The Hide-and-Seek Nature of the Tao
To be whole is to be completely at ease with ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes we feel satisfied with where we're at, lacking nothing, but to be in that state permanently is rare. In fact, a person who feels perfectly whole is often regarded as 'holy'. The ancient Chinese writers called this being at one with the 'Tao', which loosely translates as 'God' or 'Nature'.
Yet Lao Tsu, the author of the Book of Tao, opens with the words "the Tao that can be described is not the absolute Tao". The Tao is so holistic and all-encompassing that any description fragments it. In fact, language alone will distort even the smallest thing. Once we categorise that lively bundle of flesh and feathers in the garden as a 'bird', something is gained but some essential truth is also lost.
This is the problem with language. We define a thing by its difference from other things. By calling a bird a bird, we also say that it is also not part of its flock or the air or the earth, which it ultimately is. Language gives us clarity at the expense of the whole picture.
Any statement also contains an implicit subtext. To say that God is good implies that he has nothing to do with the bad, which thereby makes him less than the whole. This makes the concept of wholeness itself profoundly paradoxical. Whatever we say about it has to accomodate its opposite, or it can't be fully inclusive.
In practice, we know this. A person can feel whole despite, or even because of, his or her wounds. To be whole means that we can also be at peace what is not whole: sadness, pain and loss, for example.
Lao Tsu further highlights the limitations of language by saying "He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know.' Yet had he tried to cling to the Tao by remaining silent, he would have locked himself into a partial position that excluded language. As a result, Lao Tsu, having just said that the Tao is indescribable, then spends the next 5000 words describing it. The subtext of his opening words are that the inexpressible Tao must also express itself to be the Tao.
The Tao is One, as Lao Tsu says, but it is also the 10,000 individual things that make up this world, and they don't necessarily feel part of the One at all. This is the dynamic interplay of the Tao. The world is both the One and the fractious Many at the same time. As William Blake put it, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time."
We understand wholeness best through imagery and metaphor rather than words, and most traditional images are circular. The full moon in a cloudless sky. A Chinese ink drawing of a circle, both full and empty at the same time. The laughing Buddha with his huge round belly. The celtic cross of four equal arms containing a circle. The intricate Tibetan mandalas that mirror the complexity of the mind. The ancient Greeks even saw the human soul, and the world soul, as being spherical. Not to mention the primitive cultures that worshipped the sun as God.
The yin-yang symbol is also circular but it has the great added virtue of illustrating the dynamism of the Tao. Yin and yang represent not just female and male, but all the
opposites in the universe: activity and rest, unity and division, the known and the unknown. When the cold, dark yin of winter peaks, it thereafter fades and allows its opposite, the hot, bright yang of summer, to emerge. And although winter is hard to imagine in summertime, both are part of the whole.
This yin-yang interplay of opposites never stops. Wholeness is never a fixed state. In a particular snapshot of time, it may seem still. We may have ecstatic moments of sheer perfection, or insights into the eternal, but in the world of time, wholeness is more fluid. It is a process rather than a state.
In reality, we are almost never still. How long could you or I sit still in a room, perfectly content, doing nothing at all? An hour? Ten minutes? What is this primal urge to move? Why are we so restless? Why do we typically want to do or be or experience something different from what is happening right now? And is this necessarily bad?
Why did I just stretch my arms, or have a coffee, or phone a friend, or do some paper work? We constantly seek for ways to feel a little better, each hour of the day. Over the arc of my life, why did I choose this job, this lover, this city to live in, these books to read?
Even if we seem to have all we need, we know there is more to life than this. This primal impulse for 'more' is what the Buddha called 'desire'. It is the lust for life, which operates so deeply and pervasively within us we barely notice it. I'm sure it operates in every plant and animal cell, and even in viruses. We seek what we lack, and we want more of what we've got.
Plato explained the sexual urge by saying that each human being is incomplete in itself, and forever longs for its other half. When a man and a woman come together, their two half-souls join, like the halves of an orange, to form one complete soul.
John Donne called this restless drive our 'holy discontent'. Furthermore, we find wholeness by knowing the exact configuration of our lacks and deficiencies at that moment. We already have the key to the next door. A starving man needs food. Someone else hungers for a soul-mate.
We become whole by pursuing our desires, and our desires tell us what we need. This is more complicated than it sounds since there is a whole hierarchy of needs and desires. Some change from day to day. Others change over a lifetime, and many desires are toxic.
Mick Jagger says "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might get what you need". So what are our needs? Air, water, food, clothing and shelter to start with. Those low-order needs have to be met first. But what then?
Freud said that to be happy we need love and work. To be loved is to be seen and accepted as an individual. Orphans who are biologically cared for but not 'seen', will literally die. Adults who are lonely or depressed will suffer a death of the soul, and age prematurely. We may not need the embrace of a lover, but nearly all of us, even the great solitaries, need to be 'seen' in some way.
We also need 'work' in the sense of 'this is what I do and who I am', whether it makes money or not. Without this sense of identity and purpose, we feel scattered, aimless and
lost, and a prey to any distraction. We also need ongoing sensory and intellectual stimulation. And we need meaning: a way to understand the world and our place in it.
But how many of the above are 'needs' and how many are 'desires?' Our needs are obligatory - we have to attend to them - but our desires are where the problems lie. The Buddha said we'll never find happiness by trying to satisfy all our desires. If we want too much or strive for what is useless, we'll always feel incomplete. When contemplating a particular action, we should at least ask 'Will this really satisfy me?"
The Buddha said the way to inner peace is to drastically cut back on our desires. This is the traditional, monastic route to holiness. You abandon wealth and fame, withdraw into solitude and interact as little as possible with the world. Alternatively, you sacrifice your own desires in order to help others.
Yet there are other ways to wholeness. If you devote yourself whole-heartedly to what you do, you feel whole. The happiest people seem to be those who follow a passion, be it work or study or an art. Others are fully engaged with whatever they do, even if it is 'just' raising a family, gardening and golf. Passionate people are often 'in the zone', or in a state of 'flow', regardless of any ultimate achievements. Their energies are unified, directed and whole.
We could aim high, and try to satisfy as many of our desires as you can, even if we often fail. Mick Jagger gives all the appearance of being a happy man, and it's not just the money. Similarly, Alexander the Great achieved more by failing to conquer the world, than if he had safely stayed at home.
In any case, what does wholeness feel like? Is it an eternally, calm, quiet place? Is it the end of the line, or does it lead to something else? Is there something beyond wholeness? Personally I doubt if our 'holy discontent' can ever be completely satisfied. Just look at the Buddha. He didn't rest on his laurels after he became enlightened. He spent the next 45 years building a massive spiritual empire.
Even if we become psychologically whole, we can never know more than the tiniest fraction of what there is to know. Our inherent curiosity will always prompt us into the unknown. What more is possible? What else is out there? We can't help it. We always want 'more'. To be whole means to be forever crossing the threshold from the known unto the unknown. The alternative is stagnation and death.
And how did Lao Tsu end up? This white-bearded old man was last seen riding the wild ox of his mind across the border out of China. He left civilization behind and entered the great unknown, accompanied by his enchanting young female companion. Wise and complete as he was, he knew that he still needed 'the other'. Don't we all?
© Perth Meditation Centre 2005
