The Dao is the nothingness that has the potential to be anything and everything. It is the one.

The one gives rise to the two, which in Chinese cosmology assumes the complementing energies of yin (feminine principle) and yang (masculine principle). Through their interplay all things find harmony. This is another expression of the unity of opposites: a theme that we have encountered quite a few times on this journey.

And it is the interplay of yin and yang that creates three and this three gives birth to the ten thousand things.

In this way, the Dao expurgates the unity of all in one as One all arises and as nothing - there is potential (or nothing) in the absence of arising. It is within potential or nothingness that even the one arises in this fleeting, yet eternal moment.

In the translation by Addiss and Lombardo is it expressed this way:

Tao engenders One,
One engenders Two,
Two engenders Three,
Three engenders the ten thousand things.

The second stanza explores the world of two: yin and yang.

The ten thousand things carry shade (yin)
And embrace sunlight (yang) (my additions).
Shade and sunlight, yin and yang,
Breath blending into harmony.

Then the author applies this same understanding of the unity of opposites in the next stanza.

Humans hate
To be alone, poor, and hungry.
Yet kings and princes
Use these words as titles.
We gain by losing,
Lose by gaining.

Recall that in ancient China, the royalty of China would describe themselves as alone and poor.

A Dinè Peacemaker once said to me, “It is almost always better to lose than to win. Because when you win a contest anger and resentment arises for he who has lost. Thus the outcome of all contests is anger that will manifest again in life.” This story also points to why most American Indians cast a very wary eye at competition - a world that divides people into winners and losers.

The final stanza is a little elusive.

What others teach, I also teach:
A violent man does not die a natural death.
This is the basis of my teaching.

The statement “what others teach” refers to the ancientness and, therefore, the integrity of these teachings. A violent person is he who lives life unaware of the unity of opposites and who fails to understand that needing to win is a force with the darkest of consequences. Violence, for its own sake, is the darkest of the dark. It is all yang cut off from the harmonizing principle of yin. When we understand the two and can experience the balance that is implicit in every moment, we can live a life that is joyous.

Download Post: V42

Tags: union of opposites, yin and yang

I am not a member of the Advaita Club. I am an outsider. Several have rejected me for what I have written. I submit this post for our mutual exploration. How valid is the underlying beliefs of Advaita? This is the essence of exploration.

Advaita posits that awareness (consciousness) is the alpha and omega of all existence. Thoughts, feelings, and sensations are seen within awareness. They come and go, but awareness is always there. Because thoughts, feelings, and sensations refer only back to their essence, awareness, they cannot “do” or be anything. This is a universe without cause and effect, it is awareness/consciousness itself.

Greg Goode, a person I admire and respect, but do not agree with, says in Standing in Awareness, “...awareness is not geographical, the very notion of awareness as a place or locale dissolves (italics in original).” This argument is based on the supposition that since the actions and moods of the mind can be “seen” by awareness, then the mind must be an object of awareness. Or what is perceived as mind, is, ultimately, awareness itself, seeing itself in the role of mind.

Is this true?

To prove this contention, we would need to observe an aware being without a mind or body. Has such an entity ever been found or observed? The obvious answer is no, so this contention must, at the very least, be held in serious doubt.

I would assert that as far as we can determine, the faculty of awareness is a consequence and function of the mind/body and that the world demonstrates this contention a thousand million times over. In fact, it never has validated an awareness that is separate from a living body/mind.

Greg continues, “You, as this awareness, are continuous and unbroken even if arisings are present. The clearest experience of this is deep sleep. No arisings appear during deep sleep, yet it never seems as though you are absent.” Is this true for your experience? For me, I am utterly absent in deep sleep. There is no sense of continuity. Yes, upon awakening, I realize that for much of the night I was “unaware”, and since this event is replicated day after day, I must, at the very least, doubt Greg’s contention. And because I survive deep sleep as a mind/body, even if the activity of awareness clearly ceases, I must further realize that this process of deep sleep adds credibility that awareness is, indeed, a function of the mind/body. Were awareness truly continuous, it would notice the condition of deep sleep, but it does not.

Greg further claims that “arisings” (anything seen within awareness) “don’t actually do anything. They have no causal power.” Is this true? If can only be true if we reject the notion that things exist. Yet our everyday experience proves that this is just the action of desire that seeks to negate the power to make of things to make us feel bad or to fear the inevitability of our own death. For, if we are not the body/mind, death can never effect us. Yet, the wind blows, a tree branch falls, my car is struck, and a repair is needed. Arisings are nothing but power. The universe of cause and effect is observed (within awareness) as ever-present. Even if I’m inclined to reject the existence of things outside of their brief manifestation in awareness, I must at least have some doubt about the veracity of this claim as based on my every-day experience. Just because something is counter-intuitive and of esoteric origins doesn’t make it right or better than our apparent existence and the apparent existence of everything else in our universe.

For me, Advaita is a sophisticated belief system that appeals to people who are primarily intellectual. It is, as Greg has conceded, seriological in nature, meaning that it is oriented to the reduction of suffering and the promise of salvation. It is, therefore of a larger religious lineage that includes Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, but rejects Judaism, Buddhism, and Taoism (which do not affirm salvation). It does not stand up to basic inquiry or even doubt. It is, therefore, a dead-end.

The nature of reality is, instead, inherently paradoxical. What we perceive is, indeed, a consequence of awareness, but that is only part of the story. All perceived objects are connected and this is the fundamental, irreducible oneness of everything, yet objects are simultaneously separate and self-integrative. While there may be no way to separate a tree from the sun, earth, seeds, and rain that make it possible for the tree to exist, those elements will persist even in the tree’s absence. This is the loving and beautiful paradox of being; that of simultaneous connection and self-integrity.

This is communion, caring, compassion, and joy. We care and love others for their own nature. We might also fear and avoid them for their own nature as well. Life is rarely so simple as the reductionism of Advaita and that’s the blessing.

Finally, I really really like Greg. I admire him as well. The purpose of this post is simply to arouse discussion. I raise questions not to propagate my own version of REALITY, but to explore and investigate. The ultimate question is, what is true? And it is to that question which this post is committed.
Download: GreatQuestion

Tags: doubt, exploration

What is the One?

The One is the Dao (Tao). It is the beingness of All. Because it is unfixed, it is not a thing that can be grasped or clearly defined. It is not an object. It is an isness.

Nor is it the subject of the universe. It is this moment. Thus suffering, confusion, and seeking to become “something - somebody” are each migrations from the One. They are the fractures that illuminate the uniquely human experience of lack - that for the “I/me” and only for the “I/me”, something is missing (lacking).

This is the thought that gives birth to the universe of suffering. It is separation from the perfect embrace of and by Isness. It is the expulsion from the Garden - the wandering in dark and murky places. It is to be lost in the thought of the deficient (lacking) “I”.

This is the theme of the first section of Verse 39 of the Dao De Jing. In this section Laotsi differentiates the balanced and harmonious universe of the One with its absence.Reading from the Addiss/Lombardo translation:

Of old, these attained the One:

Heaven attaining the One
Became clear.
Earth attaining the One
Became stable.
Spirits attaining the One
Became sacred.
Valleys attaining the One
Became bountiful.
Myriad beings attaining the One
Became fertile
Lords and kings attaining the One
Purified the world.

This is the life of selflessness and that life is just a breath away. The barrier that separates us from that life is a single belief - albeit a deeply embedded and complex cluster of thoughts that revolve around the dark sun of the Wound; the core thought that projects a deficient me. This is the me that must always lack something - this is the me that seeks to be someone else, but most importantly, it is the belief that we actually are the image we have of ourselves. It really doesn’t matter whether that image is positive or negative (or anywhere in between) - it is just a thought - and its a thought about a thought. On examination it is seen to be thoroughly unreal.

In the second part of the Verse, Laotsi describes the universe (again hierarchically) with the turning away from the One. Because it is simply not possible for any entity in the universe to turn away from the One, the substance of this stanza is rather dubious. On account of this flaw, I find Verse 39 fails to sustain the generally very high standards of the Dao De Jing. For this same reason I believe that it is possibly not from the original document. Nonetheless, here is this stanza and you are always free to judge for yourself.

If Heaven were not clear
It might split.
If Earth were not stable,
It might erupt.
If spirits were not sacred
They might fade.
If Valleys were not bountiful
They might wither.
If myriad beings were not fertile,
They might perish.
If rulers and lords were not noble,
They might stumble.

Everything about this stanza suggests a standard well below what we see in nearly all of the Dao. Why the use of the uncertain “might”? Given what we already intuit about the Dao, how could a universe exist that lacks it? The Dao must be, for there is no being without it. One scholar suggests that the purpose of this stanza shows that the Dao must exist, since existence would be not possible in its absence.

How consistently the Dao De Jing eschews human affectation, agenda making, pretense, ritual, and self-fulness. Laotsi was responding to the refined and superior clerics of the confucianism were quickly dominating political and philosophical thought in 5th century BCE China. Confucianism is built on an edifice of rules, rituals, set hierarchies, laws, rank, and scholasticism. What we discover in the next stanza is that this affectation, etc., is the creation of a universe that turns away from the actual living Dao, aka Confucianism.

Therefore,
Noble has humble as its root,
High has low as its foundation.
Rulers and lords call themselves
Poor lonely orphans.
Isn’t this using humility as a root?

They use many carriages
But have no carriage;
They do not desire to glisten like jade
But drop, drop like a stone.

It was a custom in ancient China for rulers to self-describe themselves as lowly and pathetic, as “poor lonely orphans”. This line is similar to the description of Dao as water that seeks the lowest places (Verse 8). For it is the expansion of the self that diminishes the Dao. Thus oneness with it is a consequence of fully seeing through the illusion of the self. And, we understand that that illusion must always be tied to the continuum marked on one end by abject failure and on the other by immense success. This is the tight rope of the always seeking and restless self, whether the self-becoming journey is a spiritual or material one.

In contrast the writer of the Dao (the legendary Master Lao), had broken through the shackles of the mind. He saw through the illusion. When that happens the previously flailing self folds into the Dao and there is only Oneness.
Download: Verse39

Tags: Culture

I have often thought of myself as disorganized. I easily lose things and often I lose important things. Does that mean that I am a disorganized person?

From the perspective of non-duality I am actually that which sees the incidents of disorganization and the self-irritation that inevitably develops as a by-product of this trait. Disorganization and the ensuing irritation are objects seen by the universal subject; our true identity.

Let’s pose the question, is this true? Let’s take a close look at what happens.

So I think this is who I am. I’m disorganized and when I’m disorganized I get annoyed.

Now let’s take an alternative view based on the direct experience of non-duality.


This illustration would better if I could show the “disorganization” experience within the seeing self, as well as the resulting self-irritation, but I could not do it with this software, but from the experience of non-duality this is the way it would, ideally, be shown. Disorganization and irritation occur within the underlying true self.

From the perspective of non-duality the seeing self is that which never changes and the perceived world consists of passing images seen by the true self. Further, it is said that this true self is never born and cannot die. There are schools with Buddhism that call this the Unborn Self - the Buddha Mind.

Is this an accurate representation of experience?

Without an experiencer our first illustration could never be perceived. If there is no one to see, then who could ever say that they are disorganized and that the body/mind experiences irritation? Thus our first representation does not reflect reality as we experience it. It’s just a set of “things” existing in a vacuum.

So what then is the difference between the so-called awakened entity and the unawakened person?

Before moving on to that question, let’s make sure that this “seeing” subject is really the same subject described in the writings of non-duality. We will discover that it isn’t the same thing and herein lies the great difference.

This seeing subject notes the incidents of disorganization and the ensuing irritation. “It” might find them interesting or dull and it may wish that this body/mind were different from what it apparently is. But there is another quality we can note about this seemingly subjective being and that is this: it’s not a subject at all! It is really another object. And believing that this is the mysterious non-dual subject of experience is the error that many seekers make. The disorganization, the irritation, and the observer are each objects. Now we seem to be getting somewhere.

In deep sleep there are no observed objects. There is only nothing. It is this nothingness that provides us with a place to hang our non-dual hats. The “nothingness” that characterizes deep sleep is exactly the same nothingness that is present and must be present in wakefulness. It cannot be seen, touched, heard, or grasped. It is, literally, nothing ... or is it?

