Know its male, abide by its female, and be a small stream for all under heaven.
Being a small stream for all under heaven, constant virtue will never leave you,
And you will again return to infancy.Know its white, abide by its black, and be a pattern for all under heaven.
Being a pattern for all under heaven, constant virtue will never be in error,
And you will again return to moderation.Know its honor, abide by its disgrace, and be a valley for all under heaven.
Being a valley for all under heaven, constant virtue will be only then sufficient,
And you will again return to simplicity.Simplicity loosens normalcy, and allows a wise person to be a public elder.
This is how even the greatest control never cuts.
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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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-thbHErFA9w 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 attendeesā 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:
Know its male, abide by its female, and be a small stream for all under heaven.
Being a small stream for all under heaven, constant virtue will never leave you,
And you will again return to infancy.
And be a small stream for all under heaven is not what a vigorous young person aspires to. This is the springtime of life when we grow and reach for the heavenly stars. And you will again return to infancy speaks more to the end of life as we grow old and deeply realize we are but a truly small stream under heaven. TheĀ Biblical āTo everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heavenā hits the nail on the head. All this reminds me of chapter 36’s In desiring weakness, one must first strive. Likewise, in desiring to be a small stream, one must first strive to be a large stream.
This means that ‘in desiring to be selfless, one must first be selfish’. In other words, we canāt short circuit nature; there are no detours on the road to growing up. This particular passage also portrays a cycle of life; we begin as weak infants and end up as weak “infants” in old age. Coming to terms with this natural cycle makes the journey into old age much more satisfying.
Know its white, abide by its black, and be a pattern for all under heaven.
Being a pattern for all under heaven, constant virtue will never be in error,
And you will again return to moderation.
Know its white, abide by its black portrays two extremes, white vs. black. Knowing its white, yet abiding by its black allows one to sense the pattern for all under heaven, and not get limited by a myopic alignment with either extreme. This middle path is a return to moderation. It is a return to moderation because the nature of life is such that we are draw towards one extreme or the other, to one extent or another. The extent to which we find ourselves at an extreme must surely depend on the depth of our insecurity; the more insecure, the more we’re driven toward an extreme for balance, or rather perhaps the illusion of balance. One imbalanceāinsecurityāis counterbalanced by another imbalanceāan extreme.
You will again return to moderation is the slow but sure consequence of aging. Of course, the population naturally conforms to the bell curve in this regard, with more folks naturally more moderate than the outliers. Nevertheless, everyone moves toward moderation relative to where they were in youth. See Natureās Bell Curve.
Know its honor, abide by its disgrace, and be a valley for all under heaven.
Being a valley for all under heaven, constant virtue will be only then sufficient,
And you will again return to simplicity.
Know its honor, abide by its disgrace invites me to wonder what exactly is disgrace? Does disgrace exist in nature? I canāt conceive of any aspect of nature as being either good, bad, honorable or disgraceful. While all our moral values are undoubtedly built upon innate social instincts, the cultural complexity of civilization creates arbitrary moral contrivances to manage the hierarchical nature of society. We no longer exist in the socially secure egalitarian simplicity as our hunter-gatherer ancestors did.
The result of this is a sense of social isolation resulting in a self-insecurity that drives us to know honor and fear disgrace at all costs. The pressure we feel to reach for the honorable peaks of lifeāand avoid the valley’sāhas been made significantly more intense since our species entered its post agricultural revolution era of civilization. Again, without the deep social security that came with the egalitarian ways of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, we leave infancy with profound insecurity. This self-insecurity drives us to pursue whatever hierarchical niche promises to fill that void. (See The Tradeoff)
Knowing that this is a completely natural dynamic is not enough to rise above it! While you will again return to simplicity sound straightforward enough in principle, it’s lived authenticity only comes by attending the school of life. Again, back to chapter 36, In desiring to let go, one must first begin. We begin in infancy and grow our way into old age, increasing simplicity and letting go. The irony of this journey is that you must reach old age before you’re able to truly grasp what actually happens. The words themselves never encompass knowing. As chapter 56 suggests, Knowing not speak; speaking not know. Put another way, We only understand what we already know and it takes living life over a lifetime to begin to already know.
Simplicity loosens normalcy, and allows a wise person to be a public elder.
This is how even the greatest control never cuts.
Simplicity loosens normalcy implies these two lie at the opposite ends of the bell curve. But, normalcy is commonly thought of as, well, the stable standards that anchor a society. Certainly, normalcy serves this stabilizing function, but this begs the question, why is it necessary to stabilize society in this way? Moreover, normalcy is rather arbitrary across time and culture. Looking at nature, I can see no such arbitrary normalcy. Indeed, great natural simplicity is the rule. The ability to gracefully move beyond normalcy toward a true natural simplicity only becomes increasingly possible with age.
Simplicity as being how even the greatest control never cuts has a profound parallel in many areas of life: science, construction, exercise, music, and so on. Simplicity of design, of movement, and of theory invariably feels elegant. Designing a novel solution to a new problem usually begins with a more complex solution, and if given enough timeāpatienceāusually ends up at greater Simplicity.
Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/ex429ZWznWE
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting