Verse 63 - Living Without Difficulties

[Eva Libre]

63rd Verse

 

Practice non-action.

Work without doing.

Taste the tasteless.

Magnify the small, increase the few,

Reward bitterness with care.

See simplicity in the complicated.

Achieve greatness in little things.

 

Take on difficulties while they are still easy;

do great things while they are still small.

The sage does not attempt anything very big,

and thus achieves greatness.

 

If you agree too easily, you will be little trusted;

because the sage always confronts difficulties,

he never experiences them.

 

 

Contemplation/Meditation Verse

I see simplicity in the complicated,
           I do great things, while they are small,
I can get anywhere from here.

           
Do The Tao Now

Set aside some time today to focus on the biggest challenge in your life.  Break down whatever it is to one thing that can be done today, right in this moment.  Erase the big picture - simply do what you can now and let everything else fade. Write the opening paragraph of your novel.  Lay out your blueprint for the home you want to build.  Sign up for one course at a local educational institution.  Go for a two-minute run.  Be in the now.  See how doing the Tao at this moment brings big results by paradoxically staying small and simple.


Source - Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life (Living the Wisdom of the Tao) 
by Dr Wayne W Dyer 

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

 

Look for the simplicity in what you call complicated
by seeing that in this moment, it's not hard.

 

Change your preoccupation with tomorrow, along with all of the tomorrows that comprise your future. My friend Byron Katie (whose husband, Stephen Mitchell, created a wonderful translation of the Tao Te Ching that I've incorporated in this book) gave me my favorite definition of insanity: “To believe that you need what you don't have is insane.” I'd add, “Believing that you can't be content and happy now because your future appears to you to be difficult is another form of insanity.”

Look at what you have and realize that you're obviously fine in this moment !  A Course in Miracles states this idea so well: “You have no problems, though you think you have.”

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

 

Think small.

 

Change your notion of “thinking big” to “thinking small and getting big things done”. Examine whatever it is that seems so enormous that it terrifies you to start. Then shift your thinking to see what can be done today in your precious present moments, completely ignoring the overall picture. Your accomplishments will magnify into greatness when you undertake the small; by doing so, you'll paradoxically see huge results.

[Eva Libre]

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

Act without acting
Give without giving
Taste without tasting

Tao alone becomes all things great and all things small
It is the One in many
It is the many in One

Let Tao become all your actions
then your wants will become your treasure
your injury will become your blessing

Take on difficulties while they are still easy
Do great things while they are still small
Step by step the world's burden is lifted
Piece by piece the world's treasure is amassed

So the Sage stays with his daily task
and accomplishes the greatest thing
Beware of those who promise a quick and easy way
for much ease brings many difficulties

Follow your path to the end
Accept difficulty as an opportunity
This is the sure way to end up
with no difficulties at all

[Eva Libre]

From Richard Grossman - The Tao of Emerson

From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891

It is the way of the Tao to act
without thinking of acting;
To conduct affairs without feeling
the trouble of them;
To taste without discerning any flavor;
To consider what is small as great,
and a few as many;
And to recompense injury with kindness.

The master of it anticipates things that are difficult
while they are easy,
And does things that would become great
while they are small.
All difficult things in the world are sure to arise
from a previous state in which they were easy,
And all great things from one in which they were small.

He who lightly promises is sure to keep
but little faith;
He who is continually thinking things easy
is sure to find them difficult.
Therefore the sage sees difficulty
even in what seems easy,
And so never has any difficulties.

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - ”Greatness”

Clinging to nature, or that province of nature
which he knows,
He makes no mistake, but works after her laws,
and at her own pace.
That man will go far -
For you see in his manners
that recognition of him by others is
not necessary to him.
So that his doing, which is perfectly natural,
appears miraculous.

A sensible man does not brag,
Omits himself as habitually
as another man obtrudes himself in the discourse.

[Eva Libre]

From The Tao of Motherhood by Vimala McClure

63
ASSISTANCE

If you want to help your children
build themselves, you must act
without seeming to act. Through
gestures, small words, and
most of all through your own
example, your children will
gradually grow wings.

Your baby is learning to trust you.
Touch and hold her and smile
into her eyes. Allow her to feel
all her feelings.

Your toddler is learning to trust
the earth. Support and protect
him. Allow him to explore.

Your preschooler is learning to
trust herself. Help her learn
appropriate choices. Allow her to
say no and test her limits.

Your young child is learning to
trust relationships with others.
Affirm his ability to learn how to
express his feelings and ask for
help. Allow him to ask questions.

Your older child is learning to
trust society. Provide accurate
information, offer problem-
solving tools, and encourage
responsibility. Allow her to
experience consequences while
remaining safe in your love
and support.

Your adolescent is learning to
trust himself as an adult.
Celebrate his growing up. Talk
about your own feelings at his
age. Allow him to explore choices
that may be different from yours.

Know your child's needs at each
stage and anticipate her struggles.
In this way you can offer assistance
without seeming to assist.

[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

 

63 (26)

 

     Act through nonaction,

     Handle affairs through noninterference,

     Taste what has no taste,

     Regard the small as great, the few as many,

     Repay resentment with integrity.

