The Net
73
The Tao is always at ease.
It overcomes without competing,
answers without speaking a word,
arrives without being summoned,
accomplishes without a plan.
Its net
covers the whole universe.
And though its meshes are wide,
it doesn’t let a thing slip through.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell
This verse, a few lines provides a description of the “way-of-heaven” tian’s way. The thought that the entire cosmos functions according to the model that is expressed here is sublime. There is the phrase, “to play the long game.” Without doubt the way-of-heaven is calibrated in a manner to play the long game. There is a proportion, a poise flexible to encompass opposites, a timely arrival of result, without extensive, energy-ravenous calculation. The way-of-heaven gets the job done without AI!
I think a lot about our predicament as a society. Also about our world, the home of my children and grandchildren, – in the maw of global warming, and the massive population disruption that has just begun everywhere. My initial reaction is some sort of direct response. Were I to be in a position to achieve it, my imagined first response would simply be additive to the violence already loosed upon all of us.
Commenting upon their philosophical translation of verse 73, Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall wrote this:
On tian’s model, real strength entails flexibility, real wisdom entails uncertainty, and real endurance entails patience. So, too, real courage is most effective only when it is tempered by prudence.
2 thoughts on “The Net”
I agree that I often have delusions regarding the possibility that violence can have a beneficial impact on the creatures we see destroying our planet. That somehow by cutting off the head of the snake we can find solutions. This is an emotional response that lingers regardless of my pragmatic knowledge that a violent approach will only foment more violence.
I know that I return over and over to the term,”Mindfulness “ which is just another way of expressing what is discussed in the Tao on a daily basis in your blog. The frustration for me is that the Tao is ancient wisdom. It has been around for millennia and yet we continue to ignore the value of those words, instead continuing along a path paved with greed and a hunger for power.
When does it end?
Reminds me of the ancient but contemporary story of Cain and Abel. Related by blood and yet,…
Violence is part of the weft and warp of existence, and as you reference in your comments ought to be the very last resort when it comes to human to human relationships. A bully is a person enveloped by insatiable hunger for power. A countervailing force is the only fraught remedy. Perhaps analogous to igniting a backfire in order to stem a far more dangerous outbreak of conflagration.