No Separation

The Tao, like a tapestry, cannot be separated into individual threads, otherwise the Oneness would be lost, the harmony destroyed.
~ from Chapter 1 of The Spirit of Tai-Chi: Essential Principles ~

I don't know about the rest of the world, but Americans love denim. Blue jeans -- though now they come in more colors than you can shake a stick at -- hang in most every closet in the nation. As I've remarked before, denim is very big in my life as I wear overalls ALL the time.

Though one can, of course, purchase jeans these days that are pre-ripped (never made a lick of sense to me), fraying is the enemy of denim and almost all other types of cloth and apparel material. When an article of clothing begins to fray, we soon find that the integrity of the whole will suffer. In a manner of speaking, "the harmony is destroyed."

While a pair of jeans is made up of thousands of threads, they mean nothing until they're sewn together. We certainly couldn't wear each thread as an article of clothing and think that we would cover our nakedness or provide a measure of protection from the weather. They only hold meaning when they are joined together to form a whole.

Life is like a pair of jeans.

Spinning Top or a Dreidel

The tapestry that is the Tao has a peculiar characteristic. Its threads are always moving, adjusting, and changing their relationships. Change is the only constant in the Tao. But in all this ceaseless change, the harmony of the threads is maintained.
~ from Chapter 1 of The Spirit of Tai-Chi: Essential Principles ~

If not for the advent of constant change, walking the middle path would be a cinch for those committed to it. All we would need do is to figure out the lay of the land and draw a line straight down the center. We could then skip merrily along the line and not have to worry if we strayed a little to the left or right.

Of course, the chief problem with this idyllic picture is that the "lay of the land" is not stationary in the least. It more resembles an earthquake! The ground always is shifting beneath our feet. What represents the center at this precise moment may be far off center in the next.

So, how do we stay centered in an ever changing world?

I feel like a spinning top or a Dreidel
The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle
You just slow down
Round and around this world you go
Spinning through the lives of the people you know
We all slow down
How you gonna keep on turning from day to day?
How you gonna keep from turning your life away?
~from Dreidel by Don McLean ~

Oneness

The tree needs the rain in order to produce acorns. The wild pig needs the acorns for food. The droppings of the wild pig fertilise the soil. As a result, the surrounding vegetation flourishes, which enables the soil to retain water for the tree. Hence there is no dependence or independence in the universe, but only interdependence. The universe is a vast tapestry in which every star, every creature, every rock, and every drop of water is an essential thread helping to hold all the other threads together.

~ from Chapter 1 of The Spirit of Tai-Chi: Essential Principles ~

A little less than one year ago I wrote a book review on this wonderful book by John Lash. I had checked it out from my local library to use on the Tao Te Ching series. When the time came to return the borrowed book, I vowed that I would one day purchase a copy of my very own. That turned out to be a bit harder than I thought because the book is no longer in print and the few used copies I had found were beyond my very modest book budget.

I kept checking various online booksellers and finally found a copy within my price range at Powell's Books out of Portland, Oregon. The book arrived yesterday in pristine condition!

Over the next few days, I will feature several passages from Chapter 1. Don't be surprised if you see many quotes from this book in the coming weeks and months! For me, Lash's prose reads like poetry and he has a marvelous gift for expressing many of the basic concepts of philosophical Taoism.