Number Thirty Eight True Action
38
In The Great Market
I move from the fruit stand
to the flower stand.
Lesson # 38
Before you begin to wake up,
you try to be good.
When that fails,
you try to follow the rules.
When that fails,
you try to make sure
no one hates you.
Finally, you just try to survive.
After you wake up it is ok
to be imperfectly good.
It is OK to break some rules.
You are unafraid
of making enemies,
and you stop being afraid.
From: 81 Lessons from the Tao Te Ching
Number 38: True action
A good person
just acts in a naturally good manner
A poser tries to act in a way
so that they appear to others as good
A good person just follows the flow of things
and therefore, they often succeed
A poser runs around looking very busy
and achieves little
A truly kind person does just what is required and then just lets go
A righteous person will only do what they think is right
A disciplinarian will start punish folks if things don’t go the way they expected
Therefore when you act from your ego rather than from the natural unfolding of things
you judge control punish have opinions and act from outmoded behavior patterns
When acting in and with the flow you don’t care about what others think of you
You don’t act from memories of what might have worked in other situations
You just act as is needed by the universe
NUMBER THIRTY EIGHT
To assume virtue without being really virtuous is to be virtuous from duty;
To be less virtuous, yet not to lose real virtue, is to be virtuous from Inner Life.
Supreme virtue comes through activity of Inner Life; then let us actively seek Inner Life.
To be less virtuous and to practice it, let us be active in the performance of duty.
To assume benevolence and practice it let us actively seek Inner Life.
To assume right conduct and practice it let us be active in the performance of duty.
To assume expediency and practice is to find that no one honours it; then it bears the arm and asserts itself by force.
Therefore, when Tao is lost, follow Virtue; when virtue is lost, follow benevolence; when benevolence is lost, follow right conduct; when right conduct is lost, follow expediency.
Those who are Masters of expediency have in the heart only the shadow of faith, and in the mind only confusion.
Those who are Leaders of politeness have only the husk of Tao,
which is the source of ignorance.
That is why the greatest of the Masters abide in the real,
They do not abide in the shadow.
They hold to the fruit, they do not hold to the husk.
Therefore they put away the latter and take hold of the former
Isabella Mears, The Tao Teh King, A Tentative Translation from the Chinese, William McLellan, Glascow, 1916.
Number 38 (commentary) What is right action?
When I was training to be a river guide, I was taught that, in any channel of the river, there is a very thin band of swift current guides call “the Rail.”
If you can get your raft “on the Rail” you don’t need to work very hard at all. The river does the work.
I watched petite guides with their oars barely in the water shoot past husky types that were rowing furiously, because the smaller guides were operating in alignment with the flow of the river.
When you approach every situation that comes to you with freshness and receptivity, you can find the Rail in it, the place of least resistance.
Then, with just the perfect amount of effort, you do just enough to gracefully move things forward.
Tangent and Tool #38, Finding the rail A question and a reflection: “How much is just enough?” When you are guiding a canoe, kayak or oar boat down a river, the way to find the Rail is to move your boat to the place you think it might be. Stop paddling or rowing for a moment and wait until you feel the river grabs the boat and drive you forward. It can be a very subtle shift. Once you are on the Rail, all you have to do is stay on it. The river will do the rest.
Wu Wei, the key foundation of Taoism, sometimes gets inaccurately translated as “inaction,” “letting go,” and “doing nothing.” It is more like, “Doing just enough and no more.” It has more to do with the state you are in when you act, rather than with the results of that action. When you are “in the zone” or “moving in accord with the natural unfolding of the universe” then the action comes easy, and you are not under the stress to have it turn out the way you planned or expected it to work out.
You need to trust that the result you get is exactly as the result that needs to happen right now. It is the best the universe can do right now to respond to your instinct to act. It may not satisfy your demanding ego or satisfy your hungry narcissism, but it is what you get in this moment. Now, adjust and let go.