Chapter of the Week: #48

Carl

Yeah, we know that but we're just talking.

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 48
In the pursuit of learning one knows more every day;
In the pursuit of the way one does less every day.
One does less and less until one does nothing at all,
And when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone.

It is always through not meddling that the empire is won.
Should you meddle, then you are not equal to the task of winning the empire.


Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Read notes on translations
Now, do it too at Wengu!

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.

This chapter really pokes our ideals in the eye. Much (truly all?) of what we feel and do in life overall is predetermined. Not by ‘fate’ mind you, but rather by biological underpinnings. Our innate social instinct (perhaps the strongest) accounts for much of our behavior. Letting things take their own course goes against our every emotional fiber. Yet, to take on all under heaven (win the empire), we must reach a degree of ‘unnatural’ [chref=16]impartiality[/chref]. Unnatural? Yes, that’s an odd thing to say in describing a Taoist view. It is unnatural in the sense that impartiality, letting things take their own course, is not innate in us (or any living thing I’d guess). Rather, learning through life’s [chref=51]circumstances[/chref] brings us there if, and when, we understand that letting things take their own course is how Nature works its wondrous way. To be fully connected to Nature, we must [chref=25]model ourselves on that which is naturally so[/chref].

Speaking of learning, I’ve just passed 65 years upon this earth, and yet feel I’ve just begun. I suspect that if I lived to be 1065 I’d feel pretty much the same way. I’ve long ‘known’ (since my teens) the importance of letting go, and being watchful moment to moment. Knowing is one thing, being is another. Being conscious in the ‘[chref=52]small[/chref]’ affairs of the moment is a constancy that lies just here as well as beyond the horizon. This certainly makes life interesting!

Trimmed down to ‘normal’ English:
Support learning day by day. Support the way day by day.
Decreasing down to letting things take their own course.
Letting things take their own course and not support.

Take on all under heaven as normal without responsibility,
Reaching for its problems, is insufficient for taking on all under heaven.

The chapter in its full literal glory:
do (action, be, support)) learning increasingly (day by day).
do (action, be, support)) way (tao) increasingly (day by day).
decrease (lose, harm) of once again (also, both) decrease (lose, harm),
down to (up to; to such an extent as to... ; so...that...) to ( from/ in /at / by / than / out of) without do (action, be, support)).
without do (action, be, support) and yet (as well as / but (not) / yet (not) not do.
to take (to choose) heaven under always (normal, constant) use (so as to, as well as) without affairs (thing, trouble, responsibility),
reach (come up to) its (that, such) have affairs (thing, trouble, work, responsibility, serve),
not-enough (inadequate; insufficient, cannot) use (so as to, as well as) take (assume, choose) heaven under.