There are many translations, renderings, variations, and adaptations of Lao Tzu's classic, the Tao Te Ching, extant in the literary world. This one makes no claim to scholastic erudition, sinological authority, or any global artistic merit. It arose from a personal experience with the Tao Te Ching, helped by an ancient Chinese oracle text known as the I Ching (which was certainly well known to Lao Tzu himself), combined with my own love of Lao Tzu's poetry and the fresh energy given to it by a new verbatim translation by Jonathan Star (see my Introduction and Bibliography for a more detailed reference to Star’s work). Since this version began as a purely personal learning experience, it is offered here as a catalyst for each reader's unique experiencing of Lao Tzu's poetic voice. Therefore, I have written commentary only to those verses that seemed to call for background discussion, either because of their content or the presentation that they received here. An Introduction is also offered, particularly for those who are relatively unacquainted with the historical and philosophical legends that have grown around the Tao Te Ching, as well as to present some of the peculiar characteristics of this version.

The commentaries and the Introduction were, like the translations of the poems themselves, written to inspire each reader's independent exploration of Lao Tzu's work. Still, I would encourage readers to skip the Introduction and Commentaries in their first encounter with this book, and simply experience the poems for themselves, hearing and feeling them uniquely through at least one reading. Then it will be possible to read the prose at either end of the poems and consider what additional reflection or personal insight it may inspire. After all, the insight of great poetry is not the product or property of any person or group, but comes directly from a direct encounter between the voice of the poet and the heart of the reader, mediated by the teaching energy of the universe that Lao Tzu called “The Sage”, and which resides equally within each of us.

This poem speaks of the relationships between names—the words we give to things, events, actions, and of course ourselves—and the nameless essence from which we derive our life, and to which we return in death. Lao Tzu does not want us to think that our words are hopelessly inadequate to understanding the Cosmic Consciousness (this is an interpretation frequently placed on this poem in particular); rather, he'd like us to realize the natural limitations of our words. Words and language have limitations, just as our bodies, our planet and its natural resources, and our mental faculties have limitations. Words and names "fail to hold the essence" because, as Lao Tzu says in the final stanza, the essence can only be held in our hearts. But words, properly used, are capable of revealing the possibility of deep understanding, through describing the functions—what each thing does, and how it relates to the Whole. Lao Tzu is simply asking us to remember that function and action represent the manifestation, and not the immanence, of the Tao. If we can keep this in mind, that the manifestation varies and transforms; that what a thing does is not everything it is (for example, you are not your occupation, your family role, your gender, your race, your religion, etc.—not even the combination of these things); then we are not likely to make the mistake of reifying, or fixing, our ideas and descriptions of the operations of the Cosmos. When we are successful in avoiding this error, we have taken a vast step in furthering the natural order of the Cosmos and of human society. For in this clarity, this awareness of the limitations of language, we remove our feet from the concrete of religious, political, and ideological position-taking that is at the root of so much of the prejudice, conflict, injustice, and slaughter common to mankind over the past 3,000 or so years.

In this poetical meditation on language and its relation to the Cosmic Reality, Lao Tzu is suggesting another movement of understanding, which has to do with facing the apparent contradictions and logical impossibilities that he is presenting. Lao Tzu invites us into the cycle of logical tail-chasing (words can't properly describe Tao, but let's talk about it anyway), because he wants us to feel beyond the boundaries of reason. He would like us to step into that "living, teeming darkness," for this is the space in which we can truly feel the Tao, through our every bodily cell. The words that we use can point us toward this "shimmering darkness" of understanding, especially when we ask the teaching aspect of the Cosmic Consciousness, which Lao Tzu calls the Sage, to help us. But the words are not themselves the immanence; thus there is no such thing as "holy writ."

In this poem, Lao Tzu asks us to step out of the realms of division and opposition, by examining ourselves through the projections that we may have accepted from the forces of collective acculturation. Here the poet asks a question that will appear several more times in different metaphorical guises throughout the Tao Te Ching: "is it necessary to live on a treadmill of fortune, sliding from one polar opposite to another, and struggling to be on the right side at the right time?" Is this how the Cosmos truly works?

Then, as he always does in his poems, Lao Tzu offers us an alternative inner model: one of complementarity, represented in the images of dance and love. Lao Tzu discards the notion of some inherent cosmological conflict of polar opposites and presents instead a picture of Nature as the commingling and transformation of complementary principles, each of which honors its natural complement while retaining its individuality. There is no need to attach to beauty and reject ugliness, to elevate virtue and repress evil, for these divisions do not adhere to the Cosmic Whole.

Lao Tzu saw beauty and truth as so deeply connected as to be identical—complementary principles in mutual embrace. Two thousand years later, the great English poet John Keats felt the same reality, and sang of it in another timeless verse.

When you clutch something, you have already lost it. A thief can "read" attachment: he doesn't have to see what it is you are carrying to know it is valuable, because he can sense your anxiety about keeping it in your grasp. The irony that Lao Tzu is pointing out here is that attachment actually creates and perpetuates separation, because it attempts to override the natural synergy of attraction that exists between us and what is truly ours. Of course, Lao Tzu is not an ascetic or a minimalist: the disburdenment that he describes in the final stanza is the very inner act that brings us the gifts and possessions that truly belong to us, without the need for forced protection or urgent attachment. The inner cleansing he proposes to us is the process that prepares the ground for natural possession. This theme is also explored in the I Ching, in Hexagram 14, Possession in Great Measure.

Here is the first of many watery metaphorical expressions found throughout the Tao Te Ching. Lao Tzu likens the Tao to a well—dark, empty, yet containing the generational spark and the nourishment of all being. Water, even when it appears still to our eyes, is always in motion—wearing down the sharp and jagged, dissolving what is obdurate, softening glare—moving freely through its permutations between earth and sky, light and dark. Following the guideline that he established in Chapter 1, Lao Tzu describes the Cosmic Whole through what it does. But as for what it is, only stepping beyond the limits of reason can point the way: it is the emptiness that contains everything. It flows and it freezes; it evaporates and condenses; it merges into every element and state of being. It is the quantum darkness from which light freely flows—try to move it, and it is still; try to stop it, and it will always be moving.

Following Tao is not about adopting an attitude of passivity, but nurturing inner strength instead. The superficial or populist interpretation of the so-called Taoist philosophy often invokes the phrase "go with the flow," in the sense of passive acceptance of injustice or encroachment. But with the phrase, "silence the demons," Lao Tzu reminds us that we are not meant to "go with the flow," for that is the stuff of inner weakness. He would encourage us to act with inner determination in this respect: to silence demons, both our own and those of others, through the fluid, invisible work of inner action. Water does its work with persistent strength but no effort; and thus it is effective. Even where it appears turbid, it nourishes, settles, flows, and acts. The same is true of the person in harmony with Cosmic Principles: he can speak simply and briefly, yet make his point clear; he can live "close to the earth" in wonderful abundance; he can remain poised amid conflict, but without bowing to power or resorting to manipulation. Water doesn't try to carve canyons or wear down mountains; it just does it. Its action occurs at an invisible and quantum plane of being. This is how transformation happens, and it is how it can happen through us as well: when we "nourish our depths" and "silence our demons," the natural self that arises is the same kind of quantum actor as the water that shapes and sustains ourselves and our planet. It has the unique ability to transform conflict into understanding, and bring us fulfillment and completion in every aspect of our lives. This is because its unforced action engages the helping presences of the Tao—the force of Nature that make things happen, and endure. These presences are what the I Ching calls "Helpers."

We have a phrase in vernacular English for what Lao Tzu is describing here: it is called "paralysis by analysis." Nothing so stiffens feeling, foreshortens influence, or limits understanding, as intellectual reductionism. What follows from this saturation of thought is a kind of hypervigilance and obsessive doubt known in both medical and popular pathology as paranoia. We run the same destructive course when we allow institutional or dogmatic criteria of outer success to define our life's destiny. The correction to all of this is direct and immediately available: we can step off the treadmill and renounce the expectations that have been burned into us by a superficial and self-referential culture.

Guilt and doubt are the engines that drive paranoia, this constant, fearful referencing of experience and phenomena to the bizarre self-interest of a solipsistic world-view. The foundation of this world-view is unstable because it is simply an inaccurate, mistaken vision of the Cosmos and its operations; therefore, it needs to be propped and reinforced by manipulation and the pursuit of power. We push others around and manipulate Nature not because we are designed that way, but because we have been so stuffed with fear that we can no longer feel ourselves.

