Tao Tuesday – Chapter 41
Every Tuesday, Amy Putkonen posts a chapter from her version of the “Tao Te Ching” on www.taotechingdaily.com and invites everyone to comment on the chapter. If you’d like to participate, please link to her post in yours, and then link back to your post from hers so we all can read your post too.
Great people listen to Tao attentively
and live accordingly.
Average people listen to Tao
and are one moment aware,
the next moment unsure.
Below average people listen to Tao and ridicule it.
If they did not laugh, it would not be Tao.
The illuminated way seems dull.
The quickest path to Tao seems slow.
The straight path to Tao seems rough.
The highest virtue seems like a great abyss.
The purest things seems tarnished.
Abundant virtue seems lacking.
Solid virtue seems frail.
True reality seems uncertain.
The perfect square has no corners.
The perfect vessel is not yet finished.
The perfect music is without sound.
The perfect form is without shape.
Tao is hidden, unnamed – yet always brings fulfillment.
When I do a Tarot reading, I look at the cards in context, not just the cards traditional “meaning”: its position within the layout, major vs minor arcana, upright vs reversed - that sort of thing.
This is one of those chapters in the Tao Te Ching where a little bit of cultural context comes in handy. As a modern-day egalitarian, I all but get a rash at the class labeling that seems to be in the language of the Tao Te Ching at times. But remember the context. Although not the Caste system of India, Ancient China was still very class and rank conscious. Putting the basic concept in the context of our culture, I think of it more in terms of maturity (not calendar age) or “place in their path” of spiritual learning. I see this as a comparison within the individual, rather than comparing the individual to everyone else. The path of spiritual growth and wisdom starts with a focus on the physical above all, and progresses to a focus on the spiritual above all. This reminds me a bit of something Sting, the musician, said in an interview once. I forget the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of as he has gotten older, he focuses more on the intangible because the intangible is what is real.
The next section, as is typical of the Tao Te Ching, a layering of practical advice over top of an esoteric insight. The first lines can be understood in terms of Gong Fu or Kung Fu…but not the martial art kind. Wushu is martial arts…Kung Fu is mastery of anything through effort over time. It takes Kung Fu to master Wushu. It takes Kung Fu to become a doctor. It takes Kung Fu to become good at whatever you do and with Kung Fu you can do almost anything. Kung fu is a quality in the work of someone who has that kind of mastery. Da Vinci’s paintings have Kung Fu. So does Shakespeare’s writing. So does Grandmother’s apple pie and that movie that took your breath away. Anything can have Kung Fu.
Developing a life following the Tao takes Kung Fu. The words and lifestyle of a Sage has Kung Fu. There are not short cuts to it. It seems like the dull, slow, rough, tarnished, uncertain way of doing things, but in the end, it is the only Way.
Less obviously, I think this section also celebrates the beauty of imperfection. In Japan’s Raku pottery, unique flaws and little imperfections are most prized part of the style. So much so, that sometimes they are deliberately added. It takes great skill to make a deliberate glitch look natural and genuine.
The final section continues this theme…only the idealized potential has perfection while it is, hmmm, how to say this…
Only expectation and the idealized potential has perfection while it is still unsullied by actual manifestation. No real thing can live up to its imagined but unrealized potential. At least not in everyone’s eyes. The perfect square is the square that has not yet formed: It has no corners. The perfect music has not yet sounded. But when it does, it rings out with a beautiful imperfection.
And the Tao encompasses them both. The Tao holds both the unformed and still-perfect square, as well as the beautifully imperfect one, corners and all. The Tao is hidden, un-named, yet brings everything. It houses the perfect, the beautiful, and manifests the real in all of its beautiful imperfection, thus fulfilling everything.
