Wayne Dyer’s interpretation: Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty, only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Being and nonbeing produce each other. The difficult is born in the easy. Long is defined by short, the high by the low. Before and after go along with each other. So the sage lives openly with apparent duality and paradoxical unity. The sage can act without effort and teach without words. Nurturing things without possessing them, he works, but not for rewards; he competes, but not for results. When the work is done, it is forgotten. That is why it lasts forever.
According to Dyer what Lao-Tzu is saying is that in order to be a sage one must live the paradox of unity. Have you ever realized that in order to have beauty we must believe in something called ugly. That without death we could not have life. Yet the oneness in the Tao is about living with the apparent duality of everything. In our humanness we have created these opposites which allow us to judge. But if we look to the trees, the flowers and the animals, they know nothing of duality. Unity is reality, life and death are identical. He asks us to allow ourselves to hold those opposite thoughts without letting them cancel us out. We are both the Tao and the 10,000 things. In other words we are both the Divine and human. He asks us to turn within and sense the texture of misunderstanding instead of trying to be right or wrong.
Stephen Mitchell’s interpretation: People see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other. Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn’t possess, acts but doesn’t expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.
Byron Katie uses only the first line of the second verse: When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Her focus is on how no one has more or less goodness. No one who ever lived is a better or a worse human being than you. Beware of a mind that doesn’t question its judgments.
As part of my interpretation of this verse I decided to pay attention to my judgments this week. I began my week in Denver where it was cold and snowy.Warm being good and cold being bad are part of my judgment system. Now yes, I do prefer warm over cold but that does not mean that one is better than the other. Snowing and clear are definitely opposites. Last Wednesday morning as the weather turned to snow I was calling it bad in my head, then I reminded myself that if I see the negative I will call more negative to me. So I thought of all the good benefits of snow. Good moisture, pretty, good for the ski areas, thus Colorado’s economy. Another judgment I made was that my commute to work that morning was bad because of the ice on the road and all the accidents and sliding I was witnessing. Then I remembered that as I have the Divine inside me as well as the human, I called upon my guardian angels to protect me on my drive. They did a splendid job. And anytime I am forced to focus on the higher realm I know that I am living with my highest good in mind. The enlightened masters let things happen without labeling them good or bad. Wednesday morning was a good indication I am not quite at the enlightened master level…Yet J
As I continued throughout the week to listen to Wayne Dyer’s explanation of this second verse many thoughts came to mind. The most relevant for me was this concept of duality which in turn creates, in the human mind, a need to judge. And the person I judge the most is me. So I told myself to “STOP IT”. Easier said than done. My head is filled with the “shoulds” and “should nots” I have learned since the day I was born. They are all judgments. Yet if I allow myself to do what is right for me in each moment I am more alive and aware of each experience. So I allowed myself to exercise when I wanted not because I’m told I should in order to be healthy. I ate what I wanted when I wanted not because I’m told what I eat is good or bad for me but because I like the taste of it. If I wanted to sit on my couch and watch TV all day then I allowed myself to do so. After a few days what I noticed was how, when taking the judgment out of every action or non-action I actually accomplished more. Yes sometimes I didn’t exercise and sometimes I ate popcorn and candy and drank an extra glass of wine, things considered unhealthy. Some days I spent time in activities that have been judged as lazy or wasteful, other days I was quite productive. Without judgment I found that in the long run I was balancing my time with a variety of actions and options. I was less stressed and feeling peace and happiness.
At a deeper level I realized that it is in our judgments that we create good and bad, right and wrong, should and should not. And when we have judgment we have this need to make ourselves right and others wrong wanting others to live the way we think they should. These judgments create the conditions for anger, violence and war. If I drop the judgments and see the Divine in each human (and yes contrary to what many people think, every living soul is Divine) then I find I can transcend the judgment and unconditionally love.
I can’t help but think of the words of Jesus Christ to sum up what I’ve learned this week in the Tao. "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
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