Sermon
Taoism, like the stereotypical western view of China, is inscrutable. Tao literally translates as "path" or "way". It comes from a Chinese character rich with connotative meaning that cannot be translated into just one word. Its origins reach back into an ancient nameless tradition of nature worship and divination.[1] The form we inherit today was recorded by Lao-tse around the 5th Century Before the Common Era in the Tao Te Ching or "The Way and its Power," a very pithy collection around 5000 Chinese characters long arranged in 81short essay-poems. It takes less than an hour to read and a lifetime to fully understand. Lao-tse lived at the same time as Confucius and their teachings are often put in opposition each was critical of the other. To the average Chinese person though, they are not contradictory but complementary and most practice both.[2] In an introductory essay on Taoism, Judith Berling writes:
Laozi ... [lived] at a time of social disorder and great religious skepticism ...[He] developed the notion of the Dao ... as the origin of all creation and the force -- unknowable in its essence but observable in its manifestations -- that lies behind the functionings and changes of the natural world. [He and his followers] saw in Dao and nature the basis of a spiritual approach to living. This, they believed, was the answer to the burning issue of the day: what is the basis of a stable, unified, and enduring social order? The order and harmony of nature, they said, was far more stable and enduring than either the power of the state or the civilized institutions constructed by human learning. Healthy human life could flourish only in accord with Dao -- nature, simplicity, a free-and-easy approach to life. The early Taoists taught the art of living and surviving by conforming with the natural way of things; they called their approach to action wuwei (wu-wei -- lit. no-action), action modeled on nature. Their sages were wise, but not in the way the Confucian teacher was wise -- learned and a moral paragon. [Early followers] were often artisans - butchers or woodcarvers. The lowly artisans understood the secret of art and the art of living. To be skillful and creative, they had to have inner spiritual concentration and put aside concern with externals, such as monetary rewards, fame, and praise. Art, like life, followed the creative path of nature, not the values of human society. [3]
I'd like to read for you now, the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching, freely translated by Steven Mitchell, which will give you a taste of this kind of thinking:
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within Darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.[4]
Pretty challenging, eh? In one way it sounds like nonsense. What can be told isn't the Tao. What can be named isn't the Name. What is being communicated here? It reads like a challenge to the limits of language - which it is. Any desire to capture the Tao in speech or language will see only the manifestations and miss the mystery. The source of both mystery and manifestations are hidden from our awareness in darkness. Yet within that darkness is the gateway to all understanding.
The gateway to all understanding sounds pretty appealing to a wisdom centered religious tradition such as our own. We desire to know what is true and false in this world and live by that truth. Who among us would like to center their lives on something which is fraudulent, false, an illusion? I doubt if any of us would like to do that. Even if we do what we know we shouldn't on occasion, we cling to some rock of truth we have encountered in our lives to hold onto. Now listen to another essay-poem from Lao-tse:
Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.
Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seemless, unnameable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.
Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it, and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in our own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.
Which leads me to the second part of my sermon title: Practice. How most of us learn and store information is by repetition. It is a laborious, time consuming process to learn to read, write and add. I remember this as I see our son, Andy, struggling with the three R's. He gets it a little bit at a time as he sees the same words over and over, begins to recognize that the sounds of the letters are related to the words on the page, and begins to get a grasp of what we take for granted. I remember how I struggled to get my fingers to obey my eyes as I translated a written piece of music into my hands as they touched the piano keys. I did learn to type, but this has taken years of practice and I still make many errors as my mind races ahead of my fingers.
Each of us has been attracted to some aspect of life that we would like to gain some proficiency in, be it reading a certain period of history, playing a musical instrument, singing, trading in the financial markets, gardening, handicapping horse racing, fishing, golfing, the list is endless. The way we make progress towards proficiency is by practice, doing something over and over again.
Well, if you now put practice and the Tao together, we have a problem. How do you practice what can't be grasped, known or even understood? You can look and will not see it. You can listen for it and not hear it. It isn't light or dark, has no image and is subtle beyond all conception. In China, the one who retreats from the world to write poetry while listening to the birds sing and watching the flowers bloom would be much more of a Taoist than someone trying to practice their way to become a better, whatever.
Part of the answer comes from understanding some the evolution of Taoism. Taoism has gone through many revisions over the 2500 plus years of its existence. In the first several hundred years of the Common Era, because of the magical, paranormal powers some of its practitioners perfected, Taoism developed an emphasis on enhancing human functioning with the goal of immortality. Practicing this non-grasping, non-attainment oriented way or path can cause one to attain some pretty amazing abilities as portrayed on the television show Kung Fu. Taoist priests healed, restored youth and vitality, predicted the future, or read men's souls.[5] Much of Chinese herbalism comes through Taoism.
The pathway to this power is through presence. While the language discourages our attempts to use our minds to grasp its power, "... you can be it, at ease in our own life." In Taoism, knowing comes through being . We in the West would reverse the process, "Know the truth and it will set you free." "Perfect your knowledge of the law of Moses and thus please God." "Knowledge of Jesus' death and resurrection, followed by conversion and baptism brings redemption."
For the Taoist though, being is primary, the only source for true wisdom. To be perfectly present to what is happening, as it happens, connects one to the source of all that exists, for ones experiencing directly what is real. Taoism could be called the religion of ontology, of what exists and comes into being.
The secret to understanding how to practice Taoism, is illustrated by a clenched fist. The clenched fist is a symbol of being out of harmony with the universe. A clenched fist can represent aggression, hostility, desperation, tension, and resistance. The fist doesn't move out of the way when it comes to an obstruction but drives through it with the intention of knocking out some teeth. When the fist relaxes and lets go of the tension, it becomes more supple and pliable. The hand can begin to flow with the motion of water or dance with the vibrations of music. It can respond to the touch of a fingertip. It can be present to the moment.
