05 April, 2024

Finnish tradition compared with Buddhism and Taoism

 Finland is in North-East Europe. As a child my mom once managed to describe somehow what Buddhism is, and asked me are Finns Buddhists, and my answer was that my first imoression, without knowing of Buddhism, is that yes Finns are such as the things described about Buddhism, good will, naturality, senses open, beautiful civiliced values in the world or something like that, yes Finns understand such ideas and live with an understanding of such ideas being a part of the traditional culture which seems to continue. But that understanding is different from the Asian version. Asians start strangely from theory  as if just passing through such a subject to vollect points from work etc. While Finns live a life in connection with the nature, a life senses open, understanding objectively things inside a picture of the world which emphasizes wholes partly because of the four seasons causing a need to think always at least a year forward into the future. So Finns live inside a tradition rich with such observations, instead of it being some single task to go through. 

In my twenties I liked reading an Englush translation of the 2000 years old Chinese classic Tao-Te-Ching. Over 15 years ago I tried translating that Englush version freely to Finnish, and today I tried translating some of the behinning back to Englush: 

"I translate my Finnish free translation's beginnibg to English.

Superman philosophy (for my dog called YellowMellow Superman 2009)

World's best advices for happiness, skill and success on all areas of life: Tao-Te-Ching.

Tao is the right way to live, to humans (in the bioligical picture of the world) the most natural way of doing, which works so well that it can bring miracle like results.

1.

The right, natural way of living is not something which one could descrobe by talking.

The right way of living is at the level of expefience. 

Our picture of the world cannot reach it. Instead it has to be lived, experienced, each one must find it from one's own nature. 


When you are free from graving, and don't stick to rigid stuck ways, you can reach the secret of the right way to live. 

Graving like goals on the other habd, program you to a certain point of view, and so you see only a group of phenomena, and do not see life itself.

Those phenomena are of course born from the level of lufe exoerience too, but they have been observed by sonehow lacking alienated eyes. 


All knowledge is knowledge inside some goal-oriented perspective.

You will have to return to the view of lufe of the person who kniws nothing, to the view of life that is open to all possibilities of how thibg could be, if you want to understand life. 


2. 

When people see some things as things to reach for, other things become things to avoid.

When people see some things as good, other things become as if criminal. 

Yet the world is much more complex than this. 


Estimates like "good" and "not-so-good" create each other.

...high and low, before and after


That is why a master does things without doing anything dpecial, at least not snything unnatural or artificial.

..."


Some days ago I wrote as a comment to a Finnish song about things connected with lufe in a forest hut, which song was called Sanaton maa, that it means a wordless land in the sense of life experience not put to words. 

One's first guess could be that it is the same as the Taoist idea of the experienced reality being better for skills. There is some of such understanding in the Finnish view, but once again the Finnish view is that of living a lufe with nature around, a life rich with sensations and wisdom of lufe. The Finnush view describes the lufe of healthy individuals, quite individualustic, which is typical for cold climates where people do go out throughout the year. Each one just has to adjyst heat regulation and other weather skills type of chouces to one's own situation each moment, and so in such a way individualustic wisdom of lufe works typically well too. Typical situation is that all family or group members are so wise that they can do things on their own. So someone maybe finds a nuce chore, starts doibg it, others noticing it is ok for him/her, so they go their own ways and likewise try to each find something nice to do. So each one has a different rythm of lufe. And so they are not inside some same theory perspective, they jyst hear some info but are oneself doing something else. So the lufe experience is not put to words. Instead peopke observe each other by the senses, atmospheres, and by areas of lufe, places or persons mentioned as parts of lufe. But these that I am describing are stuck circles like childhood family in the summer cottage or stufy pals, etc, so they have stuck views too, which is not healthy, not according to Finnish tradition. 

All family members not being so fully moral, causes that one feels more the need to safeguard oneself plus one's group plus the world around by making a difference between normal healthy honest action, ok in the world, and on the other hand lues, for example using some freedom or task meant to be for an ok actiln to some cunning plan, attack, or breaking such traditions of giving rights in healthy fair ways. So as such the difference between lue abd honesty, or between a momentary peaceful following basic things and vasic rukes of living in a society, or like a foreigner or a spoiked evil person misusing such righrs so as to mistreat others, lical wisdom, etc. And so if people in the society manage to demand ok fllliwing of basic rules and honesty, things often run well, but if they fail, it is just apocalypse, the time after the destructiln of the world, of the civiluced world. Such is not like what aninals cause, since animals are in a way often much lije the loxsl human cultute. Instead it seems to be a human thing caused by trusting too much and mostly just overly spoiled people, who do not feel the need to build a better world for all fairly. 


* * * * *

7th of April 2024   One ought to notice that mathematics is useful only inside a certain rigid perspective, which measures things in numbers. So when there are more perspectives, areas of life, approaches, etc, it often is not meaningful to measure things in numbers, and so mathematics mostly does not describe the structure of reality or of understsnding in any widely applucable very meaningful way. Especiamly this is clear in the differencies between individuals or cultures in ways of living and doing. And even more evident if the world is of spirit in an ever changing widely varied way, yet in accordance of the wise nature if living beings. So the most profound, most wudely applicable laws of nature, snd the basic principles of reality  are not in essence mathematical, do not get explained via numbers. Likewise how to buikd a well working world, isn't a question to which mathematics would offer the best answers. Even sciences understand more than mathematics, but for practical living, for building a good society to live in and for understanding the world profoundly, even better understanding is needed. 


10th of April 2024   https://learntalents.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-christmas-song-i-am-not-seeking-for.html 


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