Verse 19 - Living Without Attachment

[Eva Libre]

19th Verse

 

Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom,

and it will be a hundred times better for everyone.

 Throw away morality and justice

and people will do the right thing.

Throw away industry and profit

and there will be no thieves.

 

All of these are outward forms alone;

they are not sufficient in themselves.

 

It is more important

to see the simplicity,

 to realize one's true nature,

to cast off selfishness

and temper desire.

 

 

Contemplation/Meditation Verse

I am moral, profitable,

               and a genius extraordinaire,

regardless of what any transcript

               or bank statement might say.

 

Do The Tao Now

 

Post the following affirmation for your constant attention:  

 

I am moral, profitable, and a genius extraordinaire,

regardless of what any institutional transcript

or bank statement says.

 

Repeat this mantra until it becomes your way of being.  You will feel a sense of inner peace as you release the hold that outer forms have on you.

 

Source - Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life (Living the Wisdom of the Tao)

by Dr Wayne W Dyer

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

 

Observe your relationship to systems of

education, justice, and business.

 

Notice attempts to compartmentalize you: Are you dependent on a system of reward and punishment for approval ?  Do the rules and codes of conduct you follow come from a heart-centered space, or are they designed to create a label of "specialness" ?  Don't fight these institutional pressures or even the fact that they exist -- simply let go of all attachments to them.  You are not saintly (a good person) because an organization says so, but rather because you stay connected to the divinity of your origination.  You are not intelligent because of a transcript; you are intelligence itself, which needs no external confirmation.  You are not moral because you obey the laws; you are morality itself because you are the same as what you came from.

 

Choose to see the outward forms as poor substitutions for your true nature and you'll begin to live without attachment to those forms.  You'll see your own inner laws, which never require codifying; you'll live with freedom and simplicity.  Trust first and foremost in yourself.

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

 

Live without attachment by being generous.

 

Let go of evaluating yourself on the basis of how much you've accumulated and what is in your financial portfolio.  Stop putting a dollar value on all that you have and do.  Let go of your need to get a "good deal" and choose instead to be a being of sharing.  You'll be happily surprised by how nice it feels to simply change your belief that you're only successful if you're making money.  The less you focus on making a profit -- instead shifting your energy to living your purpose in harmony with everyone else -- the more money will flow to you and the more opportunities for generosity will be available to you.

 

The world of institutional pressures is built on an endless list of human-made do's and don'ts.  Lao-tzu advocates that you discover your heart's true desire, all the while remembering that no one else can tell you what it is.

[Eva Libre]

From Richard Grossman - The Tao of Emerson

From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891

 

If we could renounce our sageness

     and discard our wisdom,

     it would be better for the people a hundredfold.

If we could renounce our benevolence

     and discard our righteousness,

     the people would again become filial and kindly.

If we could renounce artful contrivances

     and discard our schemes for gain,

     there would be no thieves or robbers.

 

Those three methods of government

Thought old of ways in elegance did fail

And made these names their want of worth to veil;

But simple views, and courses plain and true

Would selfish ends and many lusts eschew.

 

 

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Success" 

 

The inner life sits at home,

     and does not learn to do things.

It loves truth because it is itself real,

     it knows nothing else;

But it makes no progress, was as wise

     in our final memory of it as now.

It lives in the great present;

It makes the present great.

This tranquil, well-founded, wide-seeing soul

     is no express-rider, no attorney, no magistrate.

It lies in the sun and broods on the world.

[Eva Libre]

From Vimala McClure - The Tao of Motherhood

19

RETURN

 

Throw away gadgets.  Discard

expert opinions.  Forget the toys

to stimulate intelligence.  Don't

buy devices to simulate what is

real.

 

Return to the real.  Connect with

your children heart to heart.

Let them gaze at you, at trees

and water and sky.  Let them feel

their pain.  Feel it with them.

 

Touch them with your hands,

your eyes, and your heart.

Let them bond with the living,

breathing world.  Let them feel

their feelings and teach them

their names.

 

Return to the uncarved simplicity.

[Eva Libre]

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

 

Abandon holiness

Discard cleverness

          and the people will benefit a hundredfold

Abandon the rules of "kindness"

Discard "righteous" actions

          and the people will return

          to their own natural affections

Abandon book learning

Discard the rules of behavior

          and the people will have no worries

Abandon plots and schemes

Discard profit seeking

          and the people will not become thieves

 

These lessons are mere elaborations

The essence of my teachings is this:

          See with original purity

          Embrace with original simplicity

          Reduce what you have

          Decrease what you want

[Eva Libre]

Tao Te Ching - The Classic Book of Integrity and The Way by Lao-Tzu

A New Translation by Victor H Mair
based on the recently discovered Ma-Wang-Tui Manuscripts

 

19
(63)

 

     "Abolish sagehood and abandon cunning,

          the people will benefit a hundredfold;

     Abolish humaneness and abandon righteousness,

          the people will once again be filial and kind;

     Abolish cleverness and abandon profit,

          bandits and thieves will be no more."

 

     These three statements

          are inadequate as a civilizing doctrine;

Therefore,

     Let something be added to them:

 

     Evince the plainness of undyed silk,

     Embrace the simplicity of the unhewn log;

     Lessen selfishness,

     Diminish desires;

     Abolish learning

          and you will be without worries.

[Eva Libre]

Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

 

Repudiate sagehood and discard wisdom, and the people would benefit a hundredfold.  Repudiate benevolence and discard righteousness, and the people would again be obedient and kind to each other.  Repudiate cleverness and discard sharpness, and thieves and robbers would not exist.  As for these three pairs of terms,

 

          Because they serve as mere decoration,

          Give people the change to identify with something else:

          Exemplify simplicity, embrace the uncarved block

          Curtail self-interest, and have few desires.

 

Sagehood [sheng] and intelligence [zhi] designate the best of human talent [cai]; benevolence [ren] and righteousness [yi] designate the best of human behavior [xing]; and cleverness [qiao] and sharpness [li] designate the best of human resources [yong].  (1)  However, the text directly says that these should be repudiated.  Because such "decoration" [wen] is utterly inadequate, one does not give people the chance to identify with these expressions and so never does anything that exemplifies what they mean.  Thus the text says: Because these three pairs of terms serve as mere decoration, they are never adequate.  Therefore, when allowing people to identify with something, let them identify with your simplicity and minimal desires.

 

 

Text, in Italics above, is Wang Bi's commentary.

The notes below, are from the translator, Richard John Lynn -

(deb's note - "section" is used for verse in these notes.)

 

(1)  "Cleverness" (artfulness) and "sharpness" strongly imply deceit, as in such English expressions as "artful dodger" and "cardsharp". 

[Eva Libre]

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

 

Throw away holiness and wisdom,

and people will be a hundred times happier.

Throw away morality and justice,

and people will do the right thing.

Throw away industry and profit,

and there won't be any thieves.

 

If these three aren't enough,

just stay at the center of the circle

and let all things take their course.

 

 

From Byron Katie - A Thousand Names For Joy 

- Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

 

 

Throw away holiness and wisdom, 

and people will be a hundred times happier.

 

You are the wisdom you're seeking, and inquiry is a way to make that wisdom available whenever you want.  My experience is that there's no one with more or with less wisdom.  We all have it equally.  That's the freedom I enjoy.  If you think that you have a problem, you're confused.

 

God's will and your will are the same, whether you notice it or not.  There's no mistake in the universe.  It's not possible to have the concept "mistake" unless you're comparing what is with what isn't.  Without the story in your mind, it's all perfect.  No mistake.  Strangers used to hear about me and show up at my front door (this was in 1986), and some of them would put their palms together and bow and say, "Namaste".  I had never heard that before -- people don't say "Namaste" in Barstow, the little desert town where I lived.  So I thought they were saying "No mistake".  I was thrilled that the people coming to my door were so wise.  "No mistake.  No mistake."

 

There's a perfect order here.  "Holiness" and "wisdom" are just concepts that separate us from ourselves.  We think that there's some ideal we have to strive for, as if Jesus were any holier or the Buddha any wiser than we are right now in this moment.  Who would you be without your story of yourself ?  It's stressful to have ideals that you can achieve only in the future that never comes.  When you no longer believe the thought that you need to achieve anything, the world becomes a much kinder place.

