Verse 80 - Living Your Own Utopia

[Eva Libre]

80th Verse

 

Imagine a small country with few people.
They have weapons and do not employ them;
they enjoy the labor of their hands
and do not waste time inventing laborsaving machines.

 

They take death seriously and do not travel far.
Since they dearly love their homes,
they are not interested in travel.
Although they have boats and carriages,
no one uses them.

 

They are content with healthy food,
pleased with useful clothing,
satisfied in snug homes,
and protective of their way of life.

 

Although they live within sight of their neighbors,
and crowing cocks and barking dogs can be
heard across the way,
they leave each other in peace
while they grow old and die.

 

Contemplation/Meditation Verse

I choose to live in a state of radical appreciation,
           I give humble thanks for all that I have,
Paradise is wherever I am.

                                                
Do The Tao Now

Devote a day to food !  Appreciate the mysterious intelligence that created food for your health and pleasure, and say a prayer with every connection to it.  Going grocery shopping, cooking, planning a dinner party, being a dinner-party guest, eating at a restaurant, grabbing a snack, or having some popcorn at the movies are just some of the opportunities to consciously explore that connection.  See these food connections as a part of the endless Tao cycle, and being in your own utopia.
 
Source - Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life (Living the Wisdom of the Tao) 
by Dr Wayne W Dyer 

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer-

Practice radical appreciation.

Begin a practice of joyfully engaging with the things you take for granted. There are comforts such as your home, garden, meals, clothes, family members, and friends that you experience every day without ever appreciating them. Choose to pay attention - make the shift by giving thanks and loving appreciation. Spend more time close to home in awe over the many simple treasures that make up your life.

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

See paradise all around you.

Change your belief that you must travel, be worldly, and experience distant lands and people in order to have a fulfilling life. In fact, you could reside on the same street for a lifetime without ever leaving and know the bliss of the Tao. Keep in mind the thought offered by Voltaire: "Paradise is where I am." If where you are is at home, with the same people, the same photographs, and the same furniture, make it your paradise. Find joy and solace in the simple. Change your view to see the pleasure in what you have, where you're located, and who you are. Cultivate your utopia by feeling the Tao in every cubic inch of space.

[Eva Libre]

From The Tao of Motherhood by Vimala McClure

80
SIMPLICITY

Keep your life simple and
serenity will follow.

Like a small country with little
need for supersonic travel,
a simple life has little need for
tension and stress.

Give your children yourself and
the need for things is minimal.

[Eva Libre]

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

Let every state be simple
like a small village with few people
There may be tools to speed things up
ten or a hundred times
yet no one will care to use them
There may be boats and carriages
yet they will remain without riders
There may be armor and weaponry
yet they will sit collecting dust

The people must take death seriously
and not waste their lives in distant lands
Let them return
to the knotting of cord
Let them enjoy their food
and care for their clothing
Let them be content in their homes
and joyful in the way they live

Neighboring villages are within sight of each other
Roosters and dogs can be heard in the distance
Should a man grow old and die
without ever leaving his village
let him feel as though there was nothing he missed

[Eva Libre]

From Richard Grossman - The Tao of Emerson

From James Legge, The Texts of Taoism, 1891

In a little state with a small population,
I would so order it, that,
Though there were individuals with the abilities
of ten or a hundred men,
There should be no employment of them;
I would make the people,
While looking on death as a grievous thing,
Yet not remove elsewhere to avoid it.

Though they had boats and carriages,
They should have no occasion to ride in them;
Though they had buff coats and sharp weapons,
They should have no occasion to don or use them.

I would make the people return to the use
of knotted cords instead of the written characters.

They should think their coarse food sweet;
Their plain clothes beautiful;
Their poor dwellings places of rest;
And their simple ways sources of enjoyment.
There should be a neighboring state within sight,
And the voices of the fowls and dogs
should be heard all the way from it to us,
But I would make the people to old age, even to death,
not have any intercourse with it.

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Politics"

To educate the wise man, the State exists;
And with the appearance of the wise man,
the State expires.
The appearance of character
makes the State unnecessary.

The wise man needs no army, port, or navy -
He loves men too well;
No bribe, no feast, or palace to draw
friends to him;
No vantage ground, no favorable circumstance.

He needs no library, for he has not done thinking;
No church, for he is a prophet;
No statute book, for he has the lawgiver;
No road, for he is at home where he is;
No experience, for the life of the creator
shines through him and looks from his eyes.

