spirit is Spirit, shen is Shen

[Guest guest]

Dear Group,

 

Who can enforce a distinction between large and small when speaking of shen?  It

is not for nothing that heart is empty.

 

In a recent (live, free, Cambridge-based) group discussion about Tao Te Ching

#11, the text which says that thirty spokes surround the hub but its emptiness

makes makes it usefrul and that clay forms the cup but its emptiness makes it

useful, one member concerned with finding one's real path in life spoke of large

and small vessels.  Am I this cup?  Am I a bathtub?  Which is the real way?

 

When the transformative research into (one's) being looks to the emptiness,

there is no distinction between the emptiness of the cup and the emptiness of

the bathtub, or the emptiness of inter-stellar space.  The point is that the

heart-mind be oriented away from the unreal, thus opening the link,

earth-man-heaven.  For medical purposes such detachment will benefit the five

viscera and six bowels   About further potentialities some will speak and some

will remain silent; nature will in any event invite us onward.

 

Peace,

 

Carl

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Carl, I would say that what you are pointing to is a potential but most often

not a reality. Sure, we can say " all is One " . But, practically speaking, on the

ground where the rubber hits the road, people make choices that reflect values

and most often those choices are not motivated by, or reflective of, Shen.

What it takes for shen to reflect Shen is a very large conversation that

has evolved through different time periods and is evolving still. The effort

exerted in this regard can be summed up as " the spiritual path " and while it

doesn't have to take time, practically, it often seems to.

 

Warm regards, Lonny