- the Way
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akskigirl- December 9th, 2009
The Tao Te Ching is one of my favorite pieces of writing, both in this class and ever. My copy is a little different from the translation we read in class, so please bear with me and my quotations.
I understand the Tao, the Way, as a system of thought for processing our experiences as humans. This filtering of perceptions, if you will, involves a big adjustment from the traditional Cartesian sense of time. The latter is the perception of one's life as a ship, with you completely in control at the tiller, heading in the direction you choose and leaving a broad wake of history behind you, subject to storms and capsize but still under your own control. The Way is to make individual decisions individually, because one must be able to live in the now. You must put your history behind you and surrender the illusion of control over your future, because you cannot know what the future will hold and where it will take you, and to even attempt to control it is to go against the Way. To connect this with a Western philosopher, Kant explained time as not a thing in its own right that determined motion, change or experience; but an invention of the human mind to make sense of experience. The Cartesian model of time and therefore Western thought tells us that time moves forwards and we can place the memories of our experiences in a chronological order in which they will make sense and explain where we are and what we're currently doing--and predict the future. But without that idea, that invented concept of time as a reference, living from moment to moment would be necessary. If your head was filled with ideas of the future that could in no way be sensibly separated from memories of the past, all of them would be completely meaningless. Using this as a thought experiment, I invite you to temporarily detach yourself from Cartesian time. You cannot know that you will have responsibilities or debts in future; and you cannot know that you will have income or support. You cannot know the future in any form. You must live in the now. With this idea as background, I invite you to read one of my favorite poems from the Tao Te Ching:
44.
Which is closer, your name or your body?
Which is more, your body or your possessions?
Which is more destructive, gain or loss?
Extreme fondness means great expense,
and abundant possessions mean much loss.
If you know when you have enough,
you will not be disgraced.
If you know when to stop,
you will not be endangered.
It is possible thereby to live long.
Wasn't that refreshing?
Now, my other favorite explains clearly the danger that comes from not following the Way:
46.
When the world has the Way,
running horses are retired to till the fields.
When the world lacks the Way,
war-horses are bred in the countryside.
No crime is greater than the approving of greed;
no calamity is greater than discontent,
no fault is greater than possessiveness.
So the satisfaction of contentment is always enough.
