Twenty-Five - Being Great, It Flows
Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Twenty-five is one of the most overtly poetic chapters of the Tao Te Ching. Even in translation the text flows like the Tao that Lao Tsu is describing. There is a rhythm, an ebb and flow; as Lao Tsu says, it goes far and then comes back again. It stands still unchanging yet it is in constant motion.
In Western psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes the mental and physical phenomenon that he calls Flow. It is a state of consciousness that I think we are all familiar with, when we become so immersed in an activity that the whole consciousness of ourselves as somehow separate from what we are doing falls away. We literally become what we are doing and nothing more. In sports, athletes refer to this as being in the zone.
Being great, it flows.
The idea of flow is essential to many of the ideas we have been thinking about while reading the Tao Te Ching. Eastern philosophy, psychology, and medicine have all documented very fully this phenomenon. We might call it being in the moment. It is the all pervasive Now - where Being is experienced as Oneness. The little self falls away and the Big Self that has always been there is revealed in all its power.
The Japanese word yugen is used to describe a kind of aesthetic intimation or subtle suggestion - the intimation of the infinite in the finite. Think of the simple brush strokes of a Sumi-e wall hanging that communicate the majesty of a sweeping Mount Fuji landscape. The flow of the Tao is like this. The simplest most mundane task when experienced fully can encompass the whole of Being.