I am still awed that ‘it’ works, although I now know that Nature’s ‘logistics’ is in command. Even so, it also turns out to be a worrisome problem for civilizations’ powers-that-be… that would be all of us, really.

Yep, “Out of the mouths of babes” is no empty saying! It almost seems like we get more stupid in some ways as we age. I guess that has a lot to do with our ability as adults to willfully innovate while ignorant of the constant. Alas too, any adults that  finally understand soon die, so there are few around to redirect younger fools from their ignorant ‘free will’ willful innovations. (Although thankfully, that is changing as the mean age of the population keeps rising.)

Change causes change, ripples through time.

A recent Science News article, Lopped Off, highlights just how profoundly we, as a species, generally have no clue what we are dong. Although, I guess young children and old people may have always had their intuitive doubts. Now, science is forcing more and more of us middle-age know-it-alls to worry.

Chapter 16 of the Tao Te Ching is very prescient on the unintended consequences of our clever and willful behavior. It was writing long before our innovative abilities threatened the entire planet (~500bc). Is it ironic that science both leads to technological innovations that cause the destruction, and now impels us to realize the full range of consequences of our actions. We can only hope the lag time between innovation and realization is timely enough.

Speaking of innovation,
Isn’t our species also a daring evolutionary innovation on the part of Nature? Of course, I assume it’s not a “willful innovation while ignorant of the constant” kind of thing. So, is it just Nature rolling the dice? These are very interesting times; as that old Chinese (?) curse says, “May you live in interesting times“.

All this says to me how blind we become by what we think we know. Knowledge is a two edged sword; it empowers us to overcome many obstacles, yet the arrogance of knowledge simultaneously blind-sides us. Overcoming petty obstacles creates what often turn out to be greater obstacles. Knowledge gives us a false sense of security. Despite being extremely limited, it gives the beholder the illusion that he or she truly knows. This begs the question, “How do we know what we know is truly so?” That is why, 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.

We seem to assume we can find solutions that will finally result in a ‘happiness ever after’ land of milk and honey. That fantasy is certainly a hallmark in Western religion. Such wishful thinking doesn’t conform to nature’s reality; it is instead what nature intends for us to perceive (i.e., an emergent property of a bio-hoodwink). Our species can’t afford to indulge in this species-centric fantasy much longer. No worries though… “groan”… circumstance bring us to maturity!

Here now is a pithy excerpt from that article.

“We’re eliminating large predators very quickly around the world,” says wildlife biologist Michael Soulé of the Wildlands Network, who works out of Paonia, Colo. “It’s estimated that 90 percent are already gone.”

These end-of-the-line carnivores, known as “apex consumers,” can influence the lower rungs of their ecological ladders. By keeping the critters they dine on in check, the apex species affect the next rungs down, and so on. The system remains balanced as populations fluctuate in sync.

But sharks aren’t the only predators under siege. A host of carnivores perched atop food webs are being eliminated by humans, the real killing machines. Although marine species such as sharks are primarily caught for food, large terrestrial hunters (think lions, wolves and grizzlies) are often targeted for removal because they threaten humans moving into previously wild spaces.

Chapter 16 with its admonition about willfully innovating while ignorant of the constant fits this sorry situation so perfectly that submitting a comment (below) to Letters at Science News was irresistible. Low and behold, they printed it.  At last, science and religion find common ground. 

Predators inspire poetry and fear
Regarding “Lopped off” (SN: 11/5/11, p. 26): One of the Tao Te Ching’s chapters (excerpt below) is very prescient on the unintended consequences of human behavior. It was written around 500 B.C., long before our innovative abilities threatened the entire planet. It is ironic that science both leads to innovations that cause the destruction, and now allows us to realize the full range of consequences.

Woe to him who willfully innovates
While ignorant of the constant,
But should one act from knowledge of the constant
One’s action will lead to impartiality,
Impartiality to kingliness,
Kingliness to heaven,
Heaven to the way,
The way to perpetuity,
And to the end of one’s days one will meet with no danger.
Carl Abbott, Santa Cruz, Calif.

One reason is the art and yoga (work) of it. My most intriguing observations pop into my mind during headstand, while soaking in the bath, in dreams during the night. Writing them well enough to resonate with someone else is the challenge—the yoga—of it. I don’t suppose this is any different from playwrights, for instance, who dreams up scenarios and writes plays. Posting my observations is like putting on a play… way off-Broadway, of course. Okay, that makes sense, but only so long as it makes sense. Indeed, “why” must be the deepest existentialist question of all. One I’m still asking myself.

