Bargain Books

Apart from a sizable and growing collection of mostly Asian DVDs, I don't buy a lot of stuff--unless you count books.  I buy a lot of books.

How delightful it was, as I was cruising my Amazon wish-list, and drooling for the 61st time over the pricey The Routledge Encyclopedia of Taoism edited by Fabrizio Pregadio, to discover that I could apply $67 worth of earned credits to this coveted purchase, 1,500 paperbacked pages originally priced at $99.  What Taoist doesn't love a bargain?  And a legitimate one, not pirated like the copy of  Graham Horwood's Tai Chi Chuan, the Code of Life" I bought in Wudang a few years ago (and which still gives me a little pang of guilt when I pull it from my shelf).  In my defense, I should note that I only determined it was pirated after I bought it.  (But in China, I should have assumed as much.)

Yes, guilt. I am from a generation that respects copyright (or at least attempts to; I have probably posted some photos of actors on this site that are protected, but I have made no profit from it). I have only ever once downloaded a piece of music that I could have paid for.  (And I subsequently acquired a legitimate copy.) There was a little discussion of this topic on a Facebook Taoism forum just yesterday.  Someone, very young I'm sure, probably a master downloader and torrent user,  suggested that copyright was the source of all evil in the world.  "Shouldn't ideas just be contributed to the universe without thought of expecting personal gain or recognition?"  The best retort came from a Wudang priest who noted that ripping off his DVDs was depriving him and his family a modest livelihood.

And so my grand encyclopedia, published just over a year ago (2011 for the paperback, 2008 for the way more costly hardback),  has arrived, and I am obsessed.  Taoism is of course a "practice," doing (or actively not doing) things.  But why then is there a Taoist canon of hundreds and hundreds of scriptures and manuals of how not to "do" and practical advice, mostly esoteric and metaphorical, studied by Taoist monks and nuns and priests and lay people?  (You have to have something to do when you're not doing something, I guess.)

In contrast to the brief Tao Te Ching, which you can read (but probably not really understand) in less than an hour, the introductory overview in the Encyclopedia is 196 pages and could easily stand as a volume on its own.  The index is 70 pages and there is also a sizable bibliography and other references .  The entries themselves, written by an impressive group of contemporary scholars of Taoism,  are extensive, though arranged alphabetically by the pinyin renderings and accompanied by helpful Chinese characters. It will require a little familiarity with Chinese to find specific things, but browsing is productive, and we are all used to doing that with the internet anyway.  This is the most intriguing and useful thing I've got on my shelf since my Oxford Dictionaries of the Christian Church, the Bible, World Religions, and Classical Mythology.   And the OED.

If you have a serious and scholarly interest in the vast tradition that is Taoism,  I highly recommend this set.  It's worth every legitimate penny.

This post should have appeared on My Yang Side (where there are some movie related comments today), but as it is the autumnal equinox, I find it doesn't matter.  It's six of one and half a dozen of another, a phrase I once quoted to a Chinese person, who just didn't get it. Go figure.

Wudang Woes

My plans to return to Wudangshan this September completely fell apart today.  Thus, although the verse primarily pertains to meditation, I am concentrating on the travel wisdom of Dao De Jing 47:

Without going out of your door,
You can know the ways of the world.
Without peeping through your window,
You can see the Way of Heaven.
The farther you go,
The less you know.

Thus, the Sage knows without travelling,
Sees without looking,
And achieves without Ado.
(tr. John C. Wu)

Well that's wisdom, but for real consolation, last night, in some sort of prescient synchronicity, I had a pleasant surprise.  A movie released just this summer that I thought I might see or buy in China during my trip was made available on YouTube. I have been eager to see Vincent Zhao in The Great Wudang for over a year, when I first heard about it. 

The Great Wudang

So without peeping out my window, just by peeping at my computer screen, I visited Wudang anyway, albeit homesickish the way ex-pat Hawaii people might be when they watch 5-0.  (And equally puzzled when the locations don't always make sense...how do you get from the North Shore to Diamond Head on foot in an hour?...How do you get from Golden Top to Purple Cloud in five minutes? It took me six hours to walk that route down the mountain once.)

