Verse 66 - Living by Emulating the Sea

Re: Verse 66 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Re: Verse 66 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Re: Verse 66 - Living by Emulating the Sea

I like that…encouraging smaller streams to come in.  Of course, we're the smaller stream that comes in anyway!  We're the ocean, we're the stream, we're the trickle, we're the droplet.  The ego might want to be the ocean…but that which we Truly are is content to be the smallest drop of wet.  That smallest drop of wet that we serve…who else could it be?….ourselves!

Re: Verse 66 - Living by Emulating the Sea

I like that. When we let go wanting to be the ocean we find it in ourselves.

When we are the ocean, opportunities to be of service find us, and the love that we embody flows into every cup. Ocean doesn't question who is or isn't deserving of its ministrations.

Re: Verse 66 - Living by Emulating the Sea

Ruth,

I like this clarity of yours …

Deb

Re: Verse 66 - The Tao of Motherhood

From The Tao of Motherhood by Vimala McClure

66


EQUANIMITY

The sea is the greatest of all the
waters because it allows the rivers
and streams to empty into it.

Parents with the greatest power
in their children's lives are those
to which the child can go without
fear.

The wise mother facilitates her
child's growth with firm, loving
kindness.  She receives his
mistakes and tantrums with
equanimity.

Because she does not push, harass,
or manipulate, she does not invite
rebellion.  Her children love and
respect her and trust her with
their pain.

Re: Verse 66 - The Tao of Emerson

From The Tao of Emerson by Richard Grossman

From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891

That whereby the rivers and seas are able to receive
          the homage and tribute of all the valley streams,
          is their skill in being lower than they -
It is thus that they are the kings of them all.
So it is that the sage, wishing to be above men,
          puts himself by his words below them,
And wishing to be before them, places his person behind them.

From the Essays of Raph Waldo Emerson - ”Greatness”

A sensible man avoids introducing  the names
          of his creditable companions,
And is content putting his fact or theme
          simply on its ground.
You shall not tell me that your commercial house,
          your partners or yourself are of importance;
You shall not tell me that you have learned
          to know men;
You shall make me feel that
          your saying so unsays it.

Re: Verse 66 - Jonathan Star

From Jonathan Star - Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition

Why do the hundred rivers
          turn and rush toward the sea?
Because it naturally stays below them

He who wishes to rule over the people
          must speak as if below them
He who wishes to lead the people
          must walk as if behind them
So the Sage rules over the people
          but he does not weigh them down
He leads the people
          but he does not block their way

The Sage stays low
          so the world never tires of exalting him
He remains a servant
          so the world never tires of making him its king

Re: Verse 66 - Stephen Mitchell & Byron Katie

From Stephen Mitchell - tao te ching - A New English Version

All streams flow to the sea
because it is lower than they are.
Humility gives it its power.

If you want to govern the people,
you must place yourself below them.
If you want to lead the people,
you must learn how to follow them.

The Master is above the people,
and no one feels oppressed.
She goes ahead of the people,
and no one feels manipulated.
The whole world is grateful to her.
Because she competes with no one,
no one can compare with her.

From Byron Katie - A Thousand Names For Joy - Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

                                                          All streams flow to the sea
                                                          because it is lower than they are.
                                                         Humility gives it its power.

The material world is a metaphor of mind.  Mind rises into its projections and must eventually come back to itself, just as streams flow back to the sea.  No matter how brilliant the mind, no matter how large the ego that takes credit for its actions, when it comes to see that it doesn't know anything, that it can't know anything, it flows back to the origin and meets itself again, in all humility.

Once you realize what is true, everything flows to you, because you have become the living example of humility.  The mind realized is content to stay in the lowest, least creative position.  Out of that, everything is created.  The lowest place is the highest place.

Less than a week after my return from the halfway house, word spread about my change, and strangers began calling me on the phone, asking me questions or asking if they could come see me.  They would call me at all hours: in the middle of the night, all day long, often all night long - people from 12-step programs, people from the street, people from long distances away, people who had been told about me by the friend of a friend.  What I heard in their questions was a longing.  They would ask, “How can I find your freedom?” and I'd say, “I don't know.  But if you want to see what it is, come live with me.  All I know is that you're welcome to what I have.”

