The Sacred Chao Te Ching

[Telarus]

Now that a majority of the base writing is done, definitely drag chapters into this thread.

[LMNO]

Okaaay... Chapter 1:



The Universe that can be described is not the real Universe;
the name that can be given is not an accurate name.
Nameless it is the source of order and disorder;
Named... Well, we pretty much covered that, yeah?

Whoever is disordered, sees that patterns do not exist
Whoever is ordered, sees every pattern.
These two are the same,
but what is produced has names.
They both may be called Illusion.
from the comic to the tragic
is the door to the essence of all life.

[Cramulus]

I'm just reading over chapters 61-70 ATM...

initial comments:

Dang, LMNO, you did some great work here! definitely a very meticulous job of cross-mapping nuances of both philosophies.

I'm still a bit uncertain about the "pinealist" metaphor - I think it could be better defined. In chapter 62 I changed it to the Philosopher, what do you think about this edit? revision history


Chapter 65 has this line:

Understanding the choices means the Lady IS the Tiger.

went over my head. Lady is the tiger? reference to the Lady or the Tiger? right? Need a more accessible metaphor.



As for posting chapters here - definitely! But we should pick out the difficult, ambiguous, or important chapters - we'll never get through all 81 discussing them in-thread one at a time.

[LMNO]

I think chapter 24 and chapter 41 define Pinealist pretty well -- at least, that's where I decided to explain it the most thoroughly.


But "Philosopher" works well in 62.


Yeah, "Lady or the Tiger" is what I was referencing.  It's shorthand for "Two unknowable choices."  My point it that an either/or decision is the same choice, if you play by someone else's rules.

At least, that's what I think I was talking about.

[Cramulus]

been wading through the texts

again, I really like how LMNO handled a lot of these chapters


I'm noticing, however, some redundancy (which is probably present in the TTC too)

basically the bit about the Chao being made of both the order and disorder
and both of those are illusions
and you should reject those illusions

     ^
that bit is probably in four or five different chapters. 34, 40, 55, & numerous others are all shades of the same basic idea.

One of those chapters might be a good place to inject a definition for one of our more nebulous terms.



I'd like to nominate Chapter 41 for more discussion. There are three definitions here and I'm not really clear on them.

When the Discordian hears of Chaos, they Act.
When the Erisian hears of Chaos, they think about it, at great length.
When the Pinealist hears of Chaos, they say, "FNORD!  PINEAL23!"
If it were not for the Pinealist, Chaos would not be what it is.

Order appears calming and sensible.
Disorder appears unsettling and unstable.
Doubt appears ignorant.
Certainty appears true.
Agression appears confident.
Mirth appears uncaring.
Horror appears powerless.
All these are lies.

Uncertainty reveals itself as a narrow footbridge,
But with its heart in Chaos, the path is clear.

So the first "stanza" defines three things-
*the Discordian (who does stuff)
*the Erisian (who thinks about stuff)
*and the Pinealist (who acts without thinking?)

I think we might need clearer terms here. There's nothing about being "Erisian" in my mental dictionary that corresponds with "thinking but not acting".  These attitudes defined in that chapter are present in the general population, not specifically Discordia, so maybe we should pick non-Discordian terms?


I don't want to belabor this point, but if we're going to use the word "pinealist", I think it still needs to be better defined. Outside of this forum, I can't think of anybody who would get the connection between "eating the menu" and saying "FNORD!  PINEAL23!". I'm not fond of the word  "pinealist" even outside of this context. When I have to explain it to someone, it seems to make best sense in the context of newbies vs jaded discordians. And then even once you understand the word - its usually sounds (to me) like a very picky and condescending way to refer to someone who just hasn't figured it out yet.

but that's just me

[Honey]

I remain open to the Chao.  I'm new here & know very little of Discordia.  I'm not attached to any of my own interpretations, it was fun writing them & reading the others.  I will always love the Tao Te Ching, it plucks my heart strings.  To me, the Chao seemed much like the Tao.  The concept of wei wu wei seems, to me, to be difficult to translate in both but I think it's somehow key.  The idea of a sort of "muscle memory" where the body knows what the mind does not also seems to come into play (big time) in my thoughts on this.  The game plays the game.  It plays you as you try to play it.  It plays you.  You laugh at the absurdity.  Kinda like "push hands."  Or jumping in & out of the various paradoxes.  How opposites create each other without devouring one another.  In some sense like an Ouroboros.

