"Go quietly, Carry little."

Poetry, quotations, personal reflections from a lover of the wilderness, a lover of the silence....


Monday, March 9, 2009

One Must Know When to Stop

Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.
There are already enough names.
One must know when to stop.

From the Tao Te Ching, chapter 32
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11 comments:

  1. The Rambling TaoistMarch 9, 2009 at 2:59 PM

    Hmm. This book sounds eerily familiar to me...

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  2. Grizz…………March 9, 2009 at 6:14 PM

    Forget waiting until were face the names issue—I say quit dividing the world into parts!

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  3. AnonymousMarch 9, 2009 at 7:07 PM

    It has been a while since I read this book - think I'm due to read it again ..

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  4. AMarch 9, 2009 at 8:17 PM

    RT,
    Imagine that. ;)

    Grizzled,
    Good luck with that. Let me know how it goes. ;)

    Bella,
    I pull it out every now and then and read a few or several chapters sort of at random (though I have my favorites). It never fails to make me ponder....

    Thanks y'all.

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  5. BarryMarch 9, 2009 at 10:12 PM

    Maybe the real work is to hold the parts and names lightly, without attachment. With "enough mind."

    Then, perhaps, stopping wouldn't be necessary. I dunno...

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  6. AMarch 9, 2009 at 10:21 PM

    Barry,
    Thank you, a very good thought and a good question to ponder. Today, a friend sent me Ellen Chen's commentary on Chapter 32. I think it may have a connection to what you are saying here:

    "The most perfect knowing is unaware that things exist. This is Tao prior to the coming of the world of ten thousand things. Then there is the knowing that things exist but there are as yet no boundaries between them. This is the state of nature as nameless uncarved wood, when all things are still indistinguishable from one another. The third stage is the knowing that there are boundaries. Here names come to be and natural distinctions are made. While Tao is nameless, its creatures have names that imply natural distinctions. At this state the many do not yet war against each other; nature as a multiplicity is still in the unity of Tao and its life process is unending. The last stage is the knowing that distinguishes between the right and the wrong or the good and the evil. At this moment the spontaneity, harmony, and unity of nature are lost. This is the moment when discord and death enter the world.



    The last line, “One who know when to stop does not become exhausted,” grasped in the light of these four stages of knowing, bids us to stop at the third stage when names come to be without entering into the fourth stage when conscious distinction between good and evil arises. While there is continuity, reversion, and spontaneity from the nameless Tao to the ten thousand beings with ten thousand names, to go beyond naming to moral consciousness would result in human alienation from the everlasting Tao. This is tai, becoming exhausted when one is cut off from the unending life of the round."

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  7. BarryMarch 10, 2009 at 8:55 AM

    Thanks, FW, for the commentary by Ellen Chen. She defines the Middle Way as described by the Buddha in one of the Mahayana sutras - the way between assertion that things exist and assertion that things don't exist.

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  8. AnonymousMarch 10, 2009 at 9:34 AM

    Years ago in a calendar about children, I came across the quotation 'Learning the names of things is the beginning of wisdom.' (The most insightful saying of the 12 months was one that stated that 'only plants grow quietly.') Children learn words so quickly compared to adults. Words like 'hydraulics' and 'cantilever' roll off my grandson's tongue with astounding frequency. I know that verbatim memory eventually fades in childhood just as gist memory begins to kick in. Could it be that learning the names of things is the work of children, while adults' time would be better spent focusing on the *essence* of things.

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  9. AMarch 10, 2009 at 9:58 AM

    Flandrumhill.
    Hmmm...wow, I have to think about that. There might be all sorts of ramifications there if adults are "naming" rather than "essencing" (to invent a word) then.

    You all just continue to give me all kinds of things to think about that I had not considered when I post these things! And that is good...don't stop, please. :)

    Thanks all.

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  10. AnonymousMarch 10, 2009 at 10:41 AM

    I'd like to add to Barry's comment about the Buddhist view in terms of the Middle Way. This also seems to have a connection to the Taoist view you described above.

    There are 12 stages in the Buddhist view of how things come to be - karma - which is nothing other than a study of interdependence. In these stages, one is said to move in steps of further "differentiating" between "self" and "other." For instance, stage 2, or "mental formation," is the subtle stage of an "I." The pictorial reference for this stage is that of a potter at a potter's wheel, beginning to mold his lump of clay (stuff we've been seeing and experiencing) into "something." I won't bore you with all the stages, but these "links" start getting more specific (link 3 is literally called "name and form"), until we get to link 7, "sensation/feeling"). Even that's said to be relatively okay, as long as we just keep it at the experiential level. If we don't stop here and move on to link 8, "craving/desire" (2nd Noble Truth), which quickly spins out to link 9, "attachment," we produce further karma, which leads to further suffering.

    And in terms of focusing on the "essence" of things, Buddhists are very busy focusing on the "non-essence" of things! :D

    Great nugget from the Tao Te Ching! Thanks!

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  11. AMarch 10, 2009 at 12:18 PM

    Alice,
    You've posted a great nugget yourself! Thanks for giving us this quick glimpse of Buddhist though on this. Very enlightening! :)

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