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- CommentAuthorLuke Abbott
- CommentTimeFeb 19th 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 28
Know the male
But keep to the role of the female
And be a ravine to the empire.
If you are a ravine to the empire,
Then the constant virtue will not desert you
And you will again return to being a babe.
Know the white
But keep to the role of the black
And be a model to the empire.
If you are a model to the empire,
Then the constant virtue will not be wanting
And you will return to the infinite.
Know honour
But keep to the role of the disgraced
And be a valley to the empire.
If you are a valley to the empire,
Then the constant virtue will be sufficient
And you will return to being the uncarved block.When the uncarved block shatters it becomes vessels.
The sage makes use of these and becomes the lord over the officials.Therefore the greatest cutting
Does not sever. -
[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.Return to being the uncarved block put another way is simply 'seeing' the big picture - a picture so vast that it resembles nothing. Thus it is not something we can put our finger on, which is what we instinctively seek to do. Know the male, Know the white and so on are innate drives in all of us - indeed, all of life - there's nothing subtle about it.
Keep to the role of the female, black, disgraced on the other hand does not come naturally, at least for me. I really experience the contrast between these two aspect: Know vs. Keep to the role. Know embodies the perceptions that come to me 'naturally' whereas Keep refers to an inner wisdom. Keep to the role embodies an intention, a feeling. Keep to the role requires perseverance which I have only when I feel the consequences of not keeping to the role. What are the consequences? Disgrace and loss of a sense of constant virtue. It's ironic, if not paradoxical, i.e., by keeping to the role of the disgraced, I avoid disgrace.
We all sense two sides to life, the parts and the whole. It is easy to know the parts, it is also easy to keep to the role of the whole - only then do we feel whole. And yet, biology hoodwinks us onto our by-paths. Oh poo!
Therefore the greatest cutting does not sever evokes feeling that return to the infinite. However, we spend much of life locked in a battle between 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong', severing up the whole to suit our own emotional agenda. The 'right' religion, the 'right' education, the 'right' politics. Of course, these emotional agendas are all driven by instincts - tribal, survival. This make us rather 'solitary', 'desolate', and 'hapless', and yet we seldom discover the peace that come with acknowledging this reality. We still hold out for having it both ways, e.g., Knowing honor and keeping to the role of the honored. Ah, how nicely the myth of free will fits this desire, making this a perfect example of how desire shapes 'understanding'.
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