Tao Te Ching: Chapter 40

Introduction

This short Chapter 40 breathes long on esoteric metaphor and translated words that have meanings quite different from our western understanding of them. Returning. Weak. Being. Nonbeing. Four challenging concepts in four lines, just twenty-one characters. I have to hand it to him, Lao-tzu must have stayed up late mystifying this conundrum. Too much enigma? Some would say too much riddle. But thanks to Derek Lin, et al, we have a guide through this wonderful and fanciful maze of ancient original thought.

Derek’s comment #1 attaches clearer understanding to his translation, returning is the movement. The words reverses course, reflects back, returns origin, cyclical and pattern all enhance the line #1 translation. Taoist concepts of cycles and patterns and origin return to our consciousness and excites our thoughts as to the meaning of this laconic poetical descriptor. Next, line #2, the word weak ignites strong protest in Western minds, but here it means flexible. Pliant. Mr. Lin further stimulates us, chillingly, with the remark that dead things are stiff and unyielding.

Humorously, lines #3 and #4, when translated by Microsoft Word, yield

Everything is born in the world/There are born in none.

Fortunately, DL expands on this with four paragraphs. He first delineates his translated words of being and nonbeing. Then he explains further with an example using a tree metaphor. Seed, fruit, parent are iteratively presented until non-existence seems to be proved and, then, the exciting idea of pure potential lays at our foot. To me, this commentary seems to be an expanded and expressive way of telling us the answer to the age-old question, “Which came first: the red junglefowl or the amniote?”

Wayne Dyer’s translation of chapter 40 originated and exists here due to the pen and prodigy of one team, the very accomplished couple Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. The only place where the two translations vary significantly occurs when we find in line two where Derek’s weak opposes a Dyer yielding. Since the Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English translation consists of no introduction or afterword, there be little more to add. However, each translated chapter includes a nature photo meant to enhance the verse’s meaning. What did the English picture for forty? How do you envision chapter 40, as a whole?

The Chapter 40 Commentary kept with the long-winded expansions we are used to from Wayne Dyer. He titles this verse as Living by Returning and Yielding…lets see how well he delivers. The first sentence dubs this chapter as one of the greatest teachings, and promises the happiness, contentment, and centeredness of any sage – upon mastery. OK. I’m in. As in the past, we must piggyback on Wayne as takes huge leaps in logic, such as the back and forth to and from contemporary quantum physics and the originating spirit. Wayne says that, whether “you die while alive” or “wait until your body dies”, you must make a trade. Ego for spirit? A big lumbering speck for an infinitesimally small speck? Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn?

WD pulls Christianity into the mix here, notably the former Saul of Tarsus. Quite a guy there. Preaching Christianity, let alone telling the truth, can be hazardous to one’s health. It’s a no small thing that Saul/Paul had friends in high places. Continuing on, one of his paragraphs is packed with death metaphors to the extent that even Wayne recognizes it as humorous, even remarking that it’s an “amusing viewpoint”. That ever-present smirk was intentional, aye? The use of metaphors such as “round-trip tickets” and “return ticket” smack of airy concepts such as reincarnation, rebirth and, oh no, resurrection.

Wayne implores us to “Mentally make an effort to assess every step you’re taking in all aspects of your life.” (Sting, 1983, A&M Records)[i] Do the Tao Now…someone will be watching.


[i] Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay, I’ll be watching you

Every move you make, and every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I’ll be watching you

Afterword

In some ways, being succinct gives us more to talk about. Exploring meaning and intent and individual perception can be a bonding event when conducted intelligently and with consideration. Engaging in dialogs about weakness that explore its range from rigidity to resiliency open individual minds to possibility. When being and non-being and existence get a careful group collaboration, those terms come to life, even when the subject is death. Cycles and patterns when discussed in philosophic terms, bring us metaphors of our lives having seasons, our seasons having storms and rainbows, and those extreme events giving meaning to all of it, to each of us.

What Lao-tzu really intended to communicate with his ancient symbolism, I have no real idea. Perhaps sitting on a mountain cliff, hands folded in meditation – reality might surface. Seeing earth’s inhabitants traversing the indifferent road with their heavy burdens, with their innate strengths – reality might be obscured. Some creatures – more symbol than substance. Others – more internal strength with age. Chop wood carry water. Each must bear the burden to drink of life’s sometimes cruel stream of truth. At times the sky seems to smile but none can avoid her slap when the heavens go brooding. Down it comes. The stars aren’t mean, and neither are scorpions. They just are. Raise your grain. Feed your stock. The four seasons aren’t against you, but neither will they wait. Get moving. Take what is offered in proportion to your needs. Use your hands to plant. Use your feet to dance. And, at last, sit. And wonder.

