5 The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.
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Layer upon layer
She finds deep in her own experience the central truths of the art of living, which are paradoxical only on the surface: that the more truly solitary we are, the more compassionate we can be; the more we let go of what we love, the more present our love becomes; the clearer our insight into what is beyond good and evil, the more we can embody the good. Until finally she is able to say, in all humility, "I am the Tao, the Truth, the Life." S. Mitchell
Translation of the Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell, Harper & Row, 1988. In keeping with copyright law only the chapter under study is fulltext. All other chapters show only the first stanza.
Study Group Contac: Lissa Lord:lissalord@gmail.com
Tao in WordLayers
Layer upon layer
I have a translation by Ralph Alan Dale and his second stanza: "The space between yin and yang is like a bellows -- empty, yet infinitely full. The more it yields the more it fills." and then the third stanza:
ReplyDelete"Countless words
count less
than the silent balance
between yin and yang."
To me this implies that I can talk too much about spiritual recovery (the Tao, the journey) and forget the practice of it which today means to me: breathe within the "silent balance between the yin and yang." If I remember to breathe between the moments of this day I will understand Chapter 5. If I breathe between the words I speak today, this is Chapter 5. If I remember to pause between the letters of the words I write today, this is Chapter 5. To me all this means is that eternity lives between the breaths. Look to the pause between breathing in and breathing out. There are two poles, two sides to everything--yin and yang. Where I want to be is in the balance or, like Mitchell's third stanza: Hold on to the center.
"I can belong now to myself
ReplyDeleteAnd shining spread my inner light
Into the dark of space and time.
Toward sleep is urging all creation,
But inmost soul must stay awake
And carry wakefully sun's glowing
Into the winter's icy flowing."
hi, just thought it would be interesting to compair this quite, i believe its by Rudolf Steiner, to the tao quote. the quote above is specifically for this time of year, when daylight is growing shorter, and all plants and animals are going into winter mode. we must strive to keep our own inner warmpth during the cold days to come...when i read hold onto the center, i was rememded of this quote, and of the balance that nature provides for us in the form of the seasons.
-emily breaux