I often hear people share only part of a story that aligns with their perspective. It’s like a storyteller crafting a tale to create an ending that fits the flow of events they want to convey…. while tales of eternity remind us to stay connected with ourselves and the rhythm of nature, aligning with the Tao.
Meanwhile, other tales seem to drift away, left behind without much fanfare or significance. We go not from a religious perspective, but a more universal cosmic one. It’s about seeing things not as out of reach, but as something we can almost touch and shape together. In unison with spirit and who we aim to become as one as well.
The Tao teaches us about how and what we create as the world turns beneath our feet. It’s not about living in the past but the memories that serve the current as steppingstones to the future. So that we stop repeating what doesn’t fit the story that will need to be remembered and told in the future. Renewal often delayed thinking there’s always enough time to face the eternal again… Oh the stories we tell ourselves.
To what Lao Tzu said that:
“Before heaven and earth there was something nebulous silent isolated unchanging and alone. Eternal, the mother of All Things. I do not know its name I call it Tao”. We would call it universal, to all things found in galaxies beyond what we know. From verse twenty-two of the Tao Te Ching.
The following verse is from my own version from the Tao Te Ching entitled “Thought on becoming a Sage – The guidebook for leading a virtuous Life”, that was written in 2000 and published in China in 2006. It appears here on my website as “Taoism and Lao Tzu”.
Verse 22 – On Becoming Whole
When all has passed through you – everything becoming the same with no opposites pulling at your attention, then you are free to follow the way of virtue.
When you can think and act as if innately following the Tao, you can become whole.
Knowing virtue and honesty are one, you make a list of those things not in keeping with the path you have chosen to follow and begin removing them, as they have become stumbling blocks to completing your endeavors as the sage. Once encountered and accounted for, they disappear and cannot be traced back to their maker.
Continually redefining the role of the traditional sage. Mirroring the Tao, you become adept at sharing your vision instead of simply trusting the word of others. Instead of relying on the strength of others, you take all to otherwise unattainable heights through reluctantly displaying your own strength.
Your enthusiasm and vision carrying the day. Living in paradox, as in reality you prefer to remain hidden from view. You stand apart, not competing hens no one finding a foothold to compete with you.
Remaining steadfast you become whole. Our challenge lies in staying aligned with the creator, who remains unnamable and whose characteristics evolve endlessly changing because we, too, change across time and space. (Written in May 2000)
I wrote the entry below in August 1995. I had been studying and writing about the I Ching and Taoism since December 1993 and was interpreting my own version of The Book of Lieh Tzu for over a year. The entry below is one hundred twenty-nine of one hundred fifty-eight.
My travels with Lieh Tzu / Interpolations along the Way
Chapter Eight – Explaining Conjunctions
112. Staying in sync
What can be found in trusting cunning and skill when in their pursuit one falls out of sync with the way of nature and what it provides? Possessing skills so that one can win a regular salary from the government, can the sage find the time to trust the transformation he discovers in living with what the Tao teaches?
As all who have traveled this way soon discover what the sage learns in an instant, or perhaps already knows. As he puts no trust in cunning or skill and simply spends his time coming to know what he has already learned and has re‑discovered within himself.
Lieh Tzu tells of the story of the man of Sung who made a mulberry leaf out of jade to give to his prince. It took him three years to finish; and when it was mixed up with real mulberry leaves, its indentations, stalk, veins, and luster were indistinguishable from the rest. The prince was so impressed with the man’s skill and talent that he gave him a regular salary so that he could continue his fine works of jade. Lieh Tzu continued: “If heaven and earth grew things so slowly that it took them three years to finish a leaf, there would not be many things with leaves.”
How is someone to reconcile the need to live and produce things which man requires to live in an orderly state and still pursue the Way? Can the truth lie in that we all are not meant to find the Way as we live just now? That once one becomes enmeshed in worldly endeavors pursuing truth goes out the first window it sees.
That the sage trusts the transformation process of the Way, or the Tao. Pursuing only that which lies within himself. While others attempt to better themselves through earning a living and raising a family so that life and death can continue. Perhaps it is in a leaf made of jade that will last an eternity that the man of Sung seeks his own. If in the end he finds Tao, how could the government’s money have been better spent? 8/5/95.
Number one hundred twenty-nine of one hundred fifty-nine entries.
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