 

     Undertake difficult tasks

           by approaching what is easy in them;

     Do great deeds

          by focusing on their minute aspects.

 

      All difficulties under heaven arise from what is easy,

      All great things under heaven arise from what is minute.

 

For this reason,

      The sage never strives to do what is great.

Therefore,

      He can achieve greatness.

 

      One who lightly assents

          will seldom be believed;

      One who thinks everything is easy

          will encounter much difficulty.

 

For this reason,

      Even the sage considers things difficult.

Therefore,

      In the end he is without difficulty.

[Eva Libre]

Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

 

Act by not acting; do by not doing' find favor in that which has no favor.

 

To handle matters without conscious effort [wuwei], practice the teaching that is not expressed in words, (1) and have a taste for the utterly dispassionate [tiandan] (2) is the ultimate of government [zhi zhi ji].

 

Deal with the small as if it were the great, and deal with the few as if it were the many,but respond to resentment in terms of virtue.

 

Minor resentment is not worth responding to, but great resentment involves something for which all under Heaven desire punishment.  It is virtuous [de] to comply with that upon which all under Heaven agree. (3)

 

Plan for the difficult while it is still easy; work on the great while it is still small.  Every difficult matter under Heaven surely originates in something easy, and every great matter under Heaven surely originates in something small. (4)  Therefore it is because the sage never tries to be great that he fulfills his greatness.  Assent  lightly given surely inspires little trust.  Regarding many things as easy is sure to result in many difficulties.  Therefore the sage still regards them as difficulties.

 

Thus even someone with the talent of a sage still deals with the small and the easy as if they were difficulties.  How much more this should hold true for someone who has not the talent of a sage and still wishes to treat such things with neglect !  Thus the text says, "still regards them as difficulties".

 

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) Cf. section 2, second and third passages; and Wang's commentary to section 17, first passage.

(2)  Cf. section 31.

(3)  Cf. section 48, first passage; and Wang's commentary to section 28, last passage: " 'The great carver' [the sage] takes the heart/mind [xin] of all under Heaven as his heart/mind," so "virtue" here is not the conscious virtue of the inferior ruler but the "mysterious virtue" of the sage, as described in section 10, last passage.

(4)  These statements can be found in two different places in the Han Fei zi (Sayings of Master Han Fei), where they refer explicitly to the suppression of crime and rebellion and describe the actions of the "perspicacious sovereign" who always nips trouble in the bud.  See Han Fei zi, 7:1140C (section 21) and 16:1173A (section 38).

[Eva Libre]

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

Act without doing;
work without effort.
Think of the small as large
and the few as many.
Confront the difficult
while it is still easy;
accomplish the great task
by a series of small acts.

The Master never reaches for the great;
thus she achieves greatness.
When she runs into a difficulty,
she stops and gives herself to it.
She doesn't cling to her own comfort;
thus problems are no problem for her.

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

 

Act without doing.

 

When I pick up one of my adorable little granddaughters, wipe her nose, kiss her, put her in the high chair and feed her, I do this not only for me, but to me as well. Loving her is loving myself. I don't see any difference. And because I love myself, I can love everyone who comes into my life. At the age of forty-three, I became my first child. I loved me, and that love was without condition. It's the power of one. Because I loved me - this one apparent person - hundreds of thousands of people are learning to love themselves. That's what they tell me.

I fell in love with myself one morning in February of 1986. I had checked myself into a halfway house in Los Angeles after years of suicidal depression. A week or so later, as I lay on the floor of my attic room (I felt too unworthy to sleep in a bed), a cockroach crawled over my foot, and I opened my eyes. For the first time in my life, I was seeing without concepts, without thoughts or an internal story. All my rage, all the thoughts that had been troubling me, my whole world, the whole world, was gone. There was no me. It was as if something else had woken up. It opened its eyes. It was looking through Katie's eyes. And it was crisp, it was bright, it was new, it had never been here before. Everything was unrecognizable. And it was so delighted ! Laughter welled up from the depths and just poured out. It breathed and was ecstasy. It was intoxicated with joy: totally greedy for everything. There was nothing separate, nothing unacceptable to it. Everything was its very own self. For the first time I - it - experienced the love of its own life. I - it - was amazed !

All this took place beyond time. But when I put it into language, I have to backtrack and fill in. While I was lying on the floor, I understood that when I was asleep, prior to cockroach or foot, prior to any thoughts, prior to any world, there is nothing. In that instant, the four questions of The Work were born. I understood that no thought is true. The whole of inquiry was already present in that understanding. It was like closing a gate and hearing it click shut. It wasn't I who woke up: inquiry woke up. The two polarities, the left and right of things, the something/nothing of it all, woke up. Both sides were equal. I understood this in that first instant of no-time.