I was searching for a question mark-like graphic (?) to go with this post. I recalled the graphic I made for my first serious attempt at writing (1976). Looking it over, I see one of the main reasons I write; I am working life out on paper, so to speak. I have thought of this as mostly just ‘reinventing the wheel’ because what I discover is simply why things have been the way they have throughout time.

Anyway, it is interesting to see how much my thoughts have changed, yet not in some fundamental ways. Toward the end I started placing a (x) when I really wished to disavow the ‘dumb’ idea I had back then, with an eye to updating it.  Then I realized, what has changed over the 40 yeas is not anywhere near as important as what has remained more of less constant. Like the “thread running through the way”, what stands the test of time is worth noting. Therefore, I have left it as is, except for attempting to correct spelling.

The major change really is my flip-flop away from an advocacy of free will, and towards “mystery sameness” (a makeshift description to be sure). Still, if you are into free will, you may find the essay hits the spot,  but again, keep in mind that it comes from where I was at nearly 40 years ago when I thought “A Practical Way” was just a matter of free choice.

Curiously, son Luke said my writing back then (or at least earlier) was better than now. I can’t really believe that is so as I’ve worked so hard over the last two decades to write as well as possible. Then it occurred to me that when you can really understand clearly and easily what a writer is saying, that writing would feel like it was written well, and visa versa. The “A Practical Way…” is easy to understand, very straightforward and written with a righteousness flavor and style similar to the Bhagavad Gita of which I read daily back then.

Below is this essay’s introduction to which give the flavor of my thinking back then. If you are interested to read more, download the whole essay, “A Practical Way to Eternity“. My wife says the poems in the essay are her favorite part. At least they help lighten it up and make it more digestible.

* * * * * A Practical Way to Eternity * * * * *

I wrote some poems to give delight
While reading about my spiritual plight
You’ll probably see I’m too uptight
Well, here is the Way I make it all right
I fought and thought and wound my mind too tight
Broke the mainspring and saw the light
I wrote this essay so all of you might
Also decide it’s better to put up a fight!

INTRODUCTION
Most of us humans spend our whole lives finding fault with the “condition” of the world, marriage, government, job, life, and so on. We expect everyone to do the right thing and become annoyed when they don’t i.e. Nixon as president, communist repression, wife’s overspending, children’s misbehavior, worker incompetence, capitalist spoiling the environment, permissive society or too restrictive one, and so on. We insist on everyone doing their “best”.

However, when it comes to taking care of, improving, nourishing our own body and mind, of ridding ourselves of the imperfections in our own personality and life, then we all of a sudden become very tolerant of faults and laziness.

How can we ever honestly expect the outside world to be any different when we aren’t even willing to do our best for our own “inner world”. The “inner world” is one thing, the only thing, we really do have a chance to control and improve. Indeed, without the “inner world” what do you have? Death!! And those who care not for the “inner world” are living a “life in death”.

An improvement in your inner world improves the whole universe by a small degree, depending on the extent of improvement. Buddha improved his to a high degree and so had a big effect on the world. If we all did our best for our inner world, the outer world would take care of itself easily.

Therefore, we must cease blaming and finding fault with the “outer world” and do what we can for the “inner” one. I wrote this essay to help you and me towards this goal.

Me, age 3, actually fishing... sort of.

The fish are biting and I’m reeling ‘em in, I’m just not posting ‘em. Posting requires so much clean up to make ‘em fit for reading.

Finishing the last chapter of the Tao Te Ching was the catalyst I guess I needed to reevaluate things. I’ve wondered for a while now why I post in the first place.

I mean, the Taoist point of view has to be among the oddest and most ironic subjects to speak on. After all, he who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know.

So I have to ask myself, if I don’t know, why reveal my ignorance? On the other hand, if I do know, why am I speaking? To be fair, that pithy “He who knows…” statement is not the whole story. On the positive side, trying to write coherently is a fascinating challenge for me, and my observations do appear to benefit a few people. Simply put, I am composing and performing ‘music’, as seen from a mysterious sameness point of view anyway. Now certainly, my ’songs’ are music to nearly no ones ears, but that is just as it should be. Meaning, a Taoist ’song’ seeks to poke through the bio-hoodwink and sing it as ‘it’ is, not as we want ‘it’ to be. Popularity would just be symptomatic of singing it off-key, Taoist-wise.

