The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
Thus, constantly free of desire
One observes its wonders
Constantly filled with desire
One observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders
I was given a gift of a new translation of Tao Te Ching. The above is the first gift, but using an older translation. I’m going to try to write something to each verse, maybe more than one thing. This paragraph is not how I want to do it, but neither do I want to set boundaries for how to or how not to. I want to ramble, and, if later I think of something directly linked or, better yet, indirectly, I’ll return.
Translations are almost inherently cynical, I hear William Burroughs saying language is virus when I see a translation. It’s not the words and it’s not the meaning of the words, it’s the words, their meaning, flavor, nuance, contextual integrity and sound. I prefer a translator who reaches for feel. Most translations I read are poetry or something like the Tao Te Ching. The author sweated over each word and it’s place. I think something is lost in translation. I don’t mean this as a complaint exactly, I should learn the language to have the right to complain.
This verse appears opaque in this translation, contrary, cryptic. Part of it’s beauty and clarity, however, is that the above is the entirety of the first chapter. Reading the first stanza reminded me of a personal conversation. I was discussing being a social worker with an elderly gentleman who was a well known professor. I didn’t choose my words very carefully when he asked about the job. It was in a such a way that my answer was that anonymity was the most successful outcome I could personally hope for. He very grasciously took it as an insult and conceded how important it was to a professors career to get credit and, hopefully, notoriety.
This was the first meaning of the first stanza as I read it. I realize the personal bias and the western bias in this, though I have read this book before, often, and at various stages of my life. I’m sure at one stage it read as nonsense, there being a whole thread of stating how something that is isn’t.
I’m avoiding reading interpretations, and I’m going to try and avoid being so damn didactic, but looking at that stanza again, I think it’s saying if you’re ready to give the tao a name you haven’t studied it’s nature well enough. In my experience once we have a name (we being the culture) or, more personally, I give a name, we, I take away the vitality of a thing. I would, for instance, introduce my dog as Herschel. The person would repeat the name, and briefly interact (a moment, a decade) and think ‘Oh, that is Herschel’. And though it saves a lot of time, Herschel’s name was the least remarkable thing and least meaningful thing about him.
As his constant companion throughout his life I knew this intimately and yet I hardly knew the entirety of my dog. I spent even more time with both of my ex wives and I knew them less well than Herschel. They have names and if I speak of either of them I use their names and all the associations I have with the names and all the associations the person I’m talking too have with the names go unsaid as though the name were the thing. I don’t understand the Tao very well, but comparing something to Herschel is a great compliment coming from me. I mean, too, to imply the tao is as complicated and as unknown to me as Herschel who I knew as well as any creature I’ve ever encountered, married or sired. It’s my impression, too, from what I know of Taoism, again it’s very little but I am not a stranger, that it’s a favorable comparison. Perhaps, like the professor, though, it’s taken graciously as an insult.
I want to free up my voice again. It sounds foreign in my ear. This reflection is very stiff but I’m keeping it and hope when I revisit this verse again that my real voice is back.
Though I’ve taken a step. I chose a meaning that belongs to me. I chose the part of the verse that I need to think more on. The named is the mother of myriad things seems self explanatory. Well, maybe not, but I don’t struggle with it. If I take it literally the stanza is saying everything is raw possibility until there is form, a moment of birth, then it becomes Herschel or Haredawg or Spud, and whereas all possibilities are still in play some players have been given a role. A poor analogy but a simple one is a chess game. The pawn is the pawn and must move as a pawn does, but there is too the possibility of the pawn not moving or a rook moving. They both have names and a role, but there are millions of possibilities. The mother is the game of chess. The tao is the game of chess and all the other possible games and pieces and names too. If chess were the tao any piece could do anything. No, wait, that makes the tao sound like chaos. In this entry and at this time I think of it more as possibility without limit. More like the energy of lightening than a power station. I could do that all day and find each analogy uses a name and as far off as I might be from the intended meaning, I can’t state my own meaning without conceding these possibilities are nameless.
I don’t think mother was used in a sexual sense. Um, sexist. Um, I think it means bitch — sorry, couldn’t resist, once Herschel was born he became Herschel; his life as I came to know it came from a bitch. A bitch made from the endless stream of possibility a Herschel. Yes, I know how procreation works, but it only explains the physical aspect of sentience, perspective, awareness.
I didn’t use Herschel accidently. The second stanza seems best illustrated by a dog or a child. Both free of desire and filled with desire the child and the dog have great wonder and awe and learn the world through observation of manifestation. Most westerners, myself included, think the meditations of Taoism and dedication of a monk is to free oneself of desire. I know that if I could choose a way to experience the world I would choose wonder, the child/puppy like way of looking at things with newness, curiosity, and profound wonder. I have a feeling that is a discipline of the monk, the student, and not the end game. If it’s the end game I disagree with the premises. The discipline that keeps one from being ruled by desire or guided by desire makes sense and perhaps I’m too old or jaded for such a discipline, I don’t know, I know the human heart and the canine heart have desire, my opinion is that balancing that desire with compassion and true observation is more the ideal. Desire is hard to balance. I assume that’s why the path emphasizes freedom from desire.
Um, I wasn’t thinking about sex when I typed desire. But if we pretend for a moment that desire only means sex, taosim seems like reckless genocide if the end game is to be free from sex. I really don’t know why catholic priests need to take a vow of celibacy, I mean I’ve heard the reasoning but it doesn’t make sense, a Taoist monk is learning to live without desire; it’s not a discipline if it’s not an option.
Yeah, shit, getting off track. None of this is how I envisioned writing about the verses. But it’s a start. Nameless and mystery of mysteries are carefully chosen words, even in translation, and not meant to confuse. Or such is my opinion. It’s not a trick.
There are two things we do daily globally; dream and listen to music. It’s unbearable to hear most people explain a dream or music. They are a different type of communication, both dreams and music already are the explanation; a closed circle that we can move through. That’s why I don’t like the approach I’m taking for this verse. I want to write from inside the circle.
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