Verse 81: The Sage and human civilisation.

信言不美 美言不信。
Honest words are not sweet, sweet words are not honest. (It also implies that sweet words are insufficient to build a strong relationship. They open the path, but more is needed to successfully follow through).
善者不辯 辯者不善。
Charitable people do not argue, people who argue are not charitable.
知者不博 博者不知。
Those who are enlightened do not store (names, fact), those who store are not enlightened.
聖人不積。
The sage accumulates nothing. (However, those who accumulate nothing may not be sages.)
既以為人己愈有。
Since he does everything for man, he gets everything.
既以與人己愈多。
Since he gives everything to man, he gets plenty.
天之道利而不害。
The movement (tao) of heaven benefits without hurting.
聖人之道為而不爭。
The behavior (tao) of the sage actualises his goals without causing discord.

This final verse talks about applying the Tao to civilised life and living with other human beings. The two characteristics of civilisation are speech and accumulution. The sage can't care less.The emphasis here is humanistic, showing how a sagely attitude towards others naturally reflects the path of heaven. Heaven here is an umbrella term for nature and must be thought apart from the "heaven and earth" framework. Finally, all the talk about "wu wei" (non-being), ultimately leads to enlightened being, that achieves without sowing discord.

How I found the way (and how it found me!)

We will all react in different ways, and nobody should share the same story as mine.

From memory:
"Going to school is about gaining; Learning the Tao is about losing."
Here is the brief story about how I lost my way here:

1. I was always a top student in the later years of school. It came when I was around 9 or 10 (i.e. the loss of my childhood and rise of my intellect)

2. Consumed American media, especially TV and film. Started to get mad with authoritarian, Confucian systems.

3. Somewhere around the same time, I cut connections from my father. He was unemployed for a prolonged period of time and let out verbal abuse from time to time to protect his declining role as head of the household. As a young man I realised all the Chinese ideas about the son taking after the father had to be nonsense.

4. Through good grades and a good student profile I got admitted into a top US university. I then thought: I want the American dream, and I will fight to get it. Bit naive, young me.

5.The dream was blocked. I had to waste 3 years to national service. My life then was embarassing and stressful, and the experience made me dream about the US even more.

6. The move to the US required immense readjustment. I adjusted quickly, but that didn't mean I adjusted less. I lost the convenience of immediate communication with family and many of my other 'Eastern' habits. I was somewhat hopeless, making all the cultural blunders a young child would make.

7. To even greater horror, I was soon realising that few others saw things both ways. The people around me in the US were rigid in the American way/ways. I was reluctant to conform again, and did a couple of silly things to try to distinguish myself. Neither was I keen to build my life around other Asian students steeped in their rigid Eastern ways. I was trying to assert my unique individuality, like it existed.

8. I asserted this in many stupid ways, and I thought intellect and film were the paths. I'll spare the details, but I spent much effort in these two areas, but hardly got the success that I expected. I felt I was coming closer to the paradoxical nature of the universe, but then it also seemed to keep running away.

9. Finally, I started getting pissed off with university life. I moved out on my own, and was fortunate to take a class on comparative religion. After weeks of Christianity, Judaism, Islam etc...my mind was floating about all over the lecture room. Who was right? Who was wrong? I had given up answering these questions, but only because I thought there was no answer. I was an uncomfortable postmodernist, someone with no moral center.

Suddenly the worlds jumped at me straight out from the textbook. The connection was made only because I had been losing many valuable things over the last 6 years.

"The way that can be described/practised is not the constant way,"
"The name that can be named is not the constant name".

I completely understood, and was drawn into this mystery. This was a turning point. It is extremely ironic and fitting how I, born in a culturally Eastern/Chinese environment, discovered the most magnificient Chinese insight in English in a Western country on the opposite side of the globe.

10. I had already been rediscovering video games due to my solitary life and disillusionment with film. To economize, I got my first Playstation 2 and started playing lots of Japanese games. Every thing I had been learning in my 3 college years pointed to the Tao in a narrow, focused kind of way, but with Japanese media it seemed it holistically presented in a subtle, hidden manner.

11. December 2005, I visited Tokyo for 3 weeks and really absorbed the feel of Japanese life. I read Japanese history on the plane, noting the importance of US interventions. It became entirely clear after my trip: Japan was currently the exact opposite of the US and the leader of many Asian trends. The part that was obscured was finally revealed, and I could see the whole. The two weeks I spent travelling alone helped me to discover these insights and let me reach a calmer mental state (here some credit must go to Japanese manners and old temples)

12. In 2006 the transformation was complete. I discovered ease of heart and a peace of mind. I now seek to spread this to the people who want to receive.

Disclaimer: This is not for the smart!

There is no need for words. What needs to be said has already been said a long time ago. Then why blog? Why not just slack about and happily enjoy life?
For every day that I live in civilisation, I must face the most vicious of all creatures: man. If I do not help them to transform themselves, they will swallow me. Not that I care, but I would like to live as long as possible, because life is fun.

The goal is to write the one work: Paradiso. The work may take forever, or never be finished. However, I will try my best. Hopefully, Paradiso will be so entertaining that it can transform some of the monkeys would live years after me.

The blog is the indirect means to collect information for this narrative, as well as double up for a personal study of the Tao Te Ching. The Zhuangzi is already nicely fleshed out, and way too funny.

With this I begin! If you ever read this blog, please be kind on me.