Cut off learning and be without worry,
Of ‘yea’ and pandering, both differ by how much?
Of good and evil, both differ how then?
Of man’s actual fear, one cannot not fear.
Neglect of such has no end!
Crowds of people bustle about
Like enjoying excessive sacrifice,
Like ascending a springtime terrace,
I alone am anchored without anticipation,
Like an infant, not a child;
Lazy, as if without a place to go back to.
Crowds of people all have more than enough,
I alone seem left behind.
I am foolish of human mind also?
Innocent conventional people are clear.
I alone am drowsy;
Normal people discern difference,
I alone am subdued.
Crowds of people all have appointments to keep,
I alone am dense and vulgar.
I alone am different from people,
And value feeding the mother.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
(Trump era)
Archive: Characters and past commentary
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/rBDdBwXaSDI 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?
A clarification: The last line of this chapter has often been translated similar to how D.C. Lau put it, And value being fed by the mother. This last line is just four characters, 而贵食母. There is a question over which meaning of the character 食 to use, shí or sí, i.e., 食 can mean either shí eat; meal; food; feed; edible; eclipse or sì <formal> bring food to; feed. I prefer sì <formal>, which gives, And value feeding the mother. Sure, being fed by the mother certainly works, but feels somewhat convoluted compared to the simpler and more direct feeding the mother. Most importantly, feeding the mother has a more giving feeling compared to being fed by the mother. See more commentary at the end.
Reflections:
Cut off learning and be without worry,
Of ‘yea’ and pandering, both differ by how much?
Of good and evil, both differ how then?
Of man’s actual fear, one cannot not fear.
Neglect of such has no end!
Cut off learning and be without worry points out the cause of much of our suffering. It is learning that greatly increases our ability to discern differences. This ability allows the mind to make mountains out of molehills, which often causes us to instinctively overreact. Amplifying our sense of differences increases stress, plain and simple. That is why a walk in nature helps relieves stress. There are perhaps trillions of difference that could be noticed in a walk in the woods. Of course, our brain has trouble focusing well on just a handful, so it shuts down its good and evil mode of parsing life, and just goes along with the flow.
Of man’s actual fear, one cannot not fear reminds us that there are actual fears to heed, and which are so primal as to exist beyond learning. There is no escaping primal fear. See Fear & Need Born in Nothing and A final word on fear.
Crowds of people bustle about
Like enjoying excessive sacrifice,
Like ascending a springtime terrace,
I alone am anchored without anticipation,
Like an infant, not a child;
Lazy, as if without a place to go back to.
When I was a younger man, I strongly identified with I alone am anchored without anticipation. I felt this was a hallmark of the sage, and surely I was at least heading that way. Now I realize that this I alone matter is the emotional bedrock all modern humans feel. I suspect that our hunter-gatherer ancestors felt this I alone sensation to a much lesser extent, if at all. See Who Are You? Series.
It is the advent of civilization that brought about crowds of people bustled about, like enjoying excessive sacrifice, like ascending a springtime terrace. The settled existence of civilization meant that everyone had a place to go back to. Before settled existence, Lazy, as if without a place to go back to would have been the way of life for our hominid ancestors.
Like an infant, not a child describes a ‘just out of the womb’ state before culture has had a chance to train us to adhere to civilization’s hierarchical paradigm. To be honest, our ancestors also had to learn and adhere to their egalitarian hunter-gatherer paradigm. However, the civilization paradigm requires a much higher degree of compliance, and frowns on free spirits unless and until they excel at something.
Crowds of people all have more than enough,
I alone seem left behind.
I am foolish of human mind also?
Innocent conventional people are clear.
I alone am drowsy;
Again, I alone seem left behind and I am foolish of human mind also? describe how every modern human feels in their heart of hearts. What else would you expect in a people deprived of the extreme intimacy that our ancestors enjoyed. Their ‘social security’ was a pervasive daily experience from birth to death. Modern humans, devoid of that are constantly scrambling to ‘fit in’, be accepted, be understood, be a success. Note: by modern humans, I’m referring to everyone born in the last 12,000 years. See The Tradeoff.
Innocent conventional people are clear speaks to the disease mentioned in chapter 71, Realizing I don’t’ know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. The irony here is that deep deep down, we all feel I alone am drowsy. (See We All Know We Don’t Know). The discomfort, fear even, of feeling drowsy (i.e., not knowing) drives us to learn and to discern differences, and be certain in our beliefs. Thus, Man alone has this disease; this is because to him there is no disease. The twist here is that by simply acknowledging you don’t know, you are nearly ‘cured’ of the disease, despite the innate biological drive to feel certainty. This is as chapter 3 calls it, a doing without doing 为无为 (wéi wú wé,) kind of situation.
Normal people discern difference,
I alone am subdued.
Crowds of people all have appointments to keep,
I alone am dense and vulgar.
I alone am different from people,
And value feeding the mother.
Normal people discern difference to a fault! Obviously, discerning difference is a crucial ability vital to survival for all living things. Our problem is that we are mostly unable to handle the realization to stop. Chapter 32 spells it out,
Crowds of people all have appointments to keep, I alone am dense and vulgar. Just to be clear, vulgar here refers to the root meaning: lacking sophistication or good taste; unrefined; characteristic of or belonging to the masses. This lower position is a place we all loath, and so struggle to transcend. After all, what does enlightenment promise other than to leave the suffering common to the ‘masses’ behind?
Clearly, the inner most sense of ‘not measuring up’ to whatever standard we aspire, drives us to climb the hierarchical ladder, to achieve, to be SOME body. At the end of life, if we’re lucky, we come full circle and own our natural ‘low position’, our vulgar reality, our I am foolish of human mind, and all the rest. We begin to return to our infant, not a child original self,
Being patient is a good way to describe “and value feeding the mother”. Feeding mother is allowing nature to play out on its own accord, rather than according to our desires or expectations. Admittedly, that is not completely feasible, for that would mean transcending biology. Interestingly, such a need to transcend biology only occurs in earnest after I alone am dense and vulgar consumes their identity. Chapter 16 helps describe this feeding the mother kind of patience, and it ends with a more realistic goal to aim for.
Note how the last line says, “nearly rising beyond oneself“. No matter how hard we try, we will always bump up against a limiting factor—we are, and always will be, animals.
Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/LRc3ZNcOTow
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting