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dorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
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"Maybe."
#5569607 - 04/29/06 04:53 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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A Chinese story, kind of a Taoistic story about a farmer. One day, his horse ran away, and all the neighbors gathered in the evening and said 'that's too bad.' He said 'maybe.' Next day, the horse came back and brought with it seven wild horses. 'Wow!' they said, 'Aren't you lucky!' He said 'maybe.' He next day, his son grappled with one of these wild horses and tried to break it in, and he got thrown and broke his leg. And all the neighbors said 'oh, that's too bad that your son broke his leg.' He said, 'maybe.' The next day, the conscription officers came around, gathering young men for the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. And the visitors all came around and said 'Isn't that great! Your son got out.' He said, 'maybe.'
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(O))be free!


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Re: "Maybe." [Re: dorkus]
#5569614 - 04/29/06 05:04 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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"..it all may be, per·haps!" -Unknown :P
Edited by Gomp (05/03/06 09:03 AM)
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fresh313
journeyman


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Re: "Maybe." [Re: dorkus]
#5569755 - 04/29/06 08:05 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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then thier celebrating the chinese new year and his son knocks over one of the roman candles with his crutches and it shoots into ther house burning it to the ground and destroying thier cache of opium. everybody real high of the opium fumes goes this is sweet. and he goes. 'maybe'.
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Lakefingers

Registered: 08/26/05
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Loc: mumuland
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Re: "Maybe." [Re: dorkus]
#5569778 - 04/29/06 08:23 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Isn't it interesting how, if you don't have any definitive thing to say (or any point of experience to grasp on or be repulsed by), people often think you're an undeveloped subject?
Isn't it interesting how, humans are so easily caught off-guard and hang themselves up off-guard?
It may be this's part of being committed to life; Maybe. Yea ~
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dorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
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Re: "Maybe." [Re: fresh313]
#5570607 - 04/29/06 02:56 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
fresh313 said: then thier celebrating the chinese new year and his son knocks over one of the roman candles with his crutches and it shoots into ther house burning it to the ground and destroying thier cache of opium. everybody real high of the opium fumes goes this is sweet. and he goes. 'maybe'.
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dorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
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I definitely agree.
Committed as opposed to detached you mean?
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moog
Stranger

Registered: 02/15/05
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Re: "Maybe." [Re: dorkus]
#5571081 - 04/29/06 05:13 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Haha i love this story, very funny. I first heard it when reading Eckhart Tolle. Here's another good, very similar Zen story...
The Zen Master Hakuin lived in a town in Japan. He was held in high regard and many people came to him for spiritual teaching. Then it happened that the teenage daughter of his next-door neighbor became pregnant. When being questioned by by her angry and scolding parents as to the identity of the father, she finally told them that he was Hakuin, the Zen Master. In great anger the parents rushed over to Hakuin and told him with much shouting and accusing that their daughter had confessed that he was the father. All he replied was, "Is that so?"
News of the scandal spread throughout the town and beyond. The Master lost his reputation. This did not trouble him. Nobody came to see him anymore. He remained unmoved. When the child was born, the parents brought the baby to Hakuin. "You are the father, so you look after him." The Master took loving care of the child. A year later, the mother remorsefully confessed to her parents that the real father of the child was the young man who worked at the butcher shop. In great distress they went to see Hakuin to apologize and ask for forgiveness. "We are really sorry. We have come to take the baby back. Our daughter confessed that you are not the father." "Is that so?" is all he would say as he handed the baby over to them."
-- From A New Earth
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BleaK
paradox
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Re: "Maybe." [Re: moog]
#5571151 - 04/29/06 05:33 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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now THATS some detatchment
-------------------- "You cannot trust in law, unless you can trust in people. If you can trust in people, you don't need law." -J. Mumma
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery


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Re: "Maybe." [Re: dorkus]
#5571182 - 04/29/06 05:43 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I like this story Dr. and it's why I like the Taoist perspective so much. Not many of us like to admit that really we can't be sure of anything at all. It's too scary to live in a chaotic state. Kind of like being on a high dose of shrooms most of the time. But that's how I really think it is. There is just no way to know "it" at all. Can you hang with that kind of uncertainty and still find happiness? "Maybe"
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Fospher
Crime FightingMaster Criminal


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Re: "Maybe." [Re: dorkus]
#5571232 - 04/29/06 06:02 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Unless the farmer deliberately knew that his horse was going to come back with seven when it ran away, there is no grey area to the incident. The fact is - now he doesn't have a horse, and to a farmer, that's sad news.
We are not certain of anything, and to be indifferent of everything, refusing to call it for what it is at the right moment is a lack of will. Acting on these same premises, someone might call a butterfly flying in Wyoming the most peaceful thing on earth, only to find out that due to the wind distortions caused by it's wings, it caused a hurricane in Texas. Does that however, take away the current moment of the peaceful sight of the butterly?
Here's the folly of your story: The farmer would have only been right if he remained silent, for there are no absolutes or even grey areas, for they are an absolute of uncertainty. There's a word in Platonic philosophy, "Istigkeit". It means 'is-ness'. As in things aren't left or right, or in the middle for that matter, but that they just are - and everything left is just a factor of perception.
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BlueCoyote
Beyond


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Re: "Maybe." [Re: Fospher]
#5571369 - 04/29/06 06:47 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Myths passing information...
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Fospher
Crime FightingMaster Criminal


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Eh?
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BlueCoyote
Beyond


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Re: "Maybe." [Re: Fospher]
#5572905 - 04/30/06 01:45 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Nobody knows if this story is real. And I think, nobody thinks it is. The horse could have broken its neck while outside, or the son could have made a good information-officer in war and exactly the tent of these officers could have been bombed out. The chances are very low that exactly that happened what is told in the story. So, the thing the myth wanna tell us is: a loss can be good and hurt can be gain. But the chances of the CAN are very small, I admit. Metaphysically perhaps one can say, if you won't force an issue, or don't hold rationally too tight to something, then chances rise, that it happens by itself. At least, that is how I see it. The dangers of this myth is, that someone intentionally will let the gate for the horse open or jump from a cliff, before the army will get him  So I am not really convinced, too. Perhaps if he would have been sad, when the horse ran away, he would have build a better stable next time, on the other hand, if one sees it as a natural friendship between the horse and the man and it came back out of love, why should he build a stable at all ? For the horse's convenience ? I am indifferent with this yet, but indifference won't bring anything here, perhaps unlike in this myth there  [Sorry for rambled thoughts]
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fresh313
journeyman


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after his house burned down now all the villagers have a ravenous addiction to opiates, yet the cache is gone, so everyone starts arguing with each other trying to see who has any opium left, alot of the townspeople end up dying in the proceeding opiate withdrawal fueled rioting. some of the survivors come to him and say man this sucks. and he says 'maybe'. then they kill him, cuz thier pissed he never has a fuckin opinion about anything.
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BlueCoyote
Beyond


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Re: "Maybe." [Re: fresh313]
#5573392 - 04/30/06 07:39 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Later, as the Chinese Emperor came by the rioted village occasionally while on a campaign to some battlegrounds with his strong army, he whispered to his attendant "You know, this village refused to give their share of opium to the emperor, so one night I went by and opened the stable to free a horse." The attendant answered "Maybe" and was later killed on the battleground by the old man's son, who cured his leg and joined the opposing army.
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Lakefingers

Registered: 08/26/05
Posts: 6,440
Loc: mumuland
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Re: "Maybe." [Re: dorkus]
#5576419 - 05/01/06 05:53 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
dr_mandelbrot said: I definitely agree.
Committed as opposed to detached you mean?
Yeah, exactly. Committed as opposed to thinking that you're not rooted and free of all situations, prejudice, attitudes...
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