Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 78

78

Nothing in the world

is as soft and yielding as water.

Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,

nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard;

the gentle overcomes the rigid.

Everyone knows this is true,

but few can put it into practice.

Therefore the Master remains

serene in the midst of sorrow.

Evil cannot enter his heart.

Because he has given up helping,

he is people's greatest help.

True words seem paradoxical.

Commentary

Let me begin by quoting from an authoritative web page with respect to the importance of water in our lives, indeed in the very life of our little planet: "According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water.  The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79% water, and even the bones are watery: 31%.  Each day humans must consume a certain amount of water to survive.  Of course, this varies according to the age and gender, and also by where someone lives.  Generally an adult male needs about 3 litres a day while an adult female needs about 2.2 litres per day.  Some of this water is gotten in food." The quotation is from HERE.  In short, we are literally bound together in this important substance.  Indeed, all literature and all the religions of the world see water as a most potent symbol, not alone of earthly life, but for those who subscribe to belief in God, a potent symbol of the spiritual nature of that life.

Now that we have set the biological, literary and spiritual background to our 78th Taoist poem we can begin our more spiritual reflections.  Once again, this poem is replete in imagery, the use of polar opposites in a healthy tension and, of course, paradox, the use of which is mentioned by name in the last line by our translator. The oppositions we find are the usual ones, which, as we have seen, are repeated rather liberally throughout our text: soft vs hard, yielding vs inflexible, gentle vs rigid, and serenity vs sorrow.  We have discussed this healthy tension of opposites many times in these commentaries.  The beauty of the Tao and all superior spiritualities is that they are somehow able to avoid speaking in terms of the deliberate separation of opposites, that style of religion which espoused a dogmatic and rigid separation of everything into blacks and whites where there are no shades of grey in between let alone the coulours of the rainbow.  That's why the taijitsu or the Yin-Yang is a most potent symbol for Taoists where the black half of the symbol contains a dot of the bright and the bright half of the symbol a dot of the black.  Could any symbol be more potent?

Likewise, the paradoxical two lines near the end of the poem appeal greatly to my sense of growing old and becoming a little wiser through the dint of hard lived experience in life: "Because he has given up helping, he is people's greatest help."  As a young teacher, I used to try and help everyone, that is, rush in with a sort of fire-brigade approach to sorting X, Y and Z problems out, but lived experience has taught me to realise: (i) how little I can do in X situation and that it is better to let another person who may be able to do something handle that issue (ii) that it is better to wait and have patience until a more opportune time presents itself with respect to Y situation and (iii) that it may be better to actually do nothing as in that Z situation things have gone far too far for any helpful intervention on anyone's part.  It is in this sense that I understand the pardoxical lines just quoted.

Oscar Wilde, as I have said here recently, remarked about the pure and simple truth that it is rarely pure and never simple.  That is a rather wise statement as it gives the lie to the black and white version of the truth.  His statement, in that sense, is very Taoist.

As we proceed to age in life, let us become more aware of the dangers of an attitude that sees the world through a very narrow lens.  Let us rather try to view the complex world through a prism that breaks light into all the colours of the rainbow.

Namaste, dear friends, until I get the time for an other reflection in these pages, and have a contented time just being the real you!

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 77

Poem 77

As it acts in the world, the Tao

is like the bending of a bow.

The top is bent downward;

the bottom is bent up.

It adjusts excess and deficiency

so that there is perfect balance.

It takes from what is too much

and gives to what isn't enough.

Those who try to control,

who use force to protect their power,

go against the direction of the Tao.

They take from those who don't have enough

and give to those who have far too much.

The Master can keep giving

because there is no end to her wealth.

She acts without expectation,

succeeds without taking credit,

and doesn't think that she is better

than anyone else.

