Each seemingly individual part of a whole is potentially dangerous (and generally useless) if it doesn’t function in harmony. What’s true for the chariot in this verse of the Tao Te Ching is true for you as well. Your life needs to have a relationship with the Tao, and that relationship is characterized by Lao-tzu as a bond forged by humility. In other words, wholeness and humility are one and the same, so update the way you think about your relationship to life, and play your part “in accordance with the whole.”
Here’s what Lao-tzu seems to be instructing as I read and interpret this verse of the ancient Tao Te Ching:
Cultivate your relationship with the planet.
Live in the spirit of wholeness, knowing that you have a role as one of the parts of the Tao. Remind yourself that you cannot interfere with the Tao and live a life of greatness. This means respecting the environment in every way by living in an Earth-friendly manner as a part of its oneness. Become an advocate for conservation. Make time to pick up and recycle trash. Drive an environmentally friendly automobile, or better yet, walk in peace to as many places as possible. Wholeness means maintaining a sense of balance with the all-providing, gentle, nonpushy Tao. In humility, you’re able to feel your own tiny role in this great drama orchestrated by your Sources. You’ll see what Lao-tzu means by: “A man’s life brings nothing unless he lives in accordance with the whole universe.”
Change the way you think of yourself from being separate to seeing yourself in all that you encounter.
As you live in wholeness, notice how you begin to feel a connection to all of life, rather than the separateness that your ego prefers. See yourself in everyone you encounter, in every creature on our planet, in the forest and the oceans and the sky—the more you do, the more you’ll want to stay in a state of cooperation rather than competition. You’ll also feel more inclined to reject the concept that there is a “them.” Practice this way of being and notice that the type of happiness that may have eluded you for a lifetime is part of the oneness you begin to enjoy.
Here’s how Rumi expressed this sentiment:
If you put your heart against the earth with me, in serving every creature, our Beloved will enter you from our sacred realm and we will be, we will be so happy.
Do the Tao Now
Go for a walk today and think in wholeness terms with all that you encounter during a 30-minute period. See yourself in those you might otherwise have judged, including the very old, very young, obese, disabled, or indigent. As you look at them, remind yourself, I share the same originating spirit with every one of these people. This will help you feel whole by shifting from your ego to the virtue of the Tao.
40th Verse
Returning is the motion of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
The 10,000 things are born of being.
Being is born of nonbeing.
Living by
Returning and Yielding
I see one of the greatest teachings of the Tao Te Ching here in the shortest of its 81 passages. If you can master the wisdom in these four lines, you’ll be as happy, content, and centered in the Tao as any sage.
With the first word, returning, you’re being nudged toward an understanding of the basic principle of your existence. Without needing to leave your body, you’re asked to die while alive. You accomplish this by realizing that you’re one of the 10,000 things that has appeared in the world of form. What Lao-tzu is expressing here in the 40th verse is what contemporary quantum physics has confirmed many centuries later: Particles do not come from particles at the tiniest subatomic level. Instead, when the infinitesimally small specks are collided in a particle accelerator, there’s nothing remaining but waves of “particle-less” energy. In order for you, a much bigger speck, to form, you must have come from an originating spirit.
Now Lao-tzu may have known nothing of quantum physics in the 6th century b.c., but he was teaching an essential truth even then: It’s spirit that gives life. So to truly live out your destiny as a piece of the originating Tao, you must shed your ego and return to spirit—or you can wait until your body dies and make your return trip at that time.
Six centuries after Lao-tzu dictated the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching, the man who wrote a huge percentage of the New Testament also spoke of whence we come. Formerly called Saul of Tarsus, he became known as Saint Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. In his letter to the people of Ephesus, he wrote: “You were created to be like God, and so you must please him and be truly holy” (Eph. 4:24). This is an invitation for us all to return to what we came from, which is loving, kind, and not exclusive in any way.
How is this accomplished, according to Saint Paul and Lao-tzu, who emphasizes this point in many of the verses of the Tao Te Ching? You do so by yielding your ego, surrendering, and being humble. To that end, in his letter to the people of Corinth, Saint Paul quotes Jesus directly: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul then goes on to say himself, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9–10). Indeed, yielding is the way of the Tao, as well as the key to an uplifted existence, according to virtually all spiritual texts that have survived over the centuries.