Bibliography

Sting (1983, A&M Records). Every Breath You Take [Recorded by T. Police]. Santa Monica, California, USA.

Tao Te Ching 38: Introduction and Afterword

Introduction

Chapter 38 set a steep grade for my understanding. It’s appropriate that VIRTUE appears in six of the first eight lines, since Chapter 38 begins the TE section of the 44 chapters of the Tao TE Ching. Perusing these seven lines, I discern that VIRTUE can be thought of an unrefined or native compound found only in humans. It may be measured on a linear scale from High to Low. If this unrefined compound, VIRTUE, can be raised High enough, then the undesired elements, mainly the polluting “virtuous” (gaseous in its natural state), vaporizes. This leaves the pure, desired element known as virtue or DE.  However, if VIRTUE remains impure, it, no matter the rating, is considered Low and the value of any residual VIRTUE is lost entirely. High VIRTUE never learns the actions of contrivance or agenda which Low VIRTUE always practices due to the vacuous state left by its devolution…the loss of substance – virtue (DE). I hope this helps. Derek Lin, in his commentary, never really explains how real virtue is either found or lost. Is it given or taken? Taught or thought? In the genes or in the generation. Because life is short, I would say it is better to be motivated and benevolent (comment 2) than inert with only pure virtue. Righteousness seems to be benevolence with a name tag…I never thought of those two terms as being practically related. Wow, etiquette AND use of arms (comment three) …I guess I went to an unaccredited charm school or perhaps those unprincipled principals just “social promotioned” me up and out.  Comment four, speaks to us of flowers and fruits and metaphors. Are you mostly scent or substantially substance? Inquiring minds want to know. In DL’s fifth and last comment, he seems to reveal that we all have or can possess etiquette and knowledge, but we should reach higher. First benevolence, next virtue (DE, the pure kind) and, finally Tao…the road less traveled. Wayne Dyer’s translation required that he repeat the translation pieces of his authors (Star and Mitchell) in order to lend a cohesive feel to the couplets describing the highs and lows and contrivances (in WD’s case good and foolish; master and ordinary; acting with and without). It was hard to do a comparison to Derek Lin because the Stephen Mitchell translation he used skipped a beat (see  Derek Lin Terms vs Wayne Dyer et al Terms). In my duplication of Wayne Dyer’s commentary on 38, I added Text Boxes to highlight certain of Wayne’s brain droppings. Mr. Dyer finishes with a snippet of poetry, A Rabbit Noticed My Condition, from one of his favorites, St. John of the Cross. The condition SJOTC’s condition was in concluded that, “creatures…are full of knowing”. I immediately thought to myself, “What they know I have no idea.” Having rescued, extricated and buried my own “creatures” who knew only how to  enter dire straits without an exit plan, I had to ponder whether St. John’s and W. Dyer’s mythical rabbits (dogs, butterflies, moths, spiders, ants, fish, cats and dear deer) were blessed with the high virtue and mine cursed with only the garden variety kind. After my Translations and Comparisons sections, I placed the  Beyond Translations and Comparisons, which includes the recurring Etymology look but also Derek Lin’s snippet on bad translations. Lin quoted Theodore Sturgeon, of whom I was in the dark. He seemed like a fun guy, so I went the extra mile and included additional quotes for this once mushrooming science fiction writer in the END NOTES.

Afterword

So, what do you think? Will the Te (DE) section of the Tao Te Ching be less simplistic and more cryptic than the road past traveled (Tao, chapters 1-37)? No da. From Derek Lin’s attempts to straighten chapter 38 out to Wayne Dyer’s insistence on keeping it unreal, we’re just getting started. From the etymology on chapter 38, I gather that the script keepers had their inky hands full literally depicting such concepts as virtue, benevolence, righteousness, etiquette and the ever elusive justice. When put in the hands clergy or scholar or shaman chief, these confounding ideas reveal themselves in cloaks of many colors in the ideas of us beholders. So sayeth, Theodore Sturgeon, from the depths.