What is life?

What is life from Daoism philosophy view.

Life cannot be described.

You want me to tell you what is life? No way. Because whatever I can tell you is not life. Some ideas, some part of awareness, some angle, it is too far away from covering every angle of life.

So what is life? Life cannot be expressed. Anything you can express is one group of things that can be expressed. Truly life is inexpressible.

But contradiction is, you already express something. You express what ever your level of understanding is.

So not expressing is itself an expression of what you understand about life. So put the two together.

What can be expressed and what cannot be expressed, together is life.

Your mental power, able to express, logically to observe, that power is part of life but it is not life.

But there are many other parts of life which cannot be expressed, which cannot be understood just by mental and logic power so simple.

So they give these another name, abstract……. not clear, not concrete to describe parts of life which can’t be expressed. Because they are still there, so they say:

Being,

Because always there but always changing

Abstract Being because it can’t be expressed; it is always changing, but always there.

Whichever way you observe life concrete way, you only see a little corner, true life is beyond all these concrete, it is actually abstract part – your desire is abstract, your passion is abstract, your emotion is abstract, even your mental ability power is abstract.

And that power, is not what you express, that power to create that expression, that power itself is also abstract.

So that is what they try to say to answer “What is life?”

Abstract Being – there is a part of life, that goes beyond logic, behind logic, power where make you start to discover what is logic.

That power exists, together with your logic power is life.

So basically if you want to trust what they teach you, not just against them, so you don’t just use their foot to kick their own ass.. so Daoism answer

Okay.. life cannot be expressed, but they have already expressed, so life is both these powers together. So life is able to observe and express, but there are something’s you cannot observe or express and together that is what life is.

Then you can feel it a little bit. The abstract part won’t change for you, it remains abstract, and being means it will change but remain eternal abstract.

So basically the more abstract, the more life you have.

That’s why if your life is concrete, you actually have no life.

For those people, work so hard, so many responsibilities, babies, family, mortgage, discipline, work hard, money, take care of parents, blah blah – trying to make the abstract disappear.

But all these things you create come from your own fear, your fear makes them concrete, truth every case is so complicated and so abstract, so complicated, every case observe so much, middle way, harmony way, every case deeply observe, to handle it best way to for to help them and help myself and then calculation will run.

Dao is Abstract Being.

So Dao is not just a result. As a result, Dao is the present.

Being Abstract is the result of “enjoying the abstract”, enjoy life is wonder, we want all our feelings secure, enjoy that insecure, that life is wonderful, insecure make life interesting, become Dao – enjoy the abstract present – learn it, find the harmony instead of fear, and then find something to cover it, be abstract then you can become Dao, in present realize life is abstract, find harmony way and re-control that back.

Even Taiji looks abstract but has philosophy behind it.

But abstract can become control, when abstract becomes control and present, you will not ask what is life, because you will know your ability to be abstract so freely is life.

This compared to Buddhism explanation of life is just beginner…  that is why it is great to learn philosophy.

Remember, if you can explain so many books but not free to explain one word then you learn nothing by heart.