Chapter of the Week: #13

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 27
One who excels in traveling leaves no wheel tracks;
One who excels in speech makes no slips;
One who excels in reckoning uses no counting rods;
One who excels in shutting uses no bolts yet what he has shut cannot be opened.
One who excels in tying uses no cords yet what he has tied cannot be undone.

Therefore the sage always excels in saving people, and so abandons no one;
always excels in saving things, and so abandons nothing.
This is called following one's discernment.

Hence the good man is the teacher the bad learns from;
And the bad man is the material the good works on.
Not to value the teacher, Nor to love the material
Though it seems clever, betrays great bewilderment.
This is called the essential and the secret.

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

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 13
Favor and disgrace are things that startle;
High rank is, like one's body, a source of great trouble.

What is meant by saying that Favor and disgrace are things that startle?
Favor when it is bestowed on a subject serves to startle as much as when it
is withdrawn. This is what is meant by saying that Favor and disgrace are
things that startle. What is meant by saying that high rank is, like one's
body, a source of great trouble? The reason I have great trouble is that I have
a body. When I no longer have a body, what trouble have I?

Hence he who values his body more than dominion over the empire can be
entrusted with the empire. He who loves his body more that dominion over the
empire can be given custody of the empire.

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

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.]

Now, if we could only test our 'bosses' to see who values his body more than dominion over the empire before they start leading others. But, then we would have no leaders . Often, if not always, we are driven to do what we do in life as a way – a [chref=53]by-path[/chref] perhaps – to compensate for what we lack. We are pulled to fill a void. Instead, [chref=5]better to hold fast to the void[/chref], eh? On the other hand, Nature abhors a vacuum so what choice do we have? It is enlightening to observes human activity in this way, i.e. as a symptom of some unseen inner void. In other words, [chref=40]weakness is the means the way employs[/chref]. This deeper [chref=43]understanding[/chref] helps us know that the Emperor is wearing no clothes.

He who loves his body more that dominion over the empire can be given custody of the empire certainly passes as a decent rationalization for devoting more care to the original equipment with which we are born – Body, Breath, and Mind. Of course, like New Year's resolutions, rationalizations never truly really work. Unless, of course, we're filling a void, in which case our rationalizations are just 'hindsight icing' on life's cake.

The literal Chinese goes pretty much like this:
favor disgrace like frightened,
fortune (valuable) big misfortune like body.
how say favor disgrace like frightening?
favor becomes down
of gain like frightened, of lose like frightened.
is say favor disgrace like frightened.
how say fortune big misfortune like body?
I as a result have big misfortune, for I have body,
reach I without body, I have what misfortune?
hence, fortune take body as heaven under, like can entrust heaven under.
love take body as heaven under, like can entrust heaven under.

And now cooked slightly to make it palatable:
Favor and disgrace are likewise unsettling,
Fortune and disaster are like the body.
How can we say favor and disgrace are unsettling?
Favor falls - To gain or lose it are likewise unsettling.
How can we say that fortune and disaster are like the body?
I will have disaster as a result of having a body,
In reaching a time without a body, what disaster have I?
Hence, in regarding the body as fortune above all under heaven, I can be entrusted with all.
Loving the body above all under heaven, I can be entrusted with all under heaven.

nameless

PinYin - Shen, meaning: being, body, entity, self, person.


Many translators assume this only relates to the physical body, but on further meditation and analysis it becomes obvious that it relates to all "Three Bodies" - physical, psychological and spiritual. In other words "Life".

"VALUE LIFE and you will be entrusted with all things under heaven.
LOVE LIFE and you will be entrusted with all things under heaven."

My commentary: To Value Life is to Learn, To Love Life is to Lead / Teach.

Has a similar meaning to:

"As Above, So Below.
As Within, So Without"
- The Law of Correspondence in Heremetic (Egyptian) Philosophy.

Carl

[cite] nameless:[/cite]PinYin - Shen, meaning: being, body, entity, self, person.

Many translators assume this only relates to the physical body, but on further meditation and analysis it becomes obvious that it relates to all "Three Bodies" - physical, psychological and spiritual. In other words "Life"…

Without a physical body there would be none of the other features you mentioned. So, the actual physical body plays a profoundly important central role in life and well being. Ignoring that fact is perilous, the example of which we see all around us.

That said, of course, the mind body dualism is nonsensical. A ‘whole life’ exists as an integration of those labels we arbitrarily assign. Although, practically speaking, cutting up the whole and naming the pieces allows us to manipulate our environment. Our survival success vis-à-vis tools and know-how is a testament to that. Conversely, losing sight of the whole by giving too much weight to the pieces is the profoundly isolating consequence of naming. Severing the whole causes us more ignorance and suffering than anything I know. As the Tao Te Ching puts it:

[chref=32] Only when it is cut are there names.
As soon as there are names
One ought to know that it is time to stop.
Knowing when to stop one can be free from danger. [/chref]

The challenge (‘free from danger’) is to perceive the parts and the whole simultaneously, i.e., [chref=28]the greatest cutting does not sever.[/chref] Practically speaking, this is similar to seeing that which we are focused on while at the same time seeing that which lies in our peripheral vision. Tai Chi and Yoga are two disciplines that help the [chref=41]best student[/chref] tune in to that ‘big picture’.

nameless

I agree with you completely Carl.

Many translations "Cut too much" by focusing on the physical body and ignoring the psychological and spiritual bodies within the complete meaning of the word "Shen".

Part of the problem is that many translators approach the Tao from a Buddhist or Catholic "physical body hating" perspective.