Monthly Chapter 63 (pandemic era)

Do without doing,
Be involved without being involved.
Taste without tasting.
Make the great small and the many few,
Respond to resentment using kindness.
Plan difficulty out from its easy.
Do the great out from its small.
All difficulties under heaven must arise from the easy.
All that is great under heaven must arise from the small.
Accordingly, the wise man, in the end, doesn’t support greatness,
For this reason he is able to accomplish greatness.
The man that rashly promises, certainly few trust.
The excessively easy, certainly excessively difficult.
Accordingly, the wise man, still of difficulty,
For this reason, in the end, without difficulty.
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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.

Fourth Pass: Chapter of the Month (pandemic era) 9/29/2022

Archive: Characters and past commentary

Zoom on YouTube Recordings:

https://youtu.be/c3WZ-B_ATcg is the link to the 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?

I should clarify the line, The man that rashly promises, certainly few trust. I included only a few of the most common synonyms in Word for Word for the character 轻 . I chose rashly as more descriptive, although light (softly) certainly point in the same direction. This is a more complete list of synonyms; 轻 ≈ (approximately equal to) light, easy, gentle, soft, reckless, unimportant, frivolous, small in number. For me, rashly encompasses most of these synonyms well. Rashly also points to the problematic aspects of light, easy, and soft in the context of this chapter.

Reflections

Do without doing,
Be involved without being involved.
Taste without tasting.

I suppose these three lines can be somewhat inscrutable if attempting to understand logically. How can one “do without doing”? The rest of this chapter lays out various facets of the do without doing (wéi wú wéi  为无为)to facilitate a deeper and more practical understanding of this approach to life. Therefore, I recommend anyone wishing a deeper sense of do without doing and the next two lines to ponder the rest of this chapter with the mind’s eye referring back to these three.

Make the great small and the many few,
Respond to resentment using kindness.

At first glance, these two lines have a somewhat biased Christian feel to them. Then again, considering the first line, Make the great small and the many few, from the point of view of the way expresses how nature “moves” toward balance. Indeed, entropy is a process of doing exactly this until total equilibrium is finally achieved at the end of the universe’s expansion. It has been at this task ever since the Big Bang. So, does complete equilibrium initiate the next Big Bang? I would guess so considering line 3 of chapter 2, Hence existence and nothing give birth to one another. Perfect equilibrium feels like it would be the apex of existence without a complementary ‘other’, so to speak. That feels like the moment when ‘something’ flips to ‘nothing’, which then flips to the next Big Bang ‘something’. But I digress… we’ll just have to wait and see.

The second line, Respond to resentment using kindness sounds like Christ’s “turn the other cheek”, i.e., “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”, Matthew 5:39. This advice most always falls on deaf ears, otherwise the world would be a lot different now, right? This is another example of the similarity between Christ’s teaching and the Tao Te Ching, but with the Tao Te Ching lending a more practical path. In addition, the Tao Te Ching’s succinct version says more by saying less.

Buddha’s 2^nd Noble Truth “The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things” also parallels Christ’s “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:” Matthew 6:19. Though both point toward the same principle, Buddha’s is profoundly more comprehensive. Perhaps it’s too comprehensive to be palatable to most people.

Clearly, “cleaving to things” includes both material things that Christ spoke to, and to beliefs, ideas, desires, etc. Cleaving to anything that is possible to clutch creates and maintains the illusion of self. That would include believing that Christ was the son of God, or believing that he wasn’t the son of God, right? Our deep-seated need to believe in something makes ‘conquering’ the self-illusion nearly impossible. As the 2^nd and 3^rd Noble Truth suggest, “The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things” and “He who conquers self will be free from lust.” I suppose overcoming this conundrum is only possible by rooting out one’s core belief in names and words. As chapter 37 advises, Press it down using nameless simplicity. See Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations for one way to work toward this end.

In the end, it is probably just as difficult to put Christ’s, Buddha’s, or the Tao Te Ching’s principles into practice. Nevertheless, the latter two offer more food for thought. Principles viewed through a Taoist lens resonate more deeply to me because this offers a principle to experience, verify, and implement in a natural way to some extent.

Respond to resentment using kindness suggest to me that I will end up better off emotionally if I witness the resentment with a sense of kindness. At the very least, kindness arises out of empathy. Empathy is really seeing ‘the other’ in yourself. The Hindu tat tvam asi, (Sanskrit: “thou art that”) puts this simply and eloquently. Of course, this is easier contemplated than done, especially in the heat of the resentment moment. Even so, after emotions cool off is certainly not too late. In fact, I feel that this is just in time! Respond to resentment using kindness before emotions are ready is impossible. Believing otherwise is arrogantly ignoring nature’s way. Clearly, nature uses anger and resentment as an “energy” to stir the evolutionary pot, so to speak. As chapter 5 suggests,

The universe is not benevolent, and all things serve as grass dogs (‘sacrificial lambs’).
The wise person is not benevolent, and the people serve as grass dogs.

