Into The Mystery Podcast Ep. 23: Tao Te Ching Verse 22

What is mastery for one who wants to live in alignment with the Tao? Unlike more mysterious spiritual texts, the Tao Te Ching gives us some practical instructions on how we can live as its embodiment. This advice often sounds counterintuitive, but we break it down and offer real life examples. To quote Lao Tzu … “When the ancient Masters said, ‘If you want to be given everything, give everything up,’ they weren’t using empty phrases. Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.”

Transcript

In another episode focused on the Tao Te Ching,

We're going further into some of the principles of the Tao,

Ways to embody the Tao.

You'll find some observations on selflessness and our way to embody and to harmonize our life with the Tao.

Enjoy.

Okay,

So for our listeners today,

We're going to continue our Tao Te Ching series and we're going to discuss verse 22.

And maybe Adi,

You could start us off by reading it.

Excellent.

If you want to become whole,

Let yourself be partial.

If you want to become straight,

Let yourself be crooked.

If you want to become full,

Let yourself be empty.

If you want to be reborn,

Let yourself die.

If you want to be given everything,

Give everything up.

The Master,

By residing in the Tao,

Sets an example for all beings.

Because he doesn't display himself,

People can see his light.

Because he has nothing to prove,

People can trust his words.

Because he doesn't know who he is,

People recognize themselves in him.

Because he has no goal in mind,

Everything he does succeeds.

When the ancient masters said,

If you want to be given everything,

Give everything up,

They weren't using empty phrases.

Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.

I love this idea,

Or just the phrasing,

That last line,

In being lived by the Tao.

Yeah,

Huh.

Yeah.

That's a very different notion,

Isn't it,

Than our common idea that we're going to figure out how to do it,

How to control it,

How to manage it.

I remember Gangaji saying one time,

You don't do anything with love,

With truth,

It does something with you.

And that's a profound shift,

Especially from the materialistic consciousness that wants to use spiritual attainment to accomplish something,

Either become famous or rich or whatever.

To me this entire verse speaks to the idea of getting out of your own way,

Of being empty and just everything we're taught in society is sort of the antithesis of that.

We think we have to make something of ourselves.

We think that we have to become ever bigger,

Ever better,

Ever more accomplished.

And what this verse is suggesting to me is that those things are counterproductive.

Those things invoke the ego's efforts to create a world,

To manage a world,

To control its own destiny,

Which you know,

We know if we've spent any time on the spiritual path is often a road or going down the road to misery and suffering,

Because the ego doesn't know what's best for us.

Whereas the Tao,

Being in alignment with the Tao,

Being an empty vessel for the Tao to move through you or to move or to prompt you to move as it is already inherently the best expression of oneself in human form.

Daishi Yeah,

Exactly.

I mean there's something here that points us to the fact that real spiritual development is not the result of our changing our state,

Improving ourselves,

Becoming something.

It's a matter of just as you said,

Getting out of our own way.

And the thing that I think that the Tao lays out unlike any other text is the exact formula for how to get out of your way.

The precision of its teaching on what it means to get out of your own way because we all – for example,

The first line,

We all want to become whole,

Right?

So we're all chasing after our own version or our own notion of what wholeness is,

How to get it,

What needs to be employed to get there.

But the Tao says,

Let yourself be partial and that's so counterintuitive to the mind in its quest for wholeness.

Shana Yes.

It's almost like these are little – I want to use the word koans.

They're like little koans meant to sort of puzzle you a bit until the understanding kind of snaps into place.

How can I become whole if I am already striving to be whole?

If I understand that I am partial and I'm content with that,

The wholeness automatically develops out of it because it's not up to me,

Right?

So the Tao fills that empty space to create the wholeness.

This one about becoming straight by letting yourself be crooked is a little bit more puzzling to me though.

So maybe you want to tackle that.

Daishi Well,

I think especially in the first stanza here,

What we're really given is a formula for alchemy.

I think this will speak to those listeners who practice or engage in the teachings of non-duality because most people think that non-duality – well,

Let's put it this way.

It's easy to misunderstand non-duality,

For example wholeness,

As a state that doesn't include partiality,

Right?

But real non-duality includes both wholeness and partiality.

That's the real wholeness,

Right?

So it's a wholeness that's not opposite to partiality.

So when I look at becoming straight and let yourself be crooked,

What I hear is something like,

Your version of straight is wrong.

When your version of straight includes crooked,

Then you will be straight,

Right?

It's very much like the notion of – like we have our perfectionistic notions.

Things should be this way.

I should be this way.

That should be this way.

The perfectionistic notion says,

I'm right about how something should be rather than the way it is now has perfection in it,

Right?

So it's a major change in our consciousness.

