verse 12: more concrete abstractions

Oversimplifying modern life, probably oversimplifying life 2500 years ago even, the Tao cautions that the five colors, five tones, and five flavors get old fast. So stop racing around seeking sensation already, because exposure to same has worn out the receptors.

"Racing and hunting madden the mind..." Road racing tends to sharpen my focus, at least for a little while. Perhaps they mean rat racing, an interesting concept for life in ancient Asia. Wonder what that meant? I don't think subsistence farmers were all about trying to stock up seeds and buy their neighbor's lands or anything. Perhaps this is aimed at mid-level bureaucrats, of whom I am sure there was a surplus of those even then.

Hunting. Hunting for food is one thing - I just read "Born to Run" and was fascinated by the description of hunting/runners wearing out their prey by tenacious, patient outrunning it. Makes my little jaunts seem pathetic. And I am sure my dog things I am pathetic, all these times we go out running and never once come back with any meat. Hunting at a big-box retailer is quite another. (cf peopleofwalmart.com)...

"Precious things lead one astray." Define precious and I'll contingently go astray. Dark chocolate? Yes. Inhumanely mined diamonds? No. But I can see the gist of it. Craving what the other guy wants to afford can only lead me to take on more burden. More debt. More of a job than I might want. I have read tons of stories of people who work enough to live the life they want, not the one that they are being sold. Conscious choice is a big part of it. Choosing the less expensive life without HD tv, big screen, expensive internet access, fancy cars.

But this smacks of the smarmy clever philosopher-kings keeping me under their control, no? Or does it. If I choose not to shackle myself to an oversize, hyperstress desk job, am I being a submissive citizen or a subversive?

The sage, in all of this, which according to the Tao is someone I assume I am supposed to emulate, is guided by feeling, not "what he sees." Not what is on the earth, or the tv screen, in front of him.

So stop racing around in search of stimuli, already. One of the gifts of my daily without-headphones runs is just that. I get the natural stimuli of the feeling in my legs. The weather on my face. The sound of the wind - sure, cars and stuff, and bus exhaust sometimes, and (*&*&* cigarette smoke are man-made stimuli and probably qualify for inclusion in the five whatsis rubric above. I might drink some water, I hear what's around me, I feel what I'm made of.

To get to that point for me means racing around. Well, running slowly anyway. I am not in a place where I can find that by sitting down and shutting up for any length of time. But at least I know where to find it.

verse Eleven: the useful parts

After yesterday's metaphysical foray, v11 makes me very happy. It's concrete. Tangible. It's all about what you can touch as contrasted with what you can use.

You can touch a doorframe. The useful part of a doorframe is the empty space that it surrounds. Without the space, I'd walk right into the wall. Hm. Even do that with lots of space between the doorframes.

Profit comes from what is there, usefulness from what is not. The big phrase that keeps going through my mind that must resonate somehow is that one gets stronger not on the days one runs, but on the days one rests. Profit comes from grappling with challenge after challenge; usefulness comes from what is left in one's head as learning from the problems 1 through n-1.

In my life, what is not here are the answers to what happens next. What is here are the tracings of things that have happened before. From which I can learn (both good and not-so-good lessons). Trust. Sometimes I get so wired up that I cannot see that I will solve problems with the same intentionality that has brought me successfully to this point. As if I am starting over each time I'm ruffled. Too stressed. Or taking that uncarved block idea a little too literally. If I really am one with everything, then I have all the possible answers in my back pocket. And I am old enough to know that there is more than one right answer to any situation.

I think about politics, and Microsoft's old marketing strategy. Establish a beachhead and then go backfill. M'soft used to announce all kinds of products that were barely more than half-baked, fresh off the laser printer. Then they'd take months or years to actually sell whatever did what they promised up front. Good way to zamboni competitors. Politicians get into trouble, or announce things, and then they have to solve the problem. Attention spans being what they are today, it seems like there is only one shot to get something right. But that's only true on live TV. Movie scenes get more than one take. Politicians get more than one news cycle, unless it's something truly abysmal like getting caught engaging in homosexual acts after a lifetime of preaching and voting homophobia.

But I digress. Profit comes from what is in front of me (these days, usually an enormous unknown challenge); usefulness comes from the spaces around that challenge. And I run much more often than I rest, but I don't lift weights every day. Fuel comes from the food I eat. Usefulness comes from that which I don't - because if I did eat everything else, it wouldn't be fuel anymore.

verse ten: I like eleven better

Can I skip v10? I like v11 better. v10 rambles. And it is all paradoxical. Be brand new and fully-formed, be inchoate and fully functional. Carry body and soul and embrace the "one" can you be all that at once? Can you rule without cleverness? Hmm. Don't get me started.