Okay, of course the nature—the universe—doesn’t get angry or have resentment, per se. It uses our emotions to provide the “energy” to stir its pot of evolution. Of course, in truth, there is no division between the universe and us… or anything. It just feels like it! I’d say that’s what keeps the pot stirring.

Plan difficulty out from its easy.
Do the great out from its small.
All difficulties under heaven must arise from the easy.
All that is great under heaven must arise from the small.

It is important to connect Plan difficulty out from its easy and the next three lines to one’s experience, or at least to one’s imagined experience. For example, imagine yourself as a Monarch butterfly migrating south for the winter. You would take each moment as a whole unto itself. You would have no thought—desire or worry—about your future goal or past experience. In fact, you would simply as chapter 3 puts it, Doing without doing, following without exception rules. Following what? You would simply be following your instincts and circumstance—your nature. As it happens that is what all life does, humans included. We only think we’re different (i.e., the illusion of self and its illusion of free choice), and as a result get lost in our own story’s drama! The last lines of chapter 2 expand on this following without exception path…

Considering this, the wise person manages without doing anything,
Carries out the indescribable teaching.
Don’t all things on earth work and not shirk.
Give birth to and yet not have,
Do and yet not depend on,
Achieves success and yet not dwell.
The simple man alone does not dwell,
Because of this he never leaves.

Accordingly, the wise man, in the end, doesn’t support greatness ⁽¹⁾,
For this reason he is able to accomplish greatness.
The man that rashly promises, certainly few trust.

Accordingly, the wise man, in the end, doesn’t support greatness is simply saying that the wise man embraces the task at hand at the moment—the eternal moment. Frankly, greatness is a hierarchical construct narrowly focused on what a society needs or fears most, i.e., identifies with. It is an illusion. Humans regard the Monarch’s journey as a great achievement. Not the Monarch… it just does without doing.

The excessively easy, certainly excessively difficult.
Accordingly, the wise man, still of difficulty,
For this reason, in the end, without difficulty.

These last three lines put forward the same state of affairs that line 3 of chapter 71 speaks to…

Realizing I don’t know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease.
Man alone faults this disease; this so as not to be ill.
The sacred person is not ill, taking his disease as illness.
Man alone has this disease; this is because to him there is no illness.

The sacred person is not ill, taking his disease as illness is the same as honestly acknowledging the difficulty of life. Fully realizing the difficult work that life actually requires helps put any hope of escaping that work to rest. Only then, can one do without doing and follow without exception. Similarly, fully realizing one doesn’t know is the only “cure” for our cognitive disease.

The problem with realizing I don’t know is very deep. It begins with the words and names we use to objectify experience. All this begins in early childhood as we learn our native language. Then, throughout life, we mold our experience into stories that define our lives. These become some of the major stuff that produces our ego—our illusion of self. Again, as Buddha so aptly put it, The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things. Fundamentally, we believe the veracity of the words we use to think, plan, expect and regret. As long as we put complete faith in name and word, there is little chance to realize I don’t know… (Again, to challenge your faith in names and words, see Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations)

⁽¹⁾ Last month’s commentary (below) on these two lines from chapter 62 may shed more light on this line, Accordingly, the wise man, in the end, doesn’t support greatness.

Of old, why was this way so valued?
Was it not said that by using it one got what one sought.

We all find ourselves seeking something in life. When we find ‘it’, we begin almost immediately seeking the next ‘something’, and so on throughout life. It is clear from this, that we never actually get what we seek. If we truly did, the seeking would stop. Of course, deep-seated biology drives us to seek the basics for survival. However, we have no innate (biological) sense of when to stop. Sure, we stop seeking food when we’re full, but as soon as hunger returns we seek more to eat. This natural process works well for animals in the wild obviously ⁽²⁾. For the human animal with its profound ability to imagine and remember, we never stop ‘seeking’ or ‘eating’, metaphorically speaking. Chapter 30 describes the situation well, Those most adept have results, yet stop, not daring to seek better. Certainly, the ‘more is better’ urge is a necessary survival instinct in all animals and this works perfectly in the wild. Human imagination and memory warp this urge into what has become too much of a good thing… especially following the Neolithic Revolution—also referred to as the Agricultural Revolution—that began around 12,000 years ago. (For a brief overview, see The Tradeoff)

Finally, chapter 32 gets right to our core problem: names, which are among the building blocks of thought and imagination.

Only when restricted, are there names.
Names already exist,
Man handles the realization to stop.
Knowing to stop [he] can be without danger.
Analogy: of the way’s existence under heaven,
Liken this to the river of the valley flowing to the great river and the sea.

⁽²⁾ For example, all rodents have incisors that never stop growing! To keep these teeth from growing into their brains, rodents grind their teeth against each other. Our imagination is a bit like a rodent’s teeth in that our mind never stops “chewing” on life. To avoid having our mind “chew” on itself, we need to “chew” in ways that grind down our imagination. I suppose the failures, losses, and disappointments we encounter throughout life do that somewhat. The Correlations process might be a way to speed that up. (Again, see Correlations: Using Yin and Yang to Pop Preconceptions).

Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/-2p3ryeZWsU
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting