The Tao that can be…

September 5, 2023

Since I re-discovered my love for fountain pens, I have wanted to use them to copy something out, just to practice writing and to use my pens and inks more. Many fountain pen lovers do this regularly.

 

I never thought that what I would copy out would be four translations or interpretations (as all translations of something where the author is long gone are but interpretations) of the Tao Te Ching.

 

I spent the morning perusing the six translations I had downloaded from the library. I wanted to only read two or three in entirety but couldn’t eliminate three, so kept four. And then I wrote in different inks, and pens, (I won't bore non-fp lovers with the details of which pens and which inks and why) notes from the introduction and the first chapter of each on foolscap (A4) paper. And I hope to spend an hour everyday with one or two chapters until I finish them. I hope the library lets me renew the books for I won’t finish before they expire.

 

I guess it was the relentless search for the theme for my karate stories, the willingness to stay with the not knowing for as long as it took, and sheer good fortune or something akin to that which cannot really be named, that brought me to this task. I definitely, momentarily at least, must have been in sync with the Tao to arrive here. 

 

There is a joy in being here today that I haven’t felt for ages. A feeling that enduring the darkness of the last eight-nine months was worth it. I didn’t ever think that it would lead me (back) to the Tao Te Ching. But isn’t this the essence of my seeking? Perhaps all seeking?

 

I had a dream in 2003 when I asked for guidance to deepen my meditation that lead me to goju-ryu karate. Twenty years later, I see another layer in the wisdom of that simple dream. And I am eager to find further layers, though I don’t know if I ever will. To look for something that I don't know if I will ever find is both a 'senseless' task, and the only task that matters.

 

But the Tao Te Ching, whose characters can be described as, ‘to go together, or to see’ as well as ‘being in harmony with the tides and phases of the moon that brings us light in darkness’, is exactly what I need to try.   

 

If we all read the first verse of this classic, we all may finish the title of this blog differently, and maybe also the same person might finish it differently at a different juncture of time. Today I would simply say that the Tao that can be written about is not the eternal Tao.

 

Very short post as I have much else to get to today.