Number Forty Two The Dance
42
out of one, two
out of two, three
out of three, everything
Lesson # 42
In the beginning
there was but one thing.
Then came the divine split,
followed by
the dance of the opposites,
out of which was born everything.
Return to the unity and be healed.
There is but one teaching,
“Believe in division
and die divided.”
From: 81 Lessons from the Tao Te Ching
Number 42 The dance
Unity
In the beginning the wholeness of Creation
appeared from the Tao
Duality
In that instant the opposites were created
from the whole: light/dark, positive spin/negative spin
Trinity
From the marriage of the opposites
came the neutral the zero the uncharged particle the neutrino
Out of this arose all of Creation
The eternal dance of dynamic harmony
is the cycling of the positive and the negative around the neutral
This also applies to leadership
We cannot wisely lead by associating ourselves only with the strong the mighty the positive
We also have to hear and represent the outcast the homeless the repressed
and in ourselves we must embrace those helpless abandoned grieving rejected and powerless
parts of our own psyche
Always remember that gain and loss are just moments on the merry-go-round
and that our selfishness greed violence and aggression
our belief that we need to win at all costs
always comes back to haunt us
NUMBER FORTY TWO
In Tao is Unity of Life,
In Unity is Duality of Life,
In Duality is Trinity of Life,
In Trinity all beings have life.
All beings shun the principle of Inertia,
They hold to the principle of Life.
They are brought into deep harmony by the Breath of the Deep.
That which men dislike is to be called orphans, solitary, wheels without naves;
Yet princes and rulers may thus be named.
Therefore some are increased by being diminished,
And some are diminished by being increased.
That which men have taught I also shall teach:
“He who is strong and violent shall not meet with easy death.”
I shall in this way teach fundamentals.
Isabella Mears, The Tao Teh King, A Tentative Translation from the Chinese, William McLellan, Glascow, 1916.
Number 42 (commentary) Where can I take a stand in all this chaos?
Lao Tsu sees that this dance of positive-negative, high statis, low statis, gain-loss; all these moments are on the rim of the wheel of life.
You keep spinning until you become aware of a still center point, unattached to all that movement, from which we can watch the dance of our lives.
We do this not by rejecting everything with faux-equanimity and not by mistaking numb for neutral, but by finding that point where we must embrace the opposites.
We have to acknowledge our weaknesses and our darkness. We have to loosen our attachments to our strengths and our victories.
We do this for the sake of finding this third place of aware, open, alive and neutral.
Tangent and Tool #42, Aware, open, alive and neutral. A question and a reflection: “How do I get to inner peace?” I don’t think Lao Tsu was aiming for transcendence, some permanent-state-experience where you have sluffed off the heavy backpack of your old personality and you can waltz around light and free. He spends too much time teaching us how to course correct. That boundless state may be something we experience rarely, or frequently, but it is not the goal of spiritual work. In sailing, we rarely actually point our boat in the direction we want to go. Too many variables are constantly changing for us to be able to do that; the speed and direction of the current, the constantly shifting wind, the shape of our sails and of our hull. Instead, we tack from one heading to another, each slightly off course, but each heading in approximately the right direction. In spiritual sailing we rarely hang out in a state that is supremely aware, open, alive and neutral. But we can see what is present in our experience right now. We can see ourselves contracting and trying to avoid the agony of life and we can see ourselves eagerly grasping for the ecstasy of life. And we can be curious about how to watch all of this parade rejecting nothing, embracing all of it, and knowing there is also a still place within. That is the work.