Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 64

Poem 64

What is rooted is easy to nourish.

What is recent is easy to correct.

What is brittle is easy to break.

What is small is easy to scatter.

Prevent trouble before it arises.

Put things in order before they exist.

The giant pine tree

grows from a tiny sprout.

The journey of a thousand miles

starts from beneath your feet.

Rushing into action, you fail.

Trying to grasp things, you lose them.

Forcing a project to completion,

you ruin what was almost ripe.

Therefore the Master takes action

by letting things take their course.

He remains as calm

at the end as at the beginning.

He has nothing,

thus has nothing to lose.

What he desires is non-desire;

what he learns is to unlearn.

He simply reminds people

of who they have always been.

He cares about nothing but the Tao.

Thus he can care for all things.

Commentary

Modern building, Milan, Easter, 2016

At the risk of boring the reader let me repeat what I have said here in this sequence of posts many times.  One concept I have underlined before is that of the psychological concept of flow as proposed by the Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi.  Flow is a central concept in positive psychology, and it is also known as the zone.  Children can far more readily enter this zone than we adults because they are closer to their hearts and to their intuition that we adults are.  We adults are far more likely to be locked in the world of logic and intellect.  Flow or the zone is the mental state or that state of being where the person doing some action or activity is fully immersed in his/her experience of the moment, and is fully energized and well focused on the task at hand.  Flow is characterized by complete absorption in what is being experienced.  

In a sense, what the above amounts to is an appreciation for the quality of living and being in the now of experience, of going with the natural flow of life, by doing everything that is not using and abusing energy by pushing against its natural flow.  It is in this sense that we read our first stanza above:

What is rooted is easy to nourish.

What is recent is easy to correct.

What is brittle is easy to break.

What is small is easy to scatter.

Milan Cathedral, Easter 2016

The second stanza is about very much being prepared and proactive, of planning out things in a natural way, consistent with the flow of life, of living and of being.  In this stanza we read the  often quoted line that "the journey of a thousand miles" begins with our taking the first step now. 

Stanza three makes for good sound wisdom.  Forcing an item into a space it will not naturally fit into will distort or break the item.  Pushing one another in a queue for a bus or train will certainly not improve matters - indeed, it will most likely slow the loading of the bus down and actually delay the departure time, and perhaps even result in injury to some one.  Rushing into things never helps, while doing things mindfully certainly will. 

When we meet spiritually advanced people, no matter what their overt religious or even non-religious affiliation, the striking characteristic we notice is that of equanimity, calmness, peace of mind and a sense of deep attention to living in the now.  We are singularly blessed when we meet these beacons of hope and peace in our lives.

Let us read the above poem reflectively and mindfully once again and let any line or phrase offer itself to us by way of a short meditation to begin our day with the goal of being present to all whom we meet and most essentially to our own self.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 63

Poem 63

Act without doing;
work without effort.

Think of the small as large

and the few as many.

Confront the difficult

while it is still easy;

accomplish the great task

by a series of small acts.

The Master never reaches for the great;

thus she achieves greatness.

When she runs into a difficulty,

she stops and gives herself to it.

She doesn't cling to her own comfort;

thus problems are no problem for her.

Our graduating Sixth Years:  May they learn to go with the flow and stay in the zone!! 

Commentary

Once again, our Taoist poet and philosopher uses the balance of polar opposites to put across both the mystery and complexity of life on the one hand and the depth or height of spiritual wisdom on the other.  In a certain sense, we can appreciate the above poem if we let go of our rigidity, especially the rigidity associated with linear logic.  We have to learn to think outside the box, to go beyond the rigid linearity associated with intellectual knowledge or logic and allow the reasons of the heart to attract us to action.  As Pascal tells us, "le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point" - "the heart has its reasons which reason itself can never comprehend."  In this sense, it may be said that we can "act without doing."  In a similar way we can "work without effort."  Moreover, we can stand things on their head by treating the large as small and vice versa.  In a way, what our poet is suggesting is that there is as much a universe in the atom as there is in the expanse of space.  Lines from the "Auguries of Innocence" by the wonderful pre-Romantic poet William Blake come to my mind:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour

Trees in Newbridge House, Summer 2014

Yet again, another associated thought that comes to mind is that of the psychological concept of flow as proposed by the Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi.  Flow is a central concept in positive psychology, and it is also known as the zone.  Children can far more readily enter this zone than we adults because they are closer to their hearts and to their intuition that we adults are.  We adults are far more likely to be locked in the world of logic and intellect.  Flow or the zone is the mental state or that state of being where the person doing some action or activity is fully immersed in his/her experience of the moment, and is fully energized and well focused on the task at hand.  Flow is characterized by complete absorption in what is being experienced.  

It is, then, in this sense, that we can agree with our Taoist poet that we should confront the difficult while it is easy and achieve great tasks by doing small ones.  By not intending to reach for greatness the Master achieves it effortlessly.  Moreover, when she runs into difficulty she does not struggle with it or face it head on in pointless opposition - oh, no.  In fact she surrenders herself to it and swims with its tide.  And finally, like any true Taoist or Buddhist, or even Christ-like believer she never clings to her own comforts.

In this way, she never encounters problems.  As the philosopher Gabriel Marcel and the theologian Eugene Joly aver she rather embraces the total mystery of life.

Namaste, my friends.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 62

Poem 62

The Tao is the center of the universe, 
the good man's treasure,

the bad man's refuge.

Honors can be bought with fine words,

respect can be won with good deeds;

but the Tao is beyond all value,

and no one can achieve it.

Thus, when a new leader is chosen,

don't offer to help him

with your wealth or your expertise.

Offer instead

to teach him about the Tao.

Why did the ancient Masters esteem the Tao?

Because, being one with the Tao,

when you seek, you find;

and when you make a mistake, you are forgiven.

That is why everybody loves it.

Commentary

Recently, I read the bestselling book of the renowned Franciscan writer and mystic Fr. Richard Rohr about the practice and nature of contemplation, or, as we generally call it today, meditation.  It is a gem of a book, and its title sums up its essence and power, namely Everything Belongs.  Another less powerful way of stating this powerful insight would be to say that in spirituality everything connects to everything else.  Spirituality is all about connecting and connectedness.  And so, in our above poem, we read that "The Tao is the centre of the universe."  It is the centre about which everything holds.  It is, as it were, the nucleus of the atom at the level of quantum physics where everything holds in wonderful balance between the clusters of positive protons and neutrons and negative electrons spinning about it.

It is hard to believe that it is forty one years since the physicist Fritjof Capra wrote his ground-breaking and enthralling book called The Tao of Physics which has always enjoyed a cult status.  The learned Capra teases out wonderful parallels between quantum theory and relativity on the one hand, and Eastern mysticism on the other.  He describes with great clarity what physics has to say on the nature of the universe, and in particular our theories about space and time.  He underlines the similarities between physics and how Shintoism, Buddhism and so on view the universe.  It is also more than a little interesting to note that Niels Bohr, the famous Nobel physicist adopted the t'ai chi t'u (better known as the Yin-Yang symbol) as his family coat of arms after a trip to China in the 1930s as he felt it symbolised the concept of wave-particle complementarity.  Heisenberg was also another physicist who was well aware of such parallelisms between quantum mechanics and Eastern religions and philosophy.  Lastly, with respect to Capra's opus, it is worthwhile to return to what the author himself says in his epilogue to his book: "Physicists do not  need mysticism, and mystics do not need physics, but humanity needs both."

Humanity needs both physics and mysticism and the heart and goal of both is indeed parallel and similar, viz., the search for a unifying theory of everything and unity with the Godhead respectively. Perhaps, in the final analysis, both quests are one and the same, or at least converge at the one point. After all parallel lines are said to meet at infinity in the ideal line.

We are all seekers, who in the Tao, are true finders.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 61

Poem 61

When a country obtains great power,

it becomes like the sea:

all streams run downward into it.

The more powerful it grows,

the greater the need for humility.

Humility means trusting the Tao,

thus never needing to be defensive.

A great nation is like a great man:

When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.

Having realized it, he admits it.

