MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

the ancient child asks
what is authentic knowledge

only revealed knowledge is authentic knowledge
it flows from the heart’s center
within our way of living

the ancient child asks
what is the heart center within our way of living

at the center of my own heart
wherever I may be

alive

to know the world is not
to think into it by reason

reason is not revelation

to know the world is
to allow the world
to think into you

wherever it may be

authentic knowing is revealed
in a soul and to a soul
seeking its lost home
and resting place
within deep regions
of a centered heart spirit

the mysteries of the world
come to you in a living light
that breathes as you breathe
infused with your own thoughts
yet outlined as some distant place
or thing

you may bring discipline to your knowing
but you can not bend it or shape it
because it is already perfectly formed

you may know the world completely and
understand its workings
without ever leaving home

the ancient child asked
what are the impediments to authentic knowing

wrong error is the first
conquered by quiet sitting

wrong flight is the second
conquered by flying obliquely with ease

wrong mediation is the third
conquered by contemplative ritual

wrong purification is the fourth
conquered by openness within a sacred precinct

wrongly embracing the doubt and despair of others as they are
conquered by a humble appreciation of yourself as you are

the tao way of life bestows knowledge
of all thing under heaven
to those who can travel the entire world
with one ordinary deliberate step

in a lush green forest

one step

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey

“What is authentic knowledge?” we are asked, and here Lao-tzu shares his answer. He asserts that the only knowledge we can call authentic is that which is revealed to us through “heart’s center” of each of our ways of life. He elaborates on his own “heart’s center,” helping us to understand what he means. So what is it? Lao-tzu describes it as wherever he may be alive—what we might describe as a place of feelings which affirm life, the very instinctive place shaped through generations of evolving heredity. Thus, authentic knowledge is wisdom revealed from the depths of our animal selves. It is authentic because it is not influenced by desire or ego, only by the objective universe whom devoured all iterations of instincts which did not conform to her conditions that we now call Natural Selective pressures.

Lao-tzu then forewarns us against a certain form of arrogance, that born from reason and ego-consciousness. Knowledge of the world, chaotic and incomprehensible in its true manifestation, cannot come into human possession. It can only be mapped and modeled with limited yet significant precision. Yet even understanding this, it is tempting to think that the world can be mastered through reason and rationality alone. This is Lucifer’s mistake (as it is the explanation why Mephistopheles appeals to Faust’s rational faculties—i.e. through an argument). That is not to say that reason ought to be abandoned (to do so leaves us with only war over power), but it is to note that it is necessarily only the cartographer’s tool. We use reason to create constructs which serve us in our navigation through the transcendent, abyssal sea. However, because our reasoning is always incomplete, always in need of a checking against reality, we ought to recognize reasons limitations.

It is from these limits that we find a place for revealed wisdom, what Lao-tzu describe as the world thinking into us. Remember, what we speak about here is not some ætherial force intervening from some external reality. They are merely our own inherited instinctive patterns. They are the natural tools of the human animal hidden deep within our unconsciousnesses. We see them as separate and locked away, and sometimes we don’t see them at all—but this is illusion, presumption, presupposition—Error.

Error is at the heart of our blindness and deafness. The clinging to a notion that would otherwise be dissolved is the birth of the noise and the smog which obscures revealed wisdom. It is the self deception—the lie—which purges authenticity from the mind.

But the lie can be conquered. Lao-tzu describes the small disciplines required to defeat this disease one step at a time: sit quietly, which is to say stop doing and stop talking; as you are now is nothing but pretending and noise. Fly obliquely, which we may interpret to mean to live in accordance with one’s own nature even when that nature does not conform to the pressures of larger society (though I wish to draw a line between non-conforming and refusal to take responsibility; they are in opposition). Engage in some form of contemplative ritual, form a routine and include something which allows for some self-reflection. Be open; do not reject uncomfortable notions for reasons of revulsion or disgust, but instead see them fully for what they are as if to do otherwise was a sin. And lastly, practice humility and self acceptance. One step at a time, this path will lead each of us to each our own Tao way of life. All that is require to begin is the will hidden in the heart center.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Forty-Seven”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. pp.94-5