un Tao dopo l'altro, il Tao se ne va

Un giorno dopo l'altro
il tempo se ne va
le strade sempre uguali,
le stesse case.
Un giorno dopo l'altro
e tutto e' come prima
un passo dopo l'altro,
la stessa vita.
E gli occhi intorno cercano
quell'avvenire che avevano sognato
ma i sogni sono ancora sogni
e l'avvenire e' ormai quasi passato.
Un giorno dopo l'altro
la vita se ne va
domani sarà un giorno uguale a ieri.
La nave ha già lasciato il porto
e dalla riva sembra un punto lontano
qualcuno anche questa sera
torna deluso a casa piano piano.
Un giorno dopo l'altro
la vita se ne va
e la speranza ormai e' un'abitudine.

cimitero di Ricaldone, Alessandria

tutte le carte del Tao

Tao Sincronico

il Luogo del Tao

Sì, passeremo tutti, passerà tutto. Nulla resterà del fatto che alcuni furono santi e altri portatori di ghette.
Tutto quello che ho pensato, tutto quello che ho sognato, tutto quello che ho fatto e non ho fatto: tutto se ne andrà, come fiammiferi usati.

Soltanto l'idea raggiunge, senza sciuparsi, la conoscenza della realtà.

meta Tao design - III: Riflessioni

METADESIGN

Humberto Maturana

PART III

* Reflections.

Technological transformations do not impress me, biological technology does not impress me, Internet does not impress me. I say this not out of arrogance. No doubt much of what we do will change if we adopt the different technological options at hand, but our actions will not change unless our emotioning changes. We live a culture centered in domination and submission, mistrust and control, dishonesty, commerce and greediness, appropriation and mutual manipulation ... and unless our emotioning changes all that will change in our lives will be the way in which we continue in wars, greediness, mistrust, dishonesty, and abuse of others and of nature. Indeed, we shall remain the same. Technology is not the solution for human problems because human problems belong to the emotional domain as they are conflicts in our relational living that arise when we have desires that lead to contradictory actions. It is the kind of human being, Homo sapiens amans, Homo sapiens aggressans, or Homo sapiens arrogans, at the moment in which we have access to a new technology, either as users or observers, what determines how we use it or what we see in it.

We frequently speak as if the course that human history is following were independent from us as individual human beings, and as if we were carried by powerful forces beyond our control. But, to what extent such a manner of thinking is valid? Our life is guided by our emotions because our emotions define the relational domain in which we act, and hence, what we do. Each culture is defined by a particular configuration of emotioning that guides the actions of its members, and is conserved by those actions and the learning of the configuration of emotioning that defines it by the children of its members. If this systemic dynamics of constitution and conservation of a culture is broken, the culture comes to an end. So, we are not trapped, it is not what we do, but the emotion under which we do what we do. It is not technology what guides modern life, but the emotions, that is the desires of power, riches, or fame, ... under which we use or invent it. We human beings can do whatever we imagine if we respect the structural coherences of the domain in which we operate. But we do not have to do all that we imagine, we can chose, and it is there where our behavior as socially conscious human beings matters.

Our brains are not being changed by technology, and what is in fact happening to us through it, is that we change what we do while we conserve the culture (the configuration of emotioning) to which we belong. Unless, of course, our emotioning changes as we reflect on what happens to us through using or contemplating it and we undergo a cultural change. In fact our brain needs not to change for us human beings to be able to manage and understand whatever technological change that the future may offer us if we are willing to start from the beginning. What our brain does is to abstract configurations of relations of activities in itself, which if coupled with our operation in language permit us to treat any situation that we live as a starting point for recursive reflections in a process in fact open to any degree of complication. It is what happens in our emotions what determines the course of our living, and since emotions as kinds of relational behaviours occur in the relational space, it is through the conservation of cultural changes (as changes in the configuration of emotioning that are conserved generation after generation in the learning of children) that the course of our biological history may result in changes in our brain.

