Looking Inside
21
The Master keeps her mind
always at one with the Tao;
that is what gives her her radiance.
The Tao is ungraspable.
How can her mind be at one with it?
Because she doesn’t 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.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell
This morning I felt better. I have been running short on sleep. It’s just that life has crowded self-care from the center to the edge. If I am not for myself, who will be? As the second half of the week unfolds my intention is to nudge commitments toward a recovery mode. Life means change and change means wear and tear. Nothing, none of that can be avoided. How do I know? I just know. I’ve thought about it.
This passage is a “wake up” collection of related lines. There is a quotient of energizing personal power within the Tao (the process of way-making). From the get-go this is confusing to the western mind because we are conditioned to grasp things. Clear and distinct ideas are “graspable.” We desire certainty, a firm ground upon which to stand, even if that happens to be no more than ‘thinking’ itself. I have in mind the famous dictum of Descartes: “Cogito, Ergo Sum,” (I think – therefore I am), recognized as the cornerstone of Western rationalism.
By contrast the devotee of way-making is energized by the un-graspable dimension of reality, that is by the flowing, ill-defined, boundry-less becoming within which he/she participates. But you may well ask yourself, how is it that you know this is true? I just know it’s true because I am experiencing it!
And you can know it as well too, you can feel the energy of change.
What is that going to cost you?
You will have to give up insisting upon certainty…
I think this tune fits… The Killing Moon by Echo & The Bunnymen
4 thoughts on “Looking Inside”
The verses of the Tao te Ching, at least from my perspective, are ultimately malleable in their meanings, just as I believe they were meant to be. Indeed they are not graspable in a universal sense. In other words I/you/we will come away with vastly different interpretations of any specific verse. This seems apparent based on the various translations of the ancient text. Each version is unique. Again, to me personally, I view each verse of the Tao as a mirror where we can view our inner selves. Each person who reads the words will come away with a different reflection of who they are, so of course there can be no universal distinct meaning that is the same for everyone. Hence an enigmatic understanding of the text. But people must be open to learning, to examining themselves to be able to glean something from their reflection. Most are not interested. They fear that knowledge.
Perhaps this type of self-knowledge is embraced only as a last resort, when one has nowhere else to go or to turn? If one thinks one has another way forward, that’s certain to be less hazardous in the short term than self examination. And less work.
“As a last resort”. To what? A lot of these folks who are petrified of looking deeply into themselves believe that some kind of god has granted them eternal life. All they have to do is take some omniscient myth into their hearts and, voila, salvation. Doesn’t matter if they were acolytes of his holiness, DT, as long as they’ve prayed hard enough; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So what would be the purpose of self examination? Even at the end of life. Of course the joke’s on them but it’s not a very funny joke since in the meantime Mother Earth is being raped and the rest of us are paying the ultimate price.
Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, Yay, God!
Religion is an old school, and always popular “fall back” for living in denial, avoiding the work of self examination. Additional contemporary distractions are 1) consuming more stuff and experiences 2) sex 3) entertainment from an endless menu 4) money/power.