Tao 12

TWELVE

The five colors blind the eye.

The five tones defen the ear.

The five flavors dull the taste.

Racing and hunting madden the mind.

Precious things lead one astray.

Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.

He lets go of that and chooses this.

I have become a vigilant guardian of the ruins of a past life.  I was husband, protector, papa.  I was an apologist and promoter of my faith in Christ.  Could this be a temporary exile like David or Joseph when they fled their homeland and hid in countries and cultures they once resisted?  Or is this a process of letting go of  that to choose…this.  What is this?

Tao 11

ELEVEN

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;

It is the center hole that makes it useful.

Shape clay into a vessel;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

Cut doors and windows for a room;

It is the holes which make it useful.

Therefore benefit comes from what is there;

Usefulness from what is not there.

Is this an encouragement to BE empty, or to FIND emptiness?   Both?  Neither?  Of the concept of Zero, the early Greeks asked, how can nothing be something?  And yet zero had to be embraced because it works.

“Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.”    ~      Lao Tzu

I am struggling now to empty myself of so much fragmented assertions.  I am paralyzed by the activity of what I am supposed to be, of what I hope to accomplish.  I am intimidated by my inconclusive form.

Breath in, breath out.

Take me Tao to that empty place, and let it take me.

Did she hold me, while I vomited out my soul…I am so sick.  So full of nothing.  All in the white room, she hears me retching it all up.  My arms weak from holding on.  Please don’t leave me to pass out, to let go and find myself alone.  So sick.  So full of nothing.  I can’t breathe in this vacuum, nestle me in your bosom, dark Mother.

dripping with cold sweat, shaking…alone, with You.

Is this void our common burden, is this how I reflect Your image?

Well, this is rather uncomfortable.  I don’t know what I want.  I hate the nothing.  It feels like abandonment.

Tao 10

EIGHT (Revisited)

The highest good is like water.

Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.

It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.

In dwelling, be close ito 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 daily life, be competent.

In action, be aware of the time and the season.

No fight.  No blame.

Going to places men reject.  Places of  quiet, if there be meditations that go deep to the heart.  Close to the land.  Kind to others, because I am not afraid.  A place of true speech, just rule, competence in daily living.  Action that is aware of time and season.  A refuge were there is no fight, no blame.  Home.  My homestone.

I want to go home, to have a home once again.  My home.  Near the water.

TEN

Carrying body and soul and embracing the one,

Can you avoid separation?

Attending fully and becoming supple,

Can you be as a newborn babe?

Washing and cleansing the primal vision,

Can you be without stain?

Loving all men and ruling the country,

Can you be without cleverness?

Open and closing the gates of heaven,

Can you play the role of woman?

Understanding and  eing open to all things,

Are you able to do nothing?

Giving birth and nourishing,

Bearing yet not possessing,

Working yet not taking credit,

Leading yet not dominating,

This is the Primal Virtue.

The Woman that makes the home a gateway for the Oracle. Washing the primal vision so that it becomes the Primal Virtue.  The Woman that makes the land a home, and gives the warrior purpose, a treasure worth protecting.

Tao 9

NINE

Better stop short than fill to the brim.

Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt.

Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.

Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow.

Retire when the work is done.

This is the way of heaven.

How do you know when the work is done?  It seems it would be easier to follow this directive if I gave up, and embraced the inevitability of the grave.  It seems sad to me.

Maybe it refers to a release from that internal panic in the accomplishment of the day.  If I focus on the achievements of a lifetime, and lose focus on the work of the day…I panic and feel the sting of futility.  That sharpened blade so quickly becoming blunt or the great treasures stolen or great titles or prestigious status actually making me more vulnerable to tragic loss.  But to know the satisfaction of a day well lived, and to make this a life time habit, gives me a storehouse of encouraging lessons and a wealth of beautiful memories.

Yes, I think I may begin to understand.  Or feel the Tao.  At least, for today.

Tao 8

EIGHT

The highest good is like water.

Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.

It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.

 

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 daily life, be competent.

In action, be aware of the time and the season.

 

No fight.  No blame.

 

The water is to be emulated in all interactions.  A simple pragmatism.  The peace of no contention, relinquishing the need to strive.  It sounds good, and speaks to part of me.  I am painfully empty today.  This does not fill me.  I wish it could.

