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The Zen of 'Now'?
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 64
It is easy to maintain a situation while it is still secure;
It is easy to deal with a situation before symptoms develop;
It is easy to break a thing when it is yet britle;
It is easy to dissolve a thing while it is yet minute.
Deal with a thing while it is still nothing;
Keep a thing in order before disorder sets in.
A tree that can fill the span of a man's arms
Grows from a downy tip.
A terrace nine stories high
Rises from hodfuls of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
Starts from beneath one's feet.
Whoever does anything to it will ruin it;
whoever lays hold of it will lose it.
Therefore the sage, because he does nothing, never ruins anything;
and, because he does not lay hold of anything, loses nothing.
In their enterprises the people
Always ruin them when on the verge of success.
Be as careful at the end as at the beginning
And there will be no ruined enterprises.
Therefore the sage desires not to desire
And does not value goods which are hard to come by;
Learns to be without learning
And makes good the mistakes of the multitude
In order to help the myriad creatures to be natural and to refrain from daring to act.
Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Chapter 64
It is easy to maintain a situation while it is still secure;
It is easy to deal with a situation before symptoms develop;
It is easy to break a thing when it is yet britle;
It is easy to dissolve a thing while it is yet minute.
Deal with a thing while it is still nothing;
Keep a thing in order before disorder sets in.
A tree that can fill the span of a man's arms
Grows from a downy tip.
A terrace nine stories high
Rises from hodfuls of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
Starts from beneath one's feet.
Whoever does anything to it will ruin it;
whoever lays hold of it will lose it.
Therefore the sage, because he does nothing, never ruins anything;
and, because he does not lay hold of anything, loses nothing.
In their enterprises the people
Always ruin them when on the verge of success.
Be as careful at the end as at the beginning
And there will be no ruined enterprises.
Therefore the sage desires not to desire
And does not value goods which are hard to come by;
Learns to be without learning
And makes good the mistakes of the multitude
In order to help the myriad creatures to be natural and to refrain from daring to act.
Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Comments
'Now' is a big deal in Zen. Lately, I have been using 'now' in contrast to 'future' and 'past' a lot. I reckon we spend too much awareness (consciousness) time in the later at the expense of the former. [chref=23]Words[/chref] and [chref=32]names[/chref] carry us away, you know. But, let me not go over board here - an easy [chref=53]by-path[/chref] to take. It is easy to make something a panacea,... Hallelujah!
So, let's bring the 'tao' back to 'now'. The advantage of the Taoist point of view lies in how it offers us a way to pull our perspective back from a certain 'panacea' to a more balanced point of view. In the case of 'now', all we must do is remember that 'now' and 'future' [chref=2]produce, complement, off-set, harmonize, follow, each other[/chref]. One only has meaning in the context of the other.
To put it another way, we need to feel hunger before we can feel satiated. In the same way, work offsets rest, war offsets peace, pain offsets pleasure, life offsets death. So also, 'future' offsets 'now', 'desire' offsets 'contentment'. Offset, harmonize, complement, and so on, point to the whole, [chref=39]the One[/chref], the 'big' picture, both sides of the coin.
Aligning ourselves too strongly with one side just makes life feel 'out of sorts' and unbalanced. Of course, 'unbalance' produces, complements, off-sets, harmonizes, follows,... 'balance'. Aaargh, #$%@#... What are we to do? What are we to do? What - are - we - to - do?
Using words to unravel this maze is futile in the end. [chref=2]Therefore the sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action and practices the teaching that uses no words.[/chref] For me, all this really says is that the 'teaching' that works lies deeper than thought and logic - down at the root, in the 'heart' of emotion where true [chref=10]knowing[/chref] rests.
Emotion? Knowing? So we don't get stuck on these words, allow me to muddle them a little in this paraphrase: [chref=4]Darkly visible, [emotion] only seems as if it were there. I know not whose son it is. It images the forefather of [knowing].[/chref]