MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
the ancient child asks
what is it that is beyond opposites and extremes
to stand upright amid the tao source of life
the ancient child asks
how does one do this
stand upright and alone
amidst the chaotic commerce
reveal the mysterious channel of unlimited capacity
with neutral will and intention
distant mind ever surprised
distant thought ever alert
distant traveler ever aware
feel the opened space that
exists before and between
heaven and earth
be spontaneously silent, quiet, still, and dynamic
to gain admittance
be naturally isolated, random, genuine, and perennial
to fuse with the changing changelessness and space
that is your ever-present womb, home, and companion
from this place
you stand
for this space is the door and source
from which existence flows
and makes itself known to you
though invisible to me and unnamed
I sense its presence
by its shadow and tracks as it moves through me
and I through it
it is a private experience
intimate in the extreme and latent in antithesis
so I call it the tao way of life even as my words evaporate
domesticated people can not perceive its real name
for its name is a word enfolding
miraculous power
stalwart power
constant power
great power
the great is sufficient in itself
for addressing
that which is so close
yet
so far away
That which is separated
yet
intensely unified
that which comes closer to you
as it moves further away
in this greatness the tao source of life turns on
the whim of intention
yet
is affected by nothing
sufficient unto itself and its reflections
the tao source of life is great from above
heaven as creation is great
earth as receptive is great
man in his humanity is great
tao source of life
heaven as creation
earth as receptive
man in his humanity
all are great
and that’s all we can normally see
and we are part of it
as it is part of us
man in his humanity is guided by the receptive earth
receptive earth is guided by heaven as creation
heaven as creation is guided by the tao source of life
the tao source of life is wrapped in the self-formed gossamer of
spontaneous force
that exists of its own accord
—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey
We perceive the world as a realm of opposites: right and wrong, good and evil, high and low, beautiful and ugly. This, we’ve learned thus far, is a necessary consequence of ordering the world. After all, to ascribe a name or label to a thing as a means of distinguishing it from something else is an act of exclusion which functions to separate concepts via conceptual borders. To do otherwise, to be all-inclusive, would melt all ideas into entropic chaos.
But then the Child Archetype—that instinct toward growth, discovery, and development—asks us to define what it is that exists outside this necessary conceptual framework of opposition. It is the Tao source of life, the objective reality, Nature, the nominal, the transcendent universe; yet those answers only beg the question, “What do we even mean by those things?” This is much more difficult to answer, but we must try in order to contemplate the Child Archetype’s next question. So then, what do we mean by “transcendent universe?” Fundamentally, it is an abyss, chaos, contradiction, madness, ever-changing-changelessness, the birthing pits of all opposites both terrible wonderous. It is the dragon and it is the ocean. Both are immense and powerful; both are capable of granting life and fortune, and they can take either away with great tides of destruction. The Tao source of life is the world undifferentiated between its blessings and reasons to suffer—it is the world we can turn against or instead choose to stand with.
But “how does one . . . / stand upright and alone / amidst the chaotic commerce?”
To stand in affirmation of life, we must first let go of our desires. We must separate the Ego (the conscious eye that sees) from the Will (the instinctive drives of the body). We must become observers of ourselves, like distant travelers watching, waiting, aware of our own unconscious impulses and thereby surprised by those we had blinded ourselves to before. This is what it means to, “know thyself.” And knowing ourselves is a vital step on the Road to understanding and accepting our place in the world, the effect of which is a kind of re-birth of the self. Our orientations turn away from who we believe we should be and toward who we really could become. Likewise, the world seems to transform before us. What were previously obstacles, enemies, and annoyances become the very opportunity to live amidst the transcendent universe as it is—in other words, it is admittance into and among the Tao source of life.
“Domesticated people,” those who are moral slaves, cannot understand this. For the Tao source of life is a thing sufficient in and of itself. It does not need nor depend on their ideology. It does not obey their thoughts nor their wishes nor their expectations. All “oughts” and “shoulds” fall away in the face of reality as it is in itself—and that is despite our propensity to project our human limitations onto that which has no limits and is not human.
So rather than engage in the unnatural and inevitable folly of trying to impose the Will onto a universe which cannot be bent but only bends of its own accord, let us affirm the conditions in which we exist. We are mankind, guided by the “earth,” our inherited nature and the external nature of our surroundings. Our internal nature is guided by “heaven as creation,” the process of Individuation—of integration of unconscious elements into conscious being; a rebirth of the self; a generation of a higher state of being. And this process is shaped by the conditions of the nominal universe itself—of which we are a part.
To life in accordance with the Tao source of life is to realize that we are a part of that same spontaneous force, that force which exists of its own accord, that which justifies itself—that which is self-affirming.
Lao-tzu. “Chapter Twenty-Five”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. pp.47-9