There was a continuous stream of people coming to the house.  One person would come, the phone would ring, then two more would show up, five, six, maybe a dozen by the evening.  They had heard that I was a saint, a Master, a Buddha.  They would say I had something called “enlightenment”.  I had no idea what that meant.  It sounded like having the flu.  When they looked at me with wonder in their eyes, I felt they were seeing me as some kind of freak, and that was okay with me.  I knew I was free, but I was still being bombarded by all the delusions that humanity has ever suffered from.  It didn't feel enlightened to me.

For about a year, I had to write down the beliefs that kept arising in my mind.  I had to write them down and inquire, in order to hold reality firmly.  They came very fast - hundreds, thousands of them.  Each belief felt like a meteor crashing into a planet, trying to demolish it.  Someone would say, or I would hear in my mind, “It's a terrible day”, and my body would start to shake.  It was as if I couldn't bear the lie.  It didn't matter whether I or someone else spoke it, because I knew it was all me.  The cleansing, the undoing, inside me was instantaneous, whereas when I offer inquiry to people, their doing it in apparent time and space - in the density that looks like time and space.  But for me, the timelessness was obvious.  So, when a belief hit me, I would sit and write it down and put it up against the four questions and then turn it around.  That first year, I was writing all the time, crying all the time.  But I never felt upset.  I loved this woman who was dying through inquiry, this woman who had been so very confused.  I kept falling in love with her.  She was irresistible.

Most mornings, before or after I went out walking, I would sit by a window in the sunlight and wait for an uncomfortable feeling to appear.  If it did, I would be thrilled, because I knew that it was always the result of some thought I needed to clean up.  I was this, too.  So I would write the thought down, and there was a lot of humor in the process.  The thoughts that I wrote down were almost always about my mother.  I knew that if I burned through one delusion, I would burn through them all, because I was dealing with concepts, not with people.  They were thoughts like “My mother doesn't love me”; “She loves my sister and brother more than me”; “She should invite me to family gatherings”; “If I tell the truth about what happened, she'll deny it and no one will believe me”.  That first year, it wasn't enough that a thought was being met by inquiry, wordlessly, in my mind.  The thought had to be written down.  You can't stop mental chaos, however motivated you are.  But if you identify one piece of chaos and stabilize it, then the whole world begins to make sense.

So I'd write the thought down and question it.  Sometimes I'd sit for an hour, sometimes for a whole morning and afternoon - however long it took to meet the thought with understanding.  I could always see that the thought wasn't true, that it was an erroneous assumption.  I could never find any proof that would hold up.  And then I'd ask, “How do I react when I believe that thought?” and immediately I could see that it was the source of the potential suffering, not my mother.  Then I would ask, “What was I before that thought?  What would I be without it?”  And I could also, so clearly, see the turnaround.  I was dealing with cause-and-effect and polarities.  I could see that one polarity was just as true as the other.  “My mother doesn't love me”; “My mother does love me”.  I was dying for a cause that had an equally true opposite.  And nothing short of inquiry would stop the shaking.

I would put every concept about my mother on paper as I thought it, because those concepts were the most powerful for me.  Then inquiry would clear them.  I was working not with my own mother, but with the concepts that appear for every human being.  We all have the same ones: “I want”, “I need”, “she should”, “she shouldn't”.  I was engaged in the science of self.  I was mind realizing itself, God looking into its own mirror.

Humility is our natural response to seeing what's true about ourselves.  When we judge others and question that judgment, then turn it around to ourselves, that is the fire and the purification.  Our knees buckle, and we learn how sweet it is to lose - how that is the winning.  That's what The Work is about.  Some people call it forgiveness.  I call it sanity.

Re: Verse 66 - Dr Dyer's Essay

Unlike the perception of God as an old white man Who created a universe where your behavior may cause you to be sentenced to damnation for eternity, the Tao is perceived as a natural energy.  The Source of life isn't seen as a deity monitoring earthlings like a king or dictator, since it doesn't dole out punishments or withhold rewards.  Lao-tzu taught that the Tao only asks you to live in harmony with nature.

For Lao-tzu, nature's great symbol is water, and he refers to it in many of the 81 passages.  When you emulate that element, you'll begin to see that judgment and exclusion have no place in the Tao.  Be like the sea, advises Lao-tzu, and the world will never tire of exalting you.  The essential message presented in this verse and in many others of the Tao Te Ching is that the ocean is king of all because it knows to stay low.  All streams must ultimately flow to the sea, and in the process, it becomes a servant to all.  The teachings here are clear:  Be humble.  Never put yourself above others or see yourself as superior to anyone.  The highest power is a yielding valley.  Become a servant, not a dominator.

