When the world is governed according to Tao,
Horses are used to work the land.
When the world is not governed according to Tao,
Warhorses and weapons are sent to the frontier.
There is no greater calamity than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
There is no greater disaster than greed.
Those who are contented with contentment
Always have enough.
The inevitable fully green society is not simply waiting for the reformation of social institutions that have vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
If only it were that easy.
No, what the inevitable fully green society is waiting for is the transformation of human nature.
We are not going to be able to rein in the powerful institutions that stand in the way until we rein in the worst traits of humanity -- those that allow us to desecrate nature and exploit our fellow human beings without conscience or thought of the long-range consequences. As I pointed out in Part 1 of this series, I find that Taoism is particularly timely in addressing the dilemmas we face through its profound love of both humanity and nature.
Taoism is the indigenous lifeway of ancient China, a philosophy based on bringing people into accord with the Tao, or Way, that creates and sustains all form from within. Like many other schools of thought that seek to ground individuals in the living reality of nature and psyche, Taoism begins with the traditional recognition that the Way is beyond the rational mind's grasp of words and ideas.
The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao itself.
The name that can be given is not the name itself.
The unnameable is the source of the universe.
......
Its wonder and manifestations are one and the same.
Since their emergence, they have been called by different names.
Their identity is called the mystery.
From mystery to further mystery:
The entry of all wonders!
~~ Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1, trans. Chang Chung-yuan
This famous passage introduces several key points that make it particularly well-adapted to green philosophy. First, it recognizes that there exists a mysterious immaterial force at work in the on-going creation of matter and life. Second, it recognizes that its spiritual wonder and material manifestations are one and the same. And, third, it recognizes that focusing on the self-sameness of spirit and matter is the Way to a personal, first-hand, experience of the unnameable source of the universe.
In short, we are brought into accord with the immaterial source of creation when we experience all matter as spirit. Seeing that everything physical is the sacred necessarily alters our perception of self and other, drawing us into the oceanic experience of the non-duality of the One. If all matter, in other words, is sacred, then it becomes impossible to treat it otherwise: neither other people nor nature can be harmed.
Without this first-hand experience of the self-sameness of nature and psyche, it is easy for us to slip into either the kind of base materialism that rejects the validity of anything beyond the senses or the kind of spiritual nihilism that rejects the validity of the world of the senses. The Tao, as the ever-present union of opposites, balances and harmonizes extremes, bringing everything back to center over the long run, so that there is nothing that is not eventually the Way. We are brought into accord with the Tao, then, when we sensitize ourselves to its unitary nature by cultivating a profound and equal respect for matter and spirit.
As might be expected, such a balanced philosophy of life has developed a well-articulated code of ethics:
When the world is governed according to Tao,
Horses are used to work the land.
When the world is not governed according to Tao,
Warhorses and weapons are sent to the frontier.
There is no greater calamity than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
There is no greater disaster than greed.
Those who are contented with contentment
Always have enough.
It is in this practical application of the Tao that we see the intimate connection between government, nature and individual responsibility.
When government is guided by a sense of the sacredness of everything, then our interaction with nature is one of harmony and gratitude for our sustenance. When government lacks a sense of the sacred, however, the same resources are turned toward aggression and dominance. Such impropriety on the part of government can only be countermanded by society supporting the very best in its individuals -- making contentment the highest value rather than wealth, status or fame is the necessary re-valuing of values that offers us the surest road to a self-sustaining lifeway that celebrates a long-standing time of peace and prospering for all.
It is lavish desires, discontent and greed, after all, that fuel the fire of war. Only when we personally experience these attributes as the cause of the greatest calamity, deepest guilt and darkest disaster do we voluntarily place the well-being of the Whole ahead of our private self-interest. The vision of the One is based on the Taoist precept that everything we know about spirit we have learned by analog from nature.
The One is, like the rainforest, a riot of plurality, a celebration of diversity. It is a unity of neither uniformity nor conformity. It encourages and rewards the exploration of potential individual forms. The One is the ever-present force of coherence, the indwelling essence holding things together: it is not hierarchical, it is relational. When we name it, we call it the universal path, the common Way, upon which all creation moves. When we experience its immaterial presence, we are attuned to the Underlying Harmony of civilization and nature. The products of our own handiwork, both technological and artistic, then fit with our environment's creations and reveal to us our own sacred nature.
Now, of course, people will argue than discontent is the force that drives people to discover better things and is the very heart of progress. The counter-argument to this is that simply creating new things is not in and of itself progress: without the wisdom to know what not to do, we do not progress but engage in self-destructive behaviors that not only harm our own lives but those of the generations to come. Treating matter as dead inorganic material and plants and animals solely as resources for our own well-being is a terrible act of violence against creatures who perfected their adaptation to the world long before we appeared on the scene.
The inevitable fully-green global society is growing not simply out of the need to design a self-sustaining lifeway. It is part of the emerging world culture whose self-governance is rooted in the shared personal experience of the sacredness of everything. As originally conceived and expressed, the Tao is the creative force Itself working from inside every creation: to experience the Tao, we need only find it within ourselves and to express It, we need only give it free rein to act naturally. By acting like nature, setting our intent on The Benefit Of All like water and soil and sunlight, we move beyond self-destructive self-interest and embody enlightened self-interest. Then, and only then, Taoism proposes, will we be content with contentment and always have enough.
'The Toltec I Ching,' by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden, has been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, "64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World," hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.
Go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.
Two companion volumes, The Five Emanations, and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune, have recently been published that expand on carrying the practices forward in the modern world.
Holly Palance: The Tao Of High Heels...Then And Now
Green–Tao theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Green-Tao Theorem -- from Wolfram MathWorld
The primes contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions
The Tao of Green: Building an Environmental Ethic with Taoist ...
there are differences in translations of the tao te ching. some seem profoundly different in word choices and concepts, but i enjoy the variety of thoughts.
my favorite is the translation by steven mitchell. it's beautifully written and also comes in a pocket size that is smaller than the average wallet.
but for those who prefer a less accessable version, it's also on line:
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html
agreed: when i was born, the world population was 2.5 billion people and it's now 7 billion. over-population strains not just the environment but social structures as well. it's an issue that simply must be addressed seriously by all states AND religions.
agreed, also: mitchell's translation is lyrically beautiful and nicely produced. my preference for Chang Chung-yuan's version is based on his intimacy with all other versions as well as Classical Chinese. He is both a researcher and practitioner of the highest order. Similar is Harold D. Roth, whose "Original Tao" is a magnificent translation of the oldest Taoist test (pre-dating the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu, both).
Thanks for adding substantively to the conversation,
william
Agreed and doubly agreed.
Thanks for your time and attention.
All the Best,
William
The first time I saw a Green Hermit hummingbird in the wild, in a sun-dappled clearing in the rainforest, when it came up and looked me in the eyes, hovering just a few feet from my face, I realized just what you are saying.....
Thank you for your heart-felt contribution to the conversation,
William
As I sat there, I imagined an existence where only that which was knowable via our senses was possible. It left me with a feeling of emptiness and briefly a bit liberated too. If this life is all there is, then using and appreciating it everyday was the best possible way to honor it, I concluded.
Despite the emptiness, I couldn't shake the feeling that there's an energy in the world beyond our comprehension. Just about this time, a breeze picked up and I found myself watching the leaves on the trees, and hearing the soft rustling sound they made. It was like a song or rather possibly a voice. And it was then that I realized that the voice of God, the One, the Unnamed, was all around us; in the wind, the rustling of leaves, the songs of the birds and it was speaking in a language more deeply felt than any dialect.
The Way is an individual journey we all must take.
I still don't know what or if anything exists beyond this life, but "not knowing" is OK and part of the journey.
So I agree with what you say, as far as it goes, and I am happy to have the ride that my brain creates, but I always add the distinction that none of it physically exists out there as what I experience, even though it totally and completely occurs that way inside the mechanism.
1.
