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Chapter of the Week: #77 [Archive]
Each week we address one chapter of the Tao Te Ching. Chapter 80 was originally featured on the 4th week in July.
Note: The Tao Te Ching can be obscure, especially if you think you're supposed to understand what it's saying! We find it easier and more instructive to simply contemplate how the chapter resonates with your personal experience. Becoming more aware at this fundamental level simplifies life. This approach conforms to the view that true knowing lies within ourselves. Thus, when a passage in the scripture resonates, you've found your inner truth. The same applies for when it evokes a question; questions are the grist for self realization.
Chapter 80
Reduce the size and population of the state. Ensure that even though the people
have tools of war for a troop or a battalion they will not use them; and also
that they will be reluctant to move to distant places because they look on death
as no light matter.
Even when they have ships and carts, they will have no use for them; and even
when they have armour and weapons, they will have no occasion to make a show of them.
Bring it about that the people will return to the use of the knotted rope,
Will find relish in their food,
And beauty in their clothes,
Will be content in their abode,
And happy in the way they live.
Though adjoining states are within sight of one another, and the sound of dogs
barking and cocks crowing in one state can be heard in another, yet the people
of one state will grow old and die without having had any dealings with those of another.
Note: The Tao Te Ching can be obscure, especially if you think you're supposed to understand what it's saying! We find it easier and more instructive to simply contemplate how the chapter resonates with your personal experience. Becoming more aware at this fundamental level simplifies life. This approach conforms to the view that true knowing lies within ourselves. Thus, when a passage in the scripture resonates, you've found your inner truth. The same applies for when it evokes a question; questions are the grist for self realization.
Chapter 80
Reduce the size and population of the state. Ensure that even though the people
have tools of war for a troop or a battalion they will not use them; and also
that they will be reluctant to move to distant places because they look on death
as no light matter.
Even when they have ships and carts, they will have no use for them; and even
when they have armour and weapons, they will have no occasion to make a show of them.
Bring it about that the people will return to the use of the knotted rope,
Will find relish in their food,
And beauty in their clothes,
Will be content in their abode,
And happy in the way they live.
Though adjoining states are within sight of one another, and the sound of dogs
barking and cocks crowing in one state can be heard in another, yet the people
of one state will grow old and die without having had any dealings with those of another.
Comments
Note: The Tao Te Ching can be obscure, especially if you think you're supposed to understand what it's saying! We find it easier and more instructive to simply contemplate how the chapter resonates with your personal experience. Becoming more aware at this fundamental level simplifies life. This approach conforms to the view that true knowing lies within ourselves. Thus, when a passage in the scripture resonates, you've found your inner truth. The same applies for when it evokes a question; questions are the grist for self realization.
Chapter 77
Is not the way of heaven like the stretching of a bow?
The high it presses down,
The low it lifts up;
The excessive it takes from,
The deficient it gives to.
It is the way of heaven to take from what has in excess in order to make good
what is deficient. The way of man is otherwise. It takes from those who are in
want in order to offer this to those who already have more than enough. Who is
there that can take what he himself has in excess and offer this to the empire?
Only he who has the way.
Therefore the sage benefits them yet exacts no gratitude,
Accomplishes his task yet lays claim to no merit.
Is this not because he does not wish to be considered a better man than others?
Oh Oh... another dispute with the Tao Te Ching I shall have. Actually, it is just that some of this chapter doesn't pan out with what I observe. That doesn't mean it is wrong, nor that I'm wrong.
Personally, I don't see the way of man is otherwise. We are of Nature, the 'tao', regardless of what we think. Our thoughts, and the [chref=5]speech[/chref] that expresses them, are tidbits of the whole and thus lead us onto our by-paths - you know, the Buddhist parable of the elephant and the blind men.
Thus, to draw a distinction between what heaven (Nature) does and what man does just feels like a ludicrous slice of moral hypocrisy. We are as natural as the bacteria that inhabit our intestines. We are as instinct driven as the cat on our window sill. Get over it humanity, I say.
Personally, whenever I feel deficient, I cling. When I feel excess, I unload. Balance is how nature works, thus I can't help it either way. I, like any other life form, do what I need to do. I know this will sound horribly fatalistic to anyone believing in free will. Sorry. The presumption that we are 'free' from Nature's balancing process, i.e., have free will, is central to our disconnecting illusion of self - 'I' choose.
