Chapter 2 (original) (raw)
Translation
All under heaven realizing beauty as beauty, wickedness already.
All realizing goodness as goodness, no goodness already.
Hence existence and nothing give birth to one another,
Difficult and easy become one another,
Long and short form one another,
High and low incline to one another,
Sound and tone blend with one another,
Front and back follow one another.
Considering this, the wise person manages without doing anything,
Carries out the indescribable teaching.
Don’t all things on earth work and not shirk.
Give birth to and yet not have,
Do and yet not depend on,
Achieves success and yet not dwell.
The simple man alone does not dwell,
Because of this he never leaves.
sky (heaven; weather; nature) under all (each and every) know (realize; be aware of) beautiful (pretty; good) of do (act; act as; serve as; be; mean) beautiful (pretty; good), this wickedness (fierce; ferocious) stop (cease; end; already; thereafter; afterwards; too); 天下皆知美之为美，斯恶已；_(tiān xià jiē zhī mĕi zhī wéi mĕi sī ĕ yĭ)_
all (each and every) know (realize; be aware of) good (perfect; kind) of do (act; act as; serve as; be; mean) good (perfect; kind), this no (not) good (perfect; kind) stop (cease; end; already; thereafter; afterwards; too). 皆知善之为善， 斯不善已。_(jiē zhī shàn zhī wéi shàn sī bù shàn yĭ)_
reason (cause; hence) have (there is; exist) nothing (nil; without) each other (one another; mutually) give birth to (bear; grow; existence; life), 故有无相生，_(gù yŏu wú xiāng shēng)_
difficult (hard) easy (amiable) each other (one another; mutually) accomplish (become; result), diction, 难易相成，_(nán yì xiāng chéng)_
long (of long duration; steadily; strong point) short (brief; weak point; fault) each other (one another; mutually) form (shape; appear; contrast), 长短相形，_(cháng duăn xiāng xíng)_
tall (high; above the average) below (under; low; inferior) each other (one another; mutually) incline (lean; bend) , 高下相倾，_(gāo xià xiāng qīng)_
sound (news; tidings) sound (voice; tone; reputation) each other (one another; mutually) gentle (harmonious… mix; blend), 音声相和，_(yīn shēng xiāng hé)_
front (before; former; first) back (after; later; offspring) each other (one another; mutually) to follow (to allow). 前后相随。_(qián hòu xiāng suí)_
is (yes this; that) use ( take
according to; because of so as to and) sage (holy; sacred) human (man; people) manage nothing (nil; without; no matter whether, what, etc) do (act; act as; serve as; become; be; mean) of matter (affair; thing), 是以圣人处无为之事，_(shì yĭ shèng rén chŭ wú wéi zhī shì)_
go (do; carry out) no (not) speech (word; say; talk; speak) of teach (instruct.). 行不言之教。_(xíng bù yán zhī jiāo)_
all things on earth do (make; work) herein (usu. negative questioning) how; why) <conj.> and (yet, but) no (not) diction (poetry; take leave; decline; dismiss; discharge; shirk). 万物作焉而不辞。_(wàn wù zuò yān ér bù cí)_
give birth to (bear; grow; existence; life) <conj.> and (yet, but) no (not) have (there is; exist) 生而不有，_(shēng ér bù yŏu)_
do (act; act as; serve as; become; be; mean) <conj.> and (yet, but) no (not) rely on (depend on), 为而不恃，_(wéi ér bù shì)_
merit (achievement; result; skill; work) accomplish (succeed; capable) <conj.> and (yet, but) not reside (dwell; live; store up). (i.e. not claim credit for oneself.). 功成而弗居。_(gōng chéng ér fú jū)_
man (a person engaged in manual labor) only (alone) not reside (dwell; live; store up), 夫唯弗居，_(fū wéi fú jū)_
is (yes this; that) use ( take
according to; because of so as to and) no (not) go (leave; remove; get rid of). 是以不去。_(shì yĭ bù qù)_
Fourth Pass: Chapter of the Month (pandemic era) 8/1/2020
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/8zFtFHhFPZk is a link to unedited Zoom video of this month’s Sunday meeting. The shorter first part of the meeting begins with a chapter reading followed by attendees’ commentary, if any. A little later on begins the longer open discussion part of the meeting when those who wish to discuss how the chapter relates to their personal experience.
