MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
treat yourself with respect as you cultivate the tao way of life
authentic wisdom as revealed knowledge
can become overpowering and make you afraid
because its implications are profound and far-reaching
the force of revealed knowledge
can sometimes make you feel small and insignificant
push you to austerity and
make you fell undeserving
the sage wise man is not afraid
and is content to be overpowered
know that you are vast and significant
deserving of all the good things that life has to offer
and life will always be at your fingertips
—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey
The truth is that fairness is an illusion; it is a subjective projection which conscious beings overlay on an objective reality. To many, this statement is not acceptable. It will be dismissed out of hand or else misunderstood. For others, however, the realization of the illusory nature of fairness is as terrifying as monstrous tidal swell is to a small costal village—it threatens to shatter the very foundations of life and drag all manner of cultural institutions into an abyssal hell. If there is no fairness, there is no justice. If there is not justice, there is no morality. And without morality, there is only power—brutality and subterfuge—no good, no evil, only nihilism and suffering. The biblical scroll of world-ending despair unfurls on its own.
But hold on.
It may be true that much of what we believe and do are but illusory in nature, meaning that they don’t exist beyond the relationship between the object thing and our consciousnesses. However, it is important to remember that these Apolline illusions make up large parts of our lives. The significance of our relationships and of our achievements exist within this illusory realm, and yet that does not make them any less valuable or important. We do not discard our friends because friendship is a prescriptive label, nor do we love them less because of that. Likewise, we do not lose our sense of meaning from making music, literature, art, architecture, or anything else just because those categories require human consciousnesses to exist.
It is only when we look from the perspective of the universe that our lives seem small, false, and insignificant. But we are not the universe. We are humans, and if human existence is comparable to the universe’s dream, then all that means from our perspective is that the dream is real to us who are living in it.
Allow this revelation to wash over you in the same way a wise sage allows his own dark and terrifying revealed truths to wash over him. Recognize that there is no need for absolute power, absolute freedom, or absolute certainty. There is a world out there which we cannot fully know and to which we are subject—so what? It cannot be any other way for us, for we humans. So when something good happens to you, don’t concern yourself with whether it was deserved or not. Instead, be grateful for the occurrence, and make the most of your good fortune (the same can be said of accepting bad things as well). Do this, and you will be one step further on your Path.
Lao-tzu. “Chapter Seventy-Two”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.133