Commentary

Oscar Wilde in his play The Importance of Being Ernest has one of his characters declare with respect to the pure and simple truth of things that "the truth is rarely pure and never simple."  In a politics that prizes soundbites over nuanced and careful statements, it is hard to know what the truth of any particular situation is.  Soundbites simplify things far too readily and easily and in doing so warp the truth beyond all recognition.  There are at least two sides to every story as the cliche runs.  Finding that elusive balance with respect to life is a task each one of us has to face in the course of our existence.  Understatement and exaggeration are often much abused by those in power to convince their followers.

It takes much discernment, a process of deliberate and even critical reflection upon one's perception of life, to arrive at balance, to arrive as it were at a "viewing point" where one can calmly assess the journey up to that point and at least some of the pathway that lies before us.  I often like to call this "vantage point," my "still point," my "centre of gravity" and even my "centre of equanimity."  The same with any crisis in our lives, or at the time of a big decision, what we most need is the power of discernment a skill much advised by St Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuit Order which he founded.

And so let us return to the image in our first stanza above, namely the balanced distribution of force throughout the action of a bow and arrow.  I especially like the last two lines of this first stanza that run:  It takes from what is too much//and gives to what isn't enough.  Indeed, it is hard to see any such balance at work in the world, especially in the financial sectors.

Forcing control really never works out in the end - it may in the immediate future, but never in the long-term future.  Most oppressed peoples do eventually, often after much suffering and blood loss, manage to attain their freedom.  Micro-management in a work situation is often used by very poor managers who like to over-criticise and over-supervise their "underlings" and they proceed as if they have all the answers.  There is much room for the balance of the Tao in most work places.

Again, our third stanza proceeds by way of hyperbole and exaggeration.  There is much paradox in the sentiment that the Master or Mistress "can keep giving" as "there is no end to her wealth."  She is also exceedingly modest and when she succeeds at anything she never wishes to take any credit for her good action.  Again, this strikes the present writer as complete wishful thinking.  Yet, in the context of the whole poem, and, indeed, in the context of the whole book, we are ready to cut the author some slack and say, "Well, yes, I could possibly go along with a little of that, but it is completely contrary to my experience."

In conclusion, then, when we meditate, we should be open to balance and perspective as we proceed. Here's praying that both of these qualities, balance and perspective, will rule in our lives.  Namaste, friends and thanks for reading.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 63

Poem 63

Act without doing;
work without effort.

Think of the small as large

and the few as many.

Confront the difficult

while it is still easy;

accomplish the great task

by a series of small acts.

The Master never reaches for the great;

thus she achieves greatness.

When she runs into a difficulty,

she stops and gives herself to it.

She doesn't cling to her own comfort;

thus problems are no problem for her.

Our graduating Sixth Years:  May they learn to go with the flow and stay in the zone!! 

Commentary

Once again, our Taoist poet and philosopher uses the balance of polar opposites to put across both the mystery and complexity of life on the one hand and the depth or height of spiritual wisdom on the other.  In a certain sense, we can appreciate the above poem if we let go of our rigidity, especially the rigidity associated with linear logic.  We have to learn to think outside the box, to go beyond the rigid linearity associated with intellectual knowledge or logic and allow the reasons of the heart to attract us to action.  As Pascal tells us, "le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point" - "the heart has its reasons which reason itself can never comprehend."  In this sense, it may be said that we can "act without doing."  In a similar way we can "work without effort."  Moreover, we can stand things on their head by treating the large as small and vice versa.  In a way, what our poet is suggesting is that there is as much a universe in the atom as there is in the expanse of space.  Lines from the "Auguries of Innocence" by the wonderful pre-Romantic poet William Blake come to my mind:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour

Trees in Newbridge House, Summer 2014

Yet again, another associated thought that comes to mind is that of the psychological concept of flow as proposed by the Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi.  Flow is a central concept in positive psychology, and it is also known as the zone.  Children can far more readily enter this zone than we adults because they are closer to their hearts and to their intuition that we adults are.  We adults are far more likely to be locked in the world of logic and intellect.  Flow or the zone is the mental state or that state of being where the person doing some action or activity is fully immersed in his/her experience of the moment, and is fully energized and well focused on the task at hand.  Flow is characterized by complete absorption in what is being experienced.  

