Chapter 14

Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.

Not as a separate entity, anyway...

Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, unnameable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.

It can't be conceived of, as it is beyond the realm of ideas. The first two lines sound like a specific dismissal that Tao is the earth itself. When the sun is up, the earth is bright above, and it's always dark if you dig deep into the earth. The realm of nothing is where all things have their beginning. A friend of mine calls nothing the "infinite potentiality." It's not an image itself, because it contains all images.

Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.

The first two lines sound a lot like learning taiji. Parts of it seemed infinitely familiar to me, hence "no beginning." Other parts, I will continue to work on for my whole life, and perhaps beyond, hence "no end". Knowing the form in the mind is worthless unless the body also knows it; then you can become the form.

Chapter 13

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

Both hope and fear involve resistance, and it's difficult to have one without the other. If you hope for something, then you also fear that it won't happen. If you fear something, then you hope that particular something won't happen. Both require moving away from your center, leaving an empty space which then demands filling. Hope and fear, though, will only make it emptier.

What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

The higher you climb, the further you have to fall.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?

When I become dissatisfied in some fashion, a voice in my mind starts asking me, "What do you want?" It seemed for a long time that no matter what I answered, the voice would come back, sooner each time. Finally, I found the answer: nothing. An immediate sense of satisfaction came over me, and even when the voice tried to come back, the same answer satisfied it.

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.

Getting too wrapped up in our 'cage of flesh and bones' can make us forget that there is a world "outside" ourselves. If we can find the "world outside" inside our own hearts, what can't we accomplish?

Chapter 12

The five colours make our eyes blind
the five tones make our ears deaf
the five flavours make our mouths numb
riding and hunting make our minds wild
hard-to-get goods make us break laws
thus the rule of the sage puts the stomach ahead of the eyes
thus he picks this over that

I went with Red Pine's translation this time. Mitchell's seemed too...prettified to me. What I get out of this verse is to be cautious with distractions. Bright colors are pretty, but stare at them long enough and they tire the eyes. Strong flavors may taste good, but they can wear out the taste buds. Putting "the stomach ahead of the eyes," then, would refer to putting what you actually need over the things that appeal to your senses. Cleary's translation has this as the last two lines: "Therefore sages work for the middle and not the eyes, leaving the latter and taking the former." Choosing what you need over what you think you want.

Chapter 11

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Non-being, emptiness, nothingness, vacancy, hollow, nonexistence... all of these have been used in various translations for "nonbeing". If there were no emptiness, how would we move? You can argue that there is air, so the space around us is not empty, but there is room enough for the air to move around us. All of life is about looking for the openings, for the empty spaces, for the places where there is room. Parking a car? You need an empty space. Baking bread? You need an empty bowl, and empty pan, and an oven with enough empty space for the pan. Looking for a job? You need a place with a vacancy, an empty slot to fill.

Chapter 10

Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child's?

Buddhism and Taoism would agree that "from the outset, your nature is pure." If there's a "fall," it's after an individual is born. But it's more like coming off of balance, off of the still-point. If we stop resisting, we naturally come back to that still point. Note that this passage precludes any idea that the mere fact of being flesh and blood is itself somehow "bad".

Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?

Can we see what's really there, and not what we think should be there? Can we see the light even when things are at their darkest? Can you see people for what they are and provide tasks that they can do naturally and joyfully, without resentment?

Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?

Do nothing and nothing is left undone. Can you wait for the empty spaces to show you where to step? Watch your thoughts. Where do they refuse to go? What can you learn there?

Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue.

Do what needs to be done. Fill the empty spaces. An expectation leaves an empty space in you; trying to control forces you inside where you cannot see the empty spaces.

Sorry for the break in updates; first a bad cold, then a supremely busy week, and to cap it all off, stomach problems. Hoping to be back to regular posting again now.

Chapter 9

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.

Know when enough is enough. Even a useful action becomes pointless if taken too far.

Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Anything that you hold fast to ultimately becomes a trap, whether it be an idea or an object. If you pursue money, even when you have enough it becomes very difficult to stop that pursuit. Worrying about the approval of others is an even worse trap, as fashions change so rapidly. What was expected one day becomes a horrid faux pas the next.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

Know when you've accomplished your goal, and stop. When you've reached the bottom, stop digging. When you're on the summit, stop climbing. When the bowl is full, stop filling.

Chapter 8

The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.

A lot of the Tao te Ching really doesn't need much comment. Water, or the Watercourse Way, is a common image for Tao. Water follows the path of least resistance, down to the low spots. It doesn't seek to elevate itself.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

Good advice. ^/^

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.

Most people don't have even the slightest clue who they really are, deep down. They have a bundle of ideas and reactions that they think of as themselves, but those are just ripples on the surface of the water.

Chapter 7

The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

Once again, Mitchell replaces "heaven and earth" with "Tao." Hmmm... he's got a line in here that isn't in the other translations I've been using. Checking... it does show up in a few other translations. "It was never born; thus it can never die" is the line in question. It is a very Taoist idea, so I figure that it's either an attempt to interpolate characters that have multiple meanings, or it's a line that shows up in some of the ancient texts but not others. Other translations render "it has no desires for itself" as "they do not live for themselves." Again we have the idea of emptiness and selflessness, letting go. Based on my experience, you can't really be, or even understand, yourself until you've lost a lot of the tensions that you think define you.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.

Often "Master" is rendered as "Sage." Staying behind to get ahead is classic, and there's a version in The Art of War. "Better to retreat three steps than to advance one step," as best as I remember. It's also good push-hands advice.

She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

This, I think, is one of the most profound koan in all the eastern philosophies. Attachment leads to separation. Detachment leads to union.

Chapter 6

The Tao is called the Great Mother:
empty yet inexhaustible,
it gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.

~Mitchell's translation

The spirit of the valley does not die, and is called Mysterious Female.
The door of the Mysterious Female is called the root of heaven and earth.
It lingers in wisps; Use it without haste.

~Gibbs' translation

The valley spirit that doesn't die we call the dark womb
the dark womb's mouth we call the source of creation
as real as gossamer silk and yet we can't exhaust it.

~Pine's translation


There were enough differences here, and it was short enough, that I decided to post three of the translations. I notice that Mitchell again prefers to use "Tao" in place of anything remotely mythic. The valley is classically symbolic of Tao, as it is empty and water is naturally drawn down towards it. Next line indicates an opening of some sort from which the world, or maybe all worlds, come. I prefer Gibbs' term "root," here, as it is more suggestive of something that continues to nourish even after the 'birth,' and that ties it to the last line. Just as a tree draws nutrients from its roots, so we draw sustenance from the source of all creation.

One note: Red Pine's translation has doubled up a few lines in the on-line version that I link to at the side. I removed the duplication above, so that it now matches the translation in Red Pine's book.

Chapter 5

The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.

Major paraphrasing alert, here. At least, the others that I'm using are similar to each other and different from Mitchell's. Here's Red Pine's version: "Heaven and Earth are heartless treating creatures like straw dogs; heartless is the sage treating people like straw dogs". Gibbs and Cleary both have "not humane" in place of "heartless," but according to Red Pine's commentary, the Chinese literally translates to "no heart". The meaning is about impartiality, as Mitchell's version indicates, but it loses the symbolism. Straw dogs were made for sacrificial ceremonies. The idea is that neither Heaven nor the sage favors Man above other creatures. This is in contrast to any sort of "special creation" or "in god's image" idea that we find in many western cultures.

The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.

Hold on to the center.

For contrast, here is Tam Gibbs' version:

"The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows,
empty and yet inexhaustible;
Move it and even more comes out.
Too many words quickly exhaust;
It is not as good as holding to the centre."

I find it interesting that Mitchell avoids using "Heaven and Earth," and changes them to Tao in this chapter. In ancient Chinese cosmology, there were three levels: Heaven, Earth, and Man (Humans if you prefer). Standing between Heaven and Earth, Humans were sometimes seen as a sort of bridge between the two. The first stanza establishes that humans received no special treatment from Heaven or Earth. The second describes the power available from being in the space-between. I don't know what the original Chinese was, but I see a lot of wind symbolism here. The "bellows," for instance, as a means of putting air where it needed to be to stoke a flame. Moving air, aka wind, brings weather and other changes, and can seem as solid as a rock. 'Speaking' here is mentioned as a waste, perhaps of air or wind.

There's also some good taiji push-hands advice in here. Find the space-between. Remain empty, relaxed. Hold onto your opponent's center. Until you can actually feel for the center, all the words in the world won't help you.

Chapter 4

The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities.

This verse is particularly appropriate since I've been reading a book about the origins of "zero," including a great deal of discussion about philosophical implications. The idea of "emptiness" as a positive attribute still meets with resistance, even if zero is no longer considered heretical. Empty: ready to accept whatever comes, or nothing if nothing comes.

It is hidden but always present.
I don't know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.

Interestingly, Mitchell seems to have skipped a line, or else paraphrased it so completely that it's no longer recognizable. As for these two lines, there is a great deal of variety on the word Mitchell translates as "God". Cleary says Tao predates "the creation of images"; Gibbs says it "existed before the Ancestor"; Pine says "before the Ti". I have a physical copy of Red Pine's translation with some commentary on this issue. "Ti is the Lord of Creation. All of creation comes after Ti except the Tao, which comes before." There's also a comment about the missing lines: "Because of problems associated with their interpretation of the first four lines, some commentators don't think lines five through eight belong here."