I think there's also a subtle hint here,

A little bit of a message to the ego,

Which likes to convince itself that it's already straight and perfect and doesn't need any improvement that to evolve beyond that wrong understanding of oneself,

You have to be willing to embrace the crookedness.

Just as if you want to recover from an addiction,

You have to first admit there's a problem.

So if we look at ourselves and go,

Oh yeah,

I'm not as straight as I thought I was and let that be okay,

Then it opens up space again for the Tao to work with us toward whatever the straight – quote-unquote straight – but whatever the straighter version of ourselves is available to be.

Do you think that many people walk around,

As you said,

Feeling straight?

Could you elaborate on that further?

I think there's a certain sort of mistake that we make with ourselves sometimes as far as wanting to be the best possible version of ourselves and having little checkboxes in our minds where,

Okay,

If my weight is correct and my dress is good and I've got a respectable job and I've got whatever my ideal family situation or living situation is,

We can check off all those boxes and be in a place where,

Okay,

We're straight,

We're good,

We're acceptable.

Nothing is broken,

Nothing is wrong,

Nothing is missing.

But there's also an arrogance that goes to that.

The ego can get a little bit full of itself thinking that it's accomplished something and that eliminates any invitation for us to be informed by something greater than ourselves.

Does that make sense?

Yeah,

It does definitely.

Yeah,

That definitely makes sense.

I think maybe because pretty much everybody that I spend time with,

Well,

I really don't spend any time with anybody not doing working or conscious spiritual path,

So I don't meet a lot of people like that.

Right.

Yeah,

That makes sense.

Yeah,

But I mean just out among,

That's exactly,

Yeah,

I was going to make that same point as a matter of fact.

It was like,

You know,

Anybody who's on this path already understands that there are things,

You're perfect as you are and yet there's room for improvement.

Yeah,

Right,

Exactly.

Some of the wisest words ever spoken,

Really.

When I saw that phrase in Suzuki Roshi,

My mouth dropped open and I was like,

It's never been said better than that.

Right,

Right.

But out in the quote unquote real world,

You know,

Out in consensus reality,

There are plenty of people who think they're just fine the way they are and they don't want to be proven wrong about that either.

So you know,

When we run into,

Well,

You all know the kind of person I mean,

I think,

So I don't need to describe that,

But some people are a bit too self-satisfied.

Yeah,

That's true.

That's true.

If you want to become full,

Let yourself be empty.

Well,

This is the most beautiful one.

And we talk about this in so many different ways in spirituality,

You know,

This idea of emptiness,

This idea of being a blank slate or being,

You know,

Letting yourself be cleansed so that something new and original and exciting can fill that space,

You know,

To the extent that we stay attached to our ideas about ourselves.

We don't open up a lot of room for something new to come in and be created or expressed.

You know,

It's almost as if you were a garden plot and you decided I'm only going to grow corn here.

That's it.

No other vegetables need apply.

And every time a radish tried to take root or lettuce or something,

You just,

You know,

Dug it up and threw it out.

You're excluding things.

And we would do this when,

You know,

If I've got an idea about myself that I'm a lawyer,

Say not to pick on lawyers,

But you know,

That's my identity.

That's my profession.

And maybe secretly or something else,

But you just can't allow yourself to see that.

You know,

You don't open up that space.

Maybe you were meant to be a kindergarten teacher.

I don't know.

But even just at the subtler level there,

If one is identifying as a lawyer and deriving the sense of identity from that,

I mean,

There's a certain level in which that's just fine.

But if it becomes the entirety of one's identity,

There's a fullness there.

There's no room for the deeper understanding of who I really am.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think about people who are so serious,

Like they can't loosen up and have fun in some way.

And people around will sometimes kind of tease them and poke them and go,

Come on,

You know,

Come out and dance.

Like who cares if you look silly?

And they're like,

Nope,

Nope.

You guys amuse yourselves.

And I mean,

There's no space there for development or opening or something new to be expressed.

Yeah.

I was just listening to a podcast earlier that was talking about the experimentation with psilocybin at Johns Hopkins University.

And they were talking about how – so when you do psychological testing,

You basically have sort of set scores that are a part of your personality.

And one of the things that they found in their research was that people had increases in the psychological trait of openness at like monumental levels.

Unlike anything else that people are impacted by and it's really interesting there because it's like,

You know,

To some degree,

Our mind,

Our heart,

Our emotions,

Our identity,

They're full in a sense.

And there's something that can happen that opens us,

That empties us,

Like you've said,

And allows for the rising up of something that is new and fresh and different and isn't predictable,

Isn't part of that same pattern.

And I think our quest for fullness is always this – it's often this idea that we have to add more rather than subtract.

