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“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao”:
We, too, try in vain to live full lives without understanding what it means to see. We, too, presume to act, to do, to create, without opening ourselves to a vision of ultimate reality. This opening and the way to experience it are what the Tao Te Ching is about.
According to the tale, Confucius described his meeting with Lao Tsu in the following way: “I know a bird can fly, a fish can swim, an animal can run. For that which runs a net can be made; for that which swims a line can be made; for that which flies a corded arrow can be made. But the dragon’s ascent into heaven on the wind and the clouds is something which is beyond my knowledge. Today I have seen Lao Tsu who is perhaps like a dragon.”1
What lies behind the ordinary sense of self or ego is the awareness of the ego. But this awareness—what is it? We cannot say. Call it Tao. The “other world,” the “real world” out there and in here is simply this world illumined with the inconceivably powerful and subtle gift of consciousness. And we must work and struggle with an entirely new and unknown kind of effort
What is a human being—anterior to the division into man and woman? The point is that a human being can only act, that is, move outward, in a manner that is specifically human, to the extent that he or she can receive
Heaven and earth are impartial; They see the ten thousand things as they are. (Ch. 5)
The highest Virtue seems empty; . . . The greatest form has no shape. The Tao is hidden and without name. The Tao alone nourishes and brings everything to fulfillment.
It means living in the midst of both the forces of outer life and the forces of the mystical return while searching in oneself for the consciousness that is at the root and that stands as the reconciling fulfillment of both these movements. This war is love. This love is war.
Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life. Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle. A tree that is unbending is easily broken. The hard and strong will fall. The soft and weak will overcome. (Ch. 76) People usually fail when they are on the verge of success.
High winds do not last all morning. Heavy rain does not last all day.
George <3
Those who follow the Tao Are at one with the Tao. Those who are virtuous Experience Virtue. Those who lose their way Are lost. When you are at one with the Tao, The Tao welcomes you.
Sink/swim
yes/no
pass/fail
lose your way = you're lost
When you are at one with Virtue, Virtue is always there. When you are at one with loss, Loss is experienced willingly. Those who do not trust enough Will not be trusted.
Manifest /project your reality
Something mysteriously formed, Born before heaven and earth. In the silence and the void, Standing alone and unchanging, Ever present and in motion. Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things. I do not know its name. Call it Tao. For lack of a better word, I call it great. Being great, it flows. It flows far away. Having gone far, it returns.
Big bang/singularity
Therefore, “Tao is great; Heaven is great; Earth is great; The human being is also great.” These are the four great powers of the universe, And the human being is one of them. The human being follows the earth. Earth follows heaven. Heaven follows the Tao. Tao follows what is natural.
Tao abides in non-action, Yet nothing is left undone.
Wild
Being arises from not being.
What are we before were here
Fame or self: Which matters more? Self or wealth: Which is more precious? Gain or loss: Which causes more pain?
David bowie- fame
The Tao of heaven does not strive and yet it overcomes. It does not speak and yet is answered. It does not ask, yet all its needs are met. It seems to have no aim and yet its purpose is fulfilled.
ECHOES
Floyd
When you are at one with loss, / Loss is experienced willingly: These lines and what is conjoined with them are perhaps the most puzzling in the whole of the Tao Te Ching, so much so that Richard Wilhelm writes, “On the whole, it is probably sensible to give up the passage as hopelessly beyond interpretation.”
i immediately grasped this… or did i
And he who is identified with the abandonment [of Tao]—the abandonment [of Tao] is also happy to abandon him.4 In other words, one receives from reality exactly what one seeks from it, “As you sow, so you reap” (Galatians 6:7). The Tao, as the whole of nature, does not violently impose its will. This interpretation has the virtue of corresponding to the opening lines of the second section.
This is money
rather the appearance of a new principle within ourselves which the body and the mind voluntarily and instantly obey. Compare also Nietzsche’s “third metamorphosis of the spirit” in Thus Spake Zarathustra, how the spirit became a camel, then a lion, then a child.
my boy!
The human being is a microcosm. By seeing within, one can know the laws of the universe. But, of course, one must understand how to see, how to search within.
as above/so below
Compare the Bhagavad Gita 4:17: “Know therefore what is work, and also what is wrong work.” And 3:27: “All actions take place in time by the interweaving of the forces of Nature; but the man lost in selfish delusion thinks that he himself is the actor.”5
There is nothing to be added. There is nothing missing in ourselves. There are only accretions to be dropped. Compare the Sufi saying: When the heart weeps for what it has lost, The Spirit laughs for what it has found.
In Christianity this teaching may be discerned in the doctrine that God has already forgiven us; we are already accepted. The human problem is to accept that, deeply. The aim of spiritual work is to become able to receive that love.
All the versions, however, suggest that what is being spoken of here is the accumulation of a certain force within oneself, which confers on the individual a capacity that is beyond ordinary understanding. No one can be a ruler (of others or oneself) without this mysterious capacity. This
paradoxically in the Mahayana Buddhist doctrine that nirvana (freedom) is samsara (slavery). Nirvana is the total awareness of samsara; freedom is the total awareness of slavery; knowledge is the total awareness of ignorance. Such awareness is not mere mental awareness, not merely the thought that one knows nothing or is enslaved. It is awareness as a tangible force and can carry with it the power of feeling and sensing that itself conducts a great liberating energy into our human life. Thus, in the Christian contemplative tradition, the most important factor in the inner life is remorse,
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where's Thom Yorke to explain this to me
grace or mercy of God to enter. It cannot be simulated; it must be genuine. This is the principal meaning of humility. “Blessed are they that mourn . . .” (Matthew 5:4).