Turning away from Episode 66 (of 77) of Yi San, my current Korean escape, I watched my favorite MA star in a kind of typical wuxia story, set in post-Qing/early Republican times.  In the first few minutes, there is a kick-ass fight in an airplane flying over Hubei on the way to a martial arts competition at Wudangshan.   Everything about it--the time, the plot, the romance, the quest--has led me to call it "Indiana Zhao and the Temple of Tao." (Vincent seems to be channeling Harrison Ford a little bit:  motorcycles, leather coats, scholarly spectacles, and a daughter. No fedora. Or maybe there was. Need to watch again. And where was Sean Connery?)

Indiana Zhao

I'd like to have seen this done as a 20-episode TV series (20 hours of Vincent) with more character and plot development, but it's fun anyway. Scenery is all familiar and authentic (except possibly the mountains in the competition arena: they looked CGI to me, more like Hua Shan).  I have mixed feelings to see sacred spots used this way, but it's not the first time...Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Kid and the 2009 TV series, Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, were both filmed there too. (Contrary to popular belief, CTHD was not.) The Great Wudang was fun if you like the wuxia action genre and Vincent Zhao. (I certainly do!)

It was nice to find it on You-tube just at this moment, and I'll probably watch it one more time before it disappears. Still, I'll buy it when my DVD vendor calls me and tells me she just got it in.  Just for the locations, you know...and Vincent.

Vincent, where are you?

DR. LAO AND THE GIANT CUCUMBER
Finished the 40-episode TV version of Wing Chun with the ultra-attractive Nicholas Tse, an extended telling of the famous Prodigal Son movie, to which I have referred previously, mostly because of the enchanting kung fu calligraphy scene with Sammo Hung.  I don't have a lot to say about the series except that Sammo's son Sammy is fabulous, like an evil Donnie Yen, in a role like Al Pacino's in Scarface.  Nicholas Tse is very pretty to look at and probably added a lot of sex appeal for younger audiences (well, me too), but the original Prodigal Son actors, Lao Sammo and Yuen Biao, brought to the series some continuity from the past, and great elegance and credibility.

Sammo Hung, Nicholas Tse, Yuen Biao

 Of the genre, I probably would recommend Vincent Zhao's Master of Tai Chi series, but this was not a waste of time.  And it had a happy ending.

But what's with that big cucumber?  Pigua fist?  Pickle fist?

Deadly Cucumber Fist

Next on my viewing schedule was The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, something that turned up in my Netflix DVD queue. I don't remember selecting it. But... Tony Randall as a 7,000-year-old Chinese sage!  (Best role since the beatnik in Bell, Book, and Candle. Except that wasn't Tony Randall, it was Jack Lemmon.  IMDB is such a great resource.  But really, Jack Lemmon, Tony Randall, and even Peter Sellers...they're all the same.  Great!)

An MGM film from 1964 (the Wizard remembers it but I don't--ta shi lao, buguo, wo shi bu lao) this film, a strange combination of The Music Man, Seven Samurai, Godzilla and maybe Wall Street, is the best Tao-themed movie I think I've ever seen.  It would have been cool to have Bruce Lee playing Dr. Lao (or Lo, as the character calls himself, Canto-style), or even David Carradine...no, I take that back, Tony Randall was exquisite.  (Although apparently there was an idea that Peter Sellers should have done it...but really, Tony Randall is an American Peter Sellers. And Peter Sellers is an English Jack Lemmon.) The Grasshopper here was a cute little haole boy named Mike who received the sage's lesson.