Water poured from a finite source runs out, is overwhelmed by the hunger of the soil, loses its power to flow over obstacles.  To be the kind of water spoken of here, to be like the Tao, it must be water from an eternal source.  It must know no end of supply.

Joshua answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”  Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Joshua, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

(John 4…somewhere)

Yeah…do the work, maybe this ache will subside.

Wait, what is this?  An invitation to a friend’s home to eat meatloaf.  He says it will be a chance to get out of my head.  Maybe a good thing.  I will flow with it, like the water.

Tao 7

SEVEN

Heaven and earth last forever.

Why do heaven and earth last forever?

They are unborn,

So ever-living.

The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead.

He is detached, thus at one with all.

Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment.

 The Matrix, Neo exiting the illusion, detached and discarded, he becomes the One.  What relevance is it that heaven and earth are eternal because they do not experience birth?  Is the principal here to do the opposite of what you want to achieve?  I would assume that the sage desired to be ahead, connected with all, and fulfilled.  Thus he stayed behind, detached, and became selfless.  Hmm.

Tao 6

SIX

The valley spirit never dies;

It is the woman, primal mother.

Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth.

It is like a veil barely seen.

Use it; it will never fail.

See Tao 3 for reference for the above quoted material.  What I am about to quote, I harvested from the following website;

[http://www.egreenway.com/qigong/vstccs2.htm]BEGINNING OF HARVEST—

“Taoists use the metaphor of gu shen, “the valley spirit.”  A valley supports life, feeds the animals who live there and provides fertile earth for agriculture.  It can do this only because it is empty.  It accepts the flow of the river because it is most low and most humble.  It receives the warmth of the sun because it is wide and not filled with anything to block the light.  It brings forth life because it supports all who come to it.”
-  Deng Ming-Dao, Scholar Warrior, p. 182

“The Valley Spirit

The valley spirit not dying
is called the mysterious female.
The opening of the mysterious female
is called the root of heaven and earth.
Continuous, on the brink of existence,
to put it into practice, don’t try to force it.”
-  Tao Te Ching, #6, Translated by
Thomas Cleary

“The Valley Spirit never dies
It is named the Mysterious Female.
And the doorway of the Mysterious Female
Is the base from which
Heaven and Earth sprang.
It is there within us all the while.
Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.”
-  Tao Te Ching, Chapter VI,
Translated by Arthur Waley

“The Tao Te Ching can be seen as advocating mostly “female” (or Yin) values, emphasising “water” fluidity and softness (instead of the solid and stable “mountain”), choosing the obscure and mysterious aspect of things in order to be able to rule-without-ruling them.  In this respect, this book can be understood as challenging “male” (or Yang) values such as clarity, stability, positive action, and domination of nature, values often also referred to as Confucian.”
-  Online Law Encyclopedia  

The life-force of the valley never dies–
This is called the dark female.
The gateway of the dark female–
This is called the root of the world.
Wispy and delicate, it only seems to be there,
Yet its productivity is bottomless.
- Translated by Ames and Hall

“The spirit of the valley – a powerful symbol of the female principle – is eternal. It has always been there and will always be. We can call it the mystical female, or the sacred feminine.  The sacred feminine is the universal source of life. Therefore, the doorway to the essence of the mystical female is what we can call the root, origin, or genesis of the entire world. This essence – life itself – is a continuous flow. We tend to take it for granted and not pay attention to it, but it is always there. And it does not matter how much it is utilized – the power of life is literally inexhaustible.”
-   Derek Lin, Tao Te Ching, p. 12.

“The dragon and tiger are none other than yin and yang, the female and male. They are the cauldron and furnace of alchemical literature, the medicinal substance required to compound the golden pill.  The cauldron, cool and limitless as the element Water, fills herself and nourishes the Fire that would not die.  You have read in the Great One of the miraculous pass, the portal into all knowledge.  I will tell you what this pass is.  It is none other that the inexhaustible female.  Must I be blunt?  Can you grasp the concept of the dragon and the tiger, water and fire, cauldron and furnace, pestle and mortar?  The mysterious female is the key to the firing process.  This talk of base metals into gold and drinking an elixir of mercury is not the real alchemy.  Enter into her and take it into yourself, again and again.  Lao Tzu said, “The valley spirit is the mysterious female.  Her door is the root of heaven and earth.”  It replenishes itself continuously.  There is no coercion, but it is freely given.  Opening up, you will enter the cinnabar chamber where all knowledge is stored.  Conserving your essence, you will draw her into yourself, up through the lower and middle tan tien into the seat of ecstasy.  Her you will find madness and death … or the knowledge that will give
you eternal life.”
-  Simon Marnier, White Tiger, Green Dragon, p. 23