What you see is barely the beginning of what is really there. In a culture such as ours, with its unceasing obsession with the exploitation of the marketplace and the accumulation of object-attachments, there is an urgent practicality to this message. If your inner house is so cluttered with form and outer convenience that there is no more space to support that form, then the invisible realm is ignored, and the inner space of freedom and autonomy is repressed, buried amid accumulation.

Some may recognize this as a principle of the now popular Chinese environmental art known as Feng Shui. Lao Tzu would probably remind us that "good Feng Shui" begins from within one's own being, and that this in turn depends on our own continuing inner sensation of that deep space from which our outer life is shaped. If the space within is muddled amid the repressive influence of acculturation and attachment, then our surroundings will appear concomitantly muddled, and what others perceive and experience of our personality will be similarly blurred and superficial. But if we honor the "open space within," then we will be led to clarity, and life can then become an effortless dance of Te. This, indeed, is the kind of Feng Shui that Lao Tzu would have us become familiar with, before we turn to the arrangement of the forms and objects of our environmental life.

Self-display corrupts your ability to see within; making noise about yourself closes off your inner ear; the Tao itself cannot be tasted when one is obsessed with outer sensation. Lao Tzu never asks us to abandon the delights available to our outer senses; he simply asks us to place them in a more holistic context, one that allows equality to our inner senses. Indeed, once these inner senses are activated and trusted, they are discovered to deepen and enrich the experience of the outer senses. The same is true of belief and action: when we can consistently feel and sense beyond the level of the superficial, then our understanding becomes deeper and wider, and our action becomes naturally measured and penetrating. When the cursory images of attachment and gross sensation are exposed for what they are—a vain and ephemeral veneer of experience—then the true self, in all its depth and strength, arises without display, without vanity, without effort.

Throughout the Tao Te Ching, the error of the pursuit of fame is exposed. In this verse, Lao Tzu shows how the desire for fame arises from a view of the self and of Nature as somehow limited, stained, or at fault. To thus "look at Nature and see affliction" means that one must do something to rise above this Cosmic affliction, this inborn insufficiency of the self and the universe. Frequently this means seeking renown or other recognition according to a group norm, usually in the service of intellectual or spiritual values. In most religious and cultural ideologies, this means belittling or demonizing the body and its functions as part of one's "lower nature." This act of dividing nature, especially one's own nature, into higher and lower aspects, is to "split the treasure from its Source." It is a fundamental error of human thought, and is entirely unnecessary: our bodies are the formed expression of the Tao, the vessels of chi, the life force that pervades the Cosmos. Within the living body, cells are created, dissolved, and recreated continuously; this is the way of Nature, the way of transformation.

Under the guidance of the Sage, I have recast this poem as a description of Lao Tzu himself, and his approach to exploring the Tao through this marvelous set of teaching poems. This is really a very short step from traditional translations, which have Lao Tzu describing the experiences of "ancient Masters." Clearly, Lao Tzu is not in the camp that deifies ancient masters, and he would certainly be horrified at his own deification at the hands of religious Taoists in the centuries after him.

This was revealed to me in a meditation image as I began the work of this rendering of the Tao Te Ching: I saw Lao Tzu standing uncomfortably on a very high pedestal of glistening ivory. I approached the pedestal, looked up at him, and then kicked hard at the base of the pedestal, which shattered, collapsing the whole. The old philosopher came tumbling down but landed on his feet. He smiled, reached out his hand toward me, and said, "thanks." This meditation (aside from providing me a great laugh) taught me a great deal about how to approach a new rendering of the Tao Te Ching, and it also taught me that Lao Tzu is still very much present in consciousness, and that he remains available to help and to teach—not as a god or a legend of an old and revered book, but as a living, conscious presence. In reference to this poem in particular, the Sage showed me that Lao Tzu had unconsciously written a sort of inner autobiography in verse, and that this is how I could present it in English.

Everyone, without exception, has the inner wherewithal to experience art and nature this way—just look within make that peculiar connection with the Tao that only you can make with it.

This poem again reveals Lao Tzu's familiarity with the I Ching, for it evokes and draws upon Hexagram 24 of that text, which is called "Returning." To the poet(s) of the I Ching, “Returning” is about feeling the cycle death-and-life in every moment, in the same way that beauty and truth become one within an open heart.

This is an accurate summation of the theme of Chapter 16 of Lao Tzu as well, for it is what the poet means by "the dispersion of ignorance," and "it is only delusion that dies."

Also in Hexagram 24, the original text of the Judgment says, "to and fro goes the way." This is the dance of form and non-form described by Lao Tzu in this poem: forms arise and recede; they are born, flourish, and then retreat to their Cosmic Origin. And indeed, "life is never exhausted," for this return to non-form is followed by transformation back into form as the dance of consciousness endlessly perpetuates. We can truly experience this Cosmic Principle of returning, by "clearing the space within" in meditation, and by separating ourselves from the rigid prejudice of ignorance and false belief. This process of allowing inner clarity to develop opens understanding and "nurtures equanimity and justice." It is a self-perpetuating and deeply nourishing inner experience that never seems to run its course, but is always complete in itself, each time we allow it to arise.

Chapter 16 is a deeply moving poem. It is a literary meditation on death-as-life: forthright, dignified, and utterly free of false sentiment or ideology. To inwardly perceive the Cosmic principle of returning is to see beyond the realm of the apparent; it is the natural and most nourishing movement of the human heart.

Separation from the Cosmic Whole is misfortune because it starves the true self in a suffocating act of oppression. This can happen at an intimately individual level (within the heart), among a family, or within an entire society of people, and the result is the same: a forced and false limitation of the natural self, the natural family, or the natural society. The I Ching refers to this type of oppression as "galling limitation" in Hexagram 60, Limitation. It adds that this "galling limitation must not be persevered in."

Lao Tzu reminds us that when the cosmic order is repressed, families, communities, and nations are then turned into food-chain style hierarchies—power structures supported by rigid and superficial notions of morality, intelligence, duty, reward, and obligation. An entire spectrum of sacrificial self-images arises from these ideas: images of the obedient spouse, the sacrificing parent, the hero in society, and the honor of god, country, family, or of the self as defined in the context of the collective, and the forced duties that this honor demands. In the next poem, Chapter 19, and several others, Lao Tzu encourages us to destroy self-images—as individuals, families, and nations—by ridding ourselves of the false ideas that feed them. As he suggests in Chapter 19, we all have the "inner discernment" to detect deceit and oppression; once we nurture and use that natural ability, we can then simply release ourselves of the ideas that further oppression.

In this poem, Lao Tzu introduces the concept of Te, or, as I have been guided to render it, the cosmic principle of Modesty. It is a principle that informs natural action, of inner clarity that is inseparable from the outer movement or activity that it inspires. This outer movement is known as wu-wei, or unforced action. It comes from "the very center of the self," where the accretions and distortions of belief and analysis do not exist.

Te is the point at which the Sage, the teaching heart of the Cosmic Whole, intersects with and expresses our deepest true nature. You can't pin it down with definitions because it isn't fixed or formed; it gently and playfully eludes the clutches and machinations of ego (thus, the gentle humor of this poem, and others following, in which the poet sings of Te).

Te is neither attainment nor achievement, because it has never been apart from us: how can you attain something that you've always had, and how can you achieve something that you have always been? It speaks clearly, but does not persuade; it works, but does not strive. Modesty is not the shrinking violet of consciousness, as it is often represented culturally ("rather shy" is one definition of modesty in the Oxford American Dictionary). The modesty that Lao Tzu is encouraging us to discover is expression and action molded from the personal and formless truth within: it is nothing less (or more) than the manifestation of Tao.

This verse is about the inner and outer signs of that "parasite of true nature," the ego. Wherever a person is engaged in self-display, the striving after fame, or the ideological rigidity of position-taking, the ego is present. "Standing on tiptoe" can also refer to the attitude of the gossip-addict: a person who strives to be "in the know" or to have "inside information," usually about matters that are properly none of his business. In Lao Tzu's time, as in ours, the halls of government, workplaces, and the media were saturated with such idlers. Perhaps in no other arena is the petty inanity of the hunger for superiority exposed, as the poet also mentions in Chapter 20.

Apart from its outward marks, the ego can be detected inwardly as well: it is "a consumptive, gnawing burden," one that can, the poet suggests, be felt physically, from within one's organic nature. Once the student discovers the signs of ego and can learn to recognize them within himself and in others, he can begin the practice of diminishment—the process of deconstructing the ego's false beliefs and artificial hierarchies.

It should be clear to the reader by now that Lao Tzu is not a religious man: not in the sense of adhering to an ideology of faith. His teaching is of a simple yet surpassing naturalism, based on inner experience rather than on belief, doctrine, or some holy writ. Yet here, he has written a kind of hymn to the Cosmos, a beautiful plainsong to honor the Inexpressible. As he does elsewhere in the Tao Te Ching, he resorts to feminine metaphor to describe the nature of Tao, calling it "the uterus of being."

This poem is a celebration in verse of a deeply moving inner experience; the gratitude of the writer can be felt, reaching out of the page and toward its Cosmic Origin. Readers familiar with the work of Walt Whitman may find this mood of lyric celebration particularly resonant with that poet's "Song of Myself."

One in contact with his inner truth is able to abide in darkness, as still as a moonless night, and yet remain in motion. For he understands that movement which comes from the clear and centered point of inner balance is often seen as stillness, and that his most pure and silent state of rest may appear to be a whirlwind of activity. The former state is often seen in the creative artist; the latter, in the athlete. But he is not concerned with appearances or with the perceptions of others, for he is content in his own self-awareness. If there is pleasure to be had, he takes it gratefully and without selling his dignity for its superficial luster. For he knows that should he allow his inner independence to be purchased for a favor or a privilege, then he will have sacrificed the central and stable point of his connection to the Cosmic Whole.

This is a distinctive chapter in the Tao Te Ching for several reasons. It begins with a beautifully lucid set of metaphors on speech and action that are in harmony with Tao.

Lao Tzu follows these with an image of a "true-fitting door" which can close securely "without need of bar or latch." In the I Ching, the first line of Hexagram 60, Limitation, speaks of "not going out of the door" as a metaphor on the true self's ability to separate itself from the distorting beliefs and restrictive rules of the collective ego. In both of these texts, the point being made is that it is not a matter of fleeing from, or contending against, the repressive power of group ideology, but rather of simply having a proper inner seal on the doorway of consciousness, so that the vapid abstractions and insinuations of ego can find no entry point to one's true self.

In the second half of the poem, Lao Tzu considers the source of help available to people who would like to live, work, and form relationships from a stable, open center of being: the Cosmic Sage—the teaching energy of the universe. The Sage is available to all who ask for its help; it is a regenerative presence that can awaken and further understanding and awareness, because it works with the student, and not from above him. When we accept the help of the Sage in living a human life, we are guided toward fulfillment. This is why Lao Tzu declares that this is "the heart of my teaching."

For me, the central metaphor of this poem is the feminine principle that Lao Tzu weaves throughout the Tao Te Ching. I don’t know whether Lao Tzu would identify himself as a feminist; but I suspect that he’d rather have nothing to do with “-ism’s of any sort. In any event, this is not a poem about women, but about the feminine. Science teaches us that estrogen (the female hormone) is as essential to men as testosterone (the male hormone) is to women. No surprise here: science, at its best, discovers the same truths that poetry delivers—just in a slightly different language.

As a teacher and poet, feminine images mean something to Lao Tzu: the valley may be thought of as a symbol of the source, or origin, of being—the place where conception and birth occur. Water also has feminine associations: it is the home-element of the developing fetus, and it is the nourishing, life-giving substance which makes up the great majority of both our planet and our physical bodies. These simple facts point to an equally simple reality: no matter your outer gender or sexual orientation, there is a feminine principle within you, which needs to be discovered and experienced. When it is repressed or denied, we are abdicating an essential aspect of our true and complete nature, and this alienates us from ourselves and our cosmic home.

But when we open ourselves to the inner feminine, suddenly our understanding widens, and our ability to act in harmony with our true nature and its Source is furthered. This is the unforced action of Modesty (Te) as a Cosmic principle applied to human life: when you draw energy from this fertile valley of Modesty, then your action returns that energy back, pure and undistorted, to the Cosmic Whole. This, indeed, is how life is meant to be lived—as a beneficent cycle of being, in which a person uses the gift of his life-force (chi) to further the strength and purity of the Source from which he has drawn his being.

Chapters 30 and 31 may be read as a unit, for they comprise the poet's teaching on violence, in the context of war and battle. Lao Tzu begins with a critical point, which distinguishes him and his teaching from the position of mere pacifism. As always with Lao Tzu, the point has a practical direction. He is not simply waving a flower and saying, "war is bad, man, and peace is good"; he is saying "war is totally unnecessary, because there's a natural way of resolving conflict that is far more effective." If those with the power to govern people and send armies into harm's way would simply recognize the helping presences of the invisible realm of being, then they would instantly realize that those presences are a far more practical alternative than the most powerful army imaginable.

This leads the poet into a discussion of natural law: violence inevitably finds its way back to those who use it to achieve the delusory goals of group allegiance. This is the law of the fall of empires and the death of civilizations guided by the use of power and aggrandizement. The natural leader is himself a follower—a follower of the Sage; thus his action is guided by Modesty, and his inner firmness is made manifest, yet without force, display, or violence. He does not set himself or his nation against the Source of their being, for the natural leader understands that tyranny and murder are relentlessly suicidal, for both the leader and his nation.

Lao Tzu had no doubt noticed something that we may observe today in our world: those who enjoy the greatest safety from the danger of battle seem to cry the loudest for war. Let them be in governmental offices, in a posh bunker somewhere in a fortified countryside, sitting before a bank of television cameras, or residing in the editorial office of a tabloid newspaper—these are the most likely sources for the call of the hawk. These are the self-styled patriots, the "power drunk demons," as Lao Tzu refers to them, or the "walking dead," as they are referred to by Carol Anthony and Hanna Moog in I Ching: The Oracle of the Cosmic Way:

"…a person who has totally separated from his feeling consciousness, disdaining his feelings and his body. His chi energy is decreased by ignoring and suppressing his true feelings, and by rejecting the Cosmic gift of love. If neglected long enough, his inner light dwindles to a mere set of coals...the Sage calls such a person one ‘without head’ [in Hexagram 8] because he lacks the ability to further connect with the Cosmic Whole. (p. 731)."

Lao Tzu says that such a person "may be safely met with a calm and firm detachment," and this advice is echoed again in The Oracle of the Cosmic Way:

[A walking dead person] may continue in this state for many years, stealing chi energy from other people. When a person realizes that he is being drained of chi energy in this way, he needs to inwardly disconnect from and remain neutral in the presence of a walking dead person [and] that he not view that person as a culprit, as that too would give him energy. (p. 731).

Thus, the walking dead person, who has killed his own inner truth to feed his ego upon the lives of others, is the very person "for whom the funeral rites must be observed," for he has committed the act of inner suicide that is warned of in Chapter 30. When this true self is lost or repressed, as in one "who descends to playing with the toys of war," then it is the murderous demon that must be expunged, and this can only happen through our calling upon the Sage within such a person, as Lao Tzu indicates in the next poem, Chapter 32. But as long as one "delights in destruction," he will be as if possessed by that demon, and hounded by it—to the very moment of his death, and beyond. Thus, Lao Tzu's teaching about war again reaches beyond the obvious: yes, war kills living bodies, and this is indeed to be lamented; but it also warps Nature, and the human place within it—and once that is lost, there can be no survivors.

There is a natural, inherent greatness, which can be discovered by one who repudiates the false greatness of group identification. Greatness that must be sought or protected is not true greatness, but the empty elevation of ego. Lao Tzu uses this poem to help us feel the reality of true greatness: it does its work without claiming credit for it; it is free of abstraction and ideology; it turns away from any effort to aggrandize itself or its work. The fact is that our greatness is inborn: it is the treasure that is given to each individual at birth. The only way you could possibly miss it is by denying the invisible reality within you—by purchasing the ideological lie that says we are separate from the universe, superior to Nature. Discard the lie, and you will live your greatness.

