Thank you to those who’ve expressed interest recently in the very informal study I’m doing on the Tao te Ching. All are welcome and invited to read this ancient book along with me and I would love to hear your thoughts as we go. Please use the comment section below if so inclined. I am up to Chapter 14 this week.
This chapter starts by describing to us how elusive the Tao is. It cannot be seen, heard, or felt. Formless, nameless, barely discernible. No beginning, no ending.
Image by Holger Feulner from Pixabay
It finishes up with telling how simple it is for us to be at one with it. Simple, but not necessarily easy.
Excerpt from each of the versions I’m reading –
Mitchell: “You can’t know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life. Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom.”
Jankel: “So follow the ancient way to gain control of your life in the present. This knack for knowing archaic origins, call this the path traveling through the way.”
Legge: “When we can lay hold of the Tao of old to direct the things of the present day, and are able to know it as it was of old in the beginning, this is called (unwinding) the clue of Tao.”
Don’t overthink it, just accept it. Kind of like “Be still and know.”
No Comments