I am just getting to grips with Taoism and I am slowly discovering it' principles. I understand that Good creates bad and bad, respectively, creates good- therefore be neither (Wu-wie) and you will not be entering a cycle where you are needlessly creating bad. I understand that really, nothing is good or bad- only relatively. That everything affects everything else- the story in which the man loses a horse e.t.c. Yet Taoism has the three jewels. Compation, humility or moderation, and the third.. But I just want to look at the first for the moment. If you make moderation exist then it creates waste? So why be moderate- I thought you should just 'be' neither trying to go to an extreme of anything so as to avoid creating it's counter. Could someone please explain this.
One of Taoism?s most important concepts is Wu Wei, which is sometimes translated as ?non-doing? or ?non-action.? A better way to think of it, however, is as a paradoxical ?Action of non-action.? Wu Wei refers to the cultivation of a state of being in which our actions are quite effortlessly in alignment with the ebb and flow of the elemental cycles of the natural world. It is a kind of ?going with the flow? that is characterized by great ease and awake-Nessa, in which - without even trying - we?re able to respond perfectly to whatever situations arise.
You cannot exist in the world without action - Wu Wei does not mean do nothing.
In Taoism, there is neither good nor bad as all that exist are as they are without subjective judgment, if one is wise.
One does that which one does because that one has chosen to do so.
Morality is an illusion and life is "being".
Compassion, being of a humble nature ( as in not being a braggart and controlling ones ego) and moderation are demonstrated by how one treats all others who, when one does not judge, are seen as being of equal value with ones self as all arise in the cause and effect nature of interdependence.
The words of truth are always paradoxical.
- Lao Tzu
In Taoist philosophy, as in Zen, nothing is as it appears. Nothing is absolute. "Good" and "bad" are simply not useful terms. To use an example that carries less emotional clout, think of temperature. What temperature is "hot?" 50 degrees F is hot for skiing but cold for swimming. Joy could not exist without suffering, nor suffering exist without joy - they define each other as hot and cold define each other.
Maybe 'moderation' is the neutral position: having just enough, instead of too little or too much.
I guess if you are reducing, then there is the potential for waste, but that would not be an issue for the 'self,' but an issue for corporations (trying to maximize sales) and society (needing to have it instantly). If you decrease the demand, they will eventually decrease the supply and eliminate that waste. And in this economy, it will happen pretty quickly, because the waste is not only a waste of resources, but a waste of their time and money, and they are all about the money.
Unless... the demand was always more than the supp ply, then your reduction would maybe allow someone who had too little to have just enough!
If you are in tune with each moment, and act appropriately for that moment, then that could be called 'good' I suppose.
But it is not a fixed, absolute thing.
taoism: why be good?
