73
blood on her face
she walks away from the crash
yet the moon rises.
Lesson # 73
Sometimes the bravest soldier dies
while the craven coward lives on.
Sometimes it appears that,
no matter how good you are,
the Universe is out to get you.
The wisest person cannot answer
this simple question, “Why me?”
We might catch the faintest
glimpse of a larger plan, yet we can
predict nothing with accuracy.
The Universe is not there to take
care of us. The Universe is not
there to make sense to us.
Why things happen is none of our business.
The Tao
is an unseen and unknowable
net stretching across all of Creation,
nothing escapes from it.
From: 81 Lessons from the Tao Te Ching
Number 73 Karma
The Laws of Karma are so complex
that they are unknowable
Sometimes the bravest soldier dies
while the craven coward lives on
Sometimes it appears that,
no matter how good you are
the Universe is out to get you
The wisest person cannot answer this simple question
Why me
It is none of our business
Out of the blue something shows up to support us just when we needed it most
Out of the blue we will get the answer to a question we hadn’t fully formed yet
Out of the blue misfortune happens
Out of the blue we are handed a problem that cannot be solved
We catch the faintest glimpse of a larger plan
yet we can predict nothing
The Universe is not there to take care of us
The Tao is like a net stretching across all of Creation
and yet it misses nothing
NUMBER SEVENTY THREE
A man with courage and daring is slain,
A man with courage and self-restraint lives.
Of these two, the one has benefit, the other has injury.
Who can tell why one of them should incur Heaven’s Wrath?
Because of this the self-controlled man has doubt and difficulty.
Heavenly Tao strives not, but conquers by love;
It speaks not, but responds in Love;
It calls not to men, but of themselves they come;
It slowly is made manifest, yet its plans are laid in Love.
The net of Heaven is widely meshed; the meshes are far apart,
yet nothing escapes from it.
Isabella Mears, The Tao Teh King, A Tentative Translation from the Chinese, William McLellan, Glascow, 1916.
Number 73 (commentary) Why do bad things happen to good people?
We know so little about the laws that govern creation. We are so tiny: two ears, two eyes, a nose, skin, a tongue and a brain tightly bound up and tied down with opinions, beliefs and memories. And yet we have the arrogance to think we should be able to understand what causes what. The fabric of the Tao encompasses everything, the farthest nebula and the tip of my finger, as I type this. This is simply too much information for any mind, (or any super-computer) to process.
Chaos theory reminds us that the tornado that wrecks a small town in Kansas might have started as the breeze from the flitter of a butterfly’s wing in Australia. But you can’t stop hurricanes by killing butterflies.
How can we know what causes anything? Should we just give up and do whatever pleasures us in this unknowable, impersonable universe?
Probably not. Be good to others, because that action brings more deep, inner happiness in being good than in being selfish. But don’t give to get. Don’t think you can bargain with good behavior for favors from God, the Universe or the Tao.
The Tao is unsentimental, incorruptible and not for sale.
Tangent and Tool #73, Bargaining A question and a reflection: “But what should I do?” Kubler-Ross nailed it when she added “Bargaining” as one of the stages of grief. In the dying process, it is the hope that if you start doing something right (spiritually, morally, medically or nutritionally) you can stave off a terminal diagnosis or avoid facing the acknowledgement that now there is a hole in your life that will never be filled. After a death, it is the internal conversation in the minds of the living of “if only” then death would not have knocked on the loved one’s door (“if only I had seen what was going on,” “if only I hadn’t asked them to go out for milk,” “if only I had loved them better”). This is a rationalization to deny that you live in a random and seemingly completely unpredictable universe. This is a strategy to avoid the inevitable pain and vulnerability that is inevitable when you are fully present to any loss.
However, bargaining extends far beyond the boundaries of the grief process. We are bargaining all the time. We call it “control” and pretend that what we do will result in the outcome we planned. In a song by Thomas Rhett he writes, “You make your plans and hear God laughing.” It is so frightening to face the truth, that anything we do will have unpredictable outcomes.
And yet, there is so much freedom once we embrace that truth. No longer are we responsible for any outcome. The best we can hope for is to be a little influential. And if it doesn’t work out like we had planned, “Oh, well.” Or some other expletive.
The workings