In the opposite direction, of the way moves.
Loss through death, of the way uses.
All under heaven is born in having
Having is born in nothing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Word for Word
Limits: Translations, even the nearly literal one above, lose some of the original meaning due to the cultural context of contemporary words. Studying the numerous synonym-like meanings of the Chinese characters in the Word-for-Word translation mitigates this. (Click graphic at right for on-line Word-for-Word.)
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month
Archive: Characters and past commentary
YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/5F0lJyf6Raw is the link to the complete video recording of our monthly Sunday meeting. For the nicely edited version, go to Kirk Garber’s YouTube channel. The edited version comes in two parts: The first and shorter Commentary part begins with a chapter reading followed by attendees’ commentary, if any. The second and longer Open Discussion part offers attendees’ observations on how the chapter relates to their personal experience.
Corrections?
None today!
Reflections:
In the opposite direction, of the way moves.
This is probably the most mind-blowing chapter in the Tao Te Ching. It strikes at the very heart of reality, for me anyway. I’m not sure how I can comment on what the chapter says to me in any straightforward way. Ah, yes, speaking of straightforward, Straight and honest words seem inside out as chapter 78 puts it. This certainly applies here. D.C. Lau translated this a little less literally, but perhaps more understandably as Straightforward words seem paradoxical.
This chapter can feel paradoxical, but only in juxtaposition to ‘common sense’. It is ‘common sense’, and our blind adherence to believing what we perceive to be reality that makes matters feel inside out. The best way to think about the issue of common sense perception is to consider it from the point of view of nature… and evolution in particular.
Briefly, life on earth didn’t evolve to enable any creature’s perception to see reality as it truly is. The evolutionary agenda is first and foremost about survival. Perception is biologically skewed in whichever way promises to enhance survival chances. (See How the hookwink hooks and Peeking in on natures hoodwink .)
Take time for instance. The phenomenon that we call time is actually energy interacting with matter in space-time. Therefore, I think of true time, Taoist time, as moving backward, if anything. It is the energy that is moving forward… at or approaching the speed of light. Now, if you were to travel at the speed of light, the interaction ceases and you would never age. Time doesn’t move, and at light speed, neither does energy relative to itself anyway. I think of time as the eternal present… always and only now.
The Taoist notion of the constant conveys this in various ways. Beginning with the first line of chapter 1:
The way possible to think, runs counter to the constant way,
… and ends straightforwardly with…
These two are the same coming out, yet differ in name.
The same, meaning dark and mysterious.
Dark and dark again, the multitude of wondrous entrance. #1
The way constant is without name. #32
Knowing harmony is called the constant.
Knowing the constant is called clear and honest. #55
Loss through death, of the way uses.
Again, consider evolution. It is loss though death above all that compels a species to evolve in any way that avoids this loss. Loss is the mechanism for evolution, but not only evolution on a grand scale. The experience of loss is also the primary ‘force’ that brings each creature to maturity. Beginning from day one, losses pile up throughout life. As one ages, actual loss through death of loved ones dear pulls us even deeper into our being. Loss through death awakens.
On a simple practical level, loss through death speaks to the recycling process in nature. Dead plants create wonderful compost that makes a garden grow and thrive.
All under heaven is born in having
Having is born in nothing.
If our imagination follows the trail of what appears to be solid and real, our insight will reach the subatomic level. Plunging still deeper, insight takes us to the illusion of matter. As Einstein put it, E=MC2. Energy = matter at the speed of light squared. Perhaps, to put it more in line with the ‘big bang’, as it were, this could be represented as M= E/C2. In other words, the big bang was pure energy that soon began coalescing into matter. But, what preceded energy’s big bang? It feels like the energy of the big bang popped out of nothing… a singularity of nothing. Nothing is much more subtle than just the idea of ‘no thing’. The Taoist nothing doesn’t depend on space, energy, or matter. This nothing is almost inconceivable to the human mind… beyond definition. And so why is it conceivable at all?
This is where quantum mechanics and more specifically the virtue of ‘non-locality’ help answer this conundrum. In the past, people attribute the enlightened powers of saint, seer, sages that had a special ability to see beyond. Quantum non-locality blows away that myth and allows us all to be ‘in the know’, so to speak.
Yet, we have difficulty knowing. Several factors are responsible. One of course is the warning chapter 71 offers us… Realizing I don’t’ know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. We exist in two realities much of the time: (1) A cognitive facsimile of reality and (2) The reality our body’s biology works through from conception to death. Unlike other animals, human awareness puts most of its eggs in the cognitive facsimile basket, and the certainty placed there consistently blinds us to insights outside that basket. The more certain you are in the basket of beliefs you hold, the less able you are to see beyond belief. Or as chapter 16 concludes,
Loss through death paves the way to drop a fondly held belief and move on. Loss through death can also be the loss of a fondly held belief that fails to serve anymore. The single major obstacle we face to seeing things as the actually are is this disease… the certainty we place in belief — any and all belief. Even to the point of believing we are alive. That is a bio-illusion primarily and then exaggerated by our illusion of self. As Buddha so correctly put it, “The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things”.
Now back to answer the question, why is it conceivable at all? Because ‘everything’ is connected instantaneously and eternally to ‘everything’ else. Though the pieces may disintegrate (Loss through death) the connection remains. I use the term ‘everything’ loosely because, in truth, the separate selfness is an illusion, a bio-illusion in the case of living things, and perhaps some other kind of illusion in the case of inorganic matter. The point here is that we all have access to the mystery. The reason we can’t see it is the bio-hoodwink and the emotional entanglements it creates to get living creatures to interact in the world of things. Chapter 47 is very straightforward.
The final angle to Having is born in nothing lies in considering this from a Symptoms Point Of View. First, broaden the meaning of having to include having the cognitive side of things: goals, beliefs, life meaning, and purpose. What drives a person to strive to have any of these? And when this having is not realized, why do we enter the awful realm of meaninglessness, despair, depression?
The intuitive deep-seated sense of nothing, of entropy, of the void, drives all living things to move, to act, to have, to survive. To survive even in the face of total futility of what can seem like a short and meaningless life. A looming, and in the end inevitable, loss of meaning and death of purpose, are ‘ghosts’ that haunt our every moment driving us to act, to be somebody, to have, to live.
Well, I don’t know how much of this make sense to anyone. It is my stream of conscious for today’s chapter. Oh well….:) I also wrote on chapter 40 in Fear & Need Born in Nothing. It might be a bit more succinct on certain aspects of this chapter.
Video Archive: https://youtu.be/E_Q_90WgT4k
Leave a Reply