With this poem, Lao Tzu comes to the end of the first half of the Tao Te Ching. This is the part of the book that is called "Tao," while the second half is called "Te." It is a matter of emphasis more than content: Te is, of course, introduced in the first half of the book, and Tao is never far from Lao Tzu's mind throughout the work as a whole. But, as will be seen, the concept of Te is brought into a detailed light in Part Two, whereas Tao has been the primary subject of the poetic dance in Part One.

Lao Tzu closes Part One with two poems, Chapters 36 and 37, that present an overview of the same process, wherein the student of the Sage approaches the journey of inner diminishment—the exposure, unraveling, and discarding of ego, in both its personal and societal contexts. It is the process of joining in partnership with the "teaching heart of liberation from attachment"—the Sage—and beginning the work of exposing and identifying what is inflated, powerful, holy ("enshrined" in Chapter 36), and saturated. Then the work of dissolving and transforming these projections, and freeing the true self from their influence, is undertaken: this is the "movement that appears to be still" of Chapter 37, the "subtle discernment" of Chapter 36, which "undermines the rigidity of power."

Lao Tzu begins Part Two of the Tao Te Ching with two of his longest poems, Chapters 38 and 39. Together, they comprise an extended meditation on Te, or the Cosmic principle of Modesty. In brief, 38 talks about "Te as Te," while 39 talks about "Te as Tao." Together, they present the core of Lao Tzu's perspective on Modesty as a fundamental principle of action and understanding in following the Tao. Both poems also warn of the consequences of separation from the principle of Modesty. To this purpose, a picture is drawn of a regressive spiral of vain dogma, error, and delusion. The cultivation of false modesty as a self-conscious promotion of one's "better nature" leads to philanthropy. This leads in turn to complacency and self-righteousness on the part of those who are the purveyors of this philanthropy, and in its wake come propriety and ritual. By this point, we are so far from our true nature that we have enclosed ourselves in a garish and grotesque "ornament of delusion." We have reached the point where we "exalt superiority" (this from Chapter 39), and have opened the door wide to corruption; we have divorced mind from consciousness and thereby created a realm of "insanity and death."

This is a wonderful and playful meditation on seeing beyond the realm of appearances. We can approach the Tao and its teaching function, the Sage, from many different perspectives, three of which Lao Tzu mentions in this poem. The "sincere student," it must be noted, is not said to be devout, reverent, or even especially serious (to judge by the poem's overall tone). He sees whether he can "steadfastly follow it," without any mention of devotion or sacrifice to an ideal: he just puts in his effort and asks for help, thus dispersing fear and awe in his approach.

Many of us have been through a similar experience to that of the "casual student," in which old belief systems (or certain precious shards thereof) are inwardly hoarded even as we begin to perceive how insanely they obstruct growth. Thus, we experience both trust and skepticism in our learning—sometimes simultaneously.

Finally, there are those who encounter the Tao and its teachings with ego mechanisms firmly in place, whose derisive laughter fills the air. Perhaps you have found yourself (either directly or implicitly) referred to as a “new age freak” or a “tree-hugging lunatic”. People who don’t know what true self-development is about will inevitably make fun of those who attempt it. But as Lao Tzu would remind us, "how could it be the Tao if it didn't make them laugh?"

The list of curious epigrams making up the second half of the poem is another example of the seemingly odd deportment of one following the Cosmic Way. The lantern light, which is also mentioned in Chapter 58, is a metaphorical image for understanding that is not garish or overbearing: it faintly glows, but never shines.

This points up another natural beauty of Lao Tzu's paradoxical approach: because it reaches into the bypaths and recesses of consciousness, the Cosmic Way is actually more efficient, since it is more thorough. This is why Lao Tzu can later say, in Chapter 53, that "the Cosmic Way is straight and easy." Similarly, natural strength may seem weak to the superficial view, because it departs from displays of power and persuasion; natural virtue may seem unimpressive to a cursory perspective, because it retreats from ideas of stiff morality and egocentric shows of compassion (what is called "idiot compassion" in the writings of Chogyam Trungpa).

In fact, there always seems to be something lacking in the action, speech, and behavior of one involved in following the Sage, because what is lacking is ego! Ego, and its linear rigidities and angularities of belief, certainty, and power.

Nestled among these observations of the poet is another and related insight, that "the most enduring truths are mutable." How can truth be enduring and mutable at the same time? Because, Lao Tzu points out, that is its nature: truth is a personal matter, an organic, growing form of living consciousness that never reaches a point of fixed certainty. Anything that is hard, fixed, and sealed in certainty is already dead and inert—this is an observation that Lao Tzu repeats throughout the book, as in, for example, Chapter 76. Fixed insight loses vision; absolute and unchanging truth is no longer true, because it is no longer alive.

This is exactly why it is such an advantage (a "practical virtue") that the Tao, and its teaching consciousness, the Sage, are "silent and concealed." Its silence gives it mutability—the capacity to take a natural shape within each individual personality; its concealment gives it an amorphous flexibility, which again makes it the unique and private inner experience appropriate to each person who approaches it in sincere steadfastness.

Here is one of Lao Tzu's paradoxical and oft-misunderstood verses. Of particular interest is the apparent reference to royalty's time-honored habit of making a pretence of orphan birth or poverty: how does this justify a neutral attitude toward impoverishment and loneliness?

When he writes about "poverty and solitude," Lao Tzu is making a metaphorical statement about the inner meaning, and sometimes the outer perception, of the way of diminishment, which he refers to throughout the book. Poverty, in this context, is about making ego poor, and isolating its false ideas and ideological rigidities: this creates the understanding that makes the leadership of the true self possible. It is then that the bipolar lies of ideology are revealed, and the natural principle of complementarity awakens to awareness. Life and death are not enemies—no more so than are winter and summer, or the two sides of your brain.

In this context, it is also worth noting the appearance of the terms "yin" and "yang" in the text—this is their only moment on Lao Tzu's poetic stage. It is worth considering that these terms may well have been added into this verse by subsequent editors or commentators, long after Lao Tzu's death. These words, yin and yang, have become so well known that they hardly need translation except in the way of clarifying the mistaken associations that have been laden onto them. You have probably encountered this: yang is light, male, strong, creative, active, solar, etc., and yin is dark, female, weak, passive, lunar, etc. The common relationship that is established between these two is of diametric opposition, or, at best, of a rather intransigent or reluctant complementarity.

This, clearly, is not Lao Tzu's meaning in using these terms (if Lao Tzu actually wrote them); nor is he establishing some sort of cosmic hierarchy in the discussion of the relationships between the Cosmic Whole, the One, the Two, and the Three. Lao Tzu has no interest in hierarchies: this entire book is dedicated to the inner demolition of hierarchical thought and belief. Ask either a mathematician or a poet whether one number is better than or superior to another, and you will be met with laughter.

In order to understand Lao Tzu, we will have to disperse some of our notions about what is meant in the relationship between one that gives birth and the one that is born, and about the "top down" ordering of numerical relationship (i.e., number one is "above" number two, and so on). The poet speaks of the Cosmic Consciousness as being beyond form and number; he adds that from this Presence came the One. What could this One be?

It seems we need to recall that this is a poem about death—not about death as the termination of life, but as transformation between form and non-form. In that context, it appears appropriate to consider that the One is the transformative action of Tao—its ability to continue the flow of life in energy-consciousness that is transformed from one state to another, and perhaps back again. In this light, we can also think of the Two as light and dark, the Cosmic energies of form and non-form. The Three must then be a mediating Presence, a set of Cosmic Principles that choreograph the dance between the light and dark energies and their manifestations in the "endless compressions of being."

These three dancers have been identified by Carol Anthony and Hanna Moog, in their book, I Ching: The Oracle of the Cosmic Way as the principles of Modesty, Equality, and Uniqueness (see Part I of that text, p. 39). These are the "great Three" that pervade the Cosmic Harmonic and each of the "endless compressions of being." Each compression is qualitatively equal to all the others, and each is unique in its autonomy. This is why the principle of Modesty is natural and necessary: Modesty is the principle discussed in Hexagram 15 of the I Ching, and here in Lao Tzu, wherever he speaks of Te (see, for example, Chapters 38 and 39). The principles are no more hierarchical than are the two ventricles of your heart (which one do you prefer?).