It cannot be knowing, because any knowing, without exception, is, itself, an object, something that can be seen and because it can be seen, it must be an object to something. Moreover, knowing is changeable and therefore cannot be confused with the changeless.

The presumption in non-duality is that this nothingness must exist for anything to be seen. Is this true?

Confusion is likely to arise between the assertion of the unseen nothingness with that which we have identified as the observer or witness. Where this observing consciousness ends and the underlying nothingness begins is (for lack of a better word) subtle indeed. But anything that can be perceived cannot be the underlying eternal subject - consciousness itself. Thus any response, any knowing is an object of this consciousness. In fact, from the perspective of non-duality, every perceived thought, feeling, emotion, and material object is a kind of condensation of the underlying nothingness. It is the nothingness in fleetingly material form. Nothingness condenses to form thoughts, sensations, emotions, and material objects but, in fact, no such object can exist because it has no enduring aspect. Rather, the nothingness that fills everything with its being is always in flux. It is the ever-changing Tao. Thoughts, feelings, material objects are all like sparks of consciousness.

Thus nothing in the universe can be claimed as “mine” or “me”. The disorganized person, the irritation, and the observing seeming “self” (or witness) are each just expressions of nothingness with no enduring reality of any kind.

We can also discover that when we reject some classes of perceived experience in preference to others, that suffering must ensue. This can only happen when we attach ourselves only to a particular class of experience, which we label as mine - myself. When it is seen that there is no material or psychological self of any enduring or valid kind, then we are free to love everything exactly as it is, even if it’s a tick sucking blood or a cancerous tumor destroying the life of this body. Both are just the flow of consciousness exactly as it must be.

But there is more to this than just doctrinaire non-duality. There is a ‘gradient’ of perception that differs between bodies. What is closest to me, thoughts, feelings, and material objects will be central to the ongoing nature of my direct experience. Thus my body/nothingness is unique to this perceived now. It is different from how it manifests from every other perspective. This becomes the play of consciousness as it creates and destroys this passage as life. This nothingness appears to be the universe itself. Nothingness is always the same, but the play of objects that appear on “my” screen are different from those on your screen.

This is where my understand of non-duality differs from mainstream non-duality. From the perspective expressed in this post, there is more to THIS than just nothingness. Mainstream non-duality asserts that because the nothingness endures it is dominant. I don’t agree. I would assert that this position is hierarchical and false. The Buddha describes the play of consciousness as that which is mutually arising - a kind of dynamic polarity that embraces both the perceived and the underlying “mysteriousness”. I would assert that this description is much closer to the truth of actual experience. It is a dance of that which is perceived along with the ground of being (nothingness) that provides the space for everything to be exactly as it is. This play - this universe exists within everything that is sentient. There are a zillions of concurrent universes.

Let’s go back to our ordinary life again and test some elements of this description. I enter my bedroom. It’s the same old bedroom I stepped in earlier today and yesterday and every other time. I know the bed is here and the window is there. But is set of statements real?

If we examine this event one thing becomes obvious. That that voice that says that it “knows” the bedroom from frequent repeated experiences is really just the domain of thought responding to something that is, in fact, entirely new. And this is exactly what happens in the unawakened mind. We live through our thoughts and leave no space for what is not covered by the often deadening blanket of thought. Thought is a barrier between the real and itself. Because thought thinks it knows what it has seemingly experienced a million times, this veil of knowing blocks the vitality of that which is new and mutually arising. Both the ground of being and fleeting reality of the experience are cancelled by thought itself. The nothingness that allows for the potent immediacy of dynamic existence is forced down by the aggressiveness of thought.

We don’t often think of thought as aggressive. But it is. It is very aggressive. Thought has already decided what and how this experience is and our vulnerability to the newness and aliveness of this now fails to materialize for us. Because our culture and socialization so greatly values thought, (we live in an extremely aggressive world) we have evolved to give ourselves over to its domain all but entirely. Thought becomes the unquestioned dictator of our world and we sacrifice everything (EVERYTHING) to it. Thought is God and God is thought.

Once this is seen - that we are living exclusively through our thoughts and that we live to serve our thoughts, then something new is provided the opportunity to emerge. This is all that is needed. The universe of thought is real only to itself. It is always a secondary existence to the immediacy of this now. Try it out for yourself. Is this theory and just noise or does this describe the immediate aliveness of this life?

Tags: identity, thought, reality

Reading the many verses of the Dao De Jing, it becomes increasingly clear that the deepest message of this remarkable document is one of abiding trust. All things are forged and nurtured by the Dao. The sage sees and experiences all things as right within the greater context of their appearance (see the last stanza commentary). The Dao is both creator and destroyer and to resist it marks the absence of trust. But even that is of the Dao, for we likely need to live a life of distrust if we are ever to discover the deeper trust that is expressed as accord with all that is - and how it is.

The instruction of deep trust is expressed in Verse 28 in several ways. Using the translation of David Hinton, it is to nurture the feminine, it is to return to infancy, the time of not knowing, it is to cultivate the black (to be a ground for the light), and it is to be the uncarved wood, available to be anything. This is the language of creation, of boundless flexibility, of seeing everything just as it presents itself, and it is to flow with change, like the shadow of change itself.

Verse 28 is organized in a series of pairs. Each pair espouses a positionality with respect to experience and being. The first stanza presents the qualities of gender, flow, and not-knowing.

Knowing the masculine
and nurturing the feminine
you become the river of all beneath heaven.
River of all beneath heaven
you abide by perennial integrity (Te/De)
and so return to infancy.

Thus regarding the inner quality of gender, we are asked to “know” the masculine - the ying of existence - objects, states, thoughts, feelings, but be the yin of being - that which is feminine - that creates, nurtures, accepts, provides a space for all to be as it is. In this way we become the river of all beneath heaven. The infant does not reject for reason. He IS. His experience reflects the immediate qualities of his experience. This is what it means to live by the Dao. It is a life of unceasing balance, even in times of turbulence and chaos.

Knowing the white
and nurturing the black
you become the pattern of all beneath heaven.
Pattern of all beneath heaven
you abide by perennial Integrity (Te/De)
and so return to the boundless.

The Dao is the dark vision, for it is only the contrast between dark and light that things can be seen and experienced. Unless we live as the dark vision, our ability to clearly see will be clouded by identification with belief and conditions that we have taken to be ourselves. This is living a life that is conditional and false. As the dark vision we can reflect the perfect patterns of all beneath heaven. As the dark vision, we are the boundlessness of the Dao itself.

Knowing splendor
and nurturing ruin
you become the valley of all beneath heaven.
Valley of all beneath heaven
you rest content in perennial Integrity
and so return to the simplicity of uncarved wood.

Knowing splendor is see life just as it is. Nurturing ruin is allowing each moment to die to allow for the birth of the next moment. Ruin, decay, extinction, are all part of the cycle of change as the universe ceaselessly re-invents itself. As the cradle for this ever-changing world, we are the valley of “all beneath heaven”. We have no affectation, no preference, we possess no “higher” reasoning, we are like uncarved wood.

When uncarved wood is split apart
it becomes mere implements.
But when a sage is employed
he becomes a true minister,
for the great governing blade carves nothing.

When we carve up the field of experience, the purpose of the carving is to produce “use” or value. We take from the field for a purposes that come and go and thus such actions are likened to “mere implements”. If we are to identify ourselves as beings organized around use and purpose, then we have cut ourselves off from the boundless field of the Dao. This is why it is said that the sage carves nothing. He is not hypnotized by the language of use or practicality. He may use a bowl or anything else, but he doesn’t derive any identity from the process of purpose or meaning.

He is open to just This!

Tags: trust, Being

Verse 27 of the Dao De Jing focuses on actions that leave no trace - unseen - unnoticed - seamless. That is the theme of its first stanza. But the second stanza takes us in a very different direction. These stanzas appear so unrelated that I am simply unable to discover a common element that unites this Verse. As has been noted elsewhere in this series, the original Dao De Jing had no chapter divisions. It is possible that this division is arbitrary.

The theme of leaving no trace is linked to the philosophy of wu wei - no action, yet nothing is left undone. This is the Way itself. Looking out onto the world itself, the natural world, unaffected by the actions of human beings, there is no doer, yet nothing is left undone. For much of the Dao, this perfect, but ever-changing natural world is the model on which the Dao De Jing is constructed.

The first stanza again describes one’s passage through life as a traveller. Addis and Lombardo translates Verse 27 as:

Good travellers leave no tracks.
Good words leave no trace.
Good counting needs no markers.

Good doors have no bolts
Yet cannot be forced.
Good knots have no rope
But cannot be untied.

Thus the door to the Way (Tao/Dao) is never locked. Nothing is truly tied but everything is changed when it is cut into its parts (untying the knot), for the sum of an object will always transcend its division into its parts. Everything, as it is, is the perfection of this moment. Nothing needs to be forced, nothing calls for itself to be untied. No enduring distinction is made.

Verse 27 continues:

In this way the Sage
Always helps people
And rejects none,
Always helps all beings,
And rejects none.
This is called practicing brightness.

The first part of the first stanza established the underlying philosophy and the second part of the first stanza describes the action that naturally follows.

The second stanza seems to contradict the first, for in this stanza a distinction is made, between the “good” person and the “bad” person. But, if we look just a little harder, we can see that there is a fundamental equality presented here as well. Let’s take a look at this stanza.

Therefore the good person
Is the bad person’s teacher,
And the bad person
Is the good person’s resource.

Not to value the teacher,
Not to love the resource,
Causes great confusion even for the intelligent.

The “good person”, through her understanding of the Dao is well positioned to be the teacher of the person who is open to hearing about the Dao. Thus, without the “bad person”, we could not have the self-reflected existence of the “good person”. They are complimentary entities that form a single harmonious energy. Teacher and resource become one in the living transaction of the moment. The teacher learns from the “bad person”, who is thus the resource for the good, and the “good person” becomes the essential resource for the “bad person”. Seeing how these seemingly opposing qualities create each other requires clear intelligence. This is the challenge of this Verse.

And the stanza concludes:

This is called the vital secret.

Once we truly see how the good learns from the bad and the bad learns from the good and this is truly a single illuminating cycling energy, we are liberated from attaching ourselves to any side of the false polarity. We are free to “help all people and reject none.”

Tags: wu-wei, union of opposites

If all that remained of the Dao De Jing were Verse 26, it would still be an extraordinary document. The theme of this Verse is being true to our authentic self.

But what is the authentic self?

It is that which is integral to our being. It is that which is our essential self devoid of cultural and social influences. It is who we are prior to our primal invalidation (see Liberation from the Lie: Cutting the Roots of Fear Once and for All).
It is the perfect stillness that exists beneath and around the noise of desire, fear, and hope. It is the perfect clarity of presence that is prior to any reflection of its integral existence.

Verse 26 consists of two discrete, but connected sections. In the first, the authentic self is defined. We are presented with a model that we can explore in our own direct experience. The second section develops this essential self in reference to the challenge of living one’s life, as well as being a leader. And it is in this section that we see the profound depth of the Dao.

The author of this Verse expresses it this way through the translation of Jonathan Star (my punctuation added):

The inner is foundation to the outer
The still is master of the restless

The Sage travels all day,
yet never leaves his inner treasure.
Though the views are captivating and beg attention,
he remains calm and uninvolved.
Tell me, does the lord of a great empire
go out begging for rice?

Wolfgang Kopp, in his brilliant book (out of circulation unfortunately), Zen Beyond All Words, instructs us to be in the world but not of it - to hold fast to the inner being of presence and untarnished wisdom. He says,

The transitory nature of all existence can suddenly and unexpectedly shatter all your speculations. That’s why I advise you: It’s best not to cultivate any intentions. Anything you’ve ever begun is an activity with some objective, yet in the face of death it has no value whatsoever.
But don’t mistake my words to mean that you should refrain from undertaking any further activities, that it’s better to withdraw and live a solitary life far away from the hustle and bustle of the world. Many people seriously believe that such behavior is the guarantee for a spiritual life, but they are gravely mistaken. The important thing is that you learn to do the things that must be done, without letting things have control over you. You must learn how to handle things possess things, without letting things possess you; you must act, but be inwardly free of your action. This is true living by Zen.