"Opening and closing the Gates of Heaven, Can you play the role of woman?" First off, this is probably not referring to the reform Jewish prayer book. Second off, what's a gate of heaven? The obstacle between my profane earthly self and my divine? (what divine?) And what does the role of woman have to do with it, other than that obvious birthing metaphor. Giving birth comes up explicitly later - bearing yet not possessing. Our children are not our children, right? And make me one with everything.

Understand and be open to all things but at the same time the Tao values holding all that plus at the same time doing nothing. Nothing is really hard for me to do. I used to excel at it.

Work yet not take credit? Oh, that's a tough one. I have too much ego for that. I suspect most people do.

To lead without dominating is the primal virtue. All about controlling people again. To lead without dominating, be patient enough to get the other guy to think it was your idea. I guess that leads back to working without taking credit. But it smacks right into ruling without cleverness, which I suspect is impossible.

Does this have anything to do with running? Carrying body and soul starts off good. Embrace the one. Hit the wall. It's all impermanent, all of it.

I still count my miles and minutes-per. I wonder how long I'm going to get away with it, but I look back on how long I already have and I am grateful. Smartass, but grateful.

Ok. I made it through v10. v11 sings to me. v10 just drones on.

Verse Nine: easy peazy

Verse Nine is about restraint. Stopping before ruining things. My high school art teacher took pains to teach us to do just enough on our pieces, not too much. Here the text reminds us that oversharpening knives makes things worse. Filling a cup too much makes a mess. Totally practical advice, no? Wealth just makes an attractive target that's hard to defend. Power leads to disaster.

Well, they had me until the wealth and titles leading to disaster part, though thanks to the evolution of a diffuse and grassroots citizen journalist movement, I suspect a lot more disaster that follows power comes to light. The mighty certainly do fall. This is not the first lesson that those of us who weren't born to wealth and power are taught, though, that we should guard against disaster - since we weren't born to these things, we strive for them. In striving school, they don't explicitly say keep your nose clean or else your fall will be swift and damaging. I suppose thinking about it that that should not have to be said. It's a kindergarten lesson - keep your hands to yourself, wait your turn, there's enough crackers for everyone.

The really interesting line of thought involves how you know when enough is enough. Recently, I fought with that dilemma preparing for two separate simulated hearings. Eventually, I felt simultaneously over and underprepared, in equal measure, so I knocked off and went for it.

I know if I run too much I'll get injured. After about 15 years as a self-identified runner, however, I am still working to figure out how much is too much & under what circumstances...

If I spoil the dog I'll wind up with an incorrigible beast. But knife sharpening? Trial preparation? Watercolor painting? To me it seems that the ability to know when enough is enough isn't always an intuition thing for most of us. It's a grunt lesson learned through experience, not by letting go of everything and letting heavenly powers or the Tao or the Force handle things for us.

I'd love to cut and run and trust that situations I need to perform in handle themselves. Brain surgery? No, I'd prefer the surgeon have trained, studied, practiced, and not just stayed at a Holiday Inn Express the night before. I want her expertise earned, not emergent as an article of faith.

Perhaps v9 is another repackaged way to keep the proletariat from amassing wealth or power, by scaring us off it and reassuring us that life will be better if striving to achieve is disfavored.

Dull blades cause trouble, too. Undersharpening, underpreparing, and not putting enough acorns away for the winter cause problems. The Tao can't help me with all of that; I have to take care of my own business. Maybe it worked for the (Grateful) Deadheads, and maybe it works for the Taoists and the twelve-steppers, but I'll take my responsibility with a side of invested effort, hold the let-go-let-god thing, thanks.

Verse Eight: Go with the Flow

Water makes its first appearance in the text. This Tao thing is supposed to simply flow, like water, wherever it wants. Water, of course, goes when it's aiming downhill. These days, I am on all fronts aimed uphill. Squarely. Steeply.

Water is to be exalted because it doesn't decide to go. It just goes. Is there even an analog for personhood? Without getting all wifty about it. I am who I am, that's for sure. And the more things I have to do at once the less I censor what comes outta my mouth, so my mouth is the Tao? What comes out of my mouth is not to be exalted, that's for certain, especially not when I'm stressed.

I read recently that embarrassing moments stick so vividly in memory because they are whole-body experiences. The more my mouth runs, the more stupid stuff I say, the more sticks in my embarrassed brain and shames me. It's a vicious cycle. But if I am to be the Tao, exalted like flowing water, then I go with it. And maybe eventually callous up to the fallout of my obnoxious mouth - there must be people out there with hides of teflon for all the things that get done and said in public that are so much stupider than my own transgressions that probably aren't half as bad as I think they are.

