Number Twenty A Lonely Path
20
infant on her mother’s breast
there is just
not enough time
Lesson # 20
A newborn child looks
into its mother’s eyes,
empty and content.
Later we learn to grab, hold,
defend, attack.
I am that innocent child,
owning nothing,
competing for nothing,
hungry for nothing,
planning nothing.
alone, and at peace.
Everyone else is very busy
How can I explain?
I get what I need
from the breast of the Great Mother.
From: 81 Lessons from the Tao Te Ching
Number 20: A lonely path
How do you know the difference between Yes and No
How do you know the difference between right and wrong?
How do you know the difference between good and bad
Damned if I know
Everyone around me looks like they have it together
They are sharp clear moving forward working their plan
I am like a newborn baby without a home
I am dull simple and adrift
without direction at the mercy of any passing breeze
Everyone else of very busy
I am aimless lost and different
Everybody is competing to get what they need
How can I explain to them that
I get what I need from the breast of the Great Mother
NUMBER TWENTY
Renounce learning, it brings loss to the Inner Life.
How slight the difference between Yes and Yea!
How great the difference between Good and Evil!
That which men fear is indeed to be feared.
When men give themselves up to disorder it never stops.
Many men rejoice and rejoice over a supply of good food, over being in a high and exalted position.
I am calm, I do not feel the slightest emotion,
like a new-born child which cannot yet smile at its mother,
without attachment to anything, returning always to the Inner Life.
Many men have superfluous possessions.
I have nothing that I value;
I desire that my heart be completely subdued, emptied to emptiness.
Men of wealth are in the daylight of prosperity. I am in the dark.
Men of wealth are endowed with penetration.
I appear confused and ignorant.
Suddenly I am, as it were, on a vast sea, floating on the sea of Inner Life which is boundless.
Many men are full of ability.
I appear to be stupid and rustic. Thus I am different from other men.
But I revere the Mother, Sustainer of all being.
Let them rob and by violence take possession of spiritual life.
These three things do not help our progress.
Therefore now let us seek
To perceive simplicity,
To conserve beauty in the heart,
To curb selfishness and to have few desires.
There came loyal Ministers.
Isabella Mears, The Tao Teh King, A Tentative Translation from the Chinese, William McLellan, Glascow, 1916.
Number 20 (commentary) Why do I feel so lonely?
This path to inner knowledge is a bitch. You can’t get there by reading a book (not even this one).
When you do dedicate yourself to knowing yourself and reality deeply, often those around you think you are nuts, or try to talk you out of it. They know what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, what to run towards and what to run away from and they all seem to agree.
All that seemed nonsensical to Lao Tsu and maybe to you.
In ancient China others were marching together towards progress, and he felt like a rudderless boat, floating alone in a stormy sea, as blank as a newborn the moment before they look at their mother and bond.
Everyone else was working hard for their supper and he was just nursing off of nature.
Tangent and Tool #20, It’s OK to be abnormal: A question and a reflection: “Why am I so lonely?” Creating social change, policy change, corporate change, or political change in the world requires a group effort. Team and community work can be exhilarating at times and disheartening at other times. But the work of discovering spiritual truths for yourself is a one-person job. You can have transcendent experiences in a group, but integrating them into your own life, in a way that profoundly changes the way you interact with life, is a solitary act. The deeper you go, the less you know and the more you seem to drift away from all the “accepted truths” that are held in common. Losing the sense of “fitting in” is the price you pay to become your authentic self. You have to leave the crowd behind.