And I think as we understand this as a path of subtraction,

We understand it as stripping away,

Burning away the dead wood,

We understand that there's something pristine there in that emptiness,

Not just an absence.

Do you suppose in those experiments with psilocybin – I've never taken it myself,

So I have no idea what that experience is like – but were they able to point to something like the removal of fear,

Like where the fear centers deactivated and that facilitated the opening?

Well,

That's part of it.

That's part of it.

Well,

I suspect,

I mean,

I've used psilocybin many times in my life and many people think of psilocybin as a catalyst for spiritual experience.

I don't look at it that way.

I actually look at psilocybin as something which tears down the barriers of the false self.

So it actually cleanses our vision,

If you will.

So to me the openness,

It's already there.

It's already our potential.

It's already our vastness,

Our open mind,

Our freshness.

It's already there and it's our defenses and our ego strategies that keep things like fear lodged in our system,

Preventing us from truly experiencing that deep openness that's at the core.

So what the psychedelics do in my view is they break down those strategies and barriers revealing that innate openness.

Because everyone,

Every single human being has at the core of their being an openness,

A vastness,

An emptiness.

I have had an experience on cannabis more than once.

That was kind of,

Sounds similar anyway.

And I think what operates with that particular substance is,

You know,

Famously people get very forgetful when they're stoned.

And it's almost like you forget who you are.

You forget your identity and you forget your stories and you forget your traumas.

And in the absence of all of that latticework that creates what we think of as our egoic self,

There's nothing left but awareness.

And there's almost an experience of that same kind of emptiness like that.

Because you've just completely forgotten who you are,

Which is beautiful.

That's why people love cannabis,

Because it induces the experience of space,

Spaciousness.

That's exactly what it does.

But spaciousness is directly sort of the inner what correlate to our mind activity.

So when mind activity stops,

Spaciousness is what's present.

And that's exactly why people use cannabis.

Not that we're recommending experimentation to anybody who might be.

Well,

I wouldn't recommend it or condemn it.

I think it's a matter of,

I certainly think when it becomes addictive or it becomes a replacement for real sober spaciousness,

Then it's a problem.

Because ultimately relying on an external substance for a quality that is innate doesn't work out well in the long run.

In fact,

We could go one by one and talk about the different substances and exactly what part of our true nature they introduce us to.

It's very fascinating.

But that has to be a separate episode probably.

Yeah.

So coming back to the Tao,

After that brief diversion down psychedelic lane.

Have we left the Tao?

I didn't notice.

Well,

We are the Tao,

Are we not?

That's right.

There is no leaving or coming in the Tao.

Exactly.

If you want to be reborn,

Let yourself die.

I think that's where we're all sort of in the process of on this path is clearing away that false self,

Killing the false self with kindness,

With love.

This should be our daily affirmation before we slip into sleep every night is,

Let today and every day prior die and tomorrow wake up something new.

Yeah,

And it actually is something that gets easier and easier over time.

And maybe that's just because I'm getting older and I don't care so much anymore about what happened to me earlier.

But you've described this before about how when we wake up,

When one wakes up in the morning,

Usually the first thing you do is to start to reestablish your name and what place you are on the planet and what's on your agenda today,

Etc.

So we rebuild,

We reify the personality and then go about our day.

But as time goes by,

By practicing something different and not doing all of those things,

You can just wake up simply as emptiness and let whatever experience comes to you that day be,

For lack of a better word,

Your identity,

To just be the experience that's happening in any given moment.

And it's so much more efficient just from a mental activity standpoint than having to know seriously.

I mean,

People underestimate,

I think,

How this path makes your life easier.

I mean,

The practices can be very difficult,

But the end result is that you really don't have to do anything at all.

You know,

When you get out of your own way,

As the Dow recommends in so many different strategies that are described here,

Then all you have to do is kind of show up,

Be in the moment and be empty and the rest takes care of itself.

And it's phenomenal how that works.

I'm always blown away when I think about it.

I think there's a clever way of describing this statement that I enjoy,

Which is that if you really consider your identity,

If you really want to know what your identity is,

It's now.

Now is your identity.

And if you think of things that way,

It's like,

You know,

There's this perpetual dying to yourself,

This perpetual dying to what was in order to just be the freshness of what is.

One interesting connection here is I think that a lot of people seek a kind of final spiritual experience,

Like some kind of fireworks or – Like a final breakthrough or something.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Like some kind of event.

I think that one of the things that people are often looking for is the thing that's going to rebirth them.

And that happens.

I mean,

Those experiences take place,

But what we realize is that the dying is a perpetual one.

Like Paul says in the Bible,

In Christ I die daily.

It's like that.

It's this perpetual death,

Not an event.

Yeah,

Other connections here too.

Sometimes,

Not just in this text,

But in a lot of spiritual texts,

There are things that seem very subtle and metaphorical.

And on another level,

They're actually quite literal.

And I'm thinking here of the idea that the yogis have of reaching the breathless state,

Where the body is quite literally on the cusp of death while the soul is communing with the divine in samadhi.

And I wonder if that is one other layer of what's being talked about here.

The actual experience of death?

Not the actual experience of death,

But the experience of the body in stasis,

In sort of suspended animation when you're in deep meditation.

If this is a reference to the idea that by practicing samadhi in that way,

You're rebirthing yourself as well.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

You can say no.

Well,

No,

It makes sense.

I think the only exception I have to that is that it doesn't require the experience of samadhi.

Oh,

Sure.

But I think that's certainly applicable.

Yeah,

Definitely.

If you want to be given everything,

Give everything up.

We have a hard time with this one,

Don't we?

Yeah.

You know,

I heard another teacher one time say that at some point on this path,

The universe quote unquote,

The universe is going to make you give up something you really,

Really like.

And that's going to be really difficult to give up.

You know,

I think for a lot of people that don't amount to a relationship or something like that,

But it could be your career,

It could be your house,

It could be whatever you're most proud of in your life.

And maybe this doesn't even mean give it up literally as in I've got to take it to the dump or I've got to give it to someone else.

But you do need to give up your attachment,

Your identification with it.

Yep.

And I think in these kind of intensely fiery words of Christ,

The resurrected Christ,

When he speaks to Peter and he says,

I'm here to take you where you don't want to go or something like that,

Something close to that,

He says,

Or you will be made to go where you don't want to go or something like that.

And I think that,

You know,

This is huge because we're always trying to acquire.

We're always turning spirituality into some kind of materialistic pursuit,

Something we can gain,

Some way to,

It's going to make us happy or improve our life.

And God knows that's understandable with how much we suffer and how painful life can be.

But it remains this path of acquisition until we see that it's in surrendering,

It's in giving up,

It's in the giving everything up that we gain.

And that's very incomprehensible to our ego with its emphasis on acquiring,

Getting,

Achieving,

Becoming.

And that,

I mean,

In some sense,

This is the mark of a truly spiritually mature individual,

Is someone who has realized that you gain by giving up.

I mean,

One of the most obvious permutations of that is when you recognize that your life is not about being happy,

It's about being of service.

And that that's your greatest fulfillment,

Is to be of service to truth.

I also hear something in here about,

Well from a metaphysical standpoint,

You know,

We talk about this sometimes when we're discussing manifestation and related pursuits,

That the universe can't fill a space that's already full.

So if there's something that wants to be created through you and yet your energy is attached to the things or the people around you,

There's no space for that to enter in.

And so the continuing sort of emptying out of the things that might be gumming up the works for lack of a better way to put this,

You know,

Kind of clears the space for the Tao to operate,

For the universe to create through us.

Another aspect here is that in the act of giving everything up,

We are affirming abundance.

If I don't need these things,

I mean,

And I'm willing to give them to you,

That's because I trust that everything that I need will be available to me when I need it.

It's not up to me to have to hoard anything or to hang on to things,

You know,

Because that betrays a poverty mindset or a scarcity mindset or a competition orientation to reality.

So by giving it up,

We're just saying,

Hey universe,

I trust you.

God,

I trust you to fill me as is appropriate.

That's an excellent point,

You know,

That's where the rubber hits the road,

Isn't it?

It's like,

Do you really?

Like you call yourself spiritual,

You say that you're aware of a spiritual reality,

You believe in God,

However a person might say it.

It's like,

Really?

Really?

You know,

I remember there's a conversation between the teacher Rupert Spira and a person asking a question and it had something to do with either not having money or being afraid of losing money,

Something like that.

And Rupert Spira said just brilliantly,

He said,

The next time you see a homeless person on the street,

I want you to give them a $20 bill.

And that was the instruction,

You know,

And it's like that's how we learn.

We learn that we are not empty,

We are not deficient,

We are not,

What's the word you used?

Lacking.

Yeah,

We're not poverty on feet,

You know.

Right.

We're endlessly craving,

Endlessly going hungry.

Yeah.

Right.

I actually did that in my last trip.

I gave,

Did I tell you about this?

I was,

I came out to my car one morning from my hotel and yeah,

I was getting ready to drive away and this man came dragging himself through the parking lot.

I don't know if he was stoned,

Hung over,

If he'd just woken up in a gutter,

But he had socks on his feet but no shoes.

The socks had holes in them.

He had like a backpack and not much of a jacket and I remembered that story because I've heard you tell it before and when I gave him 20 bucks and he looked at it like he didn't know what to do with it.

