Does what I have placed in my detail seem familiar, though it is much older?

Question

TAO TE CHING
(1) The spirit one can talk about is not the eternal spirit,
and what you can name is not the eternal name. Nameless-Tao is
the beginning of the heavens and the Earth. If you name it-it is
no more than Matter.
Therefore: he who conceives of nature freely grasps this
Spirit and he who strives for material things is left with only
the shell. Spirit and matter are both one in their origin, yet
different in appearance. This unity is a mystery-truly the
mystery of all mysteries, the gate to all spirituality.
(2) Only when man recognizes beauty as such does ugliness
become reality. Only when man recognizes goodness as such does
evil become reality. Because: being and nothingness began as
one. Weight and weightlessness cannot exist alone. Distance and brevity prove each other and so do height and depth.Tune and
voice abound together and past and present flow into one.
Therefore the Sage remains in serenity whatever happens and
silently does his teaching.

A bit of history for Bess:
The Warring States (453-222 B.C.)
Laozi Daode jing (IV-III c. B.C.) is the first scripture on the concept of Dao,
described as the ineffable dynamic unity source of multiplicity. Man should reverse the process and return to unity by means of non-action (wuwei), which is also a political ideal. On the contrary, Zhuangzi (IV c. B.C.) conceives the
Taoist Saint as a mystic, a supernatural being who identifies himself with the Universe, free from any social restraint. This image is closer to that of shamans (wu) and so-called "masters of techniques" (fangshi), who anticipate the
figure of the Taoist priest, a searcher of immortality and an exorcist in
control of natural phenomena.

Answer 1

Good stuff, Terry. That's going to require a lot of thought on my part to consider it. Good stuff.

Answer 2

How do you teach someone to swim ? Do you throw them in at the deep end and yell "Swim ! Swim! " as load as you can?

Some will make it to the edge of the pool and gain some understanding of what swimming is all about - others will flounder and have to be rescued and others will drown.

The depth of understanding within the Tao is a supreme truth but it needs a gentle introduction from the shallow end if the recipient is to truly learn what it is all about. The understanding unfolds as one negates the past conceptions and takes on new ideas. One first learns to float, to understand buoyancy and to give up the fear that the water creates initially.

I feel that you have thrown people in at the deep end with your quote - excellent though it may be - and the result is that it appears to have some meaning to some but perhaps not the depth of perception that is possible, to others it was just nice and to a few it was gibberish and not bound in reality.

It all depends, I suppose on if you wish to learn to swim - now, tomorrow or never !!

Answer 3

Familiar, yes. In other words, there is no beauty nor ugliness. There is no good nor evil. There only is what there is. A thing does not become good, evil, beautiful or ugly until we label it as such.

Answer 4

Makes about as much sense as Rosie.

Answer 5

Familiar?

Yeah. I've been hearing gibberish like this pretty much my whole life.

What about it?

Answer 6

That is beautiful. Is it Buddha?

Answer 7

Not a lot. There's a lot of airy fairy mish mash but not a lot of substance. My God is solid.

Answer 8

Wow, that was good.

Answer 9

Say what?