Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 76

Poem 76

Men are born soft and supple;
dead, they are stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant;

dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding

is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail.

Commentary

One cannot but love metaphors as they resonate with many levels of meaning, and depending on either the time of day or the mood the reader is in they offer up differing insights.  Rigidity versus flexibility are wonderful metaphors for ways of being in the world. As such they have much to teach us.  Let's take the ego by way of example by looking at the person who believes he or she knows the one way or the correct way to do something.  To be a "know all" can lead very quickly to our downfall as we will quickly learn from lived experience.  It is often better to declare our ignorance before we start to solve a problem because that way we are open to all lines of inquiry, and we shut out no avenue of exploration no matter how improbable that may seem at first sight.  This is the long known approach of the great Socrates. First, he says, the inquirer must always declare his ignorance and proceed in logical steps from there.  So flexibility in thought is much to be advised.

Likewise, flexibility in feelings is also much to be desired.   To stubbornly and inflexibly follow one path just because we dislike or even hate another person and deep down know we are wrong is another form of ignorance.

Likewise, look at the way some leaders function. Good leaders learn to motivate others through being flexible in their approach to leading their staff rather than rigid.  Being rigid often sets us up for defeat.  Did you ever work with someone who was a control freak, who couldn't let go or who could not delegate?  I worked with one such person once and he ended up working himself into an early grave.  I still work with a few control freaks.  They seek in vain to micro-manage things. Unfortunately,  or rather, very fortunately, the world simply does not work like that.  The forces of life work so much differently, and they don't spend too long teaching us the error of our ways. That's how people get all those psychosomatic illnesses from peptic ulcers right across the board to high blood pressure, nervous breakdowns, panic attacks and actual heart attacks.

How many times have we heard the age-old advice that we must learn to "go with the flow"? Flow theory was popularised by Mihaly Csikszentmihali who really discovered nothing new. Rather, he was open enough to recognise this process, give it a name and describe it in detail and then popularise it.  Here is a Ted Talk he has given on this interesting theory if you are interested: TED TALK.  

Thankfully, I learned early in my teaching career just how much I can control, when to ask for help, when to take action according to how serious something is.  One has to learn to become open to observation, to learn to read the signs, pick up the clues and interpret them properly.  That, of course, can only come with experience.  There is a Zen recommendation that it is better to be flexible like the grass rather than rigid like a tree in the wind.  Indeed, this is very old wisdom and even Aesop had a fable about it.  An old proverb runs that it is "better to bend than break," or even that "reeds survive the wind while mighty oaks do fall." Obviously, the same wisdom is found in the above short poem.

So softness is often preferable to hardness, gentleness to strength, flexibility to rigidity if we are to survive our journey through life.

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 57

Poem 57

If you want to be a great leader,

you must learn to follow the Tao.

Stop trying to control.

Let go of fixed plans and concepts,

and the world will govern itself.

The more prohibitions you have,

the less virtuous people will be.

The more weapons you have,

the less secure people will be.

The more subsidies you have,

the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore the Master says:

I let go of the law,

and people become honest.

I let go of economics,

and people become prosperous.

I let go of religion,

and people become serene.

I let go of all desire for the common good,

and the good becomes common as grass.

Commentary

The wonderful worker bee: Summer 2012

Control is an interesting desire. In one sense we all desire control of our own lives, and that is essentially a good desire. However, there are many who seek also to control others as if these others are actually part of their own reality. (A good philosophical sense helps in no little way here.  After all, I can ask the seminal questions: what is my reality? What is his/her reality? What is our shared reality as partners in a relationship or as workers in a company? In short, these are very important questions.  The root question, of course, that underlies them all is simply put: what is the nature of reality anyway? Putting these seminal questions will, to sustain the metaphor in our adjective, promote the growth of harmony and good leadership anyway.  So, a good sharp sense of philosophy is a good tool for any leader). I remember attending a talk years ago on teaching and management where the psychologist Dr Tony Humphreys emphasised over and over again that "all control is self-control."  How right the good Doctor is!  If I can control my own "self," then everything else falls into place, and I actually don't have to control others then at all.  In fact, the base desire to control others vanishes.  One might, of course, still legitimately desire to lead others and that is a very good thing.  However, all good Human Resource Personnel know that good leadership is not about controlling others at all.  A desire to control others results in what's termed "micro-management" which has a negative affect on all the staff including the so-called controller or "control freak."

