Translation
The way flushes and employs the virtue of ‘less’.
Deep like the ancestor of every-thing.
Subdue its sharpness, separate its confusion,
Soften its brightness, be the same as its dust.
Deep and clear, it appears to exist.
I don’t know of whose child it is,
It resembles the ancestor of the Supreme Being.
1) road (way, doctrine; speak) rinse (flush) <conj.> and (yet, but) use (employ; hence) of perhaps (probably; or) no (not) be full (have a surplus). 道冲而用之或不盈。(dào chōng ér yòng zhī huò bù yíng)
2) deep (deep pool) ! similar (like) ten thousand thing (matter) of ancestor (clan; purpose). 渊兮似万物之宗。(yuān xī sì wàn wù zhī zōng)
3) defeat (subdue; lower) his (her; its; their; that; such) sharp (keen; acute; vigor) separate (divide; untie) his (her; its; their) confused (tangled; disorderly), 挫其锐解其纷，(cuò qí ruì jiĕ qí fēn)
4) gentle (peace, and, blend, mix) his (her; its; their; that; such) light (ray; brightness… naked; alone), same (alike; similar; be the same as; together; in common) his (her; its; their; that; such) dust (dirt; this world), 和其光，同其尘，(hé qí guāng, tóng qí chén)
5) profound (deep; crystal clear) ! similar (like; seem; appear) perhaps (probably; or) exist (live; store; keep). 湛兮似或存。(zhàn xī sì huò cún)
6) I (we) no (not) know (realize; be aware of; tell) who (someone; anyone) of son (child; person; seed), 吾不知谁之子，(wú bù zhī shéi zhī zĭ)
7) appearance (shape; image; resemble) the Supreme Being (emperor) of earlier (before; first; ancestor). 象帝之先。(xiàng dì zhī xiān)
Fourth Pass: Chapter of the Month
(pandemic era)
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/GUzDGcUSMjc is a link to unedited 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 way flushes and employs the virtue of ‘less’.
This answers a question I pondered yesterday. I wondered how Jesus or Buddha would feel about the notion that “the end justifies the means”. I can easily recall numerous debacles throughout history where people used this to justify their actions. Conversely, I have trouble recalling few if any positive outcomes.
If I assume Jesus would reply, “It depends”. This begs for the follow up question, “On what?” With that qualification, “The end justifies the means” sure feels like the gateway to hypocrisy. Thus, I imagine neither Jesus nor Buddha would approve of this notion. Their message aims at the integrity of the moment, not some distant “end” result. Virtue exists in the present, not the future. If we favor the future at the expense of the moment, what good is the future? After all, the current moment is merely the future of past moments. The integrity of the future rests upon the quality of the current moment.
Nature is a totally present process, without concern for any future. Speaking of a future ‘end’, chapter 38 says, Foreknowledge of the way, magnificent yet a beginning of folly. Unlike humans, nature has no agenda. Thus, the way flushes each moment as it feeds into an unknown future. Unlike humans, nature neither seeks more nor accumulates. Efficiency is an obvious hallmark of nature’s way, which means nature employs the virtue of ‘less’. In other words, it gets the most bang for its buck. Chapter 67 hints at nature’s efficiency. Take lines 9 and 10 for example,
Deep like the ancestor of every-thing.
A sense of this ancestor is one result of seeing life through what I call A Symptoms Point of View. Briefly, this amounts to resisting the natural instinctive urge to “judge the book by its cover”, and instead, consider what circumstances led up to the matters that concern you. This becomes a somewhat intuitive journey into an ever-expanding, ever-deepening web of circumstances that created the matter of concern in the first place. This can eventually leave the mind nearly empty… deep like the ancestor of every-thing.
Subdue its sharpness, separate its confusion,
Soften its brightness, be the same as its dust.
We are all made of stardust. When I first truly viscerally realized that, it blew my mind. It felt like I’d discovered some wonderful secret. That is what any moment of true realization feels like, I find. Then, as the realization settles down in my awareness, the awesomeness wanes… unless I keep it alive by returning to it. That’s easier said than done, of course. Our ancestral hunter-gatherer instinct is always on the lookout for more… the next new thing. This is what makes the virtue of ‘less’ a genuine virtue.
The way flushes and employs the virture of ‘less’ speaks to the importance of consolidation. As the saying goes, “Less is more”. The instinct to seek more would never be a problem for hunter-gatherers in the wild. There was no way to store more, to accumulate… no continuous supply of more… more of anything only lasts a short time. It’s seasonal. The only way to live a grounded, sane and stable life in a civilized setting is by deeply appreciating the virtue of ‘less’. The idea that the way flushes hints at how to approach our ability to store great amounts of mental baggage. I suppose that is one temporary effect of drugs and alcohol. These flush away awareness, briefly producing a simulated version of subdue its sharpness, separate its confusion, Soften its brightness, be the same as its dust.
