Meditations and Musings

Our “Fill ‘er to the rim with Brim!” culture stands in stark opposition to the teachings of Lao Tsu. Perhaps this is unfair. It’s clear that Lao Tsu’s China of the 6th Century BCE had a comparable problem. Perhaps there is something in “human nature” (if we can use such a term in a non-trivial sense) that gives us a propensity for surfeit. Enough is rarely enough in American culture. If it was bad in 6th Century BCE China, I think it is much worse in 3rd Millennium CE America, the richest country in the history of human civilization.

Lao Tsu’s words are nothing unique. Many traditions teach the mean as somehow ethically or even spiritually superior to excess. As Daedalus warned Icarus, “Fly the middle course,” so Lao Tsu tells us that excess will lead to ruination. Easier said than done; just ask Icarus (or the flattened pancake on the bottom of the sea, sticky with melted wax, that is what is left of Icarus).

Lao Tsu ends the chapter by writing:

“Retire when the work is done. This is the way of heaven.”

I have made a concerted effort over the last year to make this a principle by which I try to live my life. I think we can look at this principle as a corollary of the principle to live always in the present, to do just what it is one is doing and nothing else. When I come home from work, it is time to be with my family, to leave my work behind and to retire to the comfort of my loving family. It is a disservice to them and myself to be thinking of work when I should be thinking of building things with Legos, or drawing, or reading aloud with the kids. At some point there will be a time when one of my sons asks me, “Dad, will you build Legos with me?” and that will be the last time he ever asks me to play Legos with him. I don’t want that to be a time when I say, “I can’t because I have to work.” Again, this is easier said than done. And we can rationalize excuse after excuse for why we have to work now even when we are at home and want to be with our families. But, in the end, in my experience, the work will still be there when I am ready to go back to it. The same may not be true of my family, especially if I were to rob them of my attention when I am at home. So, the principle, “Retire when the work is done,” has become a principle by which I choose to live my life. As we say in Zen, this is a practice, not just a goal. It is a guide to present action. Implementing that practice is difficult, but of great importance.

In New Orleans we have a special relationship with water. We are surrounded and suffused by it. It clings to our bodies and fills our lungs. It makes our vegetation lush, so much so that I swear I can see the plants growing. Though Lao Tsu focuses on the benefits of water and on its nature as gentle flow, we know that it can have devastating effects. Hurricane Katrina hurled a twenty foot wall of water that indeed found its way into every nook and cranny of a great deal of our beautiful city. She pummeled my house with sheets of water at 100 mph hour and flung a tree on my roof. So when I think of water, it is more than just a gentle flow that is content to run into every low place. But my experience does not take away the gentleness of water or the gift of life that water brings. Lao Tsu says that water is like the Tao in that it brings life to the ten thousand things, but it does not struggle. It flows gently down to the places we shun. Even there, the Tao flourishes.

Comparing the different translations I have linked in the first post of this blog, we find stark differences in how the second stanza of this chapter is translated. There is clear variance in meaning that results from these differences in translation. I think, though, that the final sentence of the chapter can help us with the meaning of the stanza above it. Lao Tsu writes, “No fight: no blame” (Feng and English) or “If you do not wrangle, you will not be blamed” (Charles Muller’s translation). I think that Lao Tsu is giving us an imperative in this chapter about how we should lead the good life. Therefore, I think that the stanza above this line is a list of similar imperatives (somewhat like the Noble Eightfold Path of the Buddha). Some of the translators lose the imperative voice. Feng and English make the imperative explicit:

“In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.”

As a set of imperatives, I don’t think you can go wrong with Lao Tsu’s list. I especially like Feng and English’s translation of the first item of this list. Other translators emphasize the idea of building a house on firm ground, but when I think of how Feng and English phrase this imperative I make a nice connection with the idea of our stewardship of the planet and its biosphere. Living one’s life close to the land carries with it a clear responsibility to recognize the interconnectedness of all life on earth. I have always deeply felt this interconnectedness. I am thankful that my parents chose the name Clay for me because it carries with it the very idea of earth. My own name is a constant reminder of my responsibility to our planet.

Lao Tsu’s seventh chapter is largely opaque to me; that is, I find it difficult to penetrate the poetry to reach some understanding of the list of paradoxes that begin the chapter. We have heaven and earth lasting forever because they are unborn and the sage or master staying behind and so at the fore. But then we are given two apparent paradoxes that I do think I understand. They are familiar tenets of Buddhism, as well:

“The master is detached, thus at one with all. Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment.”

Let’s begin with detachment. Here is a central idea in Sakyamuni Buddha’s Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The Middle Way is a roadmap to the detachment that will end suffering (dukkha). When we are free of our grasping nature we will experience the the Truth of our oneness with all Being. Thus the Middle Way is a loss of self and the concommitant realization of Self. Little self and Big Self. “The master is detached, thus at one with all.”

“Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment.” Having spent nine years of my life being educated by Jesuits, this very Buddhist principle was drilled into me daily. Of course, many traditions teach this principal, but I am grateful to the Jesuits for making this ideal an integral part of my character. As we were told at Jesuit High School in New Orleans, the highest goal was to be “A Man for Others.” This principle has always struck me as more than just a truth; it is indeed The Truth. If one lives one’s life with this Truth as a guiding principle for one’s action (ignore the sexist language above, it was a boys school, after all), one will have had a life worth living.