The “inner” is that which is still and tranquil no matter how busy and tempestuous the outside world presents itself. It can be likened to an ocean where the universe of highs and lows, desires and fears, hot and cold, health and sickness, ease and hardship are the waves that break at the surface, but the depths are unaffected by anything, no matter how powerful the surface may appear to the conditioned mind.

The travels of the sage are a metaphor of the active world of the mind. This is the way life must be. Were to reject or struggle to repress the actions of the mind, we would be opposing the very nature of the Dao. The Dao accords with nature and the mind is another manifestation/happening of the natural world in this life. Thus no matter how captivating the delights, no matter how tempting its invitation, the Sage remains “calm and uninvolved”.

But this inner self is more than just calm tranquility. It is the “lord of a great empire” and that empire is life itself.

Thus the question remains, can Verse 26 shed light on how to be in this world of action and temptation? For this stanza, I will be using the translation of Addiss and Lombardo.

When a lord of ten thousand chariots
Behaves lightly in this world,
Lightness loses its root,
Passion loses its master.

These final four lines are striking. They don’t assume that our actions are simply the guarded and projected reflections of the still inner self. This Verse suggests that were we to replicate the inner being onto our outer life, we risk acting with insufficient vigor. David Hinton translates this couplet as:

How can a lord having ten thousand chariots
act lightly in governing all beneath heaven?
Act lightly and you lose your source-root.

Life may call on us to be bold, strong, and vigorous ... but within measure and it is this measure that is spoken of in the final line. Such strength can lead to passion, which “loses its master”. Or, as Hinton puts it:

Act recklessly and you lose your rule.

Like Verse 24, the Dao points to moderation - akin to the Buddha’s Middle Way.

Verse 26 is a powerful manual for life itself. First we realize the inner treasure that is tranquil, ever-present, and unchanging. We witness the tempest of life without leaving our authentic domain, but we remain free to express our vigorous energy in this life without it possessing us. A good reading that expresses this vigor is Walt Whitman’s I Sing the Body Electric. Whitman was someone deeply connected to his root, but wasn’t afraid to express his self in this life with earthy vigor and muscular strength. We are not called on to emulate Lao Tzu or Walt Whitman, but to find our own strength in this world - this life. “The inner is foundation to the outer.” Once truly centered in the inner, how we are in the outer arises naturally in this very moment.

Tags: Leadership, still point

Verse 25 throws us back to the dark world of the Dao itself. Three core themes are presented in this Verse and they are no longer unique to the Dao De Jing. They have been spoken of earlier in this text, but what makes Verse 25 unique is how these themes are combined to produce a singular vision. This post uses the Addiss/Lombardo translation.

The first stanza establishes the Dao as something whose form we can never know, yet it pervades everything we can see, touch, hear, feel, taste, and sense. This stanza also talks about the great ancientness of the Dao. It is older than even heaven and earth.

Something unformed and complete
Before heaven and earth
Solitary and silent,
Stands along and unchanging,
Pervading all things without limit.
It is like the mother of all under heaven,
But I don’t know its name -
Better call it Tao
Better call it great.

The Dao is alone, solitary, yet it is in all that is. And while it, itself, is unchanging, it is that which changes in all things.

The next stanza defines what it means to be great.

Great means passing on.
Passing on means going far.
Going far means returning.

Notice that the movement of the Dao is that of a circle. It throws itself everywhere, to the limits of the universe and, simultaneously, returns to its origin. This describes an arc so great that no human could possibly conceive of the vastness of its greatness. It is, truly, all.

But its greatness is not limited to just itself - its formless self. Its greatness pervades everything that possesses form, as it is expressed in the next stanza.

Therefore,
Tao is great,
And heaven,
And earth,
And humans.

Four great things in the world.
Aren’t human one of them?

The final stanza moves beyond just description. Here we see the living pathway that arises with the realization of the Dao. It says,

Humans follow earth
Earth follows heaven
Heaven follows Tao.

This is the reverse hierarchy of energy from the small (humans) to the infinitely vast. We, as humans, are counseled to follow the earth, for it is the earth that all depends. She becomes our teacher and companion. Her vision is our vision. We can trust that Earth will follow Heaven and Heaven will follow the Dao. This is the perfect order of the universe.

The final line returns us back to the unknowable mystery of existence.

Tao follows its own nature.

No one can know the Tao. It only knows itself and this can never be grasped or contained. Aligned with awareness, we can be fresh and open to change as it happens. That is wisdom.

Tags: Awareness, trust

In yesterday’s post, I talked about the implicit trust hunting and gathering people had in nature. Despite the fact that they faced starvation and travail everyday, they were not insecure or anxious. To the contrary, dozens of observers talk about their continuously gracious and generous spirit. The balance and harmony we see in these societies is based on their trust. It is deep and profound. Verse 23 of the Dao De Jing continues this discussion, but from a somewhat different angle.
Today I’m using the translation by David Hinton.
Verse 23 is in three discrete sections. The first, although linked to the second, can also stand alone. It says:

Keeping words spare: occurrence appearing of itself.

This speaks of the virtue of clarity and succinctness. In a more esoteric sense, this line also alludes to the brevity of any happening. Things are always happening and changing. They are here, but for only a moment and then time washes life clean with new happenings.  But the larger point is made clear in the next section.

Wild winds never last all morning
and fierce rains never last all day.
Who conjures such things if not heaven and earth,
and if heaven and earth can't make things last,
why should we humans try?

This stanza points to the error of struggling to make things last. The author of this stanza plainly says, if heaven and earth can’t do this, how could a mere human being? Yet isn’t that exactly what we do with good states of mind? We cling onto them. We try making life rules out of what we theorize made them possible. Most minds love rules and who of us doesn’t enjoy good feelings? But just like everything else, they pass and they often pass quickly. This is the nature of the Dao. Thus if we are to flow with the Dao as Dao, we must cling to nothing and just ride the wind of ceaseless change.
The third section of this Verse talks about how we are to ride the waves of Dao.

That's why masters devote themselves to Way (Tao/Dao).
To master Way is to become Way,
to master gain is to become gain,
to master loss is to become loss.
And whatever becomes Way, Way welcomes joyfully,
whatever becomes gain, gain welcomes joyfully,
whatever becomes loss, loss welcomes joyfully.

How beautiful are these words. How perfectly clear and spare they are. This is what it means to live by and as the Dao. When this is mastered we are truly the Dao itself. Notice how in the first half of the stanza references to Way, gain, and loss emphasize becoming those qualities (and, of course, Dao contains both gain and loss) and how the second half of the stanza emphasizes how Way, gain, and loss are in themselves joyful. The moment is integral to itself! This is true awakening. You will know it when it happens in your life - and it will happen when the energy invested in separation ends and we seamlessly merge into the Dao itself.
The coda of this Verse brings us back to the Dao De Jing as a manual for leaders. It says:

If you don't stand sincere by your words
how sincere can the people be?

The daoist leader needs to be a model for the people. We allow the Dao to flourish in our own lives and in the lives of the people when we absorb the profound words of this remarkable Verse. And also notice how it cannot be faked or falsely emulated. It must be sincere - otherwise it is just false and as something false, it is just the ego wearing the mask of the sage.
In this moment can you become a master of the Dao. That’s all it takes. Just this ... eternal ... moment. Abandon yourself and give it a try.

Tags: trust, nature

Before the current era, this time of civilization, people lived for about 150,000 years as hunter gatherers. They lived in-tune with nature. Anthropologists point out that these people had little to no capacity to store food. Consider such a precarious life for a moment. No food storage – so everyday they needed to find food to sustain life itself. Even in the harshest climates on Earth – the Arctic, rainforests and deserts, they had to trust nature to take care of them. This was a life of complete trust that nature would provide.

The line dividing the hunter/gatherer and civilization occurs when people developed large scale agriculture. They were now able to create permanent towns. As large-scale agriculture arose, so did distrust of nature. This is the historical/cultural disconnect with nature.

Now that nature could no longer be trusted to provide for human needs, a new class of professional priests arose to placate the gods that control nature. This is the era when religion arose – as well as the gods, for it was the gods that needed to be appeased (sometimes with human blood) to bring the rain and the sun to nurture the farms that sustained life. As people abandoned the nomadic life, they migrated, ironically, to lives characterized by persistent anxiety. This is one of the hallmarks of life as a civilized human being.

Also Ironically, it was the hunter/gather that lived in the shadow of starvation and death each day that lived in the flow of security, gratefulness, balance, and contentment – while it was in the place of plenty where human beings live with persistent insecurity and anxiety.

The Dao De Jing is a return – a return to that time of trust with the world. It is a call to the oneness of human beings with the universe. It is the separate and isolated human being (another irony that we live among millions of our fellows, yet are so utterly alone!) that bears the weight of this terrible burden that comes with the dazzling accomplishments of this Age of Anxiety.

Return is one of the core themes of the Dao De Jing and it is key to understanding Verse 22. Addiss and Lombardo translate the first stanza this way:

Crippled becomes whole,
Crooked becomes straight,
Hollow becomes full,
Worn becomes new,
Little becomes more,
Much becomes delusion.

Nothing stays as it is. In the world of appearance, everything is changing. Everything returns – returns to the Dao. Even the great oceans start as narrow brooks and the vast Pacific will, one day, disappear as the floating continents join together again. It is the dance of movement that animates everything in the universe.

The middle section of Verse 22 take the reader back to the issue of what all of this means with respect to leadership.

Therefore Sages cling to the one
And take care of this world;
Do not display themselves
And therefore shine;
Do not assert themselves
And therefore stand out;
Do not praise themselves
And therefore succeed;
Are not complacent
And therefore endure;
Do not control
And therefore no one under heaven
Can contend with them.


Notice how extraordinarily different this description of leadership is? The daoist leader allows everything to be as it is in its passage of return, but with one decisive proviso, the people themselves must also have returned to a place where the identification with lack, the key driving quality of civilization, is a thing of the past.

Hunting and gathering cultures were, essentially, leaderless. Leadership, when it did occur was temporary and fluid. It was contextual. The leader emerged only under those conditions where the skills of someone would fill immediate needs. But under normal conditions, leadership just wasn’t necessary. Actions happen. Life is sustained – all within a relatively stable balance.

The daoist leader trusts all under heaven. As an expression of the Dao itself, all is allowed to happen as it will. He knows the hollow becomes full and the full becomes hollow, the worn becomes new and the new becomes the worn. He lives in the cycles of this world as the cycles of this world. But also notice that the daoist leader does not “become complacent”. He is ever alert to the changing quality of his world – alive to it. He does not stagnate in a form disconnected from the “isness” of being.

Verse 22 concludes:

The old saying
Crippled becomes whole
Is not empty words.
It becomes whole and returns.


As the Dao seems to flow onwards, it also flows in return. thus the crippled does become whole. Where the mind can only fixate on this and that, the Dao embraces change and the whole cycle of birth, death, and re-birth. It always returns to itself and this very moment is its perfect and enduring expression.

One final note – in this age of high technology, no one should read this post as a call to emulate a projected hunter-gatherer. On the other hand, we are capable of returning to a world of implicit trust in THIS, that the world can sustain itself without interference from human cunning wedded with lack. How this will come to pass in the post-industrial age, I do not know.

I also don’t want to give the impression that hunter/gatherers lived in a perfect utopian universe. I suspect such notions would be very foreign to them. They only make awkward sense to those people living outside the “garden” of this world. They suggest an unnatural aspiration to this distant world. That is not the theme of this post. Returning to the Dao means to see through the illusion of lack – insufficiency – inadequacy, which haunt us and produce the living ghosts of want and need. All these self-ideations are just thoughts revolving around an underlying Wound, which they are adapted to protect. This is the false life described by Tolle as the “pain-body” and by myself in my book Liberation from the Lie.

Tags: wu-wei, nonaction

I wanted to say something more about knowledge and understanding. We’ve seen how the Dao De Jing argues for their banishment of both knowledge and learning. We’ve also seen that this position is oppositional to that espoused by the confucians at the time when the Dao De Jing was written.

Thus the question remains, are we to banish knowledge and learning if we are to live by the Dao?

The answer is no, because the knowledge identified in the text as deserving of banishment is that which is designed to stop thinking; or to tell us how and what to think.

