Understanding the Tao te Ching Chapter 14: Understanding the Present

14.

It is unseen because it is colorless; it is unheard because it is soundless; when seeking to grasp it, it eludes one, because it is incorporeal.

Because of these qualities it cannot be examined, and yet they form an essential unity. Superficially it appears abstruse, but in its depths it is not obscure. It has been nameless forever! It appears and then disappears. It is what is known as the form of the formless, the image of the imageless. It is called the transcendental, its face (or destiny) cannot be seen in front, or its back (or origin) behind.

But by holding fast to the Dao of the ancients, the wise man may understand the present, because he knows the origin of the past. This is the clue to the Dao.

Interpretation:

This particularly poetic chapter reminds us once again that the Tao is not something that can be understood by thought.  We can cannot see it, touch it or hear it, yet we can see that all the things of the universe rise from some eternal flow; the boundless energy of the universe.  If it cannot be understood as a thing but as the thing that came before things, how can we know it?  We know it by its action, by its presence.  Any word, thought, blog about the Tao can only be the first step, the signpost that shows the way.  These words are the end result of untold eons of the ceaseless flow of the Dao, and they will be left behind in the endless, shapeless dance.

You cannot find Tao here.  This is only one moment.   Let go your mind.  Let go your questions.  There is the gateway, there in the endless receptiveness of your unclouded mind.

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