Tao Te Ching, Word for Word

I just ordered a handful of my just completed translation (see below). We’ll use it here at our monthly meeting along side D.C. Lau’s translation. I think having the nearly literal version to refer to along side D.C. Lau’s version will be helpful. I notice that all translations bear an inherent problem due to relative word meaning. Meaning, when translating the Chinese to English, one must choose one word among several related meanings. Each of these can mean something different in the mind of the beholder – translator and reader alike. On top of this tenuous situation, rest an even fuzzier one for pseudo translations (like Steven Mitchel’s for example), which are actually interpretations of authentic translations. The benefit of correlations is that the process bears none of these problems. The whole responsibility of discerning meaning lies with the bewildered mind of ‘correlator’. Maybe that accounts for its great ‘popularity’.

Next step

I will continue to reevaluate my translation over time to make it more readable when possible, yet with any luck, also more accurate. Still, that may just amount to moving the furniture around the room. Now, with that disclaimer, anyone wishing a copy can buy direct from the printer Lulu. Lulu doesn’t ship abroad, so if anyone outside the USA wants a copy we can work something out. I’d really appreciate any comments, questions and criticisms with an eye to making it better. Great perfection here we come.

Is redundancy the name of the game?

I feel like I’ve said it all before, ad nausium. Still, a constant echo seems to be useful to counteract the bio-hoodwink. Reviewing the view I see in my most balanced moments helps anchor me in my less balanced ones. From what I can tell, that is a common human practice. Forgetting what we truly want of life is all-too-easy!

Adventures of aging

I never remember any old people telling me how fascinating aging was or would be, although if they had, it probably wouldn’t have registered, i.e. one can only understand what one already knows. I seem to be having increasing difficulty remembering things. My mind is becoming blanker. That has some interesting effects; insight seems to flow like water through the void my mind is becoming. This ties into the sleep on it and blind spot issue John Clease spoke about.

On the other hand, I could just be seeing myself more as I actually am rather than the ‘genius’ I once liked to think I was. Yes, that old ‘Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty‘ issue. That offers a twist on the idea of a ’self fulfilling prophecy’. What you think is so prevents you from seeing what is actually so, which make it more like a ’self fulfilling prophecy bubble‘.

Another possibility is that I could be experiencing the beginnings of Alzheimer’s and the hole it produces in memory lead to my final days of insight before the mind’s curtain falls. Speculating is such fun, especially given how life usually turns out differently from anything we think. It is an adventure, that’s for sure!

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.

≈ Click Here for Translation & Commentary ≈

]]> http://www.centertao.org/blog/2011/11/18/chapter-of-the-week-81/feed/ 2 http://www.centertao.org/blog/2011/11/04/an-opiate-of-the-masses/ http://www.centertao.org/blog/2011/11/04/an-opiate-of-the-masses/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:03:04 +0000 carl http://www.centertao.org/?p=6389 Karl Marx had is wrong. It is prosperity, not religion, which is the opiate of the masses. The United States has experienced decades of surefire prosperity. Most have lived their whole lives accustomed to what is actually a historically rare era of unusual affluence.

Now, much of the population is going ‘cold turkey’, unwillingly sobering up without knowing the deeper causes for the withdrawal symptoms they now feel. I’ve found prosperity has a real dark side linked to desire and pleasure— not surprisingly. ⁽¹⁾

I spent fifteen years living abroad, from age 20 to 35. Much of this time was at the ‘grass roots’ in the developing world. I truly came of age during those years. Returning to America after all that time away enabled me to see this land with fresh eyes. I was particularly surprised to see how little people actually appreciated their abundance and easily went into debt for more—get it now, pay for it later. This get now, pay later had become a way of life here during my absence. This matched my precautionary motto, “short term pleasure, [leads to] long term pain“, (and visa versa). It appeared to me that American culture was now on the path of gluttony, with pain to follow.

Indian Givers

This term is apparently based on an American Indian form of barter where upon giving a gift he expects to receive an equivalent, or to have his gift returned (see Etymology). This reflects a straightforward sense of balance, in my view. I first noticed a profound lack of this virtue though a personal experience in Vietnam.

Me and my Crew

I went to Vietnam soon after the war began to work, save money and return to Thailand where I intended to settle down. (Oh how plans change.) Knowing Vietnamese, I was able to wrangle a job as a surveyor for an American construction firm.  Every morning I’d pack extra food from the well-provisioned base camp to share with my Vietnamese crew for lunch. We had a feast every day; times were good. Some months later, the company clamped down and banned that practice. When I told my crew the freebees were finished, they got surprisingly angry. I was dumb founded. The freebees had been a lucky windfall, so why were they reacting as though it was a ‘human right’?  The angry protests aimed at current belt tightening (Greece, Italy, USA, etc.) are recent examples of this irrational expectation. It is so much easier to receive than give up. None wishes to pay now for past prosperity. It is just so ‘unfair’, as my Vietnamese crew would say.

