Verse 74 - Living with No Fear of Death

[Eva Libre]

74th Verse

 

If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you are not afraid of dying,
there is nothing you cannot achieve.

There is always a lord of death.
He who takes the place of the lord of death
is like one who cuts with the blade
of a master carpenter.
Whoever cuts with the blade of a master carpenter 
is sure to cut his own hands.

 

Contemplation/Meditation Verse

I realize that all things change; and therefore,
        there is nothing for me to hold on to.
                  
By not fearing death,
        there is nothing that I can not achieve.

                    
Do The Tao Now

During meditation, practice dying while still alive.  That is, leave your body, discard it, and float above the world.  This will help you disconnect yourself from feeling that your physical shell is who you are.  The more you are the observer rather than the object of what you see, the easier it will be to remove your fear of dying.  Do this for just a few minutes daily.  Remember that you are not this body - you are a piece of the infinite Tao, never changing and never dying.

This excerpt from Neale Donald Walsch's “Communion with God” elaborates on this thought:

Which snowflake is the most magnificent ?  Is it possible that they are all magnificent - and that, celebrating their magnificence together they create an awesome display ?  Then they melt into each other, and into the Oneness.  Yet they never go away.  They never disappear.  They never cease to be.  Simply, they change form.  And not just once, but several times:  from solid to liquid, from liquid to vapor, from the seen to the unseen, to rise again, and then again to return in new displays of breathtaking beauty and wonder. 

          This is Life, nourishing Life.
          This is you.
          The metaphor is complete.
          The metaphor is real.

You will make this real in your experience when you simply decide it is true, and act that way.  See the beauty and the wonder of all whose lives you touch.  For you are each wondrous indeed, yet no one more wondrous than another.  And you all will one day melt into the Oneness, and know then that you form together a single stream. 

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

[Eva Libre]

Advice From Dr Dyer -

Discontinue fearing your death.

It makes as much sense to think about your death in fearful terms as it does to perceive the color of your eyes in such a way. The Tao is in it all - birth, life, and death.

Read the T S Eliot quote below,

Little Gidding

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started,
And know the place for the first time.

Also, go back to the 40th verse of the Tao Te Ching (which is titled “Living by Returning and Yielding”).

By returning in death, you'll truly know the Tao … for perhaps the first time.

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

Examine the ways you kill.

Make a decision that you're no longer going to serve in the capacity of executioner, including even the smallest and seemingly most insignificant creatures, and then act on it. Live this principle by allowing the lord of life and death to decide when the return trip is to be made. Don't make this a crusade; just make your own commitment to exist in harmony with the Tao. And by all means, don't impose your beliefs on others, for noninterference is one of the major positions of the Tao Te Ching.

[Eva Libre]

From The Tao of Motherhood by Vimala McClure

74
PUNISHMENT

Many parents discover too late
that one cannot raise children well
with punishment as the core of
discipline. Hit your child and
eventually the child's rage will be
greater than your censure.

Prisons are filled with “well-
disciplined” people.

A good parent helps a child
to learn how his behavior affects
his own life through natural
consequences. This is how true
inner discipline is cultivated.

A master carpenter cuts cleanly
and quickly and makes furniture
which endures. When you deliver
harsh, judgmental consequences,
you are trying to do nature's job.
Like an inexperienced carpenter,
you are bound to make a mess of
it and only hurt yourself.

[Eva Libre]

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

If people do not fear death
why threaten them with it ?
But suppose they did fear death
and this was the fate handed to lawbreakers
Who would dare to do the killing ?

There is always a Lord of Death
He who takes the place of the Lord of Death
is like one who cuts with the blade
of a master carpenter
Whoever cuts with the blade of a master carpenter
is sure to cut his own hands

[Eva Libre]

From Richard Grossman - The Tao of Emerson

From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891

The people do not fear death;
To what purpose is it to try to frighten them with death ?
If the people were always in awe of death,
And I could always seize those who do wrong,
and put them to death,
Who would dare to do wrong ?

There is always One who presides over
the infliction of death.
He who would inflict death in the room of him
who so presides over it
May be described as hewing wood
instead of a great carpenter.
Seldom is it that he who undertakes the hewing,
instead of the great carpenter,
Does not cut his own hands !

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - ”The Uses of Great Men”, ”Lecture on the Times”

Why are the masses, from the dawn of
history down,
Food for knives and powder ?
The idea dignified a few leaders,
who made war and death sacred,
But what for the wretches
whom they hire and kill ?
The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy.

It is a doctrine alike of the oldest,
and of the newest philosophy,
That man is one, and that you cannot
injure any member
Without a sympathetic injury
to all the members.

[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

74 (39)

If the people never fear death,
what is the purpose of threatening to kill them ?
If the people ever fear death,
and I were to capture and kill those who are devious,
who would dare to be so ?
If the people must be ever fearful of death,
then there will always be an executioner.

Now,
To kill in place of the executioner
Is like
Hewing wood in place of the master carpenter;
Few indeed will escape cutting their own hands !

