Taoism and Lao Tzu
Sitting here again, even from half a world away, I return to the place where the wanderer in me has always felt most at home.
This table in People’s Park in Chengdu has always been a doorway I step through in meditation several times a week. It is where I listen, where I breathe, and where the movement of the Tao settles into something I can understand.
I imagine Lao Tzu sitting here too — not as a legend, but as someone who, like me, needed a quiet corner of the world to gather what remained after a lifetime of wandering.
Verse 79 speaks to what endures after everything else has been done. Old agreements, old conflicts, old expectations — they leave a residue that cannot be forced away. The Sage accepts this without resentment. He keeps his virtue not because the world rewards it, but because it is his nature. Heaven’s Way completes what human striving cannot.
I have lived this verse. My life has never fit the roles others had for me. I have always been the wanderer — returning long enough to catch my breath before setting out again. And yet, each return has carried its own clarity. Missouri, Massachusetts, Florida, China, Oregon, even perhaps the indefinable cosmos — each place has been a chapter in a larger cycle of leaving, learning, returning, and finishing what was begun.
This table in Chengdu reminds me that destiny is not a single moment, but a pattern. We sit where we are meant to sit. We write what we are meant to write. We return when the time is right. And when the work is complete, we leave the rest to the Way.
Verse 79 – Being present at Destiny’s Table
The sage is reminded of the words of an old friend who once told him that the true nature of one who follows the Tao is like water.
It is the nature of water to stay low, not to struggle and to take on the shape of its container thus appearing to be weak.
Is this not the way of the sage? Appearing weak, but in reality, able to cut through any obstacle as he ultimately finds his true path.
What is perceived as weakness often wins through persistence while what appears to be hard easily becomes brittle unable to withstand the pressure of determination.
Should not we follow the ways of Chuang Tzu who decried that everyone wants to be first, while he alone waits, wanting to be last enduring to the end so that he may be present at destiny’s table.
Emulating Chuang Tzu’s perfected man cannot the sage by following the Tao and the way of heaven ultimately turn everything upside down thereby betraying conventional wisdom at every turn.
In looking beyond, the present and reminding himself of what’s to come, does not the sage simply prepare to return to find this place confident that the stage has been set and his place at the table assured.
第79节 主宰命运
圣人记起一个老朋友曾经说过的一句话，循道的人的真性如水。水的特性是卑下，无争，与容器同形，因此貌似柔弱。
这不是圣人之道吗？看起来柔弱，实际上能够排除任何障碍，最终找到真道。
看起来柔弱的东西常常以坚韧不拔取胜。而看起来坚硬的东西却容易破碎，不能承受压力。
应该学习庄子的处世之道。庄子看见每一个人都争先恐后，而他却孤独地忍耐，最后出现在命运之桌的前面。
圣人仿效庄子真人，跟随天道。但
圣人终究不能颠倒万物和背叛传统智慧。
展望未来，圣人提醒自己注意将要发生什么，准备回来寻找这个地方，他深信，一切已经安排就绪。
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