One Does less and less until One Does Nothing at All...

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 24
He who tiptoes cannot stand;
He who strides cannot walk.

He who shows himself is not conspicuous;
He who considers himself right is not illustrious;
He who brags will have no merit;
He who boasts will not endure.

From the point of view of the way these are 'excessive food and useless
excrescences'. As there are Things that detest them, he who has the way does
not abide in them.


Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Read notes on translations

Carl

... [chref=48]And when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone.[/chref] Initially that will stump us -- especially how, in 'doing nothing, nothing is undone'. But, this is actually [chref=70]easy to understand[/chref]. Here is another way to look at it.

Essentially, we are always jumping ahead of ourselves, ahead of 'now', toward imagined future moments. The more we live for these moments, the more we feel we lose something here and now. Ironically, this sub-thought sense of losing something drives us even more to 'do something' to help us make up for this sense of loss. And then,... around in circles we go.

'Doing less and less' until action truly ceases, even for a moment, opens a [chref=5]void[/chref] allowing us to [chref=16]return[/chref] and recover 'now'. This sounds pretty [chref=70]easy to put into practice[/chref], especially if it is only for a moment.

Meditation, Tai Chi, and the like, are steps in the direction of doing less and less,... but, we're still doing 'something'. [chref=64]Nothing[/chref], on the other hand, is a little like dying - and thus a [chref=63]difficult [/chref] thing to volunteer for. The reward though is worth it. By recovering more 'now' we can act, yet still 'do nothing at all' just like all the other animals on this planet.

Lynn Cornish

I've been thinking about direct experience. The closest we can come to experiencing life directly is is the present moment because that's the only place experience exists. But do we ever really experience reality as it is? We are limited by our senses, first of all, and then by our preconceptions, judgements, opinions....even when we are present.

Do you think direct experience is possible? Is that what The Way is? Returning to the void?

Maybe the "nothing remains undone" could be "the void remains undone." I tried to find the literal Chinese translation here but I couldn't. Carl?

I went to a Shambhala weekend last week and my curiousity was peaked by this quote of Trungpa Rinpoche: We are joyful because we have nothing to hang on to. Interesting, no?

Carl

[cite] Lynn Cornish:[/cite]But do we ever really experience reality as it is? We are limited by our senses, first of all, and then by our preconceptions, judgements, opinions....even when we are present.

Do you think direct experience is possible? Is that what The Way is? Returning to the void?

Maybe the "nothing remains undone" could be "the void remains undone." I tried to find the literal Chinese translation here but I couldn't. Carl?

I only recently began posting the literal Chinese. All the links I sprinkle around go back to commentary I made on these chapters in the 90's. My thought is more subtle now I suppose, but that may not be a 'good' thing.??? :?

Anyway, I did the chapter you seek a few weeks ago... go here for the literal translation and more.

I surmise that we can "really experience reality as it is". My sense of this comes from correlations which 'prove' such to me. Of course, that is a subjective proof so must be found within. However,...

If I (you, we, they) believe something is so, it is true. Truth is what we believe. The more tentative we believe in what seems to be, the less any particular 'this' or 'that' is truth, but on the other hand, the more 'all' becomes truth. So do I believe that I've proven we can "really experience reality as it is"? No! Simply said, [chref=1]the name that can be named, is not the constant name[/chref]. The words subtract from the reality.

That must sound like nonsense. Here's another way to see this...

Look at a spider on the wall. If you see a 'spider' you are not seeing reality, but only an illusionary shadow of reality. When you experience... you experience. Hmm, that's not so good either. Time for bed! And, as they say, when you're in a hole, stop digging!