most people i paddle with
have experience. we usually discuss options at the launch. those who want to go along in a group, fine. if some want to break off or go another way, fine. kayaks are all about feeling free
I needed a laugh
Like Mark Twain said, when we realize we are all mad, reality becomes clear to us. There is some truth to it and LOL funny. Of course I never acted in any of those ways.
LEaders, followers and a-leaders
The group I usually paddle with doesn’t use formal trips or trip leaders, but the local AMC group usually does. Those trips usually involve newbies or people who have not paddled those particular waters before or at those levels. When I’m on some new w/w or even the an ocean bay, I want a “leader”, formal or otherwise. As my skill set or familiarity with those waters improves I’ll step up and assist as able but will back the leader as he requires.
The problems for many leaders, especially formal leaders, who may not know all the individulas in the group, is the liability issue. There are too many people who have no problem calling thier land shark if they get a scratch they didn’t expect, even if they blatantly lied about themselves and thier skills/expectations to the leader. Who wants that kind of hassle.
Animal Analogies to human???
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 1:46 AM EST –
Are only accurate when the humans are motivated by fear, greed, and ignorance: the animal realms.
With apologies to Lao Tzu:
Who is the experienced paddler? The newbie's teacher.
Who is the newbie? The experienced paddler's business.
If the one does not pay attention to his teacher or the other not does not mind his business disharmony results.
Paddlers at nspn have given me so much, I'm just trying to pay it back to the next generation. Ain't fleecing no one. I do not know anybody who had gotten rich ffrom teaching paddling, nobody! (I did bite someone on the bottom once but that had nothing to do with paddling.)
Wish I still had the time I did a year and a half ago.
Okay… I Can’t Resist…
“Who is the experienced paddler? The newbie’s teacher.
Who is the newbie? The experienced paddler’s business.
If the one does not pay attention to his teacher or the other not does not mind his business disharmony results.”
Your thoughts are more reflective of a Confucian rather than a Taoist perspective. Your last observation is equivilent to: Emperor, Father, Son, Brother, Mother. When the order is not adhered to then the disorder reigns and the “mandate of heaven” is lost.
I believe Greyak’s analogy is more on the mark in terms of the underlying emotions guiding SOME of the perspectives here concerning “leadership, certification, insurance coverage, official groups, etc.” It’s about fear, greed, self aggrandizement, the need for acceptance/approval and rebellion (challenging the order and he who would be apha).
I include myself as being in that mix. There is something atavistic and visceral going on.
sing
Glad someone else…
– Last Updated: Dec-01-04 10:47 PM EST –
... picked up on Peter's thoughts being "more reflective of a Confucian rather than a Taoist perspective."
That was my first thought, and not the first time I've seen him flip the two. Granted, they do balance each other to some degree - but as complimentary opposites, not interchangeable philosophies.
Clearly he favors Social hierarchies and order (which he calls "harmony" :) - and wants to participate in both leading and following - but doesn't want the full lead role. He also seems to see others as either sheep (he needs to tend/herd/protect) or shepherds (he will take orders from based on their position). In my book, that clearly makes him a sheepdog. Not a judgment +/- as I think all four are fine ways to live - for others.
He's also confusing teacher/student with leader/follower. There is a difference (and I mentioned it in my post to keep it specific to leaders). Any who doesn't recognize that difference is in for trouble with Gurus, and puts too much stock in position, symbols, words, etc.
Following instructions of a leader during a trip is not the same as following directions given by an instructor during a lesson. If lessons are given during a trip - two things are going on. May be the same person, but not the same roll.
One event is a mission/operation, the other is training. Then there are "training missions". Lots of accidents happen on "training missions". Now I know why.
Dislike educating you on this topic, but
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 3:10 AM EST –
but it's right out of the Tao Te ching.
Her is an on-line reference:
http://www.nokama.com/tao/index.cfm?fuseaction=chapter&ch=27
Here is a quote from my favorite translation:
Poem #27 (Translation by Blakney, my favorite):
A good runner leaves no tracks...
A good knot is tied without rope and cannot be loosened.
Surely the good man is the bad man's teacher, and the bad man is the good man's business. If the one does not respect his teacher, or the other doesn't love his business, his error is very great.
This is indeed an important secret.
(End Quote)
Let's remeember that the book of odes was the fertile ground for much Taoist and confucian thought. If Lao Tzu gives advice on how to run a kingdom, then he is must have had compassion and social conscience. He is not all about retreat. NOr was confucius all about social structures, (see my post to greyak)
Please do notice that the teacher-student relationship is carried out through love (or care) and respect here, not ego-aggrandisement, dominance, servility, or any of that stuff. That is but counterfeit of the true currency of Love and Respect.