The more efficient way, of course, is to manage life before it gets out of hand. Chapter 64 hints, Its peace easily manages, Its presence easily plans, Its fragility easily melts, Its timeliness easily scatters. Slowing down to be present with myself parallels the axiom “A stitch in time saves nine”. Of course, life is about action, but the mind and emotions push relentlessly for more and more. Continuous flushing is essential to remain deep and clear.
Deep and clear, it appears to exist.
I don’t know of whose child it is,
It resembles the ancestor of the Supreme Being.
First, let’s remove the caps from the supreme being. Caps easily skews meaning toward the direction of God. Now, when I think of “supreme being” in the context of “be the same as its dust”, “be” stands out. If nature is nothing else, it is “being”. It “is”. Thus, contemplating the ancestor or precursor of nature, of “being”, pulls my mind deeper. Only then can I touch base with the ancestor of the supreme being. On the other hand, the less I’m able to feel that, the more I find myself gathering instead of flushing, pursuing more rather than conforming to the virtue of ‘less’. Such are the symptoms of being a sharp, confused, and bright somebody rather than the stardust that I in fact am.
Surely, those for whom this chapter resonates must deeply wish to feel it throughout their day. Alas, daily circumstances drag awareness into petty transient matters that overshadow this faint view. I’ve found that chapter 56 hints at perhaps the only, albeit, partial way out of this predicament. Our only barrier to embracing chapter 56 fully is our deep fear of the unknown. Thinking and its counterparts speaking and believing is the fortress we live behind — a fortress that serves as the barrier to sensing the stardust dust more deeply.
Video Archive https://youtu.be/GUzDGcUSMjc
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month
Corrections?
None this time (:-)
Reflections:
‘The way flushes’ portrays such a natural picture in my mind. I think of the winter rains scouring and flushing our local river clean after the dry summer’s accumulation of litter. Frankly and more bluntly, I also think of a toilet flushing! This sentiment of the way flushes and employs the virtue of less also reminds me of chapter 40…
Let’s mull over the references to ‘it’ and ‘its’ for a moment. Overall, I’d say ‘it’ refers to line 2’s the ancestor of every-thing — the way. Yet, it can also refer to every-thing. This reminds me a little of the profound sameness hinted at in the Christian trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. It is our biology, the bio-hoodwink, that makes distinctions between cause and effect, that and me, life and death.
The point raised in this chapter is to look beyond instinctive sharp distinctions, if you wish to glimpse reality. Allow ‘it’ to be both sides of the coin. This Vedantic principle says it all: Tat Tvam Asi , a Sanskrit sentence, translated variously as “That art thou,” “That thou art,” “Thou art that,” “You are that,” or “That you are,”
Subdue its sharpness, separate its confusion,
Soften its brightness, be the same as its dust.
Soften its brightness means soften the bright and glaring distinctions that mind and emotions make between every-thing. When emotions relax, the confusion can separate, the sharpness can subside, the brightness can dim, and the dust can settle. Now, how does one do that? Simply… Doing without doing, following without exception rules. Of course, that is not what the mind and emotions wish to hear. They crave real actions and sound solutions. Thus, we go round and round chasing our tails until exhausted; only then does Devote effort to emptiness, sincerely watch stillness begin to truly appeal.
Then line 5 says that, ‘it’ appears to exist. However, we don’t know of whose child ‘it’ is. Meaning, we don’t know what gave birth to this ‘it’… the way… every-thing. Whatever the origin was, ‘it’ resembles the ancestor of the supreme being. Notice how this keeps the mystery intact!
Note, I didn’t capitalize supreme being here. Today, as I was reading this chapter, I focused exclusively on the word being: ‘the state or quality of having existence’. Next, I considered the qualifier, supreme, but dropped the capitalization top avoid ‘making moles into mountains’. Sure, it’s just a token gesture, but remember, the devil lies in the details! Simply putting the word in Caps will tend to bias understanding by unleashing its sharpness, so to speak.
Be the same as its dust points to impartiality, the ‘Holy Grail’ of Taoist thought…
Comparisons
I must say, I prefer the more literal, The way flushes and employs the virtue of ‘less’ than D.C. Lau’s rendering of this line, The way is empty, yet use will not drain it. Perhaps his more roundabout version is more comfortable and readable. Still, the ‘more comfortable and readable’ can easily mislead, i.e., True speech isn’t beautiful, Beautiful speech isn’t true. Yet, all speech is problematic in the end…
- More speech counts as exceptionally limited; not in accord with keeping to the middle.
- In speech, satisfactory is truth.
- Infrequent speech is natural.
I also prefer the more literal, Be the same as its dust, than D.C. Lau’s more roundabout, Let your wheels move only along old ruts. I always liked his version as it portrays a picture of continuity of purpose, of life. However, that doesn’t correspond to what the Chinese characters actually say or portray:
gentle (peace, and, blend, mix) his (her; its; their; that; such) light (ray; brightness… naked; alone), same (alike; similar; be the same as; together; in common) his (her; its; their; that; such) dust (dirt; this world), 和其光，同其尘，(hé qí guāng, tóng qí chén)
Be the same as its dust is much more powerful in a Taoist, Weakness is superior to strength, way. In addition, Be the same as its dust is more closely related to the humility we see portrayed elsewhere in the Tao Te Ching. Some examples:
- The wise person places his life last yet life comes first, Is outside his life, yet lives life.
