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- CommentAuthorLuke Abbott
- CommentTimeJan 29th 2006 edited
Each week we address one chapter of the Tao Te Ching. The Tao Te Ching can be obscure, especially if you think you're supposed to understand what it's saying! We find it easier and more instructive to simply contemplate how the chapter resonates with your personal experience. Becoming more aware at this fundamental level simplifies life. This approach conforms to the view that true knowing lies within ourselves. Thus, when a passage in the scripture resonates, you've found your inner truth. The same applies for when it evokes a question; questions are the grist for self realization.
Chapter 26
The heavy is the root of the light;
The still is the lord of the restless.Therefore the gentleman when travelling all day
Never lets the heavily laden carts out of his sight.
It is only ( or though) when he is safely behind walls and watch towers
That he rests peacefully and is above worries.
How, then, should a ruler of ten thousand chariots
Make light of his own person in the eyes of the empire?If light, then the root is lost;
If restless, then the lord is lost. -
[Note: I italicize phrases I borrow from the chapter, and link to phrases I borrow from other chapters to help tie chapters together. While making it more tedious to read,
the Tao Te Ching is best pondered in the context of the whole.I'm heavy, as those who know me will attest. I've occasionally worried about this, feeling that maybe I'm too heavy and 'should' be lighter. Upon pondering this, I realized that such self doubt only occur when I'm lighter and my root is lost. Indeed, when I'm heavy and still, I am pretty much above worries.
Which brings me to the next paragraph - an odd read, for me anyway. Victor Mair's translation sits a little better with me...
Thus, the superior man may travel the whole day
...without leaving his heavy baggage cart.
Though inside the courtyard walls of a noisy inn,
...he placidly rises above it all.This implies that as long as I don't loose my heavy root / still lord, I'll keep my 'eye on the ball', and be at peace in all situations. I've found this to be true. Knowing this is how 'it' works can help inform me about what's really going on in my life. Like my realization above: when I 'see' problems, I am actually 'seeing' symptoms of my own lost root, lost lord. Taking such full responsibility over life's experience actually makes life more peaceful and simple like the uncarved block. I don't have to run around in circles endlessly chasing scapegoats... And besides, I'm getting too old for such nonsense.
Okay now, taking full responsibility wound seem to make life less peaceful, right? Not so when we cease believing in free will and dedicate ourselves to complete conformity. Simply being who we naturally are is the easiest thing in the world to do.
easy?
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