Nature everlasting.
Heaven and earth can long endure,
Because they do not give themselves life,
Hence they can long continue to exist.
The wise person places his life last yet life comes first,
Is outside his life, yet lives life.
Non conforming so as to void personal evil!
Hence he is able to succeed personally.
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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.)
Fourth Pass: Chapter of the Month
(pandemic era)
Archive: Characters and past commentary
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/0PzN-wEAqkY is a link to unedited Zoom video of this month’s Sunday meeting. The shorter first part of the meeting begins with a chapter reading followed by attendees’ commentary, if any. A little later on begins the longer open discussion part of the meeting when those who wish to discuss how the chapter relates to their personal experience.
Corrections?
None this time
Reflections
Nature everlasting.
Heaven and earth can long endure,
Because they do not give themselves life,
Hence they can long continue to exist.
The notion that I am alive is in itself a fabrication, an illusion of sorts born of language’s dipolar nature (see Yin Yang, Nature’s Hoodwink). By naming reality, we made it even more difficult to notice nature’s unity. Chapter 56 puts it bluntly,
Speaking is the clue here. Speech arises out of naming and cataloging nature, e.g., high vs. low; hot vs. cold; high vs. low; life vs. death. Conversely, nature and heaven and earth don’t break up their reality by naming. Our dipolar way of cataloging nature seriously blinds us to its unity, to its profound sameness. Of course, this affords us a clever ability to manipulate our environment, which has given humanity an incredible survival advantage over other animals. Nevertheless, there are no freebies in nature. Every advantage comes with a disadvantage of sorts. We suffer from the disadvantage all the time, yet seldom realize what is happening. The utility of the Tao Te Ching lies in how it gives us an inside look at nature, and our own fundamental ignorance.
The wise person places his life last yet life comes first,
Is outside his life, yet lives life.
This reminds me of insurance. We insure that which we feel most valuable. Yet, in deeming something especially valuable, we automatically create an underlying sense of immanent of loss, decay, failure, or death. Chapter 75 offers,
The last line clearly parallels this chapter’s, The wise person places his life last yet life comes first, Is outside his life, yet lives life. More broadly, this tells me that whatever I value most in life will be the source of my deepest pain and sorrow in life.
Valuing something and appreciating something may feel similar on the surface, but are very different as they play out. Appreciation is a feeling that takes place in the moment of experience, whereas valuing something plays out over time… a lifetime even. At the deepest level, appreciation is the full acceptance of a reality… of how it is. Conversely, when I value something, I end up holding on to it. Such valuing is what Buddha refers to in the Second Truth; The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things. Put simply, valuing something can have almost the opposite emotion effect as appreciation.
The people take death lightly because they seek life’s flavor aligns well with the conclusion of Buddha’s Second Truth; The desire to live for the enjoyment of self entangles us in the net of sorrows. Pleasures are the bait and the result is pain.
Naturally, these ideal Taoist and Buddhist approaches to living life are not innate. Simply put, this is theory as opposed to practice. As animals, we naturally seek life’s flavor and pleasure will always bait us. Nevertheless, just being aware of these pitfalls, of seeking life’s flavor and desiring to live for the enjoyment of self, helps me manage how I approach life more effectively, more wisely. I’m not going to win at this, but I am ostensibly able to improve my chances of avoiding obvious pitfalls. The trick is simply realizing and accepting the pitfalls.
Non conforming so as to void personal evil!
Hence he is able to succeed personally.
At first glance, Non conforming seems to be at odds with chapter 3’s Doing without doing, following without exception rules. Following and conforming to others is a strong social instinct in humans. However, the following without exception rules is clearly not advising us to be like sheep and blindly follow the alpha animal, as Non conforming so as to void personal evil shows.
Good examples of blind sheep-like following and the evil that can often ensue are found throughout history, with the Trump presidency and his followers being recent examples. Hitler sway over the German people also comes to mind. Such social conforming is an innate social characteristic of humanity, and would have been a survival advantage in our ancestral past. Civilization’s hierarchical foundation turns this healthy following instinct into something that often plays out in very problematic ways (e.g., war, terrorism, racism, slavery, witch-hunts, inquisitions, etc.) (See The Tradeoff for more on this problem.)
Chapter 63 also gives guidance on chapter 3. Both chapter’s lines begin with wéi wú wéi (为无为), do without do , but 63 goes on to say Be involved without being involved. (i.e., Do without doing, Be involved without being involved, Taste without tasting.) This parallels Buddha’s Fourth Truth, where he says, There is salvation for him whose self disappears before truth, whose will is bent on what he ought to do, whose sole desire is the performance of his duty. This “whose self disappears before truth”, and “whose sole desire is the performance of his duty” reduces the self-centered emotion and agenda from one’s actions. That is doing without doing. When this is the case, all that is left is following without exception. Here, one is following their duty, their dharma. I also see this as following the way things actually are, not as how I want them to be. The last part of chapter 65 sheds light,
Reaching great conformity, following without exception, and non conforming all combine to portray a picture of being in accord with reality, with the way things are, with nature, instead of adhering to a particular cultural narrative. This is truly nearly rising beyond oneself. As chapter 52 offers,
Return to observe the origin is another way of saying exchange your allegiance to the current cultural paradigm for a deeper universal connection to nature—the origin. On the other hand, this is not saying go be a hermit in some cave removed from society. Indeed, chapter 63 reveals the profound yet subtle difference, Do without doing, Be involved without being involved, Taste without tasting. Be there without being there. Approaching life this way, there is no need to retreat to a cave.
Video Archive https://youtu.be/0PzN-wEAqkY
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