Corrections?
None this time
Reflections
All under heaven realizing beauty as beauty, wickedness already. All realizing goodness as goodness, no goodness already. Hence existence and nothing give birth to one another,
I regularly look out upon nature… the trees, the clouds, the rain, the insects, etc. I’ve never observed any hint of beauty or wickedness, goodness or its opposite. Nature is an awesome process that spans my entire awareness. Sure, when I see a colorful sunset I might feel beauty. But, do I feel what we describe as beauty when I am sick with the flu? Of course not, I’m just miserable. Clearly, beauty is actually a projection of what pleases me, what I like. That good and beauty are simply projections of what we like, rather than an external reality, can be a hard pill to swallow for many, from old Plato to the present. That speaks to how strongly the Bio-Hoodwink shapes perception and any subsequent naming and labeling.
That existence and nothing are utterly entangled is one of the most profound open secrets of the Taoist view. This reminds me of what the last lines of chapter 1 allude to…
These two are the same coming out, yet differ in name, Dark and dark again, the multitude of wondrous entrance.
Chapter 40 puts this view even more bluntly, and if considered carefully, gives a hint at which came first, the chicken or the egg. That is, if you can determine to which poles the chicken and egg Correlate.
Naturally, this view runs counter to the paradigm virtually all civilizations hold dear. Here, nothing is the main event, the ‘queen’ of reality. That very notion blows a hole in every cultural story. Why? Because, if nothing is the ‘main event’, that diminishes the importance of anything that nothing brings about. Note, entropy is another way to think of what nothing means, which is simply another aspect of loss through death, of course. Because we place such high value on life, loss through death of the way uses is hard to appreciate. We fear loss, death, failure, more than anything, thus we easily fail to appreciate how profoundly vital these various facets of nothing are.
Jesus hints at this contrary point of view when he says…
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. [Matthew 16:25]
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. [Matthew 16:19-20]
Obviously, one needs to interpret the “_for my sake_” and “_heaven_” as implying the Taoist nothing rather than the something that Christian culture takes this to mean.
Difficult and easy become one another, Long and short form one another, High and low incline to one another, Sound and tone blend with one another, Front and back follow one another.
The more I viscerally know (realize, appreciate, love) the interconnection between all apparent opposites, the more real immortality feels. (See You are Immortal!) The profound sameness of chapter 56 puts this even more explicitly. All differences, long vs. short, beauty vs. wickedness and indeed life and death are illusions produced by our biology, and more explicitly, our imagination.
Deeply perceiving this entangled reality helps me to see life appear more like a game than the reality my emotions feel it to be. Indeed, life to me feels like an illusion compared to the reality of death—as chapter 40 says, having is born in nothing. As chapter 50 hints, Of people, aroused by life, in death trapped, also three in ten. Why is this so? Because they favor life. And again in chapter 75, Only the man without use for life is worthy of a noble life. Perhaps chapter 7 puts it best,
Considering this, the wise person manages without doing anything, Carries out the indescribable teaching.
The more acutely real I feel this entangled reality, the more life feels… well, like a puppet show, or a game show. Not that this lets me off the hook mind you; I still feel pain, pleasure, and everything in between. Even so, I do find it easier to disregard my expectations (i.e., the disease of chapter 71), which helps me better manage without doing anything, Carry out the indescribable teaching.
It is important to note that without doing anything, does not mean ceasing to act and just passively remain idle. It means that “I” and “other” cease to feel as separate as they once did. In a sense, all action becomes duty. That is, duty as Buddha’s 4th Truth describes it: … There is salvation for him whose self disappears before truth, whose will is bent on what he ought to do, whose sole desire is the performance of his duty.… This is natural duty; the duty that all of nature operates from to carry out the indescribable teaching. Certainly, this is not the common notions of duty characterized by cultural standards and demands. In short, duty here is not about what you do; it is about how you do it. The Bhagavad Gita offers a few hints.
And do thy duty, even if it be humble, rather than an other’s, even if it be great. To die in one’s duty is life: to live in another’s is death [3:35].
A harmony in eating and resting, in sleeping and keeping awake: a perfection in whatever one does. This is the Yoga that gives peace from all pain [6:17].
The perfection referred to here is, like duty, not the common notions of an objective perfection characterized by cultural standards. I think of this as a perfection in the flow of the moment—watchfulness. This is about the flow, the process, not about any final result.
The reality of nothing and loss through death of the way uses is why in the final analysis, all we can do is carry out the indescribable teaching. The reality that the Tao Te Ching points to is not truly describable through words because words are still relying on the illusion of difference. The dipolar nature of words can never capture the profound sameness. The closest we have come to this is the observations of quantum non-locality. See What can Schrödinger’s cat teach us about quantum mechanics?
Chuang Tzu’s concise Duke Huan and the wheelwright story may also help shed light on Carries out the indescribable teaching.
Duke Hwan, seated above in his hall, was once reading a book, and the wheelwright Phien was making a wheel below it. Laying aside his hammer and chisel, Phien went up the steps, and said, “I venture to ask your Grace what words you are reading?” The duke said, “The words of the sages.” “Are those sages alive?” Phien continued. “They are dead,” was the reply.
“Then,” said Phien, “what you, my Ruler, are reading are only the dregs and sediments of those old men.” The duke said, “How should you, a wheelwright, have anything to say about the book which I am reading? If you can explain yourself, very well; if you cannot, you shall, die!”
The wheelwright said, “Your servant will look at the thing from the point of view of his own art. In making a wheel, if I proceed gently, that is pleasant enough, but the workmanship is not strong; if I proceed violently, that is toilsome and the joinings do not fit. If the movements of my hand are neither too gentle nor too violent, the idea in my mind is realised. But I cannot tell how to do this by word of mouth; there is a knack in it. I cannot teach the knack to my son, nor can my son learn it from me. Thus it is that I am in my seventieth year, and am still making wheels in my old age. But these ancients, and what it was not possible for them to convey, are dead and gone. So then what you, my Ruler, are reading is but their dregs and sediments!”
This demonstrates why each generation must relearn the indescribable teaching for itself. In other words, wisdom cannot be taught or learned externally. It only comes through one’s personal life experience. That is why Buddha insisted that people not believe in his teachings but rather verify them through their own personal experience. Simply put, We only understand what we already know!
Don’t all things on earth work and not shirk. Give birth to and yet not have, Do and yet not depend on, Achieves success and yet not dwell.
Don’t all things on earth work and not shirk closely corresponds to a sign I saw outside a church in Japan long ago. It said, “We all do the best we can”. Interestingly, that struck me as true, despite my belief in free will at the time. These two notions are completely irreconcilable. If we all do the best we can, free will is irrelevant… a complete oxymoron. Yet, back then, I was able to entertain both ideas comfortably. The mind has many windows I suppose, and connecting them enough to realize their inconsistencies is difficult to say the least. If it were easy, who would be a hypocrite?
Insects are an excellent tool to use when considering Don’t all things on earth work and not shirk. As a tool, they are invaluable for challenging one’s illusion of self (ego). They are excellent because they are wild animals, yet available to ponder most anywhere you happen to be. By sincerely and rigorously observing the similarities—_the profound sameness_—between you and them helps reduce the illusion of self. Insects, like humans, vigorously work and not shirk, give birth to and yet not have, do and yet not depend on, achieve success and yet not dwell. Perhaps these lines describe insects a bit better than they describe us, so you might say insects are ‘taoists’ (see Small ‘t’ Taoists). For us, these lines are more aspirational than actual, as the final two lines below suggests by the mere fact that it is a declared goal, i.e,. from a symptom’s point of view, declaring such a goal reveals the innate lack of same. Nature designed our brain’s mind to dwell to some extent. The degree to which we overdo this is the problem, the disease.
The simple man alone does not dwell, Because of this he never leaves.
Dwelling on the past, present or future is the way we leave our biological reality and drift away in a virtual imagined reality—our dreams, aspirations, plans. The more present I am in the moment, the more likely I’ll never leave to chase or dwell in any imagined reality. Nevertheless, it is always a matter of degree. After all, my brain has a mind of its own.
