yo
tyler

Chapter 34

Pervasive! Radiant!
The Dao is an ever-turning flood tide.
Left, then right!

The ten thousand things owe their existence to it.
It abandons none. None oppose it.
Under its governance the ten thousand are fulfilled,
Yet it does not lord over them.

Desiring nothing,
It may be called "small."
But since all ten thousand return to it,
It may be called "great."

Adepts, likewise,
Never making anything of a self,
Experience its "greatness."


Commentary::

As in many chapters, this chapter begins with word-images that poetically point toward intimacy with Dao1. What would you call the experience of that which cannot be named or captured by thought and word?

Pervasive! Radiant!2 The Dao is an ever-turning flood tide. Left, then right!3

The qi image of Dao here is a vast body of water. It is like a sea moving in all directions at once; like a profuse wellspring spouting up and flooding in all directions. This image has power but it is also ambiguous and uncertain, as the water prefers no direction and has no utility. This image is at once Dao and de. This may be a glimpse of zuowang meditation. The image is uncertain but not lost or confused. It is too big, too pervasive, to be lost or confused. Preference for what is small is the activity of desire/focus and is the basis of confusion. Dao, in its pervasive flooding, does not prefer one direction to another. For the Adept in meditation and wuwei cultivation, the scale and power of Dao’s radiance and movement is experienced as a kind of dark stillness (or paradoxically, a turbulent light).

Intimacy with Dao4 is paradox itself. For Adepts, the paradox of dark radiance and undetectable pervasiveness is a wisdom gate, not a problem to solve. Non-conceptual meditation and wuwei cultivation is a direct submersion into a sea of paradox.5

How does the direct experience of paradox play itself out in our conduct? How do we let non-conceptual meditation spill into a non-conceptual life, a life of wuwei? What model of behavior/activity integration does Dao itself offer?

The ten thousand things owe their existence to it.

Dao is like a basis, a ground that is neither solid nor empty. It is credited with the existence of things but it leaves no evidence. It is just a ground that all things/beings share. To be like this ground, Adepts take a posture of calm, modesty, and acceptance.

It abandons none.

The interconnectedness with the ten thousand beings/things that we experience in meditation is not limited by preference. For Laozi, our experience is none other than an atmosphere of limitless space and energy6. Great7 does not abandon small8. Small cannot obscure great. This inspires the Adept’s flexibility and generosity.

None oppose it.

To do so is impossible. Contradictory or controversial behavior is only conceptual. All beings/things are acting within Dao’s pervasive flowing. Argument is just a temporary preferential concept, a qi eddy or burp.

There is no winning an argument of war, no side is ever absolutely successful or correct. Only the ground continues. This way9 and that way10 are both aspects of the same ground. This inspires softness, flexibility, and humility in the Adept. Taken to any extreme, the Adept returns to the center naturally.

Under its governance the ten thousand are fulfilled, yet it does not lord over11 them.

When we find ourselves following, we follow; when we find ourselves leading, we lead. The difference is only conceptual. Leading is not superior to following. Both following and leading express the ambiguity of the Dao’s “ever-turning flood tide.” Adepts adapt to circumstances and practice restraint as an aspect of reflection, but they do not have the compulsion to control anything. We don’t need to control others, and in some very basic sense, we do not need to control ourselves12.

What is this compulsive straining I feel? Are my longings and desires a problem?

Desiring nothing, it may be called “small.”

Desiring nothing is not a moral aspiration, but a statement about the true nature of our condition. Our natural condition (Daode) cannot be found as a thing. “Too small” and “too big” are equally hard to find, so we may call it “small” or insignificant.

But since all ten thousand return to it, it may be called “great.”

Our condition (Daode) can also be called great. Great is what we call that which is so big it has no name. Since everything is on its way home to Dao, we call it great.

This great and small are at play with each other. Appearances spontaneously change. Put together, small and great are the constant unnamable (Dao). In meditation practice and in cultivating wuwei, we relax and let the paradox of small and great go.

Adepts, likewise, never making anything of a self, experience its greatness.

Small (self) needs no special effort to create it or control it. The possession of an abiding self is just a passing idea, a concept. Struggling to maintain its existence or put it to an end is a waste of qi. Struggling to make it better, to control it, is like trying to make sure the sky stays blue. Control and maintenance are inherent in the nature of all beings/things and need not be consciously and intentionally applied.

Adepts simply relax, spontaneously appreciating the whole situation (capacity and opportunity). When we relax our thoughts and actions, we simply and naturally integrate into our own place/time and wuwei is experienced as pervasive. To relax and “forget”13 is to experience Dao’s “greatness.”14


Footnotes::

  1. Daode - our natural condition
  2. fan
  3. zuo yu
  4. or meditation
  5. Heshang Gong says, "Overflowing, swimming, sinking-existing and yet not existing! What we perceive is not Dao. Words and thoughts cannot grasp it."
  6. time
  7. totality
  8. details
  9. left, passive
  10. right, aggressive
  11. zhu, master
  12. Heshang Gong says, "Daoists do not use names. Their mere existence is sufficient."
  13. wang of zuowang (sitting and forgetting)
  14. Heshang Gong says, "All things return to Dao. Daoists model themselves on Dao. They relate to beings/things by reflecting them."