Tao Tuesday – Chapter 26
Check this out! Tao Tuesday on an actual Tuesday! As you probably know by now, Tao Tuesday is a project by Amy Putkonen on Tao Te Ching Daily where she posts a chapter from her version of the Tao Te Ching every week and invites other bloggers to post their own commentary on the chapter in addition to her own. I highly recommend her blog, and her commentary. Her version of the Tao Te Ching is my favorite 
Heaviness is the root of lightness.
Tranquility is the master of impulsivity.
The sage travels all day
without leaving her bags unattended.
Stays calm and unattached,
though she experiences magnificent things.
How can a master of Ten Thousand Things
be frivilous with her own person?
With lightness, one loses her root.
With impulsiveness, one loses her mastery.
- See more at: http://taotechingdaily.com/tao-tuesdays-chapter-26/#sthash.Mc4DLzSW.dpuf
Probably the best place to start in this chapter is the phrase “Ten Thousand Things”. I believe it was Diane Morgan in “Magical Tarot, Mystical Tao” (my all time favorite Tarot reference book) who explained that ‘ten thousand’ was an impossibly big number in ancient China. To a largely illiterate, agrarian culture, ‘ten thousand’ might as well be like trillion or hoozillion or ba-zillion might be to us today…a number so large as to not be understandable. In that context, this phrase basically means ‘everything’ , the sum-total, gestalt, big-picture, all-that-is everything.
If someone is master of everything, then they probably aren’t going to indulge in blissed-out silliness. Until they do.
It is only natural to think of a sage, or master of living, to be serious, dour, un-fun. I don’t think that is what this chapter means. I think it is talking about pragmatism trumping enthusiasm. It isn’t about eschewing joy and beauty, it is about staying rooting and not taking the joy and happiness to an unhealthy, blissed-out extreme. By the same token, the master doesn’t stay home, not seeing the beautiful wonderous things in the world…it just says the real master of living can travel, and see beauty and still keep an eye on their suitcase while they are at it.
Sages are not emotionally stunted, neither are they giddy with it. Being a Taoist sage…a Taoist of any accomplishment…is about experiencing life, being engaged with the world…but not getting too carried away with any one extreme. In that extreme, the thing itself is lost. If we get lost in bliss, forgetting the trials of the past, the bliss looses all reference and all meaning. If we are lost in the light, without some shadow, we are as blinded as if we were in total darkness. Lynn Andrews writes a lovely example of just this idea in her book “Crystal Woman”, where the character Genivieve uses sight, light, and shadow as an example of the kind of balance we see here in Chapter 26. “Heaviness is the root of lightness”…knowing heavy is the root…the thing that allows us to grow to know lightness. That isn’t to say the lightness is to be avoided…
Taoist sages experience the full range of life and emotion. They know the extremes of joy and sorrow…they just remember to come back to the middle when they are done. And they don’t go to extremes in the first place unless it is warranted. Sages experience joy and sorrow…they just remember where they put the car keys while they are doing it.
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