When you truly change the way you think about all of life, the world begins to look very different. You begin seeing everyone and everything as if they have round-trip tickets: You know they all arrived from spirit, and you know they must return. All that composes also decomposes, and whether anyone else understands that isn’t important to you. You find the awareness that life on Earth is a death sentence to be a liberating and amusing viewpoint. You’re choosing to live every day, each moment that you have and as much as you can, as the nonbeing aspect of yourself.
As a being of spirit, you decide to use your “return ticket” while you’re still in physical form by keeping yourself in precisely the same loving status that you occupied before entering this world of boundaries. As you take your return journey, you not only get to lose your ego-identification card, you have the added bonus of regaining the power of your Source, which is the all-creating power of the universe. You merge into the oneness of a being who dissolves ego concerns, and the world that you now see is perfect and infinite in nature. There is no more worry, anxiety, or identification with your possessions—you’re a free person. You’re a spiritual being first, last, and always.
This is what I feel that Lao-tzu is telling you in this brief yet profound teaching of the 40th verse of the Tao Te Ching: 40th Verse
Monitor your direction, emphasizing returning and yielding.
Mentally make an effort to assess every step you’re taking in all aspects of your life—including in your career, your relationships, and your health—in terms of directionality. That is, ask yourself, In which way am I truly moving? Am I getting away from my originating place, or am I returning to it? As you make this assessment, you can be more forthright about returning to, rather than moving away from, the Tao. A resolution to exercise or eat more nutritious foods is a step taking you back to the well-being from which you originated. A decision to suspend your ego and take an interest in another person is a movement of moving back to the Tao. A determination to be generous rather than hoard is a choice to be in the return motion. All of these actions come from your thinking first about the direction in which you’re moving—away from your origination spirit or back to it.
Surrender!
This is what yielding is all about. Recognize that your little ego does nothing and that the Tao creates everything, including you. As I sit and write these words in my magical writing space, I know that I don’t own what mysteriously appears on the paper. I’ve surrendered. I know that God writes all the books, composes all the music, and erects all the buildings. I bow to this all-creating power. While it
appears that all of the 10,000 things are born of the world of beingness, as I think about it more, the beingness itself came from nonbeing.
It is to this glorious state of nonbeing spirituality, or the Tao, that I yield. I encourage you to do the same, and then peacefully observe how it all flows together perfectly.
Do the Tao Now
Strategically place a picture of a yield sign, frequently found as a traffic device, within your field of vision. Each time you look at this sign, use it as a reminder for you to return to the Tao. At least once each day, rather than continuing a disagreement, cede on the spot. In the midst of talking about your own achievements or basking in the light of your ego, stop and become an instant listener. The more you yield each day, the more you return to the peace and harmony of the Tao.
41st Verse
A great scholar hears of the Tao
and begins diligent practice.
A middling scholar hears of the Tao
and retains some and loses some.
An inferior scholar hears of the Tao
and roars with ridicule.
Without that laugh, it would not be the Tao.
So there are constructive sayings on this:
The way of illumination seems dark,
going forward seems like retreat,
the easy way seems hard,
true power seems weak,
true purity seems tarnished,
true clarity seems obscure,
the greatest art seems unsophisticated,
the greatest love seems indifferent,
the greatest wisdom seems childish.
The Tao is hidden and nameless;
the Tao alone nourishes and brings everything to fulfillment.
Living Beyond
Appearances
This verse of the Tao Te Ching influenced my choice of the title for this book. By changing your thoughts so that they harmonize with the Tao, you see that what you’ve called “reality” is in fact an outward form, an appearance only. In the beginning, your new way of regarding oneness is clouded by old ego-inspired habits. What you’ve been accustomed to still resonates within you as real, and your Tao-inspired world may not be consistently recognizable. But you will begin to look beyond what only seems to be your truth and move into a direct experience of the Tao, uncluttered by your previously limited views.
Reread the first section of this 41st verse of the Tao Te Ching, noticing your response. Ask yourself whether you’re a great, middling, or inferior scholar when it comes to understanding and applying the wisdom of the Tao. For example, I can unabashedly proclaim myself a great scholar after so many years spent studying and writing it. And the more I’ve studied, the more diligently I’ve practiced. I’ve become highly attuned to the infinite variety of daily opportunities to employ the principles of the Tao. As you examine your own thoughts, you may discover an aspect of yourself that wants to learn how to utilize these ancient teachings. Thus, you can move from being a person who knew very little about the Tao, and might even have ridiculed it, to being a great scholar.
The application of the Tao each day determines the greatness of a scholar, rather than whether he or she intellectually understands these paradoxical-sounding concepts. Lao-tzu points out that without the ridiculing laughter of inferior scholars, the Tao couldn’t even exist. Talk about paradoxical concepts!
In A Warrior Blends with Life: A Modern Tao, Michael LaTorra comments on this 41st verse:
The Way is only attractive to those who are already wise enough to know how foolish they are. Sarcastic laughter from other fools who believe themselves wise does not deter the truly wise from following the Way. Following the Way, they do not become complicated, extraordinary, and prominent. Rather they become simple, ordinary, and subtle.
As you elect to live the Tao each day, what you experience within and around you will be different from what it appears to be. You will go way beyond surfaces into the blissful world of the Tao, and it’s vital that you choose to stay in this truth regardless of how it all seems. Others will make fun of you, but remember the paradox that without that ridiculing laughter, it wouldn’t be the Tao.
You’ll experience times of darkness, but your new vision will eventually illuminate your inner world. And when it seems as though you’re moving backward, remember that “the Tao is hidden and nameless.” If it was knocking at your door, or readily accessible like a pill to swallow, it wouldn’t be the Tao. So when life looks difficult, stop and realize that you’re only one thought removed from being at peace. You’ll know what Lao-tzu meant when he said that the easy way seems hard, and true power seems like weakness. You don’t have to struggle or dominate others in order to feel strong.
A person in the Tao sees the world quite differently, knowing that inner peace is power. Less effort is actually easier—work gets done when you lighten up internally and let yourself be moved along by the ceaseless Tao, rather than by setting goals or meeting standards set by others. Allow the Tao, and see the purity and clarity that originates from this vantage point. The outward appearance of anyone or anything may appear tarnished, but a Tao view will remind you that essential goodness is always there. It’s hidden and nameless, though, so don’t be obsessed with finding and labeling it.
In this way you become a great scholar who diligently works to live in harmony with the Tao even though it remains obscure. Apply this same insight to the times you feel unloved: When you see what appears to be indifference, know in your heart that love is present. The Tao isn’t concerned with proving its fidelity. It appears to be uninterested, but it’s nevertheless always there, everywhere. As your thinking changes from a position dictated by your ego to one that transcends it, you’ll see an illuminated world that is truly inviting. Ego convinced you to see a cold and indifferent planet, while the ego-transcending Tao shines pure love to all that you’re connected to. Allow it to work its magic in your life.
This is what Lao-tzu seems to be instructing, as I sit here asking how I might serve those who read this book:
Be diligent.
You’re not an inferior scholar of Tao if you’re reading these words. So if you’re a middling scholar who “retains some and loses some” of this wisdom, make a commitment to work toward your greatness. Just practice a few of these insights each day. Be diligent about it—set aside your inclination to be puzzled or argumentative, and allow yourself the freedom to be a persistent practitioner. Even a small thing such as an affirmation or a rereading of a verse each day puts you on the path of living according to the Great Way. Lao-tzu simply says to live it by zealously practicing these insights.
Here are some lines from Walt Whitman to remind you that you’re not who you appear to be:
O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are,
you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time . . .
Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you, These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense and interminable as they . . .
The Tao truth is unprovable in physical terms.
Let go of your conditioned way of needing proof in the physical world before something becomes your truth. The Tao is hidden permanently and it cannot be named, so accept this as a fact. You’re not going to find it in a material form; it has no boundaries, and the moment you try to name it, you’ve lost it. (See the 1st verse.) Just as modern scientists must accept the fact that quantum particles originate in waves of formless energy or spirit, without their ever seeing that infinite all-creating field, so too can you let go of your need to see and touch the Tao before you can believe it. By changing the way you look at the world, you’ll see a realm beyond the appearance of darkness, difficulty, weakness, indifference, and death.
As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke observed,
. . .
behind the world our names enclose is
the nameless: our true archetype and home.
Do the Tao Now
Spend an hour with a child today, taking note of how much wisdom is embodied in what appears to be juvenile behavior and beliefs. Notice his or her fascination with seemingly insignificant items, repeating the same senseless phrase, tantrums, or laughter. Jot down your impressions of the wisdom behind such so-called childish impulses and vow to be a kid again as frequently as possible.
42nd Verse
The Tao gave birth to one.
One gave birth to two.
Two gave birth to three.
And three begat the 10,000 things.
The 10,000 things carry yin and embrace yang;
they achieve harmony by combining these forces.
People suffer at the thought of being
without parents, without food, or without worth.
Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life Page 16