Part 1: The Tao Te Ching
Grandfather: Hector, how are you? Are you ready for our discussion?
Hector: And then some. The Tao Te Ching is short. I reread it a couple of times last night. But it seems contradictory, like the opposite of common sense.
Grandfather: What do you mean?
Hector: Well check it out. How about chapter 47,
The more you know the less you understand.
Or chapter 19,
Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing. Throw away industry and profit, and there won't be any thieves.
Do you really think that we if we stop doing virtuous things and just indulge ourselves everything will work out?
Grandfather: Well I don't think that that is what Lao-tzu is advising. Although he points out in chapter 78,
True words seem paradoxical
But notice chapter 19 ends with
If these three aren't enough, just stay at the center of the circle and let things take their course.
However before we consider the 'center of the circle', Lao-tzu might be advising to do just what you suggest, if 'indulging' means to give up the illusion that we can control things, at least truly control things. Who is the most righteous person you know?
Hector: Probably my homie Luke, of all the Christian heads I know he keeps the rules the most exactly. He fasts longer than the others and has memorized the most scriptures. He also works hardest to help the community and teach the scriptures to his neighbors.
Grandfather: And in doing so he is able to improve the world and control his destiny.
Hector: I suppose so.
Grandfather: Consider chapter 38.
The kind man does something, yet something remains undone. The just man does something, and leaves many things to be done. The moral man does something, and when no one responds he rolls up his sleeves and uses force.
But more to the point in chapter 29.
Do you want to improve the world? I don't think it can be done. The world is sacred. It can't be improved. If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it. If you treat it like and object, you'll lose it.
What is at issue is the concept of control and what we are discovering in the Tao is a description of what real control is and isn't. The type of control that Luke is trying ultimately can't work.
Hector: What do you mean? Why can't it work? The community is coming together.
Grandfather: Yes the community is coming together and eventually it will decline and disappear. More likely it will mutate into a form that while outwardly looking the same will have nothing to do with what exists right now. Lao-tzu is like a naturalist. He is describing what's really there and how it works. That's why you feel that it violates common sense.
Hector: If he's describing what's real how can it violate common sense? But wait a moment, Luke isn't just doing what he does to make the world better, he also wants to make God happy.
Grandfather: Then that is a different issue. Setting aside the question of whether or not we can effect God's emotions, if Luke isn't concerned with changing the world, then he should continue in what he is doing. Perhaps it does make God happy for Luke to teach the scriptures to his neighbors.
Hector: But back to what you said about Lao-tzu, how can something be real and also violate common sense
Grandfather: Because common sense is the sense that is common to a given group of people. Groups create a common interpretation of reality and then reinforce it amongst each other. This then becomes the absolute reality for the group. The rules of this reality become the mores or morality of the group. People who violate it at the most basic level seem to lack common sense.
Hector: I guess that's a problem because that reality is made up of words and concepts shared by the group.
Grandfather: And?
Hector: And can't possibly be truly real since words stand between us and the ultimate reality.
Grandfather: Which is why?
Hector: Which is why we meditate. We want to stop the words so that we can go beyond them.
Grandfather: Yet they are so strong, particularly for the average person. Violating one of the illusory structures created by the words, by the common reality or the common sense, would cause bewilderment for members of the group.
Hector: For instance?
Grandfather: Suppose Luke went over to the local ski resort and began snowboarding nude down the mountain.
Hector: We would definitely consider that he had taken leave of his senses. Yet, I think I see what Lao-tzu is saying. This might be the best thing that Luke could do because he would have given up his definition of being a good Christian.
Grandfather: Sort of. He might have come to realize that his concept of himself 'good' or 'virtuous' was just that, a concept and inherently unreal. And in that moment he might have gained an insight into the underlying reality, the Tao. He might also have realized that the right thing to do was nude snowboarding. But be careful of trying to have the right interpretation of everything. As Lao-tzu points out, Stop thinking, and end your problems. What difference between yes and no?
