Feeling Animal-ness

We know we are animals biologically speaking. Yet do we really feel we are? I suspect we know this mostly as an abstract scientific detail. Catching the flu for the ‘first time’ in my life may offer an example of how thought can separate us from feeling our animal-ness fully.

Claiming that I caught the flu for the first time must be incorrect, but up until now, I never knew the difference between a cold and the flu. I’ve heard of flu shots and the danger of catching the flu, like the bird flu of a few years ago. However, whenever I came down with flu-ish 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 having depression; I just ‘knew’ I’d never experience it myself. After my intense six-month long day and night work on the correlations, I experienced depression for the first time in my life. However, was that really the first time? Like never having caught the flu, never feeling depression until then was most improbable.

“Thick like the uncarved block”

I had felt bad at various times throughout my life up until these two ‘first time’ examples. I just never knew exactly what was wrong. A bad time would eventually revolve back to a good one until the next bad one came around again. Chapter 58 describes this natural ebb and flow poetically as, It is on disaster that good fortune perches; It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches. Of course, no animal, other than human, would label this ebb and flow experience as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Not attaching the more specific labels, flu and depression, to my earlier experiences was more animal-like. Chapter 15 hints at this simplicity… Thick like the uncarved block; Vacant like a valley; Murky like muddy water. There is less for the mind 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 merging with the nameless uncarved block, naming those experiences helps to do the opposite. To paraphrase the opposite of chapter 56,[release] the openings; [open] the doors [hone] the sharpness; [tangle] the knots; [brighten] the glare.

We can’t stand the emptiness and stillness that comes with embracing the uncarved block. Chapter 20 hints why… Between yea and nay, How much difference is there? Between good and evil, How great is the distance? We clearly need to make more of less, mountains out of molehills. Doing so supports our illusion of self and that ‘things’ truly matter! Chapter 19’s, Exhibit the unadorned and embrace the uncarved block, Have little thought of self and as few desires as possible, feels virtuous because it is the last thing we truly want to do. It promises balance to our reality, so we imagine ourselves doing it ‘tomorrow’.

We can’t find peace of mind until we can name our experiences. To be honest, that’s why I contemplate my observations. Writing about all this is just another way of naming. On the other hand, I’m always looking for that mysterious sameness in order to blur distinctions, and make less out of more. 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, isn’t this what we all do through life? Simply fill in the blanks: If you would have ____ laid aside, you must first set it up.

To summarize, we humans obviously have a vital need to fill our mind’s space. After all, Nature abhors a vacuum. As a result, we name, think, and speak about our experience to fill that space. Okay, so far so good. The difficulties really come when we seriously believe what we think! As chapter 71 cautions,

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.