Having admitted it, he corrects it.

He considers those who point out his faults

as his most benevolent teachers.

He thinks of his enemy

as the shadow that he himself casts.

If a nation is centered in the Tao,

if it nourishes its own people

and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,

it will be a light to all nations in the world.

Commentary

As a frequent traveller I am well used to having my identity checked at passport control or immigration counters as one enters various countries.  In these days of growing terrorist problems worldwide, our identity, and proof of it, was never more important.  Also, if we are users of the Internet, as most of us are now, we also realise that identity theft is a singularly common crime, so must must protect ourselves against that as much as we possibly can.

The beautiful Synogogue in Prague, February, 2016

It seems to me as a Special Needs Teacher and a part-time psychotherapist ans counsellor in a secondary school that one of the most sacred things that I do is to help any individual pupil come to acceptance of his identity (I hasten to add that I teach in an all-boys school, hence my use of male possessive adjective here), to come to realise that the fostering and development of one's own self is the most precious task each of us is charged with as a person. Therefore, coming to an awareness of our real identity is very important for every one of us.

In Ireland, we are celebrating the centenary of the beginnings of our young nation in the Easter Rising/Insurrection of 1916.  There have been many books, journals, magazines and commemorative pamphlets, running into hundreds at this stage, dedicated to this centenary celebrati0n - indeed, our own school has produced two such pamphlets.  To state this in other terms, one could truthfully say that our young nation is engaged in the task of coming to terms with its own identity.  Who are we as a young Irish nation? Where stands the vision of those men who first proclaimed the Irish Republic?  Has their vision of true equality for all "the children of the nation" been actually achieved?  We are, then, at present dealing with this and other questions in our commemorative ceremonies, in the many learned commentaries given, in the books written, in all the various media outlets - written, broadcast and digital - and such activity has been a rewarding exercise for us as a nation as individuals.

Artist at work, Firenze, summer 2002

Our Taoist poem speaks about power and about powerful nations.  Ireland is most certainly not a powerful nation, and yet she has power over her own people, can represent them internationally at the EU and at UN fora.  Power in the hands of evil men can lead to much destruction both of people, animals, the goods of the earth and the work of human hands as we have witnessed in the twentieth century.  Matthew White reports in his Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, 2010 that the number of deaths by war and oppression during that period amounted to some 203 million human beings.  One wonders as to what the destruction of animals (mainly horses) and property amounted to - a figure I should prefer not to know as I'm sure it would be mind-bogglingly huge.  As the English Catholic politician and historian Lord Acton famously observed: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."  The statistics quoted confirm that statement.  Power corrupts individuals because of their selfish and worldly-driven and ambitious egos, and it is no wonder then how much more  power actually corrupts whole nations.  The second part of his famous quotation most definitely can be related to such men as Hitler and Stalin and the many hundreds of other despots the world has known since the beginnings of civilization.

Lord Acton, 1834 - 1902

Power, our Taoist poet recommends must always be accompanied by the virtue of humility if it is not to fulfill Lord Acton's famous statement about power quoted in the previous paragraph. Humilty has always been widely viewed as a central virtue in many religions and spiritualities deriving therefrom, and indeed in many philosophic traditions.  It has also often been counterpointed or contrasted with such vices as narcissism, "hubris" and other forms of pride. Humility, needless to say, is related to the adjective "humilis" that can be translated as humble and it is a virtue that became very much abused in Roman Catholic circles over the years where novices in religious orders, and women in particular were called upon to be self-abnegating to such an extent that they might have had a far too low opinion of themselves, perhaps even a low level of self-esteem and consequently very little apreciation for their real selves. However, the Latin word "humilitas" also has a link with the word "humus" which means "earth" or "clay." Hence humility, which obviously entails a certain level of ability to put the ego in its rightful place, also encompasses a sense of being "grounded" and "earthed."  It is this sense of the word that I feel the Taoist poet has in mind in the above quoted lines.

Being grounded and earthed means being able to admit that one does not have all the answers; that the ego has to take its place along with the heart, empathy and compassion as just one motivating factor in our lives; that there is no one right way to live life or any one simple answer to complex problems and that truth is rarely pure and never simple (Oscar Wilde); that everyone makes mistakes and that the admission of them is truly ennobling of the humble person who is always willing to learn.