Consider the principle of Selfless Action in contrast to the standpoint of Neo-Conservatism in the United States and the vapid biological and psychological interpretations of “enlightened selfishness” that underlie it. If we are to believe these fuckers, it is impossible for the human animal to act altruistically. Altruistic actions only appear so because the benefits to the self may not be first order effects; nevertheless, the benefits to the self are actually the driving purpose for actions which appear altruistic, we are to believe. They are part of a kind selfish calculus which the human animal applies in order to benefit itself at every turn.

Selflessness flies in the face of the atomistic individualism that suffuses our popular culture in the United States. The Middle Way is not in its essence a theory about the nature of reality; instead it is a form of practice. A Way of Life in a very strong sense. I am willing to live without metaphysics or ontology propping up the Buddha’s Path. It is enough for me to know in my heart that this Way should be my way. For what if I was wrong, and I had lived my life in the constant effort to walk the Buddha’s Path? Such would be a life I could look back on proudly.

I really love this formulation for the Tao: The Valley Spirit. I think it perfectly captures the meaning Lao Tsu wishes to relate in this chapter, both the idea of the pregnant void and the feminine spirit of motherhood. All of Being passes through this mysterious cosmic vagina – “the Mysterious Female Gateway.” The metaphor is is both apt and striking. The Tao is the Mother of us all. The ten thousand things hint at it, but we see it as though through a thin veil. The Valley Spirit is always there for us to draw upon, perpetually replenished.

Chapter Four of the Tao Te Ching is centered on the mystery of the void which is the mother of the ten thousand things.

“The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled. Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things! Blunt the sharpness, Untangle the knot, Soften the glare, Merge with dust. Oh, hidden deep but ever present! I do not know from whence it comes. It is the forefather of the emperors.”

When I think of the Tao, this pregnant void is how I think of it. The idea of the void that gives birth to all things, or even better, is all things, has such a deep feeling of mystery for me. I am reminded of the concept of the singularity at the moment of the Big Bang. Impenetrable, yet exploding with Being. The silence between heartbeats. The space between the subatomic particles that make up the universe. Infinite possibility. The empty space in the block of marble the sculptor sees with her mind’s eye that will define her work. The breath the writer takes as he writes that first line on the page. The universe is filled with pregnant emptiness.

Chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching begins with an idea that can be found in many traditions and is found in most people’s common sense understanding of the way we consider dyadic relationships between concepts. It has been some time since my own common sense understanding of concepts has been forever replaced by Western philosophical standpoints. I am therefore a poor example of common sense or intuition. But because I have been exposed to the muddled beliefs of college freshman and sophomores for many years, I think I have a general knowledge of those ideas.

Lao Tsu presents us with a short laundry list of dyadic conceptual relationships such as, “All can know good only because there is evil.” I confess that I am sceptical of any principle of nature that can be drawn from the obvious existence of concepts that exhibit dyadic relationships, whether they be antonyms, synonyms, or complements. As my students used to love to argue, the common sense understanding of the dyadic relationship between good and evil is that in order for there to be “good” there must be “evil.” This statement is meant to describe some set of circumstances in the world and not just the obvious conceptual connection between the two. This is the kind of basic “category mistake” that is all too often the norm for unsophisticated thinkers and college
freshman the world over. Suffice to say, I am unimpressed by the argument.

The third paragraph of the chapter, though, holds a great deal of interest for me.

“Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,
Creating, yet not possessing,
Working, yet not taking credit,
Work is done, then forgotten,
Therefore it lasts forever.”

There is, I believe, much wisdom in these lines. Here is the Buddhist ethic of practice in one of its earliest forms. I remember Ben Wren’s lecture about this concept. He used to refer to St Therese the Little Flower who wrote that the mundane tasks of daily life, when done with clear attention to the moment, could be a constant prayer in themselves. Lao Tsu sees this truth; when we live purely in the present moment, and do just what it is we are doing, we are closest to the Tao. We are the Tao. I have always felt resistance intellectually to this idea, being drawn, as I have been, to pragmatism in philosophy, in which all things have their meanings as plans for future action. But, nevertheless, I feel in my heart that the truth is closer to Lao Tsu and Therese’s Way of Life than to the American sensibilities of the Pragmatists. This is the Path that I would like to walk.

There is an interesting connection in the opening lines of the Tao Te  Ching and the Christian Gospel According to St. John.

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

“In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God.” John1:1

I’ve always appreciated both of these opening lines; though they diverge  in meaning, both recognize a problem with the human capacity for  understanding. Perhaps problem is the wrong word–maybe it’s a feature  and not a bug (to borrow a programmer’s saying). The Fiat Lux is a Word.  Compare this to the first line of the Tao Te Ching. Lao Tsu sees  that our minds close off and compartmentalize the real. When we use  language whether spoken or thought, we necessarily limit the limitless.  If we can speak it, it is not the Tao. It is the void, this “nameless,” that is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of  Wan-Wu, the ten thousand things. I’m tempted to make a connection with  Western Philosophy’s fascination with dualisms of appearance and  reality, but I am convinced this would miss the point.

I have been deeply impressed by this first page of the Tao Te Ching. It  just rings true to me. The nameless and the named, Lao Tsu tells us,  spring from the same source: “The gate to all mystery.” It is clear that  if we are to meet the Tao it is not going to be through thought, that is, through naming things. All that there is is born of a kind of pregnant emptiness.

The connection with human language as a creative process is also a  mirror of this truth. The mind, as Chomsky pointed out, is an infinite  font of creative power–the human mind has the surprising capability to be originative in its expression. Thus, the ten thousand things. By naming we make the ten thousands things real. Perhaps we can make an equivalence here: the empty yet pregnant mind just is the Tao. As Lao Tsu says, the named and the nameless, the desireless and the desiring, “These two spring from the same source but differ in name.” The gate to all mystery.