To the contrary, the whole spirit of the Dao De Jing is one of throwing one’s self into the flow of this life. We learn, primarily, through direct observation. We see how things work. We understand this world through seeing and seeing with open eyes, unsullied by the words of others. We are fresh to this moment.

But much of the world we cannot see directly. We cannot see into the past, but we can study the past with the same open mind that has the same qualities of openness and freshness that we use to see the sun rise each morning. We can evaluate the complex equations of Einstein by using the methods of mathematics. We can explore the issues of crime and poverty using that self-same vision that enlightens all that it touches. We can create our own works of inner vision, whether it be to write a novel or play a part on stage. The openness of our hearts and minds pave the way.

Just like we cannot fully understand the Dao De Jing without understanding the cultural and historical context in the time that it was written, we also cannot understand our world without understanding our own history, as well as the evolution and ecology of our natural world. In this way, learning is the same as exploring. We are free to dig deep, question everything that doesn’t sound quite right to our open hearts, and do the work of understanding in this present moment.

That is the Way. That is the Dao.

Tags: Learning, knowledge, investigation

The Dao De Jing is remarkably appropriate for these times of economic decline and the impending collapse of the world of cheap energy (carbon-based energy). This is a time when the Dao demands that we return to a simpler and communitarian way of life. The Age of the vast shopping malls, of the “Sunday drive”, of the towering skyscraper is coming to an end.
Verse 19 continues the themes of Verses 17 and 18 where learning and accomplishment based on conditions designed to impress others are decried as not the way of the Dao. The Dao De Jing needs to be seen as a call back to one’s natural self. It is a vigorous attack on a complex and cosmopolitan world esteemed by the confucians of ancient China. It is a call to return to living in balance with the earth. Were Lao Tsu return to this world, I doubt he would find much of interest on a university campus or wandering the streets of Paris or New York. Rather he would love wandering along a country stream, uncontaminated by the complex chemicals of industry. His spirit would soar in the high Rockies and their pristine air. He would love to just hang out with simple farmers in Nepal or Iran. I suspect he might admire this Mac Powerbook, but would greatly prefer his ink brush and rice paper.
In the translation of Verse 19 we will return to my favorite translator (and hopefully Lao Tsu would approve of their work); Addiss and Lombardo.
Banish learning, discard knowledge: People will gain a hundredfold.
Banish benevolence, discard righteousness: People will return to duty and compassion.
Banish skill, discard profit: There will be no more thieves.
When the text refers to learning and knowledge, the focus is on how the confucian philosophers of ancient China used and understood these terms. Confucians esteemed erudition, order, and refinement. These are all qualities that are spurned in the Dao De Jing. Instead, the Dao favors naturalness. Because the Dao is perfectly complete, exactly as it presents itself, it does not need anything added to it. People are perfectly suited to their essential tasks without advanced learning. The erudition and refinement so admired by the confucians were seen as separative and divisive by the daoists.
The same argument applies to benevolence, righteousness, skill, and profit. Here again, the terms benevolence and righteous are criticized for their public affectation. They are ego drives and not natural to the centered and balanced human being. When the hollow falseness of these ego drives are clearly seen, people will naturally return to duty (what needs to get done) and compassion, for both duty and compassion are already constituent qualities of the Dao. They do not need synthetic cultivation for the sake of appearance.
Verse 19 concludes:
These three statements are not enough. One more step is necessary:
Look at plain silk: hold uncarved wood. The self dwindles; desire fades.
We are asked to return to the perfect and direct simplicity of nature untarnished by the trivial affectations of falsely cultivated human beings. True or authentic cultivation is that which arises from the primal context of the Dao. This is identified as “plain silk” and “uncarved wood”. Where the confucian world raised human culture above the raw vigor of nature untrammeled by human intervention, daoist philosophy places primal nature above that of all human cultural achievement and affectation. The self that “dwindles” in taoist philosophy is, precisely, the cultivated and affected self that sees its smallness in the context of vast nature that holds everything in its loving and trustworthy embrace.

Tags: Affection, Learning, Leadership, trust

Verse 18 of the Dao De Jing follows on the heels of Verse 17. Its focus is also one of leadership and just like 17, Verse 18 presents an array of social conditions that must arise when the “Great Tao” is rejected. In my own view, the first two lines are the most important to understand if we are to get to the key of this Verse. The whole of Verse 18 as translated by Addiss and Lombardo.

Great Tao rejected:
Benevolence and righteousness appear.

Learning and knowledge professed:
Great hypocrites spring up.

Family relations forgotten:
Filial piety and affection arise.

The nation disordered:
Patriots come forth.

Verse 18 deals with affectation or falseness. When the Great Tao is rejected, the false is celebrated as the good. One way of understanding affectation in this context is the concept of the personal and group agenda. An agenda is the synthetic imposition of a purpose that must be self or group serving. Note that the essential nature of the Dao is selflessness.

Thus when the Great Tao is rejected benevolence and righteousness appear. Instead of simple and direct naturalness, I will put on a mask of kindness to gain your affections and respect. I will use this mask to cover my own confusion and anger. I will put on the mask of learning and knowledge so that people will admire my brilliance, for inwardly I feel that I am insufficient. I will honor my father and mother because I know that will impress others and make me appear to be the good daughter and son in the eyes of others and thus lift me from my own inner-self-contempt. I will embrace my flag with love and vigor for that will make me look strong in the eyes of my countrymen.

Verse 18 describes the false life. How often we are taken in by false benevolence, intellectual affectation, fake family affections, and banal patriotism. Often all of these qualities form in a single individual. Recent and contemporary examples might include George Bush and Sarah Palin. But they must arise anytime we organize our lives and our personalities around a need to refute an inner pain that relates to a belief in our inadequacy, insufficiency, worthlessness, or unlovability. We become in mired in the dialectic of fake affectation on one side, and self-contempt on the other. A desperate and ever-needy life between these two polarities (that are really one fundamental quality) is the life that most of lead.

The energy that feeds and nurtures the false life is fear. We fear what we believe is true! Thus, when we believe we are inadequate, we take to be a fundamental truth. But because this belief is so painful, we are forced to cover it up. We cover it up by develop each of the false personalities (and many more) described in this Verse. We spend our lives showing others and ourselves as worthy we are, how beautiful we are, how smart we are, how caring we are. This becomes our agenda. We do this to avoid the pain and suffering that we know will ensue if we fall back into the dreadful underlying belief that fuels the whole fake process. We do all of this development in our earliest years when we are most vulnerable and malleable.

But life will always provide us with a lifeline out and the Dao De Jing is one such life line.

It doesn’t need to be this way. The Dao De Jing shows us the way out (as does my own book Liberation from the Lie and Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of the Now and A New Earth - among others). Our liberation is just seeing the whole dialectic, the whole process and in seeing it, knowing that it is our not our true and enduring nature. We need to see this dialectic as a rejection of the Great Dao by falsely separating ourselves from the immediate and direct flow of experience; our true, but ungraspable, nature. Once seen, there is really no where to go, for the energy of self-improvement is just a seemingly elevated path back to the false dialectic. We simply STOP and in stopping we allow ourselves to be with what is - what is true in our direct experience. Thus there is no “getting” to the Dao, there is just movement away from it. The Dao is what is prior to any self-directed or self-serving movement.

Tags: Leadership, Fear

Verse 17 of the Dao De Jing is one of many that addresses issues of leadership. As has been previously said in this commentary, most scholars assert that the Dao De Jing was compiled as a leadership manual, but with the knowledge that it also represents a pathway to the fully awakened life.

This Verse describes four kinds of leader. These leadership types are described as (Addiss and Lombardo translation):

Great rising and falling -
People only know it exists.
Next they see and praise.
Soon they fear.
Finally they despise.

In this translation, the four types are described as a continuous trend from that aligned with the Dao to that which is despised.

She who is of the Dao is known but unseen. She is unseen because she is selfless. We need to understand the primal emptiness of selflessness if we are to understand the rest of this Verse. But it is also important to note that as the leader migrates away from the Dao (as her separate self becomes apparent) she moves from being praiseworthy, to being feared, and finally being despised.

The Verse continues:

Without fundamental trust
There is no trust at all.

Because the Dao can only be experienced directly as the very “isness” of dynamic existence, it can be trust fully. Embodiment within the Dao is being as this very moment, this very world. The leader embodied in the Dao does not stand out. She is unseen and works with what is here and there and now. Fundamental trust is full embodiment with the Dao, with the perfect and vivid truth of this moment. If the house is on fire we bring water to quell the flames. We don’t pretend that the fire is not happening. Living as the Dao, we live is in alignment with what is happening and with our capacity as a human being.

Thus the Dao continues:

Be careful in valuing words.

For it is with words that we can contort or reject the truth so that it best supports our agenda -serving beliefs. This is why direct experience is best, but in its absence, trusting others who have proven their impartiality, their freedom from any self-serving belief is the best we can do to navigate this world.

The Verse concludes:

When the work is done.
Everyone says
We just acted naturally.

This is selfless leadership. The people rejoice in the work that they have done themselves. Things get done, but there is no leader there to claim having done them. This is the harmony and balance of authentic equality. This is not something that can be faked by the falsely modest. The fakery of the falsely modest leader can be seen. He is not really with the people. He stands apart in his ultimate need to be seen separate and better (he may be praiseworthy, but he is not fully aligned with the Dao). The leader who embodies the Dao need never be modest, for he knows that he has accomplished nothing. It is the Dao that does everything.

Tags: Leadership, trust

Throughout the Dao De Jing we see that the Dao is the whole and that this wholeness is reflected in every individual manifestation, no matter how seemingly small or brief it may be. Also, assertions, such as smallness or brevity are, themselves, simply a matter of perspective. They are relative to the nature of the observer. Thus what may appear small to a human being is vast from the perspective of an insect.

So why is it that we do not naturally fall into the flow of the Dao? This is a complex question and, in my own view, it required a book to answer (Liberation from the Lie), but the very ‘short’ answer is that we do not access the wholeness of existence and the reason why we don’t access this full dimension of living is that we maintain one decisive belief. This is the separation belief; that this I/me/mine is separate from everything else. Where the Dao is whole, this “I” is division.

When this gap is healed, when it is brought together, everything is the Dao and the experience of our life changes greatly. Prior to this seeing, this person, who I thought was my rival, my enemy is nothing of the sort. They are happenings within the flux of the Dao. This energy I claimed as distinctly my own, is also just another happening. But the whole remains inconceivably vast and mysterious. Ultimately, we are this vastness and mysteriousness, but it can never be grasped or contained. It just is and this “isness” is something that can be trusted - forever.

So the question becomes, how can “I” arouse this healing? Verse 16 answers this question. Today, let’s use the Jonathan Star translation for the first section. It is as clear and sparkling as a stream in the spring thaw.

Become totally empty
Quiet the restlessness of the mind
Only then will you witness everything
unfolding from emptiness
See all thing flourish and dance
in endless variation
And once again merge back into perfect emptiness--
Their true repose
Their true nature
Emerging, flourishing, dissolving back again
This is the eternal process of return.

Notice how everything is your perceived life, what you directly experience, comes briefly into being and then returns to the nothingness that is its enduring place of rest. This is the current of movement. This is life itself, whether it be a perceived object, a feeling, or an emotion. Everything conforms to this pattern. Even your own self-energy, arises and then just as mysteriously, returns to rest and repose - apparent nothingness.

The Addiss - Lombardo translation continues:

Understanding the ordinary:
Enlightenment.
Not understanding the ordinary:
Blindness creates evil.

When we fail to understand the ordinary, we are, in effect, rejecting what is directly true and real in our direct experience. When this happens, and let’s be honest, it happens much of the time, we resort to belief. Belief is not direct. It is an emotive energy that we impose aggressively onto life when we fall into the delusion of the separate self. Belief requires separation. Belief requires a “me” to claim it as ‘“my” belief. This is the way of organized religion and of our society, in general. It is the abandonment of the Dao itself. Evil is a mind that is closed to the evanescent truth of this moment.

Let us continue:

Understanding the ordinary:
Mind opens
Mind opening leads to compassion,
Compassion leads to nobility,
Nobility to heavenliness
Heavenliness to Tao.

Tao endures.
Your body dies.

There is no danger.

