Check One Off the Bucket List

This is chapter 81, the last chapter of the Tao Te Ching. My journey on this Taoist path began almost 50 years ago in Vietnam, as did my learning to read and write Chinese. Over the years, I have translated parts of chapters that puzzled me. This revealed a subtle problem I found in all translations: The process of translating the Chinese phrasing into another language looses some of the straightforward meaning.

About ten years ago, I decided to do what I could to remedy this problem ⁽¹⁾. To recover some of that straightforward meaning, the average (or better) student may find my translation helpful when used along side their favorite, more readable translation. If that fails, the student can always ponder the included verbatim literal Chinese to English translation.

I do feel (with humble, hesitant confidence) that this may be one of the more faithful translations ever written. Reliability, even at the expense of readability, has been my goal—a fool’s errand for anyone wishing to market their work. I suppose I had no choice really, for as this chapter says, True speech isn’t beautiful, Beautiful speech isn’t true. Therefore, maybe my translation is also one of the least readable ever written. If all true, that is balanced… what more could I want. Now, it is time to pop the champagne! Even so, I will continue assessing my choice of words and phrasing to improve these as possible.

Speaking of bucket lists, having children was the last item on my bucket list several decades ago. Living longer, the list got appended (translating the Tao Te Ching, for example). The decks look clear now, so Grimm Reaper, I’m ready whenever you are. No hurry though—take your time. I just thought of something else to do…

⁽¹⁾ A number of translations are actually interpretations of other original translations. Of original and authoritative translations, D.C. Lau’s is one of the best. Therefore, I will use a line from his chapter 73 to illustrate the problem, and my attempt to reduce it.

His translation says, Heaven hates what it hates, Who knows the reason why? Now, this isn’t that off base as it stands, until you consider it along side an issue I raise in my commentary of chapter 81 (i.e., So now, ask yourself: is there good or bad in nature? Does nature play favorites; does nature love some things more than other things?… )

I translate the phrase this way, Nature’s ruthlessness, who knows its cause. With any luck, this is more in line with the impartiality and over all balance expressed in the Tao Te Ching.

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Dreaming the Way

Last night I dreamt I was explaining the ‘way’ to a group of people.  I was talking to someone and other people overhearing us actively started listening and asking questions. My smooth and coherent delivery felt unusually satisfying. That’s no wonder, given the way that can be spoken of is not the constant way. Of course, it was my dream so I surely knew the questions they were going to ask ahead of time…

Some years ago, a fellow did ask me to speak to an ecumenical group on Taoism. Elucidating Taoist thought to folks unfamiliar with the ‘way’ is particularly difficult to pull off in one talk, if at all. East is East and West is West is fundamental, though not in a geographical ways. Anyway, my dream here turned out so much better; they actually understood what I was saying. It was almost as pleasant as a flying or floating dream.

So, perhaps I’m subconsciously preparing for public speaking on Taoism (oh perish the thought). Still, if that is in the cards, dreaming my way there is certainly the way to go. The power of the dream to figure out the un-figure-able is amazing, and often undervalued (at least officially I suppose). My most notable practical experience of dream-solving was while working out the correlations process. Dream time was the only way I could penetrate the most confounding aspects. Maybe someday dream time will lead to a way to communicate correlations better. Ah yes… dream on! (For all I know, dream time may be the only way to really understand correlations).

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The Utility of Knowing What You Don’t Know

What an odd thing to say. Yet, I don’t know how else to say it, so here is an example: For about ten years now, son Luke and I have been fleshing out a fundamentally simpler, easier way to learn to play music by ear (especially the string instruments: guitar, fiddle, banjo and the like). The curious thing is, he has great innate music talent, while I have virtual none. So, you would think our collaboration would be mostly a one way street—he would teach me…

The odd thing is, generally speaking, talent can’t teach the untalented. Talent can only teach the talented ⁽¹⁾. Anyway, our ‘revolutionary’ project is to enable musically untalented folks to play music fluently, and in the process discover what ever hidden innate talent they have.

