I've begun reading the Tao Te Ching (Barnes & Noble Classics edition) which houses the central tenets of Taoism. Legend has it, when Lao Tzu (meaning "Old Master") decided to leave his native territory (on a water buffalo no less), he was stopped by the gate guard and asked to write down his teachings. The result was the Tao Te Ching. There is so much legend swirling around the legendary Tao master, including a story that his mother carried him in her womb until he was 72; he came out an old man, replete with white hair. Taoism, as I've learned from my limited research, is a school of thought which concentrates on the power of inaction, although "power" itself goes against Taoist teachings because it promotes an inferiority in the self. There is no question that this text is beautifully written, if at some times cryptic. I've decided to digest it a few chapters at a time, especially since there's so much mysticism and deeper meanings in each of the chapters. I thought I'd offer you something to think about, maybe to ask that you join me in my journey.
Chapter 1
The Tao the can be followed is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth
While naming is the origin of the myriad things.
Therefore, always desireless, you see the mystery
Ever desiring, you see the manifestations.
These two are the same-
When they appear they are named differently.
This sameness is the mystery,
Mystery within mystery;
The door to all marvels.
Chapter2
All in the world recognize the beautiful as beautiful.
Herein lies ugliness.
All recognize the good as good.
Herein lies evil.
Therfore
Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficulty and ease bring about each other.
Long and short delimit each other.
High and low rest on each other.
Sound and voice harmonize each other.
Front and back follow each other.
Therefore the sage abides in the condition of wu-wei
(unattached action).
And carries out the wordless teaching.
Here, the myriad things are made, yet not separated.
Therefore the sage produces without posessing,
Acts without expectations
And accomplishes without abiding in her
accomplishments.
It is precisely because she does not abide in them
That they never leave her.
Any thoughts on this? Chapter 1 is particularly confusing to me, probably because the idea is so foreign to me. What divine entity that we are seeking can never be found or named because whatever our idea of what the divine nature is is so narrowly defined that it can't possibly be what we're seeking. To speak in terms that I'm familiar with, God is so vast, so immense, so all consuming that we, as human beings with limited universal knowledge, can't possibly even begin to paint a picture of what He is. We, because it is in our nature, attempt to draw a picture of what God/the Divine is, giving Him hair, feet, feelings, actions, reactions, all based on what we know, and we convince ourselves that surely this is who God is. Oh how mistaken we are. Does this mean that it is wrong of us to do so? I think that "wrong" is relative. It is in our nature to want to know and define. What the Tao Te Ching is pointing out, however, is that whatever formulations and manifestations that we come up with aren't necessarily wrong, just not the whole picture. It would be like saying that you know the oceans because you've dipped your toes in a creek that feeds to a stream that empties into a river that flows to a gulf that opens to the ocean. We should focus more on taking in and observing all of life's mysteries, accepting that everything around us and beyond is all part of the divine, the higher power.
I love the message of Chapter 2. We are all quick to point out what is beautiful, we all agree, for the most part, on what is beautiful. The problem, the ugliness, in this is that things are so much more deep than being "beautiful" or "good." When we label an object or an abstract, we miss everything else about it, all the subtitles that lie outside our narrowly defined box. Our world is made up of more than just dualities, in fact, as the text illustrates, the dualities that exist in our world rely on each other for existence and validation. The enlightened are able to learn all the subtle details in the world and universe without confining them to a human definition. This is true knowledge.
To me, the concepts held within this text are so simplistic in nature yet their underlying meanings hold so much more knowledge than one can obtain at first glance. The idea of getting away from labeling things and abstracts is such a foreign one, especially since it is within our very nature and habit to do so. But imagine the wealth of knowledge and information that you can open yourself up to if you just do away with the constraints of the labels of things. How wonderful a journey life could be if we could break free from our small, narrowly focused tendencies.
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