Taoism

Large and Small, Done and Undone

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Chapter 63 of and 64 of the Tao Te Ching contain thoughts on size, doing, and handling issues in life.  I’ve been thinking these over in my readings and want to share my insights.  I will not be reprinting the chapters but you can find them elsewhere.

Chapter 63 emphasizes acting without acting, seeing the small as the large, and how regarding things as difficult early ensures success.

Chapter 64 further continues on how taking action early can head off troubles or bring things to completion.  It also warns that acting and holding onto can ruin things, something the sage has no trouble with.

I was thinking these over as I’m big on taking care of things early, of thinking about the small picture, and on proper precision.  In fact with those things you can often not need to act as you see what you need and what you don’t.  Leaping immediately to the big picture or waiting too long can distort your view and let problems get out of hand.

(Remember, I’m a Project Manager)

So let me formulate a way to think about this.  This is for myself as much as you, my reader, so I hope you may have insights to share.

A wise person, a sage, recognizes that small things grow into large things, both good and bad.  By recognizing the seeds of good and bad it’s little effort to cultivate one and cut off the others.  In fact it may be no effort at all – literally sometimes you just stop doing something before it gets worse.

Avoiding one thing means solving problems before acting.  A small action on another can have great benefits.

By taking this ability for things to grow and change from their seeds, a wise person is able to ensure great things and avoid great troubles with little action.  I’m sure you can think of small choices that had huge effects (in fact this post is an example of one).

A sage person, also knows that the start of things does not always mean the end works out.  By accepting difficulty, by not assuming, they keep a wary eye out.  A few choices or simple actions can steer something away from disaster or avoid spoiling it.  In fact, the sage person may allow something to complete by not messing with it, thus grasping at the end and ensuring failure.

This also means a sage person doesn’t try big enormous things, no grand crusades or big shows.  Something that is already large is hard to handle and to seize it is to risk disaster, for that large project or large effort will doubtlessly bring many unexpected effects.  Things are best tackled when small, or I’d add tackled in small parts, with large efforts cultivated at best or viewed cautiously at worst.

If a big thing is made of many small, well-done choices, how much more solid will it be?

Thinking on this has helped me understand these passages and Taoist “doing by not doing.”  So many small, everyday, tiny things can, to a sage person, change the world – if that’s even needed.  So much grows from one small effort, and so much bad can be avoided by not doing something or stopping a problem before it is one.

–Xenofact

The Two That Are None

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In the Taoist-based meditations I do I’ve begun to note an interesting thing about duality and voidness. I’m going to do my best to communicate it, albeit I may sound incoherent or just plain high. Which might be the best way to communicate it, but tolerate me.

So I’ve noticed a lot of dualism or “multiplicative dualism” in various Taoist writings. One reconciles Fire and Water, or uses Sense together with Energy, and so on. Sometimes there’s “dual dualism” like Sense and Energy and Conscious and Real Knowledge. A lot of practices are about combining these elements or reconciling them – and of course the classic Yin and Yang are used among all of these various dualities.

(Sometimes it goes farther like the Tripartate Vitality, Energy Spirit, but stick with me here).

In my Secret of the Golden Flower breathwork I’m working on refining breath and mind, the mind evening and slowing the breath, and the breath being a resting place of the mind. Breath and Mind are another duality and, yes that gets tied to other dualities, which happens in Taoism a lot.

Now in doing that breathwork I’ve found that the refining mind and resting breath are not just best done together, they’re best being done “equally.” You don’t focus more on quality of breath or the resting of the mind, you’re doing both at once, both with equal measure except the occasional course correction

Now if you’ve done any kind of meditation you know those moments where you get clarity, where your perspectives shift, where there’s less you and more reality. I find that the refined breath-and-mind at once are where that starts to happen. You’re doing two things at once, but they’re also one thing, and yet also there’s something about you lighter and emptier.

And yes, as per my respect for Taoism, I’m not going to talk it overmuch since thats when you screw it up (and I’m not that good at communicating it in symbols yet).

I think there’s something about having “two things at once” in meditative practice – two things to do together, two elements to contemplate, and so on – that helps you actually get beyond your mundane self. You get to zero starting with two, but it’s hard to get there from one.

My opinion is that in meditative practices and the symbols used for them, that if we have just one definite symbol or activity or concept, there’s a risk we identify it The self will cling to any one thing as a way to anchor itself. But when your concepts or meditative practices have a duality, it’s hard for the self to settle anywhere – and as you practice, the mundane self becomes thinner as a deeper self becomes apparent.

Is this the only way to do things? Obviously not. There’s focusing exercises, forms of deliberate overload, or round-robin type mental exercises that aren’t dualistic. But I think it’s a useful insight to understand some techniques.

Sometimes you get somewhere from two places.

(I don’t think I over-described, but I’m going to have to start working on how to communicate but not over-communicate more profound experiences).

-Xenofact

The Place Of Death

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In The Tao Te Ching, Chapter 50, there’s a line about people who’ve attained the Tao that translates as “they have no place of death to enter,” “they have no place of death in them” or “for them there is no place in the land of death.” I’d not thought much about this chapter or this line until recently until a mix of meditation and stressful events gave me a new understanding.

In analyzing my own fears and concerns, I saw how they would obsess me. I’d worry about things, and thus my fears, from death to petty things, were actually part of me. I’d carry my concerns with me constantly, and as you doubtlessly know that was a heavy burden.

But being isolated, worrying, etc. just cuts me off from myself. It keeps me from engaging with life – with the Tao. It keeps me from being truly alive, freezing me in place. Honestly we all know too well how fears and worries can lock us down and even lead to bad outcomes – sometimes the very ones we feared.

There in my head, is the Place of Death.

Life, I realized, is a dialogue. You’re constantly reacting and interacting with places, people, ideas, food, etc. You make judgements and evaluations, changing or maintaining your course. Being alive, really alive, really there in the Tao, is a conversation.

And you can’t really have a dialogue when you’re hiding away. Life has to be lived, engaged. You can’t freeze yourself in your head or loop with scenarios to “protect” yourself.

Before I had talked about what I call “The Escape Capsule” in psychology and psychoanatomy. We build a walled off part of ourselves, shoving our supposed “self” into a box inside of us to protect it. This produces tension, warps our concept of ourselves, creates physical discomfort, and is quite miserable.

The “Escape Capsule” and “The Place of Death” are close to or are the exact same thing. Trying to get away from a changing world means you carry the changes you fear with you.

Life is a dialogue, really embracing yourself and the universe means you’re engaging. You can’t hide away in that case, you have to be open and vulnerable – because that’s how you have the dialogue with the world. The attempts to escape just lead you to build a mausoleum in your head.

It might be hard, but we can’t run away or stew in our fears. Why have a place for Death in us? Death has its own place in the world. We might as well find our place as well.

-Xenofact