Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 78

78

Nothing in the world

is as soft and yielding as water.

Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,

nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard;

the gentle overcomes the rigid.

Everyone knows this is true,

but few can put it into practice.

Therefore the Master remains

serene in the midst of sorrow.

Evil cannot enter his heart.

Because he has given up helping,

he is people's greatest help.

True words seem paradoxical.

Commentary

Let me begin by quoting from an authoritative web page with respect to the importance of water in our lives, indeed in the very life of our little planet: "According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water.  The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79% water, and even the bones are watery: 31%.  Each day humans must consume a certain amount of water to survive.  Of course, this varies according to the age and gender, and also by where someone lives.  Generally an adult male needs about 3 litres a day while an adult female needs about 2.2 litres per day.  Some of this water is gotten in food." The quotation is from HERE.  In short, we are literally bound together in this important substance.  Indeed, all literature and all the religions of the world see water as a most potent symbol, not alone of earthly life, but for those who subscribe to belief in God, a potent symbol of the spiritual nature of that life.

Now that we have set the biological, literary and spiritual background to our 78th Taoist poem we can begin our more spiritual reflections.  Once again, this poem is replete in imagery, the use of polar opposites in a healthy tension and, of course, paradox, the use of which is mentioned by name in the last line by our translator. The oppositions we find are the usual ones, which, as we have seen, are repeated rather liberally throughout our text: soft vs hard, yielding vs inflexible, gentle vs rigid, and serenity vs sorrow.  We have discussed this healthy tension of opposites many times in these commentaries.  The beauty of the Tao and all superior spiritualities is that they are somehow able to avoid speaking in terms of the deliberate separation of opposites, that style of religion which espoused a dogmatic and rigid separation of everything into blacks and whites where there are no shades of grey in between let alone the coulours of the rainbow.  That's why the taijitsu or the Yin-Yang is a most potent symbol for Taoists where the black half of the symbol contains a dot of the bright and the bright half of the symbol a dot of the black.  Could any symbol be more potent?

Likewise, the paradoxical two lines near the end of the poem appeal greatly to my sense of growing old and becoming a little wiser through the dint of hard lived experience in life: "Because he has given up helping, he is people's greatest help."  As a young teacher, I used to try and help everyone, that is, rush in with a sort of fire-brigade approach to sorting X, Y and Z problems out, but lived experience has taught me to realise: (i) how little I can do in X situation and that it is better to let another person who may be able to do something handle that issue (ii) that it is better to wait and have patience until a more opportune time presents itself with respect to Y situation and (iii) that it may be better to actually do nothing as in that Z situation things have gone far too far for any helpful intervention on anyone's part.  It is in this sense that I understand the pardoxical lines just quoted.

Oscar Wilde, as I have said here recently, remarked about the pure and simple truth that it is rarely pure and never simple.  That is a rather wise statement as it gives the lie to the black and white version of the truth.  His statement, in that sense, is very Taoist.

As we proceed to age in life, let us become more aware of the dangers of an attitude that sees the world through a very narrow lens.  Let us rather try to view the complex world through a prism that breaks light into all the colours of the rainbow.

Namaste, dear friends, until I get the time for an other reflection in these pages, and have a contented time just being the real you!

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 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!!