Translation
The most flexible of all things under heaven surpasses the most resolute.
Without existence entering that without space between, I know non action has the advantage.
Not of words teaching, without action advantage.
All under heaven rarely reach this.
1) land under heaven of to (until > extremely; most) soft (supple; flexible; soften; gentle; yielding; mild), speed (gallop; spread > turn eagerly towards) gallop (give free rein to) land under heaven of to (until > extremely; most) hard (firm; strong; firmly; resolutely). 天下之至柔，驰骋天下之至坚。(tiān xià zhī zhì róu, chí chĕng tiān xià zhī zhì jiān.)
2) nothing (without; not) have (exist) enter (join; be admitted into) nothing (without; not) space in between (opening; among; within a definite time or space), I (we) <grm> is (yes <frml> this; that) take… as (regard… as) know (realize; tell) nothing (without; regardless) do (act as; be, mean; support) of have (exist) benefit (profit; beneficial; increase). 无有入无间，吾是以知无为之有益。(wú yŏu rù wú jiàn, wú shì yĭ zhī wú wéi zhī yŏu yì.)
3) no (not) speech (word; say; talk) of teach (instruct.), nothing (without; not) do (act as; be, mean; support) of benefit (profit; advantage; beneficial; increase). 不言之教，无为之益 (bù yán zhī jiāo, wú wéi zhī yì)
4) land under heaven hope (rare; scarce; uncommon) reach (come up to; in time for; and) of. 天下希及之。(tiān xià xī jí zhī.)
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month
YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/GTBmJEauRcQ is the link to the complete video recording of our monthly Sunday meeting. For the nicely edited version, go to Kirk Garber’s YouTube channel. The edited version comes in two parts: The first and shorter Commentary part begins with a chapter reading followed by attendees’ commentary, if any. The second and longer Open Discussion part offers attendees’ observations on how the chapter relates to their personal experience.
Corrections?
None this time
Reflections
The most flexible of all things under heaven surpasses the most resolute.
Emotion energy that underpins any expectation feels resolute. Simply put, the desire underpinning expectations pushes us resolutely. Living life more moment by moment nips most resolute expectations in the bud. Chapter 64’s A thousand mile journey begins below the feet speaks to this flexibility in living more moment to moment… step by step below the feet of one’s circumstance and genetic reality.
It can help to consider the root meanings of the two contrasting poles here: 柔 (róu = soft; supple; flexible; gentle; yielding) and 坚 (jiān = hard; solid; firm; strong; stronghold; firmly; resolute). This parallels lines 5 and 6 of the last chapter 42; All things suffer the negative and embrace the positive. Clashing spirits considered harmonious.
The actual characters for negative and positive are, 阴 and 阳. Briefly:
阳 = yang = the sun; south of a hill or north of a river; in relief; open; overt; belonging to this world; concerned with living beings; positive; (in Chinese philosophy, medicine, etc.) yang, the masculine or positive principle in nature.
阴 = yīn = the moon; overcast; shade; north of a hill or south of a river; back; in intaglio; hidden; secret; sinister; of the nether world; negative; (in Chinese philosophy, medicine, etc.) the feminine or negative principle in nature.
To see how the concept of yang and yin can assist Taoist thought, see Correlations: Using Yin and Yang to Pop Preconceptions.
This first line, The most flexible of all things under heaven surpasses the most resolute, also reminds me of the expression “The bigger they are the harder they fall”. One of the first recorded incidences of this idea comes from the Latin poet (c. 300AD) Claudian’s Rufian, essentially translating to “Men are raised on high in order that they may fall more heavily.”
I think of achieving any pinnacle, whether of strength, intellect, wealth, longevity — or you name it — as the limit. This limit, no matter how “raised on high”, ends at some point and reversal always follows, just as death always follows life itself.
Then, I ponder the nature of nothingness. Nothingness has no limit for it is immeasurable. And, what is more flexible than nothingness. The flexibility of nothingness images eternity. Chapter 4 touches on this…
My lifelong experience with yoga may illustrate this process of advancement and reversal. For decades yoga was an expectation to realize, a resolute path of personal power — yang. Yoga propped up my illusion of self. Life in my youth felt essentially limitless. Sure, I ‘knew’ death comes to everyone, but I that knowledge wasn’t truly visceral… despite the deaths of both my brother and father.
Somewhere after age 60, death began to feel tangible. I viscerally knew the end of my life was real. I could actually see deaths darkness at the end of life’s bright tunnel, as it were. That’s when yoga reversed and became more a daily journey into weakness, to yin. In short, resolute yang always ends in flexible yin… life ends in death, at least as experienced on reality’s surface, i.e., life and death share profound sameness. Ah yes, no answer is ever the final answer 🙂
Without existence entering without space between,
I know non-action has the advantage.
