Tao Te Ching – Verse 1

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

Later this morning I will join with a few friends to discuss the writing of Lao Tsu, that is the 81 verses collected, redacted around 500 BC. The verses are prose poems to convey a way forward, a truly human form of living for an individual as well as a society. Honestly I have yet to practice this manner of sublime behavior very well. I am sure the ideal is not ever to be precisely and perfectly realized. Thus it isn’t an ideal at all. Rather a dynamic evolving quest…

Two lessons seem obvious to me. First, we have much to learn from others, in this example, the ancient Chinese. They are not as “other” as we might imagine. Becoming human is a joint project.

Lesson no. 2, – there is no dogma. A formulaic expression of humanity-perfected is ruled out. At least that is what the very first verse of the Tao Te Ching says to me. There are many ways to be a fulfilled human. You can’t routinize the source of being, the very sustaining power of nature into a product, into a package, a commodity for the market. Sainthood is ruled out. Just the ragged, adaptable, down-to-earth, imperfect examples need apply.

Both mystery and manifestation…

Rising up, coming from the same original darkness.