Anyway I'm failing to express but I remain open to whatever.   

[LMNO]

41 is one of mine, so I'll hold off comment until tomorrow, so anyone else who wants to take a shot can get their ideas in. 

[Bu🤠ns]

I remain open to the Chao.  I'm new here & know very little of Discordia.  I'm not attached to any of my own interpretations, it was fun writing them & reading the others.  I will always love the Tao Te Ching, it plucks my heart strings.  To me, the Chao seemed much like the Tao.  The concept of wei wu wei seems, to me, to be difficult to translate in both but I think it's somehow key.  The idea of a sort of "muscle memory" where the body knows what the mind does not also seems to come into play (big time) in my thoughts on this.  The game plays the game.  It plays you as you try to play it.  It plays you.  You laugh at the absurdity.  Kinda like "push hands."  Or jumping in & out of the various paradoxes.  How opposites create each other without devouring one another.  In some sense like an Ouroboros.

Anyway I'm failing to express but I remain open to whatever.   

If you've ever tried to shoot a basketball into a net (or, if you're like me a crumbled up piece of paper into a wastebasket) you'll notice that if you think about making the basket too hard---you'll never make it.  you have to shoot for the hoop before you think about shooting for the hoop.  or as the one fella said in zen and the art of archery (iirc) you have to let go of the arrow before you think about letting go of the arrow. I think the key term here that really helps to define wu wei is spontaneity.  What's nice about spontaneity is that you can NEVER be spontaneous on purpose.  it's something that arises from the moment.  and so when you TRY (as opposed to non-doing or non-interfearance) you put yourself in a double bind.  you become too busy TRYING instead of simply doing.  You find yourself TRYING to be spontaneous. 

or think of the kid playing and being silly making adults laugh without any self-awareness.  Then grandma and grandpa come in and mom says "hey, now do that cute dance you were doing for gram and grandpa!"  and the kid gets all shy because he was too busy just expressing himself.

or like in school you HAVE to read all of these books...and you never want to because it's required. then you pick up The Sound and the Fury years later when you really WANT to and realize just how awesome it is.

Anyway, that's my usual way of explaining it, fwiw.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I remain open to the Chao.  I'm new here & know very little of Discordia.  I'm not attached to any of my own interpretations, it was fun writing them & reading the others.  I will always love the Tao Te Ching, it plucks my heart strings.  To me, the Chao seemed much like the Tao.  The concept of wei wu wei seems, to me, to be difficult to translate in both but I think it's somehow key.  The idea of a sort of "muscle memory" where the body knows what the mind does not also seems to come into play (big time) in my thoughts on this.  The game plays the game.  It plays you as you try to play it.  It plays you.  You laugh at the absurdity.  Kinda like "push hands."  Or jumping in & out of the various paradoxes.  How opposites create each other without devouring one another.  In some sense like an Ouroboros.

Anyway I'm failing to express but I remain open to whatever.   

If you've ever tried to shoot a basketball into a net (or, if you're like me a crumbled up piece of paper into a wastebasket) you'll notice that if you think about making the basket too hard---you'll never make it.  you have to shoot for the hoop before you think about shooting for the hoop.  or as the one fella said in zen and the art of archery (iirc) you have to let go of the arrow before you think about letting go of the arrow. I think the key term here that really helps to define wu wei is spontaneity.  What's nice about spontaneity is that you can NEVER be spontaneous on purpose.  it's something that arises from the moment.  and so when you TRY (as opposed to non-doing or non-interfearance) you put yourself in a double bind.  you become too busy TRYING instead of simply doing.  You find yourself TRYING to be spontaneous. 

or think of the kid playing and being silly making adults laugh without any self-awareness.  Then grandma and grandpa come in and mom says "hey, now do that cute dance you were doing for gram and grandpa!"  and the kid gets all shy because he was too busy just expressing himself.

or like in school you HAVE to read all of these books...and you never want to because it's required. then you pick up The Sound and the Fury years later when you really WANT to and realize just how awesome it is.

