Chapter 32

Commentary::

What is the ground? What is the basis? What is real? Dao is (constantly) name-less…formless…an uncarved block. Dao, we are reminded, is not a ground we ever find or know because it is beyond concept and at the same time profoundly inclusive. The name “Dao” is provisional. Dao does not show itself as itself. It is big and small, clear and obscure, constantly remaining in subtle potential. So subtle it cannot be subjugated. Its humility, weakness, smallness and subtlety make it unavailable for subjugation by analysis, ideas, words, names, or conceptual constructs. What is, in this case, subtle, cannot be elaborated upon or exposed by explanation. This line also describes meditation as resting in a time and space that is before concept, unavailable for subjugation, discipline, or focused concentration.

Is it non-existent, nihilistic? No. We know it is not because Adepts hold to it and all things do likewise by themselves. To “hold to Dao,” to simply be, relates to wuwei. No matter what we experience, the ground of that experience lacks the compulsion to do, to meddle. Thus, Dao is everywhere apparent. When we hold to Dao, we experience the entire context of life, and the particulars as mutually inclusive. Clouds in the sky are not blocking the sky-even when they obscure the sun, the sun goes unchanged.

It is therefore not important for Adepts nor their practices to “subjugate” anything. This also speaks to the meaning of the “uncarved block.” Our prac-tice, our authentic experience, is neither trees in the wilderness (wild and raw or unconscious) nor lumber with a purpose (controlled and focused on improvement).

When we practice and conduct ourselves without the compulsion to con-trol, what happens? How does Da operate? How does a world of appearances arise? And what are we to do with this world of appearances? Heaven and Earth unite and rain sweet dew,’ and all spontaneously dwell together in harmony. Heaven (yang) and Earth (yin) are as close as we can get to how Dao operates. Heaven and Earth’s relatedness provides impetus, nourishment, protection, and depletion for all things/beings without a fuss. Heaven and Earth’s sweet dew is all compound things/beings, our essential experience of movement,? and the dualistic vision that gives rise to our so-called environment.3 All things/beings rise up in and take form according to their inner nature. Heaven and Earth give no orders and have no expectations. Heaven and Earth are there at the beginning and end of all ten thousand beings/things.4 All of this apparent “action,” “creation,” is, in Lazoi’s View, action that does not actually take place, as no fixed being/thing is created.

Sweet dew is also a reference to elixirs produced by a Daoist practice called “inner alchemy.” In that practice, the saliva that gathers in the mouth is transformed by internal yoga and then swallowed. This process of “distilling the elixir” is parallel to a deepening sense of stillness in zuowang. This distillation is not a “doing” (not a subjugation), but a revelation found on the map of our experience of meditation. Life reveals its true nature, its sublime nature, in the sublimation of qi/jing. The term translated as “spontaneously” (zi yun) means “self-harmonizing,” and therefore reiterates that distilling the elixir happens of itself.5 It is possible to observe the naturalness of either practice unfold of itself without effort or control. From stillness, wuwei arises.

What is wuwei? It is responsiveness that lacks the need to control, create, or subjugate our experience. How does this compulsion to control arise? It is a response to an entanglement in appearances (concepts, false views) that seem to have hardened around us. Both the so-called hardened world and the hardened sense of abiding self are just a tangle of hardened names and concepts.

Once distinctions arise, names are called for. There is nothing evil or wrong with making distinctions or using words or names, but keep in mind that distinctions and names are provisional, not abiding. A light hand and light heart/mind create no problems. When names harden into concepts, it is time to stop. When names harden into concepts like, “I know who I am;” “I know how you feel;” “I am sure I know what that is;” “I know where I am” then we have gone too far. Reality is obscured when the flow and rhythm of Daode has been fixed or bound to concepts that construct mirages (clouds, dreams, fantasies). Such mirages narrow the field of experience. In naming, do not believe in names. When fantasies (false views) become certainty, reality (Da) is obscured. When hardened distinctions and names rule our experience, we are forced to squander vast amounts of qi to keep false and empty views true and meaningful. This is why restraint (ceasing with sufficiency) is called for. To stop is not to judge or control-it is to relax.

Knowing when to stop avoids exhaustion. In meditation practice, the use of concentration or struggle is not required, even at the so-called “beginning.”? Laozi does not define the fruition of practice as anything other than “living out your allotted years,” unfolding your destiny in its own time. And when your destiny is unfolded, what then?

All under Heaven relate to Dao, like streams and rivers that amble on toward the sea. Like all else, we run to the sea without the “need” to run. We return to where we originated without fuss. There is nothing misshapen, broken, wrong, or lost. There is no departure from the nameless subtlety of Dao. This nameless sea is the Reality that is Freedom itself.

Footnotes::

1. "gan lu," sky nectar (of immortality)
2. neidan
3. waidan
4. The character for "ten thousand" may also be translated as, "everything."
5. like the natural recovery response in our physiology
6. See Watson, Chuang Tzu, Chapter 2, p. 41.
7. Xiang Er Mandate 8. Heshang Gong says, "Those beings/things that struggle against Dao lose their jing and ruin their bodies. Those who know when to stop easily hold onto their five spirits and are preserved."