Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 71

Poem 71

Not-knowing is true knowledge.

Presuming to know is a disease.

First realize that you are sick;

then you can move toward health.

The Master is her own physician.

She has healed herself of all knowing.

Thus she is truly whole.

Commentary

Humility is a virtue much to be prized according to many religious and spiritual traditions, though the great Greek philosopher Aristotle denied that it could ever be one because it actually sets itself against some of our most fundamental impulses like ambition and pride for example.  Instead Aristotle exalted "greatness of soul," what he termed wonderfully in Greek as "megalopsychia," which was for him where all moral values converged - a mean, as all virtues were essentially - between the extremes of vanity on the one hand and pusillanimity or extreme timidity on the other hand.

Again, a great soul, or as we say, a humble person, would acknowledge that not-knowing is true knowledge.  It is a Socratic epistemology insofar as one's starting point is always the acknowledgement of one's ignorance and then the gradual digging down or climbing up step by step in the pursuit of that knowledge. In keeping with our Taoist poet's analogy, there are far too many sick people in the world, that is, those who presume to know; those who think they have all the answers.  That is all ego stuff, that, in actuality.

When we realise we are sick, in sustaining our Taoist metaphor, we are on the way to healing.  How true it is that when we get a diagnosis for any illness we may have, that we are on the way to a certain type of healing - please note, I do not say cure here, as curing of illnesses is an entirely different matter.  Most counsellors, tharapists and even a growing number of medical doctors acknowledge that healing is more important than cure.  

I like the call of the Master or Mistress - the Teacher is both Masculine and Feminine in Taoism, maybe even beyond all sex, but that is a matter for another place and time.  In keeping with the sentiments of this wonderful Taoist poem, let us agree to heal ourselves of all improper and inappropriate knowing.

NAMASTE.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 27

Poem 27

A good traveler has no fixed plans

and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition

lead him wherever it wants.

A good scientist has freed himself of concepts

and keeps his mind open to what is.

Thus the Master is available to all people
and doesn't reject anyone.

He is ready to use all situations

and doesn't waste anything.

This is called embodying the light.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher?

What is a bad man but a good man's job?

If you don't understand this, you will get lost,

however intelligent you are.

It is the great secret.

Commentary

Skeleton of a coracle, Dingle Interpretative Centre - 

Another staple recommendation, indeed tenet, of anyone involved in the spiritual quest from whatever religious background is surely that the journey itself is more important than the destination. Today pilgrimage is becoming important once more as many people discover anew the spiritual quest through making a journey.  Accordingly, even here in Ireland, the Camino pilgrimage to Santiago or the town or Cathedral Church of St James in Catalonia, Spain. The physical journey is a solid outward sign or symbol of the inward journey of the self, or soul indeed.The greatest story of pilgrimage was perhaps written in verse by the famous Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 - 1400), the text of which most of us studied at some stage in our academic career, or at least read excerpts from.

We know these stories as The Canterbury Tales which Chaucer began working 0n from 1386 onwards. They recount, in verse mostly, the stories told by way of a friendly contest between a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from London to Canterbury in order to visit the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.  The prize for the winner is simple indeed: a free meal at the Tabard Inn in Southwark.  Chaucer's take on the idea of pilgrimage is humorous, a tad raunchy in parts, but for all that very appreciative of the importance of pilgrimage in the social life of the people among whom he lived at the time. Many other books have recounted the importance of pilgrimage and have pointed  out that life is a journey in many senses: in the physical sense as we grow up and move from one phase to another in our lives and often travel about the world in so doing; in the psychological sense as we journey to get to know ourselves; in the spiritual sense as we seek to make sense and meaning of our lives in an often inimical world. John Bunyan's (1628–1688) Pilgrim's Progress (1678) is a good example of a more serious presentation of pilgrimage in the spiritual life from an evangelical Protestant point of view.  It is a wonderfully profound read written in the simplest and most direct of language.

Oceanic Tapesty Ionad an Bhlascaoid - Kerry

Again, the verses of the above poem are full of paradoxical writing.  Setting up oppositional points of view is a preferred method of our author, and indeed one of the methods mostly used by writers of spirituality or mystical theology in any tradition.  It is important, indeed, to plan out any journey we wish to undertake as well as we can, though it is often wonderful to take a few diversions on our way here and there along our path - diversions that make our travelling far more interesting.  However, our Taoist writer does not mean just doing that as he suggests that we have no fixed plans at all.  That advice is ridiculous in worldly terms, though not in a deeper spiritual sense.  Indeed, we can make the greatest of plans in our lives and then have them ruined totally by accident or by chance. These unexpected happenings, even tragedies, do befall us as we make our journey.  Perhaps, the author is getting at the truth of that as it unfolds in our lives, that is, by making his exaggerated demands on us so that we don't become too ambitious and ego-driven to the extent that we lose a healthy intuition about what really matters in life - loving and being loved by others and so on.

