The people are hungry because taxes eat much,
That is why they are hungry.
The people are difficult to govern because of their expectations,
That is why they are difficult to govern.
The people take death lightly because they seek life’s flavor,
That is why they take death lightly.
Only the man without use for life is worthy of a noble life.
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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.
Fourth Pass: Chapter of the Month
(pandemic era)
Archive: Characters and past commentary
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/iP_iQQfbpu4 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?
None this time.
Reflections:
The people are hungry because taxes eat much,
That is why they are hungry.
This line is usually viewed as a comment on government and society as a whole. While this is true on the surface, it misses the point by being prone to political bias among other things. In the end, government and society are but reflections of the individuals that form them—that’s us. It pays to look for deeper meaning.
The human ability to imagine and then harbor expectations is the key to understanding this whole chapter. Our expectations on future outcomes are how we tax ourselves from spending our entire moment in the present, for example. Or, think of our expectations in life as the hunt for future ‘food’. The chasm that separates the present reality from the ‘food’ that we seek after creates a hunger, which can be almost as, if not more, distressing as a hunger for actual food.
The people are difficult to govern because of their expectations,
That is why they are difficult to govern.
It is certainly true that the people are difficult to govern because of their expectations. Examples abound for anyone with access to a decent knowledge of history. Examined more deeply, it becomes obvious that one’s expectations also make the governance of one’s life more difficult. The hunger that expectations create can become a vicious spiral that creates even greater expectations, rather than simply building the unknowable future step-by-step from the present. (See Science Proves Buddha Right!)
One’s expectation feed right back onto one’s sense of self-guilt. The gap between who you naturally are and who you imagine yourself to be, or could be, creates a persistent level of stress. Some will argue that setting such personal goals is necessary for otherwise you’d just sit back and ‘vegetate’. The fact is, you will unavoidably and naturally do what you need to do. If anything, your expectations will get in the way of fulfilling your life’s dharma—destiny, duty, fate. The mistaken notion that one has an actual choice in life is directly linked to one’s expectations for their life… not only their life, but also the lives of others as well. This make self-judgment, and by projection the judgment of others, unavoidable. In this way, expectations get in the way of an effective efficient life. (See Free Will: Fact or Wishful Thinking?)
The only possible way I’ve found out of this is by deeply realizing the consequences of harboring expectations. Indeed, when I viscerally—intuitively—know the adverse consequences, it becomes practically impossible to harbor them. It is self-correcting. This is not different from viscerally knowing that driving too fast easily leads to accidents and death. You can’t help but slow down! Deep realization is a universal motivator. The only hitch comes in acquiring it. Pain and suffering are catalyst to a huge extent.
The people take death lightly because they seek life’s flavor,
That is why they take death lightly.
I remember in youth seeking life’s flavor. I see that as a completely natural process of life that seems to apply to all animal, and certainly to the ‘higher’ forms, e.g., kittens, puppies, ponies, etc. For humans, expectations further fuel this natural youthful vigor. Of course, in youth, I could not have cared less. Seeking life’s flavor blinds us to the deeper forces of nature at play.
Now, at 80, I naturally no longer scurry around to seek life’s flavor. Age clearly has that effect on all animals… life slows down as the years increase. Additionally, knowing that my time on earth is short certainly helps me not take death lightly. Although, I suspect that it is the slowing down, more than the knowledge, which generates such intuitive clarity. The natural slowing down creates the intuitive respect for death, i.e., We only understand what we [intuitively] already know
Not only can I not take death lightly any longer, I’ve come to see death as a friend in waiting. If I were Mother Nature setting up the process of life, I’d make the process of aging difficult enough that when death arrives the individual would welcome it. In other words, aging lessens the seeking of life’s flavor and thus prepares us for death. Simply put: life ≈ work; death ≈ rest. (See Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations.)
Only the man without use for life is worthy of a noble life.
It may help to consider the opposite of the man without use for life: The man having use for life is self-absorbed in a pursuit of his agenda. The key word here is use for life as apposed to living life, or letting life play out. Seeking life’s flavor is simply using life to achieve one’s own agenda, one’s own expectations. Such self-centered self-absorption feels to be not worthy of a noble life.
Finally, I have to ask myself why I feel this way about what it takes to be worthy of a noble life. Nature doesn’t care. Evolution makes use of all possible approaches to life, including having the use for life. After all, as chapter 5 observes, The universe is not benevolent, and all things serve as grass dogs (‘sacrificial lambs’). I imagine social instinct accounts for my feeling here. Selfishness can easily work against the common social good. More broadly, it is the common social good, not the accomplishments of any individual that determine evolutionary outcomes.
A moment with eternity is worth a lifetime of prep.
Every morning I bike down to the beach here, do tai chi, and then stand in the surf for a few moments waiting for eternity to open my mind’s door. Recently, while waiting and watching, I realized that I spend a lot of my mind’s time preparing for my few moment with eternity. And a few moments is all I get, if I’m lucky. Of course, that’s the point. All my prep improves my chances profoundly. The biology of life is such that even a moment with eternity is rare. No life form evolves to make that connection to eternity on awareness’s main stage. Survival is awareness primary purpose, which is essentially, The people take death lightly because they seek life’s flavor. We innately avoid death, and so take death lightly. And yet, death (entropy) is the ultimate destination of every life’s journey. This fear of loss makes eternity difficult to appreciate. For some background on the eternity story, see You are Immortal!
Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/XVErIeQijlY
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting
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