I appreciate your point and understand its basis. I note that you are careful to say that the "world you are describing does not exist" and that "none of it physically exists out there as what I experience". This of course is different than saying that it doesn't exist.
Obviously, the world is an ocean of subatomic-events-in-transition on a level much too small for our senses to register. Likewise, the cosmological phenomena on a universe-in-transition (or even multiverse) level are too vast for our senses to register.
Hence, their designation, microcosmic and macrocosmic levels. Our senses, of course, are attuned to the mesocosmic level, the middle level......AND are made up of the same stuff as the stuff they are sensing. The fact that the senses are made up of microcosmic events (subatomic particles/waves) that nonetheless self-organize into mesocosmic senses that register other self-organizing constellations of microcosmic events as "real" on the mesocosmic level makes conclusions about the reality of such events, in my opinion, more of an open question than you are allowing for.
2.
The awe felt at moments of looking at nature or into the eyes of a loved one cannot, in my mind, be brushed aside with "it must all be happening in our body and between our ears".
Of course: "Nothing, save mind, can be conceived" (Padma Sambhava). But that does not imply anything about existence or non-existence. I agree with you completely about the fact that "reality" is not wholly what are senses tell us and that everything we conceive is naturally a conception.
But the Tao is the Way of the Middle Path. It holds that while we are here in this mesocosmic level, we train ourselves to be increasingly sensitive to the self-sameness of reality and appearance. This accounts for such wisdom teachings shared across the Taoist, Chan, Zen, Buddhist, and Sufi traditions as: "Form Itself is the Formless" and "Form Itself is the Beloved".
Intellectual knowledge, in such traditions, is still in the realm of Thinking and has yet to leap into the realm of Being, where "It pours forth from the breast to cover Heaven and Earth".
I fully appreciate the time you've taken to present your thoughts on this matter.
Wishing you all the very best,
William
This experience is very much what I am pointing to, of course, as the connection between "being content with contentment" and the first-hand experience of the self-sameness of matter and spirit. I am happy for you that such a moment arrived and did not passed unnoticed: it seems to me that these moments hold vast potential for transforming all the life experiences that follow—and, in doing so, hold vast potential for exerting a positive influence on the lives of others, as well.
In the end, there is little more than can be said except that "not knowing" is part of being content with contentment.
I appreciate your taking the time to recount the moment, which has the potential to stretch out, unbroken, forever,
William
My experience is and has been a part of a long learning process for me. Someone else's experiences will be totally different, perhaps the opposite of mine. And if as "Thunk" states, my experiences are all within myself and not "out there", that's OK. Our perceptions are our own and no one has an absolute handle on this thing called life.
We see only a 3- dimensional world, but science postulates that there are many more, possibly 20 dimensions and that's not even mentioning the theory of multiverses. A person can believe these hypotheses or choose to wait until they are actually proven facts. Choice is at the heart of our perceptions, like multiple witnesses to any event, the point of view will always varying from person to person.
In the long run, what matters most I think, is staying open to possibilities and open to life; just when you think you have the answers, you discover you actually don't.
thanks again for the input,
Klad
As I have heard, a few centuries ago, a mystic rabbi was asked by a young couple about to marry for the secret of life. He was kind enough to answer them, "Everything is God. Live well. Die easy." This awareness of the presence of the sacred in everything seems to me to be the first-hand realization at the root of true spirituality.
Thank you for the kindness of your thoughts, emotions and memories,
William
It's the great refrain in the cosmic sing-a-long....
Blessings, and more blessings, to all!
Be Well & Ecstatic,
William
So in my context, the spiritual journey is of necessity personal. I can distinguish the nature of my experience and get the help of others in doing so. I can take inspiration from any source. I can stand for what I want, either as an expression of greed or as an expression of love, and enroll others in it. But I have no conviction that all of that "exists" anywhere but as my individual organism fulfilling its own specific life intention. My own life form's irrational quest for well-being is something I know and sense as transcendent, but to me it is not a greater purpose in anything that actually exists. Greed, sacredness, and love are all parts of the mechanism. So for me, acceptance of reality as it is, including the greed, while fulfilling my personal life intention with its consequences on what really exists, is a more peaceful world than the world of fixing forever what's hysterically wrong for some fictional "we" in some fictional world. You are a poet. Show me the path, enroll me in it as a vision, but the words about how every citizen should follow your path for some purpose out there are meaningless to me.