Biological evolution is not changing its character as as the constitution, conservation and diversification of lineages which are defined by the systemic conservation generation after generation of manners of living that extend from the inception to the death of the reproducing organisms. The same occurs with the evolution of cultures. Cultures are closed networks of conversations conserved generation after generation through the learning of the children that live in them. As such cultures change if the closed network of conversations that the children learn as they live in them changes, and a new closed network of conversations begins to be conserved generation after generation through their living. One can say in general systemic terms, that what is conserved in a system or in the relations between the members of a group of systems what determines what can or not change in the system or in the group of systems.

Biotechnology is not a new practice, although what we can do now is very, very different from what we humans could do in that area hundred or fifty years ago. Internet with all its richness as a network not something basically different from other systems of interactions that facilitates the use of libraries and museums. No doubt the interconnectedness reached through Internet is much greater than the interconnectedness that we lived a hundred or fifty years ago through telegraph, radio, or telephone. However, we still do with Internet no more no less than what we desire in the domain of the options that it offers, and if our desires do not change, nothing changes in fact because we go on living through it the same configuration of actions (of emotioning) that we used to live. Certainly I know much of what is said and is happening in the domain of globalization of the flow of information, but it is not information what constitutes the reality that we live. The reality that we live arises instant after instant through the configuration of emotions that we live, and which we conserve with our living instant after instant. But if we know this, if we know that the reality that we live arises through our emotioning, and we know that we know, we shall be able to act according to our awareness of our liking or not liking the reality that we are bringing forth with our living. That is, we shall become responsible of what we do.

I want a cultural change, I want to contribute to a work of art in the domain of human existence, I want to contribute to evoke a manner of coexistence in which love, mutual respect, honesty and social responsibility arise spontaneously from living instant after instant such configuration of emotioning because we all cocreate it in our living together. That configuration of emotioning cannot be imposed, nor can it be demanded without denying it, it must be lived spontaneously as a matter of course because that is the way we learned to live in our childhood. Violations of such manner of living will be legitimate mistakes that can be corrected because there will be no intrinsic shame in them, they will be only errors. If indeed we were to live such a cultural change, what would be most remarkable, is that the configuration of emotioning that such a manner of living entails, would arise in us without effort as we begin to live in it by living in it. Moreover, such configuration of emotioning will be conserved generation after generation as our manner of cultural living if our children live it because we live it with them. Indeed, such a manner of living is what we all want to live in our desire for material and spiritual wellbeing. Utopia? yes because it correspond to a way of living that has been ours in our evolutionary history, and most of us know it as an experience or as a yearning of our childhood. Anyway, to do that would be, no doubt, a magnificent work of dynamic art, and a responsible creative act as well if we want to live as Homo sapiens amans.

Humberto R. Maturana.

August 1, 1997

Escape of 4 dimensional collapse, Mandelwerk

meta Tao design - I: Sistemi viventi
meta Tao design - II: Tecnologia e Realtà

The Progressive Tao Blues Experiment:
Mr. John Dawson Winter III, detto Johnny (Beaumont, 23 febbraio 1944 – Zürich, 16 luglio 2014)

l'ultima conferenza sul Tao

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Noi non cesseremo l’esplorazione
E la fine di tutte le nostre ricerche
Sarà di giungere là dove siamo partiti,
E conoscere il luogo per la prima volta.

T.S. Eliot – Quattro quartetti

"... credo anche che forse la mostruosa patologia atomistica a livello individuale, a livello familiare, a livello nazionale e a livello internazionale - la patologia del pensiero sbagliato in cui tutti noi viviamo - possa alla fin fine essere corretta dalla grandiosa scoperta di quelle relazioni che sono contenute nella natura e che costituiscono la bellezza della natura."

