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Subject: Re: Ambitious Taoist? Oxymoron?
Date: 17 Sep 1995 10:23:38 -0700
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|>| [is] 'ambition' -  such as motivation for career advancement, 
|>| ...fundamentally at odds with the Taoist 'sage' philosophy? 

yes it is.  however, achievement is not at odds with it.  you may succeed at
 all manner of objectives, but if you are geting them ambitiously, you may 
 be missing the point.   let me quote to you from the _Dialogue of P'ang
 Yu:n_ and the _Records of Pointing at the Moon_ via Chang-Chung Yuan and
 Raymond Smullyan:

		P'an Yu:n and his wife had a son and daughter,
		and that the whole family were devoted to Ch'an.
		One day P'ang Yu:n, sitting quietly in his temple,
		made this remark:

		       "How difficult it is!
			How difficult it is!
			My studies are like drying the fibers of a thousand 
			 pounds
			of flax in the sun by hanging them in the trees!":

			But his wife responded:

		               	       "My way is easy indeed!
					I find the teachings of the
					Patriarchs right on
					  the tops
					of the flowering plants!"

			When their daughter overheard this exchange, she
			sang:
			
		               "My study is neither difficult nor easy.
				When I am hungry I eat,
				When I am tired I rest."

 Quoted in _The Tao is Silent_, by Raymond M. Smullyan, Harper/Row, 1977;
 and I played with the punctuation a little. ;>