Chapter 15
Thoughts and Applications on the Tao-Te-Jing through the lens of Master Zhu's Teachings.
Those who in ancient times were competent masters were one with the invisible forces of the hidden.
They were deep beyond knowing
So deep we can only describe their appearance.
Hesitant, as though crossing the river in winter
Cautious, as one who fears neighbors on all sides
Reluctant, as an invited guest
Yielding, as ice about to melt
Simple, undeveloped and without pride
Broad, as a wide open valley
Impenetrable to the eye, they were like muddy water
Through stillness, little by little, the muddy water cleared
Over time, little by little, through stillness they began to awake
As the muddy water settled, they did not seek fulfillment
The way of Tao is not seeking fulfillment or desire
Retreating back into formlessness is the path to completion.
Working through these chapters, I see each one as a different aspect of Wu-Ji (formlessness) and it’s relationship to Taiji (form). This chapter is a description of the Sages inner world. It’s the Sages inner world and their understanding of Wu-Ji.
Those who in ancient times were competent masters were one with the invisible forces of the hidden.
They were deep beyond knowing
So deep we can only describe their appearance.
Here “the invisible forces of the hidden.” refers to the formlessness of Wu-Ji. In the natural world the relationship between WuJi and Taiji is nonexistent, everything is happening all at once in a symphony of cycles. What happens when we approach that WuJi within ourselves? Would we become deep beyond knowing? I come back to the names we call ourselves, human beings. Does this describe who I am? Not very well in my opinion. We are interdimensional beings that stop the flow of time with a creative piece within that has created every idea, word, and world we’ve ever known. This is where the names fall flat, mere shadows and allusions of the reality in which we live. The name human being, and every other word are pointers to the reality of the world. The words can only describe the appearance.
Hesitant, as though crossing the river in winter
Cautious, as one who fears neighbors on all sides
Reluctant, as an invited guest
Yielding, as ice about to melt
Simple, undeveloped and without pride
Broad, as a wide open valley
As children wandering the natural world, is that what we are? If we accept that everything we understand is transitory. That our understandings have grown, changed and shifted, but our reality has stayed the same. Where would we be without memory, our recollection of the past. Our ability to create a collective memory, past events and how we understood them.
The world is filled with dangerous paths and situations, those who survive are mindful and aware of who and where they happen to be. Being cautious and simple in world where people thrive on complexities, being reluctant and patient . Being open as a wide open valley to what the world has to offer. This passage is how a sage understands his immediate relationship to the world and others.
Impenetrable to the eye, they were like muddy water
Through stillness, little by little, the muddy water cleared
Over time, little by little, through stillness they began to awake
As the muddy water settled, they did not seek fulfillment
The world of modern man, the world of ideas and theories, is vast and wide but on some level lacks depth. Like a wide vast ocean of information we are unable to see across, yet so shallow our feet reach the bottom. This world of man is like surface tension between the known and the unknown. This world of ideas are remnants of the creative aspect at our core. The root of who we are flows from the nexus of formlessness and form, where the mind meets the spirit.
Our relationship to our world and ourselves muddies our minds and our internal world. Our work and the different aspects of our lives effect how we relate to ourselves. Our identities and societies muddy these waters, who we think we are, how we think we’re supposed to act. Our memories, beliefs and traumas are like little kids splashing the puddles of our lives. This is the cloudiness we all end up in at some point. This is where we forget who we are and become lost, caught up in the currents of non-sense the modern world offers up as distractions.
The Taoist practice is centered on repetitive movement designed to remove muscle tension and meditation. As we age out bodies become stiff, our minds become stiff as well. We become stuck in our ways, wrapping our lives around our experiences, beliefs, and opinions. Our lives become filled with desires and goals, benchmarks and accomplishments that define our lives and careers. These are completely dependent on the societal understandings that we are thrown into. An existential murkiness that mists our perceptions. These forms create our worlds and understandings but separate us from our existential reality. This is the muddying of the waters. Sitting in meditation and the unraveling of our internal worlds, finding the stillness that settles our emotions which then settles our minds is the aim of the Taoist practice. Its a returning to the formlessness of WuJi, where the dream of the modern world begins to fade and the sage begins to awaken. When the dream of the modern world fades, there is no need for goals, or accomplishments to achieve a sense of fulfillment.
The way of Tao is not seeking fulfillment or desire
Retreating back into formlessness is the way to completion.
Why do we feel unfulfilled? I often think about this internal imbalance, in my life it has been a need to prove myself because the patterns of my internal world were tied up with feelings of inadequacy and abandonment. The soils of my young life from which the roots of my emotional life grew colored my entire life. I would dig down and weed out what I thought were the root causes, but the weeds still grew. It was the achievements and desires that became layers of fog obscuring the roots and soils of my emotional life. As the forms retreated back into formlessness, the things that bothered me when I was young also retreated. It was the stillness and the settling of the waters where the simplicity first revealed itself, an equilibrium where heaven sinks to meet the rising earth, where the entire world and our lives are balanced, harmonious, and complete.