February 2010
Commentary
Turning back is how the way moves corresponds to the correlation’s derived(1) world-view that ‘time returns’. i.e., time moves backwards, time stays still(2). Sure, saying that ‘time returns’ defies common sense and observation, but no less so than saying, Turning back is how the way moves, or as I put it below, In the opposite direction, of the way ‘it’ moves.
Perhaps we trust common sense and observation a little too much for our own good. Surely, the purpose of evolution is not to enable living things to know how ‘it’ really is, or works. Evolution is all about ensuring that living things see ‘reality’ in such a way that drives them to compete (or cooperate) to survive. If that means using the way to hoodwink all us living things, then so be it.
The wonder of the Tao Te Ching is that it attempts to help us see ‘it’ from the other side – in reverse and inside out… to defy common sense in order to stumble into ‘ultra-common sense’. The downside is that ‘reality’ is often just the opposite of how it appears to be. This can be a ‘little’ disconcerting and takes time getting used to (if ever). The upside is that if you take ‘it’ seriously, you can often spot good fortune perching and disaster crouching in a timely way. What more could one ask for?
That ‘symptoms point of view‘ I’m always touting is expressed here succinctly in Loss through death, of the way ‘it’ uses and Having is born in nothing (or as Lau puts it: Weakness is the means the way employs, & Something from Nothing). This is why judging a book by its cover is utterly misleading. It is not important what ‘facts’ we think see; the underlying causes are what enlightens. All one’s actions are merely reactions to one’s intuitive sense of the silent and void. It’s the cause. It drives us to do, or not do, whatever. The advantage of looking as deeply as possible using a ’symptoms point of view’ is not that you’ll get a clear and distinct view of what is happening. It’s just the opposite, and there in lies an advantage. This helps you be more tentative, hesitant, vacant, and murky like muddy water. Only then can the teaching that uses no words be heard.
(1) Correlations is a rigorous process of using words to define each other until they complement each other in a balanced way not commonly seen.
(2) What is time anyway? The experience we have in what we call ‘time’ is actually our experience of ‘energy moving’. Clocks don’t measure time; you might say that they measure energy ‘within time’. If you can loosen the common sense meanings to which you were conditioned from birth, you will experience time (or perhaps I should say eternity) differently.
Part of our common sense meanings are due to cultural conditioning, and part due to natural instinct as I said above. Being so deeply rooted in our being, ‘common sense meanings’ are not about to, poof – vanish. Nor need they. Simply loosen your trust in ‘common sense’ enough so you can notice nature’s hoodwinks.
There is a bonus too. Those weird and paradoxical effects of Einstein’s space-time relativity will begin to make simple sense!
Translation
In the opposite direction, of the way ‘it’ moves.
Loss through death, of the way ‘it’ uses.
All under heaven is born in having
Having is born in nothing.
turn over (in an opposite direction; in reverse; inside out) ‘ness’ road (way, principle; speak; think) of move (stir; act; change; use; arouse).
weak (inferior; <formal> lose through death) ‘ness’ road (way, principle; speak; think) of use (employ > eat; drink; > hence).
land under heaven all things on earth give birth to (bear; grow; existence; life) at (in) have (exist),
have (exist) give birth to (bear; grow; existence; life) at (in) nothing (without; not).
Original
反者道之动。
弱者道之用。
天下万物生于有，
有生于无。