When the mind is open to the ever-present flow and immediacy of the Dao and the shackles of the separate “I” fall away in the light of this truth, everything is seen as our own body. Bodies come and go, after all, they are treated as “straw dogs” by the Dao, but his wholeness endures for an eternity. When we come to realize that we are this wholeness, this Dao, there is, never again, the unease, the danger projected by the separate “I”.

In this stanza the term “nobility and compassion” refer to two qualities. One, when the we see and understand ourselves as this very Dao, we care about everything in our world. Compassion arises in the face of suffering. We don’t need to think about how we “should” react to suffering. When the Dao is seen as ourselves, it the clarity of this life is all the guidance we will ever need. So we act. Action happens in the power and energy of compassion.

But these terms also refer to an understanding of the crisis of separation we all experience, for if we didn’t experience it, works such as the Dao De Jing would never have needed to have been written. Once realization happens we have our own personal experience of struggle and seeking with which we can use as a resource to understand the existential suffering of others. We understand how they will do anything to achieve the peace and contentment that we experience in this very instant. Even people like Hitler and Stalin were seeking this peace and contentment, but as a separate self, they lived in a world filled with grave dangers. Coupled with their force and their profound suffering, they were willing to do anything to achieve what they so desperately wanted for themselves. Thus evil naturally manifests in this temporal world.

Return to Verse 15 and reflect how you seek peace and contentment. Once we see this struggling, separate self, as a thought-based happening within a vast ocean of happenings, it begins to naturally fall away. We become the stream - the Dao, whether it be a powerful falls or a barely moving calm river. Everything arises - whoosh - and everything returns - hush.

Tags: silence

Verse 15 of the Dao De Jing is one of the few verses in this work that describe the nature of the person awakened in the Dao. The author of this Verse refers to these people being of times that are very ancient. Why this device is used is explained in the second stanza. In this discussion Addiss and Lombardo translate this particularly straightforward Verse this way:

The ancients who followed Tao:
Dark, wondrous, profound, penetrating,
Deep beyond knowing.

Because they cannot be known,
They can only be described.

If the author of this Verse were to use living people, she/he would bring the description a little too close to this immediate life. By using ancient models, she/he can use the broadest of strokes to make the essential points most powerfully. As you read each line, try to pause after every observation and imagine this woman/man of the Dao. See yourself as this person. Really absorb the image to your inner-most being.

Cautious,
Like crossing a winter stream.
Hesitant,
Like respecting one’s neighbors.
Polite,
Like a guest.
Yielding,
Like ice about to melt.
Blank,
Like uncarved wood.
Open,
Like a Valley.
Mixing freely,
Like muddy water.

Writers and people practiced in Buddhism (and Advaita) tend to ignore that last line. Instead, they often focus on the expression “uncarved wood”. They stop there, prior to the decisive point of “freely mixing”. You see, it’s easy to withdraw. It’s tempting to reside in samadhi. But

Life calls on us to act and not just now and then, but right now. Acting, moving, breathing, feeling, thinking, tasting, touching, seeing, hearing - all of this is life and life is so much more than the sum of its parts. That is why the author of this Verse prefers to just describe what cannot be known. Were she to claim to know, then he would no longer be “blank” or “open”. He lives in the blazing truth of her awareness. The flowing energy of life is that very light.

The next stanza of the Verse returns us to the realm of mediation and method. It says:

Calm the muddy water,
It becomes clear.
Move the inert,
It comes to life.

Again we see the juxtaposition of conditions in their paradoxical simultaneity. Inaction and action meet mysteriously in this flowing now.

But the key to the whole Verse is found in the final stanza. Addiss and Lombardo break the stanza into two discrete sections, but most translations present it as one. I will follow that model because I feel that both parts are complimentary.

Those who sustain Tao
Do not wish to be full.
Because they do not wish to be full
They can fade away
Without further effort.

The wish “to be full” is exactly what sustains life out of balance. When we feel compelled to be full - to be complete, we are like hunters prowling the world. We are the seeker always yearning to be more. This really is a hunt of the hungry person. We hunger for the truth and look here and there instead of simply opening our eyes now without the slightest desire for completion or fullness.

Try to feel that. Feel what it would be like not to desire any fullness or completion. Keep on doing that. Let everything settle. Act in the moment and sustain that being that does not seek any sense of completion or fullness.

It is the energy of seeking that undermines the immediate wonder of life. See that truth and absorb it into your own life. Once you are free of the search and live in this very here and now unfull and incomplete, then a whole new universe radiates everywhere and you are THAT.

Only then can you allow the natural motion of just fading away. Nothing is done and the selfless self stands unseen.

Tags: desire, ego

Verse 14 of the Dao De Jing returns us to the exploration of the Dao itself. The essential insight of this Verse is that the mind that seeks, the mind that searches with the purpose of grasping the Dao, that search and that seeking must end in failure. Understanding the Dao is not a matter of the mind or of thought, but of the subtle heart that senses the flow of energy in this very moment.

But when we are identified with the restless mind, the Dao must elude us.

Isn’t it true that we will do anything for the sensation of security? Doesn’t the mind always want something? Doesn’t the mind want things a certain way? Doesn’t the mind want to hold onto what it projects as true? Isn’t the whole self that which is ceaselessly wanting? Sure there are brief interludes of peace and contentment and even in these moments the mind tries to figure out how it can hold onto them. It wants to extend them indefinitely. It craves methods to achieve and sustain what it projects as comforting, as well as, sources of control and power.

This whole process describes the life of ceaseless confusion, uncertainty, and hope. So what do most people do? They sacrifice their integrity on the cross of certainty. “This I know!” It creates an alternative universe of half-baked truths that it has become so deeply habitual, that it is never questioned. These are the “truths” we pick from our parents, our religion, our schools, our government, our employers, our friends, and the media. When we absorb these “truths” we can pretend that we are secure, because we “know” what’s going on. Religion, with its ancient texts filled with the phony sanctity of olden times is a particularly insidious source of false security, bullying/violence, and division. If we must really know the truth, we must come to the realization that this is the life of a psychological slave. We become the willing slaves our of own psychological truths. Moreover, our thin veneer of security is shaken to its very foundations in the midst of any crisis that invades our shaky lives. Yet we rarely allow the truth in. Instead we return to our hackneyed beliefs like a kind of mindless robotic automaton. We hold on for dear life to a life raft designed to keep us sunk in the realm of made-up reality and second-hand life. How sad it is.

Verse 14 is designed to wake us up from this slumber. Life is to be lived, not known. Let’s dive right into its riddle-like nature using the translation of Addiss and Lombardo.

Searching but not seeing, we call it dim.
Listening but not hearing, we call it faint.
Groping but not touching, we call is subtle.

Why does the Dao express itself as dim instead of invisible? Why does it say, faint rather than mute?

While we can never see or hear the Dao, we can sense its vivid truth in the energetic quality of the living moment. We can sense the subtle energy of change in every moment, in every time, in every age. Thus, while it cannot be seen, it can be sensed. This is far more an effect of the heart, than of the thinking, ruminating brain.

These three cannot be fully grasped.
Therefore they become one.

In ancient Chinese cosmology the numbers one and three are both directed the mind to “the one”. The qualities, that are really one are seeing, hearing, and touching. The one is dim, faint, and subtle.

Rising it is not bright; setting it is not dark.
It moves all things back to where there is nothing.

Meeting it there is no front,
Following it there is no back.

Once again the assertion of its profoundly subtle nature is expressed poetically. It is nothing like the sun or like any conception of god we might (or might not) have. It is so much deeper than that. It is that which is shallow and deep and everywhere in between. It is both nothing and something simultaneously!

Live in the ancient Tao,
Master the existing present,
Understand the source of all things.
This is called the record of the Tao.

Both the source of all things and their immediate realization come together in this living moment; this Now. This is who we are; unseen, unheard, and ungraspable, yet there and manifest nonetheless! The instant we give up the searching and seeking and drop our desperately hopeful projection onto our own brain, in that very moment we are free. If you’re not experiencing this now, then you are being blocked by your psychological identification with the brain - the thinking mind. You and your life are not and never will be a thought. Consider - is your thought of a tree - the tree itself? Of course not.

Then give it your identification with thought and start living the Dao.Thoughts arise naturally in the flow of the Dao, but they are not who you are or anything else in the universe. So, what is a thought? I will tell you. A thought is a thought!

Tags: seeking

With Verse 13, we return to the mysterious realm of the self and the source of suffering, which, it also turns out, is the self.

If our commentary on the Dao De Jing used only Verse 13, it would be enough, for this Verse possesses words of the greatest majesty. Its message is joy and tranquility is there waiting for all of us. Let’s dive right in. As usual, my preferred translation is Addiss and Lombardo. They write:

Favor and disgrace are like fear.
Honor and distress are like the self.

What does this mean?

Notice how the self longs for favor, notice how the self pines for it, notice how the self depends on it to be happy. We virtually make it into a demand. I must have favor or I am lost. Isn’t this the way life is?

How wonderful and beautiful it is to receive honors. We could far more easily ignore the content of this Verse and just talk about the greatness of favor and honor. If my blog were dedicated to the easy joys of this life, I suspect I would have received more favor and honors in my own life. But it’s not so simple.

Consider the phrase, “nothing in this life is free”. This has been one of my favorite aphorisms for many, many years. And what does the Dao say. We continue:

Favor debases us.
Afraid when we get it.
Afraid when we lose it.

When we crave favor, we have sacrificed our being, we have sacrificed our truth, we have sacrificed our integrity. We are dependent on others. We also know that favor may be difficult to attain, but it’s very easy to lose and lose it we will. Thus the very thing we want is the very thing that undoes us. Softly killing us with its love.

Seeking and need favor is all about fear. The only reason we desire it is because we harbor a secret thought that we, as we really are, are insufficient, not enough, not okay. This whole quest of self-improvement is the very expression of unseen fear in our lives. See only this be free of it. Shout it from the rooftops. This life of seeking is just the positive-seeming manifestation of fear and self-contempt that is alive and well in each our all too human psyches.

We need validation because without it we are nothing. We will always remain this ever-needy suffering self. This is the pain and suffering embodied by the word lack. We lack the very thing we believe we need to make happiness enduring for us. So even when we achieve favor, we are afraid to lose it because once we lose it, we return to our normal status as a ... loser. How painful this life of ceaseless desire and seeking!

The Dao - Verse 13 continues:

The self embodies distress.
No self,
No distress.

The self, Verse 13 refers to is, of course, our psychological being, that self that identifies with lack - insufficiency - inadequacy - and, of course, being unworthy of love. These deep ideations are, for most of us, unseen most of the time. They rise to consciousness when life affirms their assumed validity - in other words, when adversity fills our life. Then all the thoughts about how stupid, useless, ugly, and unworthy we are arise in consciousness. Then the underlying suffering self comes into vivid awareness. Fear everywhere! Fear of failure, fear of loss, and the biggest fear of them all, fear of death. The self is, indeed, distress.

Verse 13 concludes:

Respect the world as your self:
The world can be your lodging.
Love the world as your self:
The world can be your trust.

A life of depth, a life of joy is there for all of us when we realize, through direct experience, that this self of pain is just a thought. It is the underlying thought of our own inadequacy and unworthiness of love for our intrinsic, integral being. This is it! If you would like to explore this further and see how to unearth what is false to the clear light of direct seeing, then I urge you to take a look at my book, Liberation from the Lie: Cutting the Roots of Fear Once and for All. The unseen inadequacy thought is so ancient and so buried, that to bring it to light requires great patience and the most courageous of explorations. It really takes guts. But to get off the merry-go-round of favor and honor makes the journey not only worth it, but essential if we are ever to live a life with the depth, love, and spontaneous joy that each one of us deserves.

For when we see through the veil of the false self, we discover that our authentic identity is a jewel on the vast web of connection, which is our world. This world is our place and our home. This world is the only thing we can always trust. It will always provide us with what we all need most. This is love expressed in the intimacy of our connections with all - with the air, the water, the plants, the animals, and, most of all the spirit that animates it all; the sacred and profane; the Dao that fills everything with its life, its vigor, its birth and its death.

Tags: trust, self, Fear

The authors of the Dao De Jing love simplicity. They lived in times that were tumultuous. Power-hungry war lords forcefully rounded up the young men to fight their battles for wealth and domination. The wealthy few showed off their possessions and expressed their passions in complicated ways. Violence, chaos, and uncertainty ruled the lives of many Chinese. This was a world that these authors strongly rejected and it is the theme of simplicity that dominates Verse 12.

