MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

the tao source of life is vast and unlimited
the tao source of life is beyond ordinary reason and logic
the tao source of life is unfathomable and unnamable
it is beyond words and labels
it is beyond deliberateness

the ancient child asks
why can’t you grasp it

because it’s too big and too small at the same time
because it is one thing and many things at the same instant
and you can not divide it into parts
it can not be held or known on purpose

utility is useful for only a short time

these are instructions

lie down
sit
stand
walk in a deliberate manner
allow heaven into your bodymind
draw the earth into your bodymind
let them mingle around the center of your bodymind
resisting the desire to command or control
it will feel like a gentle rain is falling within and without you
swallow the saliva like it was honey
that condenses like a sweet dew into your core
and rest peacefully and naturally within the tao source of life
knowing that its heartbeat
is your own

the heartbeat will shape, carve and form you into what is needed
at this moment in space and time and no more

do not be in a hurry for the future
rather allow the unnamed to flow into the named to reveal the
ever present

embodying balance, poise, and equilibrium
you will have no difficulty seeing
you are part of a vast undifferentiated whole
you are a swirling eddy in the great river
you are a drop of water in the great ocean

despite what your dividing mind says
remind yourself
that you are always home

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

The Tao is the Way to that which cannot be named nor grasped nor comprehended. What is the point? Why bother with something which we cannot ever hope to even speak about? What does something matter if it is, by definition, eternally unknown to us? It matters for the same reason a cliff matters to the blind man who is at risk of stepping off one. We live within the world that is the Tao source of life. On a sea of unknown, unconscious chaos we float in a vessel constructed of our illusions, delusions, beliefs, and conceptions—these are the constituent elements of our Maps of Meaning. They are how we—as limited, finite beings—navigate what is to us an infinitely complex, ever-changing universe whose existence is independent of us whom are dependent on it.

This is why it is the Will that ought to be brought into conformity with the world rather than the other way around. Any action of the Will, whether it be violent force, logical argument, or acts of deception, manipulation, or subterfuge can only affect our perception—our maps. It cannot move Nature in a direction that Nature was not already going to go. But go ahead and try: distort your map, and you’ll find how quickly its predictive power wanes with the passing of each moment, how variables you did not and could not account for emerge from nowhere and ruin your plans.

Or, you can let go of the desire to control. Through a deliberate effort (perhaps many years of practice), we can train ourselves to become comfortable with the unknown. We can learn to accept the consequences as being a thing ultimately determined by the unconscious universe. We can learn to love and affirm the conditions of our existence and thereby trust the wisdom which emerges from the mingling of our conscious ego with our instinctual unconscious. The very moment will become a thing to savor rather than a mere stepping stone. And in the moment of unconscious integration, we are reshaped to better fit the conditions of the universe. These are instructions for self-transformation.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Thirty-Two”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. pp.63-4