Thus, the Cosmic Consciousness, in its spontaneous expression as the One, the Two, and the Three, along with the numberless forms that arise from it, dances to its own pure and primordial music. Lao Tzu called that music Tao; it can also be named Love.

A horse runs without inhibition through a meadow—it doesn't plan its run, plot its course, calculate its own speed, wonder why it runs, or critically compare its gallop with that of others. It doesn't even ask whether running is allowed, or whether it even "feels like" running: there is no self-consciousness in the act. It just runs, because that is its nature, or at least an aspect of it.

This is Lao Tzu's illustration of wu-wei, the principle of unforced action. It is a hackneyed concept, and was particularly disfigured a generation ago (one might say it was "beaten to death") by the "beat generation." Wu-wei is not "non-action" in the sense of passivity, nor is it action that is carelessly or wantonly initiated, and it is certainly not a self-indulgent, "feel-good" type of energy. Wu-wei is action that proceeds from true nature, "without noise or expectation," as the poet observes; it works neither for nor against anything, and it has no fixed cause or goal. It is the energy of the total being in motion, and this is why it seems to penetrate or infiltrate the most dense and obdurate situations and circumstances. Its motion and its liquid ability to penetrate come from its lightness, for it is free of the heavy and rigid accretions of ego.

For people, this is a difficult concept to assimilate into experience, and Lao Tzu understands that: it's one reason that he wrote these 81 poems. He spends much of the Tao Te Ching encouraging us, reminding us that it is possible to learn how to let our formless inner senses and energies activate and transform life on the outer plane of being. It is possible because we already know how; we already are wu-wei. It is merely a matter of unloading the baggage of belief, expectation, display, and all the concretized trappings of ego.

This is the process of growth through diminishment described throughout the book: it is a progressive course of learning that is self-fulfilling because it is, in fact, a process of self-teaching in partnership with the teaching energy of the universe, the Sage. Indeed, there is nothing to learn except the way of diminishment: once we understand that to relieve oneself of ego is to automatically liberate the true self, then we can realize that there is nothing to attain or to cultivate. From this point of understanding, our inner horse is free to run.

When an animal or a small child enters a new situation or environment, it will be observed to "test the waters," or to cautiously assess the things, beings, patterns of activity, and other conditions of the place and situation. This ability has, in fact, been studied across various scientific and naturalistic disciplines, with fascinating findings. It is the natural ability of organisms to "recognize the limits," as Lao Tzu expresses it, to read an environment with all the senses—both inner and outer—for potential danger, avenues of retreat, and whatever there is that lies beneath the surface appearance that may inform or protect. In such circumstances, animals will be seen to rely predominantly on their sense of smell—the outer scents that the environment presents, and the inner scents that they can detect with their entire being.

Thus, Chapter 44 is a poem about recognizing the limits as a preparation for action or adaptation. We humans can learn to avoid disgrace, remorse, and danger to our true selves by relying on our own sense of caution, our own ability to see, or sniff, the limits of every situation. Lao Tzu reminds us to ask, before we reach for profit, fame, knowledge, or wealth: what is this truly bringing me, and what might it cost me? Is it as much as I need, or is it more than my true self can afford? If the inner response to these questions feels like a warning, or if it even feels ambiguous, then it is time to ask for help from the invisible realm of being, of which your inner senses partake, and to let clarity develop within before you take action. In this way, we can learn to avoid many errors and still have abundance in our lives. In the next poem, Chapter 45, Lao Tzu addresses certain inner reference points that may help us in developing the clarity that avoids excess through recognizing limitation.

In the previous poem, Lao Tzu brought the importance of recognizing limits to our attention. In this poem, he reveals life as lived beyond the obsession with appearances. The poem opens with two stanzas that contain the cautionary expressions found throughout the Tao Te Ching: things are not always what they seem, and we must see past appearances in order to further and protect our true being. Then there is an apparently paradoxical couplet, that may seem out of place: "Life stirs when it's cold/And is tranquilly still amid heat." What is Lao Tzu telling us here? There is always the obvious: sure, some creatures are busy in cold weather, but others go off and hibernate. But Lao Tzu is talking about "inner temperatures" rather than seasonal variations.

For people, success and safety in social interactions are especially crucial, and these are linked to the issue of inner temperature. When we can feel that the egos of others around us are hot and active, it is best to be still and inwardly withdrawn, so as not to arouse still more heat from them, and of course to avoid being burned. When we feel a lowering of ego-temperature in a social environment, such as when ego has been "frozen" by an external shock, or when the heat of ego has been cooled by a breeze of common interest that awakens the true selves of all within the situation, then we can discover the potential for action, relationship, and involvement. Thus, recognizing both potential and limitation within social encounters is about feeling the inner temperature, and about seeing past appearances. Indeed, these amount to the same inner process: reacting to life from the center of one’s being; retreating from the heat of ego (in both oneself and others), and warmly engaging the cool lightness of being that is encountered in those who are lacking in display, aggrandizement, forced complexity and profundity, or pretence.

Here, Lao Tzu dramatically underlines the themes he presented in Chapters 43 and 44, by referring back to the same metaphorical images of the horse and the dangers of excess. When horses are free to run (remember the discussion of wu-wei in Chapter 43), they spread nourishment back to the earth as fertilizer. But when they are bred and trained for war, then their nourishing dung is wasted on the killing fields, which are poisoned with the blood of human slaughter.

Unforced action returns nourishment to Nature, while force and power only defile it. War is always a product of the human obsession with excess; thus "the greatest curse is wanting more than you need." Not only does excess bring conflict, it makes us unable to even enjoy what we have! But to enter into a learning partnership with the Sage is to always feel when you have enough, which is the lesson of the previous two chapters. This, indeed, is the greatest blessing of all.

This poem is one of many teachings on meditation in the Tao Te Ching. Lao Tzu here reveals an overall guide to meditation, and its benefits. You needn't wander ceaselessly without, lusting for outer variety and experience: the entire Cosmos and its movements can be experienced in stillness, by closing or muting the outer senses. Meditation brings clarity, the kind of deep freedom from burdensome attachment that makes the "outward journey" truly fulfilling and restorative, rather than merely diversionary.

In this context, the "outward journey" takes on many layers of meaning, beyond the association of mere travel. The outward journey can mean the process of making a career choice, deciding on a proposal of marriage, healing an illness, or making a purchase that nourishes our life and accords with our inner being. When we allow the Sage and the other presences of the invisible world to nurture us toward clarity through regular meditation, our speech is simple and accurate, and our action is direct, but without force or effort.

Contrary to what a certain well-known American historical document may have implied, happiness is not best found through pursuit. Lao Tzu would like us to ask whether it makes inner sense to chase down happiness, understanding, or knowledge, as if they were external objects. Happiness is best revealed or discovered, and so is knowledge. Knowledge that is accumulated in the form of facts, statistics, and quotations from the "Masters" is every bit as obstructive as the accumulation of material goods with which many people seem to clutter their lives and homes.

Lao Tzu's alternative is "daily unburdening:" the regular and unrelenting inner deprogramming of the trappings of ego—intellectual clutter, degrees and diplomas, memorized formulae of theory and law, and the underlying assumption of the primacy and royalty of intellect among the various functions of the psyche. You can deprogram these errors by denying them their false claim to truth; and in this, the process of discovering the living wisdom of Tao is already underway.

The benefits of this process are synergistic: as your understanding of your natural position in the cosmic order broadens, so does that of your intellectual function within your own psyche. And once intellect is knocked off its false throne, it works far more comfortably and efficiently, because it is no longer the lonely and reluctant tyrant of the psyche. For now the intellect is a fully functioning member of the total personality, and when a person discovers his natural wholeness, nothing is wanting: therefore, the "game of inner commerce" can be gratefully abandoned.

When your inner treasure is complete, there is nothing to gain, and the bubble of pursuit is burst, along with its insatiable thirst for the fulfillment that is always just beyond its reach. Until that bubble is exploded, we cannot escape the vicious cycle of making deals on the superficial plane—deals in which our own true nature is turned into a mere commodity.