Again I return to the Addiss and Lombardo translation, because I think it is the clearest and because based on these readings it seems to conform to the original Chinese the best. They translate Verse 12 as:

Five colors darken the eyes.
Five tones deaden the ears.
Five tastes jade the palate.
Hunting and racing madden the heart.
Exotic goods ensnarl human lives.

Therefore the Sage
Takes care of the belly, not the eye,
Chooses one, rejects the other.

The five colors, tones, and tastes attract the energy of rapacious desire in us. They take us away from the natural harmony of our intrinsic being. When we seek to emulate the lives of the powerful and wealthy we are compelled to reject the life of tranquil simplicity.

When we choose the life of the senses, we can only reject the simple essence of this seemingly unadorned moment. And it is exactly this which this Verse brings to light. When we are aligned to our natural body, which in the example of this verse is our belly and the hunger that naturally arises in life, we are attuned to the very motion of the Dao itself as it expresses itself through our bodies. The excesses of wealth and power are, perforce, destablizaing and conflict inducing. They are brief appearances of the Dao (as being), but they are fundamentally unstable and unsustainable. Because they must fail to endure, they are truly vapid arisings, as opposed to that which is deep and enduring; such as Heaven and Earth.

The life is the Dao says “this simple moment is enough”. Within it, lies the greatest of depth. We never need to reject this moment - this body - this life - for the excesses made possible by the unfortunate inequalities of human society. There is a majesty to this moment that no money can purchase, whether it be feeling the caress of the wind on our skin, the smiling eyes of our dog as she looks lovingly into our eyes, or even simple lunch of steamed dumplings.

I think I’m getting hungry.

Tags: Contentment, simple life

For me, Verse 11 of the Dao De Jing re-visits one of the most challenging and misunderstood qualities of Eastern spiritual philosophy. So much of neo-Advaita and certain schools of Buddhism negate the existence of objects. In such schools, perceived objects are seen as unreal, as merely representatives of thought or short-lived images arising within the unity of consciousness. From the perspective of western philosophy, this is called nihilism, but from the perspective of the Dao it is error.

In Verse One it is said, “Nameless: the origin of Heaven and Earth. Naming: the mother of ten thousand things.” This line brings attention to the union of the opposing qualities of non-being and being. Non-being without being is void and being without non-being is fiction. Their union is essential.

Verses One, Two, and Eleven address the union of non-being and being (among several others which we have yet to discuss). What makes this problematic or challenging to our understanding is that the mind fights this apparent truth. This is so because the mind can only think in term of opposites. The mind is an innately psychological entity that can know only being in terms of how it “feels” about the perceived object.

But if we are to understand the actual living Dao, we need to transcend this natural limitation of the mind. For when the mind defines the “good”, “evil” is created. When the mind defines what is “beautiful”, the “ugly” is created. From the perspective of the Dao, good, evil, beautiful, and ugly are just passing states of thought/being. They manifest as a projected truth by a mind that fails to see the unity of opposites. While the mind simply cannot contort its way around this truth, this is not a problem in the slightest for the ground of being that is always there but is unacknowledged by the mind. From from the perspective of the ground of being (the Dao) all such identities are seen as mind constructs that are intrinsically false and unreal.

Everything we touch - everything we feel - and everything we see - exists in the passing realm of being. But that which sees is the empty ground of being. The living Dao is the perfect and prosaic union of these qualities. This is the very theme of Verse 11. Today I will be using the translation by Addiss and Lombardo. Notice in this series of stanzas how being and non-being are joined as one.

Thirty spokes join one hub.
The wheel’s use comes from emptiness

Clay is fired to make a pot.
The pot’s use comes from emptiness.

Windows and doors are cut to make a room.
The room’s use comes from emptiness.

Therefore,
Having leads to profit.
Not having leads to use.

Noting the second stanza we can see that without emptiness, a pot cannot simply cannot exist (non-being). But it also cannot exist were it not for the clay structure (being). Clay and emptiness must unite as one for the pot’s use! Non-being and being must be united, it can be no other way. Being and non-being support each other. The same principle not only applies to stanzas 1 and 3, but also to all of life.

Notice how the mind tends to fixate on being (the perceived object) without even acknowledging space. Also notice now how the mind itself is, itself, being that would not exist were it not for the space in which its does its many functions. This is the intrinsic nature of everything in the universe. The universe itself is dependent on the ground of being that holds it in its thrall.

We can also notice that the space element is that which never changes and the being element which is in ceaseless change. Again the polarity and union of opposites! Our wheels, clay pots, and homes come and ago. Nothing, not our bodies, not our minds, and nothing we hold dear is permanent. It is in the evanescence of its transience that the preciousness of life arises. We can make reference to treatment of everything as straw dogs in Verse Five. Ahhhhhh, the burbling brook, that soaring heart, that child’s smile, that violin sonata of Bach, my memory of my late father - all the passing life of being on the screen of nonbeing.

When we attach ourselves to the thought of nonbeing we risk negating the world of objects and when we attach ourselves to the world of being we make ourselves vulnerable to the constant pain of loss, for we tend to cling to what we know, what already is. Life always gives and gives and gives. When this is seen through awareness, we are free of any need to cling to anything. We can love all of being (or not love - if the resistance works for you) from the perspective of nonbeing.

When we trust the Dao, then and only then can we truly love and give ourselves utterly to this moment. When this happens we engage in the union of being and nonbeing and reap the joy that is always there.

Tags: Being, self

Verse 10 of the Dao De Jing is that of meditation. But its 22 lines take the reader beyond just meditation. They take us to the realm where meditation and everyday life come together. The Dao is always practical. If it were not practical, it would not be the Dao. And it is exactly this quality which makes the Dao De Jing so remarkable in the canon of spiritual literature.

This verse is divided into two sections (we recall that the original Dao De Jing was not divided into chapters or verses - this is a relatively modern approach to providing structure to this document). The first stanza is a description of the process with which we go inwards. Notice that this Verse consists, until the very last stanza, of nothing but questions. Here the author sits just across from you and with a quiet voice asks you these decisive questions.

It is translated by Addiss and Lombardo as:

Can you balance your life force
And embrace the One
Without separation?

Can you control your breath
Gently
Like a baby?

Can you clarity
Your dark vision
Without blemish?

The first stanza speaks of mending the idea of separation, held by the ego, with which we divide the world as “us” and “not us”. When the veil of separation is lifted between the self that we label as “personal” with the universe, that we label as “impersonal”, then and only then do we embrace the One without separation.

The next stanza speaks of breath (prana). In meditation we are asked to bring awareness to the breath and as we relax into our ‘inner’ selves, the breath becomes both deep and even. We breath with the profound spontaneity of an infant. It is a gentle rocking motion - in and out - it is the very current of life that connects us with everything in the universe, for the life breath comes from the universe, enters our physical body, and then it releases itself back to the universe. This is the very process of blending with the One without separation.

The final stanza of this section speaks of the unity with the dark. The dark vision is that which is bereft of physical light, but is the very background of everything in the universe. It is the space without content. It is the substratum upon which everything exists. It is the all without separation. It is the very “I am” that underlies all experience.

The second section of Verse 10 deals explicitly with leadership. The whole of the Verse implies that the true Sage King (Queen) is one rooted in meditation, but now the author takes this being rooted in mediation back into the bright light of the living world. The ‘advice’ implied by the next series of questions cannot be fully realized until one is rooted in that which embraces the all as One.

Addiss and Lombardo translate this section as:

Can you love people
And govern the country
Without knowledge?

Can you open and close
The gate of heaven
Without clinging to earth?

Can you brighten
The four directions
Without action?

This section returns us back to the world of Verse 3; of selflessness and non-action. Rooted in the meditative mind the authentic leader acts without a “personal” self laying claim to the action. He is rooted in the vision of this moment; his own “dark vision”. For when we lead this life liberated from the clinging of the needy self, all the world, the four directions, are brightened by our innocence and spontaneity. Things get done, but there is no one to claim having done them. The people and the leader are one as one. Even conflict and dissent are embraced within that one. This is the very flow of the Dao.

The reference to knowledge is important. In the context of this Verse, knowledge is that of tradition, of belief. It lacks the immediacy of the knowing presence that naturally arises in this very moment. We all experience this, but often block it by substituting our own beliefs and psychological projections onto the immediacy of this very now. If we are to be the conduit of this NOW, just as it is, if we are to allow the energy of the Dao to flow without unnecessary blocks, then we must act without this psychologically-based knowledge. Our natural brilliance, this elusive presence that is always there for us, waiting for us, is the very light of the authentic leader; the Daoist leader.

The final stanza of Verse 10 introduces, for the first time, the word Te (or De). This word has proved to be a bit of a challenge to translators and many, such as Addiss and Lombardo, leave it in its Chinese form. In contrast Jonathan Star translates Te as “primal power”. This is very close to Arthur Waley’s translation of Te as just “power”. Other translators have understood Te as meaning virtue. And still others have translated as integrity. Personally, I think it’s best to just leave it as Te with the knowledge that it possesses each and all of these qualities. The Te element forms much of the second section of the Dao De Jing, so understanding its whole meaning is important to the reading of this text.

Addiss and Lombardo translate the final stanza of Verse 10 as:

Give birth and cultivate.
Give birth and do not possess.
Act without dependence.
Excel but do not rule.
This is called dark Te.

This paragraph combines all the elements of wu wei and selflessness that we have discussed earlier. The line, “Excel but do not rule” corresponds to another theme in the Dao, which is the admonition to be one-pointed in action. To always do our best, but not to possess (lay claim to) the actual doing or its outcomes. The reference to the “dark” Te connects this final stanza with the third stanza of this Verse. Again, dark refers to that inner presence, that place devoid of light that yet lightens all the universe. It is the other side of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, feeling, and thinking. It is the very ground of being upon which all things arise and disappear. It is the “I am” prior to the insertion of any quality with which we might attach to “I am”. This is integrity. This is primal power. This is virtue. This is Te. It is the identity without identity.

Tags: Awakening, enlightenment, Leadership

Verse Nine is a group of direct aphorisms, but their simplicity can be elusive, for if we take this Verse to heart, we can't help but be transformed but its profundity. Let's take Verse Nine aphorism by aphorism.
Today I'm using the David Hinton translation. He writes:

Forcing it fuller and fuller can't compare to just enough.

We can never have enough. We can never be enough. We always need to be more. We always want more. We fill and we fill and this is how we live the bulk of our lives. Now is never enough. There's always that better TV, computer, relationship, car, house, shoes, pen, ... Unsatisfied, we turn against this life and throw ourselves after this elusive thing that promises us happiness. Can we discover that this now, just as it is, is just right. It does need more of anything. This you, right now, is just right. It needs nothing to be added to it.

The needy mind is insatiable. How can we ever be content and fulfilled when we are always seeking and searching? We can seek for the love of seeking and we can seek out of the compulsive need to seek. Can you see the difference? See that difference is the decisive difference.

The second aphorism:

(The blade) honed sharper and sharper means it won't keep for long.

The drive to make something better and more ultimately leads to its decline. This is the Middle Path of the Buddha. There is a rightness of a thing. We know it's right because it can be maintained without the obsessive need to always strive to make it better. This is the right sharpness, the right speed, the right weight. Knowing and living the middle way is the place where the restless mind can find the tranquility of which it can only dream.

The third aphorism:

Once it's full of jade and gold your house will never be safe.

Anytime we hoard what is deemed valuable by others, we will make our world a dangerous and threatening place. Again what we strive to acquire is exactly the process from which discord and fear must arise. It's far better to be free than to be a slave to one's possessions.

The fourth aphorism:

Proud of wealth and renown you bring on your own ruin.

"Pride goeth before destruction." If we struggle to be the highest, we till the soil for our own downfall. 

Each of these approaches to living, based on needs that we imagine, are ways we undermine the Dao - the gentle flow of space and time that is always open to us becomes visible as we just see how our drive to accumulate, to add on, to raise ourselves, does exactly the opposite of what we truly pine for. 

Thus it is said, to conclude Verse Nine:

Just do what you do, and then leave: such is the Way of heaven (Dao).

