Verse 70 - Living a God-Realized Life

[Eva Libre]

70th Verse

 

My teachings are very easy to understand

and very easy to practice;

yet so few in this world understand,

and so few are able to practice.

 

My words have an ancestor;

my deeds have a lord.

The people have no knowledge of this,

therefore they have no knowledge of me.

 

This is why the sage dresses plainly,

even though his interior is filled

with precious gems.

 

Contemplation/Meditation Verse

I want to think like God thinks,
         to act as God acts,
to live a God-realized life.
                    
           
Do The Tao Now

Plan a day to be like the sage who dresses plainly, without jewelry, makeup, or fancy clothes.  In fact, head out for the day in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.  Wherever you go, stay in this “plain” mode and notice how irrelevant the attention paid to dress and looks seems.  Tune in to your feelings as you go about your business unconcerned about how others view your appearance. 


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

[Eva Libre]

Advice From Dr Dyer -

 

Know the Tao Te Ching

 

Change your mind about being one of the vast majority who doesn't understand or practice the teachings of the Tao Te Ching. Lao-tzu tells you that there's so little to do - all you need to remember is that your holiness is a piece of the Tao. According to A Course in Miracles, “Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance, and limits of any kind.”

Declare yourself to be one of those who possesses this knowledge, and be willing to practice God realization every day.

[Eva Libre]

Deborah Hart Yemm writes:

Marianne Williamson is a big believer in A Course in Miracles. On this website, it says regarding her

”A Course in Miracles is a contemporary expression of New Thought which is similar in many ways to Unity teachings. She describes the course as ‘a self-study program of spiritual psychotherapy’. Her talks became enormously popular and soon attracted a large following and a successful series of audiotapes that predate her bestselling books.”

 

[Eva Libre]

Advice From Dr Dyer -

 

See God Everywhere

 

Make it your daily practice to seek the invisible force of God in everything you see and hear.

In the 14th century, Meister Eckhart offered some advice on how to put this 70th verse of the Tao Te Ching into daily life: “What is the test that you have indeed undergone this holy birth? Listen carefully; if this birth has truly taken place within you, then every single creature points you toward God.” He further advised: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was 'Thank you', that would suffice.”

Practice saying Thank You, God, for everything. This is the way to God realization.

[Eva Libre]

From Richard Grossman - The Tao of Emerson

From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891

My words are very easy to know and easy to practice;
But there is no one in the world
who is able to know and able to practice them.

There is an originating and all-comprehending
principle in my words,
And an authoritative law for the things
which I enforce.
It is because they do not know these,
that men do not know me.

They who know me are few,
And I am on that account to be prized.
It is thus that the sage wears a poor garment
of haircloth,
While he carries his signet of jade in his bosom.

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson -  ”Self-Reliance”

My willful actions and acquisitions
are but roving;
The idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion
commands my curiosity.
My perception is as much a fact as the sun.

Whenever a mind is simple
and receives a divine wisdom,
Old things pass away -
Means, teachers, texts, temples fall.

A man cannot be happy and strong
until he, too, lives
with nature, in the present, above time.

[Eva Libre]

From The Tao of Motherhood by Vimala McClure

70
A ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Bringing up children in this way
is easy to understand and easy to
do. But not many parents are able
to follow it.

The Way is ancient and follows
truth. It is known to those who
are truly human. But parents
today have lost their roots
and rely on the latest gimmicks
and the opinions of medical
technicians.

The wise are known only by
a few. Their wisdom is concealed.
The wise mother's precious gem
is hidden in the pocket of
her apron.

[Eva Libre]

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

My teachings are very easy to understand
and very easy to practice
Yet so few in this world understand
and so few are able to practice

My words arise from that ancient source
My actions are those of the universe itself
If people do not know these
how can they know me ?

Those who follow my ways are rare
and so I treasure them
Even if they wear the clothes of a beggar
they carry a priceless gem within

[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

 

70 (35)

 

My words are

     very easy to understand,

     very easy to practice.

But no one is able to understand them,

And no one is able to practice them.

 

Words have authority.

Affairs have an ancestry.

 

It is simply because of their ignorance,

     that they do not understand me;

Those who understand me are few,

     thus I am ennobled.

 

For this reason,

     The sage wears coarse clothing over his shoulders

          but carries jade within his bosom.

[Eva Libre]

Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

 

My words are very easy to understand, very easy to practice, yet none among all under Heaven can understand them, and none can practice them.

 

You can understand them without even leaving your gate or peering out your window. (1)  Thus the text says they “are very easy to understand”.  You can fulfill them without taking any deliberate action. (2)  Thus the text says they are “very easy to practice”.  But people are deluded by greed, so the text says, “none . . . can understand them”, and people are befuddled by honor and reward, (3) so the text says, “none can practice them”.

 

My words have a progenitor, and my undertakings have a sovereign.

 

“Progenitor” refers to the progenitor of the myriad things, and “sovereign” refers to the master of the myriad affairs. (4)

 

It is just because there is no understanding of this that they do not understand me.

 

Because his words have this progenitor and his understandings have this sovereign, if there were people who understood how this is so, they could not help but understand him. (5)

As long as those who understand me are rare, someone like me is precious.

 

It is because I am so profound that those who understand me are so rare.  The more rare understanding of me is, the more I am without counterparts [pi].  Thus the text says: “As long as those who understand me are rare, someone like me is precious.”

 

Thus it is that the sage wears coarse woolen cloth but harbors jade in his bosom.

 

To wear woolen cloth means to be one with the very dust.  To harbor jade in his bosom means to treasure his authenticity [zhen]. (6)  The reason the sage is so hard to recognize is that he is one with the very dust and does not stand out in any way.  He harbors jade in his bosom and does not compromise it.  Thus it is that he is hard to recognize and so becomes precious.

 

 

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 47, first passage.

 

(2)  Cf. Wang’s commentary to section 47, last passage.

 

(3)  Cf. Wang’s commentary to section 20, third passage.

 

(4)  The base text reads “myriad things” a second time, but, to conform to the text of the Laozi, it probably should read “myriad affairs” (“undertakings” and “affairs” both translate shi).  “Progenitor” and “master” both refer to the Dao.  See section 4.

 

(5)  Both Hatano Taro and Lou Yulie, believing that the text here is corrupt and does not make sense, suggest various emendations, but I think the text is perfectly clear as it stands.  See Hatano, Roshi Dotokukyo kenkyu, 414-15; and Lou, Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, 177 n. 5.

 

(6)  Cf. paragraph 3 of Wang’s commentary to section 4.

[Eva Libre]

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

My teachings are easy to understand
and easy to put into practice.
Yet your intellect will never grasp them,
and if you try to practice them, you'll fail.

My teachings are older than the world.
How can you grasp their meaning ?

If you want to know me,
look inside your heart.

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

 

If you want to know me,
look inside your heart.

 

The mind open to being questioned is the only mind that can take this journey. The open mind is fearless in its quest to live without suffering. Eventually inquiry is easy to put into practice, because you learn to respect where your answers come from and the freedom they bring. And eventually the mind understands that it has found its desired path, the path leading home, back to its very own self, its ultimate resting place.

When the questions are asked and the answers are allowed to surface, the mind is often shocked at itself. It had no idea that such insights lived within it. And these answers allow deeper, more hidden answers to surface, to be seen and understood by the unknowing, inquiring polarity of mind. As mind comes to know its own nature, it begins to trust the wisdom that it is. This is its education, the end of all its suffering, delusion, fear, and mistaken identity. Inquiry changes the world faster than you can imagine. I was in a hurry. Now I walk as the questions, and I live as the answers. Because my intention was to be open, no matter what the consequences, I can't help but live in the world I call heaven. I even love my dentist.

At first, inquiry may seem more than you can handle; you may feel as if it is cutting your heart open without anesthesia. Everything you wanted to keep hidden comes to the surface, you feel all the repercussions of it, and you keep undergoing the death of who you thought you were. This may double you up; you may vomit or have temporary paralysis, for hours even. You are still identifying as a you, and you begin to see that you yourself are all the people you found unkind, brutal, stupid, crazy, greedy, despicable, and this is so painful that sometimes you don't think you can bear it. As it keeps inquiring, the mind continues to understand that it is its only enemy and that the world is entirely its projection, that it is alone, that there is no other, and that this is absolute. The turnarounds always keep it grounded with the invitation of being human. This balance sustains it between nothing and something, gives it the solid ground of a world, and allows trust to grow as you continue, sweetly and surely, to dissolve what is left.

At some point, because it has become completely rooted in itself, identity is lost as anything but mind. It cannot be anything other than that again. It is dead to anything else. There can be grief, the experience of terrible loss, and loneliness, when mind losses its identification as human, and at this point it may begin to find other identities, terrifying identities: a bird when you don't know how to fly, a rock when you're in a hurry, and you can only sit there forever, knowing that eventually you'll turn to dust, and until then you're there, with no arms, no legs, merely a rock. But with the power of inquiry, you love that you're that, you don't desire any other identity, and then you realize that you can't have even that, there's no identification that you can live as, only mind. And as mind, you discover that every thought is gone, and only a thought that says it existed is left as its proof, and that's gone, too, and in this, all thought is gone, everything is already gone - everything.

Inquiry continues to kill what you think you are, until you discover something else. The questioned mind is pure wisdom, and it can heal the whole world. As it heals, the world heals. I came to see that I couldn't live until I died. And what lives, thank God, is not the me I thought I was. There is nothing I am that is not beautiful. I appear as all things, the old and the new, the beginning and the end. I'm everything. I'm you.