Wherever humility exists, the Sage approaches, ready to help and to teach, for "humility is the breath of the Cosmos." Humility is the sincere act of "calling out," in the sense of simply asking the Sage for help in understanding, while completely suspending both belief and disbelief. This is what makes true learning possible in the Way. Error is never a life sentence, but is itself a part of the learning process. The Sage returns a doubting approach with "truthful Modesty," and in this there is the possibility of growth and a return to sincerity and humility. When we are able to drop, or at least suspend, the attitude of fixed belief, we are then approaching the Sage with the necessary sincerity and humility for it to respond.

I was guided in this verse to let the words Tao and Te speak for themselves without translation, if only to allow the music of this wonderful lyric play as freely as possible in this setting. As one would expect, it reads far more beautifully in the original Chinese, with its plainsong style rhythm and alliteration, particularly in the iteration of the character chih throughout the poem (it appears fifteen times, and is a possessive or nominative pronoun, which could mean "he/she/they" or "his/hers/their" or "him/her/them"). Even in English, this poem is an excellent illustration of how Lao Tzu's musical voice complements his teaching voice.

It is very hard to hear the voice of the Formless presence within when you spend your life in constant talk and impulsive intervention into others' affairs. The poet's message in this verse is especially appropriate to family relationships, where the machinations of power and control operate both openly and insidiously, often through cultural rules of loyalty, fidelity, and hierarchy. Thus, Lao Tzu offers a teaching on opening the heart to the family of the universe, a reference to the feeling presences of the invisible world. He again chooses a feminine symbol, "Mother Formless." This evokes the message of Hexagram 37 of the I Ching, called "The Family," which also draws upon feminine metaphor in its Judgment text, "the perseverance of the woman furthers." When we connect with the feeling presence of the Cosmic Mother, we open ourselves in turn to the community of beings within Nature that are her children: this is the "microscopic discernment within" that fulfills and reveals the natural life of the human family. When this discernment, this clarity, is present, the feudal structures of fealty and hierarchy can be discarded, and we discover that truly, "the tenderest embrace is the strongest." In Nature, the home is not a castle; the family is not a hierarchical ordering of roles according to such things as age or gender; there is no "breadwinner" or "provider"; no false duties of honor and obedience; and no titles or rules of ownership among the family members. These, indeed, are actually the bitter constraints that create division and breakdown within the family, and which lead the heart into torment, as the poet says.

One who follows the Tao is ready to explore his entire being, in all its depth and variety. But one who treads the stark road of ego becomes trapped in side-paths and dead-ends that close off understanding in a cycle of want, frustration, and unceasing effort. The more you grasp for, the more you obtain; the more you obtain, the more you feel you need, and the more your true self is taken from you: thus, "extravagance is a thief."

Lao Tzu uses the final stanza to create a play on words, which cannot be exactly reproduced in English. He uses the word "tao," which means "thief, robber" to say that extravagance is a "tao" which robs one of Tao. For this version, I decided to simply insert a slightly different word-play in the closing couplet, again on the word Tao (pronounced "dow"), so that the answer to Lao Tzu's rhetorical question, "is this the way of Tao?" is, "I dow-ed it." The point of this is not merely to copy Lao Tzu's pun, nor to make the reader laugh (after all, any joke that has to be explained never was a joke), but rather to show that Lao Tzu was not a self-conscious or moralistic thinker. Even when he has a serious point to make, as he does here, he does it without bombast or moral assault.

Here the poet imagines a being who has just arrived from another world, and how such a one may be entirely unconscious of the fears and pretences of humans. In this he finds a metaphor for the follower of Tao who has developed, or rather revealed, his true inner self. We are reminded of the stark imagery of Chapter 20, where the contrast is drawn between himself and the followers of the collective. There we met the poet himself—weak, naive, strange, dull, and separate—divorced from the world of purchase and competition, of power and control, of pursuit and its incipient fear. For himself, Lao Tzu can only explain that he is indeed different, for he "drinks from the breast of the Sublime Mother."

Then, here in Chapter 55, the "alien" metaphor is even more vividly raised, so that it is almost reified: the subject of this poem is one who simply has no inner discourse with the values and fears of the collective, yet the positive bounty that comes of that separation is made clear. This person is strong, sexually able and (presumably) active, secure in the consciousness that "his body's life is the only blessing he needs." He has no need of new age gimmicks—mind control, self-improvement, or the nurturing of physical power through the manipulation of the life force within him. This person has all he needs in his physical being and its freedom from the constraints and self-conscious fears bred by ideologies and systems of religion or other forms of group belief. This, indeed, is his "subtle illumination": he is beyond the fixation with appearances; his understanding reaches past collective perception, past the pursuit of power, beyond intellect and deep into the realm of his feeling nature.

One note on translation must be added, since this rendering departs significantly from traditional texts, where the phrase chih tzu is taken to symbolize the follower of Tao as an infant or baby. I was guided to see that phrase as a compound that actually entails a play on words with Lao Tzu's own name (the same character can mean both "baby" and "philosopher"), the meaning of the whole being "one who is newly arrived." From there, it was no great stretch of imagination to see that the poet was thinking of a person or being who had appeared on earth from another world. This image seems to better resonate with the descriptions that follow it, and to emphasize the unique inner separation discussed above. It also places an appropriate context on the line chung jih hao erh pu sha, which is normally taken to refer to the baby that cries all day without getting hoarse. Clearly, Lao Tzu would not wish for us to draw such a comparison between a wailing infant and one who is said (in the very next line) to possess an "unshakeable peace." Indeed, there is no subject specified for whoever is crying or yelling; I found that it made the most inner sense as a comparison between the noise of the collective and the peace of the one in harmony with himself and his Origin.

One of the wonders of this little book of poems is how Lao Tzu was able to hammer so lightly at the same themes, and with such delightful variation in expression, so that each repetition is fresh and uniquely nourishing. The themes here presented should be quite familiar by now to one who has read the poems in order to this point: the intrinsic value of dispersing excess in speech and action, the fulfillment that comes of dimming down the outer senses and turning within toward one's feeling nature, the deep love that is drawn to one who abandons claim and possession on others, and the natural grace that arises in one who is "unmoved by fame."

In many traditional renderings of this verse, it is presented as a teaching on sitting meditation: be quiet, close off your senses, be soft and still as you settle your inner dust. This is a very good approach, but perhaps only to half the poem, as it were. I have been guided to see this verse as Lao Tzu's teaching on living as meditation: how the inner values and practices that we usually think of as meditation (sitting down and being open, still and silent) can become a way of life. After all, meditation that is not continued into life has nothing of value over an afternoon nap.

I think that Lao Tzu would like us to learn to disperse the division between the practice of meditation and the activity of daily living. Meditation is not properly a means of escape or relaxation from the rat race beyond the chair or cushion; it is meant to be what infuses the relationships and activities of every waking moment. When the way we do our work, raise our children, manage our homes, and interact socially becomes increasingly indistinguishable from the way we meditate, then the lesson of this poem will have been fully integrated into our lives. For this is where meditation takes us beyond the enrichment of life in a bodily form, and into the realm of true immortality, where "you are lovingly received into the Heart of Nature forever." As the division between inner and outer, between meditation and living, is dissolved, so is that between form and non-form, until the empty falsehood of death-as-ending is finally discarded. What then remains is all we need: life beyond time, perpetuated in consciousness.

Clearly, there are points in this book where Lao Tzu "takes the gloves off," and this is one of them. Yet this verse goes far beyond a mere diatribe against laws and lawyers, armies and weapons, technologies of dull convenience, and the depredations of politicians and corporate tyrants, for the poet again offers a natural alternative to the proliferation of tyranny. As amazing as it may be to contemplate how little humans appear to have changed in 2,600 years, we must also read this poem with a view to its practical purpose: the gifts of peace, abundance, and true progress that we naturally desire as both individuals and as nations are more readily available to us than we have been led to believe by those who would define them in terms of legislation, power, and the manipulation of Nature. Drop the struggle, for there is nothing that needs to be fought; let the meditative life described in the previous poem guide you and your nation; lead by example and consensus, not with force or commandment. This is the way of return that is spoken of throughout this book, and the poet would like us to understand that though it must begin within each individual, it can continue in an entire nation.