It is, then, in this sense, that we can agree with our Taoist poet that we should confront the difficult while it is easy and achieve great tasks by doing small ones.  By not intending to reach for greatness the Master achieves it effortlessly.  Moreover, when she runs into difficulty she does not struggle with it or face it head on in pointless opposition - oh, no.  In fact she surrenders herself to it and swims with its tide.  And finally, like any true Taoist or Buddhist, or even Christ-like believer she never clings to her own comforts.

In this way, she never encounters problems.  As the philosopher Gabriel Marcel and the theologian Eugene Joly aver she rather embraces the total mystery of life.

Namaste, my friends.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 58

Poem 58

If a country is governed with tolerance,

the people are comfortable and honest.

If a country is governed with repression,

the people are depressed and crafty.

When the will to power is in charge,

the higher the ideals, the lower the results.

Try to make people happy,

and you lay the groundwork for misery.

Try to make people moral,

and you lay the groundwork for vice.

Thus the Master is content

to serve as an example

and not to impose her will.

She is pointed, but doesn't pierce.

Straightforward, but supple.

Radiant, but easy on the eyes.

Commentary

Mallard in Phoenix Park, Winter 2015

The true mark of a good leader is that he/she leads by example, not by diktat.  I certainly learnt that very early on in my career. I remember as a young teacher scolding a boy for the mess of little pieces of paper, rather like a hundred pieces of confetti, he had left under his desk and ordering him to clean it up.  He retorted angrily, "I did not put it there.  I am not going to pick that mess up!"  Needless to say I was highly annoyed and indignant at this defiance and brought this incident to the attention of the Year Head and then filled in a report on the boy's defiance and so forth.  However, thankfully, I'm a quick learner and never made that mistake again.  From then on, I always requested pupils to help me clean up the classroom if such was ever necessary after class, and yes, indeed they always complied with this request. Looking back the boy in question might have had O.D.D. (Oppositional Defiance Disorder). Most young teachers today will have studied all these E.B.D.s - Emotional Behaviour Disorders - in their teacher training and O.D.D. is one of those. With a student who has O.D.D. the last thing any teacher should do is set up an oppositional situation, and if he/she does so then such a student will rise to meet the opposition - by doing just that, opposing.

This has been a rather long introduction to styles of leadership which our last several posts and some of the forthcoming ones are going to be about.  Apparently, there are four main styles of leadership: Coaching, Directing, Delegating and Supporting. See HERE and HERE. The basic idea is that we should be aware of our dominant style and be willing to change it according to the needs of a particular situation.  In simple words, therefore, the key is FLEXIBILITY! However, there are so many people who just can't seem to be flexible. However, they will have to learn the hard way - by making life a misery for themselves and for others.  At least, we hope they will learn!

Winter sunset 2015

Our first stanza above is all about tolerance and how such tolerance brings about peace and harmony. As the proverb so wisely puts it: "you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!" The second stanza uses that rather fascist phrase associated with Nietzsche firstly and then with the Nazi Party in Germany - "the will to power!" Whatever about the origins of this phrase and about what Nietzsche really meant, what I have in mind here is precisely the fascist use of it, that is, its commonly held use and interpretation.  Indeed, that is its interpretation and use by our translator Stephen Mitchell above in stanza two.  There is nothing as bad as people who are power hungry, who are power brokers or people who are into "lording it over others," as it were.  The will to power will only disillusion people, make them into unwilling underlings and eventually breed rebellion.  However, the Taoist poet is also against "people pleasing" and easy "Yea saying" or agreeing uncritically with others, agreeing just to please, not being able to say "no" or to express a contrary opinion!  Such an approach, the poet insists, leads to much misery for all in the long run.  Taking the high moral ground is also looked upon as being counter-productive because it leads to people taking up an opposite stance, especially so if the moralist does not practise what he or she preaches.