With that in mind, here is Red Pine's translation, with those lines included:

The Tao is so empty those who use it never become full again
and so deep as if it were the ancestor of us all
dulling our edges untying our tangles softening our light merging our dust
and so clear as if it were present
I wonder whose child it is it seems it was here before the Ti

And Tam Gibbs:

The Tao is empty, yet when applied it is never exhausted.
So deep it is, it seems to be the ancestor of all things.

Blunting sharp edges, resolving confusions,
Diffusing glare, uniting the world:
Such depth, something seems to exist there.

I do not know whose child it is.
It seems to have existed before the Ancestor.

There's a hint of the "something" within the "nothing" in those missing lines. There's also a sense of the yin-yang symbol, with the dot of yang within the yin. Go deep enough in one direction and you come out the other side. Sharpen something too much, and it dulls.

Chapter 3

If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.

Fairly clear in this translation. When people value material things above all else, stealing is inevitable. When some people are raised too high above the "common" folk, those folk feel as if there's nothing they can do, either to defend themselves or to better themselves. Tam Gibbs' version is slightly different:

Not honouring men of worth keeps the people from competing;
Not wanting rare things keeps the people from thievery;
Not showing off desirous objects keeps the hearts of the people from disaster.

Now I'm curious about the translation, as there's quite a bit of difference between "competing" (fighting in the Red Pine version) and "feeling powerless." It's an unhappy situation either way. Perhaps "powerless" would be better rendered as "desperate," since desperation might just lead to competition or fighting.


The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.


The library on ISU's campus embodies the imbalance in western culture perfectly. It appears that the ground-level, the foundation, is ephemeral, barely there, smaller than the level above, and it becomes more and more massive the higher from the ground you get. It reminds me of the overemphasis on mental development, of filling the mind to overflowing, until the head is so full that the body can no longer support it. People fill their minds without ever developing their bodies. Physical prowess is almost worshiped, because so few people can be bothered to develop it. It's like building a house on "three rocks and a beer can."* Might work for a while, but eventually things are going to start collapsing.

Tam Gibbs' version is more explicitly physical (and Red Pine's is almost identical):
That is why the Sage governs himself by relaxing the mind, reinforcing the abdomen, gentling the will, strengthening the bones.


He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.

My interpretation of "lose" would be "see in a different light" or "lose our preconceptions of." More on the Buddhist side we might add "lose our attachments to." Gibbs and Pine have something more like "hesitation" rather than confusion, which makes more sense to me. Creating a moment's pause before acting

Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

They say that if one were to shorten the Cheng Manch'ing form, one could shorten it to "Grasp Sparrow's Tail," roughly the first 13 moves. One could shorten it further to just the five wrist changes. One could shorten it still further to just wuji: standing "doing nothing." Anyone who can simply stand there, doing nothing, mind empty and still, no effort, has no need of the rest of the form. I, however, am not there yet.

Chapter 2

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

As soon as beauty is defined, so is ugliness. As soon as goodness is defined, so is badness. I found it interesting that Dr. Levenson added another level in his own response to this segment. His version was that the problem with any ideal is that things tend to fall short of ideals, and this can drive a person to anger or despair. To me this is almost missing the point, as it just adds more layers of judgment, most obviously the judgment that anger and despair are bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

It's possible to take these verses to indicate an extreme form of relativism, but I see it more as recognizing the dependencies. You can't have an idea of difficult without having an idea of easy. If you know what high means, then not-high becomes low. But the labels are not the thing itself. Once something is labeled, it becomes difficult to lose the label and just see the thing. If you look at a car and think "car," are you really seeing the car, or are you seeing an idea of the car? You see that the car is silver, but are you experiencing the way the light shimmers at you so that you can see the silver? Words get in the way. They separate us from our experiences. They have their uses, of course, but sometimes we have to go beyond the words.


Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

'Acting without doing' is a big part of taiji. When you do the form right, you are completely in the moment, experiencing each nuance, aware of each motion, and because you are completely in that moment, it is not stored in the memory. There is nothing to store. I've had this for brief sections of the form (and the trick is telling whether it's really that kind of awareness or more mundane, everyday distraction). Cheng Manch'ing said that he had done the form perfectly three times in his life. Three times, all the way through with awareness. And he's the founder!

Living life without expectation is an interesting exercise. We all expect things. We expect that the sun will come up in the morning. We expect that the house will still be there when we wake up. We expect that the coffee cup will stay on the table after we set it down. We expect to find solid ground when we take a step. But as soon as you expect something, you've invested in that eventuality. The ground gives way, and you get angry, because it was supposed to be solid. The coffee cup falls and breaks, but it was supposed to stay on the table. Why? Because that's what was expected. True awareness is without expectation. It's open to whatever comes, and ready for whatever comes, and then ready for the next thing that comes.