Affluence and power fail to endure because they require the support of an illusion of success, which is inevitably exposed. There is no such thing as grandeur, either in being the most powerful nation or the most famous person; there is only an outer display, which needs increasingly greater energy to disguise itself as genuine success. Thus, the effort of vigilance in maintaining an image is never relaxed: though its presentation may vary, such change is superficial and ephemeral, and will never endure. In the realm of image-making, therefore, "deceit and resentment are the coin," because the shifts in the landscape are confined to the apparent, and leave the inner plane ignored or repressed; thus, the deep and lasting glow of transformation is completely lacking.

The way of the Sage is to turn within and scrape away the overlaid delusions of grandeur with which the prophets and self-styled seers have obscured the original insight of true nature. This is the "inner cutting" which requires no outer sharpness; the inner light that doesn’t need to shine. True insight lacks glare; thus, it endures.

Here is Lao Tzu's guide to those involved in what are today called "the helping professions." If you are a therapist, a counselor, a doctor, a financial advisor, or involved in any work that offers help to others in the form of information and supportive services for the furtherance of physical, psychological, or material well-being, then you may have something to learn from this poem.

Lao Tzu's first point is crucial: helping others is not about sacrificing yourself. To "give of yourself" in the sense of sacrifice is the self-indulgent vanity of the hero, and Lao Tzu would like us to have none of this nonsense, for that is of no help to anyone.

Helping in the Cosmic Way is more about "reflecting nurturance"—that is, allowing oneself to be a "camera obscura of help," through which the true source of help reflects itself and is made effective. This true source of help comes from nature and the universe in their simple and often unseen energy-flows.

In the I Ching, such supportive currents of nature were known as “helpers.” Curiously, and as quaint as it may sound to the modern ear, the term "helpers" has cognate variants in contemporary English, even within the icily objective field of scientific medicine. "Helper T Cells" are essential cellular elements of the body's immune system: when they are not present in the bloodstream, or are killed by a viral attack such as that which causes HIV/AIDS, the results can be disastrous for the organism. In the treatment of cancer, there is a type of therapy known as "adjuvant therapy." The word "adjuvant" is Latin for "helping." Other examples could be given, but the point is that the idea of helping presences, even from within ourselves, is not a strange or esoteric notion. Lao Tzu would like us to keep this in mind wherever we propose to help others, for when we can successfully include these helpers of the Cosmic Consciousness in our daily lives and our professional endeavors, we clear the way for the "continual nourishment of the harvest," which can only come (for humans) in the presence of Te, or Modesty. Modesty, in turn, is present wherever we deny ego, with its intrusive and clumsy interference, any influence in the helping process,. Modesty enables transformation: it can arouse the helpers and thus be "indomitable" because it is pure consciousness, which has the quantum ability to reach past time and space, into the subatomic realm where true healing occurs.

Lao Tzu, with his characteristic gentle humor, uses a seemingly mundane image to make a point about a matter of immense substance to both his own time and ours. Cooking a fish may seem mundane indeed compared to governing a nation, but it wasn't for a common person living in Lao Tzu's time in ancient China. You had to work to catch a fish and prepare the materials necessary for cooking it, and you weren't likely to get a second chance at dinner if you did it wrong. Aside from the work of catching the fish, a fire had to be built and tended until it was a bed of hot coals appropriate for cooking. The ting, or cooking pot used in those days, had to be properly set over the heat for optimal results, and attention had to be directed toward the entire process. This might have involved shaking the ting regularly, so that the fish cooked itself, as it were, in its own fat, and then recognizing the visual signs of "done-ness."

This kind of care and attention is what Lao Tzu would like leaders among people to apply to their governmental and administrative functions, for it is this non-intrusive and modest attention that allows the Tao and its helpers to complete the work of both cooking (providing outer nourishment) and leadership (providing inner nourishment). Even where the details vary (according to the kind of fish you are cooking, or the population you are leading), there is a common element to the experience: removing power and its trappings from the relationship, and allowing it to be transformed from a demonic display of force and manipulation, into a natural harmony between the leader and the led. At all events, it must be remembered that the nourishment and protection come not from ourselves, but from the hidden consciousness that is aroused by Modesty (Te).

There is a palpable lesson in this poem for modern leaders—especially those who contemplate the invasion of foreign lands with the most spurious and concocted justification. To thus attack and destroy the land and homes of others, when there exist far more efficient means of resolving a conflict, is to "burn the fish" and rob the people of the nourishment they most need—their own individual, inner independence.

All sense of territory is the mark of ego, and is repugnant to the cosmic order. Thus the poet declares that "borders and boundaries, fences and flags" are meaningless to one who follows the Sage: this applies to both "hearts and nations"—individuals and entire civilizations.

Here, a personal meditation image may help to illustrate Lao Tzu's point. It is a meditation that I have sometimes wished I could offer to members of the armed forces. It is very simple: you close your eyes and take a space flight, journeying out to an orbiting distance of the earth. Then, as many astronauts have done—often in a transformational experience, as was the case with Edgar Mitchell—you look back onto the earth and see both what is there, and what is not. Water and clouds, light and shadow, earthen colors of varying hues, from tawny mountain to verdant plain, all appear to the eye. But no borders, walls, fortresses, or other emblems of territory are seen from this distance. In such a setting, the Cosmos is seen to lack a sense of power, and the superficial paradigm of the universe as a mechanical system is annihilated and transformed: things in motion appear to rest in stillness, while the Whole, in this suspension, seems to dance with small, unceasing movement. But perhaps the most significant part of the meditation is the return to earth, where the perspective thus received is brought back into contact with a chair, a room, and light through a window. It is here, rather than in the "space flight" that the transformation is revealed; it is back on earth where the discovery occurs that, as Lao Tzu says, "pure strength rests below, and absorbs what lies above."

This verse contains a life-affirming message: there is no such thing as a point of no return, at or beyond which the treasure of Tao is forever lost. However far ego may have made you wander, into whatever dark dead end it might have brought you, return to the treasure is always possible, as long as you have the inner ability to make a choice. Thus, "every error can be corrected," for it is in that simple moment of decision and commitment that the open embrace of the Cosmos is rediscovered.

This verse is notable for containing what is perhaps the most famous, and therefore the most misinterpreted, expression from the Tao Te Ching (and perhaps from all of Chinese philosophy), which is usually translated as:

The journey of a thousand miles

Begins with a single step.

As I worked with this couplet and the other metaphors from that second stanza, the question arose: "does Lao Tzu really mean to glorify the tree and the tower, and to have us pursue the “thousand mile journey?” It seems, from the context of the verse itself and the rest of the Tao Te Ching, that the answer to this question would be, in fact, "no." If trouble is best managed "before it becomes troublesome," then we are clearly being asked to perceive the grown tree, the tower, and the long journey, as the metaphorical consequences of "unmanaged trouble." This tilt in perspective gives the poem a pragmatic message, which is consistent with Lao Tzu's insight from other verses, particularly with regard to the metaphor of the long journey.

In other places, Lao Tzu reminds us that we can know the whole world without leaving our doorway, and that the outer wanderer too easily gets trapped in a net of attachment. Thus, Lao Tzu would consider the "long journey" to be the consequence of having failed to identify and retreat from the many short and early steps of ego. This is why the follower of Tao "monitors desire [and] retreats from attachment": so that his self-awareness prevents the necessity of taking any "long journeys"—pointless and dangerous odysseys of seeking and yearning. The farther we wander, the more do we become attached to the saga, until we are trapped in a net of seeking. This leads to increasing misdirection and suffering, so that the way of return is made ever more difficult, as Odysseus himself discovers in Homer's epic poem.

There is another crucial point being made in this verse, which is particularly significant to our time and culture, and it is about time and completion. Lao Tzu warns us of the danger of "collapse in failure" at the very brink of success, and he stresses the importance of humility and caution, especially near the end of a project or undertaking. For this is where the ego's urge for completion is most likely to become careless or obsessive.

People are not by nature stupid and submissive, as some would make them out to be. This is why it is so difficult to govern them with "trickery and brilliance," because they can inwardly read deceit and corruption in a leader, even if they appear to go along with the program.

"A country ruled with cleverness" is one whose leaders have set themselves above and apart from the people. It is as if such leaders parade their own enlightenment in the ways of governing before the people (a very common practice in election campaign speeches), to prove their fitness to rule. Inevitably, such nonsense will be exposed, because it traps itself in its own complex net of lies.