Hence, the Master who knows his or her opposite-gender side (always implied by the nature of Taoist thinking) is always content to lead by example because that is a good leadership trait and it certainly inspires others to do what is right.  Then, as this commentator has pointed out many times, the Taoist poet resorts to the healthy tension of opposites or the balance of polarities in the wonderful last three lines which need no explanation as they work by setting up the healthy tension of such opposites in the first place.  We'll repeat them here, and ask the reader to reflect upon them meditatively by way of finishing these few thoughts:

She is pointed, but doesn't pierce.

Straightforward, but supple.

Radiant, but easy on the eyes.

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!

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 48

Poem 48

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.

Less and less do you need to force things,

until finally you arrive at non-action.

When nothing is done,

nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained

by letting things go their own way.

It can't be gained by interfering.

Commentary

Pair of swans, Bull Island, January 2016

Once again, this current poem rehearses all the old themes.  However, that need not distract us, as such is the way all religious writings work, and indeed all great literature works. Themes will be repeated, but almost always in different ways, in different contexts and with different words.  T.S. Eliot underlined that same point with respect to the themes he returned to often in his own oeuvre. 

The Taoist oppositional tension is returned to in Poem 48 above, but this time the opposition is that between addition and subtraction.  Indeed, as a teacher of basic mathematics at secondary school level here in Ireland, I am aware that philosophically these are two inextricably related operations and that subtraction can be looked upon as adding a negative number.  This, in my opinion,  is a good example of how inextricable opposites are in actuality, and that to vere to either extreme is to do some damage to the actual reality of the healthy tension or balance of opposition.  Those of you who have some knowledge of mathematics will know that another example of oppositional operations are those of multiplication and division where division can be seen as the operation of multiplication by a fraction.  Now, to return to poem 48 above, our author is talking about adding to knowledge bit by inexhaustible bit and so on ad infinitum, and yet, he or she sees that, in a way, a lot of unnecessary and weighty information will have to be dropped or subtracted. Indeed, there is much to be learnt here by twenty first century humankind who perdure in a world in which we are literally awash with information.  Indeed, we might quite plausibly push our metaphor further by saying that we are constantly being hit by a tsunami of information on a daily basis in that same world.  One only has to google a topic or a question on that topic to know that one can get literally hundreds and thousands, or more even, of possible answers. Scholars tell us that we are in an era of information overload, and that what is needed is interpretation or analysis skills of that data.  We may be awash with information but we are literally bereft of secure ground on which to anchor our ship of interpretation, and we are often equipped with poor critical and analytical skills to engage profitably and critically with the data.

Unity, Bull Island, January, 2016

A parent remarked to me recently that her second son "carries the weight of the world on his shoulders" while her eldest does not "sweat the small stuff" at all.  Undoubtedly, what the younger lad needs to do is to "let go" or to "subtract" or "take away" or to "get rid of" the small stuff.  This is what our Taoist poem is about above, that is, the subtraction of all that weight from our shoulders, all that heavy unnecessary knowledge.  Knowledge must lead us to the truth, that is, in any deep and reasonable understanding of epistemology, knowledge must not drown us in a sea of confusion, but rather philosophically enlighten our paths to the truth.  This is what we are about in counselling and in psychotherapy.  As a part-time counsellor in my own school, this is one way in which I see my role.  In fact, I will be working with the second boy I have adverted to in the opening sentence of this present paragraph.  That is to say, one of the things I will try to elucidate for the young man is his path to self-discovery by enabling his to throw off some of that weight - how to enable him to subtract or take away some of the load he is carrying.  Admittedly, these weights may not be burdens of knowledge, but they most certainly will be burdens of negative thoughts which are themselves negative information. My task will be to enable the young man to get a handle on what is brdening him, to equip him with the tools to let go of the load he is carrying.  Indeed, in that task, I am a mere channel through which the client is enabled to unburden himself of his load.