Chapter 1

As a way to keep this blog active, I've decided to look at the chapters of the Tao te Ching. The translation we're using in my philosophy class is the one by Stephen Mitchell, which overall seems to be pretty good. I may delve into some of my other translations at times. We'll see. And I do not claim to be an expert on the Tao te Ching, by any means. I'm just a seeker, exploring the ideas I find.

Chapter 1

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

This sets up the distinction between what a thing is and our limited ways of labeling with words. There's even the suggestion that naming a thing changes it in some fashion, so that in one book I read (author and title elude me at the moment), there's the distinction between the 'Named Tao' and the 'Unnamed Tao,' which, ironically, is yet another name!


Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

In a quick scan through versions, these two seem to vary quite a lot. Gibbs' is similar: "Thus, if always without desire, one can observe indescribable marvels; If always desirous, one sees merest traces." Red Pine's is a bit different: "thus in innocence we see the beginning - in passion we see the end" Pine's is the least judgmental of these three. My understanding is that desire clouds our vision and thoughts. We see temporary sense-objects as somehow fixed and real, and miss the underlying essence of events. I may be missing a lot here!

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

And this section mitigates the negativity of the prior two verses, as both the illusion and the reality come from the same Ultimate Source. Let's see... Cleary says "Mystery" instead of Darkness... Gibbs, similarly, uses "Mysterious." Red Pine says "Dark Beyond Dark." All of these are getting at the idea of something hidden, something hard to see.


Translations on the web:
Mitchell
Cleary
Tam Gibbs
Red Pine

I'm using Mitchell because of the philosophy class; Cleary because I've read some of his other translations, though so far I'm not liking his TTC translation; Tam Gibbs because he was one of Cheng Manch'ing's senior students; Red Pine because I rather like his style.

Hopefully I'll get at least one of these up a week. We shall see.

Long Time

Wow. It's been almost a year since I posted anything here. I think maybe I'm finally healed enough to start posting stuff here again. I don't know. I read the stuff I was posting last November, and it feels like a stranger posted it. I remember the pain and confusion, but not the specific thoughts. Last Christmas was quite possibly the most miserable time I've ever experienced. I was severely depressed. "Holiday Blues" sound like such a petty, little thing...until you're the one going through them.

I even experienced a suicidal moment. A short moment, thankfully, but even that was enough to scare the hell out of me. It was partially chemically induced; I later discovered that ginger tends to exacerbate my "down" moods. But for one moment, I actually wondered if the world needed me in it. If it wouldn't be easier just to be gone.

In the meantime, I'd stumbled onto one of Thomas Ashley-Farrad's books on Mantras and chanting. That was one of the few activities that relieved my misery. It even seemed to help after I'd stopped. In that book, he mentions committing to a 40-day practice on a specific chant. That got me thinking. Why just chanting? Why not taiji and yoga? So sometime after Christmas, I made up a calendar to keep track, and decided that I wanted to make it through 108 straight days of practicing each art: one round of the taiji form; one yoga routine; one round of breathing exercises; one round of chanting.

108 days. It gave me a goal, something to focus on, and it meant I was doing something healthy for my body and mind each day. 108 days. Within the first month, the depression started to lift. 108 days. I was starting to feel like a human being again. 108 days. By the time they were up, I was mostly back to feeling like my old self. And I didn't want to quit. I even expanded the taiji portion to include three rounds of the form and one round of the sword form. I didn't quite make all of that; I missed a sword form on a day of long driving. But I have more than 200 continuous days of practice of everything else under my belt, now. And I want that number to keep growing.

There are no words to describe the pain I was in when this blog went silent. But I will try. Imagine that your heart has been raw and bleeding, but feels as if it has scabbed over. Imagine that, for some insane reason, you apply sand paper and remove the scabs, reopening all the old wounds and creating new ones. Imagine that the hurt goes straight to the core. On the outside, there's the deep, almost-black, blood, but through the cracks comes angry red light trying to burst out. The pain dominates everything. Little joys push it back for a moment or two, but then the pain comes crashing down again.

Some of the pain would have faded on its own with time, but I think my daily practice sped up the process. It also let me be aware of the process. The change was gradual. So gradual that I wasn't really aware anything had changed until I sat down one day and realized that I was happy about something. Actually happy. Then, realizing that I was happy made me happier. Now I get an echo of the old pain every so often, but all I have to do is think back to what it was like last year, and I nearly always have to laugh. The echoes are like papercuts compared to a gaping knife wound.

And maybe, just maybe, I've healed enough to start thinking about the world again.