Is the valley spirit “primal mother” or Mysterious Female? There’s a difference!  In the first translation, her gateway “is”, present tense, right now, the rootof heaven and earth. But in the second, the Tao seems to be talking about a cosmic event long ago, the origin of “Heaven and Earth,” some sort of creation myth: “the Doorway of the Mysterious Female is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.”   Yet, neither translation is wrong. The Chinese text permits both of them, and indeed, many others. It has to do with the great differences between Chinese and English. “
-  Laputan Logic [http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2002/11/24-85093070.html]

—END OF HARVEST

 

This brings to mind a Christian scripture I found appealing, yet difficult to embrace – seemed to be a different voice, a Mother God finding voice through the Christ:

Matthew 11:28 ~ “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;  I am meek and lowly in heart:  and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Is this Valley spirit the same one the Christians call the Holy Spirit, the female energy of the Universe, the comforter, teacher, companion?  Mother God.  With many names crossing many cultures and belief systems.

Tao 5

FIVE

Heaven and earth are impartial;

They see the ten thousand things as straw dogs.

The wise are impartial;

They see the people as straw dogs.

The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows.

The shape changes but not the form;

The more it moves, the more it yields.

More words count less.

Hold fast to the center.

I assume that since all this is included in one writing, on small chapter, that it is somehow interrelated.   The impartiality developed by those or that which possesses great power or influence from seeing the illusions of what we count as being real, people, and the manifestations of the Tao stuff.  So, is this impartiality something we are to seek to emulate?  What is the Taoist version of heaven?  Earth is to me what it is to the Taoist?  The “space between” falls into a flexible order, changes shape but does not lose form?  Is this to encourage us to embrace the same flexibility, or to point out the water-bed ground that we stand on?  Maybe the realization that all of known nature has an opposite and equal reaction to a push for expression, with a surrender, a yielding.  And we are to gather that attempting more words to change a situation actually becomes less effective in this environment of give and take.  The final counsel is to “hold fast to the center.”  That reminds me of something said in recovery…stay in the middle of the program and you won’t fall off the edge.  But the Tao Te Ching was probably talking of something along the lines of seeking balance.  Don’t be moved by extremes.  Become impartial.  flexible.  willing to yield as much as to push.  balanced.

I just added Nod n Smile blog to my links…really like the unexpecter encounters with 15 creatures.

I took pictures on the way to my former sister-in-law’s funeral.  They are just pictures along the way, with patchy fog, a conferderate memorial, a crop-duster flying over the interstate as I entered Montgomery.  Mostly, its just the road that we have all seen.  It seemed appropriate to put road pictures as symbols of the Way, the Tao.

Tao 4

FOUR

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 gods.

This is quoted material - see entry entitled Tao 3 for reference.

 God (creator source of 10,000 things), Death (merge with dust), Infinity (forefather of the gods)?  Me (hidden deep but ever present)?  If it exists beyond my perception, what relevance does it have to my current state of being?  Can it be found and …used?

Tao 3

THREE

Not exalting the gifted prevents quarreling.

Not collecting treasures prevents stealing.

Not seeing desirable things prevents confusion of the heart.

 

The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies,

by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.

If men lack knowledge and desire,

then clever people will not try to interfere.

If nothing is done, then all will be well.

I find myself repulsed by the thought of a life with no ambitions.  And yet I catch myself.  How often have I missed the wisdom of the moment because I believed I have it figured out.  When I empty myself of the answers, when I decide to feel the breeze caress me, when I am not so quick to dismiss…will new and more powerful possibilities manifest?

By the way, I am not sure if I have mentioned this.  All these words quoted are from the Tao Te Ching.  Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English.  The introduction was by Jacob Needleman.