Individuals as well as nations, then, are called upon by our Taoist poet to be humble, to be earthed, to be grounded, that is to be centered in the Tao.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 60

Poem 60

Governing a large country
is like frying a small fish.

You spoil it with too much poking.

Center your country in the Tao

and evil will have no power.

Not that it isn't there,

but you'll be able to step out of its way.

Give evil nothing to oppose

and it will disappear by itself.

Derek Lin's translation  of this poem is as follows:

Poem 60

Ruling a large country is like cooking a small fish

Using the Tao to manage the world

Its demons have no power

Not only do its demons have no power

Its gods do not harm people

Not only do its gods not harm people

The sages also do not harm people

They both do no harm to one another

So virtue merges and returns.

Commentary

I have given two versions of this poem to give me some inspiration, because what the poet is getting at is somewhat hard to unravel.  I use the word "unravel" intentionally, as the above poem needs to be contemplated deeply as it does not render forth its meaning easily, but that is often the case with mystical, and certainly with Zen-like, poetry.  So, therefore, let me here state clearly that I am offering a very personal and tentative interpretation. 

Garden, Glenview Hotel 1

Who would want to be a politician?  For me the answer to that question is crystal clear, a most definite, "No, certainly not me!"  Politicians put themselves up for election and stand before the judgement of the people at regular intervals. Once elected they have to put in amazingly long hours at the service of the State and of fellow citizens. Sometimes they make mistakes and sometimes they achieve much. However, they often get vilified by some sectors of the population for one decision or another.  All too often, they will fail to get re-elected because they must face their electorate at the end of their political term. Further, their moral and daily personal affairs are an open book as far as the media and the public are concerned. Who would want to be so much in the eye of a very judgemental public?  That's one reason why I admire politicians  because quite simply they have the balls to stand up and be counted, express their vision for the improvement of society and work towards achieving their goals.

Garden, Glenview Hotel 2

Now that I have expressed some of my ideas about politics and politicians and the governance of any state, I must now turn to where the above Taoist poem touches me.  What lines spring off the page?  The image of "frying a small fish" offers itself vividly to the mind of this reader, and poking it too much will certainly break it up into little pieces on the pan. That image courts another image in my mind, an image which is also culinary, namely "too many cooks spoil the broth!" The wisdom of this saying is obvious.  Someone has to be the main chef or cook.  Someone has to make the decisions or be the leader; otherwise there will be chaos and the big fish of State will break into little pieces. There has to be order in society. And yet, the realists among us know all too well that this is the very reason that politicians of Right and Left are often caught in verbal fights most of the time. However, verbal fights are far superior to fist fights and, God forbid, wars between nations. Moreover, the realists among us become aware all too quickly of the virtual inevitability of wars. Another image that springs to my mind here is a famous phrase uttered by the great wartime U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "Jaw, Jaw, not War, War!"  

Garden, Glenview Hotel 3

What makes this interpreter of the above poem pretty much lacking in hope, but certainly not despairing, is that our writer is so impractical, so unrealistic, so thoroughly positive that he or she appears to be a totally dyed-in-the-wool idealist who believes that our politicians can be motivated by being steeped in the Tao or in the Still Point of Being. Yes, indeed, like any of you reading this post, I should dearly like that such would be the case, that all the politicians that lead my country, Ireland, should be centered in the Tao and that "evil will have no power."

And yet, it is so right that the Scriptures of any religion, that the ideals of any belief system, theist, atheist or agnostic should propose values which we should, of necessity, strive to achieve.  Otherwise, we would be so much poorer in being bereft of some guiding star, some goals and hopes to reach for.  

Garden, Glenview Hotel 4

Our poet does underline the fact that we will always have evil out there in the world, and often, unfortunately, even in here in our hearts, but he tells us that if we ground ourselves in the Tao we will be able to avoid such evil.  Meditation and mindfulness do help us ground ourselves in the essence of life, in the Still Point of Being, in following the path of the good in our lives and in avoiding evil.  The final two lines are very hopeful, even if they smack of wishful thinking and a positivity that does not seem to allow for the jagged edges of existence and the seeming deep-roooted-ness of evil in the world to rear their ugly heads. 