Do you see the conundrum here? The success we are able to have in this project is due to a synergy between him intuitively knowing what he knows, and me intuitively knowing what I don’t know. It feels mysterious, yet I expect similar synergies are commonplace and underlie much of life, yet pass unnoticed. (I notice because I’m obsessed with scrutinizing ‘the clock’ tick-tick.) That still doesn’t really explain it, does it. Well, that figures.

Oh, I also suspect that this could never have occurred earlier in my life when I thought I knew (i.e., To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.) Yep, there one or two advantages to old age that compensate for the physical decay.

⁽¹⁾ I mean talent in some specific area, not overall ‘life talent’, which is absurd and unknowable anyway. I imagine even this narrowly defined observation goes against the grain of modern educational philosophy, which I find more a matter of wishful thinking than empirical reality. Wishful thinking: a major source spring of one’s blind spot.

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Success Thru Failure

Most of us eventually realize that all success must inevitably pass through a failure stage. From our first years of stumbling before walking, of mumbling before talking, and on through life we gradually learn (perhaps intuitive and subconscious) that if we would take from a thing, we must first give to it. However, I will take this even further: success IS failure. Is this an example of chapter 78’s  straightforward words seem paradoxical? It all depends on which phase of the life cycle you consider and how you define success.

That success is failure is how I saw the future when we began holding Taoist meetings here in the mid 80’s. I felt that the closer we kept to Taoist worldview, the less folks would be interested. This would be expected had we lived in the Bible belt. However, this is Santa Cruz California. We are a university town, ‘a nuclear free zone’, liberal and as new age as can be.

Therefore, on the surface you’d think that folks living in this area would be very receptive to the seemingly liberal radical worldview of the Tao Te Ching. Nevertheless, having many people even here interested would still be a strong indication that we were on a by-path, perhaps like going up to a terrace in spring.

This is a testament to the depth of the Tao Te Ching. Appearing very ‘liberal’ on the surface, it would repel ‘conservatives’ in the Bible belt. Appearing ‘conservative’ deeper down, it would repel ‘liberal’ eventually.  Impartiality appeals to neither camp, left or right, liberal or conservative. The Taoist view occupies the vast emptiness in between. No wonder it never really caught on in China. Legalism followed by Confucianism was so much easier to put into practice.

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Ethics as an Emergent Property

Ethics is a curious cultural creature. What is ethical for one group may well be immoral for another. Certainly there are some ethical rules which span most groups, at least on the surface. ‘Thou shall not kill’ is almost universal, except for the many exceptions, e.g., it’s all right to kill those who kill, but not embryos, or visa versa…

Clearly, ethics is not an array of rational principled absolutes handed down from on high. If anything, to paraphrase the ‘disclaimer’ at the beginning of chapter 1, “the ethics that can be spoken of is not the constant ethics”. Ethics, like everything else ‘uniquely human’ is essentially an emergent property—a symptom—of more fundamental animal instincts. Ethics arises from the social instinct. Individuals that conform to prescribed behavior norms (ethics) of their group feel a sense of group unity and trust. It is the glue holding a group together.

So instead of squabbling over the merits of various and arbitrary ethical norms, why not look more deeply by seeing life’s manifestations from a symptoms point of view. The beauty of this can be that it allows one to know both the ‘secrets’ and the ‘manifestations’ simultaneously regardless of desire… Okay, that’s not exactly true. Our tendency to see what we want to see means desiring not to desire is still key. I know, I know, don’t hold my breath!

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Is Pain the Constant?

Pleasure and pain (like life and death) are a fascinating duo. In this relationship, I imagine that pain is the head of the household. That’s not to say pain is ‘the constant‘; that would be going too far, of course. Nevertheless pain, like water, may come close to describing the way. That puts pain at the same primeval level as fear. They are the leaders in the evolution of life, with supporting roles in life’s drama going to pleasure and need (and in us humans, desire).