Chicken Come Home to Roost

Surely, I thought, some awful visitation will descend upon them.  Perhaps another Great Depression was in store for us. After a while I figured ‘the awful visitation’ that was waiting to happen, while inevitable, wasn’t just around the corner, so I stopped waiting and settled in to have a family. Then 2009 Great Recession came along. Wow, I thought, are the chickens coming home to roost? Perhaps the ‘awful visitation’ is now in progress.

Naturally, not knowing the deeper causes, like having a proper sense of awe, folks seek out scapegoats. In this case, the corporations and banks appear to fit the bill on the left, and government and taxes fit the bill on the right. Of course, the banks had a hand in the Great Recession of 2009. However, the laissez-faire government oversight was the ultimate cause, and whom can we ultimately hold responsible for the government? In the end, the people from whom the government takes its shape, especially in a democracy! More over, the fact that only half the population usually bothers to vote puts the responsibility even more in our (we the people) laps ⁽²⁾. Put simply, it is not the corporation’s fault, bank’s fault, government’s fault, taxes’ fault… it is our fault—those who vote as well as those who don’t. Of course, we will never hear that mea culpa will we? It is so much easier to ‘cast stones’.

The Opiates

There is also the fundamental ignorance of the role banks and corporations play in our lives. They are the engines of prosperity. So, ironically, these engines are the source of the drug of prosperity we crave. Do you see the problem—the conundrum? People are condemning the very thing on which they have become so dependent. The same is true for much of the scapegoat rhetoric of the ‘Tea Party’ faction. They rail against Tarp, without which world economy may well have totally collapsed. The irony here is that most banks have paid back the Tarp fund, with the government actually coming out $billions ahead (a big part of the outstanding debt lies with the governmental controlled institutions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, these two still need and will receive billions).

Again, sloppy governmental oversight made the reckless actions of Wall Street possible. After the Great Depression of the 1930’s, Congress passed laws that provided good regulation. These laws were dropped in recent times, which made the Wall Street recklessness possible. How is this any different than dropping the laws against drunk driving? Without such laws and stiff penalties, reckless drunk drivers would be much more commonplace. Indeed, woe to him who willfully innovates while ignorant of the constant,

We Are Trying To Change the World

“The corporations control the government” is a complaint I often hear. Certainly, their lobbyists have a huge hand in things. On the hand, lobbyist for labor and progressive causes push their case from the other side. I often voted for the ‘losers’, like the Libertarian and the Green parties just to send a “don’t take my vote for granted” message to the dominant class. People tell me that doing this is “throwing your vote away”. However, voting for the dominant class ‘winners’ only continues the status quo. In a democracy, ‘we’ are the Government, which makes us responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves. In my view, this is a fine example of our irrational desire to have it both ways.

All this amounts to simply waiting until symptoms develop before seriously asking “why”. We are invariably ‘a day late and a dollar short’. As is natural for all animals, we react to events. As Buddha put it in his Second Noble Truth, “The surrounding world effects sensation and begets a craving thirst that clamor for immediate satisfaction“. Our desires (thirsts) choose and we follow, and when things go wrong we cast stones at our favorite partisan scapegoat.

Likewise, I used to wish that there were ‘justice’, and always found someone to blame. I finally realized, “It’s my fault too”. I suppose that is the non-sectarian equivalent of the Christian original sin. I now find peace in seeing it as nature’s way ⁽³⁾. As chapter 34 says, The way is broad, reaching left as well as right. Any lingering distress I feel about circumstance just reflects my own lingering desire.

⁽¹⁾ Not surprising that is, if you concur with Buddha’s Second 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”.

⁽²⁾ Even when most people vote, democracy can still be very frustrating because up to 49% of the population is going to be unhappy with the results. For many, democracy is good especially when it goes their way. Alas, democracy may end up a lot more problematic in the future (human nature being what it is). It may turn out that democracy requires more maturity from us as a whole, the governed, than we are capable. For some sobering details, hear what Martin Wolf, Micheal Lewis, Tom Freedman have to say in this interviews, Friedman, Lewis and Schultz on the economy with Fareed Zakaria.  (Go here for Fareed’s  weekly podcast http://rss.cnn.com/services/podcasting/fareedzakaria_audio/rss.xml )

Finally, I must reiterate my long view. The causes run so much deeper than we care to admit or consider. Recent centuries of cultural fragmentation is a natural consequence of progress: the increasing rate of change in populations, mobility, communication and wealth brought about by the harnessing of first steam in the 1800’s, then electricity and oil in the 1900’s.  In the great scheme of things, this is a very recent change; the full impact of which we have only barely begun to experience. It can take centuries for culture to adapt itself to game changing innovation.

