Bent follows whole, crooked follows straight;
Hollow follows filled, worn-out follows new.
Little follows satisfaction, much follows bewildered.
The wise person uses this to hold the One, and models all under heaven.
He does not see his self for he is honest; he does not exist for he is clear;
He does not attack himself for he has merit; he is not self important for he endures.
He alone does not contend, hence nothing under heaven can contend with him.
This is the ancient point of view: bent follows whole.
How can it be that emptiness speaks! Complete sincerity returns.
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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
(Trump era)
Archive: Characters and past commentary
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/q48doBNQaGw 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:
Bent follows whole, crooked follows straight;
Hollow follows filled, worn-out follows new.
Little follows satisfaction, much follows bewildered.
The wise person uses this to hold the One, and models all under heaven.
Hollow follows filled, worn-out follows new, crooked follows straight plainly describes the natural cycle, the ebb and flow of existence. Forming a clearer understanding of the other descriptions such as Little follows satisfaction, much follows bewildered requires a more intuitive dive, at least for me. Knowing that each phrase describes the same natural cycle helps me detect this process playing out in my life. For example, I experience this little follows satisfaction as the emotional sunset that always follows moments of success and satisfaction, i.e., ‘what goes up must come down’.
The difficulty the young face is their inability to see the ‘other side’ of the cycle from where they are at at any given moment. They get the full roller-coaster experience of life. Life experience increasingly awakens us to the inevitable ‘other side’ that lies ahead. Knowing what lies ahead helps us manage life better, and this eases the stress of the good fortune or misfortune experienced at the moment. Ironically, that allows one to make the most of the ‘here and now’. The “guru” that is life gradually guides us to use this to hold the One, and model all under heaven. The One is simply seeing, if not embracing, the natural cycle as an inseparable whole—One!
Chapter 58 likewise says, Misfortune, yet of good fortune its resting place. Good fortune, yet of misfortune its hiding place. Knowing this is reality makes the transition from one to the other unsurprising and more naturally peaceful.
Chapter 2 also reveals this interconnected quality of opposites. We are biologically hoodwinked into naively perceiving each side as a more or less independent phenomenon. (See How the Hoodwink Hooks, Yin Yang, Nature’s Hoodwink, Peeking in on Nature’s Hoodwink)
He does not see his self for he is honest; he does not exist for he is clear;
First, I must ask myself, what does honesty mean, in the deepest sense of the word. I ponder the tree outside my window and apprehend that it is certainly honest. Indeed, nature is nothing if not honest. So, honest and dishonest are a human matter. I see the lack of honesty as the split between the story we have —or want to have—of our self and reality. And what is the self but a story of who we imagine ourselves to be. The further away we are from feeling ourselves integral to nature, the more our self-story owns us, and as such innately makes us less honest and insecure. Chapter 24, puts it this way, Seeing self is not honest; Of course, this is not evident. In short, as honesty increases, self decreases. Ego and honesty are like oil and water.
He does not attack himself for he has merit; he is not self important for he endures.
Chapter 24 reiterates this line, Attacking self is without merit; Self pity does not endure. It is important to note that this attacking self and being without merit is directly connected to being self-honest. Lacking self-honestly automatically increases self-insecurity. In one way or another, we end up living a lie to some extent. Living a lie because we attempt to match our life’s reality to the imagined story we have for who we are, or could be, or want to be, or fear to be. Without honesty, life is much more bewildering.
He alone does not contend, hence nothing under heaven can contend with him.
The main thing that drives us to contend is a desire to make reality match our ideal. The more divorced from reality, the more we contend in life. However, this does not mean we lay down and allow reality to overrun us. For example, a tree that drives its roots deep into the earth must contend with the roots of other trees. However, there is no external imagine self that is driving the tree to contend. It is immersed in reality doing what its nature requires of it. There is no separate sense of self.
Wei wu wei (action without action) is the essence of not contending, but rather simply doing what one ought to do—doing one’s innate duty. As line 4 summed up the beginning of the chapter, The wise person uses this to hold the One, and models all under heaven, action without action embodies the complete cycle, the One. In the same way, ‘responsible without responsibility’ is the model to follow in managing life overall. Chapter 48 notes,
And again in chapter 57, Use non responsibility when seeking all under heaven and I am without responsibility and the people thrive of themselves. I am without desire and the people simplify themselves.
This is the ancient point of view: bent follows whole.
How can it be that emptiness speaks! Complete sincerity returns.
For me, How can it be that emptiness speaks! reiterates the Hollow follows filled cycle mentioned at the beginning. Emptiness≈ silence, hollow, death, stillness, bent, worn-out. From that yin side of the cycle arises the yang side, Fullness ≈ speaks, solid, life, action, straight, new. See Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations.
Sincerity≈ honesty, naturalness, authenticity, genuineness, seriousness, unaffectedness, etc. Again, perhaps the only way to get a good grasp of this is via the Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations. The facets of nature that we perceive to be opposite are actually innately connected… indeed, One! Perceiving this profound unity requires challenging the disconnecting (pigeonholing, categorizing, distinguishing, etc.) function of words and names. Then, when all is said and done, Complete sincerity returns.
Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/1Hp1bIriS3Y
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting