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Chapter of the Week: #20 [Archive]
Gee papa, what word would you use to fill in the blank? 
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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 #20
Between yea and nay
How much differce is there?
Between good and evil
How great is the distance?
What others fear
One must also fear.
And wax without having reached the limit.
The multitude are joyous
As if partaking of the 'Tai Lao' offering
Or going up to a terrace in spring.
I alone am inactive and reveal no signs,
Like a baby that has not yet learned to smile,
Listless as though with no home to go back to.
The multitude all have more than enough.
I alone seem to be in want.
My mind is that of a fool - how blank!
Vulgar people are clear.
I alone am drowsy.
Vulgar people are alert.
I alone am muddled.
Calm like the sea;
Like a high wind that never ceases.
The multitude all have a purpose.
I alone am foolish and uncouth.
I alone am different from others
And value being fed by the mother.
Personally, "between good and evil, How great is the distance? " sets the tone for the rest of this chapter. Namely, there is no distance, just as there is none between the heads and tails of a coin - just two faces of [chref=56]mysterious sameness[/chref]. Of course each of us varies as to what we [chref=2]recognizes as good[/chref]... but that's another story.
Just as the differences between yea and nay, good and evil are relative and illusionary, so to are the differences between the multitude and I... between vulgar people and the [chref=19]sage[/chref]. In truth, we all feel our mind is that of a fool, muddled, drowsy. We all... alone seem to be in want.
Of course, we dare not let on to folks around us that we feel this way. We deny, bluff, pretend, and struggle for purpose and [chref=13]rank[/chref]. Ironically, this is both a best kept secret, and yet dead obvious. Our very private inward sense of being foolish and uncouth drives us to the opposites - joyous, active, clear, alert. But, don't worry, your secret is save with me!
Seriously, the deep beauty of this chapter for me lies in how it reveals the [chref=1]secret[/chref]. As I've come to see I'm helplessly a part of 'it', I become liberated from 'it' to a certain extent. You see, [chref=32]knowing[/chref] I can't 'win' makes it much easier to [chref=63]do that which consists in taking no action; pursue that which is not meddlesome[/chref] and just value being fed by the mother, Nature.
PS... Do we all really feel muddled and such? Profoundly! No matter how fearless the surface appears, it is only skin deep. All life is driven from within by fear and [chref=40]weakness[/chref]. We are all in the same leaky boat, sinking into the [chref=5]void[/chref]. :roll:
How do you feel about my experience with this chapter, Sensei?
Maybe it's that only the sage is aware that he is feeling these things, thinking these thoughts, and the vulgar masses are operating under the illusion of knowing what's going on. (Like me at 28 years old!)
Is this more obscuring than illuminating or what?
If this isn't right, then I don't get it either!
Seriously, thanks for the reply...I understand now.
1) Second, getting "hung up" is part of "just being", i.e., "just being hung up". The lion, and all life, gets "hung up" emotionally, e.g., awake then asleep, hungry then full, need then enough, hung up then let go. Our 'problem' is simply, as you say "interpretation". Instead of [chref=65]complete conformity[/chref], we imagine a short-cut ([chref=53]by-path[/chref]) for ourselves, and like children, off we go.
Oh and .... That is pretty much how I experience it anyway. In loss we "gain" the [chref=33]contentment[/chref] we expect to feel in success' - well, that is, after we cease expecting. This [chref=40]turning back is how the way moves[/chref] sure goes against the grain of instinct, eh? :yy:
1)...All of 'us' life forms, from a bacteria on up, instinctively feel separate, regardless of what 'we' think or believe. The 'illusion' of separation is a necessary part of the dynamic process of life. This begins with how all life is driven to resist entropy. You could even say a table possesses the 'illusion' of separation. Our 'problem' stems from the fact that our mind, along with civilization, makes the most of this 'illusion'. By entering a path of perception wherein we can sense that "we all are the same" helps mitigate that 'problem'. The deeper we sense the [chref=56]sameness[/chref], the lighter the 'problem' weighs on us.
When I stopped to think of it last night, I thought, "how ballsy of life anyway". I mean to go up against the most universal of natural laws - entropy - by resisting the flow toward the [chref=61]lower position[/chref], you have got to pull out all the stops! The only way biology can occur is to pull off one grand [chref=65]hoodwink[/chref] on us [chref=40]myriad creatures[/chref], whether we are a lowly bacteria or a prince among [chref=42]princes[/chref].
So, ok, I give up. I've got no choice but to play this game and [chref=1]observe its manifestations[/chref]... but I don't have to believe they're real, do I? Mmmm,... when I think of it, it is [chref=63]difficult[/chref] to play a game I don't believe in. Maybe that is why it took me so long to become a 'taoist'.
2)... Hopefully both! This chapter, on the surface, draws a distinction between the sage and the multitude. This serves to make the sympathetic reader feel part of a 'Taoist inner circle'. This chapter serves another role by offering the reader a challenge,... to quote: [chref=49]The sage has no mind of his own. He takes as his own the mind of the people[/chref]... well, so much for belonging to an 'inner circle'.
When Luke takes the Santa hats off the emoticons, will the santa hats stay on our messages or revert back to the original hatless version?
I imagine the universe at the "lowest", smallest, sub-atomic level would look like one big thing. We couldn't separate our bodies from a planet or a fly on the wall. My mind goes back to the analogy of our lives being a little whirlpool in a stream; just a little spinning around of the stuff of the universe which moves on, back into the stream and on its merry way. Is the merging back into the stream the entropy? I'm not sure. Our form will dissolve, that's for sure.
It is a wonder, isn't it, that the smallest particles decide to "stick together" and make a form. Why?