Tao Te Ching: Chapter 1

September 29th, 2009

*NOTE: In the past I started this blog and planned to do 30 days studying the Tao and report on the understanding that I developed. I got 2 days in then gave up. Here is the first post of 2 and I thought I’d put it up in the hope of providing some value. I haven’t decided whether I’ll finish the series.*

The tao that can be described
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be spoken
is not the eternal Name.

The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of creation.

Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery.
By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real.

Yet mystery and reality
emerge from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness born from darkness.
The beginning of all understanding.

-Chapter 1

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The tao that can be described
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be spoken
is not the eternal Name.

Tao is something that you cannot put a name upon, it is the birth of everything and the formless dimension which opposes the dimension of form. Even by calling it Tao, we are limiting it. But for the sake of communicating and language, we must give it a name.  After all, all names are human creations Is a tree really a tree more than it is just a dance of vibrating molecules which move all the time, hardly any of them continuing for much time within what we would call the tree?

The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth.

By giving something a name, we limit it. A “criminal” or a “table” is our minds attempts to box and understand reality but they are not those actual things. We need our minds to do this for communicating with reality.  This also links in with the first line “The Tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao”. It shows that by calling Tao by the name Tao, you are putting yourself back inside your pre conceived thoughts and feelings about it. You might think “Oh Tao, it is just one of those stupid spiritual things etc.”.

Heaven is a formless area where there are no physical things, a spiritual dimension. Earth is a physical dimension where our physical bodies live. So how is is that the nameless is the boundary of these?

Maybe the nameless is what we are. We can enter heaven, which is a formless dimension within ourselves and we appear physically on Earth also. So we could be the boundary? If heaven is an inner realm and earth is an outer realm then it follows that we are the middle part experiencing both.

The named is the mother of creation.

When you name something, it has been created as a mental concept for you. Or, this phrase could mean that “naming” is the actual process of going from formlessness to form, or if you prefer, coming into manifestation. You could interpret it as you have “created a concept which is separate from the oneness.

Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery.

When you are free from desire, you have stepped out of your conditioned mind patterns and can see what truly is rather than your ‘I’ centred view of the world. You can perceive the mystery unfolding that we are in. You realize that is is our reaction to situations that makes them seem good or bad, all situations are actually neutral and are made good or bad based on our desires of  wanting to take control.

By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real.

When you are desiring, you have stepped back into, and identified with your mind patterns again. A box is just a box and the mystery isnt available to you. Insanity is being identified with your mind, being indeitified with anything infact.

Yet mystery and reality
emerge from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness born from darkness.
The beginning of all understanding.

All things come from the same source, the one, infinite source. I feel like the last phrase refers to the attachment to mind and how you lose your sense of perspective.  It says that the beginning of all understanding comes from knowing of attachment to mind within yourself.