests the Absolute with a mind and personality and volition, at one end of the scale you have people like Craig Lane defending something like Zeus and on the other end of the scale you have very Neoplatonic-like explanations where God's forms of these things are highly abstract and utterly unlike how they occur in human persons.

Taoism doesn't do either of these. That doesn't mean that the Tao is insentient or lifeless though, but it is more like impersonal Brahman-Atman, an ineffable presence that is immanent within the person and transcendent at the same time, it is more intimate to us than our own mind.

"To know Tao alone, without trace of your own existence, is the highest" - TTC 17

"Tao is hidden yet it shines in every corner of the universe" - TTC 4

"The sun in all its glory reveals a passing world
Only the inner light illuminates eternity
Only that light can guide us back home
Have faith
Follow your own shining
Be aware of your own awareness
On the darkest nights you will not stumble
On the brightest days you will not blink
This is called “The Practice of Eternal Light” - TTC 52

http://taisa.si/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Tao-Te-Ching-by-Jonathan-Star.pdf

It's funny to me how anti-Christian /pol/tards are so fascinated with pajeet shit when Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, and to a lesser extent the Buddhism heavily influenced by Daoism Confucianism and Shinto such as Chan/Zen are much more alike to pre-Christian Euro/Near East religion. Daoism is the Eastern Hermeticism.

>"I don't care, I have transcended my attachment to earthly desires" niggas when I light their pets on fire and smash their PlayStation 5 with a baseball bat

>>22076606
so what lol

>>22076518
Sounds like they only have the Palamite energies without the substance of God, so it's like a subset of Christianity.

>>22073829
Don't tell me what to do

>>22075811
kek

>>22075811
This nigga changed my life unironically when I was 17. There's no point pursuing the truth with your mind if you don't even know how to BREATHE.

>>22077471
>energies
>substance
seems more likely a ramanujan or samkhyan dualism,
doesn't even touch the Tao

>>22073645
>was it really that simple the whole time?
Yes.

>>22077982
Why not? How is the Tao different from the Palamite energies?

>>22073829
That won't be effective for most people unless they get sensitivity training anon. I haven't done my practice for a long time so now it's hard for me to even tell where I have tension. I probably wouldn't know that my shoulders are super tense if they weren't literally always tense.

>>22074600
>“The world is Tao’s own vessel, It is perfection manifest”
>the world is perfection manifest
w-w-wait a second... t-then why am i a gay retard??! that can't be right...

>>22078272
You drew a shit roll. Better luck next time

>>22078285
n-no, reincarnation is logically impossible! this is my one shot, i can't believe my perfect state consists in being a gay retard... arent there like any middle management deities i can go and complain to? there has to be something...

>>22078249
Tao is closer to God or Brahman and not the energies, that's why there is a whole book identifying Christ and the Tao from an Eastern Orthodox perspective. In any case it's misguided to insist on trying to reduce other doctrines and religious schools to some component of your own model, this will often cause you to not understand the thing in question. You have to properly understand something on its own terms before one is qualified to make valid and accurate comparisons between it and something that you already know.

>Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen) is an Eastern Orthodox priest, monk and spiritual child of ascetic and spiritual struggler Bl. Father Seraphim Rose, of St Herman of Alaska Monastery, Platina, California.

>>22078340
Richard Wilhelm said early Jesuits i China translated Logos as Dao. Fun fact

>>22078272
>>22078298
Your gay retardation is only relative and subjective and it fails to compromise the tranquil and balanced perfection of the whole.

Something you guy are still confused about.
Taoist philosophy is not a taoist religion. Taoism was created during the Han dynasty. In response to the coming of Buddhism

Taoist philosophy did not began with Lao tzu . It started long before that. Lao Tzu was only one who explained it brilliantly

There are nothing better than accept one's fate. But that's the hard thing . To say it's easy . It's easy. To say it's difficult. It's difficult.
Everything happens because it's their time. A wise person always considers his time

>>22078272
>>22078298
Advaita, as Guenon promotes, says enlightenment is just realizing you are already enlightened. You are fine as you are, tarded homo or not. That said, karma is real so don't do degen tarded homo shit

>>22078349
but how is that fucking fair? im also a part of the world. why can't i be perfect? it's not like i don't want to be.
>>22078365
>bro you're already enlightened you just have to realise it bro, and in order to realise it you have to have a pristine pure body, mind and soul
not to mention that if karma is actually real i am already bound to do the actions i will do in the first place because of past karma, there is no escape. if i've been born a gay retard my gay retard nature will steer me in a gay retard direction irrespective of my actual wishes and intentions, which, of course, are insufficient to cause enlightenment in and of themselves.