To me it's a little different. I find it hard not to accept the existence of a scientific reality which has nothing to do with our senses at all, but is known only by the rational deconstruction of physical reality. I say that, not out of any proof, but only because science works. It is the nihilism that doesn't so much "reject" the validity of the world of the senses, as precede it and produce it. The world of our senses and meaning and beauty are created by the brain, not because it represents anything that "exists", but only because it is a mechanism of the organism that works to keep us alive. We get tripped us when we think that "exist" is what matters. Meaning is created in "not exist", from patterns of neurons firing and bodily chemical states, and all springs from the mystery of the life form itself. The physical agent-less intentional organism responding to it's environment, and the world in the mind that it creates IN THE SPECIFICITY OF THE MOMENT to do that, are indeed two sides of the same one-ness.
.
3.
It is true that some organic matter with self-awareness does not register a peculiar type of self-awareness liminal to our senses as emotion or empathy or fellow-feeling as a response to the self-awareness of self-sameness within the non-dual field of subatomic particles. It is equally true that some organic matter with self-awareness register their awareness within this field with just such emotions or empathy or fellow-feeling as responses arbitrarily named awe, wonder, love, communion, sense of sacredness, and so on.
This particular temporary permutation of organic matter with self-awareness arbitrarily named "me" registers this self-sameness of the non-dual field as uniformly meaningful and so concludes that every other temporary permutation of subatomic particles, including self-awareness, is a meaningful part of the emerging intention of the field. Beyond this, I have no justification for my conclusion other than my own "first-hand experience of the self-sameness of nature and psyche".
I appreciate the time and energy you put into your comment and have done my best to respond in kind. I hope it goes a little way toward expressing the deeper poetry of my potential for greater self-awareness.
High Regards,
William
2.
Now, whether this potentiality, which has to be all inclusive in a non-dual field of subatomic particles and, indeed, is probably inherent to a system of entanglement, constitutes a "purpose" itself seems an interesting if not meaningful question to me. However, due to the synergistic horizon (the behavior of the whole cannot be predicted based on the behavior of the part), it remains an unanswerable question to organic self-aware forms who register their self-awareness as the sum of experiences of their current form of subatomic particles. Other organic matter with self-awareness register their self-awareness as identical in potential to the field of permutations of subatomic matter and sometimes conclude that they are self-aware within a field of emerging intention. Some organic matter with self-awareness sometimes register this field as inherent to subatomic particles and its emergence as a non-dual intention, the directionality of which sometimes registers as a Way, or Tao, or other arbitrarily named non-dual force of coherence.
In response to your comment, then, this is what I am pointing at when I say: "Without this first-hand experience of the self-sameness of nature and psyche, it is easy for us to slip into either the kind of base materialism that rejects the validity of anything beyond the senses or the kind of spiritual nihilism that rejects the validity of the world of the senses."
Love the philosophy&poetry.....
Especially this line: "mystery found is advertisers worst enemy, you can't sell what what cannot be purchased....."
Advertising is now as firmly planted in the collective psyche as church & state. The success of each of these institutions seems to be based on a very accurate reading of human susceptibilities and then finding a way to play to them in a way that unduly influences our behavior.
The Mystery, as you say, cannot be bought or sold: the most precious "commodity", the ultimate non-commodity, the first-hand experience of the Unknown, the Unnameable, the personal communion with the felt presence of the One—the seed of transformation falling on the fertile ground of the individual's heart, undefinable but not inexpressible: every thought, word, and deed cannot help but mirror the leaves in the wind, the birds on the wing, the clouds soaring on the sky......the walls I've built all my life to protect my susceptibilities come crashing down, leaving just an openness that nothing sticks to.......
