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Chapter of the Week: #76 [Archive]
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 20
Exterminate learning and there will no longer be worries.
Between yea and nay
How much difference is there?
Between good and evil
How great is the distance?
What others fear
One must also fear.
And wax without having reached the limit.
The multitude are joyous
As if partaking of the 'Tai Lao' offering
Or going up to a terrace in spring.
I alone am inactive and reveal no signs,
Like a baby that has not yet learned to smile,
Listless as though with no home to go back to.
The multitude all have more than enough.
I alone seem to be in want.
My mind is that of a fool - how blank!
Vulgar people are clear.
I alone am drowsy.
Vulgar people are alert.
I alone am muddled.
Calm like the sea;
Like a high wind that never ceases.
The multitude all have a purpose.
I alone am foolish and uncouth.
I alone am different from others
And value being fed by the mother.
Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Read notes on translations
Chapter 20
Exterminate learning and there will no longer be worries.
Between yea and nay
How much difference is there?
Between good and evil
How great is the distance?
What others fear
One must also fear.
And wax without having reached the limit.
The multitude are joyous
As if partaking of the 'Tai Lao' offering
Or going up to a terrace in spring.
I alone am inactive and reveal no signs,
Like a baby that has not yet learned to smile,
Listless as though with no home to go back to.
The multitude all have more than enough.
I alone seem to be in want.
My mind is that of a fool - how blank!
Vulgar people are clear.
I alone am drowsy.
Vulgar people are alert.
I alone am muddled.
Calm like the sea;
Like a high wind that never ceases.
The multitude all have a purpose.
I alone am foolish and uncouth.
I alone am different from others
And value being fed by the mother.
Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Read notes on translations
Comments
Chapter 76
A man is supple and weak when living, but hard and stiff when dead. Grass and
trees are pliant and fragile when living, but dried and shriveled when dead.
Thus the hard and the strong are the comrades of death; the supple and the weak
are the comrades of life.
Therefore a weapon that is strong will not vanquish;
A tree that is strong will suffer the axe.
The strong and big takes the lower position,
The supple and weak takes the higher position.
Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Living things are weak and fragile compare to non living things. Isn't 'adapt or die' the model of evolution? Living things that survive best are supple and pliant enough to adapt to changing conditions - the Judo of life. Sure, hard and strong can manage for awhile, but in the end fall. It is curious how nature has endowed us with such impulsive, hard and strong characteristics. Yet, they only benefit us in a very limited, short term way. The real key to survival is knowing how to be supple and weak enough to step aside and use your 'opponents' force against him ('opponent' being anything we [chref=64]deal with[/chref] in life). Sure, evolution is survival of the fittest, but only where fitness means flexibility rather than strength. Cooperation, rather than competition, win out in the long run. No wonder we say, [chref=73]the way of heaven excels in overcoming though it does not contend,[/chref]
Perhaps civilization exacerbates our hard and strong characteristics because it short-circuits much of the taming influences nature usually has on life - wildlife that is. That would be ironic, for the pretense of civilization is that it 'civilizes' the wild-man within us. I think this is so superficially, but beneath we humans are very much on the 'yang' side of life's equation. (Yang being [chref=18]clever[/chref], [chref=36]hard and strong[/chref]). Granted, all life is on the yang side, but our species is so to a fault.
Here is how this chapter reads literally in Chinese. The last line reflects the circular point of view. When you are at the top, there is nowhere else to go but down; when you are at the bottom, there is nowhere else to go but up. As chapter 36 puts it, [chref=36]If you would have a thing laid aside, you must first set it up[/chref].
man of life also soft weak, their death also hard unyielding.
grass tree of life soft fragile, their death also dried up withered.
therefore hard unyieldingness death of follower, soft weakness life of follower.
is use (because of) weapons strong rule (follow) exterminate, tree unyielding rule (follow) break.
unyielding big manage down, soft weak manage up.
I find when I can turn away from being absolute and hard about things in life, I can be soft, yielding, open to other people's perspectives. Doesn't mean I'll always agree, but if I'm not stuck on my way only, then compromise is possible.
This is embarrasingly funny sometimes in dealing with my 11 yr. old daughter. I'll get upset about something I'll perceive as her not being responsible. And she'll patiently look at me, and tell me her perspective, why she did something the way she did. And when I stop being attached to my perspective, and I back off of my hardness about the situation, I'll see that she has a very valid perspective. One that I would have thought of myself, if I hadn't been stuck in my limited viewpoint.