MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER TWENTY

is there any difference
in saying
yes
loudly and with force
and saying
yes
softly with smiling eyes

between those words

whispers weighed
whispered whole

resides the same smoothed hub of assent
that is
my heart

who are you
I am the ancient child

what some say is
good
magnificent
correct

others will say is
bad
decadent
flawed

know that
I refuse
this stultifying jest

and say that
each day which is
a beginning for you
is an end for another

but to me
at least
a thing cannot be correct

if indeed
it is not flawed

am I to be compelled
by false evidence
and looming reality

when that which men truly fear
is merely
themselves seen in each other

the next step is natural
pervasive
take and put comfort in your soul

bodyminds at ease playing in the fires of sacrifice and growth

singing of success and good fortune
brings nourishment to the wanderer
yourself
as new growth in the spring

I pretend that I am floating
solemnly and alone
engineering quietude
allowing tranquility

my thoughts as grains of sand
released from the hand of my mind
to fall
alone and restful
each thought finding its own place
of stillness

I must form a balance between the world of man about me
and the world of man inside me

if they gather
then I am alone

if they are abundant
then I am desolate

if they are bereft
then I bring them together in joy

if the white thought is exhausted
then I bring them self-assurance

patiently I move
seeking rest for each moment in space and time
conforming to the gifts of the moment
like the water to the shoreline
helping the families
within and without
to join purposes and grasp and listen and comprehend

I stand alone

for even in a crowd
my simple way is innocently direct and elemental and unique
by that I am singular
rendered aimless and complete
as I absorb the earth’s yellow center and life force

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

The first steps of the Tao, the way by which one lives in accord with the transcendent, require one to “empty his cup.” He must let go of his preconceptions of what he knows both about himself and all else. He must entertain the notion that what he previously held as knowledge and wisdom is but ignorance compared to that which he has yet to learn. In doing this, one opens himself to chaos and contradiction—the differences between opposites collapse into one another. The boarders between concepts become blurred and outright dissolve. In Jungian terms, the consciousness submerges into the unconscious. In mythological terms, he initiates voluntary exploration of the unknown—begins his descent into the underworld.

That is what is meant when Lao-tzu says, “between those words . . . resides the same smoothed hub of assent / that is / my heart.” Assent is voluntary agreement, allowance, permission for unconscious to enter consciousness. It is a return to the Child archetype, the undeveloped being that grows, matures, and learns. This is part of the Jungian Individuation cycle—Child to Hero to Father (sometimes called the wise old man or mentor) and then back to the child again. A parallel predates this cycle in Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. The Chapter “The Three Metamorphoses” describe the process of a man becoming a camel, then a lion, and then a child again in order to create new values—in other words, to reconstitute what his values are.

The “ancient child” chooses to play a different game from that which others play, one in which good and bad as formerly conceived are rejected as categories. In their place, he accepts that good and bad are in all things. That which is correct is inevitably flawed. Perfection is abandoned because no man has ever found it anywhere. Instead, what he calls imperfection, which he avoids out of fear, is really a falsehood. Imperfection isn’t real, for it requires perfection as its opposite for it to exist. Therefore, what men fear is really the truth about themselves reflected back to them in the image of others. This is akin to Jungian projection, the ascription of traits or blame onto others because of psychic pain brought on by a reminder that one is an imperfect being—perhaps “imperfect” is putting it too lightly. Said another way, one becomes aware of the chasm that gapes between who he is and who he ought to be, and that awareness brings with it discomfort, disillusionment, and despair. It is the discovery that one is standing at the rock bottom of his own Shadow in the Valley of Darkness of his conscience.

But from this hard ground, one can grow. With the ego dissolved, one has made himself open to where he could go and who he could be. He has sacrificed old, stultified images of himself. He has burned them off like deadwood. Like a phoenix, he rises again from the ashes of his former self. His thoughts flow freely, once again finding places to rest. New boundaries are drawn, new boarders of conception more in-line with the Tao, with Nature and the self.

But this self-reconstruction does not come without other changes.

What others desire will become repulsive to the enlightened, and what the enlightened engages in seems torturous to the outsider. Their community becomes his solitude, his solitude to him is his own community. And yet, it is the act of the enlightened (or perhaps merely an effect) to bring joy and self-assurance to those around him despite this chasm, despite an ever-present sense of detachment, of loneliness.

Perhaps Nietzsche described it best through his avatar, Zarathustra:

I no longer feel in common with you; the very cloud which I see beneath me, the blackness and heaviness at which I laugh—that is your thunder-cloud

Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation; and I look downward because I am exalted.

Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?

He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and tragic realities.

Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive—so wisdom wisheth us; she is a woman, and ever loveth only a warrior.

Ye tell me, “Life is hard to bear.” But for what purpose should ye have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening?

Life is hard to bear: but do not affect to be so delicate! We are all of us fine sumpter asses and assesses.

What have we in common with the rose-bud, which trembleth because a drop of dew hath formed upon it?

It is true we love life; not because wea re wont to live, but because we are wont to love.

There is always some madness in love. But there is always, also, some method in madness.

And to me also, who appreciate life, the butterflies, and soap-bubbles, and whatever is like them amongst us, seem most to enjoy happiness.

To see these light, foolish, pretty, lively little sprites flit about—that moveth Zarathustra to tears and songs.

I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. (Nietzsche, “Reading and Writing” Thus Spake Zarathustra).

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Twenty”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. pp.37-9

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra. translated by Thomas Common. The Modern Library.