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Making Sense Of The Seemingly Senseless
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 70
My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no
one in the world can understand them or put them into practice.
Words have an ancestor and affairs have a sovereign.
It is because people are ignorant that they fail to understand me.
Those who understand me are few;
Those who imitate me are honored.
Therefore the sage, while clad in homespun, conceals on his person a priceless
piece of jade.
Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Read notes on translations
Now, do it too at Wengu!
Chapter 70
My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no
one in the world can understand them or put them into practice.
Words have an ancestor and affairs have a sovereign.
It is because people are ignorant that they fail to understand me.
Those who understand me are few;
Those who imitate me are honored.
Therefore the sage, while clad in homespun, conceals on his person a priceless
piece of jade.
Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Read notes on translations
Now, do it too at Wengu!
Comments
For example, take this quote from Science News:
“As researchers learn to better tap into the sun's rays, solar energy stands to become an important resource for the planet. Whether sunlight becomes the sole source of sustainable energy or works in concert with wind and other renewables, scientists are optimistic that the planet can break its dependence on fossil fuels.
"It's incredible how slow we've been as a nation to actually start pumping the kinds of resources toward this problem that are commensurate with the problem," says Peters."The research community really wants to work on this problem," says Alivisatos. "If you talk to young students about this, their eyes light up."
Some researchers point out, however, that the funding doesn't match the urgency of the energy situation.
"We should treat energy in research like we treat health," says Lewis. "It's as great a challenge as curing cancer, except that in 20 years, if we don't cure cancer, the world will be the same. If we don't develop ways to provide people with clean, cheap energy, we absolutely know that we will have emitted so much carbon dioxide that the world isn't going to be the same." (Reaching for Rays - Scientists work toward a solar-based energy system, May 26, 2007; Vol. 171, No. 21 , p. 328)
Why is it that: “It’s incredible how slow we've been as a nation to actually start pumping the kinds of resources toward this problem that are commensurate with the problem"? Isn’t it because the population as a whole has not emotionally felt the problem? It seems that only when we actually experience (feel) something can we truly understand. Words, as a vehicle for understanding, don’t work as well as we [chref=71]think[/chref]. Words are only effective when ‘preaching to the choir’, so to speak.
This goes to show how true understanding arises from emotion. If our emotions aren’t on board, we don’t really understand, even though we may 'understand' something intellectually. [chref=32]Knowing[/chref] is a whole body experience, from the gut's emotion up to the brain's mind.
On another note: Situations like the recent mass shooting are only difficult to understand by those who have not felt a similar rage or frustration that the shooter felt. Perhaps it is not that we haven’t felt those kind of emotions, we just don’t accept that what we feel is the same emotion… only profoundly stronger in the psyche of the shooter. If we did acknowledge that, it would mean, ‘there by the grace of God, go I’.
(1) Frankly, I've even noticed this emotional origin of understanding in science and math. If we are not emotionally on board with the topic (interested, receptive), we can't listen or contemplate nearly so well, and our difficulties multiply rapidly.
Note: This post is an offshoot from my recent post, My Weakest Link.