Mallard, Phoenix Park, 2012

Flexibility, or the ability to bend with the circumstances, is an approach with works. The opposite, namely rigidity, or the inability to bend with the situation, is a method that leads to fracture of all harmony in the workplace.  Something has got to give and people do actually crack. It's the same with ideas, concepts and preconceptions.  That's what our ancient writer (some 2,500 years ago) means when he says that we must "let go of fixed plans and concepts," because that is the path of wisdom.  A leader who comes into any organisation or business with his or her ideas, plans and concepts set in stone will meet with much opposition and will eventually break or at least cause much upset amongst the staff.  Most leaders know that when all the staff have a "buy in" to whatever the plans are for the particular company or organisation that much more progress is made.  More progress is made in a harmonious atmosphere than in a disharmonious one.  Having recently completed the Ken Blanchard et al  Leader Behaviour Analysis II, the whole guiding principle is that of flexibility and awareness of the four leadership styles and the positive and negative aspects of each, and through growing awareness to be able to avoid the negative aspects and highlight the positive ones, and moreover, to be able to flexibly change one's style of leadership through awareness and practice.  Like the Myers Briggs or MBTI inventory of personality types (16 in total) once one knows one's natural type one can change this by awareness.  Of course, one will have a style or a type more natural to you, but with awareness and practice one can alter one's style or type from time to time as appropriate and then obviously return to that which is a more natural tendency for you.  In short, awareness or consciousness is all.  In fact, awareness in any mental, and indeed physical illness, is most important.  Much relief and release, if not a certain amount of healing, comes with this knowledge.

Another few lines that jump out at this commentator here are "The more subsidies you have, //the less self-reliant people will be."  As a Resource Teacher, I have found that those parents who put too much help and assistance in place for their children foster a attitude of over-dependence in their offspring, while those that allow their children more responsibility and have less fears about their future foster an attitude of independence and self-reliance in their offspring.  

Sundown, Phoenix Park, Winter 2015

However, realistically, too, there is a growing minority in all societies who need to be watched over and controlled because of the nature of their great disabilities or by virtue of their inability to conform to societies' rules, that is, through criminality and so on. However, our Taoist poet is not talking about these exceptions, but rather about the most of us who are law-abiding and responsible members of society.  It is in this context alone that the final stanza makes any sense at all.  Also, we must remember that we are dealing with poetry which is replete with simile and metaphor that abhors a literalistic or a fundamentalist interpretation.  Needless to say, the same can be said of all the religious and spiritual texts from any religious tradition.  It is only in this sense that we can read any meaning in these words of the final stanza:

Therefore the Master says:

I let go of the law,

and people become honest.

I let go of economics,

and people become prosperous.

I let go of religion,

and people become serene.

I let go of all desire for the common good,

and the good becomes common as grass.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 15

Poem 15

The ancient Masters were profound and subtle,

their wisdom was unfathomable.

There is no way to describe it;

all we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful 

as someone crossing an iced-over stream.

Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.

Courteous as a guest.

Fluid as melting ice.

Shapable as a block of wood.

Receptive as a valley.

Clear as a glass of water.

Do you have the patience to wait

till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving

till the right action arises by itself?

The Master doesn't seek fulfilment.

Not seeking, not expecting,

she is present, and can welcome all things.

Reflections

Image of Lao Tzu

The clarion call of the Eastern religious and spiritual systems and traditions is to "wake up!", to "become aware!" or  to "open our eyes and unblock our ears!"  Awareness is all.  Indeed, Socrates' call to his hearers to "know themselves" and not to live an "unexamined life" shares in this call to awareness to a great extent.  T.S. Eliot penned an interesting line in his great poem, The Four Quartets viz., "the sudden illumination - //We had the experience but missed the meaning" is a sentiment that shares in this common call to reflecting on our experiences or to self-reflection.  When we meditate we are learning to become aware, to wake up, to open our eyes and unblock our ears.

T. S. Eliot

To cross a stream that's covered with ice requires very careful attention to where one places one's feet.  Our author in the above Taoist poem also admits that the really aware person exercises the careful attention of a warrior on enemy territory.  Such an aware person is certainly never rude or angry as s/he is "courteous as a guest." Awareness calls not just for the keen skills of observation, but for a gentleness of being, a congruence and authenticity of living that openness to all the sentient creatures of the world requires.

There is an interesting and important contrast between rigidity and fluidity brought out in the above poem.  Modern psychology notes that those who are at risk of developing health problems, both physical and mental, belong to a group of persons who have a certain characteristic of temperament, namely rigidity.  The above ancient text recognizes this fact and it says that the old Masters showed great "fluidity" or flexibility in their approach to living.  There is also the related saying from Confucius that recommends the same flexibility or fluidity that goes: "The green reed that bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm."  We could learn much from this simple wisdom.

Image of Confucius

When we meditate we learn slowly, indeed very slowly to still our senses and our mind.  In this regard we need much continued practice.  In doing so, we allow, as the Taoist poet says in the above  lines, "the mud to settle and the water to become clear."  However, this is no easy or quick process but one that requires our continued application to meditative practices that promote awareness.

By way of conclusion, let me invite the reader to reflectively read the above Taoist poem and let a word, phrase or line offer itself as a mantra for ten minute period of meditation.