John Bunyan (1628 - 1688)

Inspiration and intuition are undoubtedly very important in art.  Of course, so is talent and hard work to achieve a certain mastery in it.  The hard work does pay off as the more the artist practises the more s/he is open to being inspired and being intuitive.  Our Taoist author sees the scientist as being open to inspiration and not being too tied down by traditional concepts.  Openness to the new is the order of imagination.

Likewise, the Master of meditation is open to everyone and in totally non-judgemental and accepts everyone as they are in an unprejudiced and unbiased fashion.  All situations he finds himself in is looked upon as "grist for the spiritual mill."  

In the final stanza of the above poem our Taoist writer shows that there is really very little difference between the good and the bad man in a sense as we all are made up of good points and bad points. The so-called good people just manage to control their baser instincts and more evil desires better than the so-called bad people do.  That reminds me of the old moral poem we learnt as children: "There is so much good in the worst of us// And so much bad in the best of us// that it hardly behooves any of us//To talk about the rest of us." (Edward Wallace Hoch)  And indeed, here we must agree vehemently with our Taoist poet that this piece of wisdom can guide us well through life: in our parenting of children, in our teaching of children, in our leadership of others: in short, in how we greet others as being as important as we ourselves are in the overall scheme of things.

Finally, as is my usual habit in ending these short posts on the Tao Te Ching, I invite the reader to go read slowly over the above poem and let whatever line, phrase or word offer itself to you as a possible mantra for a short five minute meditation.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 21

Poem 21

The Master keeps her mind

always at one with the Tao;

that's what gives her her radiance.

The Tao is ungraspable.

How can her mind be at one with it?

Because she does not cling to ideas.

The Tao is dark and unfathomable.

How can it make her radiant?

Because she lets it.

Since before time and space were,

the Tao is, 

It is beyond is and is not.

How do I know this is true?

I look inside myself and see.

Commentary

The Yin Yang is perhaps one of the most known of the symbols of Taoism.  It is a symbol made up of two halves that together make wholeness. Yin and Yang are also the starting point for change. When something is whole, by definition it is unchanging and complete. So when you split something into two halves – into its Yin  and its Yang, it upsets the equilibrium of wholeness. This starts both halves chasing after each other as they seek a new balance with each other. As you will notice from the diagrammatic representation of this symbol one half of the circle is white (or Yin = masculine, logic, head and so forth) with a small black dot (that is a small amount of the Yang = feminine, feelings, heart and so on); the other half is black or dark (or Yang = feminine, feelings, heart and so on) with a small white dot (that is a small amount of Yin = masculine, logic, head and so forth).  It is interesting to note that the word "Yin" comes out to mean the “shady side” or mysterious side of something like the dark side of the moon and Yang “sunny side” or bright side of something.  

It is also worth noting that neither Yin nor Yang are absolute in themselves alone. In short, nnothing is completely Yin or completely Yang. Each aspect contains the beginning point for the other aspect. For example: day becomes night and then night becomes day gradually as one welcomes the other to the fore and vice versa. Yin and Yang are interdependent upon each other so that the definition of one requires the definition for the other to be complete. And so in keeping with this healthy tension of opposite our translator links two sexual poles male and female in calling the "Master" a she, i.e., in referring to "her mind."  Also the Tao or its truth is ungraspable in its entirety.  This Master is "at one" with the Tao insofar as she does not "cling to (hard and set) ideas."  Another polarity is that of the Tao's being dark and mysterious on the one hand and yet fully radiant on the other.  Here we are at the very heart of what the Yin Yang symbol represents - the complexity and mysteriousness at the very heart of existence.  Another opposing pair in this spiritual reality is "is" ("being") and "is not" ("non-being").

Man contemplates life on Monasterace Beach, August 2015

Looking inside is no mere navel-gazing or solipsism as meditation requires one to check one's experiences with those of the community of meditators, with the various traditions and their teachings to which the meditator belongs in the first place.  Wisdom arises or is experienced within a culture or a community and simply cannot be accessed alone. (Here, I am not, of course ruling out the thrust towards eremitism as this latter only occurs when the hermit has been fully schooled within the community in the first place: all hermits break away from monasteries or sanghas where they first learnt to meditate with a master in a community setting.)

Once more, by way of conclusion, I invite the reader to reflect contemplatively on the above short poem.  Perhaps a word or a phrase or a line may suggest itself to you as a mantra for a short five or ten minutes meditation here.

Namaste, Shalom, Peace!!