The idea of non-action, wú wéi, can be easily misunderstood as being too passive to be practical. The last line of chapter 3 can help correct this. Doing without doing, following without exception rules. Looking more closely at the character meaning helps also. 为无为 wéi wú wéi, do (act; act as; serve as) nil (without) do (act; act as; serve as). I regard the more well-known wú wéi, as being just short hand for the complete wéi wú wéi. Simply put, if you are alive and breathing, you are doing!
Another word for non-action, or more precisely, doing without doing, is patience. And, we certainly know that patience is anything but passive. Therefore, to paraphrase this sentiment, I know patience has the advantage. Experience also shows me that patience is without existence for the reason that true patience has no agenda. Here also, patience is flexible… or perhaps I should say patience is resolutely flexible.
Naturally, life’s primal agenda is to survive so it’s easy to see why patience doesn’t come readily. Indeed, when emotions wax, patience wanes, and fight or flight urges rule the moment. The only break on this I find is a contemporaneous awareness of this process when it occurs. Presence of mind can notice, and that alone helps act as a pressure release valve on emotion to some extent.
Certainly, as biological creatures, we instinctively feel the survival advantage of resolute action. Naturally, this was unquestionably true in the simpler times of our ancestors, and still holds true for all other creatures on the Earth. However, the natural balance between action and without action became skewed towards action with the advent of civilization and its need to organize the activity of large numbers of people. The ensuing urges for progress easily drowned out any sense that non-action has the advantage. (See The Tradeoff )
Nature is truly not of action or without action. The view, I know non-action has the advantage is in fact meant to push back on our over-allegiance to action. The duality we perceive is an artifact of how the brain functions. Nature is not in its ‘self so’ reality dualistic. Now, this perceptual artifact would not be such a problem for us were it not for the disconnecting hierarchical forces inherent to civilization.
The hierarchical nature of civilization itself can’t help but put a premium on action. Thus, we are reared from infancy to over-value action and the resolute. All this goes to bolster the illusion of self, of free choice and our ability to control our destiny. We all fall under the umbrella of, “Men are raised on high in order that they may fall more heavily.” Our species is venturing bit by bit out on a limb of reality and can’t help sense the impending and inevitable fall. The Tao Te Ching simply attempts to nudge perception back from the edge and towards the roots of reality.
Not of words teaching, without action advantage;
All under heaven rarely reach this.
Humanity has bitten down on action’s advantage, hook, line, and sinker. We place total trust in what we think and believe, and that locks the mind into the dialectic nature of names and words. Again, as chapter 71 cautions, Realizing I don’t’ know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. No matter how we try to retell the story, we’re still stuck in the duality, in the disease. The only teaching that counts is what our experience, the journey below our feet, intuitively teaches us over our lifetime; all else is simply a retelling of the illusion of progress in one form or another.
Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/i4uce4Ft_lQ
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting
Second Pass: Work in Progress
Issues:
The only issue this week was a missing period. The short chapters are delightful, chock full of benefit. I sometimes wonder if that is by coincidence or of necessity. I’ll never figure it out because even the longer chapters of typically chock full of beneficial viewpoints also.
Commentary:
Viewed another way ”I know non-action has the advantage’ is like saying that taking action has no long-term benefit. Any path one chooses will bring both benefit and cost along the way. The teachable moments lie in whichever path you take, thus there is no inherent advantage to action. The only possible virtue lies in the careful quality of our moment-to-moment. As chapter 64 puts it,
The advantage of non-action rests in how that approach helps delay action. Our problem is always this: Not knowing the constant, rash actions lead to ominous results. Any delay gives us time to see a more balance way to act. Seeing no clear long-term benefit in any particular action makes life a level playing field, more honest and hypocrisy free. Here, the moment is all that matters.
Certainly, our ideals of equality and justice-for-all feel good. Yet, when the rubber hits the road for us personally, we react instinctively and usually want an edge, some advantage. We like the ideal of equality as long as that doesn’t mean we must give up too much of our own ‘stuff’ (material or ideological stuff).
Conversely, civilized ideals-of-virtue were less necessary in ancestral hunter-gather groups; everyone by dint of circumstance could feel sufficiently connected to behave virtuously enough without many taboos and moralities to harness their ‘animal’ impulses. Certainly, their ‘barbaric’ behaviors would fall short of our comfortable egalitarian social ideals. However, their actual actions would be more virtuous in point of fact. Simply put, there would be much less hypocrisy. As chapter 38 puts it, Superior virtue is not virtuous, and so has virtue. Inferior virtue never deviates from virtue, and so is without virtue.
Even so, I find it remarkable that we do as well as we do considering the size and impersonal nature of human culture, post-agricultural revolution.
Parallels
The idea of “I know non-action has the advantage” also parallels chapter 48:
(Note: This is my latest wording of 48.)
The idea that one need not act at all in life, and somehow nothing is left undone can be a bit hard to understand, especially when taken too literally or linearly. Like the virtue of emptiness of Buddhism (and Taoism of course), non-action in the completely literal sense is impossible. Living is action, from the cellular level on up. There in lies the value of these opposites: non-action and emptiness. These precepts counterbalance the life forces—instincts—that compel us to ‘do and fill’. By learning to dominate nature, we have domesticated ourselves within a cocoon of increasing safety and comfort. Bypassing many natural limits the wild imposes has allows us to ‘over-do and over-fill’ life all too easily. There is more to life than ‘doing and filling’, and so we need all the help we can get to avoid overdoing life—probably thanks in part to our thinking disease ;-).
Knowing non-action has the advantage helps me consider other ways of ‘skinning the cat’. For as chapter 64 says, Its peace easily manages, Its presence easily plans, Its fragility easily melts, Its timeliness easily scatters. Put simply, I have to stop and be still for a while to allow peace to manage and time to scatter.
Suggested Revision:
The most flexible of all things under heaven surpasses the most resolute.
Without existence entering without space between, I know non-action has the advantage.
Not of words teaching, without action advantage.
All under heaven rarely reach this.
First Pass: Chapter of the Week
The most flexible of all things under heaven surpasses the most resolute is easier to appreciate when considered from a quantum non-locality view. Although, this fits a more down to earth point of view as well. Young men, or young mountains, are resolute initially, but bend over in time. Time? Sure, what is more ‘flexible (soft; supple; gentle; yielding; mild)‘ than time? Virtually nothing… although, time(1) and the virtue of Nothing are perhaps essentially the same ‘thing’ anyway.
The later part of this chapter, Not of words teaching, Without action advantage, voice an odd thing about teaching I began to notice as I home schooled my kids. Teaching wasn’t as straightforward a process as I expected. Learning requires understanding, which I realized requires a deeper sense of knowing. Rather that ‘top down’, I found teaching and learning to be more of a ‘bottom up’ experience.
Essentially, knowing is the basis of understanding. The knowing must be ‘there’ before understanding truly occurs. Now, are you thinking to yourself, “Aren’t knowing and understanding essentially the same?” I guess they are, at least in the common meaning of these words(2).
I now consider knowing to be a deep intuitive sense experienced by all living things (pretty much, although I’m not sure how that works out in nervous-system-less creatures like virus). Understanding, on the other hand, is a cognitive language based sense experienced only by humans, as far as I know. My ducks do know they like snails… they don’t understand that they do (or the why, how, when, where of it all). In an ironic way, attempting to teach with words is putting the cart somewhat before the horse.
Let’s take a closer look…
Knowing is accumulative, built upon previous knowing/s. One must know sitting to craws, crawling to walk, walking to run. One must know ‘2’ before knowing ‘2+2’. Knowing also hinges on interpretation of one’s experience. A fly has a compound eye which makes the world appear a certain way. What a fly knows of the world is determined in part by its multi-lens interpretation. The world it knows appears different than the world known by the snail, dog, duck, or spider.
For humans, knowing also hinges on cultural paradigms that filter basic (biologically based) sensory input. This is a major determinant of judgment, part of the ‘where one is coming from’ side of things. All these factors combine to make any idea of teaching via words unlikely to measure up to our ideals and expectations. Nevertheless, we hold to the illusion that words can convey understanding and knowing. And so, it is little wonder that the teaching that uses no words, the benefit of resorting to no action, these are beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world. Once I began experiencing this sobering point of view, much of the seemingly contradictory, perplexing and paradoxical aspects of human activity become more straightforward and natural.
(1) I am not referring to ‘clock time’, which is more a measure of energy’s role in time. Time itself is much more mysterious, like consciousness itself. And by consciousness, I don’t mean the contents (worldly clutter) of consciousness. The contents of consciousness are energy’s actors, consciousness is time’s stage. Or to put this another way: When your discernment penetrates the four quarters, Are you capable of not knowing anything?
(2) We feel these words, know and understand, are synonymous because we associate language and thinking with both words. Indeed, people have often seen thinking as a prerequisite for consciousness itself. Alas, such species-centric views are very misleading, and account, in part, for why we people are ignorant. Word meaning and language reflect our understanding, and ultimately our knowing… not the other way around (whatever that means 😉 ).