And I didn't know what to say and I just,

You know,

Said have a nice day.

And of course with COVID and everything,

I didn't want to get too close to him.

So I just gave him the money and I walked and,

You know,

Went away,

Went on my way.

But God,

For all I know,

That might be the only reason I went to Portland on that trip was to run into that guy and give him money.

But who knows?

There you go.

You know,

One of the paramitas in Buddhism is generosity.

You know,

It's like one of these transcendent qualities that we have that we can put into being and we shouldn't underestimate the generosity of our resources,

Our time,

Our love,

Because it's in the giving of those things that we prove to ourselves just how much we actually have.

Yeah.

That reminds me of another story.

Should I tell you?

This was on another trip to Portland.

As a matter of fact,

I was in the in the airport and I went to the rental car counter.

It had been a long day.

I was really tired.

And as I was standing there waiting for the guy to drop my paperwork,

I glanced down at the ground and there was a money clip sitting there right next to my foot.

And I reached down,

I picked it up and there was a pretty thick wad of bills in this money clip.

And so the little voice in my head is like,

You know,

You know,

You could just drop that in the pocket of your coat.

Nobody'd ever know.

But instead I handed it over the counter and I gave it to the guy because I understood,

You know,

If I were to do that,

It would be affirming some sense of lack in myself or some greed in myself or some sense of poverty or,

You know,

It's like,

I don't need that money.

It would have been nice.

I mean,

It could have been a couple hundred bucks or something and bought a good dinner.

But now who knows what the guy behind the counter did with it?

He might have dropped it into his pocket,

But that's not up to me to decide.

Right.

I mean,

That's the thing.

I mean,

Only when we are aware of our relationship to existence,

To the cosmos,

Do we make a decision like that knowing that every gesture says something about our state of being.

It's not just,

Is someone looking,

Will I get in trouble?

Is this morally okay or not okay?

It's that every gesture is communicating to ourselves,

To the world,

Who we are,

What we are,

What's real,

What's true.

Exactly.

Oh,

I'm so glad you brought that point up because I've tried to explain this to people in the past and I sometimes talk about it in my own classes.

I think we are in constant two way communication with the universe and every gesture,

Every speech that you exude,

It's being received somewhere by someone and we are creating a sense of who and what we are with exactly those things.

And if I'm pocketing other people's things that don't belong to me,

Then I'm stating something about myself to the universe that I'm not trustworthy,

That I don't trust the universe,

I don't trust the Tao,

I don't trust God.

Which is exactly why it's important to understand the Tao or the Logos as it is so that we understand that how we carry ourselves,

How we represent ourselves,

What we put into being,

It shapes the entirety of our life and not only that,

But that it impacts the whole world,

Even if in just the slightest ways.

In that way,

The more mindful or more aware a person becomes,

The more careful they are.

I think the Tao says it's something like the master is careful,

Like someone crossing an iced over stream or something like that.

There's that great sense of care about everything that we're doing.

Right,

Exactly.

And it doesn't matter whether,

Now I've told you the story about the money clip,

But it doesn't matter whether you or anybody else was ever aware that that happened.

It has nothing to do with me broadcasting that I did a thing that's quote unquote good or selfless.

The gesture itself was the communication already.

Yes.

And our conscience is a reflex,

If our conscience is clear and it's not just some distortion of our superego,

Our conscience is a reflection of that.

Because our conscience,

Socrates,

I think it was Socrates,

Someone asked Socrates sort of why he was so wise,

Why he was considered so much wiser than the other people.

I think he said something like,

I'm not wiser,

I just listen to my conscience,

Which he called demon.

I listen to my conscience and that conscience is some sense,

It's the inner representation of just what we're talking about,

Of that knowing of what we're communicating to the world.

That sense of the logos that is not necessarily articulated to ourselves in words,

But we feel it and we understand when we're violating it,

Even if we don't admit those things to ourselves,

You can feel that discomfort when you do something that goes against the grain of the truth.

Yeah,

Right.

Exactly.

That's perfectly put.

It's like when you go with the truth,

Your conscience is clear.

You feel good.

It feels right.

And when you betray that,

Even when nobody's looking,

When you haven't gotten in trouble,

It's like,

You know,

And this gets really,

Well,

I don't want to go on a tangent here.

It's a great point.

It's a great point.

Whole other episode.

We can do that separately.

Okay.

I'll read the next one.

The master by residing in the Tao sets an example for all beings.

I like unfolding something about sets an example for all beings.

That needs to be said because I think that becomes our responsibility as we mature.

It really shifts the focus from a more childlike perspective of what are my rights,

What are my privileges,

What am I entitled to,

To what do I want to be an example of?

And that's adulthood.

That's a very different world than a world that's focused on getting my rights,

My needs,

My desires,

What have you,

To be an example.

I think it's so funny in public life,

Some of the politicians and other high profile people that we are aware of is that they try to embody the appearance of being the master setting an example.

But behind the scenes it's really all the other stuff.

It's the what can I get away with,

It's what can I accumulate for myself.

So to truly walk as a master walks and be the example you have to already have emptied yourself and release those attachments and the other things that are described in the beginning of this verse.

I really agree with you very deeply and I think it's part of the reason we're in such a chaotic situation in the US with our politics and our divisiveness is because we have given way so often to deceit and so often to,

I won't say malevolence,

But corruption.

And we have not trained ourselves to become an example or spot an example.

And without those examples we're fucked.

Well,

You know it's hard to identify an example in this age that we live in where everything is packaged by media or manipulated electronically before it ever comes into our awareness.

So you know every public figure that you see their words have already been scripted for the most part and you know we catch them sometimes when they try to ad-lib and it doesn't go very well.

So we're not even sure what we're seeing all the time.

You know unless you're in the immediate presence of someone physically it's hard to tell what it is or who it is that you're dealing with.

But even people who are very skilled at deception and charismatic you could be standing five feet away from them and still not see through the facade.

So I don't know.

Well,

It's very hard.

Christ said that just unbelievably potent thing.

He said a prophet won't be recognized in his hometown.

Something close to that.

When I paraphrase Christ I often get it wrong but I'm getting the gist of it.

It goes both ways.

It's like we don't recognize wisdom in front of us because when it's in front of us it often looks like something else and we mistake it.

You know we mistake it for whatever.

You know often people who bring truth we kill our prophets.

We get rid of those who are doing good and we misunderstand them.

And what we spoke about this last night in A Course in Miracles is that we live in the world where everything is opposite to the truth and so when someone comes along as an example they're usually eliminated in some sense.

Yeah,

Because the eco can't stand to see its deception pointed to.

Even if it's not overtly exposed it knows that it's been deceived and is deceiving on behalf of its owner,

For lack of a better word.

But moving on to the next two lines it says,

Because he,

The master,

Because he doesn't display himself people can see his light.

And that's also true if you've ever been,

And I know you have,

If you've been in the presence of someone who's truly enlightened,

Who's truly clear,

There's an indescribable – energy is not even the right word – awareness that you're touching something sublime through that person that can't necessarily be described and it's attractive.

There's a magnetism to it.

You want to be closer to that person.

So if the ego doesn't get scared off then yeah,

We can see the light and we can sense it and we can gravitate to it.

Such a rare thing.

Well,

Yeah,

Let's put that in contrast with someone who's trying to display their specialness,

Their light,

Their beauty,

Their significance,

Their power.

That attempt to display it,

It dims that light,

It dims the potency and the beauty of that.

Right,

Right,

Because we can tell,

Something in us can tell the true from the false,

Whether we can ever sort of speak it in those words or not,

But we can tell when we're looking at something that's genuine versus somebody who's super thirsty as the kids say.

It reminds me of when I first entered college,

I was in the theater program and I was fully intent on being a filmmaker eventually,

Which lasted two semesters because I found out you have to take acting classes and there was no way in hell I was going to do that.

Anyway,

I was in one acting class and I remember in particular we would do these monologues or dual acting skits and I remember there was this one individual who always needed to stand out.

He just always needed to be noticed over the top and he was so annoying,

He was so,

Well,

Narcissistic but.

.

.

Needy.

Needy,

Yeah,

That's a good word.

And there was this woman who has since been in some films I've seen who was just so understated,

So simple in her acting,

So ordinary,

So much herself,

But every time she took to the stage something brilliant was there.

It was just brilliant but with no attempt to display anything or be big or it was just it was the simplicity of just her being herself and you could see it.

You could see she had a way of captivating you just through that ordinariness.

Yeah,

Did you ever see the film Billy Elliot about the kid in like Northern England or Ireland who goes to ballet?

I think so.

So anyway,

So another example in film here.

So Billy Elliot is not very good at sports but he comes from this household where dad's a tough guy and the brothers and you know he's expected to be a footballer or something but instead he finds himself,

He fails miserably at sports and he finds himself gravitating towards the girls ballet classes and eventually he convinces his family to let him do this and he tries out for a ballet company and he blows the audition.

And so he is standing before the jury and they give him the bad news and as he's about to walk away one of the teachers interrupts him and she asks him about why he dances and he sort of launches into this soliloquy about it and the final line that he utters is when the music starts I seem to disappear and that's the thing that lights everybody up and they're like oh that's exactly what we're looking for he just needs training.