Yet, such is the challenge of spirituality and all spiritual reading, no matter what its provenance, that we must read and re-read, contemplate and re-contemplate its words and be challenged to the core of our being with the truth of the lines such as the ones with which our writer challenges us by way of concluding the poem:

Give evil nothing to oppose

and it will disappear by itself.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 59

Poem 59

For governing a country well

there is nothing better than moderation.

The mark of a moderate man

is freedom from his own ideas.

Tolerant like the sky,

all-pervading like sunlight,

firm like a mountain,

supple like a tree in the wind,

he has no destination in view

and makes use of anything

life happens to bring his way.

Nothing is impossible for him.

Because he has let go,

he can care for the people's welfare

as a mother cares for her child.

Commentary

Bust of Socrates

Let me return to two old chestnuts that I have used many times over in these pages.  The first is my love for what we were taught as one of Socrates' great teachings, namely that the surest starting point is our declaration of ignorance in any matter, and to progress in learning therefrom.  This is what I call the method of Socratic Ignorance.  At college in the late 1970s, I remember reading that once the humble Socrates met a man who was said by many of his contemporaries to be wise, but shortly after having engaged him in conversation, Socrates found that this man had no more wisdom than himself. Further, this supposedly wise man became very angry when Socrates had demonstrated by logic that he was not so wise after all.  Socrates famously concluded that "it seems that I am wiser than he is, to this small extent anyway, that I do not think I know what I do not know." (See Apology 21d)  The second old chestnut to which I have returned equally often in these posts is that of St Augustine who remarked that we progress in our knowledge of truth, especially truth with a capital T, by which he would have meant God, by way of a "docta ignorantia" or "learned ignorance." [Est ergo in nobis quaedam, ut ita dicam, docta ignorantia, sed docta spiritu Dei, qui adiuvat infirmitatem nostram: There is, therefore, in us a certain, shall I say (so to speak), a learned ignorance, but a learned one of the spirit of God, who helps us in our infirmity. My translation.  See Epistle 130, 14, 27).  It is interesting that Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) took the title of his famous book Docta Ignorantia (1440)  from this sentence in St Augustine's magisterial letters.  The whole aim of Nicholas of Cusa, taking his inspiration from St Augustine, is that one can only know who God is, or may be, through a negative theology or a negative way, Apophatic Theology, namely by amassing all the knowledge we have about who or what he is not!]

It must surely be, in this or a similar sense, that our Taoist poet writes above of knowledge of the Tao. Our poet writes that the mark of a wise man is "freedom from his own ideas."  It never surprises me to meet people who are so convinced that they are right with respect to this or that idea, or most certain concerning the motives of this or that person.  After all, ideas and concepts are just that, ideas and concepts. Indeed, opinions, which rate on a much lower scale than those of ideas and concepts, are also heralded by egotists to be almost set in stone.  There has to be room, surely, for movement, or flexibility in our opinions (certainly) and in our ideas and concepts (as often as is logically and practically possible) in order for knowledge to grow on the way to the Truth.  Again, the wise man learns to bend in the wind of opposition, to choose his battles wisely, to smile on opposition and criticism as well as on agreement and praise - hard to do, but very worthwhile practising.  Likewise, everything a wise man encounters, good, bad and indifferent is part of the overall picture of life.  All experiences, good and bad, are metaphorically "grist to the mill."

St Augustine at study - he was a lifelong scholar

Most spiritualities and religions talk about how we handicap ourselves, or how we smother our very light of life - to use another metaphor - by our clinging onto things and even people who are, in the context of time or of eternity, or compared to the infinity of the universe, mere impermanent realities.  Hence spiritualities and religions often ask their followers to let go of their dependencies, their clinging onto this or that or the other obsession. They advise us to "Let go and Let life!" or "Live and Let Live!" or "Let Go and Let God!"  All of these things are hard to do, that is why we must return again and again to our sitting position and attempt to meditate, to arrive at that still pointedness of existence, to the heart of the Tao.  After a while, all becomes so natural, just as natural as a mother caring for her child.  As Fr Richard Rohr so succinctly puts it, in the title of one of his many books, "everything belongs."