Naturally, all this is easier to say than do. Nevertheless, if this is not acknowledged and remembered, there is no chance it will ever be managed to any useful degree. The first two steps of Buddha’s Middle Path, Right Comprehension (to acknowledge) and Right Resolution (to remember) bluntly state the minimum one needs in order to begin to carry out the indescribable teaching.
Video Archive https://youtu.be/8zFtFHhFPZk
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month 10/01/2016
Corrections?
Lines 3,6,8: I deleted the extra comma at the end of those lines. How did they get there? In the Word for Word section, I changed ride to rid… “get rid of”
Reflections:
All under heaven realizing beauty as beauty, wickedness already. All realizing goodness as goodness, no goodness already.
I can’t help but think of nature when considering anything to do with beauty, wickedness, or goodness. For the life of me, I can’t find any of these description true of the natural world. The natural world is reality, unlike all the human machinations we deem true and real. Indeed, beauty, wickedness, and goodness simply come down to describing what “I” love or hate. Such skewed human judgments say volumes about the observer and nothing about the thing observed.
The problem with giving our emotional preferences labels like this is that it confers on them a universality that isn’t truly there. Our subjective judgment of life — what we need and fear — becomes set in cognitive concrete and voilà, we believe. The act of believing makes the fantasy feel real. This seems so obvious and yet any true believer will be blind to it. It is almost as if the judgments we make become our ‘friend’. We marry our beliefs.
To be honest, this always strikes me oddly. You would think I’d be used to this idiosyncrasy of humanity by now. I suppose my rational side is always bewildered by what it sees as irrational. Actually, this incongruity feels like it is the wellspring of humor. I mean, laughter is a good way, perhaps the only way, to…
Subdue its sharpness, untie its tangles, Soften its brightness, be the same as dust,
Hence existence and nothing give birth to one another, and the next 5 lines present what for me is the natural and rational view. However, if taken at full value, I imagine these lines would come across to many as being irrational and even absurd. They know that good and evil are true and real in their own right. The ‘experts’ told them so.
Existence and nothing give birth to one another culminate in line 9, Considering this, the wise person manages without doing anything. Now we know what makes one wiser!
The more viscerally we feel that existence and nothing give birth to one another, the less likely we are to choose sides. In a subjective sense, it becomes difficult to say whether you are doing or not doing, for each gives rise to the other. Or perhaps more accurately, neither is actually true. They cancel out each other. Two side of a coin, yet it really is just one coin. Dialectic cognition distinguishes a difference, which is useful for manipulating nature to boost survival. However, too much of a good thing is what we are faced with now.
Having a word that connects to an experience locks you into and exaggerates the experience. The difficulty here is that it’s no longer the actual experience, but rather your thoughts about the experience. Here, all past memories along with current needs and fears now influence what you think you know. No wonder chapter 71 refers to such certainty as a disease — Realizing I don’t’ know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease.
These lines toward the bottom of this chapter describe for me how all life on Earth approaches the labor of living.
Don’t all things on earth work and not shirk. Give birth to and yet not have, Do and yet not depend on, Achieves success and yet not dwell.
Naturally, we humans approach life this way to an extent, depending on how much cognitive baggage we drag behind us. That baggage we cherish is what maintains our illusion of self. That’s why we cherish it. As Buddha put it, “The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things”. We hang on to keep our ego illusion alive and well. Thus, we have a large stake in the success we achieve, the things we do, the creations we give birth to.
The simple man alone does not dwell, Because of this he never leaves.
Why is it that the simple man alone does not dwell? This connects back to Buddha’s Second Truth; the less one cleaves to things, the less “illusion of self” – ego – will be complicating one’s life; the simpler one will inevitably become. By holding onto nothing that much, what is there to dwell upon? By not dwelling upon anything much, he never leaves his original self for the illusion of self.
Second Pass: Work in Progress 11/24/2012
Issues:
I made a number of tweeks in this chapter. All under heaven realizing beauty as beauty, wickedness already expresses the view a little more concisely without loss, in my view. Next, I saw how I was bouncing back and forth between one another and each other, for the same Chinese original characters, xiāng (相) each other; one another; mutually. I don’t know why, so I picked one another.