However, the single most ‘un-natural’ and worrisome aspect of modern economy is that it is all based on continuous growth, I repeat, continuous growth. The only natural phenomenon that is based on continuous growth is cancer! The chickens will always come home to roost.

⁽³⁾ Although while I do see thinking in general and civilization in particular, as the cause for much the dilemma in which we find ourselves, I wouldn’t bane either, even if I could. Both are natural phenomenon evolving into a presumably more balance state, or winding down towards extinction. Time will tell. In the meantime, it is helps (me anyway) to be aware of the causes of current imbalance.

Humans are naturally (and usually) inclined to take the easy way, go for pleasure and avoid pain. In the wild this bio-hoodwink usually works out well. Human culture has been driven by this primary instinctive drive shared by all animals, from ants to duck to dogs to people. Consider the human highway on the left and the ant highway on the right (photo left). Both species are just trying to make life easier and more efficient. As I pointed out in Ants are Us, the similarities are striking.

Over time (100,000 years +/-) this drive has evolved modern civilization to its present condition through the development of tools and materials to make life easier… more comfortable, secure, and to fatten up whenever possible; who knows when the next famine is coming? That seals feels it has to eat its fill while it can (photo right). The human man is not really any different; his biology does not know the supper markets are always overflowing with food, nor the danger of long term overeating ⁽¹⁾.

So, while we are totally natural in how we live (pursue pleasure, avoid pain), we are not living under the wild conditions for which our instincts evolved over millions of years to live. The instinct to make living easier combined with the cognitive and manual ability to succeed has led us to an unbalance situation. We are increasingly faced with having too much of a good thing. Naturally, letting go of our ‘good thing’ is not easy, and so we remain bogged down in difficulty ⁽²⁾.

Any species that evolves capabilities which bring it beyond essential counterbalancing forces will either evolve in ways that bring it back in balance, or it goes extinct. Of course, external conditions can also change quickly to a degree that brings it lethally out of balance (e.g., the comet and the dinosaurs, the dodo bird and humans).

In my view, we are simply responding to life naturally and like all other creatures, we do so in overall ignorance of the consequences. Like all other life forms, we react to circumstance, and adapt accordingly. The unusual and ironic thing about humans is that human knowledge is a major source of our ignorance. Other animals are just ‘dumb’ and ignorant; we are smart and ignorant. Or as chapter 18 says, when cleverness emerges there is great hypocrisy.

⁽¹⁾ I’ve really noticed the biology as I’ve aged. Toward my late 20’s I found myself gaining weight ‘naturally’. My diet was not really changing, my biology was. When I quit smoking, my weight really shot up. I suppose I was replacing the pleasures from tobacco addiction with pleasure from food. As Buddha’s Second Truth points out, if I had continued to follow pleasure’s bait, the result would be pain—I wound be seriously overweight.

We burn fewer calories as we age. This slow-down prepares us, in the wild, for becoming increasingly less agile in hunting and gathering, and less able to recover from injury. Biology is oblivious to civilized conditions where rich and abundant food is always available, especially now in modern economies.

Interestingly, it took me about 10 years to unlearn the ‘eat today for who knows what lies ahead’ approach to life that years of living abroad in developing countries ingrained in me. It took me that long to psychologically settling down enough to know food was always at hand. It took me even longer to know I needed to rein in pleasure’s drive. Though I understood (in theory) that ‘short term pleasure attracts long term pain‘, it took real time to begin to actually understand and put that into practice.

⁽²⁾ Here are a few passages from Chapter 63 that speaks to the obvious difficulty we face.

Lay plans for the accomplishment of the difficult before it becomes difficult;
make something big by starting with it when small.

Difficult things in the world must needs have their beginnings in the easy;
big things must needs have their beginnings in the small.

Therefore, even the sage treats some things as difficult.
That is why in the end no difficulties can get the better of him.

Claiming that I caught the flue for the first time must surely be untrue, but up until now I never ‘knew’ the difference between a cold and the flue. I’ve heard of flue shots and the danger of catching flues, like the bird flue of a few years ago. However, whenever I came down with fluey symptoms I ‘knew’ I just had a cold. Do you see where I’m heading with this?

