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Taming the Wild Beast
[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.]
This chapter is another favorite. I felt today that it was describing how we truly are. Alas, we carefully keep this becoming, our original nature, hidden beneath a parochial paradigm-parroting facade (oh, that's a mouth full). The jewelry and clothes we wear to 'enhance' our body, the beliefs we ruminate over and over to 'enhance' our mind. It appears that we aren't that [chref=46]content[/chref] with our original equipment... tentative, murky, vacant and thick. Still, some of it sounds pretty 'cool', eh?... mysterious, subtle, newly made, profound. These 'cool' qualities bring to mind the arch typical 'James Bond' facade that charms us, never realizing that Nature only offers balanced deals. So we spend our lives adoring an illusion, struggling to claim the 'benefits' and escape the 'cost'. The irony is that in doing so we end up losing the true 'benefits', yet still pay the 'costs'. [chref=41]The way that leads forward seems to lead backward[/chref]. Ah-ha! Fool me once... fool me twice... fool me... how many times till I get a grip on my 'self'? :roll:
Here's the literal Chinese as good as I can get it (*)
of ancient adept do scholar, minute subtle black (profound), open (through, whole), deep not can know.
man only not can know, hence strong serve as of hold (tolerate, allow).
prepare as if winter fording river; just as like fear four neighbor;
solemn that is like hold (tolerate, allow); vanish like of ice handle let go, (dispel, clear up);
honest (sincere) that (such) like simple (plain); vast (free from petty ideas) that (such) like valley;
mix (drifting) that (such) like muddy; tranquil that (such) like sea;
who can muddy use of still slowly clear.
who can peace use of move slowly grow (bear, get, live).
keep (maintain) this way not desire be full.
man only not be full of. therefore can conceal and new become.
Here it is after taking some poetic license.
Of old, the adept student became minutely subtle, whole and deep beyond words.
He only cannot be known, thus his strength lies in allowing.
He prepares as if fording a river in winter; as if like in fear of neighbors;
Solemn that seems to allow; Vanishing like ice that melts away;
Honest that is like simple; broad that is like a valley;
Blending that is like muddy water; tranquil that is like the sea.
Who can be muddy and using stillness become clear.
Who can be at peace and using movement slowly rise to the occasion.
Keep to this way, he desires not to be full.
Therefore, only he who is not full can conceal and yet newly become.
(*) Note: words in parenthesis ( ) are some of the tangential meanings so common in Chinese. I include as few of these as possible, other wise it would be impossible to read, I reckon.
This chapter is another favorite. I felt today that it was describing how we truly are. Alas, we carefully keep this becoming, our original nature, hidden beneath a parochial paradigm-parroting facade (oh, that's a mouth full). The jewelry and clothes we wear to 'enhance' our body, the beliefs we ruminate over and over to 'enhance' our mind. It appears that we aren't that [chref=46]content[/chref] with our original equipment... tentative, murky, vacant and thick. Still, some of it sounds pretty 'cool', eh?... mysterious, subtle, newly made, profound. These 'cool' qualities bring to mind the arch typical 'James Bond' facade that charms us, never realizing that Nature only offers balanced deals. So we spend our lives adoring an illusion, struggling to claim the 'benefits' and escape the 'cost'. The irony is that in doing so we end up losing the true 'benefits', yet still pay the 'costs'. [chref=41]The way that leads forward seems to lead backward[/chref]. Ah-ha! Fool me once... fool me twice... fool me... how many times till I get a grip on my 'self'? :roll:
Here's the literal Chinese as good as I can get it (*)
of ancient adept do scholar, minute subtle black (profound), open (through, whole), deep not can know.
man only not can know, hence strong serve as of hold (tolerate, allow).
prepare as if winter fording river; just as like fear four neighbor;
solemn that is like hold (tolerate, allow); vanish like of ice handle let go, (dispel, clear up);
honest (sincere) that (such) like simple (plain); vast (free from petty ideas) that (such) like valley;
mix (drifting) that (such) like muddy; tranquil that (such) like sea;
who can muddy use of still slowly clear.
who can peace use of move slowly grow (bear, get, live).
keep (maintain) this way not desire be full.
man only not be full of. therefore can conceal and new become.
Here it is after taking some poetic license.
Of old, the adept student became minutely subtle, whole and deep beyond words.
He only cannot be known, thus his strength lies in allowing.
He prepares as if fording a river in winter; as if like in fear of neighbors;
Solemn that seems to allow; Vanishing like ice that melts away;
Honest that is like simple; broad that is like a valley;
Blending that is like muddy water; tranquil that is like the sea.
Who can be muddy and using stillness become clear.
Who can be at peace and using movement slowly rise to the occasion.
Keep to this way, he desires not to be full.
Therefore, only he who is not full can conceal and yet newly become.
(*) Note: words in parenthesis ( ) are some of the tangential meanings so common in Chinese. I include as few of these as possible, other wise it would be impossible to read, I reckon.
Comments
Why do we end up neurotic? We evolved to interact with nature in the 'wild', not in a civilized setting. Thus, those instinctive characteristics which serve the 'wild animal' well, express themselves in often neurotic and self destructive ways in the 'domesticated animal' - especially in a domestic setting. For example, cows given unlimited access to farm feed will eat themselves to death. This doesn't happen when cows graze on simple grasses in the field.
Why do we maximize safety and comfort to the extreme? We can't help it. As animals, we are driven by the survival instinct to maximize both. The fact that we believe we are rational and in control of our actions only blinds us to this - our original nature.
What can we do? Some renounce the safety and comforts of their culture and live an ascetic life. Buddha's personal history is instructive. Buddha tried this initially, albeit in the extreme, and found it to be a [chref=53]by-path[/chref]. The other extreme, giving ourselves over to safety and comfort, while promising happiness, delivers sorrow. As Buddha put it, "pleasures are the bait, the result is pain". Buddha proposed a 'middle path' as one solution - neither chase or flee pleasure or pain. Sounds simple enough, eh?
How can we actually do it? Alas, through [chref=70]ignorance[/chref] we always end up on one extreme and then eventually, the other. We binge and then purge. Thus, our corrective measures must, of necessity, flow from a personal understanding of what is happening when it is happening. Thus, [chref=64]deal with a thing while it is still nothing; keep a thing in order before disorder sets in.[/chref] That requires keeping watch, moment to moment.
[chref=39]Not wishing to be one among many like jade [binging], nor to be aloof like stone [purging][/chref] can only occur if we are aware of what's happening. It is that contemporaneous knowing that tempers our actions. If contemporaneous knowing is absent, our pendulum will swing too far one way and then the other.
I used to have a very wide swing,
from extreme positivity like a rosy-eyed hippy, nature is for us man...like whoa!...
to the height of all lazyness, contending against effort itself... or a very unhealthy perceived lack of it resulting in some rather bleak lines of thought.
But letting it swing is all we can do.
I have recently found i am spending a lot less time in each...
Why is my pendulum speeding up?....
this way, that way... accepting the mixed bag, then suffering as i try to 'feel' for the best prizes from the lucky dip...
This way... that way... argh.. i feel sick..
But then hey, it seems to me that it might just be speeding up from one way to the other as it settles... to the middle,
and maybe one day the switch from what i perceive to be 'good' and 'bad' will become indistiguishable in sameness.