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Chapter of the Week: #01
This reminds me of something that might be effective (ha ha). When you leave the gate open the cow does not want to leave the pasture (ha ha) 
Hence, leave the gate open.
In all serious try to get kids to like math and science. I am volunteer math and science tutor. You think you have problems (Haha).
Hence, leave the gate open.In all serious try to get kids to like math and science. I am volunteer math and science tutor. You think you have problems (Haha).
Comments
Chapter 1
The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way;
The name that can be named
Is not the constant name.
The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth;
The named was the mother of the myriad creatures.
Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observes its secrets;
But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.
These two are the same
But diverge in name as they issue forth.
Being the same they are called mysteries,
Mystery upon mystery -
The gateway of the manifold secrets.
Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Read notes on translations
Today this chapter spoke to my experience 'with' consciousness. Hmm,.. that sounds odd; experience is consciousness -- consciousness is experience. Isn't it? But, I digress... Anyway, I see desire as being like vision metaphorically, and perhaps even literally. Vision has two sides to it, focused and peripheral. In the same way, desire can be highly focused or a 'fuzzy' peripheral feeling.
The narrower the focus, the stronger the beam of desire, which drives us to interact with the world's manifestations. On the other hand, when we [chref=56]soften the glare[/chref] and broaden the beam we begin to see a fuzzy peripheral field of desire. Out there, at the fuzzy edges, we can begin to sense a mysterious [chref=14]image that is without substance[/chref]. Narrow focused vision ([chref=19]desires[/chref]), or fuzzy peripheral vision ([chref=37]freedom from desire[/chref]) is a matter of how we use the beam,.. but it is all vision – [chref=52]the light[/chref] of consciousness.
There are a few interesting differences in a more literal translation of the Chinese original (see below). First, knowing that mysterious (xuan) also means black, dark, mysterious and profound, helps deepen meaning. Ironically, native speakers are often ignorant of the more subtle and deeper roots of their words. There's another reason not to trust words too much! Next, always have desire to observes its boundary implies something deeper. The sirens call of desire drives us toward our boundary. Only upon reaching our boundary do we begin [chref=40]turning back[/chref]. In other words, [chref=36]if you would have a thing shrink, you must first stretch it[/chref]. The word boundary thus drives home a deeper point, whereas the word manifestations never has, for me at least. And finally, note how the actual Chinese says, 'way can (need doing) way...', and not, 'way that can be spoken of...'. True, can 'need doing' certainly encompasses 'can be spoken of'. But, 'need doing' can pull the view deeper if you wish to go there.
The literal translation:
way can (need doing) way (say, think, speak, suppose) never always way.
name can (need doing) name, never always name.
without name heaven earth of begin.
have name myriad things of mother.
happening always without desire to observe its wonder
always have desire to observes its boundry
these both same out but different name
same call of black
black (mysterious) of and again black (mysterious)
many wonderful of entrance.
The next best thing (as literal as possible):
The way that can be told is not the constant way.
The name that can be named is not the constant way.
The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and earth.
Naming is the mother of countless things
Always without desire to observe its wonder.
Always having desire to observe its boundry.
Both of these come out the same, but differ in name,
Being the same means this is mysterious.
Mysterious, and again mysterious,
The entrance to numerous wonders.
"To understand the limits of the Dao emphasize EXISTENCE.
To understand the marvelousness of the Dao emphasize NOTHINGNESS."
These two lines hint at the two broad types of meditations, contemplations and exercises one can do to raise their level of awareness.
Nothingness is superior in Power to Existence as the origin of Existence is Nothingness. Some of you will value the meaning of this statement ;-)
This is my first post so please bare with me if I do something so lecturish lol~
Let me first off type in the original text (since I can't find any that I am familiar with)
é“å¯é“éžå¸¸é“。åå¯åéžå¸¸å
ç„¡å天地之始。有åè¬ç‰©ä¹‹æ¯
故常無欲以觀其妙。常有欲以觀其徼。
æ¤å…©è€…åŒ å‡ºè€Œç•°å。åŒè¬‚之玄 玄之åˆçŽ„ 衆妙之門。
To start off the text here are presented in the order that is for the text dialect specialist not of the Original 王弼's written scripture.
Traditionally and archiological findings in 1970s and 1990s we have both written in Silk and Bamboo bindings to confirm these texts actually existed and people have been adding texts for their publications over the years.
However, what we have as the Tao Te Ching is of the 王弼's advanced translation of which recorded. Most of us would be amazed to find out 王弼 translated and collected this work at the age of 16... Which makes me so ashamed that I can't even collect 4,000 English words to compose something like this even if I had super computer.
For the most part, I am going to try my best to use common English rather than some core texts since we already have enough problems with the translated images or metaphors.
Thank you
-- End Prologue --
é“å¯é“éžå¸¸é“。
Way (of which) can be called Way [<-this way is confucian theory of tranqul equalibrilum of humanistic orgin of nature within] cannot be considered [<-although it is mentioned many times and more to be translated true or unchangable truth, this self wording shows designation of word for an idea that creates the illusion that an object has not changed (i.e., you've left your car in the parking lot before you go to work, you return to find the car in place. You know and you are certain that this car has not moved, but you are also certain that this car has been affected by the environment of the physical nature which is not visibly seen during the time you were working.) thus illusion of the present presented to us has not been changed and at the same time it is constantly changing that we are visualizing as unchanged] Way
etc etc
I have enough notes to back up everything I post so please feel free to reply lol
I think I've put up more than what I intended and perhaps I would need actual feed back in order to continue since obviously this takes up alot of the webspace~
Kudos~
I'd like to refer to the Tao (Yin Yang) Symbol for this one.
So we know that Every-THING is in constant flux, ever changing and moving.
But no matter what happens the Tao symbol will always be UNCHANGING.
The ancient "Law of the Tao" will always remain. In other words you will not wake up one morning to find the Tao (Yin Yang) Symbol in the shape of a square or hexagon, it will always be the same round spiral vortex shape.
Hermetic philosophy shares a similar belief in its "seven laws that are one" concept. These seven laws are all found within the Tao symbol therefore finding the common ground on which Taoism and Hermetic Philosophy is based. Considering the former spawned the religions of the east, and the latter spawned the religions of the west, this is a profound statement.
:-)
Almost very almost, hahaha~
" So we know that Every-THING is in constant flux, ever changing and moving.
But no matter what happens the Tao symbol will always be UNCHANGING."
Absolutely, and most absolutely!
Take out the Symbol part and we are there!
now reads: ' so we know that evertying is in constant flux, ever changing
and moving. but no matter what happens Tao will always be unchanging."
Wow! very impressive. If you came up with this on your own, you are better
than my PhD a-holes with nothing more than definitions all day!
I am not sure how and why you said it the way it is. But If you can do the same with the rest of the chapter 1, you have the entire Tao in its complete understanding. I wrote line 1 since it measures levels of understanding. (fyi: I failed at this and it took me a long time - a very long time to get this.)
Compared to anything else in the world, I can state Tao text has the most complete thought in regards to the nature and has more complete explanation of our existance in nature. Very dangerous when taught to the mass minds and makes difficult to reason against, (some of the reason why this was forbidden at some period).
I would like to see the entire chapter 1 by your description (if you don't mind putting them up that is lol). And I will do the chapter 38 (if Yang is Tao then Yin should be Te when compared to Yin and Yang that is) compare what it is that this very text is damn near copy of nature in explanation with us in side in the chapters (only 4,000 words with change some 16yr old explanation ruling most of 5,000 yr asian inate logic, isn't this something worth looking at? Isn't this a reason enough to read? Bible with damn near 26,000 and change explains nothing.... yeah... I didn't mind putting in 40 hrs on Tao to read all the translated tabs when I was studing this...)
I look forward for your comment, please let me know~
Kudos~
I cannot take full credit for my understanding of the Tao, my Master is guiding me through this magnificent book and although nobody can really "teach" you the Tao my Master has given me the tools & exercises (meditations, physical exercises, discipline, etc..) to be able to unlock the doors to all esoteric knowledge.
