道相 Tao Mutual #6

Pattern: 8 Days Zen Guqin.

Larry Neal Gowdy

All things, created, are composed of three or more other things... there is no such thing in Nature as a thing that stands alone, composed solely of itself... there is no such thing as a solid... no such thing as a binary, because, a binary would exist of itself, a solid, having created itself from nothing, not capable of harmonizing with anything else... if no harmony, then no creativity... if no creativity, then no Creation... no Nature...

All of the world's topmost scholars, topmost philosophers, topmost scientists, topmost venerated of intelligence, not know that all things in Nature are composed of ingredients... all believe, that three dimensions created themselves from nothing, that three dimensions were created from a form of 'force', while not knowing the 'force' is itself three-dimensional, and cannot exist outside of three dimensions...

Some infant children, know, that all things are composed of other things... but, few adults ever know... even when told...

An ingredient, is not a solid... not, self-created... not three-dimensional... ingredients, are, as if an analogy of strings... stretchable strings... woven strings... from a common created person's three-dimensional point of view, the strings appear to have lengths, widths, and depths... wheresoever there exists differences, there will also exist opposite differences, but only existing within the three-dimensional point of view as seen by the created three-dimensional things.

All things in Nature are different... no two things are identical, the same, nor equal. It is very much literally impossible in Nature for two things to be identical... and, so, if nothing created is identical, then all created things have 'mutuals'... relativities as compared to all other created things, including the created thing's own ingredients.

Individuals who think... who self-observe... very easily recognize that an easy life never understands a difficult life... easy on one end, difficult on the other... also recognize, that appreciation of an easy life cannot occur without the difficult life. To live a difficult life for five to ten years, of no city electricity, no telephone, no air conditioning, no running water, very little heating, no luxuries, no easy place to wash clothes, work hard each day to dig dirt, chop wood, no oven, no cook stove, eat very little, winters of minus-twenty-five degrees and sixty-five mile-per-hour winds, summers of one-hundred-twenty degrees and over ninety-nine percent humidity with no breeze, no clouds, no shade, always struggle to stay alive... and then the person moves into a city... the person then highly and strongly appreciates running water, heating, hot water showers, clothing washing machine, stove, range, refrigerator, lighting, and air conditioning.

Cannot have compassion for a person's hard life, if not first lived one's self... cannot appreciate easy life, if not lived the hard life first... cannot appreciate friend, if always had friends... cannot appreciate being clean, without first being dirty... cannot attain, nor express, benevolence, without the ingredient of appreciation.

Appreciation is a created thing... created by the histories of first not having near, the things that later are near... there is no boundary, of how strong appreciation can rise, but, there is a boundary of how much hardship the body can survive...

All ingredients, useful, but, also harmful... one string-end, useful... other string-end, harmful... but, the harmful string-end can give rise to another string's end that is useful... countless, an almost infinite number of possible strings, each with good and bad ends, but, each end gives rise to other strings' good and bad ends.

One plausible solution is to aim for a middle path... to choose, middle of strings... not too far in any direction... the middle path, precludes the harmful string ends, but also makes impossible the good string ends. The middle path is as for societies, suitable for national harmony amongst common people, but for one's self, the middle path only has one destination... mediocrity... useless mediocrity.

Mediocrity, is not an ingredient of benevolence, nor of virtue, nor of love, nor of any quality thing...

Three-dimensional mutuals do exist... always exist... observable in all things in Nature...

Quotes from academic translations of a portion of Daodejing:

Legge: "So it is that existence and non-existence give birth the one to (the idea of) the other; that difficulty and ease produce the one (the idea of) the other; that length and shortness fashion out the one the figure of the other; that (the ideas of) height and lowness arise from the contrast of the one with the other; that the musical notes and tones become harmonious through the relation of one with another; and that being before and behind give the idea of one following another."

Goddard: "So existence and non-existence are incompatible. The difficult and easy are mutually opposites. Just as the long and the short, the high and the low, the loud and soft, the before and the behind, are all opposites and each reveals the other.

Suzuki: "For 'To be and not to be are mutually conditioned. The difficult, the easy, are mutually definitioned. The long, the short, are mutually exhibitioned. Above, below, are mutually cognitioned. The sound, the voice, are mutually coalitioned. Before and after are mutually positioned.'"

My own translation's words, are simple word-per-word translations of each Chinese word, using simple English dictionary synonyms... not difficult... very easy, but, perhaps only easy to people who know, through self-observation, what a mutual is. The academic translations, confused... rambling... twenty-five original words, Legge eighty-seven, Goddard forty-two, Suzuki forty-two.

The majority of all people, believe that they can be compassionate within an easy life, without first having lived a hard life. The majority of all people, believe that they can be virtuous within an unthinking life, without first thinking correctly. The majority of all people, believe to be true, non-mutual things that are not possible in Nature. The majority of all people, believe that virtuous people are given eternal rewards in an afterlife, but, the majority of people are unaware that they themselves possess no virtue... no perfect eyes to see correctly, no straight heart to feel correctly, no thinking to weave thoughts correctly... all selfish... selfishness, is not an ingredient of virtue... selfishness, is, itself a mutual of virtue... near an opposite, but different string. The majority of people, they say that selfish people are eternally punished in an afterlife, but, the majority of all people, still selfish themselves... not know, not able to think.

Laozi's words... logical... agree with what is real in Nature... there does not exist any ponderable matter that is not 'mutually processed'... nothing, that is not composed of ingredients.

Laozi's words... not magic, not supernatural, not mysticism, not spiritualism, not claiming to know things that are not possible to know... Laozi, logical... Laozi, able to think...