Avoiding Passivity

Most people who engage with spirituality, or who involve themselves in meditation practices, or what is more popularly called practices of mindfulness these days, are aware of the criticism levelled at such practitioners that they are passive actors in a world that requires a greater active involvement.  Again, paradoxically, stillness of soul and centeredness of being lead to a more directed and profitable engagement with the world. Such so-called passivity is exactly what was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as the heresy of quietism which elevated contemplation over actual mental engagement or meditation on scriptural or other spiritual texts or even oral prayer.  When I studied the history of mystical theology and spirituality many decades ago we learnt that this practice of quietism was condemned by Pope Innocent XI in 1687. This quietist heresy (or that heresy which led the mind into sheer passivity, according to officialdom) was seen to consist of wrongly elevating "contemplation" over "meditation," intellectual stillness over vocal prayer, and interior passivity over pious action.  Once again, such concerns are merely fuelled by considerations of control and power (closely linked to the ego, no doubt) rather than with, on the one hand, the paradoxical powerfulness of silence, meditation and contemplation and, on the other, the directedness of still-pointedness and focus in meditation or mindfulness.

Once again, by way of concluding these few words, I should like to invite the reader to peruse the above poem again and to let whatever word or phrase offer itself to you as a mantra for a five minute period of still-pointed or focussed meditation or mindfulness.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 45

Poem 45

True perfection seems imperfect,

yet it is perfectly itself.

True fullness seems empty,

yet it is fully present.

True straightness seems crooked.

True wisdom seems foolish.

True art seems artless.

The Master allows things to happen.

She shapes events as they come.

She steps out of the way

and lets the Tao speak for itself.

Commentary

Howth Harbour, 2003

Once again, we are in the misty realms of the mystical where nothing appears clear - at least clear in the conceptual or cortical or logical sense Once again, to continue by way of a refrain, we are in the country of poetry which nicely parallels the world of the mystical. Another related, and indeed cognate word to mystical is undoubtedly that of "mystery." Both derive from the Greek root "musterion" and the Latin word "misterium" through "mistere" of Old French to mean something akin to hidden meaning or truth, or a deeper religious feeling or some sort of esoteric experience of union with that meaning or truth behind whatever reality is. Maybe, indeed, it is that reality in se? Moreover, it suggests a strong, though hidden, presence of the source of all truth, namely God or some other such esoteric principle, with the person doing the experiencing. 

Further, let me point out here, at the risk of repeating myself somewhat ad nauseam, that there is more to human intelligence than the logical, the cortical or the narrowly mathematical.  There are many other aspects to the human intelligence as the great contemporary psychologist Howard Gardner so powerfully pointed out to us in his book Frames of Mind (1983) namely Musical, Visual, Verbal, Logical, Bodily, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal,  Naturalistic and Existential.  There are other scholars who would add some others to this list. Be that as it may, these nine intelligences are essentially highly useful and intuitively obvious models of Intelligence, and obviously they do overlap and mutually co-operate in the workings of our human brains/minds.  In the main, as a schema or suggested structure for the complexity that is the human intelligence, they are useful in many fields of endeavour, especially in education and mental health areas to name but two.  What I am about here, to state my argument as vividly and as clearly as possible, is to emphasise that argumental clarity is a trait of logical and mathematical intelligence pre-eminently, and that it is not necessarily a strong trait in other aspects of intelligence as in Art or Music or Bodily or indeed Existential Intelligence.  In short, it is only at our peril that we look for a logical clarity in spiritual or mystical or indeed in existential writing.

"Of the writing of books there is no end!" Own library

Once again, to sustain my old refrain, poetry lends itself well to the expression of mystical theology, mystical experience, religious or siritual writing in a most important way. Poetry places all its powers at the disposal of the spiritual or mystical writer: simile, metaphor, paradox, imagery of all types, symbolism and so on, along with much subtlety of connotation.  Yet again, setting up pairs of polar oposites is to the fore in the above poem: perfection vs imperfection, fullness vs emptiness, presence vs absence, straightness vs crookedness, wisdom vs foolishness, expression vs concealment, openness vs closedness or closure, masculine vs feminine and so on.    