“I recommend you take your hand home and take a look at it when you get there — very quietly, almost as part of meditation. And try to catch the difference between seeing it as a base for five parts and seeing it as constructed of a tangle of relationships. Not a tangle, a pattern of the interlocking of relationships that were determinants of its growth. And if you can really manage to see the hand in terms of the epistemology that I am offering you, I think you will find that your hand is much more recognizably beautiful as a product of relationships than as a composition of countable parts. In other words, I am suggesting to you, first, that language is very deceiving, and, second, that if you begin even without much knowledge to adventure into what it would be like to look at the world with a biological epistemology, you will come into contact with the concepts that the biologists don’t look at. You will meet with beauty and ugliness. These may be real components in the world that you as a living creature live in.

...Of course natural history can be taught as a dead subject.
I know that, but I believe also that perhaps the monstrous atomistic pathology at the individual level, the national level, and the international level — the pathology of wrong thinking in which we all live — can only in the end be corrected by an enormous discovery of those relations in nature that make up the beauty of nature.”

The last lecture, lecture delivered October 28, 1979, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

René Magritte, Le passeggiate d'Euclide, 1955, olio su tela - Minneapolis Institute of Arts

l'ultima parola sul Tao

Bill Harford: Alice, cosa pensi che dobbiamo fare?
Alice: Che cosa dobbiamo fare? Che cosa penso io, non lo so. Penso che prima dobbiamo ringraziare il destino. Ringraziarlo per averci fatto uscire senza danno da tutte le nostre avventure. Sia da quelle vere che da quelle solo sognate.
B.: Sei sicura, senza danno?
A.: Se sono sicura? Io lo sono solo tanto quanto sono sicura che la realtà di una sola notte, senza contare quella di un’intera vita, corrisponde alla verità.
B.: E nessun sogno è mai soltanto sogno.
A.: L’importante è che ora siamo svegli. E spero tanto che lo resteremo a lungo.
B.: Per sempre.
A.: Per sempre?
B.: Per sempre.
A.: No, non usiamo quella parola. Mi spaventa. Ma io ti voglio molto bene. E sai? C’è una cosa molto importante che noi dobbiamo fare prima possibile.
B.: Cosa?
A.: Scopare.

"C'è inoltre un romanzo di Arthur Schnitzler, Doppio sogno, che vorrei fare ma su cui non ho ancora cominciato a lavorare"

S.K.

le ultime parole del Tao

Wat Pho Buddha, Bangkok

Ultime parole del Buddha

Quindi ora il Sublime disse al venerabile Ânanda:

«Può darsi, Ânanda, che voi pensiate: “Finito è l’insegnamento del Maestro, noi non abbiamo piú Maestro!”. Ma la cosa, Ânanda, non dev’essere vista cosí. Quel che da me, Ânanda, vi è stato mostrato ed insegnato come regola e come insegnamento: quello, dopo la mia dipartita, sarà il vostro Maestro».

Quindi il Sublime si rivolse ai monaci:

«Se anche uno di voi, o monaci, sia in dubbio o in pensiero sul Buddha o sul Dhamma o sul Sangha o sulla via o sui passi, faccia domande ora ora, o monaci, perché poi non abbiate a provare rimorso: “Innanzi ai nostri occhi era il Maestro, e noi non interrogammo personalmente il Sublime!”».

Così esortati, i monaci rimasero silenti. Allora il Sublime disse ai monaci così:

«Può darsi, o monaci, che voi non interroghiate per rispetto del Maestro: allora lo dica l’amico all’amico». Ma, anche cosí esortati, quei monaci rimasero silenti. Allora il venerabile Ânanda disse al Sublime: «È mirabile, o signore, è straordinario, o signore! Io ho tale fede, o signore, in questo Ordine di mendicanti, da credere che non vi sia in esso anche un solo monaco, che sia in dubbio od in pensiero sul Buddha, sul Dhamma o sul Sangha o sulla via o sui passi».

