Translation
In birth we join death.
Of life, follow three in ten.
Of death, follow three in ten.
Of people, aroused by life, in death trapped, also three in ten.
Why is this so?
Because they favor life.
It’s well known, those good at conserving life,
Traveling on land never meet fierce tigers,
Joining the army never the first to fight.
Of the ferocious, no place to thrust its horns.
Of the tiger, no place to apply its claw.
Of the weapon, no place to allow the knife edge.
Why is this so?
Because he is not in death trapped
1) be born enter (join; conform to; agree with) die (extremely; deadly; fixed; rigid). 出生入死。(chū shēng rù sĭ.)
2) give birth to (grow; existence; life) of on foot (only; follower; believer; person), ten have three. 生之徒，十有三。(shēng zhī tú, shí yŏu sān.)
3) die (extremely; deadly; fixed; rigid) of on foot (only; follower; believer; person), ten have three. 死之徒，十有三。(sĭ zhī tú, shí yŏu sān.)
4) human (man; people) of give birth to (grow; existence; life), move (stir; act; change; arouse) of in (at, to, from, by, than, out of) a fatal position (deathtrap), also (too) ten have three. 人之生，动之于死地，亦十有三。(rén zhī shēng, dòng zhī yú sĭ dì, yì shí yŏu sān.)
5) husband (man) carry (what, how, why, which) happening (reason; cause; on purpose; hence)? 夫何故？(fū hé gù?)
6) use (<v> take <p> according to; because of <adj> so as to <conj> and) his (her, its, their; he, she, it, they; that; such) give birth to (grow; existence; life) give birth to (grow; existence; life) of thick (deep; large; generous; favor; stress). 以其生生之厚。(yĭ qí shēng shēng zhī hòu.)
7) lid (cover; shell <frml> approximately; for; because; in fact) hear (news; famous; smell) good (satisfactory) absorb (conserve one’s health) give birth to (grow; existence; life)(者)， 盖闻善摄生者，(gài wén shàn shè shēng zhĕ,)
8) land (six) go (travel, do, be current) no (not) meet (chance; opportunity) ominous (crop failure; fierce; murder) tiger (brave; vigorous), 陆行不遇凶虎，(liù xíng bù yù xiōng hŭ,)
9) enter (join; be admitted into) army (troops) no (not) by (indicates passive-voice clauses; <literary> to cover; to meet with) the first of the ten Heavenly Stems (first; shell; armor) weapons (private; army). 入军不被甲兵。(rù jūn bù bèi jiă bīng.)
10) ominous (crop failure; fierce; murder) nothing (without; not) place throw (drop; project; cast; go to; join; agree with) his (its, he, it, that; such) horn (bugle; the shape of a horn). 凶无所投其角。(xiōng wú suŏ tóu qí jiăo.)
11) tiger (brave; vigorous) nothing (without; not) place use (apply <frml> hence) his (her, its, their; he, she, it, they; that; such) claw (talon). 虎无所用其爪。(hŭ wú suŏ yòng qí zhuă.)
12) weapons (private; army) nothing (without; not) place hold (contain; tolerate; permit; allow) his (her, its, their; he, she, it, they; that; such) the edge of a knife (sword). 兵无所容其刃。(bīng wú suŏ róng qí rèn.)
13) husband (man) carry (what, how, why, which) happening (reason; cause; on purpose; hence)? 夫何故？(fū hé gù?)
14) use (<v> take <p> according to; because of <adj> so as to <conj> and) his (her, its, their; he, she, it, they; that; such) nothing (without; not) a fatal position (deathtrap). 以其无死地。(yĭ qí wú sĭ dì.)
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month
(pandemic era)
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/58W50zhD0Ns 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
In birth we join death.
Of life, follow three in ten.
Of death, follow three in ten.
Of people, aroused by life, in death trapped, also three in ten.
Why is this so?
Because they favor life.
These three in ten descriptions parallel the Bhagavad Gita. For example,
14:5 ― Sattva, Rajas, Tamas ‑ light, fire, and darkness ‑ are the three constituents of nature. They appear to limit in finite bodies the liberty of their infinite Spirit.
14:9 ― Sattva binds to happiness; Rajas to action; Tamas, over clouding wisdom, binds to lack of vigilance.
14:17 ― From Sattva arises wisdom, from Rajas greed, from Tamas negligence. delusion and ignorance.
Because they favor life brings Buddha’s 2nd Noble Truth immediately to my mind: “The surrounding world affects sensation and begets a craving thirst that clamors for immediate satisfaction. The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things. The desire to live for the enjoyment of self entangles us in the net of sorrows. Pleasures are the bait and the result is pain.”
No wonder Buddhist and Taoist thought easily produced their offspring Zen when they encountered each other in China. While Buddha’s Four Noble Truths are a little more practical, they share the same spiritual bottom line.
