Tao Te Ching, Verse 16

“Empty the self completely; Embrace perfect peace.
Realize that all beings alike go through their processes of activity and life,
and then they return to the original source.
Returning to the source brings peacefulness and stillness.
This stillness is the flow of nature,
and signifies that the beings have lived their allotted span of life.
Accepting this brings enlightenment and tranquility,
ignoring this brings confusion and sorrow.
If one can accept this flow of nature; one can cherish all things.
Being all-cherishing you become impartial;
Being impartial you become magnanimous;
Being magnanimous you become natural;
Being natural you become one with The Way;
Being one with The Way you become immortal:
Though the body will decay, the Way will not.”
(Tao Te Ching, Verse 16, John Dicus Translation)

Every month, I begin with the highest expectations and then I get busy and tired and distracted. I put aside everything that doesn’t cry out for my immediate attention until it either disappears or begins to cry out also. One could say that I’ve been ignoring the natural flow of things.

Tao Te Ching, Verse 15

“Don’t just stand there, do something!” is great advice during a fire and I’ve taken it as good advice for nearly all occasions – but it’s not always good advice – I’ve mentioned in these entries how too much time spent “doing” and not enough time spent “being” makes me stupid and anxious – as Stephen Mitchell notes “We need space in order to see, silence in order to hear, sleep in order to carry on with our wakefulness. If our senses are too cluttered with objects they lose their acuteness and will eventually decay” – if our minds are too cluttered with thoughts, “they lose their acuteness and will eventually decay” (just as mine has been of late) – if our hearts are too cluttered with desires, “they lose their acuteness and will eventually decay” – I’ve mentioned that when God is trying to teach me something, he puts the message ever before my eyes – at one point, when I was trying to complete those questions on the Springdale application, I mentally questioned, “why is this so fucking difficult” and a voice inside my head responded, “because you’re trying to do it by yourself instead of relying on me (God)” – after that I went outside and had a smoke and told God that it was all up to him – that I didn’t care about it anymore – and then I came in and basically just typed the answers that I finally used on the application – I was reminded of the passage from Tao Te Ching, Verse XXXXVIII [this is why we don’t use Roman numerals anymore], “Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can't be gained by interfering.” – this is the principle of wei wu wei – it’s what God is (once again) trying to teach me – I’ll talk about it more later. I’ll leave you, with Siji Tzu’s commentary: “Like our ancient masters, do not seek, do not expect. Stir up the lakebed and watch it settle. Pour water into your teacup, but do not overfill. Enjoy a flower the same in a battlefield just as on a rivers edge. Be like nature and do not judge good from bad. Accept an honorable guest the same as a criminal.”

Tao Te Ching, Verse 14

“Look, but you can't see it.
Listen, but you can't hear it.
Reach out, but you can't touch it.
Invisible, inaudible, intangible.
Elusive.
The One.
When it rises, no light.
When it sets, no darkness.
It calls all things back into nothingness [No–Thing–Ness].
Formless form, imageless image.
No front, no back.
Live in the Tao of old, master the present.
Know the Source: The essence of Tao.”
(Tao Te Ching, Verse 14, George Cronk Translation)

Stephen Mitchell writes that another way of saying, “Look, but you can't see it” is “Look and it’s right before your eyes” – last week when my brother-in-law and I were hiking, it occurred to me that I’m not very good at following the trail – I’ve never been lost in the woods – I’m good at keeping rough bearing on where I am, but as far as following “the” trail – I really don’t worry very much about it – as a consequence, even though we set out to hike the Butterfield Trail, we really didn’t spend that much time on the actual trail – the park is around 2000 acres and littered with trails – as long as we were going south toward Blackburn Creek and then east toward Lee Creek and then northeast back toward where we started, I didn’t really care which trail we were on and we occasionally left all the trails and just made our way though the woods in order to maintain the forward progress I wanted – you may ask, what does any of this have to do with today’s passage of the Tao? – my answer is that if you know that you’re going in the right direction, don’t worry about whether or not you can see the trail – quick review: you know you’re going the right direction if you spontaneously exhibit the fruit of the Spirit – in as much as your life is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, you’re going in the right direction – and : if you know that you’re going in the right direction, don’t worry about whether or not you can see the trail

Tao Te Ching, Verse 13

“Being honored is a disgrace as it causes bondage.
Being valued will cause great discomfort to the body.

How can it be said that being honored is a disgrace?
Honor is based on subserviency.
Obtaining it causes bondage; losing it causes bondage.
That's how it can be said that being honored is a disgrace as it causes bondage.

How can it be said that being valued will cause great discomfort to the body?
My own experiences in life have caused me to have anxiety about how I should act.
My own experiences in life have shown me that my body can be easily defeated.
Without a body, what would I have?

That anxiety, therefore, causes emphasis on the actions of the body and how it relates to the rest of the world.
That would seem to make us be willing to adapt to the world.
It's through the love of the way my body can act in the world that I am willing to repeatedly change along with the world.”
(Tao Te Ching, Verse 13, Nina Correa Translation)

I’ll be honest, when I began this blog I wasn’t completely certain what I wanted to do with it. I love the Tao and I wanted to discuss it. Perhaps I wanted to explicate it and explore the various translations; it was all very ethereal in my mind when I began. That probably explains why I feel somewhat disappointed with the 2010 posts. They’re lacking something – they lack depth. It’s funny; I turned forty in 2010 but I don’t feel any wiser now than I did a decade ago. If anything, I feel like I know even less now. Maybe that’s a good thing. Over the past couple of decades, I’ve become much less arrogant. I used to think that I knew things; now I’m not as sure. Humility is definitely something worth pursuing. I think that I need a different approach this year; an approach that is more consistent with the Tao. I try to figure this out more adequately before I write the next post.

I’ll leave you, as always, with Siji Tzu’s commentary:
“You are in everything. Everything is in you. Create hope and fear and you throw away the Dao. Create happiness and sorrow and you will collapse. Keep your feet on the ground. Love everything as you love yourself. Then everything is within your reach.”