Another way I can explain how the Tao is UNCHANGING:
All meterologists know that Rain is caused by the interaction between high-pressure (yang) and low-pressure (yin) systems of air. This "law of the Tao" is UNCHANGING, but yet the weather is never exactly the same on any two days (Always CHANGING) and is almost impossible to predict due to the levels of complexity and combinations of yin and yang. But nevertheless the "Law" is UNCHANGING and TRUE.
Do keep in mind that all the "LAWS of the Tao" (Nature) form "ONE LAW".
The Ancient Egyptians would describe the ONE LAW as "The ALL is Mind, The Universe is MENTAL". Then they broke down the one law into seven laws to further explain the nature of "MIND".
Take care,
Ed :-)
One way I like to visualise the "UNCHANGING":
I believe every-THING that is CHANGING must depend on the UNCHANGING LAWS OF CHANGE. In other words the nature/process of change is always the same (UNCHANGING).
For example:
In order to draw a cartoon character (a THING) it must depend on a blank piece of paper pre-exsiting before the cartoon character. Lets say the "blank piece of paper" is "Space" or the Tao and the cartoon character is "our Galaxy".
Isn't it interesting that Scientists have recently found that the ambient temperature (level of vibration) of Space is suprisngly warm and it is the same (UNCHANGING) around the entire Universe. This fact is baffling scientists around the world and they are all having difficulty with their theories which this fact has busted numerous holes.
Another example: From the Tao (Yin Yang) symbol, if we follow the circumference of the symbol we realise that all opposites meet at extreme ends, if you travel too far yin you become yang, if you travel too far yang you become yin. This "Law" is UNCHANGING. Knowing this you can decribe infinite situations where this occurs for example: A Man who is too yin (passive) and does not speak up when he disagrees and he allows others to verbally abuse him. One day he "snaps", and his extreme Yin becomes extreme Yang exploding in uncontrolled anger and violence. Then regretting his actions he becomes extreme Yin again. This is the nature of Passive-Agressive behaviour. With training, discipline and awareness one can easily overcome this behaviour.
something tells me that I need to ask you what Tao Master you are referring to. Are you in some sort of Tao religion or some sort?
He prefers to ignore fame and large 'Tony Robbins style' events promoting this philosophy. My Master would rather have 5 good students than 1000 paying subscribers so I wouldn't say it is a religion. I also wouldn't call it a religion because no books or religions are off-limits, I am encouraged to master all systems of knowledge. In order to be able to decode all religious texts a student must first study The Tao, Egyptian Hermeticism and Shamanism from all countries. Those three are the origins of all religions we have today.
If you want to meet him in Sydney I can arrange for a meeting :-)
Another words, I was studying this at a University for some large portion of my life with Masters (Professors, Actual Practitioners including Wu Tang & Shaolin, Republic Archeologiests to name a few) who holds title and was teaching at the time.
I just was curious as to where and how you got in touch with Tao. I ask because depends on where and when you find the Tao promotes certain grasp of the ideology. For example, One professor of Cumien had his understanding when he was 24 deliverying noodle soups when he had awakening with Zhong Yong. His lectures are incredibly so fluent that it's mind boggling that I am looking and speaking to a live person not in some time machine and be able to speak to Yun Hwei of confucious students.
Well nuff said and I hope to see the rest of the chapter from you or your collegues. It is really important to have this very thoroughly in chapter 1 otherwise (as I point out on the other post) becomes so similar translated words from confucious lectures, you completely loose the whole thing.
I don't mind anyone using terms described on my post on this site as part of their own, I don't mind anyone quoting and using for their own thesis etc etc (trust me I wish there was something I could look at when I was writing my own - so go for it). I do ask that anyone who does look and read all the other stuff they can find in English literature (cause it will make you angry and want to read the original) and be able to differentiate the actuality of discussion.
Someone asked me about this and I can put it this way.
I was taught everything that were confucious in my studies then was
Presented with Tao (the next couple of words are very important)
to be able to differentiate what is not of confucious
and know what is Tao without the jargon of confucian theory!
