Chapter 20

Commentary::

The last three chapters warn us against the false values, conflicts, complexities and entanglements of the “world.” In those chapters, the (nearly moral) advice is to be constant in the application of simplicity. In this chapter, the distant warning tone is gone and replaced by a dynamic first person narrative about the feeling quality of true cultivators of the Way (wuwei). It is the rare sound of “I” in this chapter that makes it incomparably powerful. The Adept speaks directly to us.

In ancient times, Chinese courtly life¹ was guided by 3,300 rules of etiquette. Nuances of behavior at court could have grave consequences. Symbolically addressing the powerful elite, trapped in this maze of great worldly power, the author asks: Between compliance and dissent, is there any real difference? Is subtle nuance the arbiter of real power? Is life itself a meticulous game? The author thinks not. In fact, between good (yes) and bad (no), what is the difference? Think about it: are the games of dualism really the mechanism of the world? Are we here to figure out what is “right,” to get ahead? The implied answer here is that we are not.

The Adept’s good advice is to abandon all categories, designations, and evaluations. A light-handed version of abandoning dualism describes the daily life of a Daoist Adept. The full-strength version of this abandonment is the posture of zuowang, “sitting and forgetting.”

The author’s “others” are those who, without much investigation or self-reflection, instinctively fear that what we are is somehow flawed. This creates the blind compulsion to do in an attempt to “make over” what we are. Adepts do not discover they are “different” from ordinary people; in fact, they see that we are all the same, have the same nature. They never place themselves above anyone or seek escape. The term “others” here could just as well be, “I.” Adepts know fear, know compulsion, and yet choose an inward gaze. This inward gaze tells him/her:

I am a wilderness² before dawn.³

What is found is called a “wilderness”-an uninhabited place without dimensions. It is not a Heaven, a Void, or an “upper” realm, but a wilderness where everything is welcome and nothing abides. When is it found? Before night has ended. It is found literally before-dawn, which refers to the non-conceptual or a pre-conceptual openness. The Adept, in the practice of zuowang, visits a Time and Space that has no two-no reference point or place; an un-self-centered experience that defies “remembering.” No abiding self or soul is found. Likewise, no world, no others, no problems, no lack of problems, no compulsion, no need to avoid anything. The compulsion of ordinary reactions subsides. Indeed, compulsion is experienced as never having truly existed.

The Adept then goes on to compare the lives of “others,” those who thrive on compulsion, to his own life, which is listless, without preference.⁴

Others are high-spirited⁵ and full of hope as they celebrate⁶ spring.

The particular spring festival referred to here is one celebrated on the first full moon of the year. A community builds a tower toward Heaven and ritually sacrifices animals to propitiate the ancestor/gods for the New Year. They then climb the tower to pray for what they want. The Adept sees the festival as an elaborate demonstration of human desire. He calls the celebrants “high-spirited and full of hope,” anxiously anticipating the fantasies they project. The celebration of hope as seen by the Adept is an attempt to cover up fear or put fear at a dis-tance. These “others” live in a world where getting what you want works to end fear.

How does the author feel in this world of hope? Without pride or sense of accomplishment, he simply says: “Not me! I have no need of hope.” Why no excitement and no hope? The depth of the “wilderness” experience makes the culture of celebration/ hope/desire unimportant to the Adept. The Adept is not a saint⁷ or a renunciate. Spring festival does not need to stop, excitement is not wrong. The Adept is simply no longer held by a compulsive need to hope and celebrate/hope. This need as a constant is called anxiety.

Continuing the practice, he exclaims: “I am a fetus — unformed and motion-less.” Our true nature has no shape, but all possible shapes; like a fetus, a potentiality. I am an infant, who has not yet smiled. Moving in and out of formal practice,⁸ Adepts are, in a sense, born again. When we are first born, we move, but the movement is experimental, spontaneous and “pure;” not motivated by preferences, history, or ambition. The infant is willing and open to appreciate and play with the environment without compulsion. “Not yet smiled” means not having taken part in sex or unimpressed by or not yet entangled in the outer environment. It also means showing no history or need to repeat the Past. The fetus and infant analogy is a state before or beyond fear, compulsion, or preference — spontaneous and natural.

How does the fetus/infant act? What is the conduct of an Adept? I droop and drift aimlessly. Aimlessness here describes wuwei/zuowang, action and cultivation not engineered by fear or ambition. Zuowang/wuwei is a natural openness to respond to things-as-they-are without volition, without fear-motivated preferences, without hope. Wuwei does not work to entangle us in fate. The two together express a sense of life/environment that is not focused or driven.

