Verse Forty Eight

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008

Ha Poong Kim

When you pursue learning, you gain day by day.
When you pursue Tao, you lose day by day.
You lose more and more,
Until you reach thereby the point of no-action.
You do nothing yet leave nothing undone.
You take all under Heaven
Always through no activity.
Should you rely on activity,
You will find it insufficient to take all under Heaven.

Verse Forty Eight
Nina Correa, 2005

The actions of an educated person increase every day.
The actions of one who becomes like Dao decrease every day.

They keep decreasing and decreasing again to the point that there's no reason to take actions.
Not purposely taking action, yet never without acting.

To take hold of the world, constantly be without working at it.
Chasing after it has to involve work - but never enough to take hold of the world.

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008

When you pursue learning, you gain day by day.
When you pursue Tao, you lose day by day.
You lose more and more,
Until you reach thereby the point of no-action.
You do nothing yet leave nothing undone.

This seems to imply a gradual process of losing and losing till you have nothing left. With headlessness, you lose it all in the moment. You see where you have nothing left, or --better said-- where you never had anything to lose in the first place. The gradual part comes in when you repeat the moments of seeing and being this first place, this original face. It seems to me that the gradual losing day by day puts seeing on a timeline. It's a way of thinking about seeing headless awareness established in your life. The more often you notice your headlessness today, the more likely you will notice it even more often tomorrow. But the experience of headless seeing is not on a timeline. It's out of time. It's the specious present. It's momentaneous. It's the view, the very fact and image of life.

To me this verse talks about the gradual process and the timeline that can bring the timeless moment to our notice more and more frequently.

Jim

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From: Janet
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008

well, what i see is the whole world and these processes of learning and unlearning appearing in this spaciousness. the space itself is still, and remains the same for these processes to turn and change. spaciousness is non-action, for every action to be expressed, evolve or un-evolve.

love,
janet

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008

Hi Janet,

I like your point about spaciousness being non-action. Non-action (wu wei) is always present as space for all that happens. That's a good definition of the idea of nothing-doing (wu wei). Maybe by using the concept of wu wei, Lao Tzu is pointing at the space that does nothing but sees that all is done.

Love,
Jim

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From: Janet
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008

jimclatfelter wrote:
Maybe by using the concept of wu wei, Lao Tzu is pointing at the space that does nothing but sees that all is done.

hi jim,

well, gees, i didn't know its already been stated in such a way, as wu wei. is that the meaning wu wei?

if its so, then i see lao tzu's point.

love,
janet

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From: headexchange
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008

It's been crossing my mind recently how all action is there, and there really isn't anything happening here. The Void just won't get off its butt. It's permanently on holiday. And yet, there, without any effort at all, it's doing everything. And I've been testing out whether or not being aware that at centre you do nothing at all, whether this has an effect in my life. I think it does. Not only does it make me laugh! but it relaxes me. I relax into the brilliant set up of not doing anything whilst everything gets done. It seems to me that life is an experiment - let's see what happens if I live from my true self. One of the benefits is being on holiday all the time, whilst appearing to be hard at work!

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008

Hi Richard,

The Tao does nothing and all is done. That may be the most famous line in the Tao Te Ching. It seems to fit perfectly with what you are saying.

Love,
Jim

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From: headexchange
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008

Isn't it great. Doing nothing here, everything getting done there. That Lao Tzu was right on target.

love,
Richard

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