Daodejing, Verse 28

Daodejing - Other Voices

In Taoist philosophy, many things are seen as fitting into two categories. This idea has been made famous by the popular use of the ‘yin-yang‘ circle. In Chapter 26 we saw how ‘The heavy is the root of the light’, and ‘The unmoved is the source of all movement.’ In this chapter we’ll see how some other things can work in the same way.

This kind of philosophy is often rejected by Christians as some kind of ‘new age’ mumbo-jumbo. I think this might be because we are so used to thinking of things in terms of a big supernatural struggle between good and evil, culminating in the victory of the first over the second. I’ve come to believe that the Tao Te Ching is not trying to negate this picture: it’s completely ignorant of it! It teaches us about a different kind of balance.

Taoism does not teach that there should be a balance between selfishness and virtue, or hate and love. These things do not complement each other!

What it advocates is balance between the naturally-occurring pieces of the world, our communities and ourselves. Things like dark and light; male and female; noise and quiet; fast and slow. These things aren’t good or evil by themselves. But when they work together in balance, goodness and virtue come by themselves. When they are out of balance, evil is the result.

I hope that avoids some misunderstanding, as it took me a while to work through that puzzle. Now, let’s see if we can learn something about balance.

Know the male,
yet keep to the female:
receive the world in your arms.
If you receive the world,
the Tao will never leave you
and you will be like a little child.

Two questions here: what does knowing and keeping mean? And what does male and female mean?

Gender can take on many different meanings, but here it describes female as being receptive. (Perhaps some women will take offence at that, but it is only a metaphor!) Since it describes female as being closer to the nature of Tao, it would be easy to make the conclusion ‘female is good, male is bad’. But is actually more nuanced than that: Know the male (participate in male activities), yet keep to the female (in your inmost spirit, remain passive and receptive).

In other words, it is another way of saying what we have already heard. ‘The Master travels all day without leaving home.’ ’The unmoved is the source of all movement.’ If we remain receptive and passive in our spirit, we enable ourselves to be more giving and active in our outward actions.

Know the white,
yet keep to the black:
be a pattern for the world.
If you are a pattern for the world,
the Tao will be strong inside you
and there will be nothing you can’t do.

Again, white and black are metaphors that we have to unpack. White is what is known, apparent, visible, striking, and well-defined. Black are those things that are mysterious, invisible, shadowy, and hidden. According to the Taoist, the things which are seen (physical things) depend upon things which are invisible (Tao, and the yin-yang duality). If we adopt this dependence in ourselves, then we are a pattern for how the world should be. Our work and social activities should be balanced with time spent in prayer, meditation and solitude; our outward, visible actions should depend our our internal, invisible convictions.

Know the personal,
yet keep to the impersonal:
accept the world as it is.
If you accept the world,
the Tao will be luminous inside you
and you will return to your primal self.

By now you can see the pattern. Be kind, loving, compassionate and caring. But accept the world as it is, because you can’t fix all its problems. The Tao is impersonal in the sense that it gives freely and equally to everyone and everything without asking for anything in return, even to the things that fight against it.

The world is formed from the void,
like utensils from a block of wood.
The Master knows the utensils,
yet keeps to the the block:
thus she can use all things.

‘The Master’ understands the things of the world: business, politics, human relationships and lifestyles. But more importantly, she knows where they come from. She sees the common threads of yin-yang duality running through everything, which gives everything its value and rightful place.

I’m not saying that you have to take all of this at face value. But it’s a nice idea, isn’t it? Have you ever found thoughts like this to be helpful in a real-life situation?
~ from Transformations, author C.M. Bryan, original post date: 4/25/10 ~

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