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. 

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 23

Stanza 23

Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

If you open yourself to the Tao,
you are at one with the Tao
and you can embody it completely.
If you open yourself to insight,
you are at one with insight
and you can use it completely.
If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.

Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place.

The good old worker bee,  I took this photograph in 2010

Commentary

The above poem is essentially about the twin skills of openness and listening.  Both these skills lie at the heart of the practice of meditation.  When we sit to meditate we firstly relax our bodies and de-stress it bit by bit.  Then we concentrate on the rhythm of our breath as it oxygenates our body and expels carbon dioxide through our nostrils - that basic process physiologists and biologists call respiration.  In meditation circles we call the attention to our respiratory apparatus simply "the act of returning to or paying close attention to the breath." This simple act is one of sheer receptivity to the breath that keeps our very body alive in this moment in time.  In holistic practices like that of Focusing, invented by Dr. Eugene Gendlin the person engaged in the process focuses on the "felt sense" of some problem,  Essentially focusing like mindfulness uses those skills used for thousands of years by the different masters and practitioners of meditation in the various religious traditions.  

The sand on Donabate Beach, 2013

In focusing one is literally listening to how we hold certain feelings in our bodies.  I would argue that meditators actually do that very naturally anyway.  It is also my contention that mindfulness is secular meditation and that modern authors who peddle their wares in the form of books, CDs and DVDs on mindfulness stole the clothes of the traditional meditators, but that is a story for a different post than this one.

Another major theme in the above poem is that of self-expression.  Such expression can be done in many creative ways: in art of all kinds, in literature, in poems, in music, in dance, in mime and in sculpture and architecture and so on.  Then, once one has expressed how one feels, the author recommends that we learn to keep quiet.  This is good wisdom as we must for sure express all our emotions, especially negative ones as unexpressed feelings will eat and gnaw away at us forever until they are given expression through one medium or another,  However, there is nothing worst than someone who continually repeats the same old moan and never has the courage to do anything about it.  Such is not what our Taoist writer has in mind.  He (or she) sees the expression of feelings as being therapeutic once expressed.  In this way, the person gets whatever is weighing them down or even lifting them up off their minds.

The second stanza sings the praises of openness which it also sees as essentially healing and therapeutic.  Such openness allows us to feel empathy with our inner self, with others and indeed with the source of all life which some of us dare call God.  Interestingly, the poet recommends that we be open both to negative and positive experiences: On the one hand we can be open to the positive experience of insight and by being so open we become one with it.  On the other hand, we can be open to the negative experience of loss and in so doing becoming one with loss.  Such an openness paradoxically helps us accept that loss and learn to live with it from day to day.  In short, such openness allows the human spirit to heal.

The author invites us in essence to open ourselves to the Tao and in so doing we open ourselves to the healing powers of the universe.  The final stanza works like a chorus and is worth repeating as it is really a summary of the whole poem:

Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place.

In conclusion, some word or phrase or line may suggest itself as a matra for meditation or as a thought to inspire a short period of contemplation.  I wish the reader of these few words peace and happiness in the now of experience.  Namaste, friends!