Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty,
only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.Being and nonbeing produce each other
The difficult is born in the easy.
Long is defined by short, the high by the low,
Before and after go along with each other.So the sage lives openly with apparent duality
and paradoxical unity.
The sage can act without effort
and teach without words.
Nurturing things without possessing them,
he works, but not for rewards;
he competes, but not for results.When the work is done, it is forgotten.
This is why it lasts forever.~ Wayne Dyer translation/version
Living the Paradoxical Unity
This journey is already proving challenging, both in it’s execution – actually remembering to do it and then post a blog about it – and in living it. This is largely because I find, when I’m honest with myself, it is constantly putting a mirror up to me and showing me how I live life – and I often don’t like what I see! 🙂
What do I mean by this?
Committing to this exploration of the Tao in the way I have, and saying I’ll blog about it every 4 days is confronting in that I’m a person that likes to follow through on what I say I’m going to do, so the thought of NOT doing it is not really an option.
I deliberately put myself in these situations because I know that it’s only under high pressure that coal becomes diamonds, and this is often also the case with learning in life. Frankly I like to see what it brings up for me and attempt to face it head on. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I succeed. But learning always occurs.
So tonight I was wondering what I was going to write. I was worrying actually. My worrying often looks like thinking and stressing internally, and that’s what was going on.
I felt like I hadn’t really had any profound moments of wisdom during the last 4 days and that I didn’t have much to write.
And that’s when I realised what was going on.
So what have I learnt in my 4 days of living the 2nd verse?
1. I’m not a master of the Tao yet!
I laugh as I write this because I know how ridiculous it sounds. Of course I’m not a sage full of mind-blowing wisdom after 4 days of living a verse of the Tao. Listening to the Wayne Dyer book on the Tao many, many times in 2 years has definitely impacted my life, but I still grapple with a lot of the concepts, let alone actually putting them into action!
I call myself a recovering perfectionist, and I’d like to think I am. But boy that old perfectionism can creep up when I’m not looking and snare me in its grasp.
That’s what’s been happening. I’ve been trying to get it “right” and avoid getting it “wrong”. And when I realised this, I also realised I was experiencing the 2nd verse perfectly – experiencing duality and how much it can stifle us.
When I first read this verse, my immediate thoughts were about the fact you can’t have one end of the spectrum without the other. And I often see this as a good thing to acknowledge because if we didn’t have the ‘bad’ stuff in life, we would never recognise and appreciate the ‘good’.
Having had health issues most of my life, I often say that people don’t appreciate their health until they lose it.
So with regard to getting it “right” and avoiding getting it “wrong”, I noted the fact you can’t have one without the other, and then noted that if I could let go of the judgement of potentially getting it ‘wrong’, all I need to do is just write whatever comes. Because without wrong there is no right.
There is no right or wrong, good or bad way to attempt to live the messages of the Tao and write about them. My interpretations may be different to some other people’s but they are my interpretations, just as Wayne Dyer’s were his interpretations – even of the verses themselves (he took parts of many different translations and fitted them together to create what he felt were the most accurate ways to state each verse).
Frankly nobody even knows the exact translation of the Tao Te Ching because many of the symbols/letters used in it are so ancient that their true meaning can only be guessed at (an educational guess). So there are many translations that differ slightly or dramatically from the one above.
So here I am trying to “get it right” when even the scholars of this ancient text can never do that. Nobody can ever get anything ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ unless we give these words meaning.
So my experiences and notes on my journey just are. It’s what I make ‘wrong’ mean about me and the consequences that could potentially have that get me all freaked out. If I just let go of my story around right and wrong, good and bad, and see that everything is exactly how it is and exactly how it isn’t, then I can move forward with ease. And perhaps that’s what is meant by living in paradoxical unity – or part of it anyway.
2. Trying to live each verse in isolation is interesting but in some ways defeats the purpose of the Tao
I took on this exercise because I have seen how valuable it has been to take the messages from the Tao and Wayne Dyer’s teachings around it and apply it to my life. I was curious to see if I could do what he did and take a verse at a time and kind of marinate in it.
But I see his goals were different to mine. He was writing a book. He was reading many translations, meditating on the verse in his home in Maui, and completely dedicating his days to this task.
He didn’t have a child to care for, a house to run, a business to build, a health condition to manage, financial stress or many of the other everyday tasks that I am wrestling with.
