67

Some say
that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.

I have just three things to teach:

                  simplicity,

      patience,       compassion.

These three:
are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world’

Tao Te Ching by Lao-tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell

Saturday morning. According to the weather report today is to reach in the high 80s. Though before sunrise it was quite cool, and dark. The power was out in our neighborhood. Change. All is change.

A few more verses remain until the last of these 81 verses. What about it? Poetic attempts pointing to the foundations, the universal characteristics of absolutely everything, nothing left out… How did this seem to you? Babbling!? Rarified but unrealistic? No one is in a position to answer the question for you. You must take the measure of these verses for yourself. Or possibly you are not ready.

The Tao Te Ching is not for everyone.

The “three treasures” are in fact aspects of the same attitude. I have arranged the terms in triangular fashion so that you can imagine a connection between them. Simplicity is a frugality that make possible generosity. Nothing is to be wasted because each and every thing has a distinct integrity. Respect, proper handling is called for. Thus one can afford to be magnanimous. 

And patience is restraint necessary to allow “things” and especially others, to take-their-course. I cannot know what is best for anyone. I can assist. I can offer caution. But intervention is always a spirit-killer. 

Compassion is the primary descriptor of this attitude. The empathic fellow-feeling for each and every element of my present and past is what I need. No different than making an investment and allowing the input of effort to take its course. This non-coercive lifestyle, seeing transactions as essentially affective is the way-making of the Tao. 

A familial-feeling to be cultivated.