Toad Pond
51
Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao.
The Tao gives birth to all beings,
nourishes them, maintains them,
cares for them, comforts them, protects them,
takes them back to itself,
creating without possessing,
acting without expecting,
guiding without interfering.
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things.
Tao Te Ching by Lao-tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell
Often these verses inspire me. They spark in me a quiet confidence that in the long run, longer than the life span remaining to me, – everything is going to be Ok. Of this I am certain as the argument is stated over and over by Lao-tsu.
Of equal consideration is the vista presented by these lines: that every single element that is, the entirety of being is an expression of the Tao. The way-making that vivifies everything, is a mother to everything, sparking life, then allowing life room, space to express itself.
Why does that trouble the hell out of me? Because Donald Trump, the charlatan, shape-shifting, serial rapist, con-man isn’t an exception, an anomaly, an inexplicable “arrival” on our scene.
He, as too am I, and well as you the reader, are expressions of genetic heritage extending backward into pre-history. Imagine the succession of killer-barbarians that potentially lay in my and your line of ancestors! We know of periods when slaughter was a rule-of-thumb. Powerful figures engaged with enthusiasm to eliminate their opponents. Guillaume le Bâtard was not called “The Conqueror” for nothing.
And then consider the shaping of circumstance: upbringing, education, social class into which one is born, etc., etc.. Circumstances make us, define character, what we essentially become. To imagine this president, ensconced in a war-room surrounded by his appointed advisor-sycophants, all viewing on-screen-death by a hellfire missile, a boat with eleven persons in waters off of Venezuela coast… (They “appeared” to transport narcotics) Character is the coalescence of layer upon layer of circumstance. Manifestly nothing at all remains to moderate the scope of killing, anywhere, anytime. Katie bar the door!
Finally these lines shimmer in my mind, a quotation from Jim Morrison’s Rider’s On The Storm, verse 2.
2 thoughts on “Toad Pond”
The Tao, with regard to this verse in particular, is very much in the deterministic camp. Apparently everything that will happen is as it should be and the sooner we just realize that as fact, the sooner we can breathe a sigh of relief and allow nature and the Tao to go where it will.
At first blush you might conclude this as a deterministic scenario. With further consideration it is clear that the Tao supports, nurtures goodness as well as the opposite. Good and evil are potential within the Tao, co-determining realities. So, though difficult to express I think that freedom and the throw-weight of precedence are upheld in the quoted lines. Both determinate and indeterminate aspects. Turtles all the way down.
Lao-tsu writes these verses to awaken us to the totality of a way-making, vivifying presence. Waking up is equivalent to becoming mindful.