Perfection is essentially a hard word really, a relentlessly condemnatory and judgemental one at that, I believe. Somehow, unrealistic and obsessional teachers and professors have used it over the years as a cruel weapon in education to beat their pupils and students relentlessly with and in so doing massage their own egos. To my mind, they were simply that, that is to say, simply unrealistic, obsessional, cruel and egotistical.  A friend of mine, whose father was a professor and scholar of note at one of our foremost colleges described him as a "grammar fascist" in his ruthless pursuit of perfection in his chsosen language of study.  It is educationally sound to strive for a certain perfection as a goal but never to be obsessional in its pursuit as it can be so dismissive of seemingly lesser achievements, achievements which may require greater effort on the part of strugglers than the effort expended by the experts in the discipline in question. After all, does not life teach us that imperfection is often the order of the day?  Things fail and structures crumble as indeed do the creators and makers of those things.  As a young boy, I was often quite upset when this or that toy broke.  And then, I learned to live with the inevitable breaking down of things.  A deeper and more bitter lesson yet had to be learnt by me as a young boy, and that was that people as well as things broke, faded and died.  This is life, I learned to my then consternation. Perfection is always ahead of us, often never, if ever, here in the now. Living in the now often requires that we be satisfied at times with accepting what we cannot improve or change despite our greatest efforts, and that some individual things and some situations in which we find ourselves in life may just well be such as the old saying has it, that is, that they represent life's being simply "as good as it gets!" 

And yet perfection may include within it an element of the imperfect.  After all, how can one describe light without shade, black without white, good without bad, kindness without cruelty and so on?  Those polar opposites may just well be in that healthy tension suggested by many philosophers and creative writers?

As one of our great Irish writers, Oscar Wilde, once so pithily put it "the truth is never pure and rarely simple."  Indeed, Wilde did not write his words flippantly (as we often infer from his more humorous works) as he had suffered much in his quite short life and much of his thoughts and indeed his great humour were tempered with the most bitter of experiences of a life that had as many lows and well as it had highs. 

In a sense, existentially we are called upon, in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre to shape our own destinies by modelling the best self (or our best identity project) we can from the talents at our disposal within the orbit of our own little lives.  In that same sense, we are condemned to be free within the limits and constraints of our own private and public worlds.  However, we are but mere dots on a bigger blob of earth that is in turn a mere dot within a bigger blob that is a mere dot within another bigger blob and so on ad infinitum.  In that sense, the Tao or the Wisdom behind the universe or God or the Great Spirit or even what some call the Indifferent Energy behind the universe, or whatever is at the base of reality, shapes much that is beyond our puny control.  We are definitely mere "flies to wanton boys," as Shakespeare once so timelessly put it, in this particular context outlined. And yet, our task is at least to make the best stab we can at making even a little splash in our tiny pond of life.  To this end, all cultures call us, and all religions, too, which are, of course, mere aspects of those same cultures.  Maybe, indeed, the cultural must, of necessity, always and ever be greater than mere individuality, that most wonderful and elusive myth of all.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 43

Poem 43

The gentlest thing in the world

overcomes the hardest thing in the world.

That which has no substance

enters where there is no space.

This shows the value of non-action.

Teaching without words,

performing without actions:

that is the Master's way.

Commentary

Poppy, Easter 2014, Ardgillen Park, Skerries

What we have in the above poem are hard words - ones that contradict our lived experience. I remember an old teacher once remarking to me that there is an ancient animalistic instinct in the herd to tear the weakest member apart limb from limb.  He was remarking on how certain pupils can be bullied because they are perceived as weak.  However, I hasten to add here that this reported anecdote is over thirty years old and that since those times much has been done here in our schools in Ireland to write up good policies and establish equally good anti-bullying practices in our schools and work places.  However, that old teacher's comments still stand.  I suppose it's an ancient instinct that goes back to the survival of the herd in pre-historic times.  And yet, I was more than a little surprised to get hundreds of references on Google to the topic of crushing the weak.  Here is a report that appeared relatively recently in the October 21st 2015 edition of the The Tribune, which is a North Indian Newspaper published in Chandigarh, and the following quotation therefrom is worth reading in connection with our above poem:

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday accused the Prime Minister, Haryana Chief Minister, the BJP and RSS of practising “politics of crushing” those who are weak.

