MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER FOURTEEN

talking about the character of the tao source of life is fundamentally useless
talking about the lessons of the tao way of life is likewise useless

because the real way is a revealed way

awakened in yourself
only through an imitation
of the way
as yourself

But where are the clues to this awakening

look all around yourself deliberately
and attempt to see the nothing that is
deliberately all around yourself

nothing no thing nothing

if you cannot see it
then you are in its presence

try to listen deliberately
to the space between the sounds
of your deliberate world

if you do not hear anything
then you will be hearing it through its absence

grab hold of something with your hand and let it go
now imagine some things that you cannot grab with either your
hand or mind
then you will surely be holding it

invisible inaudible intangible

the form and function of these three components blend together
creating the tao way of life

do not think of it as upper and lower or dark and bright or rise and sink
instead view the miracle as something that is continuously moving
unnamable and totally elusive

it is a formless form and a methodless method
that gives birth to an image of no thing

when you confront it
there is no face to look at

when you pursue it
there is no shape to follow

it does not tao talk
it does not tao act

but if you look for the wisdom that it leaves in its wake
and deal with present realities accordingly

then you will have seized the beginning moment
that is the tao way of living

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

Recall that the Tao which can be named is not the true Tao but one of Plato’s shadows on the wall. What we imagine with our minds and perceive with our senses are just that: perspective, perception, experience shaped by human limitation. It is never the transcendent, objective world itself. Therefore, when we discuss such things as concerns the Tao, either the “source of life” or the path that lives in accord with it, we are necessarily stumbling and stammering around something which can never really be articulated or understood. This is why it is fundamentally useless merely to talk of it (the irony is not lost on me; if this is true, what am I doing writing this article).

But I do not believe we are merely talking. Perhaps the first steps of living the Tao involve just what we are doing right now. Questioning—opening ourselves to what is and what could become—these things are in us, they are us, and they are that which surrounds us as well. What does this mean? Within each of us is hidden potential, the potential to become someone who acts in accordance with how life really, objectively is. In other words, someone who does not inflict self injury by running headlong into overlooked obstacles but instead accepts their presence and behaves acknowledging that those obstacles are there. And how do we achieve this potential self? By waking ourselves up to who we truly are no matter how nightmarish the waking world may be. Because only from a position of balance—equilibrium like water which rests only its lowest ground—can we begin to mimic, bit by bit, the potential that hides within us. It is through imitating this potential that we live more closely according to the Tao.

If, however, we cannot see our potential, how is it we can even start? In this situation, we can find it only by not looking. The attempt to see it will result only on our human vision getting caught on distractions and preconceptions. The Tao source of life is a thing invisible. Similarly, listening will only result in the same. It is inaudible. Likewise, it is a thing which cannot be grasped. It is intangible. It something which cannot be held. We must accept that it is something which cannot be discovered because it is that which lies beyond human dichotomies such as good and evil, light and dark, favorable or unfavorable. It is who we are, where and when. It is the present moment in which we align our individual wills with what is—opening ourselves and thereby revealing the ever-present stream of wisdom.

And when it reveals itself to us, remember. Understanding it is not what is important—our actions are. Imitation is behavior. Our choices, are what determine whether our characters live the Tao way of life or another.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Fourteen”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.24-5