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*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 second 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.*

When people see things as beautiful,
ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
evil is created.

Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low oppose each other.
Fore and aft follow each other.

Therefore the Master
can act without doing anything
and teach without saying a word.
Things come her way and she does not stop them;
things leave and she lets them go.
She has without possessing,
and acts without any expectations.
When her work is done, she take no credit.
That is why it will last forever.

-Chapter 2

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When people see things as beautiful,
ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
evil is created.

Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low oppose each other.
Fore and aft follow each other.

BY judging something, you create duality (yin/yang). Everything simply is. If you say something is something, then you also give rise to its opposite where something is either good or bad. Your definition of tall maybe short to somebody else. It is your perception of an event, rather than the actual event that counts. This reminds me of the famous Double Split Experiment

Therefore the Master
can act without doing anything
and teach without saying a word.

The master is devoted to letting the natural higher order live through him. He uses nature as his rules to live by. The sage is made to sound like nature in the text, “teaches without saying a word”.

Things come her way and she does not stop them;
things leave and she lets them go.
She has without possessing,
and acts without any expectations.

The concept of non-action (wu wei) is bought up, a common theme throguhout the book and a state I have experienced. It can only be described as when you feel as if some higher power is living through you and you willingly do its work. It can not even be called work because it feels so effortless and far away from what we recognize as normal life. This verse also tries to get you to go beyond your mind with the use of paradoxes that make no sense logically, so you have to look deeper.
This whole section is exactly what the Buddha said when he described non-attachment. If you are attached to events, thoughts, beliefs then you will eventually suffer because all events and beliefs are temporary by nature.

When her work is done, she take no credit.
That is why it will last forever.

This paragraph also hints at the refusal of desire/ego. “she takes no credit”. Taking credit is the ego wanting to be noticed and recognised. By taking no credit the ego is rid of and the Tao is working through the individual for greater good, leading to accomplishment that is pure and lasts forever.

*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.