Everything just happens and then it disappears into the nothingness from which it arose. Knowing this and living this fundamental truth is the Way of Ways; the way of heaven itself.

Tags: middle way, simple life

The writer(s) of the Dao De Jing love paradox. They love paradox because of the limitations of language. Paradox and irony allow a good writer to overcome some of the limitations of the written word. Verse Seven of the Dao possesses the quality of paradox.
The first stanza of this Verse deals with Nature. Addiss and Lombardo translate it as:
Heaven is long, Earth enduring.
This is the fundamental premise of Verse Seven. Heaven and Earth are Nature and Nature is long lasting. It endures.
The question becomes what quality do they possess that allows them to endure. That quality is that they are not self-promoting. Nature is not selfish. Thus it is said in the Dao,
Long and enduring Because they do not exist for themselves.
The question now evolves to the level of the personal as the Verse itself evolves.
Therefore the Sage Steps back, but is always in front, Stays outside, but is always within.
No self-interest? Self is fulfilled.
This evolving question becomes, are you, dear reader, exist for yourself?
The sage does not and by not existing for himself, he is always in front. He is not of the world of striving and self-purpose and self-meaning, thus he stays outside. Having no interest in himself, he is always within, for it is the self-interested, the self-promoting that fails to plumb that which is within.
What would it be like to see this truth as plain as day? What would it be like to live just one day without the slightest element of self-interest?
We will discover that the underlying message of this Verse is that of Wu Wei, which is concisely defined as "do nothing". This theme becomes increasingly important in the Dao. Wu Wei is the living truth of everything gets done, but there is no one doing it. This is the life of integral selflessness. We simply are. We are not struggling to become one with what is, we are not running after that or fleeing this. We just are. This is true peace and contentment. It's also the portal to that which is authentically ourselves.

Tags: selflessness, selfish, paradox

I want to add one more translation of the Tao Te Ching that I am going to include in the compilation of this commentary. It is Dao Te Jing (which is the correct English spelling of the name) translated and with its own commentary by Hans-Georg Moeller. This is another text that I strongly recommend if you love this remarkable text. Now onto the commentary. Verse Four continues the Dao's exploration of its own nature and, once again, it presents an important paradox. Addiss and Lombardo translate the first Stanza as (I have changed the spellings to mirror the Hans-Georg text):
Dao is empty- Its use never exhausted. Bottomless- The origin of all things.
Thus the Dao is nothing, yet it is infinite. Although it has no substance per se it is, nonetheless, the origin of everything. This is the first polarity of the paradox. The text continues:
It blunts sharp edges, Unties knots Softens glare, Becomes one with with the dusty world.
This is the second side of the paradox. While it is the origin of everything, it is, also, everything just as it is. It is simultaneously the origin of everything and everything's immediate presence. Thus the origin of everything is just this right now! We live as the origin and as the manifestation of everything that has preceded us.
Thus the Dao created the sharp edge, which it now blunts. The Dao created the know that it unties. The sharp glare the Dao now softens and that is is from and of the Dao.
Verse Four concludes with a mysterious phrase:
Deeply subsistent- I don't know whose child it is. It is older than the ancestors.
This first challenging phrase "deeply subsistent" refers to the unimaginably ancient age of the Dao. This is its "bottomless" quality. It extends forever backwards. It is, truly the alpha and omega of the universe. Yet it is as new as this immediate moment.
This is the stunning paradox of the world itself; ancient and immediate in perfect simultaneousness, such is the Dao.

As was said in the introduction to this Tao Te Ching commentary, this book is thought to have been, primarily, a manual of leadership and it is this theme that dominates Verse Three.

The taoist conception of the ideal government was one where people would not contend for power and have their basic needs taken care of. It is when basic needs are not taken care of, that division and conflict ensue.

At the risk of using language and labels that are too contemporary and fraught with projected emotional value, we also would say that the Taoist envisions the most minimal of governments; a kind of libertarian conception of government. Although this quality is not specifically described in this Verse, it will emerge later in the Tao.

The first stanza deals with implementing social values that reduce conflict. Jonathan Star translates:

Putting a value on status
will cause people to compete
Hoarding treasure
will turn them into thieves
Showing off possessions
will disturb their daily lives.

Taoists envision a society that is, essentially, classless. It is the unequal distribution of wealth and possessions that provides the foundation for a society where everyone is defined by their status. Moreover, such a society will be rife with violence, envy, and crime. This is, of course, the very society we not only have, but one which we promote as “natural”, as a consequence, we mindlessly assert, of “human nature”. We award competition massively and tend to contextualize cooperative approaches as weak, “girly”, socialist, or worse.

The next stanza defines the role of the Taoist government. Star translates:

Thus the Sage rules
by stilling minds and opening hearts
by filling bellies and strengthening bones
He shows people how to be simple
and live without desires
To be content
and not look for other ways
With the people so pure
Who could trick them?
What clever ideas would lead them astray?

When action is pure and selfless
everything settles into its own perfect place.

Here are some stanzas that ‘modern’ people might have some problem with. We must wonder whether, it is the role of government to still minds? Also, is it the role of government to motivate people to be simple and without desire?

I was raised in a family where questioning just about everything was encouraged (except my own father’s authority). As the all but perennial outsider, Jews are encouraged to find a kind of comfortable, but separate place and one of the ways this is done is through clearly delineating the values and beliefs of the dominant culture from our own. Thus, an active and critical mind is encouraged. This active mind is not there only to serve as a means to establish our rightful separation, but to be the manifestation of intelligence itself. Thus, for me, this stanza is particularly challenging.

The over-riding concern expressed in this verse is creating and sustaining a society of tranquility through contentment. The searching, questioning mind is not, at face, a persona that is tranquil or content … or is it?

So many elements of our personalities are akin to the qualities of our appearance; they resist change and are part of our physical being. So, if you are a person who finds happiness and fulfillment by questioning, then that is the very “song” you are here to sing. The decisive question here is one of intent. When we questions and criticizes as a consequence of ego, of needing to bring unnecessary attention to ourselves, to look smarter than our fellows, then yes, this is a clear contradiction of what the Tao is saying in this Verse. But if our questioning is simply inspired by wonder about our world, an interest in learning, of inquiry, then this is the Tao itself.

You will note that essentially every quality possesses two sides. One points to the hurting ego and the other to the vast web of connections that touches all of us. This is the rule which underlies all other rules. It is also an quality of the Tao Te Ching that we see time and again. The difference between enlightenment and its absence is a very thin one; on one side is that of separation and injury and on the other is connection and balance. This single very thin line seems to have the hardness of diamonds.

Returning to this stanza, we also see that the Tao advises government to “fill bellies and strengthen bones.” The role of government is to serve the basic and essential needs of all people. A full stomach and physical vitality are necessary for thriving in this world and government can play a pivotal role in making that happen.

When we are happy and content, we have little attraction to ideas that would divide and undermine the social good. As I’ve noted in several posts, the quality of incessant psychological desire is simply the visible side of the underlying identification with lack and personal inadequacy. When government provides for its people, when happiness and well-being abides to all, the world of lack vanishes from the human condition. As has been described in fairly massive detail in my book Liberation from the Lie, only a world organized around class division, frequent war, constant power striving, is one that demands obedience and achieves socialization goals through punishment and constant correction. It is this very world of obedience demands and punishment that creates the psychological condition of persistent lack. The Tao argues for a very different world and society.

The final two lines of Verse Three return to the essence of the awakened life. “Pure and selfless action” is a life not of separation and exile, but of connection and inclusion. The life of separation is, truly, life out of balance. To use a taoist metaphor, it is truly trying to live one’s life on one foot. Only when when we are selfless are we connected to the earth by both our feet and to the heavens with our head and hands.

Tags: Awakening, enlightenment

Most of us think of the Tao Te Ching consists of 81 separate chapters, but the earliest versions of this book had no chapter divisions. It was a single continuous document.
Ever since I first read the Tao, I couldn’t help but be struck by the disunity of several of the chapters (or verses). A single verse might possess two or even three seemingly disparate themes. So it appears with Verse Two. This verse takes on an epic journey by challening us with our attachment to our most heartfelt beliefs and finally returns us to the mysterious evanescent, yet changeless world of the Tao.
I think of this verse as having three discrete but closely related sections and will present my commentary based on this premise. While in the complex Verse One in which I presented all three of my favorite translations, for this commentary I’ll be using only the Lombardo version, which I tend to prefer to Hinton or Star. I have found that it’s most useful to have at least three translations of the Tao if only because the text offers such an array of interpretation and nuance. When putting together this commentary, I have relief on six different translations, but have settled upon the Hinton, Star, and Lombardo translations as the core source material for all of the quotes. When choosing your own version, don’t necessarily choose the most popular (which I believe is Stephen Mitchell’s), but choose the one that speaks to you most clearly and emotionally. If you’re wondering why I have decided not to use the Mitchell translation, it’s only because as much as I really love his perspective throughout the Tao, I find it just a little too filtered by his deep involvement in Buddhism. I have made every effort, in this commentary, to conform to those qualities of the Tao that are unique to it - although many, if not most, of the key perceptions and insights of the Tao have been incorporated into the teachings of Zen Buddhism.
Let’s move on to Verse Two.

The first section of Verse 2 consists of just two lines:

Recognize beauty and ugliness is born.
Recognize good and evil is born.

The idea expressed here is that when we define a concept, we also define its opposite. Thus when we share an understanding of what is good, we are, perforce, compelled to also define what is not good. Concepts are categories and since they are created by a particular culture at a particular time, they are defined by that culture and that place. For centuries in China it was thought good for husbands to bind the feet of women. At many times and in many lands it was thought good to own slaves and treat them as chattel. For much of human history love and intimacy between two people of the same sex was identified as evil and punishable by death. People have a tendency to see the “normative” conceptual understandings of their era as the “right” ones and those of the past as dated, if not ignorant. By supporting one norm against another, we create our own mental and emotional prisons.
Thus in this first stanza, when we live our lives by concepts, no matter how widely accepted they may be, we have created a world that is closed. This is, literally, one of the best ways of not going with the flow. We have, unwittingly, blinded ourselves by our beliefs. We have closed ourselves from the organic flow of the Way. We become hobbled by a dutiful loyalty to our beliefs and concepts about right and wrong, happiness and unhappiness, good and bad, and all the rest.

The second section of Verse 2 deals with the remarkable unity of opposites. While it continues the theme of the first section which seeks to goad us from our attachment to limited conceptual knowledge, the second section does away with our idea that opposing polarities are separate. The Tao says,

Is and Isn’t produce each other.
Hard depends on easy,
Long is tested by short,
High is determined by low,
Sound is harmonized by voice,
After is followed by before.

Our conceptual knowing rests on the false premise that polarities, whether they be about the “good” or the “low” are merely relative manifestations that fail to possess any quality that can persist as real or valid. What is very large will be very small compared to something else. Moreover, what is small to us, will be vast to an ant. Our conceptual notions, we discover, are based much more on convenient language than they are on any insight that can endure and be seen as true and valid through changing circumstances and perspectives. This section does away with a human or culture centric of experiencing the immediacy of this mysterious life.

Section 3 of Verse Two continues on the theme of action based on the insights garnered in Sections 1 and 2. It says,

Therefore the Sage is devoted to non-action (wu-wei),
Moves without teaching,
Creates ten thousand things without instruction,
Lives but does not own,
Acts but does not presume,
Accomplishes without taking credit.

Thus the Sage is nothing less than the Tao itself. For is it not the Tao that does nothing yet through it everything gets done? Is it not true that the Tao never sets out to teach? Does it not create the ten thousand things without instruction? Does it not live but owns not a thing?
The Sage is the Tao. When we are free of our conceptual shackles, no matter how elevated and spiritual they might appear to our ego and the aspiring egos of others, our compulsion to teach, to take credit, to own, disappears in an instant. We are Free. We need to claim nothing. Each moment provides us an opening and we are that opening.

The Verse concludes,

When no credit is taken,
Accomplishment endures.

If I seek to take credit, then the accomplishment that I claim is mine and mine alone will become not only a source of contention and dispute, but it will fail to survive the onslaught of time and attack. But when I am utterly free of any concept, what interest could I possibly have in taking credit for anything? Everything appears, but that which endures does not know the meaning of credit. Were I to take credit for something that I assert is “good” then I have elevated the “good” into a concept and thus have posited that which isn’t good. I have thus acted in a way that resists the Tao and thus must fail. How much more direct - more powerful - and more liberating it is to just let go and be free of any assertion of “mine”.
Verse 2 takes us on a journey from the social to the esoteric. In this way, it returns us to the mysterious Verse One, through which the portal to the Way opens wide.

Tags: Concepts, doing

I often repeat a statement that my Navajo (Dinè teacher used to say. He said that to come into contact to what is true, the “esoteric must come first.”
This is, precisely, the role play by this decisive Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching. To come into the world of the Tao, the esoteric must come first. So these first posts are an invitation to that world. This is a world where the boundaries between apparent objects become diffuse and disappear as we allow ourselves to fall into the current of the Tao. As was said in the previous post, this means to see the world of thought (the primary world of conventional existence) as simply the myth of the separate man and woman. All thought is wrong! See for yourself. The named is not the named. The Way that can be spoken of is not the Way.
This theme persists in the second profoundly esoteric stanza of the Tao. Hinton translates it as:

The named is the mother to the ten thousand things,
but the unnamed is the origin to all Heaven and Earth.

That same stanza as translated by Lombardo:

Nameless: the origin of Heaven and Earth.
Naming: the mother of ten thousand things.

And finally, the less sparse Jonathan Star expresses this same lines as:

Tao is both named and nameless.
As Nameless, it is the origin of all things
As Named, it is the mother of all things.

Of these three translators, for me Star expresses this awakened world most clearly. His words clearly mix the Tao as both the origin (mother) of all and as the individual manifestation of the “ten thousand things”. We can therefore say that while everything without exception is of the Way, the sum is truly greater than its parts.
The next stanza takes us back into the world of profound esotericism. Our three wonderful translators use three different expressions for the awakened one. Here they are in the same sequence.

Hinton:

In perennial nonbeing, you see mystery
and in perennial being you see appearance.
Though the two are one and the same,
once they arise, they differ in name.

Lombardo (typically the most sparse):

Empty of desire, perceive mystery.
Filled with desire, perceive manifestations.
Finally Star:

Free of thought,
Merged within itself,
beholds the essence of Tao.
A mind filled with thought,
identified with its own perceptions,
beholds the mere forms of this world.
Tao and this world seem different
but in truth they are one and the same
The only difference is what we call them.

Notice how Star creates a kind of ranking system in his words. His translations asserts the supremacy of the human free of the thrall of thought. This distinction is not expressed by the Hinton and Lombardo versions. For me this dilemma is resolved by Hinton who, deftly, avoids establishing a hierarchy, but does differentiate the qualitative experience of being, where in awakening, one resides in the ongoing mystery of life by seeing through the illusion of separation, with its desire and personal identification with its own perceptions and merges into the nonbeing of the Way.
“Filled with desire, (we) perceive manifestations.” The core manifestation is, of course, the personal self. That self is the very manifestation of desire through grasping for this and that and always needing to build upon its illusory circumference of power and influence. It will be seen that we do this by transmuting our fears into conventional behaviors designed to build the seemingly secure walls of the self. We will see that by identifying with this appearing self, we make it possible for persistent adversity and struggle to fill our short lives.
But to see this thinking self as just appearance, the mask disassembles and we merge into THIS as our authentic selves - this world of infinite and ever-changing connection; the living Tao itself.
Reading Hinton’s translation, we also see that we never need to fight the thought-filled self notion, for that too is of the Tao. It is an appearance that comes and goes like clouds passing through a blue blue sky.
Hinton concludes this verse as:

One and the same, they’re called dark-enigma,
dark-enigma deep within dark enigma.
gateway of all mystery.

And Lombardo:

They have the same source, but different names.
Call them both deep-
Deep and again deep.
The gateway to all mystery.

And finally Star:

How deep and mysterious is this unity
How profound, how great!
It is the truth beyond the truth,
the hidden within the hidden.
It is the path to all wonder,
the gate to the essence of everything.

Each of these translations stress two core qualities that we will see repeated many times in the Tao Te Ching. They are: the unity of opposites and the mysteriousness of the Tao itself. As I have affirmed in my own writings, we err when we negate the manifestation, the desire, the individuality of appearance. When we evoke this belief we fall into nihilism and mere trance-like belief. But as conventional human beings, we also err when we assert the primacy of the separate over the whole. This is the ultimate unity of opposites. All manifests as appearance, yet all is the one of the Tao. Where manifestation is evanescent, the Tao is eternal. This is the mystery of the two that is one. Until we untie the network of beliefs that affix us to the thought filled world of the separate self, we will persist in sustaining the illusion of separation. We will, in other words, have failed to assert the primacy of the esoteric.
Just last night I had a dream and in this dream a person asked me, what is the difference between the awakened one and the unawakened person. My dream character said, “For the awakened, not for a moment do I confuse my identity with what this body thinks or feels.” Ironically, it was in the dream where realization was expressed.

Many commentators have asserted that Verse One sums up the whole philosophy of the Tao Te Ching. For this reason, it is not only the most difficult to understand, but also the most difficult to self-realize. After all, the Tao Te Ching is much more than just another work of philosophy. It is the Way (Tao) of self understanding. When we truly understand who we really are, then we can understand everything.

Let’s take a look at the first stanza as translated by David Hinton:

A Way become the Way isn’t the perennial Way.
A name become name isn’t the perennial name.

Hinton is a specialized in not only Taoist philosophy, but he is, perhaps, the greatest living translator of Chinese. Notice how sparse the language is.

Stephen Addis and Stanley Lombardo (Lombardo is, by far, my favorite translator of Homer) employ equally sparse language. Let’s look at the same stanza:

Tao called Tao is not Tao
Names can name no lasting name.

Now let’s take a look at the more florid translation of Jonathan Star of the same stanza.

A Way that can be walked
is not The Way
A Name that can be named
is not The Name.

For me this is the most direct stanza in all of the Tao Te Ching. As I said in my previous post, this is work for leaders, but this first Verse seems so much more than just a manual for leadership. The Tao sets out to being a manual for life itself. It takes us to our deepest roots. It asks us, using a quiet voice, to really stop and take a look at all of our assumptions about who we are and what is real and this first, very brief stanza, does just that.

What is this first line saying? For me it is saying that the Way (Tao) that is conjured by our individual and personal minds is not the Way. The Way that is thought of by our minds is not the Way!

This is a remarkable statement, for it sets out, in the very first words of this book that the way is not of the mind. We can’t think about the Way. We can’t think of the Way. The Way is not of our thought. The Way is not of our mind.

So what does the mind do? The mind names. Our mind ceaselessly says this is this and that is that. Most importantly, the mind says, “I am me.” But the Tao informs us that “A Name that can be named is not The Name.” Everything we have believed to be true in our life is something that we have named. I look at this very window and see a tree and I name it a tree. But the Tao is saying that the tree is not the name tree. It’s not saying that this thing I’m naming a tree is almost a tree or is partly a tree. It’s saying that it’s not a tree! And perhaps more to the point, it’s saying that this thing I call “me” is not me. It’s not saying that this thing is kind of like me or partly like me. It’s saying that I am not the name “me” or anything I can link to this thing called me.

This is revolutionary. It’s saying that everything the mind projects as knowing is not knowing. It’s just thought thinking - it’s thinking believing that its thinking is true. It’s thoughts about thought. It’s not the Way or the Name.

The vast web of thought that inhabits our lives (notice that I didn’t say that we “create&rdquo is not the Way. It’s just a map that we use to navigate the world of social and cultural convention. The Tao is seeking to tell us that this map is no different from any other map; it’s not the place. No map, ever, can be the place itself, for the place is the Way and the Way can never be translated into a label. It can never be “this” or “that”. The map is an artifact of convenience.

¡

This ends part 1 of this post. Discussion of the remainder of Verse One follows later today or early tomorrow.

Over the next 3 months I hope to write a post for each of the 81 chapters of the immortal Tao Te Ching. I will be using my three favorite translations; those of Jonathan Star, Stanley Lombardo, and David Hinton.

In my own ‘spiritual’ life, it was the Tao Te Ching that opened the first door. I read it for the first time when I was around 17. A Chinese woman I knew said that it could not be understood by a westerner and even the wisest people in China are profoundly challenged by its mysterious words. But for me, I felt that I understood its many themes and over-riding understanding of this world the first time I read it.

I could understand the Tao because it needed no understanding. It is not a matter of understanding, but of an openness to the real; the underlying thread that connects everything in its perfect changeless and ever-changing web. The Navajos (Dinè call this spiritual energy Grandmother Spider woman, the weaver of all the stories.


A painting of a Chinese sage - described as “like” Lao-Tzu

Explicitly, the Tao Te Ching was a manual for leaders. Its 81 chapters were put together around the 5th century BCE, the time of the Buddha and the compiling of the Hebrew Bible. While we are told that its author is the mysterious Lao Tzu, many scholars assert that the text has more than one author. Perhaps Lao Tzu is the main one, but we will probably never know for sure. It is believed that the age of many of the chapters of the Tao are much earlier than the approximate age of its first known compilation.

The Tao Te Ching is the primary text of the Chinese way of art and thought called Taoism. Its sister writing is the equally powerful and transformative Chuang Tzu. Like the Tao, the Chuang Tzu is believed to have more than one author. Scholars claim that it was written in a particularly chaotic and war-like period in Chinese history in the 3rd century BCE. Some scholars have said that the section of the Chuang Tzu called the Inner Chapters might have a single author; perhaps the semi-legendary Chuang Tzu.

One of the most beautiful aspects of the Tao is that is so deeply personal. Thus my own words reflect only my own experience. While it may have been a manual for leadership it is so much more. its short chapters possess immense depth and we will attempt to plumb these depths in these posts. I offer them to you as an invitation for each of us to re-enter this majestic text with an open heart and mind. Always feel free to contribute your own insights and experience.

Tags: Awakening, enlightenment

Let’s pretend that we have lost our sight. We are blind because we cannot see our eyes.

Have you ever tried to see your eyes without using your eyes? Why not give it a try? Find your eyes and make sure that you look everywhere. Keep on looking. Don’t give up the search easily. Find your eyes.

You will discover that it can’t be done.

What sees cannot, itself, be seen. It’s an interesting irony.

The very same principle applies to spiritual seeking. When we ask ourselves the question, “What am I?” and we continue to ask ourselves the question, we discover that all we will ever find is our mind responding with the word “me”. This is the best it can do. It tells us, time and again, that what we are is “me”. And this answer is no help at all, because it just takes us back to where we started for now we must ask, “Who is this “me”?”

If we dig deeper, we will discover that this word “me” is just a label that the mind applies onto life experiences out of habit. It’s a deeply entrenched habit, but it’s just a habit that we learned from our parents and our world as we grew up. Socialization requires us to refer to this mysterious me until we believe that this simple word is who we are.

It isn’t. It’s just a pointer to something a lot more elusive yet ever-present.

Just like we cannot ever find our eyes by seeking, we cannot find ourselves by seeking. You see - the game is over even before we begin the search! We are prior to any thought. This presence, this sense of being is there and yet it can never be grasped or defined. But it is there. We can more certain of this than anything else in our experience.

It is the only the mind that demands that we seek for what can never be found. And the mind does this because it is identified with lack. Aligned with this identity, we come to believe that we lack something and, it just so happens, that all of the literature of enlightenment confirms our fears. We are nothing like these enlightened sages. We are just these poor saps wandering about our pathetic lives searching for the one thing that can never be found.

This is what happens when we become a slave to the psychological identity of our already invalidated minds. We embraced the identity of the Wound (see the Liberation from the Lie book) and covered it up with the many masks of the False-Self (again see the book).

The key to our prison lies in simply watching and observing the mind with the knowledge that our identity is not it (the mind). We are the vast river upon which all of life is seen, felt, tasted, heard, and perceived. We are THAT.

The mind is an object to this living presence. We can never be an object of ourselves. We are, rather, the subject of everything in our experience without exception. Even our conceptions of God cannot be an exception. Even God (if you have this belief) is an object to this living presence. Perhaps God is this presence.

Disengage from the trance of the mind and find the empty freedom that is our true awakened self.

Tags: Awakening, enlightenment