Based on a novel, the film, a classic period American Western, is about evil landlords/developers/speculators and peasants; honest but lonely journalists and librarians; vain and stupid ordinary people; the idea that what's old is new; that ancient Chinese wisdom (and magic) prevails, and that the world has some sort of mythical continuity.  Oh, and redemption, although that apparently wasn't part of the novel.  Tony Randall plays not only the clever Chinese "fakir" (clearly Lao Tzu), but also Appolonius of Tyana, Merlin, the Medusa, the abominable snowman from the Himalayas, Pan, and a big talking snake. Dr. Lao/Lo keeps a pet fish in a bowl which, if exposed to air, turns into the Loch Ness Monster--a dragon really, but one that has to be appeased, or at least calmed and shrunk by a rainmaking machine, a device constructed of bamboo with fuses that need to be ignited with his long Chinese pipe.

In one scene, on the site of Dr. Lao's circus, the sage is fishing (anachronistically with a rod and spinning reel) in a totally dried-up creek bed.  The sceptical journalist there to interview him points out there's no water in the creek.  Dr. Lao (or perhaps Chuang Tzu) points out he's not using any bait.  Then he catches a really big fish.  "A tlout, a tlout!" he exclaims with delight.

Got Netflix?  Get this film. It's a delight.

COMPASSIONATE TAOIST

A little blog comment discussion over at Rambling Taoist got me to thinking about a topic that also is a feature at another of my blog-0-pals, Tao 1776.

The blog subject was the indifferent "shit-happens-ness" of the Haiti earthquake, a common enough natural disaster but terrible human tragedy.  I recalled a couple years ago, when my trip to Chengdu/Qingshenshan to do Tao things was cancelled when all the schools fell on the children, to say nothing of the temple's destruction on the holy mountain.

A friend asked me then how a Taoist interprets these things and I replied, "It just happens, but we do what we can to help those who are suffering."  I said then, and now, that it was important to not only feel but express our compassion (by which I mean providing material assistance to people in need, a compassionate act, but as Tao 1776 is attempting to show, perhaps less directly, through meditation, a spiritual deed as well).

However, some people seem to think acting out of compassion is false and futile, to which I responded that I feel there is a human obligation to act with compassion.  The concept of  "obligation" seemed to bother another commenter (not self-identified as a Taoist) who asks, quite validly, "Whence comes this obligation?"

Too often I find that for some attracted to Taoism, there is such a focus on the fun parts -- the Tao verses in the TTC, the clever Chuang Tzu, the tao of surfing and tree-hugging -- and not enough attention to the Te (virtue) parts.  Taoism gives some a convenient way to avoid the trials of modern life and to focus on self-help without seeming to focus on the self, to say nothing of others.  Looking to animals and trees as sources of wisdom and truth (which they are), while discounting or ignoring the human wisdom available from living sages of various traditions and the voice of experience of your grandmother, who usually says things like, "be nice, be kind, do good."

Still the TTC has much to say regarding the responsibilities of the rulers of the world --who, today, is really anyone in the privileged, over-developed part (e.g., those of us who have computers and the leisure to blog) --who have the imperial power to affect the lives of disadvantaged people in earth-shaken places like Sichuan, Iran, Samoa, or Haiti.  You can of course correctly say that those people are disadvantaged because of the actions of the "rulers," but by the same token, there are good rulers and bad ones.  A good emperor cares for his people.  All of them.

Verse 79 of the TTC suggests: "One with true virtue always seeks a way to give." (trans: Dyer; Star.)

Possibly I feel this illogical obligation of my heart to be compassionate as a result of being raised in the Judeo-Christian milieu, but the same imperatives are expressed by Confucius, Mo Zi, the Buddha, and Thomas Merton (a cultural bridge kind of guy).  I think the concepts of the Tao are the most pure explanation of how the universe works, but these other sages, certainly acquainted with these (or similar, in the case of the Buddha) ancient ideas, offer wise counsel on how to function rightly in it as well.  Of course, one outward looking interpretation of the three treasures of Taoism points to compassion, moderation and humility.  (Another interpretation of the three treasures is the-inward looking alchemy concepts of jing, qi and shen--essence, vitality and spirit.)

