Chapter of the Week: #50 [Archive]

Carl

[cite] Lynn Cornish:[/cite]
Then you've never had PMS.

Worse, I was run over by a drunk. All the hollering I did before I went unconscious was probably pretty primal and involved little or no thought. Once unconscious, I have no recollection of any thought or emotion.

Carl

Each week we address one chapter of the Tao Te Ching. 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 50
When going one way means life and going the other means death, three in ten
will be comrades of life, three in ten will be comrades in death, and there are
those who value life and as a result move into the realm of death, and these
number three in ten. Why is this so? Because they set too much store by life. I
have heard it said that one who excels in safeguarding his own life does not
meet with rhinoceros or tiger when traveling on land nor is he touched by
weapons when charging into an army. There is nowhere for the rhinoceros to
pitch its horn; there is nowhere for the tiger to place its claws; there is
nowhere for the weapon to lodge its blade. Why is this so? Because for him
there is no realm of death.

Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.

Carl

[Note: I italicize phrases I borrow from the chapter, and link to phrases I borrow from other chapters to help tie chapters together. While making it more tedious to read, :? the Tao Te Ching is best pondered in the context of the whole.

Well sure we can be invincible if we [chref=55]add to [our] vitality, and egg on [our][/chref] chi (qi) long enough. Not only will the blades not lodge, bullets won't either... I just couldn't resist some cheap sarcasm. :oops:

The reference to comrades of life and comrades of death refers to natural innate characteristics. Some are born who feel the cup half full more of the time, some who feel the cup half empty more of the time. A few feel it always full, and a few feel it always empty. I see the same spectrum throughout nature. What make us different from other animals is the added influences of thought. So, for example, not only may we feel the cup half empty, we humans can haul around all the rationalizations we build up over the years to 'prove' that it is - [chref=65]clever[/chref] animals that we are. Of course, this applies to the cup half full folks as well.

One consequence of human thought is that we all tend to set too much store by life. We are freaked out by an 'awareness' of death, both past and future. Death stands in such sharp contrast to what we [chref=71]think[/chref] life is. And our [chref=19]desires[/chref], both of the past and for the future, play the major role in this. 'Now' is just a point of passage between those two illusions. The [chref=72]awe[/chref] the other animals feel always 'now', we feel only when we are yanked out of our mind's dream. By not living 'now', but in the past and future, we fail to [chref=33]live out [our] days[/chref]. We want more, set too much store, and thus (ironically) move into the realm of death.

Christ's comment succinctly expresses the Taoist and Buddhist point of view on who excels in safeguarding his own life: "Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it". Was Christ perhaps a little too succinct? Many hold that the "preserving" lies in some future Heaven. Here, the Taoist parts company - 'now' is Heaven. By clinging on, we loose 'now', not later. Thus, we can only truly have what we give up. For him there is no realm of death, for he does not set too much store by life.