You can go anywhere, and where you are in the moment shows this to be true. You are anywhere. What would this place be without a name ? Magical, sacred, miraculous. How did you get here ? Why would you need a destination ? It only turns out to be this or that anyway, what you planned or what you didn't plan. I understand that you love when your plan matches reality, and in all of that, here you are now, as the future you always wondered about, on the street, checking out the garbage bin for any delight, noticing that it's all beyond what you really need, beyond what you already have in this moment, from your lavish home, as you sit at your dining room table, looking at the excess, everything that you don't need, depriving yourself in your mind of what is already so full within you in this moment now. Without your story, aren't you fine ? Isn't life's own destination more wondrous than imagination could dictate ?

What is adversity ? It's simply when your story doesn't match reality. Suppose the story is “I am the man who will live out his life with two arms; the knife will be in my right hand and the fork in my left”, and in reality my right arm is gone. All of a sudden, I wake up, it's gone, and I didn't even get to say good-bye - it's in a plastic bag in the trash bin in the backyard. Now I am the man with a fork in the right hand, and the right hand turns out to be my left. So reality isn't being matched by my story, the identity I hold so dear. It has its own story to be lived out. I can be the man who loves learning what is new, the man who can't cut the steak, and I can love the vegetarian I notice I'm becoming. I am always what I believe myself to be, until I question my thoughts and come to understand that reality is what I am, and that it is always kinder than the identity I'm trying to hold on to.

Grace means understanding that where you are is where you always wanted to be. It means losing that arm and noticing what remains, in full appreciation and gratitude, and seeing at the same time how much better off your life is without the arm, and all the benefits that this new way brings. It's the realization that where you are and what you are and what everything is and how it is, in every moment, is your heart's desire, fulfilled beyond what you ever could have imagined.

[Eva Libre]

Dr Dyer's Essay for Verse 70 -

I pondered this 70th verse of the Tao Te Ching for a week, reading and rereading more than 50 interpretations of it. I was particularly drawn to this phrase in The Essential Tao, Thomas Cleary's translation:

 

"Those who know me are rare;
those who emulate me are noble."

 

I also asked Lao-tzu for direction, trying to determine what his message is for the 21st century. I knew that the master never would have spoken from a need to have his ego massaged. He was, after all, the original Tao master, enjoying a life centered in the Great Way rather than ego and encouraging everyone to do the same.

Try to imagine what it must have been like for this Divine avatar to walk among his people in ancient China: He'd take incredulous note of their warlike behaviors, all the while having an internal awareness of what was possible for all of his fellow human beings if they would only change the way they looked at their lives. Freedom, peace of mind, contentment, and virtually every other principle that I've described in these 81 essays were only a thought away. I can imagine that some 500-plus years later, Jesus of Nazareth might have felt the same sentiment that Lao-tzu expressed here in verse 70, something to the effect of, This is oh-so easy, so simple to understand and to practice, yet so few are willing or able to grasp the essence of heaven on earth.

I can almost feel the frustration that Lao-tzu is expressing in these lines as he urges us to live a Tao-centered existence, rather than an ego-centered one. I've titled this brief essay “Living a God-Realized Life” because this is what I believe he's asking you to do throughout the 81 passages, and particularly here in number 70. “My words have an ancestor; my deeds have a lord,” he says, and then immediately follows with the thought that the people just don't get it, so they clearly “have no knowledge of me.”  Lao-tzu's ancestor is the Tao, and the lord of his deeds is that very same nameless Source. He seems to be musing, I think like God thinks; I speak as God, the creator of the universe, would speak; and therefore I act in accordance with these God-realized principles.

I urge you to do the same, which is oh-so easy if you just surrender and allow this life-sustaining Tao energy to guide you. Stop fighting, eschew violent thoughts and deeds, and give up trying to control others or the world. Stay humble; don't interfere; respect your creative genius, as well as that of others; and, above all, return to your invisible Source and shed your troublesome ego while you're still alive and incarnated as one of the 10,000 things. If you do all of this, you will naturally live a long life in joyful, nonjudgmental peace.

Think of how the great spiritual masters have been portrayed by artists throughout the centuries: Lao-tzu wears a simple robe, Jesus is outfitted in plain clothes and sandals, Saint Francis sports almost tattered rags, Buddha looks like a peasant with a walking stick, and Mohammed is depicted as a simple man. Then look at the how the followers of the greatest spiritual teachers have been portrayed - living in the lap of luxury, opulence, and conspicuous consumption in golden palaces. The great sages dress plainly even though they conceal the most precious commodity within themselves.

And just what is this great treasure hidden within these masters ?  Verse 67 explained that it is God realization in the form of the three treasures: mercy, frugality, and humility. You don't need gold-embroidered costumes and temples strewn with riches - both of which were the result of the sweat of countless servants and slaves - to house these treasures. Dressing plainly keeps the sage in harmony with the simplicity of this message.