Lao Tzu offers a more practical and resonant approach to leadership, which accords with his teaching on personal governance: "remaining aware of the alternatives." It is to be noted that he does not speak in terms of "remaining aware of the opposites," because he is trying to lead us past an apparent paradox. To live well (and to lead well) by living simply is not to reduce every course of action to diametrically opposed paths, but to nurture one's own inner ability to feel and balance an entire range of alternatives. For when every decision is reduced to one of two opposing options (the Republican way or the Democratic way; to attack or to resort to diplomacy; to tax and spend or to offer tax breaks), a broad spectrum of possibility is ignored. It is within that very spectrum that the correct solution usually lies, and not at the polar extremes of choice. When we are reduced to governing from within the realm of opposites, then trickery and manipulation are required to divert the people from following the way of common sense and inner clarity. Lao Tzu is asking the modern leader, "why waste or repress resources that will make your job infinitely easier?" For when the Sage is allowed to lead, then much of the work of governing tends to happen by itself, through the "natural virtue" of each individual. This process leads the nation to the harmony in which true leadership spontaneously occurs; this is the "simple innocence" of which the poet speaks.

Lao Tzu here continues his discussion of the theme of leadership from the previous poem. When leaders of the people allow the Sage to guide them in their work, they become like water. It doesn't calculate its flowing course, but simply follows the shape of the land wherever it leads, whether through a king's domain or into the depths of a ravine. As it travels, the water nourishes the land that receives it, in a dance of complementarity: the land provides the space and direction for the water's movement, and the water returns to it the elements necessary for fertile growth. Thus does the poet advise leaders: "learn first to follow," and then "learn to nourish." In nature, neither the water nor the land put on airs of superiority, control, or command, but each provides the other what it needs to realize its destiny. This is the way to lead people: follow the shape of their needs and circumstances, and then ask for the guidance of the Sage in providing them the direction and sustenance they need to fulfill their destiny. Thus, you will not offend them, because they will not perceive you as a superior; and you will never exhaust them, because they will not see you as a competitive force. This is the way of true benevolence.

The Tao, of course, is not at all extraordinary—only ego makes it so. Tao is the ordinary, normal way of life and being within the cosmos. Lao Tzu didn't create the Tao—it is not a figment of his imagination, nor some cosmological theory he invented, nor a pleasant but idle puddle of poetic fancy. Tao is Lao Tzu's name for the living Consciousness that we can experience through our inner life, and Te (Modesty) is a word for how that experience can transform both the outer and inner aspects of our lives. Lao Tzu is again encouraging us to "negate the excess" of fixed beliefs and attitudes toward life and the cosmos, and experience Tao for ourselves, within ourselves—to see how this living but impersonal Presence finds voice and substance within the unique vessel of each true self—for where it leads, the true self follows.

In the inner war, a spirit of vengeance inflames and empowers the demons of ego, since it casts us headlong into the bloody hell of opposition. This undermines the goal of self-development, which is to kill and transform the demonic consciousness of acculturation. To manage such a war correctly requires an attitude of humility—you put the work into the hands of those best able to do it right—the helping energies of the hidden world. This is how true greatness is achieved.

This poem contains a warning against adopting a way of impulsive action, which will inevitably trap a person within a self-perpetuating cycle of opposition, where conflict is unceasing, battle lines always drawn and redrawn, where truce is tenuous and temporary, and where only sorrow wins. As elsewhere in the Tao Te Ching, the metaphor of "moving the feet" is symbolic of impulsive action—see also Chapters 31 and 64. Again, Lao Tzu points out that aggression tends to perpetuate itself: the search for outer enemies is the first and final act of self-destruction.

In this poem, Lao Tzu asks the Tao itself to speak in the first person, describing its nature, action, and the correct means of approaching it. In the very first line, the essence of the Tao in action is revealed: transformation. The Pinyin Chinese word for transformation is "yi," the very same character in the title of the oracle, "Yi Jing" (which is the same as I Ching in the Wade-Giles system of transliteration). As in Chapter 1 and throughout the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu describes the natural use of language as the path of Te, or Modesty: the Tao in action within the human realm of being. Words cannot tell us what Tao is, but they can tell us what it does—how it functions through our unique consciousness. Language arises from inner clarity, and it expresses this clarity; then, it returns to the Origin, which is silence. This is the transformative path of natural language—a path that is described here and in Hexagram 1 of the I Ching.

Negative emotions, such as hatred, envy, pity, and contempt are the symptoms of the metaphorical disease described in this poem. The symptoms of the disease must be watched, because they lead one to the "seed of disease," which is the arrogance of knowledge, exemplified in the false and superficial ideas that comprise the one-sided vision of scholarly accumulation (see also Chapter 81). True awareness is the consciousness of the poverty of knowledge in isolation from the totality of being; to fully sense this poverty is to "feel one's own pain," without the empty and officious compassion of a politician, a guru, or some other authority. This is the "awareness of disease" that Lao Tzu reminds us to nurture within ourselves: the deep self-knowledge that comes when you are acutely aware of not-knowing. This is the path of true independence.

The fear of God is of a distant and threatening Being, which can only inflict pain and guilt, while repressing one's inner truth (the "true Guide" mentioned). Societies and governments behave like such a daunting God-force when they dictate and limit the acceptable norms of living and working, even to the point of defining what a proper home and job must be. When these strictures are lifted, then there is the deepest liberation. Just be sincere, and you will be helped.

The peculiar structure of this verse, with its apparently clumsy redundancy, has been a matter of comment and rationalization by scholars and translators. Perhaps this poem's structure is best explained as a matter of emphasis: Lao Tzu is underscoring the inexorable and appalling connection between taxation and hunger, oppression and rebellion, despair and the cheapening of life. The expression "the people" is not a mere empty ideological abstraction, to be written into constitutions and political speeches, while each unique individual within the nation is forgotten or suppressed. Lao Tzu uses the alliterative language of verse to make a subtle but crucial point: "the people" are real beings, not a collective abstraction, and so when a government represses their natural freedom or robs them of their livelihood, then it has stolen from the treasure of each individual's life and its potential.

The Tao Te Ching as a work of significant environmental awareness is again highlighted in this verse. Lao Tzu uses the image of a bow that draws itself, without the need of arrows, to describe the operations of Nature: it continually adjusts and maintains its balance when it "draws off excess" to "provide for what is depleted." This metaphor was copied, probably by a Confucian writer, into the Image of Hexagram 15, Modesty, of the I Ching:

Thus the superior man reduces that which is too much,

And augments that which is too little. (Wilhelm/Baynes, p. 64).

However, Lao Tzu points out that there is no need for a "superior" or "cultivated" man to achieve this balance. Indeed, fixed notions of superiority and inferiority, higher and lower, are certain to disrupt and distort the way of Nature. All that is needed is the presence of the true self, unencumbered by false notions of superiority or acculturation. Our natural being knows exactly how to accord with the cosmic principle of inner balance: simply allow the long and the short to complement and support one another, because they are truly equal. For the bow is drawn, after all, with but one string.

Discovering the essence through discarding the excessive is a recurring theme in the Tao Te Ching, and it applies to both inner and outer government. Chapter 48 pictured the growth of the natural personality as a process of diminishment and disburdening, which is contrasted with the commerce of ego-activity. Here, in Chapter 80, a different set of metaphors for this process is presented. Lao Tzu wants us to know not merely what Te is not, but what it is: what it feels like, how it manifests itself in society, and how entirely sufficient it is to the management of a natural life.

The expression, Po chi’h chi, here rendered as "Let your talents be manifold and diverse," is often translated as "labor saving devices." I was led to understand this expression as a metaphor for cleverness, or the agile use of the intellect. Lao Tzu is saying that cleverness is not a quality to be demonized or despised, but rather to be transformed by placing it at the service of one's feeling nature; it is not to be put on display or used to humiliate or debase others.

"Wagons for loading" is another I Ching metaphor that Lao Tzu draws upon; it comes from Hexagram 14, line 2. In The Oracle of the Cosmic Way text, this is found to be a metaphor for the Helper of Transformation. (p. 206)—that is, a transformative energy that creates enduring change within a person or situation.

"There may be crowing and barking among you" refers to the activity of ego, both in conflict, self-display, and the egotistical commerce referred to in Chapter 48. However, in this poem, Lao Tzu assures us that we have the inner wherewithal to recognize such error and go on without becoming trapped in its contentious snares.