No? Here’s another example. Up until about 30 years ago I’d never been depressed. I’d heard about people being depressed; I just ‘knew’ I’d never experience it myself. After my six month long episode of  intense, day and night work on the correlations I experienced depression for the first time in my life. But was that really the first time? Like never having caught the flue, never feeling depression until then was most improbable.

I had felt bad at various times throughout my life up until those ‘first times’; I just never knew exactly. A bad time would eventually revolve back to a good one until the next bad one came around again. It felt as natural as, It is on disaster that good fortune perches; It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches. Of course the cognitive experience of any animal, other than human, would not even have thoughts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ with which to label the experience. Even so, not attaching a specific label to my experience was more animal-like than otherwise. A more murky (like muddy water) sense of being gives the mind less to dwell upon.

These two experiences exemplify chapter 32, As soon as there are names, one ought to know that it is time to stop. Giving a name to the experience increases the difficulty. Instead of blending in with the forever nameless uncarved block, naming those experiences just ‘hardens the glare, hones the sharpness, opens the door, and ties the knots’.

Evidently stopping at the ‘murky’ side of cognition is not usually what people appear to want. (Or when they do, they crack open a bottle of pop a pill). Most people find no peace of mind until their experience becomes a name that can be named. Although, to be honest, I suppose that’s why I ponder my observations. Writing about all this is just another way of naming ‘it’. Although, on the other hand, I’m always looking for mysterious sameness in order to blur distinctions. What I’m doing sounds a lot like chapter 36. To paraphrase: If you would have a thing blurred, you must first clarify it. Indeed, I suppose that is what everyone is doing.

To summarize, our mind’s space obviously needs to be filled. After all, Nature abhors a vacuum. So we name ‘it’, and think and speak about ‘it’ to fill that space. Okay, so far so good. The difficulties come when we seriously believe what we think. As one of my favorite chapter puts it:

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.
It is by being alive to difficulty that one can avoid it.

The sage meets with no difficulty.
It is because he is alive to it that he meets with no difficulty.

A ducks quacking is its vocal expression of emotion. Having been around them for years, I can pick out their moods: happy, excited, content, nosy, curious, afraid, hungry, anxious, kinship (they are Indian Runners, an extremely social breed).

I know there is an arrogant self involved segment of humanity that could never countenance such ‘humanizing’ of mere birds. Of course, they wouldn’t be reading this site anyway, so I won’t need to justify my view… at least so far. But wait, there’s more…

I realized today, in such a simple earthy way, that human thought is the equivalent expression of emotion for us. That, along with any speech (or writing) that follows those thoughts. Ducks quack their emotion, dogs bark their emotion, humans think/speak their emotion⁽¹⁾… and so on throughout the animal kingdom. But wait, there’s more…

The one thing that stirs up emotion more than anything is the unknown, or perhaps fear of the unknown. When a hawk flies through the area the black birds go nuts, and this sets of some real commotion among the ducks. The unknown looms large. On the other hand, in the morning stillness with the world seeming ‘known’ the ducks go quietly about their moment to moment.

The one thing that stirs up more emotion than most in me has always been the unknown. Does she love me, does she not? Will I miss my flight? Lose my job? Is it cancer? I not only experience the unsettling emptiness of the unknown, I see it in everyone, everywhere I look. Fear of the unknown is universal, in ducks, in people. But wait, there’s more…

The more is this:

All this offers a very straightforward way to understand what chapter 56 really means when it says, One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know.⁽²⁾ A sense of the ‘unknown’ stirs emotional equilibrium more than anything else. Feeling in the lap of the unknown drives us to think and speak, and ducks to quack. The, “one who speaks does not know” does not refer to a lack of knowing something. It refers to sensing the unknown… the moment of “does not-know”.

In the same way, when there is no sense of the unknown, when stillness is deep and The teaming creatures all return to their separate roots, there is no emotional fire to vent itself in quacking, thinking or speaking.  Then, it is not that you know, and thus don’t speak; it is more that you know nothing deeply – not even the unknown is known. Then you can be just a quiet duck.

⁽¹⁾ Action is the other principle way emotion expresses itself other than quacking and thinking. You could say these two are also actions. The difference is that quacking and thinking take the least physical effort and so perhaps reverberate more strongly throughout awareness than other, more physical, actions (work, hobby, sport, art, etc.)