Tao is bigger and very deep (this is chapter 1) so deep that it looks dark.
Something like this need to be very thoroughly set in part rather than using same words from any other text to compare them with. This is why I asked.
hope to hear from you soon and good luck in your studies, kudos~
My master could totally kick your master's butt. Just so you know.
Luke
p.s. - Hey-oo...
I do agree with you that Confucius and Lao Tzu are like comparing chalk with cheese.
Lao Tzu has a very raw and down to earth philosophy which aims to understand nature as best as it can. My opinion - The Tao is the best book of its kind.
If Confucius was a student of the Tao Te Ching then he failed miserably. From what I know; his views on reincarnation were alien to Taoism - he spread the belief that if you were "good" you would reincarnate into another class into society but you were doomed to say in your class for this lifetime. And if that is true about Confucius then he was NOT a Taoist and not a sincere student of Natural Philosophy.
The very fact that Confucius assumed that one class was "better" than another class is ignorant as one could argue there might be more opportunity to learn and evolve living as a Slave as opposed to living as a Wealthy Merchant. One could also argue the opposite. Both statements are equally true and therefore neither the slave nor the merchant is in a higher or lower position. The opportunities for learning depend on the level of awareness of the individual.
My own example: most people believe catching a train is a "waste of time". I don't believe that. Riding a train I always choose to stand even when there are seats available, I practice my balance while meditating in a standing position. Likewise with driving a car - I practice kegal muscle exercises and sexual Chi-Kung. It does not matter where you are in society, there are always opportunities for evolution ;-)
Dear Ed,
I'm more curious about the rest of the Chapter 1 from you though hahaha.
I can preach to the choir but its nice to know the words that they are singing hehe.
Kudos for you guys that sent me e-mails, I don't mind you guys using me as reference etc etc. Good luck to everyone and Kudos~
This is the 'darkness within darkness, the gate to all mystery'
Heiwa.
Chapter One has told me a lot about the role of our inherent perceptive givens in defining our world, and our understanding of it and its members. It's calmed and even obsoleted my discomforts with the dual- or multiple-natures of anything,
The second set of lines describes clearly that with the first trace of our effort to understand the world, we simplify the endless flows of the manifest tao by separating that flow into particulars.
'Without names/distinction (ming) Heaven and earth see the origins. (the flowing givens of time/space, or even the balanced dances of the atomic, molecular and field worlds?); with names (ming) the ten thousand things see the Mother' (the world of separate but inter-relating things that make up our past, current and future situations of things?).
There's something of left or right brain there, isn't there? Or emotion or thought? Or even the senses reporting their limited sampling of the endless flows around us.
Then 'without attachments/desires, one sees the spirit of any thing, with attachment/desires one always sees them as their outer appearence.' Something very clear there of the 'suction' mechanisms that pull us from deeply perceptive resonance with whatever, to the more strategic view of the rest of the world as things not so evidently sharing our private world of spirit.
Again something of left and right brain activity there. Of more direct or more directed experience.
With the next line Laotzu cautions that we not think our thoughts are thereby transforming reality, and reinforces the role of perception in our uncomfortable confusions, 'these two (views of the world and things) come from the same source, it is only in our naming of them that they appear different.'
Isn't 'mystery upon mystery' a fine description of our inherent problem of 'looking through a lens to sort out the distortions of the same lens'? And isn't that lens problem just the experience we have of trying to sort out the naming/attachmenting-generated differences between 'these two' perceptions of the same objects and our shared world, as simultaneously a separate thing and a brother spirit?
Isn't this clarity a way to become comfortable with those incessant split perceptions, made inevitable by our monkey flesh machines? Left and right brain, 'rational' and multi-dimenional, deduction and induction, thing and spirit.
The last line reminds us that as we look into our deeper reality, looking through the perception scope from outer forms to spirit in each thing in our worlds, from the world of things we play with to the hidden flows through which te manifests those worlds, that it is useful and important to set aside the information added by our perceptions: 'The spirit of all things is their gateway'.
The unity of thing and tao is there be seen by each of us, demonstrated for us by each thing. Seeing that requires us to do no more than set aside our distinctions. Seeing the universal or playing with the things it manifests as, after all, 'differs only in our naming of them'.
Just one thought. I've been reading The Way of Zen by Alan Watts and he uses an analogy that struck me. Maybe you've read it already, but here goes. He uses the example of focused and peripheral vision. Reading these words I'm using my focused vision, but all around and more encompassing is my peripheral vision which takes in a lot more in a less definite way. So he says thinking in language (naming) is linear, one by one, like the focused vision. But there is also peripheral knowledge or awareness (the spirit of things) which is very rich but which we in the west tend to ignore.
That really worked for me to explain what I think you are getting at, Michael. (by the way, that book is well worth a re-read, IMHO)
Philopsophies' paradoxes then take a more realistic place than the magical superhuman quandaries we can never hope to 'conquer'. Once again the world isn't hiding itself from our limited selves, but understanding the complex operation of ourselves places the sources of the confusion in us, something we can learn about and grow to handle more accurately and lovingly. The tao is offering us only clarity, even to the trans-temporal process of manifestation.
I wonder if all these are pairs of modes, or more of a specturm. Our optical vision seems to blend peripheral and focused without any detectable wall between them. Our brain hemispheres seen with MRIs show something of both modes of reaction and anaylysis, not as separated anatomically as we recently thought.
Recall in the text - It is 'the nameless' (and so also the un-manifested formless [or more precisely 'supra-formal'] principle) which is the beginning of heaven and earth. This heaven/earth distinction can be understood as the beginning of the manifest duality (itself the beginning of separation of from from essence) in which we currently find ourselves.
"The named is the mother of ten-thousand things" Once in the formal/manifest reality, which gives rise to duality and obfuscation of principle, it is difficult to recover the essence. Buddha teaches the obliteration of attachment, which in the foremost place is the attachment to form.
Whatever Tao may be, it cannot be grasped/understood by rational and logical examination. The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
Seek within yourselves the gate to all mystery
Heiwa.
Rationality is far from the whole of our perceptions or tools or actions, just as man is far from the whole of earth, or heaven, or tao. None of these however are separate from any or all of these. All of these we are told by the Tao Te Ching and our personal experience, are parts of a process of a completion that we will never understand with the tiny fraction of our eye that is logic.
For me the useful, reality loving, tao embodying, bodhisattva delivered dismissal of attachment is the dismissal of any attachment to a separation of form and essence, or any other separation.
The essence is indeed to be found by us in the experience of our own spirit.
That any of this is mysterious seems to me to be a product of clinging to the rational when one is aware of the formless, that being the non-temporal part of our realities that the rational can only summarize, cartoon, and only very badly. It is that clinging that I identify as an obsfucating attachment. The harmony of our lives is not hidden from us by nature, but by the attempt to reduce it to form and logic.
Speech is a temporal form. That doesn't mean we have another way to talk about the formless, at least not over the net, give or take the allusions of art which may or may not be received with any of the essence we may try to convey with them. We can only be that awareness, and trust that whoever we communicate with through the temporal world of forms and abstracts is also comfortable with an awareness of the play of the formless and the formed in all the ten thousand things.
As Laotzu says repeatedly, words, forms, just aren't an adequate tool to share the wordless and formless, even between beings who are formed by the formless and know that to be our case, as we all do. Nonetheless, it's how we talk amongst ourselves.
Also nonetheless our organic forms impose misperceptions of duality and worse, as the images our thinking minds have to consider. Accepting that as part of the balance and form that our minds are, recognizing how the formless and our spirits have manifested in just this and no other form as humans, is a great path, our gateway, to filtering our attempted perceptions from the reality they can only cartoon, the reality we experience directly.
For example, a bee communicates where the choice flowers are by its dance “form”, which the whole hive values and so is ostensibly “attached to”. Words are just words. Only in the mind of the listener / reader do they take on a life of their own. The life they take on simply reflect, "attachment-wise", what is occurring in the mind of the listener / reader.
The “attachment” that occurs takes place in the emotional life of the listener / reader who “attaches” himself to the [chref=23]words[/chref]. Of course the speaker / writer may be "attached" to what he is saying, but only he knows to what extent. Simply put, the words in any analysis we use are not as good an indication of “attachment” as the emotion we "attach" to the words we hear / read in other people's analysis.
Briefly, it correlate down to this for me:
out there___ in here
objective___ subjective
words______ silence
something__ nothing
clear_______ murky
illusion_____reality
life_________death... and so on
So, I see reality as a subjective experience, although we innately tend to [chref=71]think[/chref] the 'out there' is real and knowable. It is kind of spooky really
Another conundrum with the Tao. Once you speak about it, you're no longer talking about it. It's an easy trump card to play. So here in our little internet community where we can vent stuff that's been spinning in our little heads (that's what it's like in mine, anyway), we agree we're not going to play that card.
Conundrum is right. Unless you chalk it up to just another [chref=65]hoodwinking[/chref], which in the end I must. Essentially it is our 'attachment' to pleasure that drives us to seek an end to suffering, and quite [chref=25]naturally so[/chref]. I think the conundrum is created by our unrelenting innate (biological, instinctive, primal) drive to 'have it both ways' - eat our cake and have it too. It blows my mind. It is like the mind can visualize itself flying (the ideal), if only we weren't held down to earth by gravity (the real).
??? Are you drawing a distinction between "speaking" and "talking"? There is none. Even thinking qualifies as speaking, in my view anyway. So, it is odd if someone seriously "plays that card". Certainly, if we "play that card", we would be hypocrites if we minded being called on it.
I reckon a Taoist world view may not be well suited for anyone who takes any words seriously.
[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]
Now when am I going to follow that advice? :roll: I know; as soon as I cease wishing to communicate. Being a social primate, that's never going to happen. So, even that view expressed in chapter 32 above is an ideal, outside [chref=25]that which is naturally so[/chref]. Geez, even the Tao Te Ching contradicts itself, but that can be forgiven for it starts out right away with that superb disclaimer...
[chref=1]The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way;
The name that can be named
Is not the constant name.
[/chref]
The evening light is lovely now and draws me outside to plant some more, weed some more, and watch the ducks.
No, I wasn't. I was just trying to say that we can trump any post on this board by saying "what you are saying (or thinking) is not The Tao because 'The way that can be spoken is not the constant way.''"
Maybe I am not so good with words, so maybe that's why I am drawn by the TTC. Speaking of words, the word "hoodwink" carries for me the notion that there is someone behind it all and a paranoid feeling arises in me. Words can have such an emotional impact. I prefer conumdrum, a kind of comical-sounding word.
Your "evening light" statement probably comes closest to what we can't talk about.
That is why I prefer to think of Mother Nature as the ultimate [chref=65]hoodwinker[/chref]. She is the "someone behind it all". All of us lesser myriad creatures are the 'hoodwinkees'. It is a peaceful view that liberates me from judging any of us lesser creatures. Linked to this, moreover, is the notion of free will. The extent we feel free will is operative will determine how disturbing and unfair hoodwinking feels. No free will means no intentional hoodwinking, i.e., 'something' (or more precisely [chref=11] Nothing[/chref]) is pulling the strings behind whatever scenario we are seeing.
Yet in the end it's a mistake if I take whatever I've read as "the gospel", and not simply an attempt to communicate, and have connection, between social beings. The discussion, and my thoughts/reactions, are not reality. When I can recognize that, and "know when to stop" naming/labeling reality, is when I have any sense of contentment.
"You must break the outside to let out the inside: to get at the kernel means breaking the shell. Even so to find nature herself all her likenesses have to be shattered."
-- Meister Eckhart
"Know that God is beyond all senses and sensory things, beyond all shape, colour, measure and place: is wholly without form and image and, while present in all things, is above all things; therefore He is beyond all imagining."