“This is an attitude shared by the Prime Minister, Chief Minister of the state and the entire BJP and RSS. The attitude is if somebody is weak, he can be crushed. What you have seen is the result of this attitude,” Gandhi said while visiting the Dalit family that lost two children on Tuesday in an attack allegedly by upper caste members in Sunped village near Ballabhgarh.

Two children were burnt alive and their parents suffered burn injuries allegedly after some upper caste members set their house afire while they were sleeping.

The village today erupted in grief and indignation, with the locals blocking the National Highway 2 in protest. (See CRUSHING THE WEAK )

Tulip, Easter 2014, Ardgillen Park, Skerries

I was horrified also to find that there was a Facebook page dedicated to, I quote "Crushing the Weak for Fun" and which has the following "raison d'etre" appended to it under its "About" tab: "This page is dedicated for (sic) all those who believe that the physically and intellectually superior should crush those weaker or less financially stable than they, as sport."  Undoubtedly, it was set up as a "spoof" or "send up" page (I hope) judging by the only photograph on the totally empty profile page.  The whole thing is devoid of content bar what I have reported here, but that the idea should have occurred to those who attempted to set it up mirrors how sick society can be at its lowest and basest level of behaviour.  

More flowers in Ardgillen Park, Skerries, Easter 2014

However, I will leave it to the reader of these few words to add their own examples of how they have experienced the weak being crushed in their lives.  What I wanted to illustrate here is that, more often than not, deep wisdom can contradict lived experience in the short term, in the actual "now" of experience, in the very horrific and painful occurrence of one tragedy or another.  And yet, we know that there is a greater perspective, a wisdom that needs longer to play out, a reflection on experience that issues in a wisdom that is paid for in pain and tears over a longer stretch of time.  That's why no wisdom tradition worth its salt offers easy answers or instant cures or miracles.  I have referred in these posts before to the habit within well-established religious and spiritual traditions of setting up paradoxes, seeming contradictions and a balancing of opposites in a healthy tension that offers no easy answers but rather provokes deeper questions that search out and shine a certain little light into the darker corners of experience.  It is in this sense and in this sense only that the above Taoist poem must be read.  It is stating the deepest truth in a paradoxical way. Yes, indeed, gentleness is a great strength as witnessed by that great master of non-violence and peace, the wonderful Mahatma Gandhi whose practice of non-violence eventually ended in the freedom of India -  though the people of all traditions had to experience much suffering in a chieving it. He showed that those who brutalised the people who demonstrated non-violence in their stance for justice were in fact brutalising themselves in the long run.  And yet, we know that such methods simply could not have worked against the likes of a Hitler or a Stalin, dictators of such an evil level that it required a necessary violence to bring them down and eventually establish justice.  It is then, with all of these experiences and the necessary reflection on those experiences taken into account that we read the Tao Te Chin or any other spiritual text.  In short, life is as complex as the people who go to make it up.  Let us resist an over-simplification of life.  Let us paint it in its full complexity and proceed by contemplating the paradoxes and the tension of opposites that all deep religious and spiritual texts require us to do.  There simply is no alternative to right living and right practice.  Now, let us practise getting to know our deeper selves through pondering meditatively once again our chosen poem:

The gentlest thing in the world

overcomes the hardest thing in the world.

That which has no substance

enters where there is no space.

This shows the value of non-action.

Teaching without words,

performing without actions:

that is the Master's way.

Namaste, friends.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 42

Poem 42

The Tao gives birth to One.

