The Purity line of thought is everywhere in society. But in nature, it is nowhere to be found.
That is why I began with a Yin Yang symbol which symbolizes among other things the mixed, impure reality.
When we talk about purity, there is a strong stigma from religions that pure is good and as a consequence impure is connected with less good (in the dictionary there will be a second meaning for impure which refers to morality/religious thoughts). But this is just stigma, both should be the same.
Going back to the main topic, purity can never explain anything. Purity's main purpose in society is to balance. In fact, it is interesting to think that by showing a strong pure good line of thought, religions are trying to balance unbalanced societies. For example, societies with higher crime rates have an increasing religious population. That is, although they try to see everything by their simplistic pure perspective, they are part of a self-organizing aspect of society to balance and mix everything.
In the same manner, societies seems to abandon religion as soon as they escape from social/environmental problems.
Supposing we are living in a developed and well balanced society, why can't we learn Yin Yang right from the beginning?
I mean, kids still see a great amount of strongly polarized good vs evil cartoons.
Lets learn the big picture, lets teach our kids the big picture. Modern society is obstructed in many ways with the knowledge it produced, making it slow and static. Almost unable to absorb new understanding inside social machines such as institutions and organizations. But that is another topic...not entirely another topic though, since the adaptability and self-organization of society is related with the balance of forces in a Yin Yang.
Yin Yang is a difficult abstraction in relation to purity, but the big picture it gives is worth it. When you start to understand everything under the balance of Yin Yang, things get very realistic and pleasing. Many martial arts were based in this concept or influenced by it. It is about understanding rather than choosing or taking a party in some election. That is why it is difficult, people usually wants to do something or have some guide to decisions (e.g., the yellow side is always better). Purity is the shortest path to knowledge, not necessarily the best.
With our current overall extremely weak education systems, the knowledge concept itself has degraded. People started to believe that knowing something is knowledge. There are people believing they can buy knowledge. People are always so focused on the objective, that they are getting far away from it. Am I digressing again? No. This is just to show that as wicked as the society grows thinking that shortest path is the best, everything goes with it. Unbalanced. That is the word.
A bit of Yin Yang understanding could have helped many houses, if only they took a little time to think about it. Yin Yang differs from many other lines of thought, because it also focuses on the process itself not on the product. That is, what conclusions you get from it is just as important as your process of thinking to get them.
Notice that balance is not equal size, but equilibrium. In the same sense that an iron ball is balanced with a much bigger watermelon, balance in Yin Yang is about finding the equilibrium rather than putting two things with the same size to coexist. In other words, the white and black part will most of the times differ in size in a balanced system.
Knowledge is sometimes not about getting new tools, but about opening horizons.
That is why I began with a Yin Yang symbol which symbolizes among other things the mixed, impure reality.
When we talk about purity, there is a strong stigma from religions that pure is good and as a consequence impure is connected with less good (in the dictionary there will be a second meaning for impure which refers to morality/religious thoughts). But this is just stigma, both should be the same.
Going back to the main topic, purity can never explain anything. Purity's main purpose in society is to balance. In fact, it is interesting to think that by showing a strong pure good line of thought, religions are trying to balance unbalanced societies. For example, societies with higher crime rates have an increasing religious population. That is, although they try to see everything by their simplistic pure perspective, they are part of a self-organizing aspect of society to balance and mix everything.
In the same manner, societies seems to abandon religion as soon as they escape from social/environmental problems.
Supposing we are living in a developed and well balanced society, why can't we learn Yin Yang right from the beginning?
I mean, kids still see a great amount of strongly polarized good vs evil cartoons.
Lets learn the big picture, lets teach our kids the big picture. Modern society is obstructed in many ways with the knowledge it produced, making it slow and static. Almost unable to absorb new understanding inside social machines such as institutions and organizations. But that is another topic...not entirely another topic though, since the adaptability and self-organization of society is related with the balance of forces in a Yin Yang.
Yin Yang is a difficult abstraction in relation to purity, but the big picture it gives is worth it. When you start to understand everything under the balance of Yin Yang, things get very realistic and pleasing. Many martial arts were based in this concept or influenced by it. It is about understanding rather than choosing or taking a party in some election. That is why it is difficult, people usually wants to do something or have some guide to decisions (e.g., the yellow side is always better). Purity is the shortest path to knowledge, not necessarily the best.
With our current overall extremely weak education systems, the knowledge concept itself has degraded. People started to believe that knowing something is knowledge. There are people believing they can buy knowledge. People are always so focused on the objective, that they are getting far away from it. Am I digressing again? No. This is just to show that as wicked as the society grows thinking that shortest path is the best, everything goes with it. Unbalanced. That is the word.
A bit of Yin Yang understanding could have helped many houses, if only they took a little time to think about it. Yin Yang differs from many other lines of thought, because it also focuses on the process itself not on the product. That is, what conclusions you get from it is just as important as your process of thinking to get them.
Notice that balance is not equal size, but equilibrium. In the same sense that an iron ball is balanced with a much bigger watermelon, balance in Yin Yang is about finding the equilibrium rather than putting two things with the same size to coexist. In other words, the white and black part will most of the times differ in size in a balanced system.
Knowledge is sometimes not about getting new tools, but about opening horizons.
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