I remember the scene in "Short Circuit," when the Steve Gutenberg character, Crosby, Ph.D.,  is surprised at his "malfunctioning" robot's announcement that killing--"making dead"-- is wrong:

Crosby: "Of course I know it's wrong to kill, but who told you?"

Number 5: "I told me."  The robot, programmed with all the data and information of the world, had developed a heart, apparently. Probably as a result of the electrocution of its circuits.  The spark of life.

If being a "Taoist" (or any persuasion really) means having no compassion, then remember this when you are in line for a bottle of water or an antibiotic after the disaster that strikes your area.  I would still give you the water and the medicine, but I would also suggest you share it with your neighbor.

DAO DREAMING
Recently I had a little comment-dialogue with one of my Taoist blogger/corrrespondents about sleeping dreams (in one of his several posts for Dec. 9, you'll have to search for the specific entry).  He says doesn't have any, a pity.  I have an active dream life, and this morning's was most interesting to me.

I've never been one to wake up to an alarm to jump out of bed into a shower (unless forced by circumstances---getting up at an early (unnatural, for me)  time to meditate was very difficult for me in Wudang). An alarm clock;  my mother throwing on the overhead light before dawn to get me up to go to school;  a cat poking me for food; a partner poking me for sex: all these abrupt awakenings are rude interruptions of a vital mental process, one of the purposes of sleep. I value a more gentle transition from the dream state to wakefulness, my body irrelevant while I review the dream and contemplate what it was telling me.  Maybe it is a kind of meditation.  A contemplation of meditation.

In this morning's dream, clearly derivative of my recent holiday in Hana, I was visiting a beach house with friends, and exploring a cliff down to a beach.  It was exquisitely beautiful, the vegetation, the water, the sea, stones and rocks, but very dangerous.  Obviously inspired by places I have been, but also with a unique but consistent geography, there is a country in my dreams, there are places I revisit and remember, just like the various places I visit in wake-time.  After exploring this beautiful spot, I wanted to go back and get my camera to record all these beautiful things (maybe for my blog)...I did, but by the time I assembled all the paraphenalia I needed to record those images (which now have the same reality in my memory--my brain-- as waking ones),  it was too late.  The light was gone, the opportunity was past.

As I was realizing this, another person (clearly modeled on someone from the current TVB DVDs I'm watching now, a con man in 1930s Guangzhou)  was raiding my friend's fridge to make a sandwich. "That's not your food, " I said.  "It's not yours either," he replied.

Then I was wandering in the dream garden where the surf was washing up over a dike lined with...tulips (I'd gone from the tropics to Holland?)... as I drifted up into my bed, waking up.

What were these dream images telling me?  Live in the moment.  Mind your own business.  Nothing is permanent.  A dao dream indeed.

I have created the yin and yang of blogs, somewhat by accident. Perhaps yin posts (reverse type on black ground) will go here, yang posts (black type on white ground) on the other (you can find it). Since it is evening, I suppose yin is the place to start. And also it is the Ides of March, if that is auspicious.

Today, went to a contest of Toastmasters...which I sometimes mistype as Taoistmasters. There is a big difference. I did not have to speak on the table topic, "Should we be judged by the company we keep?" And just as well. We were in a church, a simple stripped down folksy place of indeterminate denomination, with a flag, a podium, a cross, and I think a baptismal tub under a print of Jesus holding some lambs. As a Zen meditation hall might be compared to a gaudy Taoist temple, this church compares to a big bells-and-smells cathedral. The comparison ends there though, because I have a taste for the bells-and-smells. Still, had I been speaking in this environment, I would have suggested "Suppose someone was seen with a prostitute," and gone on to talk about Jesus and the disgraced Governor of New York. Both political figures with concern for their publics, they each had dealings with whores, both were sacrificed, both are judged by the company they keep. But one became a savior and one becomes needy of salvation. Indeed we all judge and are judged, but the key to the table topic seems to be, just what are we doing with that company we keep?