MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

the ancient child asks
but where can you find the connection

it is a bright moment that can not be grasped

gravity intelligence must have an earth center
to find its core
and bring auspicious stability
to those quarters shallow
and not yet complete

as foundation and embodied root
gravity intelligence
secures profundity in the unprofound

for the planet on which we stand
and its wonders all around us
are both our model and our entry point
to the concentration of impervious integrity

the wise traveler
as gentle soul
is a man reserved and understated
who moves over the land cheerfully

carrying the weight of his own existence
as a cherished memory forever near

only softly at rest and true repose
can he visit the honest gravity intelligence

of his own existence
and rejuvenate himself
for journeys anew

but what motivates someone to retain a sense of humor
about themselves
while showing true concern for the hearts, minds, and lives
of people they have never met

the only answer is the selfsame gravity intelligence

if you have a firm root and core
born of its honest weight
then you will not lose your foundation
life’s movement will then be deliberate and unhurried
and will
itself
protect you

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

“The ancient child asks / but where can you find the connection [to the Tao source of life]?” Lao-tzu answers; it is within one’s core in his earth center—in other words, it is in hidden within his instinctive nature, in the Collective Unconscious, that aspect of the unconscious self evolved over generations and thereby molded by the external Nature that is the world. For mankind is human, and humans are embodied beings tethered to the earth. It is against one’s nature for him to reach vainly toward the heavens, though man does possess this tendency. Yet it would be better for him to settle his feet in the dirt where he might find stability.

This stability is perhaps what Lao-tzu means when he describes “gravity intelligence.” It is a kind of based-ness, an acceptance that all things profound are and will be of the very existence that one finds himself in—and not in some distant ӕtherial realm. The “model and entry point,” the map of the Road—the Tao—is concentrated in the here-and-now; because the here-and-now are ever-changing, they are impervious to the stultification inevitable of ideology. Following such a map makes one integrous. Necessarily, he acting in accordance with his internal nature as it is in accordance with the external, objective state of the universe.

To him, things are as they ought to be. He is the “wise traveler” who traverses the Tao. He is at peace with himself because he is at peace with the earth. Each moment of his existence passes without clinging or regret, and thus each moment is cherished as a memory, one after the next. From journey to journey, This wise traveler returns again and again to this core of himself. He visits with his gravity intelligence—his instinctive nature—and allows his model to dissolve and reconstitute itself, to become rejuvenated.

Only someone such as this wise traveler can be simultaneously at peace and yet compassionate for others. His root to the earth is what allows for this. Others who are unrooted will become pulled in one direction or the other: they will become bitter and resentful for their self-sacrifice in pursuit of their compassion, or else they will become jaded and lose the capacity for compassion altogether. They do not possess a root by which to maintain their footing on their moral foundations, and so when life’s outcomes are aside from their desires and expectations, they will fall, unable to reconstitute their world-models.

But the wise traveler—he who seeks the core of himself within the earth, within the here-and-now of his actual circumstances—he will move through life with cheerfulness and deliberation, unhurried, unharried, seemingly protected from the inevitable tragedy.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Twenty-Six”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. pp.50-1