[Eva Libre]

Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

 

If the common folk did not fear death, trying to use death to intimidate them would have no effect.  If one caused the common folk always to fear death, there would still be those who behaved perversely, but these I could seize and put to death, so who would dare be perverse ?

 

“Deviant and socially disruptive” is what is meant by “perverse” [ji].

 

There is the constant executioner who puts people to death.  If one puts people to death instead of this executioner, this means that he is doing the hewing instead of the great carpenter. (1)  It rarely happens that one who tries to do the hewing instead of the great carpenter does not injure his own hand.

 

Miscreants provoke hatred and anger in the compliant, and the cruel are detested by the people.  Thus the text says: “there is the constant executioner”. (2)

 

 

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 28, last passage, where the “great carver never cuts”.

 

(2)  This is in keeping with the basic idea of the Laozi that the best government is no government at all: Left to manage their own lives, the people will regulate themselves and get rid of troublemakers on their own.  The common folk, perfectly in harmony with the Dao and with Heaven, are, in effect, the “constant executioner”.  If a ruler interferes with this and uses execution as a means to make people behave in conformity with his own fabricated standards, he is usurping the workings of the Dao, that is, of the “great carpenter” who never makes an unnatural cut.  Such usurpation is bound to be counterproductive and most likely to bring disaster to the usurper.

[Eva Libre]

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

If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren't afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can't achieve.

Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter's place.
When you handle the master carpenter's tools,
chances are that you'll cut yourself.

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

If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.

Babies aren't born into the world of illusion until they attach words to things. When you're clear, it's great fun to observe that. I love being with my grandbabies, I love hearing what I teach them: “That's a tree.” “That's a sky.” “I love you.” “You're Grandma's precious angel.” “You're the most beautiful baby in the world.” All these lies, and I'm having a wonderful time telling them. If I'm creating problems for my grandchildren, they can question their stressful thoughts when they grow up. I am joy. I'm not going to censor any of it.

Every story we tell is about body-identification. Without a story, there's no body. When you believe that you are this body, you stay limited, you get to be small, you get to see yourself as apparently encapsulated in one separate form. So every thought has to be about your survival or your health or your comfort or your pleasure, because if you let up for a moment, there would be no body-identification. Every thought has to be about ” I ” - that's how you survive. And then, as soon as you get your little piece of turf, your little house, your little car, your thoughts turn to the story of how you need to be healthy and comfortable. You get stuff in the shopping cart, you get stuff in the house, and as soon as you're comfortable, your thoughts turn to pleasure. This is full-scale body-identification: there's no thought that isn't about the body. So you go to pleasure when you have all your little ducks in order. And all pleasure is pain, until you understand.

Your body is not your business. If you're sick, go to your doctor. That way you get to be free. Your body is your doctor's business; your business is your thinking, and in the peace of that, you're very clear about what to do. And then the body becomes a lot of fun, because you're not invested in whether it lives or dies. It's nothing more than a metaphor for your thinking, mirrored back to you.

When I was in Amsterdam several years ago, I did The Work with people from early morning till late at night, even though I was running high fevers. And I noticed that a few times, during a break, I would be huddled up in a corner, exhausted, shaking, in heaven. The shaking was fine with me, and the exhaustion. I was just there to do my job, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer. And, in the clarity of that, I always seem to be well. No story, no sickness. There was snow, there was cold, there was sky, there were people, there was breath, there was fever, there was exhaustion, there was joy - everything ! Without a story, I'm free.

I once went for twenty-seven days without food. There was no reason for it - I just knew not to eat. And during all those days I couldn't find a trace of hunger. Hunger was just another myth. My family and friends were fearful for my life, but I wasn't concerned; I felt healthy and strong; the whole time, I was doing a lot of vigorous walking in the desert. And at no moment did I experience anything but myths about hunger and bellyaches and weight loss. I couldn't find one legitimate need that didn't come face-to-face with the fear of death. And then, after twenty-seven days, for no reason, I ate.

If you don't identify as a body, the mind may occasionally find itself as a galaxy or a rock or a tree or a moon, a leaf, a bird. It may identify anywhere in the vastness of itself. I am this ? I am this ? To be a human is no more and no less important than to be a rock or a speck of dust. It's all equally important, all the same thing. It's limitless. It's still. It's what we all are without a story or a particular body-identification to believe in.

When you dream, you are the whole dream and everything in it. You have to be: you're the dreamer. You're bodiless, you're free - you're a man, you're a woman, a dog, a tree, you're all of it simultaneously; you're in the kitchen one moment and on a mountaintop the next; you're in New York and suddenly you're in Hawaii; nothing is ever stable because you can't body-identify; there's no identification you can attach to. That's how unlimited the mind is when there's no particular body to be.

