The way never acts yet nothing is left undone.
Should lords and prices be able to hold fast to it,
The myriad creatures will be transformed on their own accord. (Tao Te Ching XXXVII 81)
False. In Mother Nature, plenty of things are left undone.
A sparrow's nest is left untended.
A beaver's nest is left unbuilt.
A bee's nest is left unrepaired after a bear rips it to shreds.
At least, from the individual creature's perspectives, things are left undone.
But I think that what the writer here is really getting at is this: the way, the principle of progression underlying all nature, has no volition, stemming from it having no desires, so no desire is left unfulfilled. If you have few or no desires, you will rarely or never be dissappointed, and few if no things will ever be undone.
It reminds me of quiet, little Psalm 131, one of my favorites:
A sparrow's nest is left untended.
A beaver's nest is left unbuilt.
A bee's nest is left unrepaired after a bear rips it to shreds.
At least, from the individual creature's perspectives, things are left undone.
But I think that what the writer here is really getting at is this: the way, the principle of progression underlying all nature, has no volition, stemming from it having no desires, so no desire is left unfulfilled. If you have few or no desires, you will rarely or never be dissappointed, and few if no things will ever be undone.
It reminds me of quiet, little Psalm 131, one of my favorites:
Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
For I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my sould within me. (Psalm 131)
David's heart, the center of his desires, are still. He doesn't desire great and magnificent things. Thus, he is calm, tranquil, still, his soul is at rest. Action stems from desire, so if Tao never acts, then it has no desires. If David's heart is still, his soul is calm, as is his person.
The path to stillness is through simplification of the heart. The path to Paradise is through the heart.
And, man, it's a painful process: broken hearts, unfulfilled desires, spiritual disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, etc. The heart is a cesspool, but at its core, so beautiful.
Here are a few of my superfluous desires I know of.
To be big and buff like the Michelin Man on roids.
To be a famous poet, to be the modern solon of words.
To save the world, to rescue all the unenlightened troglodytes.
To be the most-famous long-distance runner.
To be a big, bad, pious comparative religions scholar.
I know all these desires exist in my spirit (Spirit=subconscious beliefs/desires). I know that. And it's not as simple as just willing them away. It's a long process of prayer, changing acts, reorienting desires, reorienting beliefs, self-talk, etc, in order to alter the wants and wills I have deep down in my subconscious. That's what Buddha did under the mohabbati tree: entered his Spirit/subconscious and destroyed his superfluous desires. According to The Last Temptation of Christ, that's what Jesus did in the wilderness: prayed and fasted away one after another desires/temptations Satan battered him with.
I'm not Jesus or Buddha. One of the reason it's difficult for me to slow down is I have so many desires in my spirit. My heart, unlike David's, is not lowly, is not still, is not simple, and because of it I have little rest. Unlike Tao, I have many actions and many things get left undone.
But I'm getting better. These last six months have been instrumental in God changing my desires. They're simplifying, reorienting from ologies, achievements, titles, awards, careers to people, love, grace, surrender, stillness, peace, and simplicity. I have a long way to go. Some saints like Buddha and Jesus do their reorientation all at once. For most of us who still live in the world, we do it gradually, one desire at a time, over the course of many years.
So what can I do to continue this process? Prayer, meditation, etc. But my most important facet is my acts. Our hearts follow our acts. If we act in a certain way our heart (and mind) will follow it. Our acts happen to follow our hearts most of the time, but if we consciously acknowledge we don't want a particular desire, we can change our acts and the heart will slowly follow.
Lydia, thank you for helping me to change my desires. Or, rather, thank you for being there while God uses you to change them. It's been a long, dark winter. Up here in Alaska, though, the days are getting longer and brighter.
The path to stillness is through simplification of the heart. The path to Paradise is through the heart.
And, man, it's a painful process: broken hearts, unfulfilled desires, spiritual disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, etc. The heart is a cesspool, but at its core, so beautiful.
Here are a few of my superfluous desires I know of.
To be big and buff like the Michelin Man on roids.
To be a famous poet, to be the modern solon of words.
To save the world, to rescue all the unenlightened troglodytes.
To be the most-famous long-distance runner.
To be a big, bad, pious comparative religions scholar.
I know all these desires exist in my spirit (Spirit=subconscious beliefs/desires). I know that. And it's not as simple as just willing them away. It's a long process of prayer, changing acts, reorienting desires, reorienting beliefs, self-talk, etc, in order to alter the wants and wills I have deep down in my subconscious. That's what Buddha did under the mohabbati tree: entered his Spirit/subconscious and destroyed his superfluous desires. According to The Last Temptation of Christ, that's what Jesus did in the wilderness: prayed and fasted away one after another desires/temptations Satan battered him with.
I'm not Jesus or Buddha. One of the reason it's difficult for me to slow down is I have so many desires in my spirit. My heart, unlike David's, is not lowly, is not still, is not simple, and because of it I have little rest. Unlike Tao, I have many actions and many things get left undone.
But I'm getting better. These last six months have been instrumental in God changing my desires. They're simplifying, reorienting from ologies, achievements, titles, awards, careers to people, love, grace, surrender, stillness, peace, and simplicity. I have a long way to go. Some saints like Buddha and Jesus do their reorientation all at once. For most of us who still live in the world, we do it gradually, one desire at a time, over the course of many years.
So what can I do to continue this process? Prayer, meditation, etc. But my most important facet is my acts. Our hearts follow our acts. If we act in a certain way our heart (and mind) will follow it. Our acts happen to follow our hearts most of the time, but if we consciously acknowledge we don't want a particular desire, we can change our acts and the heart will slowly follow.
Lydia, thank you for helping me to change my desires. Or, rather, thank you for being there while God uses you to change them. It's been a long, dark winter. Up here in Alaska, though, the days are getting longer and brighter.