The Mother of Everything

In this last reading from the Tao Te Ching, we are given an eloquent description and summary of the mysterious Tao, or Way, which the sages of ancient China teach.

It is a Way we would do well to explore and follow as we make our own way through life.

It is a wide enough Way to include other World Wisdom Traditions while still retaining its own unique

qualities. There are many ways to walk this Way, and they are all open to us all.

Will you walk it with me, in your own way?

The Way bears one.

One bears two.

Two bears three, which bear the millions of living beings on earth.

The millions of living beings carry the yin on their shoulders, and hold the yang in their arms.

The blending of the yin energy and the yang energy creates harmony.

That which others teach, I also say:

that violence and aggression destroy themselves.

This is the summary of my teaching.

The Way gives life to all living beings.

Their parents nurture them. Their own inner energy shapes them.

Their circumstances bring them to maturity.

Every single living being holds the Way sacred, and submits to its authority.

Their reverence for the Way, and their obedience to its authority, are natural and unforced.

To have without possessing,

to act without claiming credit,

to lead without controlling--

these are mysterious virtues of the Way.

The world had a beginning, and its beginning is the Mother of everything.

To know the Mother is to know the children.

To know the children is to hold fast to the Mother.

If you hold fast to the Mother, you have nothing to fear from bodily decay and death.

Close the door of achievement, and shut the window of cleverness.

Then in old age, nothing will trouble you.

If you open the door to achievement, making yourself constantly busy,

you will be irritable and unhappy in your old age.

If you have true knowledge, you know how to be ignorant.

If you are truly strong, you have the strength to be weak.

If you move by the light of the Way, your movement takes you no where.

At the centre of the wheel

there is stillness.

My response:

To me, these words, and many of the sayings of the Tao Te Ching, seem to come from the wisdom of old age.

The advice that is offered is best suited, it seems to me, to those who are in the second half of life, perhaps the last decade or two. Carl Jung wisely reminds us that in the second half of life, what was smart and worked for us no longer does. The very attitudes and skills that so characterized our living when we are in the first half of life often turn out to be impediments in the second half of life. When I see the Tao Te Ching through this lens, a lot of what it says makes more sense. Heaven knows we have too little workable wisdom for old age in our youth-obsessed American culture. Perhaps straining to "stay young" and "busy" robs us of the special pleasures and gifts of old age, and keeps us from giving to others in the wisest and best way for our age.