Without a story of being limited, you're infinite. There's nothing more joyous than that - to know that you're all things and new each moment, and that all of it is projected. People think that limitlessness is terrifying, because they don't have inquiry. But it's no more terrifying than sitting in your living room. It's exactly the same after the initial experience. The ego does everything not to let an experience like that happen. If the experience does happen, the ego body-identifies at a higher level, to hold on to what it thinks it knows. It tries to control body-identification so that it can make sure such experiences never happen again. For people who don't have inquiry, the ego may say, “There's no way back”, and then the thought may be “I'm going insane.” But if inquiry is alive in you, you can't attach to any frightening thought. It doesn't matter if you're a Katie or a bird or a galaxy or a rock or a tree or a grain of sand.

Eventually there is no fear. You come to feel total acceptance: “I am this, for now”. And it's all okay. I'm only here with you in this moment. I'm an old woman the next. I'm a seagull the next. For hundreds of years I'm a redwood tree. Now I'm a mosquito, now a speck of dust, now a star that has just been born and will burn out billions of years from now. Time is irrelevant. I give myself to whatever the reality of it may be.

These apparent transformations aren't transformations at all. It is always what it is, beyond identification, aware of itself, delighted with itself, as all things. In this infinite loving state, it shoots out to know, to revel in its identities, to see what it hasn't yet revealed to itself. And in each experience, you realize that you're nothing; you're prior to thought, not a woman or a bird or anything but awareness: a completely silent mind looking out - in - gratefully, at itself.

[Eva Libre]

Dr Dyer's Essay for Verse 74 -

What happens when we die ? Is death the vehicle that returns us to our Source of being, or does it signify the end of consciousness and all of life ? One thing is absolutely certain: This subject is an absolute mystery to us. Some Tao scholars have referred to death as a place of oneness wherein time, space, and all of the 10,000 things cease to have meaning. Thus, what dies is our human identity. There's still someone underneath the external layers, though, so when you know and understand who that formless someone is, your fear of dying will evaporate. You can live on the active side of infinity by knowing your infinite Tao nature, which probably means that you'll alter the way you think about birth, life, and death.

Move from wanting to see permanence in your life to realizing that all things change due to the nature of this being an ever-modifying world. There's nothing external to hold on to; after all, the moment you think you have it, IT becomes something else. This is as true for your earthly packaging as it is for your worldly treasures. Whether you realize it or not, the body you were in when you began reading this essay is different now, and it will become different again the moment you attempt to make it remain the same. This is the nature of our reality. If you can get comfortable with it, you'll reduce - and ultimately eliminate - your anxiety regarding mortality. 

As Lao-tzu promises: “If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.”

Your Tao essence has to be infinite because it came from a world of infinite possibilities. You're not a thing that's solid and permanent; in fact, there's nothing like that in the world you incarnated into ! You are real, and what's real never changes. Yet your real self isn't in this world, but is the part of you that is the Tao. When you live in harmony with the infinite Tao, death is irrelevant - so know your highest self and understand that there's nothing you can't achieve.

The second part of this verse deals with killing, or taking another being's life. Lao-tzu is quite specific here, saying, “There is always a lord of death”. At the moment of your coming into the world, everything you needed for this journey was handled by the lord of life and death. Just as your birth was Tao energy, your body type, skin color, eyes, ears, and every other physical aspect of you are expressions of the Tao. This includes your death, which has been choreographed, determined, and allowed to unfold in Divine timing. In other words, killing isn't your job, not ever - not of another person or any other being. Since death is as much a part of the Tao as life, it must be allowed to be in accord with nature, not performed as an ego decision.

I learned this lesson years ago while changing court sides in the middle of a tennis match in which I'd been playing at an exceptionally high level. While taking a drink of water, I noticed a bee lying upside down, apparently in the final throes of its short life. I assumed that it was suffering, so I stepped on it to avoid prolonging its agony. As I began to play again, I couldn't get that bee out of my mind: Did I do the right thing ? Who am I to decide this little creature's fate ? Who am I to become an executioner, even to such a seemingly insignificant creature as a tiny insect ? And everything on the tennis court began to take on a different energy from that moment on.

Previously my shots had been landing on the lines, and presently they were out by inches. The wind seemed to shift and work against me. I was now moving more slowly and making uncharacteristic errors. Ultimately, what looked like a sure victory turned into a complete letdown and an embarrassing defeat because my role as the well-intentioned murderer of a small bee had been occupying my mind. I've since changed the way I see death, and I no longer deliberately kill anything. I've decided that it's not my job to decide another's death ever since my day of awakening with that bee ! Even if that bee only had a few minutes of life remaining, it is the job of the “lord of death”, or the great Tao, to make that determination.

I just spoke with my dear friend Lauren, who's in the throes of watching her cat, who's been with her for 19 years, get ready to pass on. She asked for my advice about having Sweet Pea euthanized to avoid prolonging her suffering. After I read her this verse and told her my own experience with that tiny bee, Lauren elected to hold Sweet Pea in her lap until death claimed her. A reverence for life as a form of the Tao helps us all realize that we're not in charge of death decisions.

Lao-tzu's legacy is summed up magnificently in the words of T S Eliot, from his poem “Little Gidding”:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

This is death - nothing to fear, nothing to do.

[Richard L]

Hi! Living without a fear of death isn't a easy thing to achieve.