Abiding As A Body
Today is Friday. A twenty-four hour quantum of life, that consciousness apprehends in order to value, to honor and appreciate the varied relationships, the web that sustains and secures me, body/mind.
Starbucks is alive; there’s a hubbub of voices, and a ceiling speaker mounted almost directly above me transmits in crystalline timbre, the lyric of The Flame, one of the pop hits by Cheap Trick.
Certainly others begin their day here for the same reason that I do. Homo Sapiens are social by nature. That is, we’d not survive very long without the benefit of economic transactions, and so too with our inner equilibrium, – acknowledgement given and received establishes me as a part of “us”. I could hardly do without the cheerful “hello” or “good morning” from those in this convivial space, individuals that I recognize, though I do not know many names.
These verses from the Tao Te Ching outline a strategy for occupying your locale within the epoch that you find yourself. Time to exit the American hamster-wheel, – a pursuit of fame, approval, wealth. It’s not what we thought. It is actually quite deranged.
Here’s the ancient formula:
Vs. 13
To be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear.
To take the body seriously
is to admit that one can suffer.
What does that mean,
to be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear?
Favor debases:
we fear to lose it,
fear to win it.
So to be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear.
What does that mean,
to take the body seriously
is to admit that one an suffer?
I suffer because I’m a body;
if I weren’t a body,
how could I suffer?
So people who set their bodily good
before the public good
could be trusted with the commonwealth,
and people who treated the body politic
as gently as their own body
would be worthy to govern the commonwealth.
by Lao Tsu, trans. by Ursula K. Le Guin
2 thoughts on “Abiding As A Body”
When you went through the Tao verse by verse last year, you used a different translation. What’s interesting to me is that because the Tao is so open to interpretation, Ms. LeGuin’s version is like a different set of verses all together. This is not meant as a critique, just an observation.
Many times you and I have discussed the subjective nature of the individual mind. And so it is with the Tao. Ms. LeGuin translated it through her own subjective senses, and then she offered it to a reader who will reinterpret the verses from their own perspective. This is not a surprising statement, but I believe it is worth noting.
One further note about this day’s emphasis. Yes, we are indeed social animals (though not everyone has a need for human interaction). But I believe to achieve whatever peace of mind we might be able to find, there must be a balance. I cannot fully press my internal “reset” button when I’m in a situation where I am surrounded by people. It is only when I am alone with my thoughts, preferably in a wooded setting, that I can take a deep breath and find a sense of self that has been missing. Most of the time, I’m not even aware that I have been missing that crucial part of my life for the simple reason there is too much distraction.
But when I do take that walk and listen to the delicate sounds of nature filtering through my ears, I suddenly remember what I have been missing. This feeling encompasses a sense of relief mixed with joy and melancholy. Melancholy because I ache from knowing what I have been missing. I vow to come back more often to recapture my connection to nature, but then I don’t. The world flows over me and I once again loose track of that connection.
If I have one major regret in my life, it is this regular disconnection from nature. That doesn’t mean I can’t make an effort to alter my behavior, but after 75 years, I may not have the wherewithal to keep track of that absence and change my pattern. Then again, perhaps I can. We’ll see.
Tobin, your points are well taken. In October I am to facilitate a small group discussion of the Lao Tsu. I decided to use Le Guin’s rendition because as a woman I believe she accesses the feminine dimension of “the way” to offset the male bias that is often imposed upon any text which American’s seek to interpret. I also plan to further have at hand two more translations for ease of reference. A recent translation by David Bentley Hart, and a translation by Rosemarie Anderson, entitled The Divine Feminine, Tao Te Ching, A New Translation and Commentary. In my opinion the openness of the text inviting personal interpretation is a valuable feature. I muse to myself whether the allusive nature of the text is not a cultural distinctive of China.
The social emphasis of the Tao Te Ching stands as a refutation of a generalized bias for “objectivity”, a hallmark of western cultures. The mind-body distinction made famous by Descartes in the 17th century, with mind weighted as valued on account of the clarity and certainty of thought is countered by asserting that the Way moves relationally in a natural and cosmic context. In the course of more exposure to verses from the Tao Te Ching I discover myself thinking how awkward to regard oneself as atomized, discrete individual, in comparison to a fruitful consideration of the self as an aspect, as embedded in a society, as related to trees, animals, etc., etc.. There is no “I” without “we” is a life changing notion it seems to me.
And with you, I feel this impetus most directly, when alone in the woods, or attending to the movement of a caterpillar suspended by a single filament of web. To slow down sufficiently to attend to the tactile, the audible, to the visible riches around us is key to equanimity. I think by definition we are a troubled language-enabled animal. The power of our ability to form abstractions of experience, has a dark side. So, we must endure the sense of separation, – but we are invited by the Tao Te Ching to find solace, receive treatment for our dissonance.
Sinologist Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall state that the Tao Te Ching is meant as a primer for self-development. A text of this type could not be more timely, since Americans desperately need to reconnect with the universal, to re-discover our ground, that profound satisfaction is to be had when we can perceive that everything is related to everything else.