«Di fede ora tu, Ânanda, parli; conoscenza ha però qui il Compiuto: non v’è in questo Ordine di mendicanti anche un solo monaco, che sia in dubbio od in pensiero sul Buddha, sul Dhamma o sul Sangha o sulla via o sui passi. Anche l’infimo di tutti questi monaci, Ânanda, è giunto all’audizione, è scampato al danno, si avanza cosciente verso il completo risveglio».

Quindi ora il Sublime si rivolse ai monaci. «Orsú dunque, o monaci, io vi esorto: periscono tutte le cose; datevi da fare per la vostra salvezza senza tregua».

Questa fu l’ultima parola del Sublime.

LA TOTALE ESTINZIONE
(Mahâparinibbanâsutta)
tradotto dal pâli e condensato da Giuseppe De Lorenzo

---

Angkor Wat

Maha-Parinibbana Sutta
[…]
Disse allora il Beato al venerabile Ananda: “Può darsi il caso, Ananda, che questo pensiero si presenti a qualcuno di voi: ‘Più non si farà udire la parola del Maestro, noi non avremo più un Maestro’. Così però non dovete credere: quando io non ci sarò, il Dhamma [l’insegnamento] e la disciplina che vi ho insegnato saranno per voi Maestro.
[…]
Così proseguì il Beato: “Può darsi il caso, o fratelli, che qualche dubbio voi nutriate o qualche incertezza, relativamente al Buddha, al Dhamma o alla Comunità, al Metodo o alla Via; interrogatemi allora in tutta libertà perché non abbiate più tardi a farvi questo rimprovero: ‘Davanti a noi era il nostro Maestro, faccia a faccia, e noi non abbiamo saputo interrogarlo, eppure era lì con noi’”.
Così parlò il Beato, ma i fratelli rimasero in silenzio, e col silenzio risposero anche ad un secondo e ad un terzo invito del Maestro.
Allora il Beato disse loro: “Se solo per rispetto verso il Maestro esitate a porgli le vostre domande, comunicatevi allora l’un l’altro i vostri pensieri”.
Ma anche dopo queste parole i fratelli mantennero il silenzio.
Disse allora il venerabile Ananda al Beato: “Quale meraviglia, o signore, prodigioso è tutto ciò: proprio non credo che vi sia, in tutta l’assemblea, qualcuno che provi dubbio o incertezza relativamente al Buddha, al Dhamma, alla Comunità, al Metodo o alla Via”.
“La pienezza della tua fede ispira, Ananda, le tue parole, ma ben sa il Tathagata [il Buddha] che non vi è nell’intera assembea un fratello che provi dubbio o incertezza relativamente al Buddha, al Dhamma, alla Comunità, al Metodo o alla Via. Perché, infatti, fra questi cinquecento fratelli, Ananda, anche il meno istruito è perfettamente convertito, non è più soggetto a una nuova nascita nel dolore, ed è sicuro di raggiungere un giorno l’illuminazione perfetta”.
Poi il Beato esclamò: “Ricordate sempre queste parole, fratelli: periscono tutte le cose, lottate senza tregua”.
E queste furono le ultime parole del Tathagata.

Entrò allora il Beato nella prima contemplazione e si innalzò poi alla seconda, alla terza e alla quarta. Giunto così alla quarta contemplazione, prese a vagare per la regione dello spazio infinito, per arrivare poi alla regione dell’Intelligenza infinita. Di lì pervenne quindi nella regione in cui non esiste più nulla, e dalla regione dove non esiste più nulla raggiunse la regione dove non vi è né idea né assenza di idea. Tappa successiva fu la regione dove cessano l’idea e la percezione.
Fu allora che il venerabile Ananda disse al venerabile Anuruddha: “Il Beato, Anuruddha, è morto”.
“No, Ananda, il Beato non è morto: è entrato nella regione dove cessano l’idea e la percezione”.
Da questa regione tornò il Beato in quella dove non si ha né idea né assenza di idea, e poi in quella dove non esiste più niente, per riemergere poi nella regione dell’intelligenza infinita, e ancora in quella dello spazio infinito; da qui entrò poi nel quarto grado della contemplazione, per discendere poi nel terzo, nel secondo, e nel primo. Per l’ultima volta passò di nuovo dal primo grando al secondo, dal secondo al terzo e dal terzo al quarto grado della contemplazione. Fu a questo punto che il Beato spirò.