Desire is excessively concentrated qi that can obscure our simple needs. Who are those swept up in a world of desire? Others have all they need — and more. They are “plump but still hungry.” The world of desire has no limits to its projections. Thus, to get what you want is never truly satisfying.⁹

By contrast, the author sees himself as “lacking.” Only I am lacking… everything is lost. This lacking or loss is not a sacrificial lacking created by the voli-tional renunciation of saints. Rather, this lacking means, “easily satisfied.” Satisfied by what? For true cultivators of Dao, there is a feeling of satisfaction that comes from the direct experience of natural interdependency, things-as-they-are. When we feel naturally interconnected, true simplicity (not an idealized simplicity) is satisfying. This is the simplicity inherent in the way-things-are. My heart, (at the very center of my being), is that of a fool — I am guileless. I am without treachery, without action and desire borne out of fear. To be without desire is to be satisfied. Not seeing “difference,” I have no need to solidify my defenses.

Who are those swept up in a world of awareness and focus? Others are clear and eager. These “others” believe that the mind is the basis of inter-connectedness. They are easily wrapped up in spiritual volition that practices concentration and focuses on clarity, with the actual effect of honing desire. They eagerly develop clarity of “spiritual” desire, hardened mental states, and much “personal power.”

Is the author like them? No, the author says: I, alone, seem lost and dark.¹⁰ True non-conceptual meditation and action (wuwei) seems “lost and dark” because it has no fear in its View or Method. In zuowang practice, no-abiding-self is the View of non-conceptual meditation, not the Fruition. Some methods of meditation are offered as an antidote to or armor against fear. They are focused on images or practices with concentrated states of mind. Those who practice them easily fall prey to an anxious personal endeavor to find a light and escape darkness. This anxious search for personal safety¹¹ is borne of a subtle fear, but fear nonetheless. Meditation that requires concentrated mental states may offer a respite from fear, but at what cost? Strong drugs block pain, but do they cure? These practices seek a conditional, dualistic peace and safety. The bottom line is, if the view justifies the notion of an abiding self, then fear remains.¹²

Though different from wuwei-inspired zuowang, these many methods do have results. Others are self-confident and lucid. Those who arduously practice fear-based methods of meditation/action gain feelings of overcoming problems and weaknesses and gain power, confidence, and clarity. This confidence and clarity is, however, easily reversed. The practice methods remain dualistic. The “others” of the world of awareness and focus live in a world of power and purpose that only temporarily blocks, ignores, and denies fear.

Is the author in a world of awareness? No. I, alone, am uncertain and dull-witted. Certainty is the drug that focused/awareness-centric people are addicted to. Their need to know and be right expresses a belief in an abiding self and a solid world. The Adept is in a world of soft uncertainty, a world that does not need to be out-smarted or controlled.

So, with a guileless heart, lost in the dark, uncertain and dull, the Adept’s action/meditation gives him/her the sense that: I am the sea — without boundary. I am the shapeless wind. Without an abiding self, fear is not an issue. Boundaries lose their galling limits. True cultivators of Dao recognize the flow of life, a movement¹³ that is vast, boundless, and shapeless. A movement and flow that creates,¹⁴ nourishes,¹⁵ and returns to itself (Daode). Accepting this vast inclusive circle, what place is there for a self? What place is there for fear?

In all of this “them and us” comparison, it is important to note that the author is not passing judgment on “others.” He seems to call himself a loser. To judge others would require a certainty he does not have. The “others” are not on a wrong or false path. As at the beginning of the chapter, we might ask, what’s the difference between the author and others? If fact, he ends by saying: Let them shine forth with their important agendas, and instead of shining, he says: I will keep no purpose or knowledge. Like at the beginning of the chapter, we might ask, “Is there a big difference?” No. What is the difference? My difference? I prize only the sustenance that comes from the Mother. What is this sustenance? It is the circle of Heaven and Earth (Mother). Going out and coming back, all beings and things naturally return to themselves (Daode). Return is sustenance. Power, hope, desire, focus, and fear are not.¹⁶

Footnotes::

1. the play of great worldly power huang
2. huang
3. wei yang
4. wuweidao
5. xi xi, many feelings and desires (fetishes)
6. make the ritual sacrifice at the tower of.
7. concerned with the particulars of conduct
8. an Adept pattern of activity (qi)
9. In seeking a stylish hat, we develop a brain tumor. In other words, we may destroy our head in the process of acquiring a hat. This is the possible, perhaps likely, disorientation from Reality or "disaster" that results from over-focused, concentrated qi. True practice/conduct is found in the open field between unconscious fear and driven defensiveness.
10. fearless
11. found light-mental clarity, or alliances with gods and protectors
12. Chogyam Trungpa calls this "spiritual materialism."
13. water/wind
14. Heaven/yang
15. Earth/yin
16. The Song-era neo-Confucianist, Su Che, says, "Adepts see others and self as equal; they see unity in difference...yet they do not ignore the law, neglect their duties, or throw reason to the winds. The crowd pursues many things but forgets the Way. The Adepts turn from the ten thousand things and take the Way as their sole source, like newborns who feed on their mother's milk."