Meditations and Musings

Attachment and desire, as we have seen (for instance, in Forty-Four), are the root of human suffering. It is a cliche to point to the many examples of decadence in American society as a sure sign that we are in the twilight of our existence as a nation. Whether this assertion is true or not, I don’t know. But we are certainly bombarded by instances of indulgence beyond the pale on a daily basis. The voyeuristic rise of “reality” TV provides us with countless examples. Nothing says withering culture like an “eating” contest, though. Rewarding fools for horrid acts of gluttony to me is the pinnacle of American overindulgence. We are a culture that actively opposes the principle of “enough is enough.”

Stillness and tranquility set things in order in the universe.

I am sure you have experienced this feeling that good order is somehow tied to stillness and tranquility. In our everyday lives, the bustle of activity, the noise of constant action and interaction, the scampering of busybodies, and the shrill voices of unrealized goals dominate our attention. When we finally reach a moment of stillness, we necessarily think that some order has been achieved in the world around us.

But this experience of stillness is quite different from what Lao Tsu is pointing to here in Chapter Forty-Five. It is not that stillness comes from order in the universe, but that stillness and tranquility set things in order. A very different proposition indeed. This concept is at the heart of meditative practice. By achieving stillness, we in some way make things right in the world. Or perhaps, stilling ourselves, we sync up with the universal stillness - the tranquility of the absolute, the eternal present. I like that phrasing best, I think. The truth of the mystic.