So yesterday Rush threw out whatever he could do to spoil the day.
He said something to the effect that "he was not going to allow Obama's plans to work out".
Naturally he had to spew his venom on Inauguration day; how would he have achieved self-importance if he had put out this kind of crap on another day?
And yet there's another way to look at this, as Lao Tzu reminds us, and I invite you to join me below the fold in seeing it from the point of view of this remarkable philosopher and sage.
Lao Tzu was born in China, in the state of Chou, and is considered to be the originator of Taoism. He was considered a sage, someone of deep wisdom and great reclusiveness.He worked in the Emperor's library for fifty years. He gathered no disciples and wrote no books during that time. Confucius, who was a generation younger than Lao Tzu, went for an interview with him and was told to "Free himself from ostentation and live a simple life". Confucius later told his disciples that he had met someone with the stature of a dragon, a man who could fly, a true sage.
At the end of that time, Lao Tzu (His name also means 'The Old Man') set out wandering in the direction of Tibet. Lao Tzu wrote his only book, The "Tao Te Ching" just before he left the Chou empire he served. One day the old man decided to leave the city and started walking towards the distant mountain pass. Arriving at the gate leading out of the empire, he was halted by the keeper of the border, a man named Yin Hsi, who asked him, "Before you retire from the world, will you please write some words for our enlightenment?" Lao Tzu agreed, and before he walked out through the gates and disappeared he left with Yin Hsi a small collection of eighty-one short poems and reflections, consisting of only five thousand characters.
His poems are some of the most incisive and visionary philosophical and political reflections that I have ever encountered. I have read the Tao Te Ching many times, in many translations. It has been translated more than any other book except the Bible.
I talk about Lao Tzu and Rush Limbaugh in the same breath because they are diametrically opposed. Lao Tzu is extremely deep and incisive; plain, unadorned, loves simplicity, doesn't say much, yet every word is clear and far-reaching. Rush is the opposite. He gets paid to shoot his mouth off yet with so many words, so much talking, you tend to forget what he says and what you end up getting out of it is mostly anger, and anger that is very profitable for him. Yet when you ask someone to quote him a week after hearing him, there's nothing to remember.
This points out something that Lao Tzu says; That opposites make each other real. There's no black without white; no high without low.
If something is beautiful, something else must be ugly.
If something is good, something else must be bad.
Thus how would we see the value in Lao Tzu's words without someone like Limbaugh to compare him to?
Lao Tzu often talks of the "Tao", also called the "Way", but he does it by inference. He compares the Tao to water, which does not hesitate to go in the lowest, dirtiest places, can wear away rock, yet is yielding and modest.
"The superior man is like water,
Which benefits all things, and does not contend with them,
Which flows in places that others disdain,
Where it is in harmony with the Way.
So the sage:
Lives within nature,
Gives with impartiality,
Speaks with trust,
Governs with order,
Crafts with ability,
Acts with opportunity.
He does not contend, and none contend against him."
In the first of the poems in the Tao Te Ching, he speaks of the Tao as being beyond analysis:
"The Tao that can be named is not the unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the unchanging name.
Having no name, it is the Origin of heaven and earth;
When named, it is the Mother of all things.
Always be without desire,
If you wish to know its mystery;
But if you have desire
Its manifestations are all that you see.
Having two aspects, it is really the same; but as creation takes place, it manifests as different names. Together we call them the Mystery.
Where Mystery is deepest is where you find The Real Tao."
Yeah, I know; it's pretty deep. It takes a lot of re-reading and a lot of meditating to get to the root of Lao Tzu.
He compares the perfect prince to the "Uncarved Block", which is freedom from desire. Relaxed, modest, living a simple life, his ideal knows a lot but does not speak much.
Sometimes, he gets real down to earth, as when he talks about the perfect king:
"The greatest king is only a shadowy presence to his subjects;
Next comes one they love;
Then one they fear,
And the worst is one that the people take liberties with.
Hesitant, he does not speak lightly;
When the work is done, the people say "We did it all ourselves!"
Can you tell which quality of king Dubya is? Or rather, was? I tend to think that he was the lowest quality, someone who is so little respected that people make jokes about him. Talk about low approval ratings!
Lao Tzu even helps us to understand something as abstract as the void. Yes, we're talking about nothing! You may ask, "Is Nothing Sacred?" Lao Tzu says that nothing, or rather nothingness, is indeed sacred.
Take emptiness, put clay around it, and you have a bowl.
Put walls around it, and you have a room.
Put notes around it, and you have a pause in the music.
(I'm a musician and a teacher, and that last line I wrote to help children see the value of space in art)
"If there was no emptiness, (if the room was full of stuff, duh!) you could not use it;
It's the very emptiness that makes the room useful"
Pretty good, huh? Lao Tzu helped me to begin to understand what people were talking about when they spoke of "The Void". Of course it does take some reflection. I have found that the best way to get Lao Tzu is to read a poem a few times, then put it down and let it ferment in your subconscious for a while. When you come back to it and re-read it, it starts to make more sense.
Rush? Pure logorrhea, a river of words, an unending stream of garbage. Many words, little content, and again that anger, so understandable when you look at the individual. But hey, you can appreciate one by looking at the other. It's the contrast that stands out.
A couple more of the ones that I like:
"Without going outside,You can know the whole world.Without looking out,You can see the Way of Heaven"
And most revealing in light of the last administration:
"Seize power and try to manipulate people, you will not succeed. People have their own way and cannot be manipulated. What you attempt to seize, you destroy; what you attempt to grab, you lose."
I hope that many more people will read this little book, so concise and so intelligently written. The political advice alone is worth the price of admission. Oh, and I know that many of you already know Lao Tzu; this is not a site known for ignorance. Feel free to quote your favorites.