It is said that virtue is the natural ‘sweet fragrance’ of an enlightened mind.

Post one virtue you think an enlightened Taoist should have and give your personal understanding or application.

I’ll go first…

Virtue is Tolerance.

It is about accepting things and people as they are. When we meet an uncomfortable experience (or person) sometimes we will fight against it mentally and emotionally. This only causes more tension then necessary creating a ‘mountain out of a mole hill’, and, because of this inner emotional tension, we can react inappropriately to the situation causing even more trouble. If we can allow and accept the details of our lives we can deal with things appropriately and with composure.

Tolerance, nice.

I say patience.

Patience is allowing things to flow without forcing them in the direction you want. I am so often humbled by my lack of patience in myself. To me, an excellent example of patience is a martial artist who can be still and calm enough to wait until just the right moment before the strike or punch hits to move or react. To aggressively react or lose your center before the right moment is lack of patience.

This is something to work on over a lifetime.

Awareness

It is only through awareness that I can be virtuous.
Untill I become aware of my impatience or intolerance
I cannot change.

Nice

Prudence

Care, caution, and good judgment, as well as wisdom in looking ahead. With the awareness of how my thoughts, words, and actions will precipitate I can take appropriate actions in the now.

At the river the master asked four disciples what the most important virtue was.

The first looked into the river and said "To flow like water"
He was pushed in.

The second looked into the river and said "To have a mind that reflects as the river reflects the moon"
He was pushed in.

The third looked into the river and said "To shine like the sun which the moon reflects and the water accepts"
"Nice try" said the master and pushed the third in.

The fourth said, "To swim".
The master smiled and they both jumped in.


No idea what the above means, kinda Buddhist though.

I'd say Presence, a wordless presence thats everything is okay and going to be fine. Thats what the virtue I expect from an enlightened taoist to have.

Same as all spiritual traditions: morality.

From a Buddhist perspective:

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html

In other words, cultivate the three karmic causing agents: mind, body and speech.

Virtue is loving kindness.

All other virtues come from loving kindness. Taoist, Buddhist, whatever, loving kindness embraces and harmonises everything. It is non-discriminating virtue. The highest of all.

It is really amazing.

It is inherent within us as our authenticity, and it's nature is to radiate out in all directions with no conditions just like the sun.

A Taoist shouldn't have virtues.

It's only because this dimension/world is so dualistic that we use the term virtue.

Loving kindness is inherent within us, so it's not something you 'have', you just are it.

But most of us are a bit too cloudy and thus aren't aware of it, so it's therefore necessary to use terms like virtue as a reminder to return to that state of our original nature.



From "The Yellow Stone Elder's Book of Plain Words

"Tao, Virtue, Benevolence, Rectitude and Decorum - these five are all one principle"

Simplicity

We have a great tendency to live very busy, complicated lives. There is also a social fashion of having ornamented personalities, acquiring attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge for no other motive but pretentiousness.

In Tao there is the precept of Pu, , ‘the uncarved block’. As an allegory for simplicity, Pu reminds us of a block of wood with limitless potential yet it remains uncarved, indistinct, undescribed. Thus it stays within its original purity and simplicity.

Let go....

Sort of wu wei, sort of receptivity, ...
Be present, we are always so yang, find the yin. Feel the feelings, experience the senses, be with whatever you are doing fully. Be spontaneous - don't try to interpret, analyze, second guess - just do what is to be done in the moment.
I would have just said wu wei but there are too many preconceived notions about what that means; it too often is interpreted to mean not getting involved and I think that can be misleading. It's critical to get involved, why else are we here? The key to wu wei is to be involved deeply, but to be spontaneous, genuine - not letting the intellect interfere with the heart... or something like that. At least that's what occurs to me at the moment...


Sounds to me like a Daoist koan - I like it....