Excess is in the eye of the beholder and in the emotions of the holder. It, like moderation, is relative. Deer, I'm sure, would think (if they could) that any lions are an excess. And the lions, when a few day pass without a kill, would feel a deficiency in deer. Our perceptions of both excess and deficiency are based on subjective experience - our individual sense of need.
Merit is something I clamor for, and lay claim to, when I feel a lack of merit, i.e., inner security and worth. When I'm settled comfortably in the [chref=61]lower position[/chref], I just naturally lay claim to no merit. Simply put, I don't need what I already have. All the apparent 'greediness' we see in life is simply a symptom of an intensely felt inner vacuum of connection - wholeness of being - felt by the greedy guy. He can't help it any more than a hungry racoon can help trying to have one of our ducks for dinner.
As long as we keep playing this morality game with ourselves we shall continue to go around in circles! [chref=38]The highest virtue[/chref] is not what passes for virtue in this game we are playing with each other. Instead of facing the causes, we [chref=53]prefer[/chref] to eliminate symptoms through [chref=57]laws and edicts[/chref]. Why? It is [chref=70]easier[/chref] to take a short cut. Are we not masters at inventing short cuts? Now, that is what really distinguishes us from the 'lower animals'.
Below is are some of my thoughts on karma. Are we talking about the same 'karma'? :?
Karma: a quaint explanation for DNA?
I suspect that the principle of Karma was developed by very wise folks in ancient times to explain what they saw as they observed life around them. As the most basic level of observation karma models cause and effect which we see all the time in daily life, and even the "for every action there is and opposite and equal reaction" observed by Newton. Cause and effect are also at work when DNA is transferred. Of course in ancient times who would have guessed such a massive amount of information would be transferred via a microscopic molecular 'helix'. No one, and so it karma was not a bad idea for the times.
Actually, karma is a much gentler way of seeing life than the Western paradigm, where we are all responsible for getting life right in your life time or spending eternity in hell. No wonder some Islamic, Christian and Jewish folks are so radical. It's now or never in their view. Yikes! Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism are gentle on 'non-believers' for they have no pervasive institutionalized "it is my way or the highway" dogma. This is quite a profound difference between the West and the East. Mmmm?
Nevertheless, dropping karma and adopting DNA, or 'talent', as a way of understanding ourselves should pave the way for an even gentler and more forgiving way of seeing ourselves. That, and realizing that what we inherit by way of DNA in combination with the circumstances in which we are raised accounts for who we are and what we do. We, as a 'self', and 'I', are merely reflections and flickering shadows of our original nature. Thus, who we are is not who we think we are.
Question: What is our original nature in your view? Is it us without the conditioning and socialization we've had drummed into us all our lives? Is it uncivilized us? What does that look like?
A short answer, I suppose, would be:
To know your 'original nature' is to know yourself undivided. That means, as the Upanishad says, "That thou art". The Tao Te Ching describes it as [chref=16]returning to one's roots [/chref].
And a long winded answer is as follows...
The 'natural' and the 'artificial', the 'original' and the 'banal' (or is the opposite facsimile?) [chref=2]produce each other [/chref] each other. To see what one looks like requires carving the [chref=37]nameless uncarved block[/chref] into [chref=32]names[/chref]. The more clearly we can identify what 'original nature' looks like, the less we [chref=47]know[/chref].
I use the term 'original nature' to point to something which is simpler than words can convey. Like asking what was before the big bang? Each of us knows this silently, but we don't know we know because we can't hold on to what we can't describe. It is through the distinctions we make and hold to that the self is manifested. To fall away into the simple requires letting go of the distinctions on to which we cling. That feels like suicide, and so we hang on.
Tweaking chapter 56 a tad conveys this point...[chref=56]One who knows does not think; one who thinks does not know[/chref]. The thinking process requires drawing distinctions. Such discernment enables knowledge, but is incapable of knowing, in the Taoist sense of that world. Thus, as chapter 52 says, [chref=52]Use the light, But give up the discernment[/chref]. The 'light' is that which we share with all creation.
The idea for me here is to use thinking when I'm doing tasks that are best suited for thinking... like writing and planning. And, to 'give up the discernment' when I yearn to [chref=40]turn back[/chref] to wonder and [chref=4]know[/chref].