Here are some great examples of how it doesn't all go smoothly, how some lessons are hard to even begin to learn, to incorporate. I remember just feeling so resistant to the message in these parts of the Tao te Ching, not wanting to take them in. And now, after a year of working on similar things, I still have resistance to some of them.
February 11, 2007
20
Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value?
Avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!
My first response – easy for you to say! What responsibilities did you have? Had you worked half your life to get to a position where you could train young people? I realize these are in some ways excuses. And maybe he meant only do this to a point, or in certain domains. I mean, I really doubt he counseled people, say fathers of hungry children, not to worry about whether they went to work or not.
So . . . where and when and how should this be applied? Obvious arenas would be fashion and worries about one’s appearance. I think it has to be more than that. About whether one gets promoted, or wins an election, stuff like that. Beyond that is, doing one’s work. We must do our work, but don’t think or worry about what that work will bring us. That seems right. So, teach, and teach well, but don’t use techniques just because they are popular, for example. Don’t worry too much about whether students will like you, or like the technique. Is that what he means?
Other people are excited,
As though they were at a parade.
I alone don’t care.
I alone am expressionless,
Like an infant before it can smile.
I love the last phrase. Its before one has learned what one’s parents think; before one knows what one’s culture labels good or bad. It isn’t that the infant is unhappy with things, or that they actively “don’t care.” Its that they are just taking it all in – smiling faces, mashed peas, smell of rotten eggs – its all just information, flat, equal. This is something I can "grok," that this would be a good state to be in. There is no conflict here with working for me. One works, but doesn’t label praise or people ignoring you as good or bad.
Other people have what they need;
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about
Like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.
Again, I feel like saying, “good for you!” I mean, I am nowhere near even wanting to be this above good and bad; I want a home, I label that good. I can see that this might be the ultimate goal, this is how one would be if one truly got it. But right now I don’t even want to be that wise. I guess I can accept it as signpost. This is the direction in which to move.
Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have a purpose;
I alone don’t know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.
I am different from other people.
I drink from the Great Mother’s breasts.
This one, for me, is a good preview of what I ultimately am aiming for. A description of who I might be at the end of the journey. I’m certainly not even close to truly wanting to be there yet. I still desire to be bright and sharp. This is a message from a great-great-great-great-grandmother to a child. Or a teen. Ok, maybe a young adult, busy in the middle of life. There might be spiritual geniuses who are this way at my age or earlier, but I am not one of them.
Still, what I can take from this is that it is serious, this not-labeling, this moving beyond duality. It can be done, more deeply than I can conceive of right now. So I just need to keep practicing.
February 12
21
The Master keeps her mind
Always at one with the Tao;
That is what gives her radiance.
The Tao is ungraspable.
How can her mind be at one with it?
Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.
So maybe part of my problem, for instance, with both working toward good and accepting things as they are, is that I’m clinging to ideas. Maybe what would be better is to believe in working toward good when that is appropriate, and accept things when that is. Like the serenity prayer, but it might be the same thing I need to feel two different ways about at the same time. It is the idea of linearity I am clinging to. The idea that only one time happens at once. And that time passes in an order.
Also the idea of rationality, and, I guess, a kind of consistency. Instead I should remember it is all dialogic, dialectical. It is possible for humans to believe 2 contradictory, mutually exclusive things at the same time. It is that faculty I should cultivate. Stop clinging to ideas. Ideas of God, humanity, good, evaluations, etc.
The Tao is dark and unfathomable.
How can it make her radiant?
Because she lets it.
Oh! Couldn’t it be saying that because she doesn’t cling to an idea of the Tao being dark, it can be radiant? Just because once it was useful to think of the Tao as a river doesn’t mean it is a river. I think I get it. But its much bigger, isn’t it? We create reality by naming it, believing it. Like, gravity might only work because we believe it to. We “cling” to the idea of our universe working a certain way. But what happens if it doesn’t? I mean, what happens if one stops clinging to that idea? Could one fly? Levitate?
I think this is the answer. Part of it. It is why people in Chinese movies can fly, or float during battles, because they’ve learned not to cling to one version of reality. Does this mean I might somehow learn to not cling to the idea of my body with damaged nerves? Could I “let” a different, undamaged reality emerge? Maybe. But that seems pretty advanced. Perhaps I should begin with ideas that aren’t so insistent. But surely I could/can practice not believing in my screaming side. What could it hurt? Last stanza:
Since before time and space were,
The Tao is.