Constancy

The Universe is in constant change, yet through all the changes can we remain constant within our virtue? When the wind and thunder of life incessantly stirs the surface can we maintain the stable axis of our own true nature? In the face of innumerable distractions and transitory concepts can we persevere with the one truth of Universal reality? To be constant is to be like the mountain, deep rooted, still, enduring, strong, and firm.

For me at this time I find open-mindedness to be a great virtue. It allows us to ask the right and wrong of any situation and come up with the virtueous path through consideration and any other in-put,This may be from our hearts, guts or TV news -if one is so enclinded...-

I for one have not watched TV news in a very long time

Which is to say being openminded may also preclude taking in biased and slanted views as being true or seriously considered of themselves...

Gleaning truth not deciding it before ample consideration...

As there is little of morality in most dogma and belief belies actual being often enough...

I pretty much stoped TV watching in October (election was on, lies everywhere) and I'm not missing it. People at work usually tell me the important news. I feel a bit out of touch but it's worth it.

I still get the TV guide and tape stuff with HDD recorder so we have something to watch while eating (no dinning room table, chairs and the entertainment system I prefer music but D did not have a TV for a while as a child and I think that is why she likes to have it going rather than the radio. You just waste so much time channel surfing watching stuff you don't really want to just cause it's there.

I have seldom lived with a working TV since 1974- when I was 20...Don't have one now -but I do run movies on my VCR- Also while at meals from a chair...I have a collection of 1,700+ films on VCR and enjoy them emmensly.

Joshua Then & Now is my current fav to suggest-since few have seen it and Alan Arkin steals it brilliently...In such a case, stealing is a virtue-so I have not strayed so far from the thread...

enjoy yr virtues as ye may -but those supposed sins (sez who!?)...may be interesting as well...

Here is an email I just received from a friend. Enjoy.


Dr. Arun Gandhi, gandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K.Gandhi
Institute for Nonviolence, in his June 9 lecture at the University of
Puerto Rico, shared the following story:

I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my
grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa, in the
middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and had no
neighbours, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going
to town to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day
conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was going to town, my
mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day
in town, my father asked me to take care of several pending chores, such
as getting the car serviced.

When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, "I will meet you
here at 5:00 p.m. , and we will go home together." After hurriedly
completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest movie theatre. I
got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that I forgot the time.
It was 5:30 before I remembered. By the time I ran to the garage and got
the car and hurried to where my father was waiting for me, it was
almost 6:00.

He anxiously asked me, "Why were you late? "I was so ashamed of telling
him I was watching a John Wayne western movie that I said, "The car
wasn't ready, so I had to wait," not realizing that he had already
called the garage.

When he caught me in the lie, he said: "There's something wrong in the
way I brought you up that didn't give you the confidence to tell me the
truth. In order to figure out where I went wrong with you, I'm going to
walk home 18 miles and think about it.

" So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk home in the
dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads.

I couldn't leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove behind him,
watching my father go through this agony for a stupid lie that I uttered.

I decided then and there that I was never going to lie again. I often
think about that episode and wonder, if he had punished me the way we
punish our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at all. I
don't think so.

I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the same thing.
But this single non-violent action was so powerful that it is still as
if it happened yesterday.

That is the power of non-violence.

by Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi

Thank you for this mYTHmAKER

Mythmaker the story you shared truly represents virtue.Thankyou for the wonderful post

Beautiful story - thank you

I gues this makes up for my lousy haiku

At yesterday's lesson I was quite flabbergasted to discover that the origin of the word virtue is "power".

I suspect that changes the question quite a bit.

virtue is what we people do to replace something we lost

i still think a really good daoist cares less about virtues

so, the complete question would be what virtue do we need... it seems to depend on the individual, and most of us speak of what we need most, or what we have most...

what do i need?
what do i have too much?

De/Teh (Virtuosity, Virtue, Power)

A Daoist formula for de is "dao within." It may be the result of innate skill or of careful cultivation and training. Translators most commonly use "virtue" as a translation but hurry to remind us that it is 'virtue' in the ancient Greek sense of an excellence. 'Power' is an alternative translation that reflects the link between de and successful action or achievement for its possessor. Given our use of an aesthetic conception of interpretation of dao, we may think of one's de as her 'virtuosity.' Virtuosity exhibits itself in a performer by making his "interpretation" of the thing performed (a ceremony, chant or ritual) work in the context. Thus de links dao with correct performance. This elegantly blends in the perceived overtones of "power" in the form of the performer's ability to respond to clues in the context that make the performance "work." The "powerful" performance achieves the dao's goal in real time.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/taoism/

Following this, the Tao Teh Ching, or daodejing, has been translated as "The Way and the Power" or even "The Power of the Way".

In traditional schools of Tao virtue, or de, is the natural expression of one who has achieved Tao. Once all the coarse elements of one's personality have been sublimated the raw essence that remains is one's true personality or nature. Thus the practice of virtue is not 'adding' anything at all but rather an excavation to the root and core or one's being and letting 'de' naturally and effortlessly permeate all of our thoughts, words and actions.

Pietro


- but not power in the conventional understanding of the word. It's the power of loving kindness.

Chapter 36 of the Scripture of Forty Nine Chapters says:

"The power of kindness and compassion is the most vast and great power. The hearts of kindness and compassion can melt all; the practices of kindness and compassion can tame all. Viscious ones cannot compete with it, and atrocious ones cannot fight against it - wherever it proceeds, it is always invincible.
Thus, this power is vast, great and boundless."



Sifu Stigweard


So true.
Because that's our original, authentic nature. Sooner or later, everyone will realize this through their own experience.

Virtue is what we really are.

Hello Mat,
could you please present me the 49 chapters. For I am not familiar with them.

In particular I would like to know, the tradition the book came from, the time, the historical period and the author. Only then will I be able to start to have an idea of what does the authore really mean with what he is saying.

I agree with the rather stark statement that A Taoist should not have virtues.

All a Taoist needs is to be in tune with the Dao.

The Dao doesnt "have virtues".


In order to become one with the Dao one will develop a lot of qualities.


A steadfastness, and an open receptivity alongside a strong bullshit detector come in handy.

Hi Pietro, it can be found here.

http://taoistresource.home.comcast.net/~ta...rce/doe_idx.htm


Cat


That's because the Tao is virtue, so the more we re-align with the Tao, the more so-called virtue will be naturally manifest within and without us.

It will be our breath, heartbeat, every act, and non-act.

I lost a friend who drowned in a stream some years ago.

That stream had Te.

When I think of Te I use the word 'ethics'

In order to truly practice Te one must first have clarity or else they are bound to have difficulties.

Te can only be cultivated through the give and take of everyday interactions with others, not by sitting on a mountaintop, however it only works well if they've done a lot of sitting first.

Why the need to try to conform to some kind of pattern of behavior because it is thought of as 'good' or 'right'.

In terms of the Tao that is just dualistic thinking.

Focusing on one will only serve to suppress the other in some way.


There is no good or right, there is just the simple nature of who we are and the striving to live each day as it comes.

Te is a fascinating concept. It is closely matched by our concept of integrity : which means "the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished"..... the idea being that if we are undiminished and entire, we will be True and Right. Not neccesarily 'good' in a moralistic sense.

It's likely that the ethical slant put upon Te comes from the Confucian era.

Wiki offers an interesting page on this, in which it says : "Based on the cognate relation between de and zhi "to plant", ... <it was > further noted the early Chinese regarded planting seeds as a de, hence it "means a latent power, a 'virtue' inherent in something."

and

" Indeed, it is believed by many scholars that the term originated in the mytho-magical period of Chinese speculation when tê was conceived as a kind of mana-like potency inherent in substances, things, and human beings, a potency which, on the one hand, made them true to their essence.....It appears often as if it had been imagined as a kind of electric charge permeating the thing in question, waxing or waning in accordance with some mysterious law, and capable of being transmitted, in the case of living beings, from one generation to another.."

It reminds me of how I used to enjoy asking for brown bread in the baker when I was In Italy, as it is called "Panne Integrale" in Italian. Te bread!

Cheers for this Cat.

cat. you are like a flower unfolding!

naah that was stupid!
i'm a fan.

that's better.

I heard the truth bell ring when I read this.

I can understand that, if our ideal is to become indistinct and indescribable, then having any features detracts away from this ideal.

I have learned that achieving self-nature is the art and science of one who journeys Tao and that self-nature and universal nature are the same. Virtue and nature are so closely linked that they are one.

So in my view, one of self-nature operates in tune with their nature, and hence universal nature, thus all expressions will be imbued with virtue.

It's true, I learned most of what I know about Te from a Taoist immortal who had been a Confucian when he was younger, and he almost always used the word ethical. However he used it more in the way you describe integrity rather than as being like a moral goodness. However the result of this is that a person acts with what the Buddhists call spontaneous right action, which is close to the Taoist concept of non action.




Thanks for the info from wiki. I've only been to Italy once, in the Northern part.

Could you tell us what makes the Taoist immortal you studied with a Taoist immortal.

Thanks

Contentment

These days most people are always chasing something … sex, material goods, power, etc. Within this self-splitting state of dissatisfaction the desire is to always be somewhere or someone else, never happy in the fullness of now.

Contentment is about being self-contained and integrated; bringing together all the unsettled elements of one’s being into a self-sufficient and harmonious whole. The nature of a self-fulfilled being and universal nature are merged as one, nothing needs be added.

I wouldn't say I studied with him, he was more of a casual mentor type for me. There are various types of immortals, seven types I'm told and definitions get rather involved, lets just say I made it up.

I think some of us would love it if you made up some more.


*waits nicely*

Resourcefulness

When new or difficult situations arise how well do you cope? Do you ‘rise’ to the occasion? Or do you fumble and flounder ineffectively?

Demand and supply are yin and yang aspects within the flow of life. When the emptiness (yin) of a want, demand, or deficiency occurs life will naturally move to provide fulfilment and satisfaction (yang). A naturally achieved being will have the inner resourcefulness to respond appropriately, skilfully, promptly and fully to all situations.

passion and empathy
as appropriate
to each unique situation
as they arise

What constitutes an immortal.
Where can I find the definitions of the seven types of immortals.
Might fit into a category or two. Ya never know.

Nice

I'm arriving a bit late to the discussion and I apologize for only now responding to a first-page post in a three-page thread, but...

I liked this story. And I can see how the father's actions prompted the desired response in his own child. But I have to wonder if this example of non-confrontation really pertains to many of the people we interact with in real life. The child clearly was well-raised - after all, he conjured up enough empathy to recognize that he should trail behind his father at a walking pace for 18 miles.

Many of the people we deal with on a daily basis would have gotten embarrassed, then angry, and then driven off at full speed. Then they would have obstinately refused to go through the self-examination required for the father's admirable action to have its desired effect. And they would behave this way exactly because they themselves are accustomed to confrontation.

So what do we do about them?

Oh, and so that my first real post to Tao Bums isn't completely off-topic, I'm going to toss my vote in for the Three Treasures:

Moderation
Humility
Compassion

A quiet bump for virtue

Compassion

Compassion literally means “to suffer with”. When we embrace the reality that we are all ‘one life’, that there is no separation of ‘you’ and ‘I’, then we can open our hearts and treat other people’s suffering, and its alleviation, as our own.

An achieved one does not engage in cultivation for themselves alone. Acknowledging universal interconnectedness and interdependence, the achieved one dedicates themselves to aid the upliftment of all humanity, past, present and future, and all life.

"There are various types of immortals, seven types I'm told and definitions get rather involved, lets just say I made it up."

I think we can pretty much take Steve at his word by the end of this sentence. And he seems to have conveniently vanished do to it.