The zigzag bridge was designed to offer views of the garden from different angles. It was also thought that evil spirits couldn’t follow you across it, as they would fall into the water.
Taoism and Lao Tzu
Two reference points I often turn to are the history of the zigzag bridge and the words of Chuang Tzu:
“Who takes Heaven as his ancestor, Virtue as his home, the Tao as his door, and who escapes change is a sage.”
Choosing to embrace the idea of rising above change can be a key indicator of understanding how our actions define who we are, as we hold the responsibility for creating our own story.
What I appreciate about both the zigzag bridge and Chuang Tzu’s pivot, is how they prompt us to question what we might have otherwise taken for granted. It’s like the saying that life is a river, with the water rushing past us always changing and never the same.
Embracing the sights, sounds, and sensations along the way pushes us forward, as if we’re fully immersed, riding the waves toward the journey’s end. As the zigzag bridge tells us to always be ready to change directions for our own personal safety. I also like to contemplate the meaning of the sage “staying above or beyond change”.
A paradox I often think about is when Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching says:
“There is no need to leave our door to know the whole world. No need to peer through our window to know the Way of Heaven, and that the farther you go the less we know. Therefore, the sage knows without going, names without seeing, and completes without doing a thing”.
How can this be so? “The sage therefore knows without moving, names without seeing, and succeeds without trying”.
When I wrote the entry (Verse 47) below in May/June 2000, I had been fully enmeshed in writing about Taoist philosophy for over seven years, made a couple trips to China to adopt my two Chinese daughters and visited Qufu for the first time. This entry would become a part of the book I had published in China six years later as my own version of the Tao Te Ching.
But what crystalized the path I was to follow most were the images above of the zigzag bridge we take and thoughts of Chuang Tzu’s pivot that belies, or tells, our ultimate endeavor and destiny.
Reading the two entries from Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu above tells the story we each travel as spirit as we relive our memories that retell our future. The journey that is important can only come from within us. After more than forty trips and teaching experiences in Qufu, each visit served as a reminder of who I have always been, keeping me ready to take the next step. Qufu had been my home across many generations in my past.
I was asked about this dualism of being here in southwest Missouri and seemingly in China at the same time. How can this work? The answer is as referenced above as having no need to go beyond my door. Knowing that our true path is to flow like water down the river of spirit is like opening a door to revisit places we’ve already been and seen before.
To drift upward in meditation and ride the wind, often alongside my friends Chuang, Lieh, and Lao Tzu, to familiar places in China we’ve visited and cherished before. To where the spirit links with timeless memories, and imagination is the only guide.
One of my favorite commentaries of number forty-seven below is by Ho-Shang Kung, who I have mentioned before whose Taoist writings were seen as only second to Wang Pi, who says,
“The sage understands other persons by understanding himself. He understands other families by understanding his own family. Thus, he understands the whole world. Man, and Heaven are linked to each other. If the ruler is content, the breath of Heaven will be calm. If the ruler is greedy, Heaven’s breath will be unstable. The sage does not have to ascend into the sky or descend into the depths to understand Heaven and Earth.”
Verse 47 – Becoming endowed by the Way
When you are ready to come forth with a vision fully endowed by the Way, you become the Way.
When you are ready to accept the mantle conferred by dragons by accepting Heaven as your ancestor, when virtue becomes your home and the Tao your door, only then can you begin to see beyond the limitations life brings each day as Chuang Tzu has taught you.
When you can remain above change, becoming a sage becomes clear.
When you can understand others by knowing yourself and understand other families by knowing your own, nothing more in the world is needed to be known. The sage does not need to ascend to the sky or descend into the depths to understand the way of Heaven and Earth.
When you can know the world without leaving your doorstep and are able to succeed without trying by relying only on your true nature, your vision moves beyond the distant horizon. Seeing what is coming allows you to stay behind. Staying behind allows you to remain as one with the ten thousand things.
Remaining as one with the ten thousand things you become empty once again. Becoming empty, the sage remains unmoved by the events that may swirl around him.
47. 道的认同
当你的憧憬得到道所认同时，你就得道了。当你接受神龙授予的斗篷，你就接受了上苍为你的祖
先。当大德成为你的家，道成为你的门，你就能够象庄子教导的那样，超越生命的约束。
当你能够驾驭风云变幻，你成为圣人的日子就不远了。
当你做到知己知彼，这世界就没有更多需要知道的事情了。圣人不必上天入地去寻找天地的奥秘。
当你能够足不出门而通晓天下大事，能够依靠自己的真知而不是摸索取得成功时，你就能够高瞻远瞩。洞察未来使你能够隐身殿后。隐身殿后使你再次继续成为万物的一员。继续成为万物一员，你可以继续保持虚空。保持虚空，圣人在世事纷扰时就能够归然不动。
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