Yān (焉) here; herein is used in negative questioning, so I changed All things work herein and not shirk away to Don’t all things on earth work and not shirk. I think putting it this way says it a little stronger. All living things are driven (striving on diligently) to work, in one way or another. Sure, we often see the grass greener across the way, but deeper down, as Buddha said, Birth is suffering; growth, decay, and death are suffering. Sad it is to be joined with that which we dislike. Sadder still is the separation from that which we love, and painful is the craving for that which cannot be obtained.
I replaced but with and yet. The Chinese word is Ér (而) which is a conjunction and means both actually. For some reason and yet seems to paint a smoother transition that but. Maybe it is just the sound these words make?
Commentary:
Sound and tone blend with one another, has two characters, ‘_sheng_‘ (声) and ‘_yin_‘ (音), that both mean “sound” in various ways. They are so similar and so obviously out of sync with contrasting aspect of the other ‘_one another_‘ examples. Why doesn’t this say “sound” and “silence” off set one another, for example. Did the meaning of ‘_sheng_‘ (声) change, or perhaps (though less likely) ‘_yin_‘ (音)? Or is it a Taoist trick, messing with word meaning a bit just to encourage this question? All in all though, I’m happy with Sound and tone blend with one another.
The only real way to feel that ‘All realize goodness as goodness, no goodness already is from neutral impartiality. The biological/zoological origin of beauty and goodness is simply emotional preference. Long ago we uttered a sound for that which made us feel ‘good’; that sound eventually lead to the words such as ‘good, love, like, right, true, beautiful’. For me, leaving beauty and goodness at their personal preference (feeling) origin is what the last two lines speak to: The simple man alone does not dwell, Because of this he never leaves. Doing any more than that just makes mountains of out molehills. In other words, feel and never leave that; ‘capturing’ feeling through naming externals and dwelling on them through out life is just hauling excess baggage, i.e., Only when restricted, are there names.
Feeling both good and bad, life and death, (and any other opposites) as sharing something called profound samenessgoes against our biological core. Nature hoodwinks us into ‘liking what we like’ and ‘hating what we hate’ and ensuring that never the twain shall meet. In the end, it is not essential that one actually feel the underlying connection between opposites; it is enough to acknowledge through ‘faith’ that the connection exists. Not blind ‘faith’ mind you, but an extrapolation from personal experience. Merely find profound sameness where you can, in less emotionally charged situations. Then, simply give the benefit of the doubt to the possibility of this existing everywhere despite your inability to perceive it (i.e., the blind spot). At least then, blind belief is pointing the mind in a ‘true’ direction (true in the Schrodinger’s cat sense of quantum weirdness).
Suggested Revision:
All under heaven realizing beauty as beauty, wickedness already. All realizing goodness as goodness, no goodness already. Hence existence and nothing give birth to one another, Difficult and easy become one another, Long and short form one another, High and low incline one another, Sound and tone blend with one another, Front and back follow one another. Considering this, the wise person manages without doing anything, Carries out the indescribable teaching. Don’t all things on earth work and not shirk. Give birth to and yet not have, Do and yet not depend on, Achieves success and yet not dwell. The simple man alone does not dwell, Because of this he never leaves.
First Pass: Chapter of the Week 10/18/2008
I find that insight comes not from any answers that a translation (or anything else) offers, but rather from the questions it (or experience) evokes. Questions, puzzlement, mystery all turn the light of Consciousness on, while answers just put it to sleep. That’s all right though; sleep feels good too.
Of course, as this chapter suggests, answers and questions give birth to each other. In light of this, how shall I proceed? Sit as loose to life as possible is the advice this chapter gives. If both sides of everything are so intimately intertwined (inseparable) holding out for one side or the other feels like an unrelenting struggle. Therefore, considering this, the wise person manages without doing anything… This defies common sense naturally. Yet, it is the only way that actually works. I’d paraphrase it this give birth to each other process as ‘_All under heaven realize common sense as common sense, there is folly already_’.