fandomhigh | World Religions, Wednesday, 2nd Period [9/27]

Jesse doesn't look as dozy today. Anyone who'd been by his office during office hours earlier would know why.

Still with the feet on the desk, but he's actually awake and sipping his coffee while he watches everyone file in. On one of the front desks is a sign-in sheet, his standard handouts, and a stack of red books¹ with a note that says "take one."

Once everyone is seated, Jesse drops his feet, holds up his own copy of "The Tao of Pooh," and opens at a bookmark to read:

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast? said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.

"That about nails it. Taoism is a philosophical structure that can be either religious or secular. You'll remember, if you were awake last week, that I talked about Confucianism, which is more a secular structure than a religious one. By contrast, Taoism is very flexible. You could say that flexibility gets to the heart of the idea."

He sets the book aside for a moment and picks up the handout to read:

"I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world"

"That's from the Tao Te Ching², 'The Book of the Way.' You could call it the Taoist Bible, which might be right if you mean that it's a book people have credited to a particular source, in this case Lao Tzu, and claim contains universal truths which you should live your life by.

"Taoism calls on its practitioners to develop three virtues, the 'Three Jewels' of Taoism³ - compassion, simplicity, and patience."

The lecture continues for some time, meandering through the various points in the handout and ending up with discussion of Yin and Yang⁴.

"It's about balance, two complementary parts creating a balanced whole. Male and female, dark and light, night and day.

"And here's where we get to today's activity. I want you to get together with another student and come up with Yin and Yang pairings. Remember the concepts⁵ for Yin and Yang that I've explained - opposites, interdependent, divisible within itself, consume and support, transformation, and that neither is 100% Yin or 100% Yang, both have a bit of the other in itself.

"When you make your pairing, and try not to go with the obvious ones, try to show as many examples as you can of how they fit those basic concepts. If you can't fit them into all the concepts, don't worry too much about it. Be flexible."

Jesse puts his feet up again and waves a hand. "Get to it. The books are yours. Read them, use them as doorstops, feed them to the ducks. I don't rightly care.

Handout links:
¹Tao of Pooh
²Tao Te Ching
³Three Jewels of the Tao
⁴Yin and Yang under precepts
⁵Summary of concepts for Yin and Yang

Passages from The Tao of Pooh
Taoist Doctrine from a religious perspective
Taoism at Wiki
Taoism

Syllabus

[ooc: As Pooh is presented as a sort of real person in "The Tao of Pooh" I don't think I'm committing any meta sins. He's not fiction in the book, he's a teacher of sorts and should be read that way. Alas, my copy is in storage, so I can't properly refresh myself.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Grab a partner and give a Yin and Yang pairing. Try to address as many of the concepts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_yang#Summary_of_Yin_and_Yang_concepts) as you can.

Billy now had that damn cheerfull Tigger song stuck in his head as he looked around for a partner.

Nadia was possibly about to get decked.

"Your face."

*blink* "Excuse me?" Wasn't that typically a retaliation to an insult?

"Yin and yang."

*blink*blink* "What does..how's my face yin and yang?"

Nadia pointed to the eyepatch. "Yin." Then the his healthy eye. "Yang."

"Huh," Billy did a kind of weird sort of cross eyed thing trying to look at his eyepatch. "Never thought of it like that."

"It might mean that your face is balanced, which would be a good thing."

"Least part of me is." Billy mumbled. "Continuing that theme," he pulled up his left pant leg, revealing his prosthetic (which was clearly marked as his with indelible marker). "One real leg, one fake one, and it's the opposite side."

Nadia blinked a little at the label, but nodded. "There you go. All you need is conflicting desires or to be the opposite of what your parents wanted or something, and you ARE yin and yang."

Billy let out a short, slightly dimsayed laugh. "Oh christ I'm battin' a thousand."

". . . is that a bad thing?"

Re: Yin and Yang

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Kaylee looked for someone to pair up with.

"Would you like a partner?"

Kaylee smiled at Stark. "Sure."

"Good. I think I like this taoism. Do you have any ideas, for pairings?"

"What about seasons?" Kaylee suggested. "Like winter and summer?"

"Seasons could work." Stark nodded. "Definitely opposites, with hot and cold. And they change, into the other. On most planets, at least."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it works that way on this planet," Kaylee said.

"It has so far," Stark said. "There was lots of winter. Lots of snow."

"Do winter and summer fit all the concepts, do you think?"

"Seem to fit all, but the transformin' concept," Kaylee said. "Winter and Spring work better for that one, I think."

"Maybe...maybe spring is the transforming part between the two?" Stark suggested. "Winter and summer are the two halves and spring and fall are just the in-between."

Kaylee grinned. "That's very sense making. So really, all the seasons need each other to exist."

"I think so. And you can never really have a thing without its opposite. You need something to compare it with, so you can understand it."

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