Grand Finale

It is the end of the Tao and I just finished reading the last pages of its teachings. I enjoyed the Tao and the last reading was very deep and varied, as usual. I had never felt the calmness the Tao brought upon me and don’t think any text can do that. Even though the text is paradoxical and contradicts itself in parts, it manages to say so much in so little. Like a fellow classmate said that it might be short but it still feels like pages because you really have to think about what it really means.

Everyone hopes their life will be complete and that when we are on our own we will have our dream job and our dream life. Sometimes priorities come first and we must put our dreams hold to first survive. You might get a job you don’t really like but you have to work there because it pays your bills. You tell yourself that someday you will quit and go and get the job you wanted from the start. In the Tao they saw “he works without doing” (47) couldn’t this be that you work but don’t feel you are doing anything because it is not where you are meant to be? You might be working but you aren’t achieving anything at all. I don’t know why I related that quote to the examples above but I just hope that whenever I start working I won’t feel the emptiness of working and not doing anything at all.

“The more laws and restrictions there are,

The poorer people become.

The sharper men’s weapons,

The more trouble in the land.

The more ingenious and clever men are,

The more strange things happen.

The more rulers and regulations,

The more thieves and robbers.”

Pg 59 (57)

I had never really thought about these aspects in this way. I thought being poor was because there just wasn’t enough for everyone but maybe laws and restrictions do have to do with it. If you think about it in Colombia the reason so many people are poor is because they don’t have a job and the reason there are no jobs is because you have to have certain requirements to enter that job. The part of the weapons is also true. If you think about it there was less death with swords and punches than there are now with missiles and nuclear bombs. The more powerful weapons we find the closer we get to our own destruction because we will lose control. More deaths per second because that’s what it takes, seconds for a bullet to leave a gun and take a life.

“Ingenious and clever men” are definitely the cause of strange things. Have you seen infomercials? Now there are some crazy products out there like the “Baba de Caracol” that supposedly makes your skin softer and lose weight. Have we really gotten to a point where rubbing spit from an animal is our salvation? Strange products are out there. “More thieves and robbers” is so true. I mean if you think about it the more rules there are the more there are going to be people ready to break them. It would get too hard to get what you want without being prosecuted by the laws that you would ultimately steal to get what you want.

“Happiness is rooted in misery. Misery lurks beneath happiness”(58). If we didn’t know misery how would we know happiness? I had never thought it had been “rooted in misery” but I knew happiness couldn’t exist without the other. They had mentioned this before in another scroll and the idea remains but now we see that happiness could actually be considered to be born from misery. “The female overcomes the male with stillness,

Lying low is stillness.”

Pg 63 (61)

Finally they talk about some sort of female empowerment. It is the first time in a text in which females are actually shown being better than men in something. Even though it isn’t very big its something.I believes that what this is saying is that women can handle issues in a calmer manner than men. By saying we are “lying low” it means we do not rush into situations but that we actually think over what we are going to do. Stillness is being hidden in a way but always thinking over what is going on. You know how people underestimate the person next to you when you are talking to another? The person is listening to what you say but they are just “lying low” in total “stillness” waiting for the moment when what you just said could be used.

Everyone wants to be forgiven when you make a mistake. Since I was little in church there is always the part about confession; when you must forgive yourself to God and to your brethren. You can do it privately or in church when everyone does it in union. I thought that being Catholic was cool because unlike some religions forgiveness was always there for everyone. Then in the Tao they also mention forgiveness for your sins and was pretty shocked. I also wonder if it’s the same way of forgiveness like it is for Catholics or is it different. Something very interesting about the Tao is that it says that everyone likes the Tao because they find what they seek. Up to know in my sort of religious life I haven’t really seen a way in which the Bible either tells me what I seek or leads me towards it. I definitely haven’t seen many white pigeons in my life.

“Truthful words are not beautiful.

Beautiful words are not truthful.

Pg 83 (81)

This was one of the best quotes in the reading. Why; because they are pure and true. Instead of turning it round and round in your head you know that what it says here is direct. How many times has a guy said beautiful things not being truthful and just wanting something? Sometimes hearing beautiful words that are not truthful is more painful than the truth itself. Disguising the truth by beauty is just making it uglier beneath the surface.

It was very nice to read the Tao Te Ching because it made you look at things from different perspectives. It showed a world that is not ruled by being egocentric or how much a person has. It talks about a world where everyone is equal and what one has is shared with the rest.