希言自然。故飄風不終朝，驟雨不終日。
孰為此者？天地。天地尚不能久，而況於人乎？
故從事於道者同於道，德者同於德，失者同於失。
同於道者，道亦樂得之。同於德者，德亦樂得之。同於失者，失亦樂得之。
信不足焉，有不信焉。
When words cease, actions unfold of their own accord. Therefore, a furious gale does not last all morning. A raging downpour does not last all day.
Who made it so? Heaven and Earth. Even Heaven and Earth cannot sustain the weather. How could people hope to sustain their words?
Therefore, those who act in keeping with the Way, keep to the Way. Those who act in keeping with virtue, keep to virtue. Those who act by straying from the Way, keep straying from the Way.
The Way, too, is glad to keep them who keep to the Way. Virtue, too, is glad to keep them who keep to virtue. Straying from the Way, too, is glad to keep them straying from the Way.
People do not stay true to those who are not sufficiently true.
On Saturday I went to a protest. (Yup, it’s probably the protest you’re thinking about.) I may not live in one of the biggest cities in the US, but there were still plenty of people here out on the streets, carrying signs, chanting, singing, laughing.
As I walked with the crowd, I settled in my body and turned my attention to all the sounds around me. Chatter, megaphones, cursing, music, car horns.
I turned my attention to the experience of listening. Sounds dissolved beyond happy and angry, loud and quiet, good and bad. How strange. Who’s listening? Who’s reacting to all the words? Who’s feeling energized, or perturbed, or indignant, or compassionate?
How should we be in the current political moment? What stance should we take on all of the chaos around us?
In February and March, I turned back to the Dao De Jing for the first time in at least a decade.1 I needed guidance, a perspective perpetual and stable. A voice from another time.
This chapter immediately caught my eye. Probably because on the surface, it’s all about politics, and it feels very timely.
In the standard interpretation, Laozi is talking about policy. “Words” and “actions” refer to decrees and punishments. The message is: a government that relies on rule by fiat will tire itself out.
The wind can blow and the rain can fall, but not forever. The weather will eventually change. Not even nature can keep a storm alive. Trying to control people through executive order is not sustainable.
Even when political winds howl, know that they will inevitably die down.
The alternative for Laozi is to act in keeping with the Way, the natural order of things.
If trying to control other people leads to straying from the Way, then the way to keep to the Way is the opposite: don’t interfere. Letting things be results in the manifestation of personal virtue, and by extension, true political power.
The natural order of things doesn’t need us to do anything. The weather happens whether we like it or not. People live their lives whether we like it or not. We don’t need to make our own way (or Way).
It’s contrary to all our instincts to not try to fix things. But what happens when we try to fix things? Oftentimes we make things worse.
It’s tempting to say, well, if people in power are straying from the Way, then I can’t be the idiot who keeps trucking along and lets thing be. I need to fix the people in power.
Laozi says, if you try to make your own way forward, then all the places distant from the Way will be glad to keep you astray. And eventually, your little storm will die down too.
If we turn this chapter on its head a bit and apply it to ourselves rather than government, we get to a completely different place. The way to live life is to put down our words and narratives, because odds are, they’re self-centered and harmful.
The “Way” is a Daoist concept, but when applied to (Buddhist) meditation, it can be understood as keeping to wise action.2 Wise actions aren’t self-centered and therefore don’t harm yourself or others. The result of wise action is skillful wisdom in everyday life, or what Laozi calls “virtue.”
Unfortunately, most of our actions are pretty self-centered. They’re predicated on layers and layers of stories and narratives that we’ve built around ourselves to survive. The layers are so deep that we can’t even see how tightly we’re ensnared.
To avoid self-centered action, we have to center our actions on something else. Moral frameworks and concepts are somewhat helpful, but at the end of the day they’re just concepts. We have to apply an actual method of meditation in our life to build the habit of keeping to the Way.
For example, I felt bored with writing just now. Maybe it’s time to take a break, my thoughts say. You’re tired. You already did a lot. Reward yourself!
Blah blah blah blah blah. Look at that, self-centered thoughts yapping away.
If I listen to them and believe them, what happens? I put down my laptop and go do something else. This blog post doesn’t get written. And straying from the Way is glad to keep me straying from the Way.
And this is just me sitting by myself typing on my computer. What if I’m not alone, somebody around me is hurt or scared? If I follow self-centered thoughts, I might not be able to be present and helpful for them in that moment. How harmful!
