The Difficulties of Genuine Friendship

The promise made to the friend concerned when the depression could be lifted and the relationship resumed.  The conditions were out of everyone’s’ hands.  The moroseness allegedly surfaced when the rains drowned the old man’s hopes.  His hopes floated on the notion that work and tasks brought satisfaction and happiness, but that was not all.  Most of all the buildings, barns and beasts existed so approval could be had.  With approval came fleeting happiness. Fleeting happiness brought relationship.

The rains continued to wash the dirty banks and erode the synthesized sanity.  Normally this weather didn’t stay that long but she remained collapsed on this segment of country as if to prove a point or bring the fragile farmer to his senses and to admit that his outer show differed from his inner truth.  That until he admitted to his lie, she would continue her onslaught, indifferent to his pain and fading hope.

Whiskey and women would not be the answer so the old wanna be farmer decided to give a kind of faux honesty a try.  He would look the part of goatherd with shepherd crook, and blue chambray button down, and a Quaker’s broad brimmed straw hat.  High muck boots and whiskers on the chin added to the appearance, but that was all it was.  The answer was not there for him to find.  He might as well abandon his behavior and get back to doing something.  Even something that could not possibly gain him approval.

Even then, he still found it difficult to have a genuine friend.

Tao Te Ching Verse 8 Revisited

In R.L. Wing’s book the Tao of Power, verse 8, Noncompetitve Values, there are lines that appear in no other translation in the form Mr. Wing has presented.

The lines are:

  1. The value in a dwelling    is location.
  2. The value in a mind          is depth.
  3. The value in    relations    is benevolence.
  4. The value in a words         is sincerity.
  5. The value in    leadership  is order.
  6. The value in    work           is competence.
  7. The value in    effort          is timeliness.

Wing, in his commentary on this verse tells us how to achieve these 7 noncompetitive values:

  1. To achieve  location          one must know              the whole.
  2. To achieve  depth             one must know              its possibility.
  3. To achieve  benevolence  one must                        comprehend human nature.
  4. To achieve  sincerity        one must know              inner truth.
  5. To achieve  order              one must know              the entire structure.
  6. To achieve  competence  one must know              the results of a perfectly executed task.
  7. To achieve  timeliness     one must                        hold in mind both the past and the fututre.

I am reviewing this verse for the thousandth time and I recognize things which I never did before.  First, number 4, I couldn’t fully grasp what Wing meant by Inner Truth.  Now I completely understand that I can not be sincere in my words unless I understand the truth within myself and the motivation in my words.  It’s about those things that can only be known by me and those things are ingrediants of sincerity, not the words but the meaning.  The words, whether accurate or not, have no value unless they are directly mapped back to the truth within that no one else can know.  When one can accomplish this, one can have words of value because one speaks sincerity from the inner truth known secretly to oneself and revealed to others in simple words.

The other revelation is that of the the principles that lie at the base of Taoist thought and philosophy.  Wu Wei is very much involved in the achievement of timeliness because nonaction is the best course to take when the time is past or time has not yet arrived.  The caution on timeliness is that one must be aware of the Path: everything eventually takes the path of least resistence; Polarity: every ascent has a descent in its future and every descent has an ascent in its future;  The Pattern: each event begins in the dead season of winter when seeds lie dormant, some are planted in the spring and some come to life, some of the living grow and develop in the long harsh summer of life, some of those that live to maturity come to be harvested in the fall and the timeliness of that some can be assessed for that life’s effort at that time.

Tao 15 Clarify by Quieting

Clarify troubled waters by slowly quieting them.

Be content, be able to mature without desire to be newly fashioned.

Be ready to adapt like ice at the point of melting.

After gaining calmness of mind by concentration, who can gradually pass from its calmness into the activities of life and always retain the same calmness of mind?

Who is able to impart unending life to that which is at rest by setting it in perpetual motion?

Be unpretentious like wood that has not been fashioned into anything…

Since one is not filled, therefore one may grow old,; without renewal he is complete.

 

Tao 11 The value in reality is immateriality

The things of value yield no peace.

The things of no value yield peace.

Take away desire and want and receive peace and satisfaction.

Pursue satisfaction and indulgence in desire, and peace will continue to be lost to you.

Seek the utility of the neglected corner and she will serve you without complaint.

Long for notice and comfort and you can expect abandonment and self induced pain.

The path to happiness is plain and stark, do not try to add one thing or ask for more.  Find it within and unencumbered and you can keep it.  Require accoutrements and refinements and it will divorce you.

The Farm

Over the years, Sarah suspects, Tommy has floated to the surface of her.  They are swimmers now, far apart, on the top of the sea.

What does this mean?

At one time, Tommy was below the surface of the sea of Sarah, but over the years, he floated to the surface of the person Sarah.

At one time, neither Tommy nor Sarah were swimmers but now they are both swimmers on the surface of the sea of Sarah and they did not swim in the same direction and therefore are now far apart.

This is strange way to say they have grown apart and are getting further apart because they continue to move in different directions in their lives.

There was a time when they were together below the surface of the sea of love but they could not breathe there.  The sea turned from love to alchohol and prohibited sexual endulgence to salve the pain of living in a marriage that was no longer satisfying.  Indulgence is the cure for despair, it is yet another path to hurt and unhappiness.  Moving up and away from one’s own unhappinesss is not the right direction, it is just another direction.  Happiness is in the spot where you are, even if it is below the surface and alone, which is where you and I will all end up anyway.