Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 46

Poem 46

When a country is in harmony with the Tao,
the factories make trucks and tractors.
When a country goes counter to the Tao,
warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.

There is no greater illusion than fear,
no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself,
no greater misfortune than having an enemy.
Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.

Commentary

Stained glass window, St Vitus Cathedral, Prague, 2016

Our translator Stephen Mitchell is using his translator's licence in his above rendition of poem 46. To illustrate how one translator's version differs from another's, I give here immediately that of Derek Lin which is available at the link given after it.  It runs thus:

When the world has the Tao

Fast horses are retired to till the soil

When the world lacks the Tao

Warhorses give birth on the battlefield.

There is no crime greater than greed

No disaster greater than discontentment

No fault greater than avarice

Thus the satisfaction of contentment

is the lasting satisfaction

(Tao Te Ching Version 2)

Mitchell speaks of the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and Lin that of horses being prepared for battle.  He also chooses to use contemporary or modern images of prosperity and war, that is, tractors and nuclear warheads while his fellow translator chooses the more historic images of agricultural workhorses and warhorses to put across the same message, namely that harmony with the Tao leads both to individual, social, national and international peace and harmony.

Ancient means of war: Prague Castle, February 2016

Evil stalks our world when we as individuals are not "at home " or are not comfortable with ourselves as persons; when we are always envious of others, and when our hearts are shackled, if not shattered, by negative feelings.  If, as individuals, we find it hard to live with ourselves, how can we ever find it easy to live in some peaceful acceptance with others?Whatever happens in our hearts at this micro or personal and social level must surely be magnified if a whole people or nation are not "at home" or comfortable with their identity as a people.  It is no wonder, then, that when crises arise, these opposing nations can see no peaceful solution to their conflicted sense of their own identity and that of the hated other and take recourse to war.  

Therefore, if more and more people are in harmony with themselves they will live in consequent harmony with others.  This micro, personal and social situation will then be replicated further at national and international level.  Hence, the more people practise mindfulness, meditation and prayer as individuals and as small groups there will be a knock-on effect on the world.  When people are "in harmony with the Tao" prosperity comes about.  One could say that peace and prosperity "break out," instead of its direct opposite, namely the inevitability of fighting and war.  Material prosperity follows inevitably on the heels of spiritual prosperity, if one may express the idea thus.

Hitler, and indeed all other dictators whether of the right or left, knew all too well how to manipulate people by playing to their baser instincts like fears, anxieties, memories of old rivalries; by re-opening old wounds; by inspiring the negative feelings of greed and avarice, discontentment, jealousy and envy and thereby fomenting racism, hatred, murder, mayhem and war.

However, to see through all fear is a very difficult thing to do.  The Tao Te Ching is suggesting a path for us to follow, a way of practising reflection and mindfulness, a way of meditating on life, a way of positive action in the world that springs naturally from such practice.  Once, when the great Irish poet, W.B. Yeats was asked how a person becomes a good writer, he replied that he or she must practise continually their craft.  If we are to become mindful people we must also follow the advice given by Yeats, namely to practise the craft of meditating as often and as regularly as possible.  Nothing less is required.

Namaste, friends.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 32

Poem 32

The Tao can't be perceived.

Smaller than an electron,

it contains uncountable galaxies.

If powerful men and women

could remain centered in the Tao,

all things would be in harmony.

The world would become a paradise.

All people would be at peace,

and the law would be written in their hearts.

When you have names and forms,

know that they are provisional.

When you have institutions,

know where their functions should end.

Knowing when to stop,

you can avoid any danger.

All things end in the Tao

as rivers flow into the sea.

Commentary

Stock illustation of the universe

Ever since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens, the wondrous and wonderful exspance of the universe has been open to our ever more humbled gaze.  I never tire of reminding the reader of the poet-philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge's comment that ever since a child when his father used bring him out in the dark of the night to view the heavens overhead, his sensitivities had become "habituated to the vast."  This is the macro or large and expanding universe.  On the opposite pole, there also exists the wondrous and wonderful world of the micro-universe opened to our ken by ever more powerful microscopes.  As well as there being a macro-universe out there, there is also a micro-universe down there at cell level and further down still at atomic and subatomic levels.

Our translator, Mr S. Mitchell, is undoubtedly taking liberties with the English language, indeed indulging in wholescale anachronisms in using the terms "electron" and "galaxies" in translating a two and a half thousand year old text.  However, we will forgive him his excesses here due to his passion for his subject.  Obviously, translators do far more than transliterating a text or translating it word for word.  If such were the task of translators we could just pour our text rather carelessly into Google translate and come up with senseless garbage that isn't language at all.  We understand what Mr Mitchell means.  He is attempting to capture the sheer wonder and awe of physical reality.  I am reminded here of the Kantian concept of noumenon or thing-in-itself, which most, if not all, philosophers agree that none of us will ever get to know.  Physics, and especially quantum physics, are in a sense engaged in a sort of quasi-Kantian quest, in attempting to find out what sub-atomic life is in itself.  Of course, the mystery is further complicated by the fact that even our most powerful microscopes disturb so much what they are looking at that essentially there can never been an objective observer at all.  It is here at this epistemological level that scientism runs its ship aground and founders on the jagged rocks of its own weak axioms.  It seems mystery and wonder are at the heart of our awesome universe. In short, I am all for good science and for the exspansion of our human knowlege, but very much against a scientism that allows no further questions beyound its axioms.  Metaphysics will always rear its head, and it is all too easy to rule the asking of such questions out of court so arbitrarily.  Once again, these are questions for a more philosophical blog, and yet they do deepen our spiritual quest here in meditating on the Tao.

The Tao, our poet-author tells us, is simply beyond visual or aural observation.  It is something deeper, something that can only be experienced at a deep level or intuited from the heart, or again "proved" by a process of induction from, what the great Victorian theologian, John Henry Cardinal Newman called "a convergence of evidences."  Such convergences always involve the heart as well as the head and intuitions that go so much deeper than more superficial axioms.  The Tao is elusive and yet the whole universe is shot through with it.  It is the source and summit of all that is "created."

Our poet-philosopher, our Taoist author is more than a little pessimistic about the world's politicians who certainly have their motivations centered anywhere but in the Tao.  More likely still, those motivations will be based in nationalism and national pride and perhaps even in personal greed and petty jealousies. The goal of the disciples of the Taoist way is that the law of the Tao should be written in all hearts.  Indeed, let me strike a pluralist note here. We could simply substitute God, Allah, Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, Buddha, Elohim, Jahweh and so on and get exactly the same message of peace and compassion and care for all sentient and non-sentient things we encounter in the world. Indeed, a true pluralist would be able to substitute "agnostic or atheistic humanist" into the about statement just as easily. How harmonious and peaceful our world would be then!!  Possible or impossible?  Most definitely possible, I believe, but very definitely most improbable.

There is no better way to conclude these few thoughts then with repeating the final two lines of our Taoist poem and letting them accompany us as a mantra on a short interval of meditation.

All things end in the Tao

as rivers flow into the sea.

Namaste, friends.