Enjoy the Ride,
Wm
Your title and articulation of the “Tao of green”, describes so brilliantly an ideal found in many traditions which traces back to one of our earliest and deepest aspirations: the longing to return to original nature, a longing for soul in the world.
I was inspired to take a look back at Alchemy, one of the oldest.
Alchemy says that Green is concealed beneath the density of unconsciousness;
Through Green, Alchemists sought to make spirit conscious;
Green is the original substance (before above and below, heaven and earth)
Green is the starting material (prima materia) for creating the philosopher’s stone.
Green is The life force hidden in the “World tree” even in winter,
The green-gold is described as the divine spark of the human being.
Thank you for your clear illumination and the work you do!
Linda
thank you for the kindness of your insights and understandings. the symbolic language speaks essence-to-essence, reconnecting us with the universal truths that draw us out of dark times through the growing radiance of our own inner light.
I so appreciate you taking the time to bring forth the esoteric teachings of the West that so closely parallel those of the East. It stands as testament to the universality of the soul's longing to bring into matter the full vision of spiritual reality.
The Middle East, too, contributes to the Green symbol, through the Sufis. The Green Man, as named in the Qur'an, initiated Moses into the Mysteries. He receives his name because whenever he sits on bare ground, living vegetation spontaneously begins to sprout up all around him. In some traditions, it's said that each of us will meet this magical being at least once in our life.
Thank you again for holding up the mirror:
May the Ideal and the Real increasingly come to reflect one another with each passing moment,
William
The Tao Te Ching has always been more of a philosophy that values balance and centering yourself in a way that makes you realize that you do not want what you want, you only want what you essentially need. In today's consumer driven societies, this is the lesson that is most overlooked.
While being "green" is a better step toward being able to sustain the Earth, it is not what the Tao Te Ching is about.
Chapter 46 is a rejection of all things that are not essentially needed. A rejection of greed. And greed is at the heart of today's societies. In order to follow the logical process of Lao Tzu, you have to first understand what he was driving at. Before you can do that you have examine your logical process. What is it that's at the heart of going "green"? My thought is essentially to have your cake and eat it to. To consume and lust after the wants you don't essentially need without doing harm.
What do you essentially need to survive? Those things are all you should have and be content having if you are to be at one with the Tao.
Note: I keep my pseudonym for sentimental value only. I am not a follower of the Tao, but a great admirer.
Are you certain you read the article all the way through?
I only ask because you appear to be making exactly the points the article makes.
To be fair, I'm not sure we come to the same conclusions regarding "green": I can't quite find it in myself to agree that it's just a matter of "having your cake and eating it too".
And obviously we differ slightly in our concept of the obsolescence of ideas: I'm still not convinced that ideas lose relevance due to their antiquity.
But these are minor points—the Tao Te Ching as a teacher, rooting out self-destructive habits of thought.....on this principal point we are in complete accord, which is, after all, the thrust of the article.
Thanks for the "Note" at the end of your comment. I like your pseudonym and respect that you are a great admirer, though not a follower, of the Tao. It's kind of the opposite for me: I have no pseudonym and I've been a student of the Tao for over 40 years now—the little bit I have gleaned from my time with it has sensitized me to the need to look first for those areas with which I agree with others, rather than the tendency my culture inculcated in me to immediately look for differences. I found myself a step closer to contentment when I began looking for the common ground with all I met.
At any rate, it's a pleasure,
William
Thank you so much for the loving sentiment,
William
On the other hand, there's this remarkably timely piece in the nytimes yesterday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/how-china-can-defeat-america.html
A change of mindset builds and builds, it seems to me, until a tipping point is reached and then change comes steep and swift.....
Appreciate your view,
William
I really don't mean to be flip but you know what Kermit The Frog says, "It's not easy being green."
That's where it all starts, isn't it.......every day.....
Thanks for your time,
William
Thanks, I'll pass on your appreciation to the editors at HuffPost, who went out of their way to find a photo really compatible with the article.
All The Best,
William