>>22078423
You are reflective of Brahma therefore self-active causality and can choose your own fate. Your karma is not set in stone,

Why is not caring so exhausting?

>>22078592
You're doing it wrong
(Grown attached to idea of non-attachment)

>>22074620
The only version that is very widely engaged with today, and hence, deserves the moniker of western stoicism in our times, is the one of Marcus Aurelius, and looking at his physician's notes (it's unironically Galen, non-plebs will know), you see he ate a ball of opium every day for stomach ailments (likely caused by the opium itself) - see Galen's de antidotis (K. XIV, 3-4) - alternatively, see the seminal 1961 paper by T. W. Africa.

In short, whenever he was having his gay little meditations about how whatever you feel is internal and not because of the external world and you can control it because of that or whatever, please remember that every single nerve in his entire body was bathing in the tranquil bliss of morphine and codeine as he was writing it. Please also remember that he had his every physical need tended to by literal slaves, who would wash his back, suck his dick, cook him dinner and bring him more opium, all the while he was high as a kite.

I really cannot stress this enough for opioid-naive readers. Once you've dabbled in opioids, his entire authorship just clicks - every single meditation is the sort of dumb, numb, feel-good shit that permeates your entire phenomenological sphere when you're under the influence of morphine or its mimetics. It just fucking fits so perfectly, and the only reason it is so overlooked, is because almost no opioid users read Aurelius, and almost no Aurelius-readers do opioids.

>You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
>*eats an eighth of raw opium*
>The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
>*eats an eighth of raw opium*
>When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...
>*eats an eighth of raw opium*
>When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.
>*eats an eighth of raw opium*

>>22078613
Aurelius is stoicism for alt-lite manchilds.

Real men read Epictetus and Seneca

>>22078540
Okay but in that case why would I choose to be dissatisfied with my fate and unable to turn it to something else besides being a gay retard? Let's say I (as Brahman) am imposing gay retardation on myself - why? And why can't I countermand that? I don't want to be a gay retard.

>>22078748
Read Parmenides. There is only the way of being which is becoming what you are. Anything else is running in circles. Clearly, you choose self-hatred because a myriad of circumstances but taking the first step forward is just leaving that behind and accepting that reality is what it is. You are a gay retard. Who cares? Move on

>>22078780
>just move on from being a gay retard bro
Unfortunately existence isn't just a theoretical problem but also a practical one, and being a gay retard comes together with a number of inescapable effects when living in the world. Ignoring one's own gay retardation is far easier than just "moving on" from it, but ignoring something does not prevent its effects from occurring. Nor does it assist in leaving that thing (and its effects) behind you.

>>22078842
>wahh my fetters
That's what meditation is for you retarded faggot

>>22078748
>Let's say I (as Brahman) am imposing gay retardation on myself
The real you is neither gay nor retarded. It is the self-luminous and pristine numinous inner light. Gayness and Retardation arise along with other phenomenal qualities within the expanse of this inner light, like images appearing on the surface of a mirror. If your mind doesn't identify yourself with the images and it knows your self to be the mirror instead then all your problems immediately fall away and the natural perfection of everything reveals itself.

>>22078924
>That's what meditation is for you retarded faggot
Give up meditation completely but don’t let the mind hold on to anything. You are free by nature, so what will you achieve by forcing the mind?

Ashtavakra Gita 15.20

>>22078924
And is it or is it not the case that some are inclined towards meditation more, and some less? That some get effective results, and others not? You guys brought up karma, not me.
>>22078956
But the process of letting something like that go is not easy, and one might argue that achieving this from within a state of identification with gayness and retardation is in fact exceedingly difficult. I agree that all beings are essentially perfect because they partake in God or what have you, but it seems a stretch to suggest that the world (manifested existence) is perfect. Because ultimately I am manifest as a gay retard, whether I like it or not. I can either ignore this in which case nothing changes, or I can somehow "let go" of gayness and retardation via an obscure and esoteric process which I have not thus far managed to use.

