Its peace easily manages, Its presence easily plans,
Its fragility easily melts, Its minuteness easily scatters,
Acts without existing, Governs without disorder.
A tree barely embraceable grows from a fine tip.
A terrace nine layers high rises from piled earth.
A thousand mile journey begins below the feet.
Of doing we fail, Of holding on we lose.Taking this, the wise do nothing, hence never fail,
Hold nothing, hence never lose.
People in their affairs always accomplish some, yet fail.
Being as careful at the end as the beginning as a rule never fails.
Taking this, the wise person desires non desire,
And does not value difficult to obtain goods.
Learns non learning and turns around people’s excesses,
As well as assists all things naturally, and never boldly act.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
Fourth Pass: Chapter of the Month
(pandemic era)
Archive: Characters and past commentary
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/IYkYDGaHFhg 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 need to change “timeliness” in line 2 to “minuteness”. “Timeliness” actually makes sense here too, but leaving it there would be taking too much poetic license. I don’t know how “timeliness” crept in, but fortunately, the sharp-eyed attendee Dian noticed the discrepancy on Sunday. The character here is 微 wēi, which translates to minute (micro, tiny, miniature).
Reflections
Its peace easily manages, Its presence easily plans,
Its fragility easily melts, Its minuteness easily scatters,
Acts without existing, Governs without disorder.
These three lines speak about the effect “It” has on life, on the world… on creation overall I’d say. But, what is “It” really? Its presence easily plans, gives me a solid clue. Sure, I could always fall back on saying that Tao is “It”, that’s unsatisfying because that begs the question, what is Tao? Of course, that invokes chapter 1’s beginning lines, The way possible to think, runs counter to the constant way and The name possible to express runs counter to the constant name.
Its presence, the present, or to be present can only exist right ‘now’. I like to think of the real ‘now’ as the eternal moment that can’t be further subdivided into nanoseconds. In a way, this turns ‘now’ into a mystical non-existent existence. This puts me in mind of Zeno’s paradox, or more aptly the quantum Zeno effect (1). When I think of “It” as the eternal now, these first lines Its peace easily manages, Its presence easily plans, Its fragility easily melts, Its minuteness easily scatters, makes completes sense. “It” is still a mystery, as the last line of chapter 1 hint, 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. Its presence, the eternal now, feels like the wondrous entrance to me. This is a mystery I can intuitively experience when my emotions are still, which is the case when as chapter 16 puts it; I devote effort to emptiness, sincerely watch stillness.
These phrases, Acts without existing, Governs without disorder speak to the challenging circumstance humanity finds itself. Our imagination and memory permit us to move forward in life with an agenda. Our mind’s eye sees the destination or outcome we desire, and we act and govern accordingly. The inevitable result is disorder. Our cognitive expectation for order creates disorder. Any other animal on Earth simply goes about the challenge of living moment by moment—Its presence—and thus has no inkling of order and disorder, per se. As humans, we must meditate, pray, or perhaps be as careful at the end as the beginning as a rule, to capture a taste of that presence which for all other life forms is their de facto experience. In other words, other animals don’t have to undertake the wild goose chase that imagination driven expectations take us. Doing without doing, following without exception rules comes to them naturally.
A tree barely embraceable grows from a fine tip.
A terrace nine layers high rises from piled earth.
A thousand mile journey begins below the feet.
When I am as careful at the end as the beginning as a rule, now is always now. Patience is maximum, and the events in life and in the world unfold orderly. The moment I imagine outcomes that I prefer to occur, I rush the moment and create unnecessary stress. It is ironic how we can become our own worst enemy. Enduring peace only comes with letting life play out free from my wishful expectations. Emotions—need and fear—pull the strings. Ah, if only I had free will and could choose the emotion I wanted to feel. (See Free Will: Fact or Wishful Thinking?)
Nevertheless, life experience does gradually teach me my limits, and the ways I emotionally shoot myself in the foot. And naturally, this is how learning life unfolds. As chapter 36 reminds,
To sum it all up: one must first be selfish to become selfless. Selfish is survival; selfless is the death, or at least the winding down, of desire and ego. Selfishness is essential for youth; selflessness is essential for “enjoying” old age and death.
Of doing we fail, Of holding on we lose.
Taking this, the wise do nothing, hence never fail,
Hold nothing, hence never lose.