Anyway, that's my usual way of explaining it, fwiw.

[the last yatto]

once i finish reading Tao of Pooh
i might understand enough to not have things tossed at me when i edit.
also have a newspaper article that explains the differences of eastern teachings.

as well as a copy of I chong that might be useful

[the last yatto]

"Wei developed from the symbols for clawing hand and a monkey, since the term Wu Wei means no going against the nature of things; no clever tampering; no monkeying around." tao of pooh pg 68

[LMNO]

I'd like to nominate Chapter 41 for more discussion. There are three definitions here and I'm not really clear on them.

When the Discordian hears of Chaos, they Act.
When the Erisian hears of Chaos, they think about it, at great length.
When the Pinealist hears of Chaos, they say, "FNORD!  PINEAL23!"
If it were not for the Pinealist, Chaos would not be what it is.

Order appears calming and sensible.
Disorder appears unsettling and unstable.
Doubt appears ignorant.
Certainty appears true.
Agression appears confident.
Mirth appears uncaring.
Horror appears powerless.
All these are lies.

Uncertainty reveals itself as a narrow footbridge,
But with its heart in Chaos, the path is clear.

So the first "stanza" defines three things-
*the Discordian (who does stuff)
*the Erisian (who thinks about stuff)
*and the Pinealist (who acts without thinking?)

I think we might need clearer terms here. There's nothing about being "Erisian" in my mental dictionary that corresponds with "thinking but not acting".  These attitudes defined in that chapter are present in the general population, not specifically Discordia, so maybe we should pick non-Discordian terms?


I don't want to belabor this point, but if we're going to use the word "pinealist", I think it still needs to be better defined. Outside of this forum, I can't think of anybody who would get the connection between "eating the menu" and saying "FNORD!  PINEAL23!". I'm not fond of the word  "pinealist" even outside of this context. When I have to explain it to someone, it seems to make best sense in the context of newbies vs jaded discordians. And then even once you understand the word - its usually sounds (to me) like a very picky and condescending way to refer to someone who just hasn't figured it out yet.

but that's just me

Ok, There seem to be a few things to address:

First, and let's get this out of the way now, I am not interested in "translating the Tao te Ching using Discordian language."  Even though RAW&Co borrowed heavily, there are certain aspects of the Tao that do not seem to fit PD as I see it.  I decided to approach this project by using the TTC as a framing device for Discordian ideas.  So, (Yatto and others), you don't actually need to know anything about Taoism to give advice on editing.  Y'all are (as far as I can tell) Discordians.  This is a Discordian work.  Treat it as such.


Ok, now, onto chapter 41.  I see three points Cram has mentioned:

1) "Pinealist".

2) How the language of TTC should relate to the the language of CTC; repitition.

3) Who our audience is.



They all sort of blend together, so let me see if I can work through this.  This particular chapter in the TTC is the one that talks about Wise, Mediocre, and Foolish men.  Let me repeat that: Lao Tzu did not consider all people to be equally enlightened, he considered some people to be Fools.  However, he then went on to say that if it were not for the Fools who laugh at the Tao, the Tao would not be as great as it is.

In a similar way, I was parsing out different kinds of people who consider themselves "Discordian": I drew on the Illuminatus!3 ELF/LDS split (the Dealey Lama v. Hagbard), and then added a PD.com flair with the Pinealist:

The LDS are doers, active in the physical world, using Discordian Principles.
The ELF are thinkers, spinning out theories, but prone to believeing their own mental constructs.
The Pinealists think smoking pot while reading RAW is fucking awesome.

But, just like in the Tao, if it wasn't for those gibberish-spewing potheads, Discordia wouldn't be as weird and interesting as it is.

However, if the implied semantic heirarchy is too much, then we can shift it around:

Some hear about Discordia, and plot against the Machine™.
Some hear about Discordia, and think about it at great length.
Some hear about Discordia, and decide it means they can get high and doodle.
If it weren't for those spags, Discordia wouldn't be as strange as it is.

Ok, for the second part... About half of the TTC is made up of a core concept: Going to extremes leaves one unbalanced.  Because of that, and because this is the Chao te Ching, the main concept that got repeated was about the (An)Eristic Illusions.  I have no problem cutting some of these out and building up other PD concepts.  We should track down the ones that don't "pop", and cut them out, replace them with Starbuck's Pebbles, or something.


Which leads us to the third part.  When I first picked up the TTC in high school, all I knew of Taoism was the cool logo, and something about moderation.  I had no idea what "The 10,000 things" meant, nor how to make sense of "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."  I didn't know what wu-wei meant, or about the symbolism of the Uncarved Block.  Simply put, the TTC is not a "how to" book of Taoism.  It's a book of commentary on Taoism, which makes the most sense if you already know what the hell Lao Tzu is talking about. The TTC, in my opinion, was not meant as a recruiting tool, it was meant for students of the Tao.

It was in that spirit most of my chapters appeared to me; if you don't know Illuminatus!, the Principia, RAW, or Leary, there's a good chance that while some of this stuff might be accessible, a lot is going to go over your head.  The fact that there was also some BIP added (because, of course, we're trying to write about "our" Discordia today, and not 50 years ago) adds to the complexity.  And because this is more like prose poems than a dissertation, there isn't really room to explain our concepts and metaphors with crystal clarity.  Imagine Lao Tzu suddenly going off on a long lecture about the Uncarved Block in the middle of the TTC!




So, in conclusion (here's the tl;dr summary)

1) I won't argue removing "Pinealist", but we do need the concept of people who idolize RAW, think the Law of Fives is somehow actually related to Five, and don't use the PD as toilet paper.

2) The (An)Eristic Illusions are highly stressed, and the weaker instances should probably be replaced by other Discordian concepts.

3) Are we writing the CTC for Discordians, or for people who never heard of Eris?

[Cramulus]

I am in general accordance with everything you just said. 

I do prefer your second whack at that stanza. Now I much better understand what you were aiming for.

I certainly didn't "get" all the stuff Lao Tzu was yammering on about until years later. I think that this book should be challenging, you should have to look some stuff up, so long as it's not overwhelming.

I just want to hold up the extreme end of the spectrum as an example - I hate to mention it, but some of Bobby Campbell's comics. I think they're gorgeous and I love his brain, but the density can be repelling. http://ok-dk.net/Agnosis/?p=16&page=6 <--- I queried him about this page in particular, because I know he IS talking about stuff but I couldn't understand it. It's so dense it's inaccessible. his response was:

Though I actually haven't made up any words in so doing, just kind of as a promise to whomever should actually put time into reading this, the narration may be esoteric as all holy fuck, but it all means something.

I'm debating about including a kind of glossary database to go along with the works here

I can appreciate where he's coming from. He doesn't want to water down his narrative. His target audience already understand those words or will have the patience to look all that stuff up. And in choosing to present his work that way, he significantly narrows his target audience.

SO

the question is

3) Are we writing the CTC for Discordians, or for people who never heard of Eris?

I personally haven't made up my mind.

The slightly larger part of me likes being able to show my friends the creative projects that I've been working on, and I just plain don't do that when the material is too esoteric. I also think that since there's no hierarchy or canon of Discordian works, any Discordian work should stand on its own to some extent . Re-reading our text AFTER having read the Principia (or the Tao Te Ching) will provide a more enriching read, but the text should still be somewhat accessible even if you're not familiar.

One one hand, every writer / editor wants a lot of readers. On the other hand, measuring the success of a book like this by the size of its readership may compromise our writing.


For the record, I think we're doing pretty well on those measures.

what do you think?

[LMNO]

I think we provide enough context that even if people don't know the word, they get the meaning.

Also, the above edit to the first stanza is clunky, needs refining.

[LMNO]

I'm also going to go through the stanzas, and perhaps add a few lines explaining PD.com/BIP concepts a bit better, as some Discordians won't know them.