Growing up, I heard it said that some people have “book smarts” but no “common sense”.  This meant that some people, although highly educated, seemed lost concerning the simple things.  This is a long standing observation.  The Daodejing has some  similar statements:

“The wise one does not know many things; He who knows many things is not wise.”

“The more knowledge you seek, the less you will understand.”

I don’t think this means that wisdom and education are mutually exclusive.  It is however, the tendency of an educated person to rely more heavily on their education than their intuition.  When you learn things, new doors open for you but at the same time, often other doors close.  It’s not because they have to, it’s because we choose to let them.

The child stops believing in fairies, unicorns, ghosts, devils, angels, gods; as he replaces them with facts, equations, formulas, methodologies, explanations.  The simple things become more complicated as they are examined, classified, and broken down into parts and procedures.

I have nothing against knowledge.  I fully embrace technology and enjoy the wondrous things we can do.  Science has brought us some amazing things.  Yet like most things we do, these too come with costs.

I’ll skip over the obvious costs to the environment our scientific advances have waged and speak to a more social one.  A new intolerance.  I shouldn’t say “new”, but perhaps “evolved” would be more fitting.  What we once knew as religious intolerance has become scientific intolerance.

Those people who still cling to ideas that require “faith” alone which cannot be proven or dis-proven by the scientific method are often ridiculed for their “hokey” or “backwards” beliefs.  They are seen as uneducated or even intellectually inferior.

It’s almost a passing of the torch from one belief system to the next.   I do mean belief system, too.  I have had conversations with some of the more hardcore intellectuals who adamantly deny that science is a “belief” system.  It’s a methodology that is substantiated by empirical evidence and verifiable through repeatable experimentation.  I agreed with him, but then I asked, “Do you, or do you not believe the conclusions reached scientifically?”

Science is a system through which conclusions about the universe and ourselves can be reached.  Those who subscribe to this system often do so to the exclusion of all other systems.  To them, science is the only system which can provide the answers and any other method is incorrect.  Sound familiar?

Did I mention that I like science?  It’s beautiful, intricate, sometimes mysterious, sometimes frustrating but has helped us build things and advance our society in so many ways…both helpful and harmful.  Of course this same description can probably fit with most popular religions at some point in history.

Despite all their similarities, it’s their differences we focus on.  Which can mean only one thing.  It’s not religious intolerance or scientific intolerance.  It’s just plain old intolerance in general.  Religion and science don’t have to be a “this or that” choice.  A man of science can pray or meditate.  A spiritual person can recognize that life evolves.

We don’t have to make a choice between wisdom and knowledge.  No belief system has all the answers.  In fact, most belief systems  change over time.  Yes, even science has evolved.  So follow your interests, follow what feels right and makes you happy.  Become a physicist that’s also spiritual.  Find the answers that fit you, not the answers that someone else tries to fit on you.

Do that, and then be content that your neighbor has done the same.  Even if your answers don’t match.

The better part of the day had been spent walking in silence, which gave me time to think.  Then I would remember that I think too much and I would try to walk without thinking of anything.  This led to me thinking about keeping my mind empty and that wasn’t working at all.  However it did serve to distract me from the sights along the road as I passed by them.  I began to think that the more I tried to get the point, the more I was missing it.

It was about then I noticed the sunset pouring lazily orange across the mountains on the horizon.

“Isn’t that beautiful?” I asked Laozi, pointing toward the horizon.

Laozi paused, “It is a sunset.”

“Come on now, it’s beautiful.”

“When you find something beautiful, in like manner you create ugliness.”

“How is that so?”

“When you see some things as pleasant, then you must see some things as unpleasant, or else there would be no way to distinguish the difference.”

“Well, everything can’t be the same, right?”

“Everything is what it is.  By assigning extra meaning to things, we must also assign opposite meaning to things.”

“So by the existence of a standard such as good, we create by necessity the standard of evil?”

“Yes. Non-being sprouts from being.  Difficult is defined by easy.  Short is derived in comparison to long.”

