Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 40

Poem 40

Return is the movement of the Tao.

Yielding is the way of the Tao.

All things are born of being.

Being is born of non-being.

Commentary

Water lily on the Garavogue River, Summer 2006

In the fourth of T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" called "Little Gidding" we read the following piece of wisdom: "We shall not cease from exploration//And the end of all our exploring //Will be to arrive where we started //And know the place for the first time." Eliot had studied Eastern philosophy at Harvard and was certainly au fait with the philosophy of both Buddhism and Hinduism and so these quoted lines capture much of such a spirituality or philosophy.  Spiritual or personal movement is often not linear and can be circular or cyclic in nature and hence, while there may be a "return" to a beginning, there is a new knowledge or a deeper wisdom gained by the traveller who now "knows the place for the first time."  In like manner, this fortieth poem of the Tao Te Ching informs us that return is the movement of the Tao.

Quite often our native resistance or our initial reaction to push against situations or circumstances in life can rebound upon us and thereby frustrate us or increase further the intensity of our problems.  Often going with the flow of life can be a better course of action. That is the meaning of the line "Yielding is the way of the Tao."

Garavogue River, Summer 2006

Being and its contrary non-being are often widely discussed categories in both traditional Eastern and Western philosophies.  The Pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides maintained that being implies immutability, actual existence in itself or in its essence.  Non-being, he declares, refers to non-existence.  However, the contrast between being and non-being has been interpreted in different ways over the course of the centuries.  For example, Plato believed that being refers to the immutable world of ideas (= forms), while non-being is unformed matter; and these two are paradoxically united to compose or constitute the transient world of becoming.  If we turn to Hindu belief/philosophy, we find that it equates being with the enduring reality of Brahman, and non-being with the illusory unreality of the manifested universe or so-called real world of experiences. Turning to Mahayana Buddhism we find written in the Nirvana Sutra: "The Buddha nature neither exists nor does not exist/both exists and does not exist/...being and nothing combined/This is what is called the middle path." For Hegel, being and non-being are two opposing, completely indeterminate logical and also ontological categories which, however, are integrated into a third category of becoming at a higher and determinate level.  For Heidegger, being and non-being are no longer indeterminate categories, and non-being is, in fact, instrumental and necessary for our grasp of the meaning of being.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger

All of the above is, I admit, a highly complex philosophical reflection on humankind's experience of spirituality in its lived expression. Analytical philosophers would rule all these musings out of court as sheer mystical rubbish that means nothing.  For them, these categories used above are far too fuzzy terms for equally fuzzy and wholly unprovable realities.  In short, we are simply wasting our time on undefinable nonsense.  This writer can understand such scepticism because all of the above is nonsense to those who simply have never had a religious or spiritual experience.  I find myself in agreement with the wise words that Shakespeare puts in Hamlet's mouth by way of his response to his friend Horatio's opinions and ideas: "There are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio!"  Analytical philosophers, to my mind, need to declare a little humility and abandon an arrogance that encompasses so much dismissal of what may be beyond their ken.  

Thoughts on the Tao te Ching 34

Poem 34

The great Tao flows everywhere.

All things are born from it,

yet it doesn't create them.

It pours itself into its work,

yet it makes no claim.

It nourishes infinite worlds,

yet it doesn't hold on to them.

Since it is merged with all things

and hidden in their hearts,

it can be called humble.

Since all things vanish into it

and it alone endures,

it can be called great.

It isn't aware of its greatness;

thus it is truly great.

Commentary

Pond, Parc de Montsouris, Paris, June, 2006

From the beginning of civilisation, human beings have been preoccupied with getting to know and understand the things of the world and indeed themselves.  It is perhaps beyond argument that self-consciousness was and is the key to all civilisation.  One of our early musings as to what life was about concerned the nature of the environment that surrounded us.  The earliest philosophers proposed the make-up of that environment to be the four essential elements, namely earth, air, fire and water.  One can readily understand why a lot of cultures proposed their surroundings to be constituted by these basic elements, for they were self-evidently in front of them, and they needed all of them to survive.

Turtle on the same pond of Parc de Montsouris

What may not be so evident is that ancient cultures also proposed that there was a fifth element that made up reality, viz., an element called "quintessence" from the word "quint" which means "fifth." Hinduism and Buddhism proposed this fifth element as did the Greeks, with the Hindu calling it "akasha" and the Greek philosophers naming it the "aether," a term indeed that persisted in the history of science right up to the late nineteenth century. Indeed, it is also worth noting here that what we now call the natural sciences were once called natural philosophy and that the knowledge of the sciences grew out of the thrust to and thirst for knowledge which began in wonder, that is, in philosophy itself.  Moreover, it is worth noting here also that one of the big questions in philosophy is that of the nature of reality? Is reality all that is noted/noticed/documented by the five senses, that is empirically or is there more to reality?  The idea of the fifth element brings with it all these bigger questions of philosophy as the nature of reality is inextricably linked with other big questions like the origin and destiny of life and all its possible meanings.  The WIKI article on the classical elements is worth perusing for those who require a little extra background on the subject than is demanded in this brief post. See Classical Elements.

My footprints in the sand, Donabate, summer 2006

Living in our modern world where global warning is without doubt drenching, swamping and even drowning our places of habitation and work in water, we cannot but be ever more cognisant of this major element of the four.  Water, both fortunately and unfortunately, will manage to get anywhere at all as those poor souls who have been flooded out in their very homes will attest to.  The human body is mostly water, and we are anywhere between 50 and 75 per cent constituted of it depending on our age, sex and physical condition.

Is it any wonder, then, that the essence or quintessence (that fifth element!) of life, the very Tao is imaginatively described as having the attributes of water, that it "flows," that it "pours itself into its (creative) work," "it nourishes infinite worlds." and yet it does not hold on to them; rather it lets them go to flourish on their own.  Like water, the Tao does not cling onto things, it flows through and by them and lets all things go.

Indeed, all things, our Taoist poet tells us, vanishes into the Tao, and s/he reliably tells us that it alone will endure forever.  Interestingly, and paradoxically, our author believes that the Tao is not conscious of his/her/its own greatness.

Once again, by way of conclusion please read over the above poem and let a line, a phrase or a word suggest itself as a mantra for five minutes meditation.