The Tao te Ching Chapter 40: Being at Rest

Text:

Retirement is characteristic of Dao just as weakness appears to be a characteristic of its activity.

Heaven and earth and everything are produced from existence, but existence comes from nonexistence.

Interpretation:

It is often difficult for people to understand that the Tao te Ching clearly recommends doing nothing as a useful activity.  We do hold the clue to this in our society however.  Many of us wait anxiously for the weekend or lunch break or any time that we can "zone out" for a while.  These moments of peaceful inactivity are as essential to our ability to live effectively as our moments of activity.  The Tao te Ching may be said to embrace this notion.  This chapter may be interpreted to say, Relaxing is very healthy.

The first stanza observes that the Tao lies at rest and reiterates the earlier theme that the Tao appears weak.

The second stanza observes that everything thing that is (and is active) came from the formlessness of the Dao (and was inactive.)  Perhaps this can be interpreted to mean that the state of rest is the true form of the universe at its core.

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.

Understanding the Tao te Ching Chapter 1: What is Tao?

1.

The Dao that can be understood cannot be the primal, or cosmic, Dao, just as an idea that can be expressed in words cannot be the infinite idea.

And yet this ineffable Dao was the source of all spirit and matter, and being expressed was the mother of all created things.


Therefore not to desire the things of sense is to know the freedom of spirituality; and to desire is to learn the limitation of matter.


These two things spirit and matter, so different in nature, have the same origin. This unity of origin is the mystery of mysteries, but it is the gateway to spirituality.

Interpretation:

This passage makes two points.  One on the nature of Tao, one of the way to experience Tao.  

Many enlightened individuals have made the observation that the thinking mind, the "worried" mind can't understand the true nature of the Universe.  The argue goes like this "eyes don't hear,"  "ears don't see."  Your problem solving mind is only eyes or ears.  There are a lot of things going on in the universe that can't be seen or heard.  

This information is still experienceable, just not through thought.  A good way to get at this understanding is through the work of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor http://drjilltaylor.com/ 

Dr. Taylor observes that only a very small part of our brains "think" thoughts, the rest is occupied with a wide array of feelings and understandings that are not thoughts, nor are they problems to be solved.  Joy, is not a thought, empathy is not a thought.  The  motivating force behind the Universe is not a thought.

Perhaps the first message of the Dao could be restated this way:  "You are not going to be able to think your way through this one.  The Universe does not think in any way that we understand nor does it need to think in order to act.  If you want to get to know it, you'll have to stop trying to figure it out."

Learning how to "know things" without "figuring them out, leads us to the second message.  It comes in the third stanza.  You can't really "want" to know Dao.  Desire inspires us to reason, to figure out, to find a way to get what you want.  If worried thoughts are not the path to the Tao, then desire can not lead you there.  It's like a deaf person staring harder at the radio in hopes of hearing.  The Tao already is.  You already are.  Understanding of the Tao is something you let happen, not make happen.