We can discuss the confucian influence on the Tao Te Ching another time. Surely the use of Good and bad (and thus the emphasis on duality) is somewhat unusual. Strange things do happen to religious texts.
Anyone care to argue whether the Tao te Ching is part of the Taoist canon?
If so, I confess to be out of my scholastic depth.
Your scholarship is quite weak!
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 2:47 AM EST –
And you do not address the difficulties of treating human motivation within the animal realms. You make no room for a teacher who wants to take the student where the student wants to go, and does so for the love of the student and the sport. the teacher whose deepest joy would be for one of this students to return as his teacher.
You might want to see my post to sing and to spend more time reading the classics, or less time pretending you have. I lose patience with you, who cannot even recognize an extensive and accurate paraphrase (with the bend toward paddling)from an little 81 page classic of world religion, repeatedly judging me, and repeatedly cloaking your judgement in religious garb. If you cannot even recognize the paraphrase I use, what do you know of Taoist texts? The Yellow emperor's classic? Mo Tzu, Chuang Tzu? Are these more central to Taoism than the Tao de ching? (Well the yellow emperor's might be but who is counting). Having lost patience, I cease to behave well. So be it.
The five elements, male and female, teacher and student, heaven and earth, have natural patterns of relationships. Discovering these natural patterns, (rather than imposing patterns, as you accuse me of wanting to do) is indeed the heart of much Taoist thought. To call heaven superior to earth (in the sense of better) , or the teacher superior to the student is certainly questionable and a product of ego. Teacher and student are part of a process, if the process is real, something happens, if the process is not real, then there is no teacher and no student. They are both necessary to the process of learning, at which humans can far excel animals if they so choose. (And if they reject the "philosophies" that would hold that humans cannot act from Godly motivation) That is part of what the poem implies, when the relationship is conducted in love and respect (rather than ego and dominance) is there inferior or superior?
Of course, nothing and no one is perfect. If horribleness is below 2% and ego and nonsense combined is below 30%; it's a good day.
Your view of Confucius is also not nuanced.
From the analects V:12
Tzu Kung said, Our Master's views on culture and refinement are for all to hear, but what he has to say about the nature of man and the ways of God, no one ever hears.
More going on here than formal manners.
I am serious about religion, and have given China more than a causal glance.
I would not aggressively box with Sing. (Nothing to do with his being Chinese, lots to do with my respect for the time he has put into boxing). I have more sense than to do that. I might come to him for instruction if I wanted to learn to box. What kind of sense and respect do you have? Yet you repeatedly step up to me with arrogance and judgement, and perhaps cannot back it up.
Perhaps you can.
I await your public dissertation on the fact that the Tao De Ching is irrelevant to Taoism. It's sure to be authoritative.
YOu think of me as a sheepdog
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 3:16 AM EST –
Who are you to say that I do not want the lead role.
I've facilitated skill sessions, and learned from and taught other paddlers at the same session. Never been paid for it; did it to serve and help people get the skills to be safe when they paddled alone. People show up who know more than me; I'll beg them to teach, I'll step aside and let them teach and learn from them. If I am the most fit to teach, well, so be it; I'll teach. If I can offer a nugget to a more advanced paddler as payment for his service, no problem. I'm not shy.
I've lead trips in woods hole. Four knot currents, 30 knot gusts that day (Sea breeze close to shore in late afternoon) and big ferries in the channel. One of the paddlers stuck his paddle under a deckline, the wind caught it and the line put a two inch gash in his paddle blade. Lot's of leverage but it takes a bit of wind to do that.
I've also gotten rough water instruction in groups with an expert/non-expert ratio of one to one and you better believe I pushed myelf to the limit with that kind of support around. Like the student from the netherworld.
And every level two trip from NSPN is to have a skills learning component.
I'll learn, teach, or just paddle, and I have a great belief in versatility. I'm always learning anyway, (unless I'm angry). I always tell those unfortunate enough to come to my skill sessions where better instruction can be obtained.
Who are you to say "clearly he favors social hierarchies" . Have you met me, paddled with me? Do you know me? Can you find evidence for that in my words.
Stuff words in my mouth!?
I have thoroughly disembowled your pretensions to any depth of knowledge of chinese religion elsewhere. You are like a christian scholar who cannot recognize the twisted citation "blessed are the warmongers for..."
Just because there is a relationship does not mean there is a hierarchy, and current always flows both ways in natural systems.
Every time a teacher teaches, he or she learns; every time a student struggles, he teaches the teacher.
Call me a dog? I'll say that your world view, wisdom and religious work is clearly that of a slimy, lazy, hermaphroditic, slug. No judgement though (irony here), I'm sure it's a fine way for you to live!
You even lack the courage to say that to call me a sheepdog is a judgement.
IN leadership training
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 2:57 AM EST –
we had anexercise in consensus decision making. It was the coast guard test, (the boat is sinking you can grab thes items which do you grab first)
the group which actually went through the pricess in good faith scored higher than other groups because the "authorities" in the other group could not convince the group as a whole.
As to whether authoratative, consensus, or voting should be used that's hard to say.
They each have their appeal, but sometimes time and peoples experience does not allow for so much discussion.
I've talked with paid guides who have had paddlers wander off during trips and not call in; I've lead trips where we had to hold position in 25 knot winds (difficult to do) becasue a discussion of where the channel was took so long that by the time the person was convinced, the ferry was to close to cross the channel ahead of it.
I simply paid the best I could find to teach me a lot of stuff, (both skills and local knowledge), and you better believe I gave them plenty of respect and attention.
Folks like Nystrom, Jed, Sing, Sanjay, and others have put time and work into my paddling instruction,(and done it for no monetary reward, with humor and humility) and I give them respect and try to perfect and pass on what they have taught me. (A never ending quest). I will learn from folks who I pay in coin , and folks who I do not pay in coin.
I'll take folks out, and aside from safety concerns, I do not care, they can pay attention and learn what was on the program, or do their own thing and learn something else, as long as they and the group is safe.
I'll simply paddle with friends, and there things are easier. Not much debate, just informing. Ther respect for experience an wisdom seems do be important, with safety concerns and informing about needs and views efficient and quick.
Also in the end it's my boat and my life. Nobody will make me do something I think is likely to kill me. I will cooperate with anyone leading a trip who I signed up with to pretty close to that point, but I am still captain of that boat. When it gets heavy (for me, which may not be heavy for you) I'll be thinking.
Taoist Text…
can be obscure and greatly influenced by the specific translation. Reading different translations, you can find a different nuance. And, in all the translations, one encounters inherent ambiguities and sources for endless debates.
For example, in my translation by James Legge (I can’t find the one done by Thomas Cleary), the last paragraph of section 27, in comparison to yours, reads as:
“Therefore the man of skilled is a master to be looked up to by him who is unskilled; and he who is unskilled is the helper of he who has skills; and if the one did not honor his master and the other did not rejoice in his helper, and observer, though intelligent, might greatly err about them. This is called ‘The utmost degree of mystery.’”
What I take from this is not a prescription for action leading to harmony/disharmony but about duality, that one thing can not exist without the other. And, that indeed, were it not for outward “honoring” or “rejoicing”, and observer would not even know that such a relationship exist between the two who would be “master” and “helper.”
sing
…
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 7:28 AM EST –
Ah well, no surf this morning. Bummer...
Section 20:
"When we renounce learning, we are without trouble.
How to distinguish the "Yes" which is readiness, and the "Yes" which is flattery when little difference is displayed?
What fills the gulf between Good and Evil?
What all men fear is indeed to be feared, but how wide and without end is the range of questions asking to be answered.
The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased, as if enjoying a full banquet, or enjoying the view from a tower in spring.
I alone seem listless and still, and my desires having as yet given no sign of their presence.
I am like an infant who has not yet smiled. I look dejected and forlorn; as I if I had no home to go to.
The multitude of men all have enough and to spare.
I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind is that of a stupid man. I am in a state of chaos.
Ordinary men look bright and intelligent, while I alone seem to be benighted.
They look full of discrimination, while I alone am witless and confused. I seem to be carried about as if on the sea, drifting as if I had nowhere to rest.
All men have their spheres of action, while I alone seem dull and incapable, like a crude outsider.
Thus, I alone am different from the other men, but I seek the sustenance of the Mother. "
sing
Knowledge discovered not received
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 8:15 AM EST –
Peter, shows allot of self examination went into the process! Knowledge is not something that is simply poured in, we go out and discover it. I don't know about others, but it helps reinforce things I have learned to hear from you and others here, and when different than I have thought I use it to challenge me to learn more.
Your process is well articulated, mine less so, but the best I can say it what you are doing and how you have gone about it, is what I mean by "everyone in the group thinking like a leader". LIke you sing and others say, important to break down these dichotomies of leader follower.
The trouble can be at both ends as you point out. I am learning to spot the folks on the phone, at the show up, early on in the trip, that go off and don't even tell you, etc.
Do you and others here see anything less than great about the following scenario, it is one that concerns me? In our club there is a strong idea of let everyone come, including beginners without equipment and in improper boats even on big water, like Lake George, etc. 20 knot winds. The idea as told me is that "I have military leadership experience, I am a guide, I will pluck them out if there is trouble, I do it all the time."
It sounds OK except for, 1. They don't tell the beginner that they are likely to capsize and have never had practice getting out of their boat until then 2. The leader and these beginners don't stay close together and no one else does either. 3. More advanced folks move faster of course, and so a beginner was left on an island for an hour by themselves while the others paddled,
4. We get back and the beginner has struck off on her own, afraid we would not wait for her on way back, 5. She is on her own in the middle of Lake George, wind waves boats 400 yards ahead, 6. The leader is in no hurry to get up to her. 6. She is struggling into a beam sea almost going over, rounds a point with steepening waves and rocks, I barely get there to help her around.
Later I talk calmly and constructively with the leader who blows me off and says I am being too concerned, he takes care of his flock so to speak chill out, I remind him of people in the military bureaucracy and bug off.
Why do you think this kind of "big daddy" approach is so appealing to leaders in our club. I find it actually is not all that respectful of anyone. It does appeal to a beginner at first glance, I suppose to be invited out with the big folks so to speak, but I don't know, it is not as safe as these folks make it appear, and from my perspective, discourages personal responsibility and an active learner approach like you take. Any help is appreciated.
If hter is any truth in the Tao te Ching
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 10:45 PM EST –
Legge's translation gracelessly stretches to obsure it. Dry, graceless, and not very illuminating.
Uh…
Okay. So many questions but yours apparently are answered.
sing
Overbearing leaders
One thing these leaders forget is that while they may be able to assist anyone in the group when they’re in their boats, that presupposes that they themselves aren’t going to need assistance.
If the leader gets in trouble, and the group is inexperienced, what then?
That’s one of the advantages of our club’s leaderless system — it encourages everyone to develop independence and skills, because there is no false sense of security provided by one or two gurus claiming they can rescue anybody.
There’s nothing wrong with taking less experienced people into conditions they haven’t faced before — what needs to be realized is that the less experienced people should have plenty of others to turn to in a bad situation, not just one or two people. It should be more of a team concept.
Wayne
No I’d love to read the original
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 9:15 AM EST –
and have owned and thoroughly read about 8 tranlations. Scanned well over a dozen.
The quest lives, but I have not been sleeping before now.
I was simply…
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 9:55 AM EST –
...provoking the inevitable long winded discourse - and got two!
To the first: Whatever. Quote all you want. You actually nade some of my points for me (and confirmed the others) - and again proved you are very caught up in words, authority, the past... Great. But I'm really more intersted in what you have to say, not ancient texts. Really.
For the second: What's wrong wth sheepdogs? You must be a cat person or something! I can see how being called a sheep might upset some (few who are sheep are at peace with it), but I gave you the benefit of the doubt as a middle of the roader who generally follows rules and is willing to tend to others needs as well. Is that really bad?
Do you have a sense of humor? Can you see how silly the first post was?
Intersting how you took my comments as some sort of attack on your knowlege and skill. It had nothing to do with that.
Patience is much easier when you stop rustling your own feathers.
Likewise…
– Last Updated: Dec-02-04 10:21 AM EST –
I have read more than several translated editions and the nuances led to my less firm stance than that you have. Is it not interesting that you find Legge's translation "graceless" and "obscure" when I actually find it provoking and poetic? Me thinks we each interject our own perspectives and emotions about the world into the texts.
Despite the varied translations, I do think there is a common thread: that we tend to create the dualities with our own *need* to achieve, categorieze, judge, etc. There is also such a thing as "striving too much. One can do and still not place too much importance on it. It is at once nothing and everything.
BTW, I minored in philosophy in college so I am interested in such discussions though I would never claim to be a scholastic adept at such. Nor have I ever claimed to be anyone's "teacher" in paddling.
This discussion, like paddling, is really about nothing and everything and I need to remind myself of that every so often.
sing
The harder you look…
the less you’re able to see…
Thought (your own and that of others you deem “wise”), may hold great interest for you, but only creates more questions, or worse: diversions.
Circular and self sustaining,
the quest has no end.
Provides no final answers.
Their answers are not your answers.
The “wise” offer us examples, not teachings. Teachers pass on knowledge. Knowledge is not Wisdom. Wisdom may come from fools and sages.
You “arrive” precisely whenever and wherever you abandon the path.
Since you like quotes, in the words of Buckaroo Banzai: “Wherever you go, there you are.”