Hector: But what then is the Tao that he keeps talking about. Is it the same as Nirvana?
Grandfather: (Laughing) Hector you be trippen. You are actually asking me to tell you what the Tao is. And how am I to do that, with words that have no form. OK, I'll do it. I'll give you an exact and accurate description of the Tao in words that have no form.
(Grandfather and Hector sit in silence for about 10 minutes, Grandfather barely able to keep himself from laughing)
Hector: Papi are you messing with me? Why are we just sitting here?
Grandfather: (Overcome with laughter) Jesus, Hector you interrupted me just as I was halfway through explaining the Tao with formless words. Of course I'm messing with you. The book begins with,
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name
Hector: (pissed off) Then tell me O nobly born old man. Why did Lao-tzu write a whole book about what couldn't be described? And why did you have me read it? And why did your teacher have you read it back in 96? Maybe we should all just read a book of blank pages.
Grandfather: Hector, your image of reading a book of blank pages is so Taoist that I'll overlook the fact that your sense of humor has worn thin by working 24/7 at restoring muscle cars for Ricardo. By the way would you like papas fritas (Grandfather opens a Mickie Ds bag and offers some fries to Hector).
Hector: (Taking a handful of fries) Thank you Papi, I'm sorry for being testy but I'm trying so hard to understand this and I lose it a little when you mess with me.
Grandfather: Maybe that's the problem. Let's take a walk to the park
(Grandfather and Hector begin walking up 106th St towards Central Park.)
We're lucky this evening Hector. Look over at the park and notice how the moon reflects down on the trees. (Grandfather points at the moon.)
Hector: (Looks towards the park and then at the moon.) Yes it's striking.
Grandfather: What concerns Lao-tzu, as well as other teachers of this sort of thing, is that the words, the descriptions become the focal point rather than the indescribable essence that the words dance around. And while we can't describe the Tao, we can say secondary things about it. Most importantly we can say how we should govern our lives because of it. In essence how we can center ourselves in It's reality. That's why Lao-tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching and that is why we read it.
Hector: I think I see what you mean and I appreciate the theater of taking me to the park to reenact the teaching of differentiating the finger that points at the moon from the moon itself. And I see the point. We become so seduced by the explanation, by the words, and the illusion of control over the uncontrollable, we miss what is pointed at and dwell in verbal refinements.
Grandfather: Even conducting wars and pogroms over theological fine points. As I mentioned earlier, we can approach Lao-tzu as a naturalist, describing what is actually there. We can also see him as a psychologist. Given the reality of things, he will give us practical psychological advice on what to do.
Hector: And the master that Lao-tzu speaks about? How do you become a master when trying to be a master guarantees that you can't be one?
Grandfather: By following common sense, but a sense that is common to the Tao, not to society. One of the characteristics of common sense is the obviousness of what one should do. As the Tao is directly experienced right action becomes obvious. Lao-tzu simply tells us what the person does who is informed by the reality of the Tao rather than the illusion of society. We call that person a master. He probably calls himself Ruben.
Hector: So there is no real effort in his actions.
Grandfather: Well not the effort that the average person associates with being correct and virtuous. That type of effort is difficult because it isn't centered in reality, or the Tao. It is usually based upon external, social definitions of morality or virtue. But from the Tao, the master's actions come without effort. And again much of what Lao-tzu writes is practical advice on what to do.
Hector: Certainly the psychological advice is there.
Knowing others is intelligence, knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.
Grandfather: Amongst others. I guess another core point that Lao-tzu is pointing out is that all opposites reconcile in 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
And of course
The greatest love seems indifferent,
the greatest wisdom seems childish
Hector: It seems that we have this eternal oneness that is everything and from which everything comes and goes.
Grandfather: Exactly. But the coming and going has a pattern and order, which brings us to the next book for discussion, the I Ching. Are you prepared to discuss it?
Hector: Of course, I can also cast it as well. Shall we divine your future?
Grandfather: Perhaps after dinner, but for the moment let's have some dinner. Man cannot live by fries alone.