At times in the last few days I actually had moments where I thought, “oh, this is exactly what that Tao verse is talking about. But wait a minute, am I confusing it with the first verse or am I thinking of the second”. Seriously?!
Perfectionist alert!! Duh! The whole Tao, and this verse in particular, is about living unity and oneness, and how, despite the judgements we human beings want to put on the 10,000 things around us and create duality, that the truly enlightened people – the sages – are able to see it all as one beautiful life.
So, as much as I’m trying an experiment to focus on one verse a day, if the messages from other verses I’ve listened to or read over the past 2 years happen to infiltrate my life, that is cause for celebration not self-flagellation!
The same goes for you. There is no right or wrong way to do this. If you feel like reading or listening to the whole book – Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living The Wisdom of the Tao – do it.
When I first listened to the book, Wayne suggests listening to a verse a day. So did this Type A, veracious-learning Capricorn do that?! No way. I couldn’t get enough of it. I listened and listened over a few days until I got to the end. Then I started listening again or just picked a random chapter and listened to it repeatedly. I’ve done that for 2 years!
3. This stuff is not easy to understand at times, let alone live!
This verse particularly focuses on duality and unity, and how the two can be paradoxically married together. Regardless of how many times I read or listen to Wayne Dyer’s essay on this verse, some of it still baffles me.
When he says “Life and death are identical”, I still go “huh?!”
But when he says:
“As the sage lives openly with apparent duality, he synthesizes the origin with the manifestation without forming an opinion about it [my emphasis]. Living without judgment and in perfect oneness is what Lao-tzu invites his readers to do. He invites our wisdom to combine perceived opposites and live a unified life”
I might not totally get the whole lot, especially how to put it in action, but I do love the concept of living without forming an opinion about everything and everybody around me. It doesn’t mean don’t have an opinion, but it does challenge us to judge less and accept more.
Do you wanna know how many times I was faced with my judgements and opinions of myself and others in the last 4 days?! It’s ok because I couldn’t tell you anyway. Way too many times to count.
But I think noticing is the first step. This stuff isn’t new to me by any means. I sat in a Landmark Forum 10 years ago smugly thinking I was a very non-judgemental, accepting person and that the topic at hand – our little voice that is constantly judging and assessing – was pretty sorted in my world. Hahahahaha! It didn’t take me long to realise I had judged every person who walked in the room after I did, and that I did this everywhere in my life. To think that it came as a shocking realisation to me at the time makes me laugh now, but it did. I thought I was above that kind of thing!!! That makes me laugh harder because to think I’m above anything or anyone is more of the same.
Suffice to say, I know I judge myself and others constantly. I try to tame it. Sometimes I do well, sometimes I don’t. Just like sometimes I feel very at peace in my Tao-centred world and in a blink of an eye I can flip out of it.
Be kind to yourself people. The more we learn about ourselves and the more we are aware, the more we can take action to be our own best selves. But until we are sages, we will flip in and out of our peaceful, tranquil, transformed ways of being and into normal, everyday, rather-crazy-sometimes selves.
And that’s ok.
4. I danced
Accomplish much by trying less. Effort is one piece of the whole; another piece is non-effort. Fuse these dichotomies, and the result is effortless action without attachment to outcome ~ Wayne Dyer
Wayne suggests that dancing with someone is the perfect example of effort and non-effort. Last night I found myself dancing in my kitchen to a song I was playing on Spotify (my fave app!).
I hadn’t thought to myself “oh, I might dance” or “I should dance to this”. I just found myself dancing as the music took hold of my heart and soul, and then took my body with it.
This sort of thing happens often to me with music, and I think it happens to most people if they let it.
For me it was the perfect example of non-effort. It was effortless action without attachment to outcome. I didn’t care what moves I made or how I looked. I just felt the music and allowed my body to move. It was beautiful!
And so ends Day 8 of My Tao Year. I danced on this night 16 years ago to a bridal waltz. It was beautiful too. I’ve learned to remember and appreciate those beautiful moments in my life, but also to let them go – like welcoming and farewelling a friend when they come to visit! No tears, just gratitude for the memory!
Keep Smiling
Louise
Related Posts
My Tao Year 2016: A Journey You Can Join Me On
My Tao Year: 1st Verse – Living The Mystery
My Tao Year: 3rd Verse – Living Contentment
My Tao Year: 4th Verse – Living Infinitely