In these moments, I need a method.
First, I need to look clearly, not just from my own personality. I need to recognize these wandering thoughts as self-centered and unhelpful and not just take them as a description of reality.
Then, I need to re-establish my attention on something that’s not self-centered. I take a deep breath. Air pulls through the nose, down the throat. The lungs expand. The diaphragm drops.
Even though I’m sitting with a supported back, the posture changes and changes as breath fills the chest. The muscles around the ribs stretch. I experience the physicality of each of these sensations, through the body, not through words.
By the time I’ve taken a few breaths and fully immersed my mind in somatic experience, the thoughts of taking a break are long gone.
Unfortunately, Laozi tells us that our methods can also become the problem. If we try to summon up furious gales or raging downpours to discipline our mind, we’re going to get tired real fast.
The old Chan masters speak of practice “becoming seamless”, that is, occurring day and night without cease. The Chinese is 成片 chéng piàn, literally “to become an [unbroken] sheet.”
Of course, getting to that state requires a lot of deconditioning and patience. But fundamentally, we’re not going to get there by trying really really hard, or by constantly talking to ourselves about how we should be doing better. When words cease, actions unfold.
This is why, personally, I’m not that interested in methods of refining the mind that aren’t available easily in all circumstances (or cost a lot of money and time). When crisis hits, I can’t just open my phone, sit down, and listen to a relaxing guided meditation. I can’t go find a sensory deprivation chamber and sink into dark water. I can’t hop a plane and attend an ayahuasca retreat.
No judgment for those who choose to partake in any of these experiences. But for me, I need methods I can sustain for the long term.
If we keep to our methods, we keep to the Way. If we keep to the Way, whether we understand it or not, we will manifest virtue. That’s what it means to be “true.” True to the natural order of things, true to our responsibilities, true to our body and breath.3
In the political reading, “true” means not interfering. (Or just trying too hard.) Do you want to follow a politician who constantly interferes with your life? Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer politicians who make our cities and countries run smoothly…and also don’t get in my way.
So, let’s not get in our own way either. Even if the people around us stray from the Way, we can always choose to disengage with our self-centered thoughts and manifest virtue. We just need to keep to our methods, no matter what type of person, situation, or thought we encounter.
Next time, we’ll take a brief detour (and welcome a special guest) to see how ChatGPT does at translating this chapter!
I choose not to translate the name of this book, leaving it in the modern Mandarin Chinese. There are plenty of competing translations of what Dao De Jing mean. Simply put, dao means “the Way”, de means “virtue”, and jing means “classic text.” But dao and de are nuanced, complex technical terms with manifold resonance, their meanings differing based on context, even just within this text. It’s unnecessarily limiting to translate it as “The Book of the Way and Virtue”. If anything, it’s “The Book of the Dao and De.”
The “Way” in all my translations renders the term dao, which means “road” or “path”. The word appears constantly in Daoist texts (and gives “Daoism” its name) but it’s also widely used in Confucian and Buddhist texts with different implications. An educated Chinese reader in ancient times would be able to correctly interpret the word in context, but unless the same word is treated systematically in translation, that’s nigh-impossible for an English reader. As I’ll be mostly translating Daoist and Buddhist texts here at No Dust, I consistently render dao as “the Way” when used in a Daoist context and “the Path” when used in a Buddhist context. After a while, I think you’ll get the nuances of what’s common and uncommon between the Way and the Path.
The word I translate as “true” is 信. (C: xìn, J: shin or shinjiru) Often translators render it in English as “trust,” so the last line basically means “untrustworthy people won’t be trusted.” However, “reliable” or “loyal” is not what Laozi means by xin. Xin describes the quality of being in keeping with the Way, and specifically an attitude that is honest, simple, and uncontrived. It’s not easy to find a perfect English word that isn’t pejorative, but this usage of xin is also not immediately obvious to a modern reader anyway, so I’ve opted for the archaic adjective “true,” which did originally mean honest. (“True to oneself”, for example, doesn’t mean one holds an intellectually correct position.) I’ll dive deeper into xin in the next post on ChatGPT.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful practice of returning to the method. It is invaluable when we encounter difficult circumstances in our everyday lives.
I'm so glad you're protesting. I protested through advocacy in my previous work but everything seems worst right now. The cynical side did get to me, not sure if I made a dent. There are indeed different methods to meditation, each may suit people very differently. I'd be curious to learn more on your process of meditation - what works what doesn't. Looking forward to more of your posts. Take care!