⁽²⁾ Note: Chapter 56 says “One who speaks does not know“, not some admonition like “Verily I say, ye shall not think, speak or quack“. In other words, the thinking, speaking and quacking are symptoms, not causes. Conversely, trusting what you think to be true is perceiving thoughts to be fundamental in their own right (instead of merely symptoms of a deeper reality). Such trusting what you think to be true leads to difficulty—Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty. For a long time I felt chapter 56 was saying that speaking (and thinking) was a fault somehow, perhaps because it implied not knowing. Ah, eventually the light turns on.

This morning the light and the early morning hazy sky brought back memories of arriving at the top of Bokor Hillstation Casino. I was told about this resort, high in the mountains and cool enough to grow strawberries, they said. This was prewar Cambodia in 1964, a time of peace and enough remaining French influence to find good French bread, albeit with a few weevils baked in⁽¹⁾, and flan (my favorite sweet). Now, if I could add strawberries to that I’d have me a good soul-food supper.

I reached the junction in the afternoon, left the main road, and continued hitch hiking toward that that mountain top resort. Hitchhiking around Cambodia was slow going in those days. Not that I didn’t get rides; there were just so few cars on the road. Nevertheless, I thought surely there would be traffic headed towards a resort. I’m not sure if I passed up any rides early on. I always like to spend an hour or so just walking along the road before sticking out my thumb (waving my hand, sign or what ever would draw attention).

Not one car passed, and so I walked all night up that mountain road. A memorable ‘highpoint’ of this side trip was hearing water babbling every time the road crossed a brook. Normally I’d just hike down and have a drink. However, that night was the blackest I’d ever seen; it was a dark as a cave. Clouds hid the starlight, there was no moon, deep in the jungle far from towns, and no flashlight⁽²⁾.

I reached the top at daybreak. I saw then why no one would be heading to this ‘resort’ that, or any other, night. The photo above is fairly recent, but looks much like it did nearly fifty years ago. Actually, I think I remember eating there, so there was activity, and I don’t remember walking back down, so I must have gotten a ride. My word, memory is a fragile thing.

The only other time I experienced intense thirst was finishing up a four day hike, with a few friends, over the Catalina mountains near Tucson. I spent much of my teenage years hiking those mountains and desert foothills around Tucson, and don’t recall ever taking water with me (perhaps my love of traveling light is genetic). I’d always find some spring, creek, puddle, or cactus to quench my thirst. Our water difficulty occured on the last day as we left the mountains and trekked out across the flat waterless plain. Looking back, it seems like youthful folly to hike unknown area in the desert without water. But hey, isn’t that what our time of youth is for?

Speaking of Water—A Philosophic Detour

I can’t let a whole post go by without an Observation, now can I? Water has long been a fitting spiritual metaphor. Here’s another angle which I’ve never seen used:

Thought is like water flowing into a bottomless space—the Silent and void. So, to paraphrase chapter five, much thought leads inevitably to silence. Better to hold fast to the void. This sounds good in principle. Alas, the brain has a mind of its own, and thoughts can’t help but bubble up into its neural space. After all, nature abhors a vacuum. Space just attract stuff, whether empty shelves, open fields, or billions (or is it trillions) of synapses ready and waiting to fire. I’d say this process of mind filling up space is what produces the illusion of time itself. Indeed, when I cease to think (for the short time I’m able) time stands still. That is what I know to be eternity.

⁽¹⁾ Abundant French bread was not something I expected to see in S.E. Asia. I first ran across it when I entered Laos. Laos, along with Cambodia and Vietnam were ex-French colonies, hence the French bread. As I was eating my new found food-prize I noticed small black bee-bee size things, first wondering if they were raisins baked into the bread. Soon I realized they were weevils. No problem, just don’t look too closely. Now-a-days that helps when eating from the garden; when aphids and other critters are out of sight, they are out of mind.

⁽²⁾ A flashlight would have been frivolous extra weight to lug around. In those traveling days, I carried all I had in one small shoulder bag. Traveling light is worth it! Things are a lot easier to drop by the wayside than thoughts. Although, thanks to the Tao Te Ching, I’ve managed to drop enough of those too by now.

Jungle church in Malaya

Well, why not! But seriously, this is a question I have not heard asked much… if at all⁽¹⁾ Debates mostly focus on whose God is best, the nature of God, or does God even existence. Asking “why do we believe in God” is more of a zoological approach to this issue. That is the place to begin; after all, we are animals first.

I’ve long see the God idea as an emergent property of our social need for leadership, i.e., ‘alpha male’, the decider. All social primate groups have some individual serving this unifying role. Being a thinking ape, it is natural that we would image the existence of a super-leader in a super-home (heaven). Being social apes, it is also nature that we’d enjoy gathering to share the experience. A recent article in Science News, Connected at church, happy with life, offered some support for the why of it all.