When even the tiniest waterways are left alone, they uniquely carve out a path that leads them to the sea.  And the great ocean never lords its greatness and power over the rivers and streams:  It doesn't rise above them and demand devotion, nor does it threaten them with punishment or extinction if they refuse to cooperate.  The sea knows instinctively that the streams and rivers will naturally gravitate toward that which stays low.

Using this metaphor throughout the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu reminds you that people also tend to be instinctively drawn to those with intrinsic majesty that emerges from humility and staying low.  And this position isn't uniquely held by the great master.  Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, offers an almost identical message in the New Testament, centuries after the death of Lao-tzu:

Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers - not because you must, but because you are willing, as Gods wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. (1 Peter 5:2-3)

Change the way you think about yourself and others as model leaders by looking to the massive life-giving sea, who's patient, accepting, and lower than the streams that flow to it.  Then imitate that water power yourself by suspending your ego and releasing the need to lord anything over anyone.  The people you're entrusted to lead will gravitate to you and the watercourse way of the Tao's natural flow.

You're advised to learn from the way water behaves and imitate it as much as possible in your life.

Re: Verse 66 - Dr Dyer's Essay

Thankyou for this thread Deby. Humility is something that is a natural expression of someone who has become like ocean by plumbing the very depth of their own heart and human psyche. It is something that is very much valued and taught in the East. My experience in the West is different. In my effort to improve and change myself, so I could be seen and heard in a spiritual community, I tried to emulate assertive behavior but it did not make me happy and left me hurt and misunderstood sometimes.

Then someone said, 'humility is God's protection' and it immediately made me realize why humility is a protection. Humility keeps the heart-mind open, gentle and soft, so it can absorb both the warmth and coolness of loving-kindness and the shock of hard blows and insensitive remarks from unhappy people.

love
mita
BTW, I did not find the site for Teachers for Peace mentioned in your profile.

Re: Verse 66 - Dr Dyer's Essay

Mita,

Your comments are so very beautiful and they actually help to transition us into the next verse (Verse 67 - Living by the Three Treasures), which is about employing mercy, frugality and humility in our dealings with others.  I especially resonated with your last sentence about the heart-mind being open, gentle and soft.  It reminds me of the martial arts perspective of yielding to the blow.

Peace & Blessings -
Deb

PS - Re: the Teachers for Peace.  I just checked my link and it does open.  Perhaps it was just a temporary internet glitch, when you tried it. Or perhaps it is confusing because they have changed their focus to teaching children to be peaceful, using something called The Peaceful Solution, which is now dominating their site.  I see at the bottom of the home page, a line that says “Teachers of Peace” supports and promotes ”The Peaceful Solution”, which is about promoting peace through education.

Last night I found a new site that is about individually meditating to achieve inner peace and that being the path to World Peace.  You can read more about it in this link - Full Moon Meditation - Fall into Stillness - thread in this group.  

Re: Verse 66 - Living by Emulating the Sea

I love the fact that Byron Katie thought that enlightenment was like having some kind of flu.  I have no idea what the word enlightenment means.  But Awareness, now that's something else.  Something to live and die for.  And I suspect it's something we die into so completely we never return.  What a lover Awareness is.  And so simple, so simple, so simple.  The next moment it turns here and there and here, yet never turns.  The mind she'll clatter on and on and on until eventually what is there to clatter about?  But the questioning of thoughts…what a perfect path for realization.  Because until the thoughts realize they're nothing, nothing, there's no hope for Awareness to be realized. 

As for humility,  when there's no person left, only Awareness…what's there to be humble or proud of?  But when there's still a person running the show, then the fire or truth needs to burn away all the debris that separates the chaff from the wheat. 

We're burning, we're burning, all of us.  What a sweet awful fire!  (now that feels like the flu, perhaps….)  

Re: Verse 66 - Living by Emulating the Sea

Kathy,

Ah, yes Katie.  Yes, Katie knows what you know, yes?  Now we understand why the inquiring.  Is that really true?  Or could it be this?  

Then, only awareness.  That is the place where humility and peace meet in reality.

It is only the inquiring Mind that wants to know.

Deb