“I think I see.  A high position is only in relation to a low position.  One perspective reveals the other and they are fully dependent on each other, so one is unable to exist without the other.”

“Yin is defined by Yang and Yang is defined by Yin.”

“I don’t want there to be ugliness and evil, but how can anything be accomplished without these distinctions?”

“The wise person will accomplish without doing.”

“That just makes no sense to me.”

“What will be will be without having to do anything.  We must trust in the natural balance of things.  By trying to alter that balance in favor of our will, we must contend with the complementary effects of our actions.  This is not saying that we must stand still, but rather we are best to move with the currents instead of trying to move against them.”

“So go with the flow, so to speak.”

“Things come your way and you do not stop them.  Things move on and you let them go.  Allow things to come without interference.  Let things be without controlling.  Let things act without exploiting.  In this manner you have without possessing, you do without expectation.”

I nodded and looked back at the mountains as the last light of day began to fade.  It was a sunset and no matter how else I chose to think of it, it’s still just a sunset.  There is no good or evil except in our minds.  Beauty and ugliness are just illusions we attach to things.  I felt a strange calmness as I considered these ideas.

The crackling of a campfire caught my attention and I saw Laozi sitting beside it.

“Do the work of the day,” he said, “and when it is done, forget about it.  Do not claim accomplishment and it cannot be taken from you.”

Taking a seat by the fire, I felt fulfilled.

Introduction: This is the first installment in a series inspired by my understanding of the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching).  I don’t have the ability to read the original text in its original language, but I have 25+ different translations as well as having read books that do go into character by character discussions.

I am certainly not the first person to write a series based on their perceptions of this Taoist text, nor do I claim my insights to be radically different than any that have occurred before me.  My goal is to simply share the wisdom I have found here and present it in a manner that is enjoyable to read.

A suitable shade tree is ahead so my friend and I take a break from our walk and have a seat beneath it.

“Laozi, what exactly is Tao?”

My friend looks at me.  He’s a middle aged man, his face dark and weathered from the sun.  Despite this, his eyes seem to shine, even here in the shade.

“Let me first say that no matter how much I  try to explain Tao to you, I can never fully describe it.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that.  Why, though?  Are you saying that language is too limited?”

“It is not language that is limited, but rather, ourselves.  Because of our nature, who we are, we have limits to what we can perceive. ”

“What sort of limits?”

“Well, take science for example.  Science is a process for understanding all things.  Various languages, words and even systems such as mathematics are used to describe both what is seen and what is expected to be seen.  Yet all of these can only describe what we have observed or what we can logically speculate based on our previous observations.”

“But how does this prevent you from explaining to me what Tao is?”

“Imagine if all of humanity could only see in shades of gray.  Imagine that our eyes physically could not see colors.  Nobody has ever seen colors, and there are no words for colors.  We would have names for the various shades of gray.  In fact, those would be our colors.  The visible light spectrum would be broken up into the various shades of gray by our scientists.  In one way, we have no less understanding of light.  But in another, because of our very physical being, our perception of light will be quite different.”

“I see.  Some things we do not know because we do not have the ability to become aware of them.”

“Yes.  But we can imagine them.”

“So what do you imagine Tao is?”

Laozi closed his eyes and exhaled fully.  His shoulders relaxed and he slid his hips forward as he lazily rested his upper back against the tree.

“Tao is everything.  It is all things and it is also the emptiness in the absence of all things.  It is all that we can know and all that we cannot know.”

He looked very peaceful as he spoke.  I closed my eyes and tried really hard to imagine what he was imagining.  After a moment, Laozi opened one eye and peered over at me, sensing my focused concentration.

“Do not try to imagine Tao.  When you desire to see, you will create what you want to see.  Only when you let go of that desire, will you truly be able to observe.”

“You just said I could imagine it!”

“What you observe when you are free from desire is different from what you create when you want to see, yet they come from the same source.  You know you can create, so now just observe.”