It is beyond is and is not.
How do I know this is true.
I look inside myself and see.
Yeah! So that is what it was saying; The Tao is not bound by our current conceptions of time and space. Why should it be? So, if one can learn to reside in the Tao, one would not be bound by those things, either. Thus the tradition in Chinese story-telling where Master’s move faster than the eye can follow, be both ahead of and behind their enemies, perform impossible physical feats. Why not also travel around in time? Bring people back from the dead? Any miracle you can think of.
Great. I get it. How can I apply it to me? I need to begin by noticing what ideas I’m clinging to. I mean, what ideas are holding me back, interfering with my ability to be in the Tao? To be loving and patient and all the other things I’d like to be?
I’ll work on noticing those and maybe I can present myself with alternative ideas, just like in the behavioral/cognitive therapy I did. Try believing the new ideas, and hold in my mind the reality that I can choose which idea to believe in. Start with these – pain and being a bad teacher. Going to try to flood myself with alternate realities/ideas on these two subjects today.
February 13
22
If you want to become whole,
Let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight,
Let yourself be crooked.
Is this about accepting yourself as you are? The way to wholeness and health is to let things be as they are; the act of acceptance itself straightens you out?
If you want to be full,
Let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn,
Let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything,
Give everything up.
Acceptance of where and who one is allows one to begin to change. Or it changes one’s perceptions, or both. One must embrace death (so even one’s own terrible situation) before one can be reborn. Applied to teaching, or being a teacher – I don’t think this means “live out the semester in misery so you can have it (semester) die and be reborn next fall. No, I think I have to accept, like this morning, that class was deathly dull, and that I had a hand in making it that way. Let the teacher I was yesterday die, so I can be reborn today.
The Master, by residing in the Tao,
Sets an example for all beings.
Because she doesn’t display herself,
People can see her light.
Because she has nothing to prove,
People can trust her words.
Because she doesn’t know who she is,
People recognize themselves in her.
Because she has no goal in mind,
Everything she does succeeds.
All seems understandable until you hit “doesn’t know who she is.” But that means doesn’t recognize oneself as a being apart. I think. Was this what Jesus was saying? And then there’s that goal thing. How do I have no goals? I can’t swing that yet. In terms of “goals for how others should respond to or treat me,” yes. But not life goals.
When the ancient Masters said,
“if you want to be given everything, give everything up.”
They weren’t using empty phrases.
Only in being lived by the Tao
Can you be truly yourself.
Oh! There’s Jesus again! And I love those last lines. But I have to run.
February 14
[long discussion of all that has to be done] okay, what would my spiritual masters say? Do what can be done. Do each task as thoughtfully as possible. Do the work, and don’t worry about the rest. Try to move into the still center. Let the Tao, or the River of life, run through me, blessing all I do. Let the Tao live me. Okay. What is today’s particular message?
23
Express yourself completely,
Then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature;
When it blows, there is only wind;
When it rains, there is only rain;
When the clouds pass, the sun shines through.
Umm – that doesn’t seem true; it often rains and blows together. But maybe he’s saying don’t water-down your feelings, but feel them purely. But also don’t go on and on about them. Feel it, express it fully, and then be done with it. Like the rain when it suddenly stops and the sun comes out.
If you open yourself to the Tao
You are at one with the Tao
And you can embody it completely.
If you open yourself to insight,
You are at one with insight
And you can use it completely.
If you open yourself to loss,
You are at one with loss
And you can accept it completely.
Open yourself to the Tao,
Then trust your natural responses;
And everything will fall into place.
This seems like advice specifically given to someone in mourning. And, obviously from my initial response, I’m feeling resistant. I’m not opening myself fully. I may not be in mourning for a person, but our lives are full of loss. And it appears that all the world’s spiritual leaders want us to give everything away, so that will occasion more loss. Here is permission to experience grief completely, to embody it like a thunderstorm, and then be quiet. I’m sure I could work harder to apply this to me, but I need to get going. I’m too full of anxiety about work. Need to try to let it go.
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