His relation to men is angelic; his memory
is myrrh to them;
His presence, frankincense and flowers.

[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

80 (30)

Let there be a small state with few people,
where military devices find no use;
Let the people look solemnly upon death,
and banish the thought of moving elsewhere.

They may have carts and boats,
but there is no reason to ride them;
They may have armor and weapons,
but they have no reason to display them.

Let the people go back to tying knots
to keep records.
Let their food be savory,
their clothes beautiful,
their customs pleasurable,
their dwellings secure.

Though they may gaze across at a neighboring state,
and hear the sounds of its dogs and chickens,
The people will never travel back and forth,
till they die of old age.

[Eva Libre]

Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

Let the state be small and the common folk few.

If the state were small and the common folk few, it would still be possible to revert to antiquity, but how much less likely this would be if the state were large and the common folk many ! Thus the text centers its discussion around the small state.

Let there be military equipment for a company, then it would not be used.

In other words, if one supplied the common folk with military equipment only enough for a company but had no occasion to use them, why need he ever worry that they [equipped common soldiers] were not enough ? [1]

Let the common folk take death seriously, then they would not travel far.

If the common folk were not put to use 'by the state for military purposes], as it would only be their own persons that they treasured, they would not covet goods. [2] Thus, as they would find contentment where they dwelt, each would take death seriously [not put life in jeopardy] and so not travel far.

Although they had boats and carriages, they would have no occasion to ride in them. Although they had shields and weapons, they would have not occasion to array them for battle. Let the people again knot cords, then they would use them. [3] They would find their food so delicious, their clothes so beautiful, their dwellings so satisfying, and their customs so delightful that, though neighboring states might provide distant views of each other and the sounds of each other's chickens and dogs might even be heard, the common folk would reach old age without ever going back and forth between such places.

There would be nothing that they craved.

 

 

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] Wang's commentary clearly indicates how he thought the text should be read. "Military equipment for a company" translates shibai zhi qi, which has been interpreted differently by other commentators and translators to refer either to "tens or hundreds of times the utensils/tools [of material civilization]" or to those who have "tens or hundreds of times the capacity/talents [of the mass of common folk]". See Jiao Hong,Laozi yi (Wings to Laozi), B4:31-32; and Henricks, Lao-Tzu Te-Tao Ching, 156. Neither of these two interpretations makes sense in terms of Wang's commentary. In support of the military interpretation, Lou Yulie quotes Yu Yue's (1821-1907) Zhuzi pingyi (Critical appraisal of the philosophers), which cites the entry for bai (company, literally, "one hundred men") in Xu Kai's (920-74) Shuowen xizhuan (Commentary attached to [Xu Shen's] Explanations of simple and compound characters): "In the Laozi it is said: '[If] there were military equipment for a company'. This refers to the equipment shared by the troops in a company and means types of military equipment" (Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, 191 n. 1).

[2] Perhaps Wang understood the effects that military life often has on common soldiers in agricultural societies, both ancient and modern, which includes an awareness of the possibility of upward social mobility and an expectation of rising material advantages.

[3] Cf. section 2 of the Xici zhuan (Commentary on the Appended Phrases), Part Two, of the Yijing (Classic of changes), which reads in part: "In remote antiquity, people knotted cords to keep things in order. The sages of later ages had this exchanged for written tallies, and by means of these all the various officials were kept in order, and the myriad folk were supervised" (Lynn, The Classic of Changes, 80; see Zhouyi zhengyi [Correct meaning of the Changes of the Zhou], 8:8a). "Let the people again knot cords" symbolizes reversion to an ancient time of pristine simplicity and innocence.

[Eva Libre]

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

If a country is governed wisely,
its inhabitants will be content.
They enjoy the labor of their hands
and don't waste time inventing
labor-saving machines.
Since they dearly love their homes,
they aren't interested in travel.
There may be a few wagons and boats,
but these don't go anywhere.
There may be an arsenal of weapons,
but nobody ever uses them.
People enjoy their food,
take pleasure in being with their families,
spend weekends working in their gardens,
delight in the doings of the neighborhood.
And even though the next country is so close
that people can hear its roosters crowing and
          it's dogs barking,
they are content to die of old age
without ever having gone to see it.

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

If a country is governed wisely,
its inhabitants will be content.