- Hence, of having what is thought favorable, of the nothing think as the useful.
- Using stillness she supports the lower position.
Second Pass: Work in Progress
Issues:
Just a wee few changes to make today. Actually, just one word that appears four times. The word, qí (其) means his (her; its; their); he (she, it, they); that; such. It is a generic pronoun that refers to something preceding it, but obviously more round about than English pronouns. (I met scores of East Asians who, when new to learning English, always got ‘him’ , ‘her’, and ‘it’ mixed up.)
In this case, what is qí (其) referring to? I often see it referring to the way, in a round about way. Here, I see it referring to the contents of the way (if that makes any sense). Another way to see this is that ‘it’ is all One, and yet ‘it’ is all the separate details ‘the 10,000 things’ we notice, respond to, and interact with. So, I just decided to settle for its, and let intuition take care of the rest.
Commentary:
Taoism is a very contrarian view of reality. While we naturally focus on the ‘somethings’ of this world, it points out the ‘nothing’ from which the somethings arise. Naturally, this defies common sense. We are not biologically set up to observe such secrets. It fascinates me that we can even catch a glimpse of this mysterious side of nature. Indeed, ‘Deep like the ancestor of everything’. I can only guess that we can sense this because consciousness is the ‘secret’, or should I say, consciousness and the ‘secret’ are One. Nature’s hoodwink only has to be complete enough to fool most animals (including us) most of the time; not all animals, all of the time. (See also, How the Hoodwink Hooks)
I once believed in God. I think I was around 10 years old or so. I recall walking my dog one day and looking up to speak to ‘Him’, there in the bright blue Arizona sky. I don’t recall any particular reason for my ‘conversation’. Just a chat, I think it was. The next God related incident occurred some years later when I was invited to attend a friend’s church; he said there were lots of girls there. By then I’d dropped my ‘personal’ relationship with God, which made the fundamentalist church an odd experience—still, that’s where the girls were.
This chapter addresses a long standing question I had as a youth, “Where does God come from?”. Over the ensuing decades, my sense of ‘God’, and the question it raised, grew broader and less definable. Now, the whole issue feels simply symptomatic of human need. It is not about what is ‘out there’; it is about what we need to be ‘out there’ (with fear being the origin of need). Being social primates, it is natural that we would imagine a ‘creator’ who serves the instinctive need for ‘alpha male’ (or female) leadership. Additionally, a culture’s ultimate religious ideal helps its members touch common tribal ground, i.e., “We feel we’re of the same family because we believe the same thing”. See how nicely both fortify our sense of security? From a symptoms point of view, that is their reason for being. (The raison d’état perhaps?)
This need, for both ‘alpha male’ leadership and tribal common ground, became chronic when we began to think (symbolic thought inserts a degree of separation from ‘animal’ spontaneity). Over millennia this grows increasingly acute as our thinking brain allows us to increasingly ‘conquer nature’ (i.e., technology from the stone axe up through genetic engineering). We’ve managed to work our way free of the ‘system’ (nature) of which we are an integral part (i.e., so not actually ‘free’). No wonder we find life challenging.
😉
Suggested Revision:
The way flushes and employs the virtue of ‘less’.
Deep like the ancestor of everything.
Subdue its sharpness, separate its confusion,
Soften its brightness, be the same as its dust.
Deep and clear, it appears to exist.
I don’t know of whose child it is,
It resembles the ancestor of the Supreme Being.
First Pass: Chapter of the Week
I suppose the phrase The way flushes is another way to express the idea of ‘letting go’. It is good to have another way to say that. ‘Let go’ has become a little worn out – in my mind anyway. Besides that, what a beautiful way to put it! Flush it! 🙂
When did the idea of ‘less is more’ come into popular usage? Probably as our culture became cluttered and full to the brim by with material (i.e., things as well as knowledges).
Subdue that sharpness,… etc., speaks to me about dealing with the ‘death hold’ life places on consciousness. Biology needs us to be sharp enough to differential this dust from that dust. The downside of that is becoming trapped in the differences – this is good dust, that is bad dust. Yet, to paraphrase Shakespeare, dust by any other name is still dust (although, I doubt that is what he was driving at). Note: The same as that dust here is also known as mysterious sameness.
Finally, there is a hint here about something I’ve come to take very seriously. Namely, not to trust anything I think that I know. In tracing back the cause and effect of anything of which I’m aware, I ultimately end in an image that is without substance. I cherish the freedom of not knowing anything. Although, I admit it feels a little weird. I suspect my biology want it otherwise. Well, it has had decades to have its way, now it is ‘my’ turn. Whose turn?