-- Unseen Warfare, I. XXVI
"One who seeks the Dharma finds it in seeking it in nothing."
-- Vimalakirti Sutra
"If ye pass beyond form, O friends, 'tis Paradise and rose-gardens within rose-gardens. When thou hast broken and destroyed thine own form, thou hast learned to break the form of everything. After that, thou wilt break every form; like Haydar, thou wilt uproot the gate of Khaybar."
-- Rumi
"Do not cling to the notion of voidness,
But consider all things alike.
Indeed even the husk of a sesame-seed
Causes pain like that of an arrow."
-- Saraha
"The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient beings, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddha-hood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind."
--Huang Po
"Abyssus abyssum invocat."
-- Psalm XLI. 8
In regards to your depiction of complimentary opposites, such as 'something and nothing, objective/ subjective, et al." then the Tao edifies thusly:
"Tao begets One; one begets two; two begets three; three begets all things. All things are backed by yin and faced by yang, and harmonized by the immaterial Breath (ch'i)"
--Tao Te Ching, XLII
If we see but duality of the two, how can we know the unity of one, and what of the Tao from which both sprang?
::: Heiwa
And the understanding that for me removes all the confusions inferred in, bemoaned of and transcended by each quote, being the confusions we’ve been told to think of as paradoxes, contradictions and reasons to argue the wordings we use to communicate about any of this, is right there in the last quote, from our boy, LaoTzu, which I think was your point also.
A little examination of one of the critical words involved lets me describe my understanding.
“Begets” in the original is “sheng” which Jonathan Star translates as ‘begets, begot, produce(s)(d), gives birth to, gives life to”. Considering that all this ‘new’ identity is being ‘produced’ in non-spatial, non-temporal levels, I don’t think our relativistic images of separation, contrast or even process are accurately or usefully applied ‘there’.
These ‘births’ are to me best considered as energies of a specific nature, or relations between them, organizing within a greater more diverse energy. This in a reality level where our temporal concepts of energy and organization are again inappropriate, of course.
Crudely, we can see this ‘organizing within as birth’ more along the imaging we go through to understand this phrase: ‘a galaxy begets a solar system, which begets a planet, which begets an animal.’
None of these objects have any meaning or existence if they are separated from the containing reality that begot them. Each is a current and active part of the greater form, each is formed within and of its parent.
Begetting here isn’t A1 + A2 => A3, it’s A(B(C(D))) where each parenthesis mean ‘forms within and of itself’.
Sheng’s ‘begetting’ process then becomes more of a ‘developing a new identity that exists within its parent’ than an organic birth of splitting apart.
Our minds’ images, among them our words and lives (not bodies), are born into this world the same way. Our new distinctions form within our minds and hearts, our perception is formed within our experience of the universal flow of the world, to help us sort it out. We add these distinctions, among them our words and forms, for our mind’s inner purposes; they are not added to the shared world but to our private, unique inner perceiving of it. They are formed within us and exist only within us.
So we arrive at the paraphrasing of your last quote that I find useful, reversing its order, and using the appropriately flexible and non-spatial meaning of the word ‘within’ suggested above:
‘all things are within the three, the three is within the two, the two is within the one, and the one is within the Tao.’
The order of these begettings doesn’t much matter to us ‘all things’, who only exist when the other stages of the begetting ‘sequence’ are in place.
The reversed order reflects how the chain of included realities looks to us from its most enclosed level looking towards that which contains all of it.
Walking through the meaning of that paraphrase, with each ‘within’ being, I suspect, as unique and identical in our personal imaging as are the words ‘Tao’, ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’ and ‘all things’, I come to satisfying parsings of all the other quotes, including the comments of all the contributors to this discussion.
Knowing that all these exist within and of their parent, and that our temporal awareness can know directly only the ‘all things’ level, explains and generates the observations of the other quotes.
Each quote becomes a different blind man’s view of that same elephant we share in the parts of our lives that have no parts, times or distances.
Each contradiction and complementary-opposite pair educate us when we see their real unity, always found just past the distinctions imposed by the abstractions of our perception.