Monthly Chapter 71 (pandemic era)

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 disease.
Man alone has this disease; this is because to him there is no disease.
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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) 6/2/2023

Archive: Characters and past commentary

Zoom on YouTube Recordings:

https://youtu.be/dO0NuSi0Jv0 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?

In reading this today, I felt using the similar word illness for disease was superfluous. Better to just keep it simple… disease says it all.

Reflections:

Realizing I don’t’ know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease.

This line has been a constant throughout my final decades of life. I’m relentlessly returning to this Taoist gem. I feel now that it is the most essential Taoist observation of all. When I honestly bite down on Realizing I don’t’ know is better, life become so much simpler! This applies to all thought, from my most mundane personal mind chatter to my most ‘big picture’ observations. The fact is, all thoughts are in one way or another, projections of fear and by extension, need. This is why actually Realizing I don’t’ know is better is likely the most difficult of life’s challenges—period! Our sense of self-identity and our story are utterly entangled.  (See The Story Trumps Truth and Fear is the Bottom Line)

Thus, for me this first line is a perceptive jewel even rivaling the first two lines of chapter 1. It states what purports to be a fact, but is this fact the truth? Isn’t the Tao Te Ching just a reasonable facsimile of the truth? To paraphrase the first lines of chapter 1, “The truth possible to think and know, runs counter to the constant truth. The truth possible to express runs counter to the constant truth.” What a remarkable disclaimer those two lines are! Surely, this is why Realizing I don’t’ know is better.

Truth—like the way—is akin to balance. You can’t acquire and hold onto balance, you can only maintain balance in the moment to moment of life. Balance requires constant watchfulness (awareness, care). Buddha’s Second Truth applies here, i.e., “The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things“. The constant truth, as described above, is not some ‘thing‘ to which one can own. One can’t cleave to truth. Real truth—reality—is ‘alive’ and like balance, can only be experienced intuitively, i.e., beyond any ability to nail down and express.

Keeping truth alive is a labor that never ends, which probably makes it unappealing. It’s far easier to hold onto guises of truth in what are naturally deceptive forms of thought and belief. The most we can say is there is perhaps an element of truth, of reality, in every myth, thought, or belief.

In addition, cleaving onto guises of truth creates and maintains an illusion of self. In a sense, once this illusion originates, survival emotions surge to maintain the illusion by a continuous cleaving to those facsimiles. All this amounts to something of a vicious circle of self-fulfilling prophecy. Any attempt to disengage from this cycle can feel a bit like suicide… a death of the illusion of self.

Because every thought we have is a very incomplete facsimile of truth, it is wise to be constantly cautious in our thoughts. Again, as chapter 71 warns, “Realizing I don’t’ know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease”. Like maintaining balance, this “realizing” must be maintained moment to moment, as a constant of awareness. Otherwise, the self’s mind rushes back to its treasured holdings and cleavings.

This brings me to chapter 40…

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.

Possessing knowledge is “having”. Having something maintains the illusion of self. The illusion of self is akin to NOT realizing I don’t know. Indeed, the illusion of self is a result of failing to realize I don’t know. Realizing I don’t know and the illusion of self are as incompatible as water and oil. To be sure then, In the opposite direction, of the way moves is a reality of life. Thus, having knowledge of anything is a bit of a trap. Indeed, because Having is born in nothing, it is in the nothing and the loss through death that immortality – truth – lies. Ah yes, as chapter 78 puts it, Straight and honest words seem inside out.

The Dinosaur Story

Dinosaur’s evolved increasingly larger body sizes. Presumably, that became a survival advantage, until the comet hit the earth 50 million years ago. When evolution leads to ‘too much of a good thing’, that advantage can become a huge disadvantage—a disease. Our extreme cognitive development has been a great survival advantage. So much so that we are the brain equivalent of the dinosaur’s run away body size, and so undoubtedly, 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.

Man alone faults this disease and Man alone has this disease uses the character 夫 (fū)   which translates as porter, husband, and man. I assume that several thousand years ago this character principally meant man, mankind, or humankind. In any case, this is the only way it makes sense. Clearly, humanity overall suffers from the disease of believing that thoughts represent an objective reality, when that is clearly—biologically—not the case.  (See How the hoodwink hooks and see Peeking in on Nature’s Hoodwink)

Of course, back then our ancestors had no MRI’s to probe the mind, nor did they have the scientific resources to show the profound extent biology and evolution play on all living things. Nevertheless, they knew our cognitive prowess was a disease of sorts if we didn’t concurrently and continually realize how extremely inaccurate, subjective and limited that “strength” actually was. The interesting thing for me is how utterly pervasive the disease obviously is, yet how blind we can be to its reality until we are able to take it to heart. This is the blindness that arises from simply—and only—seeing what you feel like seeing. Fear and need powerfully influence perception… period. (See Fear & Need Born in Nothing)

The sacred person is not ill, taking his disease as disease.

Taking his disease as disease is what transforms a “normal” person into a sacred person. It takes the deepest humility to accept that one doesn’t know. More importantly, it takes the deepest level of resolution to maintain an active sense of knowing I don’t’ know is better. This ties in nicely with Buddha’s first two steps on the Noble Path—Right Comprehension and Right Resolution. When I think about it, these two are all that is necessary to regain and maintain balance. Once balance is at hand, the other six steps just play out naturally. And yes, of course, this is not any one and done deal. Indeed, the whole process, or deeper comprehension followed by deeper resolution plays out until we take our last breath. In this way, one’s wisdom deepens year by year until the end of life’s journey. (See Buddha’s Four Noble Truths)

Man alone has this disease; this is because to him there is no disease.

Rather than accept that humanity has evolved too much of a good thing vis-à-vis cognition, we tout our superiority as a species. We can’t accept we have this disease. I feel this is really quite natural. I assume we have a built-in avoidance to recognize anything that is impossible to change. Our need to make progress and control outcomes determines much of what we focus on, and also what we stick our heads in the sand over.

Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/TO4yeR2WIrY
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting