American Taoist

When reading through one of my favorite Taoist books, Ron Hogan’s paraphrasing of the Tao Te Ching called “Getting Right with Tao”, I came across a common theme in a couple chapters that I would like to relate here.  That theme is the neutrality of Tao.

Allow me first to start by quoting one of the first chapters that struck a familiar chord with me, and that’s chapter 5.

5.

Tao’s neutral:

it doesn’t worry about good or evil.

The Masters are neutral:

they treat everyone the same.

Lao Tzu said Tao is like a bellows:

It’s empty,

but it could help set the world on fire.

If you keep using Tao, it works better.

If you keep talking about it,

it won’t make any sense.

Be cool.

Deeper Meanings Revealed

Now when I first read this it was something I appreciated and I told myself I understood it (your first clue for how far from being right with Tao I really am unfortunately) but it wasn’t until this theme continued to appear that a greater truth began to reveal itself to me.  “Tao’s neutral: it doesn’t worry about good or evil.” A simple insight into the nature of Tao, and its message is clear, “The Masters are neutral: they treat everyone the same.” If you want to get right with Tao, forget about playing favorites and start believing that everyone is part of Tao.

When I read this next chapter, I again noticed the common theme, but I was still too dense to think they were repeating a message for a reason.  This next chapter is Ch. 26 and goes like this:

26.

To be light on your feet,

you need a steady mind.

If your body is active,

your mind should be relaxed.

A Master can travel long distances

and still see everything she owns.

She may be surrounded by beauty

but she isn’t caught up in it.

Why run around thoughtlessly?

If you act lightly,

you lose your bearings.

If you act recklessly,

you lose your self-control.

The part of this chapter I’d like to focus on is “A Master can travel long distances and still see everything she owns.  She may be surrounded by beauty but isn’t caught up in it.”  A Master isn’t caught up in their beautiful surroundings; someone who has found harmony with Tao will no longer be stopped in their tracks by a beautiful scene, but what does this mean?  Like Ch. 5 was trying to tell us, Tao is neutral, and so one who is in harmony with Tao must also be neutral.  They don’t worry about good or evil, they don’t worry about beautiful or ugly, they don’t worry about any of it because Tao has nothing to do with that.  Tao is neutral.  If you can’t have x without y, then calling something x or y is not neutral, it’s on one side or another and this is not right with Tao.

The Last Piece of the Puzzle

The last chapter that was the final piece of the “aha!” puzzle was Ch. 49, quoted below:

49.

The Masters

don’t make up their minds.

They turn their thoughts

to other people.

They are good to good people,

and they’re good to bad people.

This is real goodness.

They have faith in the faithful,

and they have faith in the unfaithful.

This is real faith.

A Master throws himself

into the world completely,

forgetting everything he’s been told.

People pay attention to him

because he lives a life of child-like wonder.

This was the chapter that made it all work for me, this was the chapter that was at last saying “HEY BUDDY! OVER HERE, THE POINT YOU WERE MISSING IS OVER HERE!”  I think what helped was the pretty relatable telling of how the Masters act to everyone, they are good to good and bad people; they trust the trustworthy and untrustworthy.  These are the traits of the Masters, and this helps us to understand Tao’s neutrality.

Where’s all this going?

So what is the main point of all of this?  The conclusion that these chapters led me to is this, Tao is.  Sorry if that seems a little anti-climactic in its simplicity.  This is something that has been said many many times before, Tao is, or a Taoist simply is.  To finally come to understand what it means is an entirely different experience then just having it told to you so I will do my best to explain what I think it means.

When they say Tao is, they mean what I’ve been saying, Tao is neutral, but it goes a bit beyond that.  If we were to liken this idea to an animal, let’s say a bird.

A bird only knows how to be a bird, it knows how to fly, how to eat bugs, and how to sing and that’s what it does.  It doesn’t worry about if this ant is good or that ant is bad, it will eat them both.  It doesn’t worry if its song is beautiful or if it’s a screech, it’s going to sing it.

In this way both the bird and the Masters have found harmony with Tao by following the same path.  They do not worry if they are being good or evil, they simply do.  They will act the same to people regardless of if those people are good or bad because that doesn’t concern them.  Acting good to the good, and good to the bad, that’s real good because that’s acting right with Tao.

So, when I say Tao is, or a Taoist simply does, what I’m trying to say is that a Master gets his mind out of the way and uses Tao’s neutrality instead.  That’s where true action comes from and that’s where people get right with Tao.  Saying Tao is or Tao is neutral are just two ways of saying the same truth.