What is Driving You will Dictate Your Life

Today in class we had a discussion on love.  Can we really aim at attaining love and acquiring love or love is something that happens to you?  Do we do everything in order to get love and can we? Can love be achieved or is it something that has to happen on its own time within the right environment?  A couple of students stated that love has to happen.  I know a couple of people who is obsessed with gaining love.  Perhaps I'm one of them.  The lesson learned is that perhaps it is being liberated from our obsession with love may be the only way to find and experience that touch of love.  Chuang Tzu shares his wisdom:

"When you're betting for tiles in an archery context, you shoot with skills.  When you're betting for fancy belt buckles, you worry about your aim.  And when you're betting for real gold, you're a nervous wreck.  Your skills is the same in all these cases--but because one prize means more to you than another, you let outside considerations weigh on your mind. He who looks too hard at the outside gets clumsy on the inside" (Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings, trans. Watson).  

A Bad Review is a Good Review

Today I happened to look into Amazon and found a non-agreeable review of my book "Do Nothing." Although I have numerous positive responses from various sources who have read the book, some how I was feeling uneasy. And then I thought how ironical. When you look at the stars attached to the book, it is but Chuang Tzu's the 'this' and the 'that.' We are caught within a world filled with categories and we do naturally gravitate toward drawing lines and circles and grouping people and naming names. Sometime reflecting on my feeling evoked by these stars is a reminder that I'm still caught within the cycle. The things we do, the task we work toward, the form of ideas we expressed just is. And at times this isness can feel negative or positive. I think this is what it means to be P'eng. You can fly only when you can remain in the deepest and the darkest of life. In sickness and health, in life and death, in success and failure, in connectedness and the disconnect. These stars are reminder that life exists beyond the many circles people gravitate toward drawing. The Way is everywhere. It is in the lowest of the low and the peak of the highest point. Life is that journey toward a place beyond names and perhaps in this place we may be able to find people who forget words so we can have a word with them.

Simplicity, Stupidity, and Spirituality

I have to do a presentation on simplicity  to a group of middle-age professionals.  While it is an opportunity to share, it is also pretty difficult to speak of simplicity.  But here's a thought from Chuang Tzu that I find helpful.

"The sage leans on the sun and moon, tucks the universe under his arm, merges himself with things, leaves the confusion and muddle as it is, and looks on slaves as exalted.  Ordinary men strain and struggle, the sage is stupid and blockish.  He takes part in ten thousand ages and achieves simplicity in oneness" (translation by Burton Watson).  

Chuang Tzu seems to rely heavily on the view of nature as organic.  Nature lives, and moves, and drives, and orchestrates reality and hence within this existential understanding of that which is, one is able to lean on the sun and the moon.  Leaning on the sun and the moon also suggests the ability of its believers to take life as it comes because the sun is not always kind and the moon may not always shine.  It shrinks and reshapes itself and if life is to be lived, one may have to merge oneself with things and leave the confusion behind because if we try to understand that incomprehensible, we may not get anywhere.  The Way is not known.  Not only do we not know, we do not understand how the Way operates.  It does what it does.  

The way of the world places slaves in the lowest rank within societal hierarchy.  But the Way has rank life differently.  The slaves may be exalted because the Way does not interpret life within the categories that the norm decides.  The wisdom of the slaves may be that which we have to seek and understand in order to find us along the Way.  This goes along really well when Chuang Tzu speaks of the blockish and the stupid.  Who's stupid?  When stupidity is not even a category, one achieves simplicity in oneness.  

Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly

"Chuang Tzu dreamt that he was a butterfly flittering and fluttering around as he pleased. Suddenly he woke up and realized that he was Chuang Tzu. But he did not know whether he was Chuang Tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu. This is called transformation."

I love this story and when invited to lecture on the art of doing nothing, I often started with this story. I find it most fascinating but I did not quite understand the implication of the story. So today I sat down to contemplate and to read some interpretations focusing particularly on that of Kuang Ming Wu. I think this story is about how often we like to create division between dream and reality believing that we really understand what is real. And this understanding itself causes a form of rigidity that prevents us from flowing and being flexible. We are often held captive by what we believe to be real. And Chuang Tzu would have argued that these things we called real is nothing but "three in the morning" or the things of our very own imagination and creation. Our fixation prevents us from adapting to the flow of life and thus makes it difficult for us to be at a place where we can just enjoy being, flittering and fluttering around like a butterfly.

Bad Economy...May Be...May Be Not

Last weekend I was checking my 401K and was shock to realize how much my wife and I have lost during this market downward spiral. Then a friend said to me that while he was worrying about his retirement, he learned that an astroid almost hit the earth. I looked at him and said, well if not the bad market, then the astroid, or else the earthquake. How finite we are. I mentioned this to my students and we all agreed, there is something about our finiteness that becomes meaningful only in relation to that which is infinite. So I'm reminded of Lao Tzu and the concept of li...while we sit down doing nothing, the sun shines, the plant grows, the water flows. Thinking about the economy in the light of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu's perspective is rather comforting and reminds me of one of my favorite stories.

A farmer had only one horse, and one day the horse ran away. The neighbors came to comfort over his terrible loss. The farmer replied, "Maybe, may be not." A month later, the horse came home bringing with her two beautiful wild horses. The neighbors came to congratulate for his good fortune. "Such lovely strong horses!" The farmer replied, "May be. May be not." The farmer's son was thrown from a horse and broke his leg. All the neighbors came to console. Such bad luck! The farmer replied, "May be. May be not." A war broke out and every able-bodied was recruited except the farmer's son because of his broken leg. The neighbors came to congratulate the farmer. "May be. May be not?" replied the farmer.

To Teach by Not Teaching

This is one of my goal in teaching, to teach by not teaching.  It sounds fascinating although I'm not sure what it is about but I think it is a way of learning.  A number of years ago I was asked to teach a course that I was least familiar with because the main instructor was on research leave.  I was not the most competent person but as I stepped in with lots of emptiness and curiosity about the lives of my students and their struggle with grief, that class became one of the most enjoyable courses for me.  I have not had a chance to teach that since because the main professor for the course is back but it is a reminder that emptiness has a way of soliciting ideas, or emptiness has a way of inviting the flow of concepts and perspectives.  It is ironical how I go to class empty and come out with ideas and fresh perspectives.  By emptiness I do not mean going in without any preparation but pretty much learning for myself and preparing to learn from students as a method of instruction.  I wonder if people learn best when they are able to put things together for themselves and perhaps this is the most meaningful way to learn.  With this in mind, my role seems to be to just evoke and permit.  

An Ugly Tree

Here is one of my favorite stories from Chuang Tzu:

Hui Tzu told Chuang Tzu that there was a big tree in his back yard.  It is such an ugly and useless tree that no carpenter in his/her right mind will ever want to cut down this tree.  Then referencing Chuang Tzu's teaching, Hui Tzu commented, "Your teaching is like this tree.  It is totally useless."  

Chuang Tzu replied "why be so disturbed by this ugly tree. Because of its uselessness no one will ever cut it down and so why not place it in no-man's land and lie down under it.  Its life will not be shorted because if it is useless, it can't get hurt."

This reminds me of a quote by Chuang Tzu when he said "we all know the use of the useful, but nobody knows the use of the useless."  What do I know about the use of the useless?  I think when we are useless we will probably not be used and when we are not used, we are free to use or not to use; to be or not to be.  Perhaps there's more to this statement of Chuang Tzu for us all to ponder.