>>22079010
>not inclined to meditation
NIGGA LITERALLY JUST SIT

>i'm so gay and retarded
You're prolly not even that most retarded faggot on this board

anyway, this is goin in circles, I'm moving on, good luck, may all sentient beings achieve enlightenment :^)

>>22079024
amen brother

>>22079010
>Because ultimately I am manifest as a gay retard, whether I like it or not.
It's actually the opposite, you have it backwards. You are immediate self-luminous presence (the light) that gayness and retardness manifest within, like transient clouds in the stainless sky. You never cease to be the sky, even when clouds are present. Both when the mind is confused and in the absence of confusion, the sky remains the sky.

>or I can somehow "let go" of gayness and retardation via an obscure and esoteric process which I have not thus far managed to use.
Well, maybe you need to be reading better spiritual literature and/or putting more effort into contemplating that literature and realizing how its lessons can be implemented. It's not anyone else's fault if you complain that it's too difficult just based on having 4chan conversations instead of purchasing and reading Taoist texts, instructional books on spirituality by Taoist teachers, or even similar material from other religions that talk about the same thing. Once you "get it", it's actually without effort, the easiest thing of all, freedom effortlessly remains free.

>>22073645
Yes
Any other questions?

>>22079052
>It's actually the opposite, you have it backwards. You are immediate self-luminous presence (the light) that gayness and retardness manifest within, like transient clouds in the stainless sky. You never cease to be the sky, even when clouds are present. Both when the mind is confused and in the absence of confusion, the sky remains the sky.
I cannot refute you. This is true. It just isn't very helpful. I can't internalise this by just affirming it, and even if I did internalise it I cannot guarantee that that would result in the goal I seek.
>Well, maybe you need to be reading better spiritual literature and/or putting more effort into contemplating that literature and realizing how its lessons can be implemented. It's not anyone else's fault if you complain that it's too difficult just based on having 4chan conversations instead of purchasing and reading Taoist texts, instructional books on spirituality by Taoist teachers, or even similar material from other religions that talk about the same thing. Once you "get it", it's actually without effort, the easiest thing of all, freedom effortlessly remains free.
The issue is that based on what we just said, I shouldn't "need" to do anything because I am already perfect. You understand how this paradoxical view is turning me into a mega schizo, right? Either I lack something and need change in order to attain it, or I have everything and need for nothing which is untrue anyway. Trying to affirm both of these at the same time is driving me insane. I just oscillate between calm and lazy on the one hand and desperate and frantic on the other.

>>22079422
>can't
>can't
>can't
Just do it, bitch

>>22079549
FUCK
YOU
REEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>22073649
the dao is not the dao but that's what the dao is KEK

>>22073829
fuck fuck fUCK THE VOICES ARE BACK FUCK YOU NIGGER AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>22078340
>>Hieromonk Damascene
Is the book actually good? How did someone from Alaska learn enough about Taoism? Was he initiated? Does he read Chinese? The fact that he was a disciple of Seraphim Rose is a red flag.

>>22078272
Pointed at the core contradiction like a true philosopher.
Once that contradiction is emotionally resolved, the world really does become perfect.

>>22079422
The abandonment of effort cones after you read the books, not before. You are perfect even if you don't perceive yourself as such, and you can stay like that if you want. If you want to change, which it sounds like you do, read a fucking book.

>>22079925
Am I correct to interpret your position to be that gay retards should just accept their state as the perfect state for them to be?

>>22073646
>wasting your rare, precious blip in eternity on being a faggo uncaring edgelord
Couldn’t be me fampaichi

>>22073645
It's simple when it's simple.
It's hard when it's hard.

>>22080133
Yes. You are likelier to stop being a gay retard if you stopped obsessing about it and did something you loved.
The first step towards is accepting that right now, you are a retarded faggot.

>>22073645
Wouldn't the ultimate for of not caring be taking your own life? Living, regardless of how apathetic you react to the experiences and events unfolding around you, still indicates a degree of caring about experiencing said events.

>>22073649
This desu.

>>22073645
no, of course.