 

Sin, too, is a concept.  Think of the worst thing you ever did.  Go into it as deeply as you can, from the perspective of the person you were at the time.  With the limited understanding you had then, weren't you doing the best you could ?  How could you have done it any differently, believing what you believed ?  If you really enter this exercise, you'll see that nothing else is possible.  The possibility that anything else could have happened is just a thought you have now about a then, an imagined past that you are comparing with the real past, which is also imagined.  We're all doing the best we can.  And if you feel that you've hurt someone, make amends, and thank the experience for showing you how not to live.  No one would ever hurt another human being if he or she weren't confused.  Confusion is the only suffering on this planet.

 

I was once walking through the streets of Dublin with a Catholic priest who appreciated The Work and did it on a regular basis.  We came to a cathedral, he invited me in, we walked around inside the cathedral for a while, then he pointed to a little booth and said, "This is a confessional.  Would you like to step in ?"  It seemed important to him.  I said, "Yes".  So he stepped into his cubicle, and I stepped into mine, and I thought, Hmm.  What do I have to confess ?  I searched and searched, and nothing came.  Then, through the little window, something did come: he began confessing to me.  Later, outside the cathedral, we applied the four questions to each imagined sin and turned it around, and he said that a great weight had been lifted from him.

 

Everyone is doing his job.  No one is more valuable than another.  The things in the world that we think are so terrible are actually great teachers.  There's no mistake, and there's nothing lacking.  We're always going to get what we need, not what we think we need.  Then we come to see that what we need is not only what we have, it's what we want.  Then we come to want only what is.  That way we always succeed, whatever happens.

[Eva Libre]

Dr Dyer's Essay on Verse 19 -

 

Upon first reading this 19th verse of the Tao Te Ching, it appears that Lao-tzu is encouraging us to abandon the highest principles of the Tao.  Renounce sainthood, wisdom, morality, justice, industry, and profit, says the great sage, and all will be well.  Lao-tzu tells us that "all of these are outward forms along" and are insufficient for living according to the highest Way.

 

The first of these categories represents education and the way you look at your sources of learning.  This verse advises you to alter your concept of being saintly just because you follow the teachings of an organized religion, and to change your view of self-importance because of degrees you've received from an educational institution.  Lao-tzu gently informs you that it's far more valuable to cultivate your true nature.

 

As with virtually all of the teachings of the Tao, the greatest trust is placed in your accessing the sacred Tao center of yourself.  Within you lies a piece of God that instinctively knows what to do and how to be.  Trust yourself, Lao-tzu advises, and reevaluate the ultimate importance of educational and religious institutions.  When you modify how you see them, you'll notice that the true essence of you is "a hundred times better for everyone".  Lao-tzu might say that a truth is a truth until you organize it, and then it becomes a lie.  Why ?  Because the purposes of the organization begin to take precedence over that which it first attempted to keep in order.

 

"Throw away morality and justice", this verse urges, "and people will do the right thing".  Here, in the second of the outward forms, Lao-tzu reveals a legal system that takes precedence over your natural internal integrity.  When you know that you emerged from an impeccable Source of honor and equality, you don't have to rely on a system of justice.  Lao-tzu reminds you that it's very important not to view yourself as relegated to an inferior position because laws of morality tell you who you "really" are.  See yourself centered with the perfection of the Tao, which is your nature, rather than needing to consult a law book, a courtroom, or a judge to determine your ethical standing.  These labyrinthine systems designed to determine all issues of right and wrong are evidence of our drift away from the simplicity of our inborn nature.

 

The last of the outward forms is the whole world of business.  "Renounce profit seeking, give up ingenuity, and discard record keeping, and thieves will disappear altogether", could be one interpretation.  Lao-tzu advises you to stay centered within the all-encompassing integrity of the Tao and to release your view of profits and monetary gain as indicators of your level of success.  When you see your life through the perspective of the Tao teaching, you'll have no need to hoard large sums of money.  Instead, you'll discover the pleasure of serving others in a spirit of endless generosity.  Or, as the translation of the Tao Te Ching puts it, you'll "cast off selfishness and temper desire".

 

These, then, are the three outward forms: education, justice and business.  You're being encouraged to update how you see the reasons for, the methods used by, and the way well-meaning people have taught to value those arenas of life.  When you change how you see them, you'll note the simplicity and sacredness of a higher principle, which will enrich those institutions with the free-flowing Tao.  You'll realize your own true nature, cast off selfishness, and temper your desire.  Be in the world of education, justice, and business - but not of it - and you'll see the inner world where you're centered in the Tao.