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 58

Poem 58

If a country is governed with tolerance,

the people are comfortable and honest.

If a country is governed with repression,

the people are depressed and crafty.

When the will to power is in charge,

the higher the ideals, the lower the results.

Try to make people happy,

and you lay the groundwork for misery.

Try to make people moral,

and you lay the groundwork for vice.

Thus the Master is content

to serve as an example

and not to impose her will.

She is pointed, but doesn't pierce.

Straightforward, but supple.

Radiant, but easy on the eyes.

Commentary

Mallard in Phoenix Park, Winter 2015

The true mark of a good leader is that he/she leads by example, not by diktat.  I certainly learnt that very early on in my career. I remember as a young teacher scolding a boy for the mess of little pieces of paper, rather like a hundred pieces of confetti, he had left under his desk and ordering him to clean it up.  He retorted angrily, "I did not put it there.  I am not going to pick that mess up!"  Needless to say I was highly annoyed and indignant at this defiance and brought this incident to the attention of the Year Head and then filled in a report on the boy's defiance and so forth.  However, thankfully, I'm a quick learner and never made that mistake again.  From then on, I always requested pupils to help me clean up the classroom if such was ever necessary after class, and yes, indeed they always complied with this request. Looking back the boy in question might have had O.D.D. (Oppositional Defiance Disorder). Most young teachers today will have studied all these E.B.D.s - Emotional Behaviour Disorders - in their teacher training and O.D.D. is one of those. With a student who has O.D.D. the last thing any teacher should do is set up an oppositional situation, and if he/she does so then such a student will rise to meet the opposition - by doing just that, opposing.

This has been a rather long introduction to styles of leadership which our last several posts and some of the forthcoming ones are going to be about.  Apparently, there are four main styles of leadership: Coaching, Directing, Delegating and Supporting. See HERE and HERE. The basic idea is that we should be aware of our dominant style and be willing to change it according to the needs of a particular situation.  In simple words, therefore, the key is FLEXIBILITY! However, there are so many people who just can't seem to be flexible. However, they will have to learn the hard way - by making life a misery for themselves and for others.  At least, we hope they will learn!

Winter sunset 2015

Our first stanza above is all about tolerance and how such tolerance brings about peace and harmony. As the proverb so wisely puts it: "you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!" The second stanza uses that rather fascist phrase associated with Nietzsche firstly and then with the Nazi Party in Germany - "the will to power!" Whatever about the origins of this phrase and about what Nietzsche really meant, what I have in mind here is precisely the fascist use of it, that is, its commonly held use and interpretation.  Indeed, that is its interpretation and use by our translator Stephen Mitchell above in stanza two.  There is nothing as bad as people who are power hungry, who are power brokers or people who are into "lording it over others," as it were.  The will to power will only disillusion people, make them into unwilling underlings and eventually breed rebellion.  However, the Taoist poet is also against "people pleasing" and easy "Yea saying" or agreeing uncritically with others, agreeing just to please, not being able to say "no" or to express a contrary opinion!  Such an approach, the poet insists, leads to much misery for all in the long run.  Taking the high moral ground is also looked upon as being counter-productive because it leads to people taking up an opposite stance, especially so if the moralist does not practise what he or she preaches.

Hence, the Master who knows his or her opposite-gender side (always implied by the nature of Taoist thinking) is always content to lead by example because that is a good leadership trait and it certainly inspires others to do what is right.  Then, as this commentator has pointed out many times, the Taoist poet resorts to the healthy tension of opposites or the balance of polarities in the wonderful last three lines which need no explanation as they work by setting up the healthy tension of such opposites in the first place.  We'll repeat them here, and ask the reader to reflect upon them meditatively by way of finishing these few thoughts:

She is pointed, but doesn't pierce.

Straightforward, but supple.

Radiant, but easy on the eyes.