The rest of the verse is about how to be good: meditate deeply, live close to the land, be kind and just, competent, and strategic. Ending with "No fight: no blame." So if I don't fight anyone on that which comes outta their mouths, then I leave that to reflect on them not me. If no one fights me, then I can't blame anyone for what smartass remark I just made. Not that I would, I am well aware of my mouth problem.

These are bigger concepts. I wish I could write them, run them, applicable to something besides my big mouth, but that's what's in front of me at the moment. And that, I suppose, is good Tao. Working as best as you can with what's in front of you.

Verse Seven: Heaven and earth forever...

A paradoxical verse. Heaven and earth last forever because they are unborn so ever living. The sage (not to be confused with the meddling intellectual) stays behind so he is ahead. The last shall be first? "He is detached, thus at one with all." Make me one with everything, eh? The Tao as mind-controlling religion instead of as possibility-enhancing philosophy.

I ran this morning among the twig and branch and downed-tree lined streets thinking of endlessness. Of things that last forever and don't particularly care what kind of a mood you are in on any given day. I thought about platitudes that tell happiness is most effectively found contemplating what you have and not whining about what you don't have. I thought about letting go of everything in order to claim ownership of everything.

Oh the big things. Not the anxiety over next week's in-class performances. Not the worry about saving enough for college. Not the how am I going to keep myself fed all day long. Or what I am going to wear, or knit next. Heaven and earth could not care less, and perhaps I shouldn't either.

If I were detached from all, I wouldn't get so bent out of shape when I see things being done wrong. I know, wrong is in the eye of the beholder.

And I wouldn't, but then I wouldn't knit anything next, or plan another long race, or finish my degree, or would I?

I had hoped today's verse was the one about high winds not lasting all morning, but instead I get ever-living things that don't get born and so last forever.

The sky was light early this morning, the winds abated, and the air relatively warm. I ought to make myself more heaven and earth like, detached and not caring about the particulars of any given moment. That strikes me as somewhat of a loss. Not entirely, but missing out on something good. "Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment." Not just selflessness, but selfless action.

Running is a selfish action. Maybe I'll go give blood next week.

Verse Six: So this is where it all started...

Five short lines to v6, but it's where it all started. It has taken me three running days to get a grip on v6, not only because the verse is dense, but because I am, and because I have had a lot going on around here.

V6 is about Mother Nature. I hadn't pegged Taoism for being a a goddess-worship religion, but here it is. The Primal Mother whose "gateway" is the root of heaven and earth. I guess roots grow from somewhere, no? We are still missing an explanation of the start to the start.

But maybe we can start the earth here? Human experience? I was about to write "human misery," but thought the better of it. I have some long hills to climb over the next several days. Thinking positive, speaking positive. Funny how that becomes an effort.

So which gateway are we talking about? The obvious gateway? Where Harold tries to stick his head in the wooden sculpture in Maud's railroad car? Of course that's always been mysterious and powerful, but I would have thought a tad too obvious or something.

Maybe I'm on to something thinking about the starts of things. Everything comes from somewhere. A thought, a seed, an accident, a decision, an accidental decision...

V6 ends with "Use it; it will never fail." Which puts me in mind of putting one's faith in Jesus, or God, or something. Yogis tell you to trust your breathing. Lao-Tsu says to use the "valley spirit."

It's hard to get excited about running up a staircase of hills when one's head is in the philosophy like this. Sometimes it is hard to even notice running up a staircase of hills, even in what by all measures should be a most unpleasant 40 degrees and raining, just before the sun and wind come up.

This edition of The Tao te Ching has photos, I think I've mentioned. Humans are in about two of the photos, only a hand and a foot. A couple photos of human-made structures and things. Lots of trees, leaves, landscapes, birds surprisingly. With the book in my head, before dawn, running like a caveman, I do get lost in a timeless soup. When I get home all kinds of things fall on my head that need attention in the very present moment. Perhaps fewer people would hate running if they knew that this kind of peace was the payoff. I can step back and see that my physical experience and reactions are at best counterintuitive, and in the most honest light, probably delusional. But I'm not the only running maniac out there. I'm not even the most egregious offender (thought I understand it is symptomatic of a deeper ill to wish that I had more time to run more than I already do).

I didn't set out today to articulate why my running is cheaper than therapy, but this is a nice revelation. I certainly didn't think that contemplating the primal mother's gateway would get me here, either.