Loaded down in living, can you be without?
Focused in spirit, can you be as a baby?
Washing away the mystery, can you see life as flawless?
Loving the nation, can you govern the people without acting?
When Heaven’s gate opens wide, can your action be female?
When understanding reaches its full extent, can you know nothing?
Give birth to, nurture, give birth and yet not have;
Act and yet not depend on;
Be in charge and yet not rule;
This is called profound moral character.
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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/XRwJRM8UMyA 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
Loaded down in living, can you be without?
Without what, was my first thought? When I feel really loaded down in living I feel a strong need for something that will lighten the load. Ironically, it is being with (clinging) that often makes living feel loaded down. Of course, life in general is a loaded down experience. The very simple task of survival requires all living things to work enough to counter entropy. Simply put, life is work; death is rest. Thus, my wish is to be as able to be without as possible while loaded down in living. That is, living is simpler and less loaded down to the extent I can be without.
Overall, I see this chapter as an aspirational story… an ideal destination to aim for. To be sure, this serene destination is in the end a fantasy, i.e., life is still work, and work can only be serene up to a point. The heart still needs to work beating out its rhythm, the lungs still need to work inhaling and exhaling. Accordingly, it is the journey, the process that is the actual—be here now—destination and not any storybook ending portrayed and promised. Nonetheless, the further from balance my life actually feels, the more real and inviting the storybook promises appear. I mean, I just want to arrive and not suffer through the journey.
Focused in spirit, can you be as a baby?
I imagine being a baby, eyes wide, knowing nothing but the instincts I was born with. Now, I ponder my 78-year-old self. What is the difference? The more honestly I look, the less difference I notice. The differences are minor, relative, and often self-serving, e.g., “Wow, I’m the master of my destiny now”. Ultimately, isn’t this the big difference we think we see? The baby is totally dependant, whereas we can harbor the illusion that we are in control of our actions, our life. No wonder the belief we have free choice, free will is so enticing. The belief we have is the reality we think we know, and vice versa… it’s a closed loop. Discarding belief, and observing the world with ‘baby eyes’ opens up an unlimited view. At least until I begin enclosing my mind with belief again. Chapter 71 reveals how to keep belief on the back burner of the mind, Realizing I don’t know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. (See Belief: Are We Just Fooling Ourselves? and Free Will: Fact or Wishful Thinking?)
Washing away the mystery, can you see life as flawless?
Self-interest makes life feel flawed. If the world isn’t the way I want and expect it to be, something feels wrong. Only by weakening my illusion of self (“I”) can I see life as flawless. However, weakening “I” feels like self-suicide, so it is easier to maintain my illusion of self even if that means seeing life as flawed as ever. Consider this excerpt from Buddha’s 2nd and 3rd Noble Truth: “The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things.” And “He who conquers self will be free from lust. He no longer craves and the flame of desire finds no material to feed upon. Thus it will be extinguished”. Conquering self requires me to cease cleaving to things. In the end, this too is impossible, for cleaving is integral to all life. However, these Truths work well as a destination for life’s journey. Again, it’s the journey—the intention—that matters, not the arrival. Fortunately, merely having this as a sincere destination can truly help rein in the cleaving.
Loving the nation, can you govern the people without acting?
I used this line as a model for raising my two sons. Fortunately, then being in my late 40’s, I was able to adopt this model fairly well. Had I been a father in my 20’s, I probably would have found the premise appealing, but faced with reality, my self-interest would have made applying the model mostly impossible. Seeing life as a journey helps reduce the pressure to arrive ‘now’. Step-by-step is how the journey unfolds, despite all our wishes to the contrary. These lines from chapter 64 offer insight…
When Heaven’s gate opens wide, can your action be female?
I usually think of when Heaven’s gate opens wide as moments of high stress, being attacked by police, being shot at, or living through a big earthquake, all of which I have experienced. At those times, I could only be as female as my intrinsic nature allowed. I do happen to be of a more stoic nature and so at those times I was female to an extent. But, I had absolutely no control over that. In heaven’s gate open wide moments, we can only react according to our innate nature. Mmm… actually, in a way, every moment is a heaven’s gate open wide moment if you take life seriously. Thus, we can only ever respond to life according to our innate nature. That is a shocking notion for anyone wishing to control destiny effectively.
When understanding reaches its full extent, can you know nothing?
By now, I have found that it is only by my understanding reaching its full extent that I am able to know nothing, i.e., I’m able to intuitively realize that I know nothing. It is rather odd. I assume the great insecurity felt in youth propels the young to accumulate understanding, i.e., knowledge is power. In those years, the last thing we can accept is the idea we know nothing. Only when knowledge doesn’t matter can we own up to our own ignorance. As chapter 70 begins, Our words are very easy to know, very easy to do.
Under heaven none can know, none can do.
Give birth to, nurture, give birth and yet not have;
This was another model for rearing my sons. They were not mine! They were only borrowed for a short time during those lovely childhood years. The Bhagavad Gita describes this approach to life’s journey well…
2:47 Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. Work not for a reward: but never cease to do thy work.
5:12 This man of harmony surrenders the reward of his work and thus attains final peace: the man of disharmony, urged by desire, is attached to his reward and remains in bondage.
18:12 When work is done for a reward, the work brings pleasure, or pain, or both, in its time; but when a man does work in Eternity, then Eternity is his reward.
Act and yet not depend on;
The promise of reward, of success, is a strong driver of action. The more you feel life meaning hinges on the results of your action, the more you depend on that reward. Here are a few more of its observations on reward.
As you will see, it is rather stern, unlike the Tao Te Ching. This reveals another aspect of cultural stories. Namely, certain stories resonate at certain stages of life, and/or to those of certain temperaments. To be sure, the Bhagavad Gita was my model for many years. As I mellowed, my interest in the Taoist story grew. Oh, and the Bhagavad Gita contains much implied, if not explicit, free will and that is the story I wanted to hear in my youth. All the same, the basic principles reach ‘across the aisle’.
2:43 Their soul is warped with selfish desires, and their heaven is a selfish desire. They have prayers for pleasures and power, the reward of which is earthly rebirth.
2:49 Work done for a reward is much lower than work done in the Yoga of wisdom. Seek salvation in the wisdom of reason. How poor those who work for a reward!
Be in charge and yet not rule;
This line also served as an extremely efficient model for raising my sons. I suppose this whole chapter is one of the best models for anyone serving a role as a steward, a parent, an employer, a teacher. In fact, it’s an excellent model for living life overall. Alas, implementing it is another matter. So, like children, we pretend a lot. 🙂
This is called profound moral character.
The Chinese for profound moral character here is, 玄德 (xuán dé black (dark; profound; abstruse) virtue (moral character; integrity; heart; kindness). I regard this whole chapter as a key to illuminating the deepest Taoist meaning of virtue. Notice how different this feels from the common Judeo Christian meanings. That said, of course, the black virtue described here also encompasses the Western meaning of virtue. The beauty of the Taoist connotation is that it leaves behind a lot of cultural baggage conveyed by the word ‘virtue’. Consider how chapter 38 begins, Superior virtue is not virtuous, and so has virtue.
Inferior virtue never deviates from virtue and so is without virtue.
Video Archive https://youtu.be/XRwJRM8UMyA
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