Pleasure is fleeting, and always leads back to pain ⁽¹⁾. Buddha most succinctly described this process in his Second Noble Truth: “The desire to live for the enjoyment of self entangles us in a net of sorrows. Pleasures are the bait and the result is pain.”  Genuinely acknowledging this process goes a long way to mitigating its effects on me. Forewarned is forearmed!

⁽¹⁾ Does it always really lead back to pain?  In a matter of speaking, it does. For example, eating is pleasure, especially when you’re hunger, but eventually hunger pains return. If wealthy, you never have to let hunger reach a painful point, but then you’re probably suffering from food’s pleasures in other ways (e.g., problems related to weight, heart, gout, immunity, etc.).  Of course, feeling pained, we then seek pleasure. Round and round we go. The only choice we may have in this matter is in the degree we oscillate between the two. The milder our swing between extremes, the deeper our sense of well being.

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Pleasure Isn’t Well Being

Both pleasure and pain can pull us off balance and dim our sense of well being. This parallels chapter 13’s Favor and disgrace are things that startle. Of course, it is easy to see how pain and disgrace do this, but favor and pleasure? That’s more subtle…

The innate sense that more pleasure increases well being is one of Nature’s finest hoodwinks. No wonder it is so easy to overindulge on one of many delightful by-paths people prefer.

However, the pursuit of pleasure in the wild can seldom, if ever, get out of hand. Indeed, in the wild, this hoodwink improves balance and well-being. Here, both the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain lead to well-being. Civilization interferes with this natural process by make pleasure far easier to pursue and pain far easier to avoid. The pomp and ceremony of civilization obscures its underlying reason for existence: to make life as safe and secure as possible. The only problem: We are often just too good at that for our own well-being.

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Keep ‘em guessing?

The Tao Te Ching is often terse and vague—especially in the original Chinese. I expect one reason is that it offers a word view often at odds with the story we want to hear. Revealing this point of view less obscurely would feel unsettling, even subversive, for many…

Its vague style allows more flexibility in interpretation. Like clouds in the sky, the mind’s eye can more easily see the shapes it wants to see if they are not depicted too precisely, especially as we’re referring to the shape that has no shape. This makes it possible to accommodate more frames of reference without compromising the ‘truth’. Like silence, murky truth doesn’t foment resistance and argument. Instead, it simply evokes benign confusion and blank stares.

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Priorities

Prioritizing needs (and fears too) is an important step in managing the demands of living, at least a civilized life. In the wild I suppose circumstance pretty much handle what and when animals do what they do. Freeing ourselves from the drudgery of hunting and gathering whenever we got hungry has left us with abundant free time to ‘choose’ what to do and not do…

I find putting those painful ‘must do’ items at the head of my priority list actually delivers the deepest sense of well being. In the wild I imagine these ‘must do’ necessities would never become a choice we would have to make. Circumstances would make the choice for us.

Civilization has left us with some serious unintended consequences. Fortunately we have the ultimate in how-to-approach life manuals: The Tao Te Ching and Buddha’s Four Truths. By the way, wasn’t Buddha’s the ultimate life engineer! I’d say also Lao Tzu, but it is doubtful he existed as such. I imagine the Tao Te Ching is a collaboration of clear minded observations from various people over time – a kind of spiritual-space shuttle program. That’s remarkable in its own right, I’d say.

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Who You Are Determines Who I Am, & Vise Versa

This is an interesting perceptual phenomenon. Is it true and real? Hmm, that’s hard to say, which makes it all the more fascinating to ponder. Looking at life through this lens can be helpful, regardless of how true it is. At the very least, it gives insight to why others may be the way they seem to be. Blurring the lines of judgment like this lets them off the hook for being who they are. This blurring lines of distinction also allows you to relax more.

And don’t forget the “visa versa” part of this. You’ll get insight on why you seem to be the way you are. The blurred lines of distinction let you off the hook for being who you are.

By the way, this way of looking at “you and them” parallels the Hindu, That Thou Art