Here are a few excerpts from the article that caught my eye…

Researchers have long noted that religious people report higher levels of happiness and well-being than nonreligious folk. Lim and Putnam offer a rare glimpse, based on telephone surveys of a national sample of 1,915 adults in 2006 and 2007, of how religion improves quality of life. “Our evidence shows that it is not really going to church and listening to sermons or praying that makes people happier, but making church-based friends and building social networks there,” Lim says.

What’s more, spiritual aspects of religion do little to further well-being, the researchers say. Neither survey participants who “personally experience the presence of God” nor those who often “personally feel God’s love in life” report more well-being than people who do not. Volunteers who do and don’t believe in God or heaven with absolute certainty display comparable satisfaction with their lives.

Being on the same wave length enhances the feeling of mutual connection.

One-third of participants who had a strong religious identity and three to five close friends in their congregation reported being “extremely satisfied” with their lives, a figure that rose to nearly 40 percent for those with 11 or more such friends. The researchers defined “extremely satisfied” as a rating of 10 on a life-satisfaction scale ranging from one to 10.

In contrast, one-fifth of churchgoers who had three to five congregational friends but didn’t identify strongly with their faith reported extreme life satisfaction. The same figure applied to nonreligious people whose friends were not part of congregations.

So, the strong the sense of connection between folks, the more satisfied they feel. Sharing a strong religious identity amplifies the sense of connection.

Private religious practices, such as praying and holding religious services at home, also show no link to greater life satisfaction, the new report finds.

Lim emphasizes that, according to survey data, spirituality and theology bolster well-being only for people who build friendships at church.

This shows me that sharing a strong identity is the essential key, not the spirituality and theology per se. Yep, it’s the social connection that does the trick. Common belief in something is the glue, whether its political ideology, sports, food, music, _(you name it)_. However, sharing a strong sense of spirituality is the most personal, like family. Which bring me to another question, why church?

Church provides a deep sense of social connection, as does any place where people meet (market, job, restaurants, bars). A spiritual setting, like church, offers the safest, least judgmental, and non competitive meeting place. The only other setting like this, besides a stable family, was the ancestral hunter gatherer tribe. In those prehistoric times people shared their entire lives, from birth to death, with several dozen people. The exceptionally high level of “socio-emotional” security this offered declined as civilization took over the human experience. We unwittingly traded material comforts and security for emotional comfort and security. Church (and religion in general) is merely a symptoms of this loss, and our effort to compensate as best we can.

Churches (and God) are symptoms of current needs however. There is much archaeological evidence for various forms of spirituality in humanity culture going back tens of thousands of years. Very curiously no other animals appears to rely upon so called “spirituality”. What is the difference between all of them and us? We think! As chapter 71 puts it, 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. Our ideals, beliefs and myths go a long way to helps us think that we know. The human mind has been overtaken by names and words (language) so extensively that it disconnects us from the immediate moment-to-moment experience-of-being that other animals enjoy. Spirituality simply reflects our attempt to compensate for that.

My final question is, why don’t I attend a nice local church? I simply can’t buy into the ideals, belief and myths. Once, when I was around ten year old, I did believe in God. I don’t recall when or why I dropped that belief. When I was sixteen a friend invited my to his church to meet girls. I did believe in girl, so I went for a few years. Years later, while hitchhiking across the Sahara Dessert I had reached bottom – I felt life absolutely meaningless. I even wished I could be a true believer in something, as many people seemed to me to be. I suppose many who read Centertao will know what I’m referring to. Fortunately the The net of heaven is cast wide. Though the mesh is not fine, yet nothing ever slips through. I’ve also come to realize that ‘true belief’ is a very precarious approach to life which accounts for the passion that often bolsters it.

Following the teaching that uses no words doesn’t offer any concrete belief to share with others in church or anywhere else. Certainly, if I’d been in this survey, I never would have “reported being “extremely satisfied” with my life”. That doesn’t mean I’m not content, however. I suspect that the ability to believe one is “extremely satisfied” is part of the same ability to believe in God. It may not be objectively true, but that doesn’t matter because ‘truth is in the eye of the beholder’. For my part, I compensate for my lack of belief by ’soaking up the moment’. That gives me all the sense of connection I seem to need.

⁽¹⁾ I’ve not heard this question asked, as I recall, except by me. My symptoms point-of-view could not help wonder about that first and foremost.