Heaven and earth make sure that violence does not last. Only when We are at peace within ourselves can we experience permanent health and wholeness. Food that is left over, deeds that require great and continual effort, a person who acts for glory and fame, are like people walking on tiptoe in a violent rain. None can last very long. Our hearts must be freed from all desires that are like a violent rainfall or walking on tiptoe, that bring tension and stress. Our minds must be purified of all violent and negative images in order to remain calm and constant. Good deeds should not be seen, and well-spoken words leave no target for envy. Lao-tzu jests:
Good accounting needs no ledger,
Well-locked needs no key or bolt,
Well-tied needs neither rope nor knot
The Taoist healer helps all,
Turns none away, whether they are likeable or not
MEDITATING ON HEALING
The Taoist healer turns no one away, weak, poor, crippled, or outcast, and never deliberately harms anything.4 The person who is "one with the Tao" brings peace, great happiness, and nourishment for all, never rejecting anyone. When nourishing never try to preach or boss. "Be one with Tao" is the only message.
Because they are one with Tao,
Heaven is bright, earth at peace,
The soul is spiritual, the valley fertile,
Nature gives birth, leaders pure and simple.
MEDITATING ON HARMONY
Tao gives birth to One [qi breath];
One gives birth to Two [yang, heaven, male];
Two give birth to Three [yin, earth, female];
These three gave birth to all other things.
It is because they are in harmony
That they can do this.
(Tao-te Ching, chapter 42)
MEDITATING ON A HEALTHY BODY
The healer and the patient must realize that the body is the most important of our assets. The body's health is more important even than acquiring fame, wealth, and success in business. Profit and loss in business can bring on ailments. To fall madly in love is a great misfortune. The most successful person always leaves a little undone so that others too may succeed. The straightest line bends with the earth. One must move a little so as not to freeze, rest a little so as not to perspire. The person who does not bend becomes ill. Wait patiently for the best pottery, which comes last from the kiln. Listen quietly for the Tao from within the body's center, the belly, where the best music is silence. Those people are whole and endure who listen from within the body's center.
MEDITATING ON GOODNESS
The person who would be a healer of other people's ills must be good to the kind and the unkind, true to the faithful and the unfaithful. Tao gives qi breath to all, plays no favorites, smiles on everyone. A person who is filled with goodness walks through the battlefield unscathed by death. The tiger's claws don't scratch, a sword doesn't cut, a bull doesn't maul goodness.
Goodness is defined by Lao-tzu as an interior-quality that helps all others, whether good or bad, loyal or unloyal, useful or useless. Like the Tao, it sees all things as sacred and looks on all as something in which Tao dwells.
MEDITATING ON WUWEI, TAO'S ACTIONS
The Tao makes little things important. To those with little it gives much. It requites anger with goodness, tackles difficulties at once, while they are still easy. It rewards three precious things: kindness, care, and those who do not put themselves over others. In fact, it rushes to the aid of those who show kindness. It helps each thing find its own way, never telling others what to do. Tao hides behind coarse clothes. It is to be found deep inside the meditator.
MEDITATING ON THE OCEAN
The reason the ocean is the greatest of all creatures is because it is the lowest. Therefore, everything flows into it. (Tao-te Ching, chapter 66)
MEDITATING ON OTHERS
Never be weary of others, and they will not be weary of us. Our influence is greatest when others don't fear us and when we don't meddle in their lives at home. Meditate on all others with the greatest respect. When they come to see us, they will be better because of our respect.
MEDITATING ON NOT KNOWING
The most difficult things to heal are knowledge, concept, and image. Memories of what others have said about us, what injustices they have done, the images of what bad things could happen, fester in our minds and injure our stomachs. To heal, empty these concepts.
Disputes about philosophy and reason bring illness. The Taoist healer doesn't get ill, because he or she doesn't catch the "know-all" sickness. (Jao-te Ching, chapter 71)
MEDITATING ON BENDING
That which is dead is hard and brittle. That which is alive bends and is supple. To be healthy, be yielding like water, supple like grass, fresh and giving like Tao. Human ways are different from Tao. Humans in business and politics take from those who have little and give to those who have plenty. Tao gives of its plenty to all. Giving with joy makes one like Tao.
OF ALL THE eighty-one chapters of the Tao-te Ching, the religious Taoists consider chapter 42 (Meditation on Harmony, page 37) to be the most important. Qi, yang, and yin are able to give birth to the myriad creatures only because they work in harmony. In order that the people of the village who come to the temple for healing and renewal understand this message, the Taoists act it out in mime, drumming, music, and dance. The rite is as follows:
First, when it is dark, three new candles are set on an altar in the center of the temple for all of the villagers to see. If there are too many people to fit into the temple the table is brought out into the village square so that all can witness the drama.
Next, all of the lights in the temple are extinguished. The Taoist strikes a new fire from flint and sings "The Tao gave birth to the One." At this point the first candle is lit. The Taoist chants how the first candle represents primordial breath, yuanqi, the breath of the Tao gestating. Then the second candle is lit for yang, and the third candle for yin. The reason the myriad creatures could be gestated, the Taoist chants, is because these three shine together in harmony.
At this point all of the lights, candles, and lanterns in the temple are lit, so that the night becomes as day. Tao gestating the cosmos is acted out in song and dance. The forty-second chapter, on harmony, is thus brought to the attention of the whole village by a rite that anyone—children, elders, and foreigners—can understand, even if they have never read the obscure text of the Tao-te Ching. Ritual is thus a vehicle to explain the philosophy of Lao-tzu.
MEDITATING ON THE CHUANG-TZU
The Lao-tzu Tao-te Ching is the first book given to an aspiring Taoist to follow. The Chuang-tzu is used at the next stage of meditative practice, as a prelude to the third and highest level of apophatic emptying meditation, found in the Gold Pavilion classic. Following the practice of the Taoist contemplative tradition, I have paraphrased here the first seven chapters of the Chuang-tzu, as a prelude to learning the meditations of apophasis.
The
