Spelling Tuesday

Friday, 6/13/14 Spelling Tuesday

In this chapter Hoff and Pooh discuss the “Confusionist Desicated Scholar”.  I work at a University so I see a lot of desicated scholars.  Those who are well educated but not very smart.  Right in my own family I have a sister who spent many, many years in college becoming a professor.  She was always top of the class, Suma Cum Laude or whatever it is.  So she’s very well educated but in practical day to day life she can't think her way out of a paper bag.  No common sense whatsoever.  

Hoff is saying that the translations of the Tao that we in the West have access to have been written by these scholars who really only value that which can be documented, labeled and scientifically proven.  How can someone like that begin to understand, let alone translate the abstract, spiritually broad meanings of the Tao Te Ching?  No one can really understand it fully but at least if you approach it from a place of exploration and realizing right from the start that you won’t completely understand it there may be a better chance of you getting the spirit of the meaning.  

This gives me hope that I may get a lot more out of this year of the Tao than I had thought a few days ago.  In the first chapter Hoff says, “A basic principle of Lao-tse’s teaching was that this Way of the Universe could not be adequately described in words, and that it would be insulting both to its unlimited power and to the intelligent human mind to attempt to do so.  Still, it’s nature could be understood, and those who cared the most about it, and the life from which it was inseparable, understood it best.”

So perhaps someone like me; someone who is ok with not knowing how everything works, someone who doesn’t try to “prove” everything scientifically, is best suited to try to get a handle on the nature or the spirit of the Tao.  As I’ve mentioned I don’t read education books but I’m certainly not stupid.  Perhaps I’m not as clever as Pooh but I’ve got good old fashioned common sense and an ability to figure stuff out.  

Since I work at a university I am frequently made to feel inadequate because I don’t have, not do I aspire to have, a degree of any sort.  I’m a secretary, a damn good secretary and the world would fall apart without all of us damn good secretaries!  Rant complete.

I’m glad that it’s Wayne Dyers translation of the Tao Te Ching that I plan on studying because I feel like he is a little more in touch with the natural and spiritual side of life. I’ve only watched one 3 hr show by him but he didn’t seem like a Confusionist Desicated Scholar.  One thing Hoff mentions is that in the Western translation of the Tao they never offer any practical ways of putting the teachings into use in ones real life but Dyer does suggest ways of putting it into practice and encourages you to take time to do so before moving on to the next part.  

I’m feeling more excited and more positive that this year will be an amazing adventure quest and not just a dry, boring study of high brow ideas that I don’t understand.

“Those who know are not broad of knowledge

Those who are broad of knowledge do not know”  Chapter 81, Tao Te Ching