Darkness, Light, Trinity & Tao Te Ching

     My emotions were in a funk.  I observed darkness in my soul.  Help comes right out of depths.  There are many dramatic stories about this experience.  My story is not very dramatic.  Throughout the years of my life, I have experienced many waves of dark emotions followed by waves of "lightness of being."  My personality now chooses to observe these waves rather than experience them so directly.   Stillness accessed by various meditation techniques is always a spot to sit on the soft sand and enjoy watching these waves rise and fall.

     Recently, I ordered a couple of copies of the Tao Te Ching translated in a small pocket edition by Stephen Mitchell.  It is not the first time I have ordered this book.  I usually give my "own" book away to someone I care for and then order again.  And usually when I order, it is for at least 2 copies. That was the case with this latest order and I knew who was to receive one of the books.  The other book, I now carry in my purse.  

     I share the first chapter here.  Perhaps I will share more chapters in the coming days.  Writing gives me pleasure.  It feeds my soul. 

1

The tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named 

is not the eternal Name

The unnameable is the eternally real.

Naming is the origin 

of particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Caught in desire, you see only the 

manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations 

arise from the same source.

This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness. 

The gateway to all understanding. 

     Stephen Mitchell offers notes at the back of his book about each chapter, so my notes here are personal, arising from questions in my own unique life experience.  For me the most challenging phrase here is "Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding."  It seems like we live in a world of chaotic "darkness" with principalities, governments, kingdoms making bargains with the "devil" of separation while declaring the bargains to be wise and clever.  As individuals we live our experiences in similar darkness, thus we are "darknesses within darknesses" shrouded in bodies, bargains with our egos to hide the brilliant, loving essence of our souls.  The true Source might better be called LIGHT, but we who think ourselves to be separated bodies, need a source of experiential darkness to motivate us to seek the restoration of our awareness of the LIGHT.  Apparently, we choose to have a human experience, but we also need a way to find our way HOME to the LIGHT.

     My little 2 year old granddaughter, River, was staying with Greg and me this weekend.  She was very busy asking me occasionally, "Mimi, are you busy?"  She was busy playing games, finger painting, picking flowers, pouring water, watching some kid shows, etc.  At one point she said, 

"Mimi, I need to go home now and rest."  I told her I could not take her home but offered to hold her while she rested.  She smiled and said "O-tay," in her sweet little voice.  I picked her up and held her close, and in a soft singing voice suggested that she close her eyes and rest.  She was sound asleep in less that two minutes, resting from the "darkness" of busy-ness (business),  We adults also need refreshing rest from our own darkness within the darkness we perceive as our outer and disconnected world.  Sleep is usually restful for me, but the restfulness of conscious meditation is even more refreshing than sleep.  

     Below, I copy and paste from Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation from Sunday, March 12th, 2017.  

For me, it is related to the passage from the Tao Te Ching and gifts me with a new possibility for the political "darkness" I perceive in the world at this time.  

The Law of Three Changes Everything

Sunday, March 12, 2017 

In the United States our politics have devolved into divisiveness and partisanship. Think about it: You feel passionate about your party and your issues. Your co-worker or neighbor backs the other political party with equal passion.

The way we live so much of our lives stops right there. Someone takes position A, and someone else opposes them in Position B; they exist in rivalry and antagonism, world without end. This is precisely the behavior we’d expect in a binary system—a place of “two-ness” in opposition. At best, when we’re finished yelling at each other, we might try to compromise and form some kind of “synthesis” position out of our dueling dualisms.

If the universe is created in the image of the Creator and the Creator is a Trinity, it begs the question: What if we don’t live in a binary universe, but instead in a ternary universe?

This week and next, Cynthia Bourgeault, a faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation, will explore the profound metaphysical Law of Three. Cynthia’s exploration of the doctrine of the Trinity paired with the teachings of an enigmatic Armenian teacher, G. I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949), is unique and can help us move forward and get unstuck.

If three-ness captures the essence of the cosmos more than two-ness, it means that we can hold our perspective with earnestness while fully awaiting an uncontrived third force to arrive and surprise us all out of our neat little boxes. Note that this isn’t some mere synthesis of opposition, but something genuinely novel arriving on the scene, a Position C.

The exact form that third force takes is beside the point, nor is it that first and second force suddenly find themselves invalidated in the face of some newer, shinier debut. Instead, the third force redeems each position and gives everyone a valuable role to play in the creation of something genuinely new—a fourth possibility that becomes the new field of our collective arising.

Gateway to Silence:
Behold, I make all things new. —Revelation 21:5

    *****

     If we seek we will find just as promised in scripture.  Knock and be ready to open the door to new possibilities, understandings that transcend mere intellect.  I seek the LIGHT.