Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 52

Poem 52

In the beginning was the Tao.

All things issue from it;

all things return to it.

To find the origin,

trace back the manifestations.

When you recognize the children

and find the mother,

you will be free of sorrow.

If you close your mind in judgements

and traffic with desires,

your heart will be troubled.

If you keep your mind from judging

and aren't led by the senses,

your heart will find peace.

Seeing into darkness is clarity.

Knowing how to yield is strength.

Use your own light

and return to the source of light.

This is called practicing eternity.

Commentary

Yellow Tulip.  Took this picture in Ballintubber Abbey, 2012

Spiritual wisdom is never confined to any one great Religion, or even one little religion, or to any one group or sect within any one religion, or even, let it be said, to any person of persons who may profess one of a plurality of beliefs from atheistic humanism to any degree of agnosticism.  After all, a lot of atheists and agnostics will admit to possessing a spirituality, though they will see it as purely temporal and psychological or para-psychological.  Let me again define spirituality in a rather general way that allows for this plurality of stances towards the world.  I believe that spirituality is that force or energy in us that drives us to reach out and connect with one's own self, with others and with an underlying Other (I deliberately use upper case here), which some dare call God, even a personal God in some religions.  Of course, an atheist or agnostic would say of this underlying other (I deliberately use lower case here) that it is merely a powerful force or energy.  In short, what I am getting at here is a philosophical anthropology or a philosophical psychology, or even a phenomenology of humanity that allows us to describe as fully as possible what most of humankind reports as spiritual experiences in the broadest possible sense. It is in that general spiritual sense that I read the first three lines of the above poem:

In the beginning was the Tao.

All things issue from it;

all things return to it.

It is also in that spiritual sense that I read the line from the beginning of St John's Gospel - the Johannine Prologue, the first three lines of which I give here by way of parallelism and comparison:

Image of Eagle: John's Gospel, Book of Kells

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

(John 1:1-3)

Again, what these spiritual lines are getting at is the "real" or "spiritual" grounding or "essence" of the universe - that elusive or fundamental principle that underpins the substantial and apparent universe about us.  Theologians certainly and many metaphysicians would call this essence God.  Scientists would, no doubt, call it the one unifying theory of the universe, or as they most commonly express it as the scientific search for "A Theory of Everything."  The WIKI explains this thus: 

A theory of everything (ToE) or final theory, ultimate theory, or master theory is a hypothetical single, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe. (See ToE)

I am obviously no physicist and do not claim to understand these great theories expressed, elucidated and explicated by the learned scientists that physicists are.  What I merely wish to express here is the fact that fundamentally there is a drive within us human beings to constantly reach out for grand theories to express the origins, destiny and essence, or, if you like, the foundational principles of the universe itself.  It is my argument that the quest for truth or truths is not solely pursued along the one main highway of the natural sciences (indeed, maybe the component sciences within the natural sciences themselves offer a plurality of highways?), but that it proceeds along other secondary roadways (religions, spiritualities, arts and literature of all kinds and in all languages) and by way of the many back roads and lane ways of private experience and practically learnt skills and acquired knowledge and wisdom.  Now let us recall the second stanza of the above poem:

If you close your mind in judgements

and traffic with desires,

your heart will be troubled.

If you keep your mind from judging

and aren't led by the senses,

your heart will find peace.

This stanza brings us onto another plane of awareness and engages us at a more emotional, psychological and social level.  It tells us that an open mind is vastly superior to a closed one and we have seen that this has been a central theme in the Tao Te Ching.  Indeed, we all have learnt over the course of our lives that a high level of personal skills is needed when dealing with others in order for any business to grow, for knowledge to be communicated properly,  and for advancement in all areas of human endeavour to be achieved.  For this, an open mind is necessary and a closed one to be avoided at all costs.  Likewise, rash judgements are also to be eschewed.

A Lava carving on my Bookshelves: Compassion

Further, this stanza also issues a moral exhortation to its reader not to clog his/her mind with baser human desires which smother deeper spiritual aims.  Such activity, the Master stresses only leads to our being laden down with mental troubles and anguish.  Once again, these smothering desires are seen as primarily resident in our senses.  In parallel to all other schools of spirituality and all other religions, our Taoist poet suggests that peace is found by transcending the desires of our senses or the desires of our flesh.

The third stanza returns to a familiar tune rehearsed often in these Taoist poems, namely that of setting up a polarity or tension of necessary opposites, light and dark and strength and weakness.  St Paul once opined that in this world that "for now, we see through a glass, darkly," (1Cor 13:12) and that realising that we do so is, in a certain sense, a practical seeing that acknowledges its limits.  It corresponds to the appeal of Socrates and later St Augustine to the necessary acknowledgement of ignorance on the way to illumination.  That, I believe, is what our Taoist poet is getting at in the line: Seeing into darkness is clarity. 

Again, "knowing how to yield is strength"and realising that often we can achieve little by direct opposition and ofter more by coming around a problem from another avenue of approach can often be a great source of wisdom in everyday life.

Now, friends, I have exhausted all my ideas and insights and must leave it to the good reader to return to the above poem and read it quietly and reflectively.  Once again, Peace be to all who read these words, and Namaste!