Beginner's Mind
Accurate Translation of the Tao Te Ching
I have thought much about the mind through much of my adult life. This post is prompted to two recent stimuli.davesmusictank posed a review of Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and states the authors opinion that the poor are urged to work because if they were not overwhelmed by the time and stress of labor they might have time to think. And Eliot in "Burnt Norton" said that we (modern humans) should wait without thought for we are not ready to think.
Orwell's comment can be ignored. It is simply the aristocratic prejudice transformed into capitalist myth. The poor must think; and if the things they think about include inequality and injustice, so much the better.
Eliot's comment is harder to dismiss because it deals with a different dimension of reality: a Taoist reality where nothing is as it seems to be; where thought is spiritually (rather than politicaly) dangerous; where the better knowing and doing are not-knowing and not-doing; and where the only true "treasures" are Mercy (compassion, love), Moderation (restraint, simplicity, voluntary poverty), and Modesty (humility, non-competitiveness).
Although the "political" parts of the Tao Te Ching (Chapters 39 - 80) seem to suggest otherwise, the not-knowing of the sage is not the ignorance of the unwise person. It is not that my mind is empty -- that would desirable, it is that my mind is crammed full of the wrong stuff. The reason that i am not ready to think is that i have thought too wrong for too long.
I am reminded that the word mind is a verb as well as a noun and even as a noun it may denote a "process" rather than an entity. Mindfulness and mindlessness are almost synonymous and seem to be used almost interchangably in the TTC.
That not knowing is not ordinary ignorance is suggested by the practice in some Buddhist societies and in Hinduism of making education, work, and family life prerequisites to a full time spiritual quest. There are those who seem to reach spiritual maturity at age 18 or 15 or 9 or 5 and are excused from the prerequisites. but these are rare and can be contaminated by acknowledgement like child movie stars.
I should not worry about my mind being emptied of content, perhaps it waits for another level of not knowing to occur, I wait thoughtlessly for the thoughts that may think themselves through me.
I have thought much about the mind through much of my adult life. This post is prompted to two recent stimuli.davesmusictank posed a review of Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and states the authors opinion that the poor are urged to work because if they were not overwhelmed by the time and stress of labor they might have time to think. And Eliot in "Burnt Norton" said that we (modern humans) should wait without thought for we are not ready to think.
Orwell's comment can be ignored. It is simply the aristocratic prejudice transformed into capitalist myth. The poor must think; and if the things they think about include inequality and injustice, so much the better.
Eliot's comment is harder to dismiss because it deals with a different dimension of reality: a Taoist reality where nothing is as it seems to be; where thought is spiritually (rather than politicaly) dangerous; where the better knowing and doing are not-knowing and not-doing; and where the only true "treasures" are Mercy (compassion, love), Moderation (restraint, simplicity, voluntary poverty), and Modesty (humility, non-competitiveness).
Although the "political" parts of the Tao Te Ching (Chapters 39 - 80) seem to suggest otherwise, the not-knowing of the sage is not the ignorance of the unwise person. It is not that my mind is empty -- that would desirable, it is that my mind is crammed full of the wrong stuff. The reason that i am not ready to think is that i have thought too wrong for too long.
I am reminded that the word mind is a verb as well as a noun and even as a noun it may denote a "process" rather than an entity. Mindfulness and mindlessness are almost synonymous and seem to be used almost interchangably in the TTC.
That not knowing is not ordinary ignorance is suggested by the practice in some Buddhist societies and in Hinduism of making education, work, and family life prerequisites to a full time spiritual quest. There are those who seem to reach spiritual maturity at age 18 or 15 or 9 or 5 and are excused from the prerequisites. but these are rare and can be contaminated by acknowledgement like child movie stars.
I should not worry about my mind being emptied of content, perhaps it waits for another level of not knowing to occur, I wait thoughtlessly for the thoughts that may think themselves through me.