The reason for this writing is I wanted a way to be in touch with the words of the Tao te Ching on a more regular basis and decided writing a little something on a verse each week would be a good way integrate the wisdom that I sometimes quickly forget after reading, and maybe others will get some value out this series as well.
There’s so much of the Tao that reads like a truth that you’ve always known but somehow forgot, and I personally keep forgetting whenever I get wrapped up in the goings on of this culture and the nattering inner dialogue that doesn’t seem to stop.
So I’m just going to randomly choose a verse that resonates each week but I’ll eventually get to them all, maybe some more than once. I’ll liberally choose between different translations as well as they sometimes have different meanings between translations.
Without further ado, this weeks verse:
41
When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.
When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.
When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.
If he didn’t laugh, it wouldn’t be the Tao.
Thus it is said: The path into the light seems dark, the path forward seems to go back, the direct path seems long, true power seems weak, true purity seems tarnished, true steadfastness seems changeable, true clarity seems obscure, the greatest art seems unsophisticated, the greatest love seems indifferent, the greatest wisdom seems childish.
The Tao is nowhere to be found. Yet it nourishes and completes all things.
Mitchell, Stephen; Tzu, Lao. Tao Te Ching
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Like many verses in the Tao this one has a lot to do with wisdom explored through paradox.
The first four lines here precisely hit on the idea of how people in different states of mind can interpret the same words differently. There’s always a bias sitting on top changing the meaning for one party that comes to different conclusions when hearing a similar message.
It brings to mind some of the cooperative Native American tribes that were kicking around before western civilization colonized. They lived free, often with close community, and if you told modern man that you could have joy and fulfillment out of life without video games, TV, professional sports, cell phones, money, lawyers, prisons, or taxes they’d call you a luddite, have a laugh and mock what they believe to be a lack of sophistication.
But I think Thoreau had it right – “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
It’s interesting too that people will hear wisdom and it can come across as counterintuitive upfront until you start to sit with it for moment and question if it might be true.
It reminds me customer book reviews online where if someone has adopted an ideology as the basis for their thinking and identified with it as who they are they can give wildly different reviews
