Verse 32: Making Too Much of Distinctions

Verse Thirty-Two
Tao is an eternal mystery,
so small you can never take hold of it.

If a leader gets right with Tao,
people will follow him on instinct.
All will be right with the world.
People will do the right thing
without being told.

Everything that comes from Tao
needs a name.
But once everything has its name,
you should make no other distinction between things.
This prevents you
from becoming trapped by them.

Everything in the universe is full of Tao
and leads to Tao,
just like the water in rivers
that flows into oceans.
~ Ron Hogan rendition ~

We live in a world awash in words and concepts, distinctions and definitions. Our complex language allows us to push the envelope of knowledge to greater and greater heights. It has allowed us to make fantastic scientific and technological discoveries that impact our lives everyday.

But for all the positives that our languages create, there are some big negatives too. We can't really convey much intelligible information about the most fundamental issues we each face. Routine concepts like love, devotion, hatred and life itself simply cannot be summed up adequately with words. We try to communicate these things, of course, but our efforts more closely resemble a drunk staggering down the street in the dark.

Far worse, in our minds, the words used to signify specific things too often replace those things themselves. This is yet another example of how we confuse the moon for the finger pointing at it.

Roger Ames and David Hall write that

In order to function effectively in managing our environment, we need distinctions. These distinctions in themselves are functioning and enabling, but one established, can take on a life of their own. We quickly fall into the trap of turning names into things, so that these names identify some more real "I-know-not-what" that stands independent of the now "superficial" way in which we actually experience any particular event.

We misinterpret the persistence within process as some underlying foundation of our experience. Rational structures become institutionalized and, given enough time, petrified. The regimen of values they carry with them, empowering some against others, becomes entrenched and uncompromising. What began as a convenience takes over, constraining the very existence it was created to facilitate, and in doing so, robs life of its creative vigor.

I apologize for my brevity and failure to thresh this verse out more. I seem to be in the middle of one of my routine fibromyalgia flare-ups which sometimes makes it a bit difficult for me to concentrate. Such is life!

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.