Tao Te Ching Meditation - Chapter 76: Companion Of Life
Reading:
76.1 When people are born
they are supple,
and when they die
they are stiff..
76.2 When trees are born
they are tender,
and when they die
they are brittle.
76.3 Stiffness is thus a companion of death,
flexibility a companion of life.
76.4 So when an army is strong it doe not prevail.
When a tree is strong, it is cut for use.
76.5 So the stiff and strong are below,
the supple and yielding on top.
Tao Teh Ching - Cleary Translation
Commentation:*
Supple, tender, flexible, yielding....liquid? The Tao is like water, it can enter where there is no space.
It is a giver of life. It is powerful and also nurturing. Its power is spontaneous and random (except when tampered with). Its nurturing is ubiquitous.
Chesterton wrote that Francis had a vision of Assisi upside down, with its foundation in the sky and its towers and walls pointed earthward; suspended in air .... by God knows What? Chesterton said this inversion shows the real source of whatever strength a great city has, Its very solidity is its weakness and the only real strength comes from no material source. All spiritual traditions invert our customary perceptions of power and weakness. Taoism does this a lot; preferring the power of babies to that of zombies and that of grass to that of stones. i am reminded of an imaginary scoreboard showing that the materialists win every inning, but the idealists take the game.
Lets play rock, paper, scissors, water. (Water erodes rock, dissolves paper, and rusts scissors).
Prayer: Holy Loving: Let me be a companion of life. Amen
Contemplation:
* I find that my meditation cannot avoid a critical element. To call a text my own i find i must examine it logically more than prayerfully. Thus my "meditation" is as much COMMENtary as mediTATION.
76.1 When people are born
they are supple,
and when they die
they are stiff..
76.2 When trees are born
they are tender,
and when they die
they are brittle.
76.3 Stiffness is thus a companion of death,
flexibility a companion of life.
76.4 So when an army is strong it doe not prevail.
When a tree is strong, it is cut for use.
76.5 So the stiff and strong are below,
the supple and yielding on top.
Tao Teh Ching - Cleary Translation
Commentation:*
Supple, tender, flexible, yielding....liquid? The Tao is like water, it can enter where there is no space.
It is a giver of life. It is powerful and also nurturing. Its power is spontaneous and random (except when tampered with). Its nurturing is ubiquitous.
Chesterton wrote that Francis had a vision of Assisi upside down, with its foundation in the sky and its towers and walls pointed earthward; suspended in air .... by God knows What? Chesterton said this inversion shows the real source of whatever strength a great city has, Its very solidity is its weakness and the only real strength comes from no material source. All spiritual traditions invert our customary perceptions of power and weakness. Taoism does this a lot; preferring the power of babies to that of zombies and that of grass to that of stones. i am reminded of an imaginary scoreboard showing that the materialists win every inning, but the idealists take the game.
Lets play rock, paper, scissors, water. (Water erodes rock, dissolves paper, and rusts scissors).
Prayer: Holy Loving: Let me be a companion of life. Amen
Contemplation:
* I find that my meditation cannot avoid a critical element. To call a text my own i find i must examine it logically more than prayerfully. Thus my "meditation" is as much COMMENtary as mediTATION.