The Tao of Practice, then, is not reaching out to grasp something, to attain something, or to achieve something but rather a way to relax the fist and let go of what is getting in the way of our inner harmony. Taoism posits what we already are is just fine and adequate, not in need of improvement or perfection. Our task then is to let go of the ways we are in disharmony with the universe at every level of being. Hear again another selection from the Tao te Ching:
Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
Simplicity, patience, and compassion. What beautiful teachings. So much of our troubles come from our sophistication, our impatience, and our lack of love for our neighbor. Lao-tse's name literally translates as `old man' or `old child.' Simplicity, patience and compassion are clearly virtues one grows into as the hair grays and the nose lengthens. Once the children have flown the nest, an urge to simplify can bring much peace of mind as the burden of many possessions lightens. Hurrying and rushing becomes an irritation - just let things happen in their own time. The grandchild will be potty trained soon enough. And as one gets older, the heart can continue to grow and embrace more and more. A grandmother recently shared with me the purity and the expansiveness of the love she felt for her first grandchild, something she hadn't been able to approach with her own children. It is not uncommon for men to become more emotional and feeling as they age and the testosterone production begins to cool. We are touched more easily watching a movie than when we had an image of strength and invulnerability to present to the world. One can look at the entire aging process as a natural growth in the Tao, if we permit it.
While many of us may have learned much about simplicity, patience and compassion, all of us could stand to grow in our ability to practice them. I know I could. So just how can we do that? Here is the key again: "You can't know it, but you can be it, at ease in our own life." The most direct way to approach the inner peace and harmony of the Tao is through the body.
What is really real to all of us are our bodies. The universe "out there" is mirrored, "in here." If we want to "be it," pay attention to this masterpiece of evolution. Unfortunately, our common experiences of our bodies rarely measure up to the magnitude of "masterpiece." More often it is troubled by aches, pains, discomforts, stresses and strains. Our first reaction is to recoil from the unpleasantness experienced in our bodies and push the experience away. Which is why studying the body requires some practice. And the practice I discovered which holds, I think, much promise for unraveling this conundrum of consciousness is called the Integral Transformative Practice outlined in the book, The Life We Are Given: A Long Term Program for Realizing the Potential of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul by George Leonard and Michael Murphy, the source for the program which begins tonight titled, "The Tao of Practice."
Growing up in the South and his work as a senior editor for Look magazine covering the Civil Rights movement impressed Leonard with the potential people have for "unthinkable" change. Leonard met Murphy, co-founder of Esalen Institute, in 1965 after writing an essay for Look titled, "The Human Potential." After being introduced at a dinner party, "They stayed up most of the night talking, discovering that their interests and aspirations made a serendipitous match. Leonard brought knowledge of social and political movements, behavioral psychology, and brain research. Murphy of humanistic and depth psychology, of Eastern religion and philosophy." These two gurus of the human potential movement became fast friends and have worked together since that night wrestling with how to engage the process of human growth and transformation.
In the late Sixties and early Seventies, they hosted intense marathon encounter groups where men and women were able to cut through deep levels of manipulation, prejudice, rage and fear to get to simplicity, patience and compassion. These intense cathartic experiences seemed to completely transform the person - for that moment. But when they returned to their everyday lives, the glow faded and many fell back into the same habits and behaviors they had known before. They had no way to practice their newly learned modes of consciousness.
Their book is a response for the need for a daily way to integrate positive transformation into our lives. Instead of going for the intense quick fix which doesn't last, it seeks a more gradual approach which integrates much more easily into our every day lives.
The program is designed for people who are busy. It specifies just how much commitment is required each week in terms of doing a series of movements, relaxing, meditating and exercising and following some common sense guidelines for healthy living. It can be expanded or reduced as time allows, but the regularity gives it its power. The core of the practice is a series of 25 movements which articulate all the joints and stretch all the major muscle groups. These are followed by a period of relaxation and meditation which takes a total of about 40 minutes.
What the practice of this program strives for is finding our inner balance. The exercises, relaxation and meditation increase one's flexibility, and responsiveness to both inner and outer stimulation. When we begin to settle into this balanced, responsive state, some amazing things can begin to happen. When the individual and the whole, the yin and the yang, come into harmony with each other, in the creative cauldron on the edge between chaos and order, the system evolves.
Our world will not be saved by brutality or by ideology, it will be saved gradually as we evolve socially, biologically, systemically to deal with the challenges of modern living. Evolution never sleeps. It constantly seeks ways to increase diversity and complexity. We can resist it and die or we can follow the Tao and cooperate. Evolution isn't done with us yet! Who knows what kinds of powers and abilities await the creature Homo Sapiens evolves into 3 million years from now (if there are any of us left). Perhaps we can get a glimpse of their consciousness today by following the Tao.
The path to these lofty experiences is deceptively easy. "Manifest the simple," urged Lao-tzu, "embrace the primitive, reduce selfishness, have few desires." There are no "ultimates" or "in the ends" or perfection to attain, only sitting by a bubbling stream, enjoying the warmth of the winter sun on ruddy cheeks, listening to the wind in the trees with a peaceful mind, not full or empty but open and receptive to whatever the next moment may bring. The Tao may be unknowable but it is completely available through experience. We need only rest a moment, look, listen and see.
And that kind of simplicity, patience and compassion takes practice!
Copyright (c) 1997 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.
[1] Article written by Judith A. Berling for the Asia Society's Focus on Asian Studies, Vol. II, No. 1, Asian Religions, pp. 9-11, Fall 1982. Copyright AskAsia, 1996
[2] ibid
[3] ibid. (I liked this so much, I quoted it directly)
[4] Steven Mitchell's translation, 1988, HarperCollins HarperPerrenial
[5] Berling