To say it again: As I was lying there in the awareness, as the awareness, the thought arose: “It's a foot.” And immediately I saw that it wasn't true, and that was the delight of it. I saw that it was all backward. It's not a foot; it's not a cockroach. It wasn't true, and yet there was a foot, there was a cockroach. But there was no name for any of these things. There were no separate words for wall or ceiling or face or cockroach or foot or any of it. So it was looking at its entire body, looking at itself, with no name. Nothing was separate from it, nothing was outside it, it was all pulsing with life and delight, and it was all one unbroken experience. To separate that wholeness, to see anything as outside itself, wasn't true. The foot was there, yet it wasn't a separate thing, and to call it a foot, or an anything, felt absurd. And the laughter kept pouring out of me. I saw that cockroach and foot are names for joy, that there are a thousand names for joy, and yet there is no name for what appears as real now. This was the birth of awareness: thought reflecting back as itself, seeing itself as everything, surrounded by the vast ocean of its own laughter.

Then it stood up, and that was amazing. There was no thinking, no plan. It just stood up and walked to the bathroom. It walked straight to the mirror, and it locked onto the eyes of its own reflection, and it understood. And that was even deeper than the delight it had known before, when it first opened its eyes. It fell in love with that being in the mirror. It was as if the woman and the awareness of the woman had permanently merged. There were only the eyes, and a sense of absolute vastness, with no knowledge in it. It was as if I - she - had been shot through with electricity. It was like God giving itself life through the body of the woman - God so loving and bright, so vast - and yet she knew that it was herself. It made such a deep connection with her eyes. There was no meaning to it, just a nameless recognition that consumed her.

Love is the best word I can find for it. It had been split apart, and now it was joined. There was it moving, and then it in the mirror, and then it joined as quickly as it had separated - it was all eyes. The eyes in the mirror were the eyes of it. And it gave itself back, as it met again. And that gave it its identity, which I call love. As it looked in the mirror, the eyes - the depth of them - were all that was real, all that existed. Prior to that, nothing - no eyes, no anything; even standing there, there was nothing. And then the eyes come out to give it what it is. People name things a wall, a ceiling, a foot, a hand. But it had no name for these things, because it's indivisible. And it's invisible. Until the eyes. Until the eyes. I remember tears of gratitude pouring down the cheeks as it looked at its own reflection. It stood there staring for I don't know how long.

These were the first moments after I was born as it, or it as me. There was nothing left of Katie. There was literally not even a shred of memory of her - no past, no future, not even a present. And in that openness, such joy. There's nothing sweeter than this, I felt; there is nothing but this. If you loved yourself more than anything you could imagine, you would give yourself this. A face. A hand. Breath. But that's not enough. A wall. A ceiling. A window. A bed. Lightbulbs. Ooh ! And this too ! And this too ! And this too ! I felt that if my joy were told, it would blow the roof off the halfway house - off the whole planet. I still feel that way.

[Eva Libre]

Dr Dyer's Essay for Verse 63 -

This verse conveys so much with an economical use of words. Every time I read what Lao-tzu is saying here, I feel that it's impossible for me to experience difficulties in my life if I'm willing to accept his sage advice. He counsels that we learn to think in moments, rather than in days, weeks, months, years, decades, or a lifetime. All we ever get is right now - that's it. So we must avoid the inclination to magnify tiny events or worry about a future that may never arrive. It's the little things that make all the difference in our world, and keeping life simple replaces chaos. As Lao-tzu reminds us, “See simplicity in the complicated … do great things while they are still small.”

I've followed that advice while working on this book. As you might imagine, writing individual essays on the 81 verses of one of the most revered and enduring spiritual texts has been a daunting task ! A project like this involves at least a year of daily researching, reading, writing, and revising. Yet instead of focusing on the challenges of this project, I choose to “see simplicity” and “take on difficulties while they are still easy”. I immerse myself in a single verse in the morning, allowing the words to flow through my heart and onto the page. I feel like I've mastered the ironic conclusion of this 63rd passage, which says that difficulties are not experienced when they're confronted.

This, then, is the wisdom of this verse: There's no such thing as difficulty when you live in the present moment, doing only what you can right now. So examine your thoughts about what you call the troubles in your life. Can you shift to thinking of every undertaking as not only manageable, but easy and small as well? After all, how do you pursue a difficult course of study that will take several years to complete ? By not projecting yourself into the future or using your present moments to worry. How do you get through the long, difficult process of giving birth to a child ? Moment by moment. I've watched my wife do just that during the years she was either pregnant or nursing, delivering five children in eight years. As Lao-tzu teaches, if you don't attempt anything big, you will achieve greatness.

Almost every morning I do a 90-minute hot yoga class with 26 postures and two breathing exercises. Now an hour and a half of intense activity in a room that's more than 105 degrees can seem not only big, but very difficult as well. I've learned to change the way I think about this daily routine that I enjoy so much, and now I find it to be easy. As the first breathing exercise begins, I keep my mind and body totally focused on what I'm doing in the opening moments. If my mind wants to wander to what I'll be doing in an hour, I just bring it back to the present. I look in the mirror and remind myself that this exercise or posture is small and simple. Bingo - difficult is out of the picture !

By practicing in the present moment and training myself to stay in a state of simplicity, I've made my 90-minute yoga class a snap. I've achieved what I consider to be greatness in the little progressions and improvements that have evolved naturally. It's work without doing, and non-action in action because I've confronted what might have been thought of as tough. The result is that I don't experience difficulty.