Chapter of the Week: #36 [Archive]

Comments

• Luke Abbott

  April 2006 edited April 2006

  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 36
  If you would have a thing shrink,
  You must first stretch it;
  If you would have a thing weakened,
  You must first strengthen it;
  If you would have a thing laid aside,
  You must first set it up;
  If you would take from a thing,
  You must first five to it.
  
  This is called subtle discernment:
  The submissive and weak will overcome the hard and strong.
  
  The fish must not be allowed to leave the deep;
  The instrument of power in a state must not be revealed to anyone.
  
  Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
• Carl

  April 2006 edited December 1969

  [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.
  
  Subtle discernment is right! Nature's way is cyclic: strengthen then weaken, stretch then shrink, [chref=22]bent then straight, hollow then full[/chref]. The list goes on: work then rest, joy then sorrow, life then death, war then peace,... The more deeply and continually aware I am of this cyclic process, the less Nature can [chref=65]hoodwinked[/chref] me!
  
  Frankly, human biology is biased. Heck, all biology is biased! We're not set up biologically to see both sides, to know what is really going on. Evolution's agenda is survival and worldly interaction, not 'enlightened understanding'. Nature counts on [chref=70]ignorance[/chref] to pull life off. Thus, we can't help but feel that strength overcomes weakness. The submissive and weak will overcome the hard and strong is as counter intuitive to us as Christ's "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth". Yea,... right! Certainly, we may accept this view on faith, but [chref=70]understand[/chref] it? Clearly, we 'see' that the bully has his way. The view that [chref=40]weakness is the means the way employs[/chref] runs counter to much of our survival instinct.
  
  Of course, none of this matters one bit in the wild. In the wild, Natural circumstances counterbalance life's biological bias. Overall balance is maintained, both for the individual and earth's ecosystem. Alas, humanity has been striving to short-circuit Nature's counterbalancing influence for many millennia. So, it fall to each of us, as individuals, to discern the subtle [chref=43]teaching that uses no words[/chref]. Sure, I'm using word to beat around the bush on this issue, but our [chref=32]knowing[/chref] only comes from the [chref=14]indistinct and shadowy[/chref] within us. Spooky isn't it?
  
  [chref=23]Words[/chref] often (if not always ) get in the way of the understanding. Compare laid aside in D.C. Lau's translation with reject, used by Victor Mair. Laid aside lends a more passive, and I think 'Taoist', feeling to the point being made. On the other hand, Lau's must not seems to convey an implied sense of free choice, while Mair's cannot portrays the more realistic (and inevitable) view, i.e., power comes from within. We don't have the control over life we think we do.