Of doing we fail, Of holding on we lose must come off as unthinkable to youth. Personally, I can’t remember what I thought, which probably means it went right over my head! This and the next lines, Taking this, the wise do nothing, hence never fail, Hold nothing, hence never lose make sense when I don’t take them too literally. The wise do nothing, hence never fail is literally—and incorrectly—saying if I’m wise I would just sit and do nothing. Actually, The wise do nothing, hence never fail is the way all animals on Earth approach life. That’s because they don’t think they’re doing or not doing.
Chapter 71 highlights the difference between humans and other animals… Realizing I don’t know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. While certainly empowering, thought also pulls us into living a story of what life should be. And within that story we feel certain that we know. Belief is a self-fulfilling phenomenon in that if we believe something is true, the very belief it is true “proves” that it is true. (See Belief: Are We Just Fooling Ourselves?)
People in their affairs always accomplish some, yet fail.
Being as careful at the end as the beginning as a rule never fails.
People in their affairs always accomplish some, yet fail is another ironic fact of human life. Our need to accomplish the niche circumstances and our nature drives our life meaning. The irony here is that the greater the need to accomplish this is, the more ghost of failure haunts us. Thus, those who accomplish the greatest works and deeds always feel a keen sense of failure. It is that sense (fear) of failing that drive them toward perfection. Chapter 4 pinpoints the birth place of fear, the underbelly of reality… The way flushes and employs the virtue of ‘less’. This is why we instinctively feel the ‘cup half empty’ more often than not.
Peering into the inner working of life can feel discouraging and depressing if one holds onto the story, the ideal, the enhance version of who we as humans think we are. Only through humility, realizing we are simply animals, are we able to see reality without the cloak of any ideal. This is profoundly empowering, though not in the usual sense of “power” way. Chapter 61 describes this power metaphorically, Of all under heaven, The female normally uses stillness to overcome the male. Using stillness she supports the lower position.
This boils down to being as careful at the end as the beginning of every activity we engage in. I do mean every activity, from the most mundane to the most exceptional. Distracted by desires or worries, it is all too easy to glide hastily and less carefully through the mundane moments of life. In giving less to the moment we fail at living in the present.
Taking this, the wise person desires non desire,
And does not value difficult to obtain goods.
Learns non learning and turns around people’s excesses,
As well as assists all things naturally, and never boldly act.
Taking this, the wise person desires non desire doesn’t mean that only the wise person succeeds at accomplishing non desire. As the line above said, People in their affairs always accomplish some, yet fail. We are human, and what’s more, we are animals! Need and fear are primary instinctive forces that are essential to life itself. Imagination then augments these forces in humans. i.e., need + thinking = desire and fear + thinking = worry. So, the idea here is that the wise person is the one who desires non desire and nothing more. Downplaying the imagination and thought side of these equations is the practical way to desire non desire. Yet, as long as you have a mind, imagination and thought will always play a role in your life. In other words, we always accomplish some, yet fail.
Living through life’s difficulties induces us to slowly and intuitively learn to desire non desire. This inevitably leads us to not value difficult to obtain goods, to one degree or another. This is similar to learning through experience that driving fast on a rain slick road is dangerous. When truly known, you simply can’t drive fast on such a road. Deep realization, or the lack of it, determines what we do in life.
Learns non learning and turns around people’s excesses had me stumped for a while this morning. Asking myself what is the nature of people’s excesses, I realized that any judgments of people’s excesses is a result of the cultural biases I began learning from infancy. Learns non learning is the only way I can turn around people’s excesses. Of course, what I’ve really turned around is my own biased point of view.
As well as assists all things naturally, and never boldly act would be the inevitable result of becoming wise enough to realize the absolute futility of working against nature. The most important step I’ve found for this is, as chapter 71 cautions, Realizing I don’t know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. Indeed, I must constantly remind myself that I don’t know. In short, I am human with a mind that innately thinks it knows. This disease is clearly a byproduct of the five senses and imagination. Line 3 of chapter 71 is the only way we can treat this disease; The sacred person is not ill, taking his disease as illness. Recognizing this intuitively goes a long way to neutralizing the certainty of belief.
(1) The ‘Quantum Zeno Effect’ Explained
Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/16JaAP7hpjU
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting
Leave a Reply