Simply put, what ever we value in life produces the source of the pain we will experience in life. I call that natural justice. And frankly, no one escapes this natural law. Need and fear are the instincts driving what we value in life—what we favor or fear. Need and fear (a.k.a., pleasure and pain, attraction and aversion) are the forces that guide living things on their life’s journey. Without those innate dynamic qualities, life would be impossible.
Thus, any idea of not favoring life is an unreachable ideal. The fact that some people favor life much more than others is a characteristic of nature’s bell curve. (See Nature’s Bell Curve near the beginning of https://www.centertao.org/postscript and also, Are you out of touch with nature?) We are each born with a spectrum of innate qualities that remain with us until death—our original self. The only way I’ve found to manage the ‘problem’ of favoring life is by embracing such favoring of life as the price of life itself. After all, this is what every animal on earth feels intuitively (i.e., not consciously or deliberately).
Of course, our problem is a clever mind that imagines ways to change, control, or escape who we are and become otherwise. This battle between our original self and our ideal, imagined, ‘better self’ is the root of our unique form of suffering. The first line of Buddha’s 2nd truth suggest this, “The surrounding world affects sensation and begets a craving thirst that clamors for immediate satisfaction”. For humans, the surrounding world is both the outer world that exists and the inner world we imagine possible to exist.
Chapter 71, offers us the only way I’ve found to mitigate this difficulty, this disease… Realizing I don’t know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. While this may sound simple enough, it’s practice is daunting. Emotion drives much (or all) of our faith in what we believe. As they say, knowledge is power, and the catch here is, who wants to give up their power? Only when emotion is quiescent can I truly “realize I don’t know”. As soon as emotion stirs, its commotion drowns out that realization. It is quite a dilemma really.
However, returning to this realization over time enables it sink into our deeper intuitive sense of life. The simple practice of acknowledging and remembering this disease, and how to mitigate it, can gradually take up more of your consciousness, even in times of stirring emotion. Constant practice—redundancy—is crucial here. This all boils down to Buddha’s first two truths, Right Comprehension and Right Resolution.
I find, the deeper my comprehension, the more unwavering my resolution becomes. Knowing the biological basis for how an animal acquires its sense of life helps the comprehension side of this. Briefly, our sense of life develops deep in the brain in a process called temporal difference learning, which uses the dopamine mediated collection of life data over time to achieve an improving sense of current and future circumstances. (See A final word on free will near the end of https://www.centertao.org/postscript/)
It’s well known, those good at conserving life,
Traveling on land never meet fierce tigers,
Joining the army never the first to fight.
Of the ferocious, no place to thrust its horns.
Of the tiger, no place to apply its claw.
Of the weapon, no place to allow the knife edge.
Why is this so?
Because he is not in death trapped.
At first glance, this may seem to imply that if one is truly good at conserving life, a tiger will actually be physically unable to apply its claw. This reminds me of the Biblical story of Daniel in the lions’ den. The mythical majestic powers of righteousness are very appealing, to be sure.
The last line offers a much more realistic interpretation of this ‘invincibility’. In whatever ways one favors life, one is naturally in death trapped in those ways. Think of death here as also pertaining to loss and failure. The more you need success, favor success, the more the fear of failure will haunt your every moment.
Those good at conserving life, comes down to making the most of one’s moment, regardless of the particulars of that moment. Thus, this applies to both the actual possibility of meeting fierce tigers, and the metaphorical description of a current situation that feels like meeting fierce tigers. Much of the stresses in life come from reacting to relatively mundane circumstances as if one is meeting fierce tigers. In other words, we make metaphoric mountains out of our reality molehills. It is precisely here that realizing you don’t know can help turn those imagined mountains back into reality molehills.
Of course, that “dopamine mediated collection of life data over time” has been telling us that we know what we know. Alas, there is no easy way of getting around the bio-hoodwink (see How the Hoodwink Hooks and Peeking in on Nature’s Hoodwink). Ignorance doesn’t know it is ignorant.
Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/MCqeGoVnq38
Second Pass: Work in Progress
Issues:
I couldn’t find a thing I’d change here… nice!
Commentary:
In birth we join death is a brutally honest heads-up. It is interesting how well our biology conceals that fact from us despite our so-called awareness of the fact. That is just another example of how instinct (here, a need/will to live) determines how seriously we take what we perceive ‘knowledge-wise’.
I’ve find that favoring life really does leave me in death trapped. What I value (favor) is the cause of what I dread loosing; they are simply two sides of the same coin. The bio-hoodwink makes seeing this, let alone feeling its reality, extremely difficult. No animal evolves to perceive reality as it actually is, including us. That would just be inefficient on nature’s part, and nature is nothing if not efficient (1).
Thanks to our technology, we’ve side stepped the bio-hoodwink somewhat by extending our sensory range—microscopes, telescopes, radar, and now computers. Our ability to catalog and remember details, and to imagine (of course) also extends what we are able to pick out from the maze of reality. Yet, in other ways, these ‘strengths’ can also blind us by the glare they produce. Chapter 56 hints at this with a recommendation to “Soften its brightness”. In a way, the more skilled we are at distinguishing differences, the blinder we can become to “profound sameness”…
However, in the end, nature intends its domain to react to circumstances as though they were real and the results permanent. This ‘big picture’ is not an easy one to keep sight of because it results in seeing one’s self as an insignificant spec on the wings of eternity. The only way to hold the image is to feel part of that eternity, and not a separate and eventual casualty of it all. I imagine that beliefs in Heaven, God, and the like, surely help if sincerely felt. Of course, that brings up the other side of the coin again. We only believe in what we do out of the doubt born in our cognition. In other words, animals don’t believe because they don’t need to!
As the ‘illusion of self’ fades with time, there is no ‘self’ for tigers to claw, or weapons to place. The ultimate irony: We can only conserve life by not clinging to it. Although, doesn’t that hold true for everything. Indeed, holding on actually is a symptom of ‘loss’. It is from the sense (fear of) death, that one becomes even more aroused by life. For example…
Just imagine, from a symptom’s point of view, feeling tenuously perched at the edge of an abyss. The natural reaction will be to cling tightly to whatever moderates that insecurity—to hold on for dear life! The only alternative is to Devote effort to emptiness, sincerely watch stillness. Alas, this is much easier said than done… but one must begin somewhere.
(1) Naturally then, I have to wonder if anything I think I see ‘beyond’ the bio-hoodwink is actually ‘beyond’. Isn’t what I see just another facet of the bio-hoodwink as well. I’ve no doubt much of it is. Still, I also recognize a possible detour around nature’s bio-hoodwinking is the fact that we are part-and-parcel of nature; what nature ‘knows’, we also ‘know’ at some deep, murky, shadowy level. The conclusion of chapter 16 speaks to this. Impartial is the key word here. At least when I am close to being 100% impartial, yet completely aware, I know that I’m not projecting my own needs and fears into what I perceive.
How do I know when I’m impartial yet aware? Put simply: When I am not taking sides, yet strongly empathize with both sides of the situation. Any thought that one side or the other has free choice in any matter clearly tips off my own biases.
Suggested Revision:
In birth we join death.
Of life, follow three in ten.
Of death, follow three in ten.
Of people aroused by life, in death trapped, also three in ten.
Why is this so?
Because they favor life.
It’s well known, those good at conserving life,
Traveling on land never meet fierce tigers,
Joining the army never the first to fight.
Of the ferocious, no place to thrust its horns.
Of the tiger, no place to apply its claw.
Of the weapon, no place to allow the knife edge.
Why is this so?
Because he is not in death trapped
First Pass: Chapter of the Week
This breakdown, three in ten will be comrades of life, three in ten will be comrades in death, reminds me of the Bell-Curve. No matter what the issue, there are always the extremes on either end and the rest in the middle. It is empirically obvious that life, whether plant or animal (human type included), conforms to this curve. So? Accepting the nature of Nature is the only way I’ve found to find peace. My mind can conjure up all sorts of ideals that turn a blind eye to the Bell-Curve of reality. Let’s face it, ideals are merely counter-balancing projections stemming from my own needs and fears. And what is need and fear really, but simply emotions originating in deficiency (i.e., …born from Something, and Something from Nothing). In other words, I need whatever I feel I lack, I fear loosing whatever I feel I need.
Truth be told then, I can’t help feel need or fear as long as I’m alive. This makes ideals, desires, and worries inevitable, as long as I can think, anyway. However, expecting reality (how ‘it is’) to conform to my ideals (how ‘it should be’), offers nothing but a life of contention. I may be slow learner, but I get it now! Although, this is like the termites around here. They are always around, I always have to be watchful enough to keep them at bay as much as possible. Sure, the work is never done, but lack of watchfulness ensures utter failure!
Of people, aroused by life, in death trapped, also three in ten. Why is this so? Because they favor life. This is true about anything we cling on to. As soon as I cling to something, I experience a virtual loss of it. The pleasure of gain and the stressful fears of loss off-set each other. Balance is maintained. Another way is to see this is from a symptoms point-of-view: Clinging to something fills the Silent and void, or rather gives us the illusion that it does (the illusion of balance is maintained). This is a key hoodwink in Mother Nature’s toolbox of tricks.
Next, how does being good at conserving life differ from favoring life? For me, being good at conserving life means being as careful at the end as at the beginning of each moment. Being this alive to life is conserving life. On the other hand, favoring the content of the moment attaches me to it, and it to ‘me’ (destroying impartiality in the process). That to which we attach ourselves augments our ‘Self’. As Buddha put it, the illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things. The more this illusion of self holds sway over awareness, the more I create a place to allow the knife edge and am in death trapped . The ironic consequence of favoring life is that this must be off-set by in death trapped (balance must be maintained!)