One gives birth to Two.

Two gives birth to Three.

Three gives birth to all things.

All things have their backs to the female

and stand facing the male.

When male and female combine,

all things achieve harmony.

Ordinary men hate solitude.

But the Master makes use of it,

embracing his aloneness, realizing

he is one with the whole universe.

Commentary

Flowers, Ardgillen Park, Skerries, Easter, 2014

Numerology made up a significant part of ancient religions. One, Two and Three are well known sacred numbers.  One represents unity or wholeness. Two is especially symbolic for Taoists:  followers of Taoism believe in the complementary and opposing forces of Ying and Yang. Threes, triads and triangles were always important in both ancient and modern religions, too. The 'Three Pure Ones' are the highest ranking gods in the Taoist trinity, they are The Grand Pure One, The Jade Pure One and The Supreme Pure One.  It is in the sense of the symbolism of numbers that three is seen as generative of all life.  These reflections may give some insight into stanza one above.

I have mentioned many times in these commentaries that the Tao is very much based on the balance of opposites, on the tension between obvious polarities, e.g., light vs dark, day vs night, white vs black, fire vs water, expanding vs contracting, height vs depth and so on and so forth.  Another polarity is undoubtedly male vs female. In Taoist philosophy this balance of polar opposites is called Yin (dark, feminine, open to life and possibility) and Yang (bright, masculine, defensive, protective and, therefore, somewhat closed).  Basically, this healthy tension of opposites describes how contrary forces are actually complementary or interconnected or interdependent in the natural world and in our experiences of that world. Indeed, they are so mutually bound up with one another that they seem to give rise to one another. This basic duality is a major trait of classical Chinese science and philosophy. Further, it is central to the understanding and practice of traditional Chinese medicine and a major principle of the practice of different forms of Chinese martial arts and physical exercise of all types.

Mountains over Delphi, March 2008

Chinese philosophy argues that everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance shadow cannot exist without light.) Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object depending on the criterion used as a basis for our observation. The yin-yang (as shown in the taijitu symbol shown herewith) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section. A basic rule regarding the relationship between yin and yang is that the YANG (masculine) protects the YIN (feminine) and the YIN nurtures the YANG and that together they form a complete whole.  Everyone has a max of yin and yang qualities. Men are essentially more YANG - in body, temperament and behaviour while women are essentially more YIN.  Again, each of us has some of the other energy, and in each of us our yang protects our yin. 

Solitude is a much misunderstood condition or experience.  Religious and spiritual folk of all denominations and none understand what solitude is.  Indeed, so do all creative people whether they belong to the Sciences or the Arts.  In solitude the "creative juices" or "inspiring muses" work effectively.  If the present author does not get at least a couple of hours of solitude daily he will be out of sorts and will become grumpy.  It is a special time for me to "re-charge my batteries" and re-empower myself to do my daily work as a Resource Teacher responsible for the education of some ten autistic adolescent boys.  I love the job, and thrive on it, but if I do not get my two hour daily dose of time alone in solitude, I am useless both to myself and to all with whom I work.  Real solitude has nothing to do with loneliness or being alone in the sense of being abandoned by others.  Loneliness is all about absence of others and the feeling of absolute loss of their presence in your life.  On the other hand, solitude is all about presence - about being present to oneself in a deep way, about even being present to others though they are not with you as you simply do not miss them as they are their in your heart.  This is where the spirituality of solitude comes in: I am here sitting alone, and yet I feel the presence of all the people who mean much to me in my life. In the stillness of my heart and in the solitude of my soul I truly feel their presence in my life.  Now, with these thoughts and feelings in my mind, I am re-reading the final stanza of the above poem: You see the Master, or any meditator who is serious about his periods of stillness embraces his aloneness or solitude and realises that he is truly one with everything and everybody in the universe.  In other words, meditation and mysticism in all spiritual traditions calls us into a realisation that we are merely just one little insignificant part of a more significant whole.