---

Last Words of the Tathagata

      216. Then the Bhagava said to the Venerable Ananda:

      It may happen that (some among) you have this thought: 'The Doctrine; (lit, the word) is bereft of the Teacher of the Doctrine; our Teacher is no more.' But Ananda, it should not be so considered. Ananda, the Doctrine and Discipline I have taught and laid down to all of you will be your Teacher when I am gone.

      Ananda, when I have passed away, bhikkhus should not address one another as they do at present by the term 'avuso' (Friend) (irrespective of seniority). Ananda, the senior bhikkhus should address the junior bhikkhus by name, or by family name, or by the term 'avuso'. And the junior bhikkhus should address the senior bhikkhus by the term 'bhante' or 'ayasma' (Venerable Sir).

      Ananda, after I have passed away, the Samgha, the Order of the bhikkhus, may, if it wishes to, abolish lesser and minor Rules of Discipline.

      Ananda, after I have passed away, let the Brahma penalty be imposed upon Bhikkhu Channa.

      "But, Venerable Sir, what is the Brahma penalty?"

      Ananda, let Bhikkhu Channa say whatever he wishes to. The bhikkhus should neither advise him nor admonish him, nor deter him.

      217. Then the Bhagava addressed the bhikkhus thus:

      O Bhikkhus, if any bhikkhu should happen to have any uncertainty or perplexity regarding the Buddha, or the Dhamma (the Teaching), or the Samgha (the Order of bhikkhus), or Magga, or the Practice, then, bhikkhus, ask (me) questions. Do not let yourselves feel regret later with the thought that 'even though our Teacher was (with us) in our very presence, we were not able to ask him questions personally in return.'

      When this was said, the bhikkhus remained silent. For a second time, the Bhagava said ..............

      For a third time, the Bhagava said:

      O Bhikkhus, if any bhikkhu should happen to have any uncertainty or perplexity regarding the Buddha, or the Dhamma, or the Samgha, or Magga, or the Practice, then, bhikkhus, ask (me) questions. Do not let yourselves feel regret later with the thought that 'even though our Teacher was (with us) in our very presence, we were not able to ask him questions personally in return.'

      For the third time, too, the bhikkhus remained silent.

      Then the Bhagava said to the bhikkhus:

      O Bhikkhus, it may be that you do not ask questions out of respect for the Teacher. Then, bhikkhus, let a bhikkhu tell a companion (his uncertainty or perplexity).

      Even when this was said, the bhikkhus continued to remain silent.

      Then the Venerable Ananda said to the Bhagava:

      "Wonderful it is, Venerable Sir! Marvellous it is, Venerable Sir! I believe that in this community of bhikkhus not a single bhikkhu has uncertainty or perplexity regarding the Buddha, or the Dhamma, or the Samgha, or Magga, or the Practice."

      Ananda, you say this only out of faith. Indeed, Ananda, the Tathagata knows for certain that in this community of bhikkhus not a single bhikkhu has uncertainty or perplexity regarding the Buddha, or the Dhamma, or the Samgha, or Magga, or the Practice.

      Ananda, amongst these five hundred bhikkhus, even the least (in attainment) is a Sotapanna, a Stream-enterer, not liable to be reborn in any apaya realm of misery, assured (of reaching desirable realms of existence or of teaching the end of dukkha), bound for (the three higher levels of Insight, culminating in) Enlightenment.