I did as he suggested and my breath relaxed as well. My mind began to  wander, not focusing too long on anything.  Eventually I did settle on the darkness which happened to be the back of my eyelids.

“Now, what do you see?” asked Laozi.

I smiled and said, “Darkness.”

“Darkness, and within darkness is potential.  Part of Tao is beyond experience, the darkness, the obscure.  Part of Tao is also what you do experience, knowledge, awareness.  They are different, yet the same.  This is the mystery and the beginning to understanding.”

I listened to his words and imagined them floating off into the darkness, being consumed as if they’d been sucked into a black hole.  I want to know so much, but in order to know more, I need to think less?  I could feel a frown forming on my face.  Right after that I felt the poke of a walking stick in my side.

Laozi was once again on his feet, “It is time to walk.”

Most life is  intrinsically curious to some degree, from kittens to kids.  Curiosity is an emotion that pushes us to explore our environment and learn new things.  As with all emotions however, there is a need for balance.

Making a discovery, be it universal or personal, is emotionally and physically satisfying for most of us.   We have love addicts, sex addicts, thrill junkies – all of them because of the pleasure gained from a certain emotional satisfaction.

The world is inundated with unparalleled access to information like never before in our history.  We have hundreds of channels of specialized content on our televisions, millions of websites to which we are afforded constant access via wireless networked laptops and smart phones.  This provides fuel for the latest emotional addiction: knowledge.

It’s been commonly understood that too much of anything is not a good thing.  Many ills are seated in excess, from overeating to alcohol abuse.

So what could possibly be bad about learning more?  Knowledge is power, right?

In Chapter 47 of the Daodejing, we come across this insight:

“Without opening your door, you can open your heart to the world. Without looking out your window, you can see the essence of the Tao. The more you know, the less you understand.”

Knowledge about the world doesn’t insure you’ll understand it, and likewise you can understand it without having to define it.  The idea here that more knowledge = less wisdom isn’t uncommon either.  I would guess that anyone reading this has heard the saying “jack of all trades, master of none”.  In essence, time spent learning many things takes away from the opportunity to fully understand one.

Sometimes it’s good to let that urge for another cookie go on past us.  Maybe it’s also good to put down the papers, close out the blogs and news sites, shelve the books, turn off the TV, and just look at what’s around us here instead of everywhere.

The Daodejing classically begins by stating the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao.  Whatever you call it, is not what it is.  It is defined as being undefinable.  This leads many people who feel they understand it to also feel anyone who explains it does not understand it.

I don’t feel this was an attempt to purposefully obfuscate the meaning, but mearly a way of conveying the entirety of the idea.

Growing up, I attended church.  As a Christian, I was taught nobody could understand the mind of God.  The phrase “God works in mysterious ways” is probably said by countless people every day.  These concepts are exactly the same in my opinion.

In quantum physics, as I understand it, one can know the speed of an electron, or direction of motion, but not both at any given time.  It’s position can only be described as a probability.  So in a way, any precise measurement falls short of a true description.

I was taught that “God is everywhere, in all things”.  Science tells us all things are, at the most basic particle level, made from the same thing.  In popular culture, Yoda tells us the Force surrounds us, binding us to all things.

All of these are facets of Tao.  Although it is the essence of all things, us included, it’s not entirely vague in its universality.  There is predictability to it.  The Daodejing often pairs opposites together, as being directly related to one another.   Newton brought even more clarity to this.

He describes the basic symmetry of the universe.  All forces occur in equal but opposite pairs.  There are no “isolated” forces, meaning nothing can exert a force without an exactly equal force oppositely directed.  This is very central to understanding “just how deep the rabbit hole goes”.  While we are familiar with the applications of symmetry in relation to motion, we don’t consider how this applies to other energies (such as emotion and thought) we guide and direct.

Although words and even ideas are unable to fully convey the extent of Tao, it does not mean we cannot know it enough to embrace the symmetry which is its core nature.

In my belief this is called finding the Way.