I am content doing the thing in front of me, since my mind doesn't conflict with what I do. It has no reason to; there are no beliefs that would get in the way. Because the world is internal, I don't search for anything outside. Everything outside is inside. I have no need to meet anyone other than the people who enter my life, so my life is a continual invitation. I invite everyone and everything to come and go as they wish; all experiences are welcome here. There is never anything alien to the mind at peace with itself. It is its own joyous community.

I get up at 4:00, and notice the warmth that I rise out of, the pillows, the rumpled sheets, the sleeping body of my husband, this body rising, and as I walk to the bathroom, I notice the substancelessness of it all, the dream of where I am standing now in front of the sink, and I notice that as I stand, I am literally being born right now into this unknowing. Just because I call it a wall, a mirror, or a ceiling doesn't make it that. It's something more beautiful than any word could imply. Reality is continual creation in the moment, brilliant in its simplicity. The delighted onlooker that I am watches it go to the toilet, brush its teeth, walk down the stairs, brew its tea, sit down, as if it were a puppet with no puppeteer. What will it do next ? It sinks into a corner of the couch, becomes the woman drinking the tea, and the woman becomes as still as the wall or the ceiling. And it notices the woman being breathed, in and out, a finger being moved ever so slightly, and I am the cup, the tea, the lips of the woman, I am the tea in the darkness, flowing down through the throat and into the belly, flowing through the system that is so dark and endless, and never projecting its end, always following and open to whatever could be better than this, and now I am nothing, and now I am a pond, and now I am nothing, and now I am a cloud, and now I am the rain, and now I am again gardening, watering, becoming this tomato, this carrot, this cell, this human body, this no-body, this nothing that is its origin, its end, its joy.

[Eva Libre]

Dr Dyer's Essay for Verse 80 -

This second-to-last verse of the Tao Te Ching might have been titled "KISS" - that is "Keep It Simple, Stupid". Here, Lao-tzu makes a case for an ideal society where conflict isn't a problem, harmonizing with nature is practiced, and weapons may be present but are never used. The ancient Chinese masters seems to say that staying close to nature and taking pleasure in the basics of life are more satisfying than pursuing technological equipment and fancy carriages. He advises readers to keep close to the land, work with their hands, and not compete with neighboring villages.

While it's clear that the world has changed dramatically over the past 2,500 years, the advice in this 80th verse offers wisdom for the 21st century and beyond. Imagine a world where weapons are vestiges of the past, displayed in museums to illustrate and warn the populace about an absurdly violent history. You'd see the conflicts on this planet exhibited from the perspective of human beings as tiny microbes living on the same body, equally dependent on it and on one another for survival, yet killing each other and destroying their host anyway. War would simply seem senselessly destructive.

When we look at the conflicts that have taken place throughout history, we cannot help but see that the hatred and rivalries in ancient and modern times make no sense. Why won't (or can't) people share the land and live together peacefully ? What seems so important that it's necessary to kill each other over it ? Even in fairly recent times, those individuals who were so hated that we tried to decimate them have become our allies. So what was all the killing about ? Why haven't we learned to live in harmony with the life-giving Tao ? The answers to these questions are obviously complex, but, unfortunately, they continue to need to be asked.

This verse doesn't negate an effort by you to create ways to live your utopia. Instead, it's offering you an escape from the vicious cycle of hatred, murder, war, and subsequent cooperation before the next cycle of violence erupts. You can return to the basics of a peaceful existence by choosing to live simply and placing less effort on needing to conquer anyone. When you see the inclination toward creating more war machines, vote instead for candidates who support peaceful ways for dealing with conflict.

Your personal choices also align you with the tranquil nature of the Tao. You can opt to do without some of the new technology some, or even all, of the time. You can choose to write by hand and feel your connection to your Source as the words flow through your heart onto the paper. You can choose to walk rather than drive as often as possible. You can choose to compute numbers without a calculator, and remember phone numbers as a way of personalizing your connections. You can choose to swim or bicycle for exercise in lieu of using machines.

There are many laborsaving devices that Lao-tzu may never have dreamed about, and you can eliminate them as part of your simplification routine. Maybe not having e-mail or downloading music is your way of symbolically staying close to the land that Lao-tzu speaks of in this verse. In other words, you can know what the modern world offers in the way of information and technology, while at the same time being aware of the areas of your life where you want to keep things basic. Recognize when you're feeling the effects of information overload, too many gadgets, or over-complication, and switch to a natural environment that pleases you for whatever amount of time you choose.

Lao-tzu seems to be encouraging you to simplify as a way to heighten awareness of your Tao connection.