      218. Then the Bhagava said to the bhikkhus:

      O Bhikkhus, I say this now to you: "All conditioned and compounded things (sankhara) have the nature of decay and disintegration. With mindfulness endeavour diligently (to complete the task)"

      These were the last words of the Tathagata

---

Angkor Wat

Part Six: The Passing Away

The Blessed One's Final Exhortation

1. Now the Blessed One spoke to the Venerable Ananda, saying: "It may be, Ananda, that to some among you the thought will come: 'Ended is the word of the Master; we have a Master no longer.' But it should not, Ananda, be so considered. For that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the Discipline, that shall be your Master when I am gone.

2. "And, Ananda, whereas now the bhikkhus address one another as 'friend,' let it not be so when I am gone. The senior bhikkhus, Ananda, may address the junior ones by their name, their family name, or as 'friend'; but the junior bhikkhus should address the senior ones as 'venerable sir' or 'your reverence.'

3. "If it is desired, Ananda, the Sangha may, when I am gone, abolish the lesser and minor rules.

4. "Ananda, when I am gone, let the higher penalty be imposed upon the bhikkhu Channa."

"But what, Lord, is the higher penalty?"

"The bhikkhu Channa, Ananda, may say what he will, but the bhikkhus should neither converse with him, nor exhort him, nor admonish him."

5. Then the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "It may be, bhikkhus, that one of you is in doubt or perplexity as to the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha, the path or the practice. Then question, bhikkhus! Do not be given to remorse later on with the thought: 'The Master was with us face to face, yet face to face we failed to ask him.'"

6. But when this was said, the bhikkhus were silent. And yet a second and a third time the Blessed One said to them: "It may be, bhikkhus, that one of you is in doubt or perplexity as to the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha, the path or the practice. Then question, bhikkhus! Do not be given to remorse later on with the thought: 'The Master was with us face to face, yet face to face we failed to ask him.'"

And for a second and a third time the bhikkhus were silent. Then the Blessed One said to them: "It may be, bhikkhus, out of respect for the Master that you ask no questions. Then, bhikkhus, let friend communicate it to friend." Yet still the bhikkhus were silent.

7. And the Venerable Ananda spoke to the Blessed One, saying: "Marvellous it is, O Lord, most wonderful it is! This faith I have in the community of bhikkhus, that not even one bhikkhu is in doubt or perplexity as to the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha, the path or the practice."

"Out of faith, Ananda, you speak thus. But here, Ananda, the Tathagata knows for certain that among this community of bhikkhus there is not even one bhikkhu who is in doubt or perplexity as to the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha, the path or the practice. For, Ananda, among these five hundred bhikkhus even the lowest is a stream-enterer, secure from downfall, assured, and bound for enlightenment."

8. And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.

How the Blessed One Passed into Nibbana

9. And the Blessed One entered the first jhana. Rising from the first jhana, he entered the second jhana. Rising from the second jhana, he entered the third jhana. Rising from the third jhana, he entered the fourth jhana. And rising out of the fourth jhana, he entered the sphere of infinite space. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of infinite space, he entered the sphere of infinite consciousness. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of infinite consciousness, he entered the sphere of nothingness. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of nothingness, he entered the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. And rising out of the attainment of the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, he attained to the cessation of perception and feeling.

10. And the Venerable Ananda spoke to the Venerable Anuruddha, saying: "Venerable Anuruddha, the Blessed One has passed away."

"No, friend Ananda, the Blessed One has not passed away. He has entered the state of the cessation of perception and feeling."

11. Then the Blessed One, rising from the cessation of perception and feeling, entered the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, he entered the sphere of nothingness. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of nothingness, he entered the sphere of infinite consciousness. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of infinite consciousness, he entered the sphere of infinite space. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of infinite space, he entered the fourth jhana. Rising from the fourth jhana, he entered the third jhana. Rising from the third jhana, he entered the second jhana. Rising from the second jhana, he entered the first jhana.

Rising from the first jhana, he entered the second jhana. Rising from the second jhana, he entered the third jhana. Rising from the third jhana, he entered the fourth jhana. And, rising from the fourth jhana, the Blessed One immediately passed away.

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