And this speaks to like the lines earlier here to empty yourself out so that you can be filled.

I've always loved that that line has always resonated with me the idea of simply letting your personality get out of the way so that something more intelligent can take you over and express itself through you and how effortless it is when you can allow that to happen.

Yeah absolutely.

Right?

Yep.

Yeah exactly.

So the light that's being spoken of here is not actually coming from the master him or herself it's the light of God inhabiting that person.

It's not their body that's for sure.

Right,

Right.

Because he has nothing to prove people can trust his words.

We should be suspicious of people who have things to prove.

I should take my own advice on that.

Do you have something to prove?

What are you trying to prove?

I seem to from time to time.

I can be very adamant.

I can be very adamant and that probably makes me less trustworthy.

Oh I don't know about that.

Well I don't know I mean.

Are we talking about Facebook again?

It's been an interesting couple of days.

There's a fine line and I tread this fine line often in my life of knowing how important it is to say something and to have something addressed and noticed and when that becomes something like fundamentalism or goes so far that a person is hurt you know in the process.

I know in myself I have to be very careful because I can be very intense and I don't intend to emphasize something to the degree that it is personal or hurtful or anything but I know I can be very passionate and very intense especially when I know something very deeply but I think sometimes I've seen in my life that I might lose someone's trust through that level of intensity or whatnot.

So I think these are wise words here.

Well it's always,

I'm not talking about you specifically,

But it's always a little suspect when someone is convinced that they know whatever it is.

We have to wonder where the information came from and whether they have an agenda so that might be part of it and sometimes when people are very strident about something it is because they're trying to change your mind or get you to see the world a certain way.

I don't personally experience that with you but.

Oh you have.

I think so.

Not to the point that I didn't trust you though.

Yeah well I mean usually if I become adamant it's because I care very deeply and the subject matter at hand is something that I'm very careful.

If I don't know a subject very deeply I don't pretend that I do but when I do know a subject very deeply and I see that there's something more to be learned then I do become adamant.

But there is an egotistical element to that that arises right when you need to prove something,

When you need to be right or when you need to be more powerful or whatever it may be right and I have seen that firsthand in my life.

You lose trust when you speak that way.

There's something of a need for empowered humility right.

When we empowered humility yeah.

Yeah when we speak.

Well and when you're if you're coming from that place if you're talking to someone with an agenda you're trying to prove something either to them or to yourself then you're using them as a foil for your own ego and there's not genuine connection happening there and I think people can often sense that.

Even if you're saying all the right things in the right situation and this should be working but there's something that's not something's off.

The energy that you're coming forth with is not in alignment with the words or something so people know.

I mean that's where that's where the Tao is like you know prompting us to be like something is not right here.

Yeah well then the need to prove something it always has self in it.

Well here we come up on another another line about emptiness.

I love this one too.

Maybe I love it more than the first one I said I loved.

I don't know it's all good.

Because he doesn't know who he is people recognize themselves in him and yeah I mean I have to say that I've experienced that with you very intensely especially when I first met you and we first you know did some work together.

Your part of your method is to be nobody which means that my brain has to fill in all of those blanks and I was so acutely aware of that it's like who is this guy anyway because all I see is myself.

All I can see is myself over there in a different body.

That's what the Master does.

The Master is a mirror you know and all the mirror does it doesn't represent anything of its own self or position or preference it just provides that pure reflection and in some sense that's part of what our mastery is.

It's to become a clear mirror for others.

I love have you seen The Artist is Present?

No.

Oh watch it.

I imagine that you'll love it.

It's Maria Abramovic who is a performance artist and in this one called The Artist is Present this is an installment at where is it New York somewhere Museum of Modern Art maybe she does a how long was it five weeks day in and day out she just sits present with whoever will come and sit with her.

And like across a table or across the table.

Yep.

She's just present she's just a mirror.

Is this the same woman who she was doing this and a guy showed up and sat down across from her and it was her former lover that they yes art it on the Great Wall of China?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah it's but it's a really nice documentary and tells her story but then it also shows lots of the installment and it's really beautiful because you get the visceral feel of the Master's presence there just being a mirror and you see these people interact with her some of them are crying some of them are laughing you can see some of them fall in love with her some of them are like confused but she's just a mirror and so everything is just being reflected back at the individual it's so beautiful.

I'll look that up thank you.

Well and what happens when we recognize ourselves in another if someone is being a pure mirror I mean it's like you said sometimes you can laugh at yourself sometimes it's intensely uncomfortable seeing the things that you I know seeing things in another person that you have not yet really accepted in yourself can be unbelievably uncomfortable I think that's why we end up you know killing our prophets as a collective is because they're showing us parts of ourselves that we have not acknowledged exactly exactly yeah good point.

Because he has no goal in mind everything he does succeeds.

Don't you just hate people like that?

No but I might be a little jealous of them for sure.

Well there's you know we all know these people in our life where it's just things work out for them and I've met a few people in my life where it's just like they don't try they don't strive they don't fret they don't worry and their path through life is so effortless it unfolds so easily so gracefully and often these people it's like they might be hard working or they might be ambitious or they might be talented in some way but you see that kind of absence of a goal it's like they don't have they're not doing what they're doing in order to get some particular reward or place they're doing what they're doing because it's a part of this innate cooperation with life and they're just moving and it's it's so it's so wondrous to watch when you when we see someone like that.

Well a couple of things occur to me in relationship to that which is first of all I would have to believe such people were raised in a really supportive environment where they were where they learned that the world is a benevolent place more you know by and large and they were supported when supported and guided when they made mistakes in a way that was not shaming and that sort of thing you know a lot of us who grew up in in families that were more dysfunctional didn't get that orientation to life installed early enough you know so we had to learn to be our own supports at some point and and until you kind of get that idea you are engaged in this egoic attempt to control your circumstances and kind of keep in mind anything that might be coming at you and we make our five-year plans and we you know try to put one foot in front of the other in a way that's going to drop us off where they said like this bus goes here right to financial success or recognition or something and then we find out that oh well the bus breaks down sometimes and if we're on it we're kind of stuck.

That's a really weird metaphor sorry.

There you go there you have it be careful about getting on the bus.

But that and then this of course you know just refers back to the idea of being the moment you know being empty in the moment and being I saw another teacher who called this he had a class based on this theme and he called the class how to get lucky and in order to get lucky you have to simply be open to whatever arises and if because if you're not then you don't see an opportunity because it doesn't fit into your carefully constructed worldview so if we don't have our structures loose and spontaneous enough spontaneity that's a good word we need to learn to be spontaneous with whatever arises.

Yeah spontaneity is a huge part of this definitely because spontaneity is in some sense that's how the living presence of God being manifests itself it always manifests itself spontaneously.

It's never pre-programmed it's never you know.

Yeah and the beautiful thing about that is that when it happens and you recognize it and it's a surprise it's so joyful you know there's such delight in all of a sudden seeing the hand of the divine having sort of I mean this is a lofty metaphor but having sort of reached into your life and tweaked something just so that something amazing happened and you were there to see it and that was all you had to do.

I've always loved poetry for that reason because and in my mind I've had a very hard time in the past when I write poetry to go back and edit it because it's so spontaneous that I feel I mean I can edit like if I got if something sounds a little bit better a different way but to fundamentally change the poem it's not right you know there's something about the poem that only can be spontaneous.

I think that's the only way I can write poetry.

Yeah right.

It just comes to me and hard to sit down and just force a poem to come out just doesn't work.

When the ancient masters said,

If you want to be given everything give everything up,

They weren't using empty phrases.

Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.

We don't actually know who we are until the moment is in play.

Muhammad said,

He who knows himself knows his Lord and being lived by the Tao we see that that's all we are.

We are the Tao in action.

We are its eyes and its ears and its tongue.

We are its operation in this world.

The ego finds that well until it knows better until we know better the ego finds that a very scary proposition.

You know this idea that I can simply exist to serve I don't want to say higher power because that that phrase loses meaning after a while but to serve the spontaneous unfolding of the fabric of reality.

You know to simply surrender to whatever wants to show up right now in this moment and it might be nothing at all and it might be totally boring until we change the way we look at those things.

Sometimes a boring moment can be the exact perfect moment you needed.

When we're open to that when we allow that this moment is also perfection.

There's something very truthful about our capacity to see that whatever is manifest it is the manifestation of divinity,

The manifestation of the Tao and in some sense we have to acquire the eyes to see that because it's not immediately obvious.

I mean it's one thing to try to believe that it's another to experience it.

It's another to it's one thing to think oh our boredom is part of a sacred experience too and then it's a whole other to be there in the moment as the Tao experiencing the experience of boredom.

Right,

Right to connect to that simple awareness and understand that that in itself is a miracle.

What it perceives is variable and temporary and doesn't really matter.

The perception itself is the thing.

That is the presence.

Right,

So that's like one of my favorite poems of Rumi's.

He says,

He quotes Jesus,

Lo,

I am with you always means when you look for God,

God is in the look of your eye,

Nearer to you than yourself or the things that have happened to you.

That's beautiful.

Always nearer,

Always closer than we might imagine.

So close we often miss it.

Yes,

Because that's really the question.

The question isn't how do you just find the Tao,

It's how are you overlooking the Tao.