Chapter 10: Embracing the One
The Tao Te Ching: Warnings and Invitations
In embracing the One with your soul,
Can you never forsake the Tao?
In controlling your vital force to achieve gentleness,
Can you become like the new-born child?
In cleansing and purifying your Mystic vision,
Can you strive after perfection?
In loving the people and governing the kingdom,
Can you rule without interference?
In opening and shutting the Gate of Heaven,
Can you play the part of the Female?
In comprehending all knowledge,
Can you renounce the mind?
We were born whole.
Not as a sentiment. As a fact embedded in the oldest understanding of what a human being actually is. The word Laotse uses here is soul. To understand what he means we need to understand what the Taoist tradition means by it, because it is not what most of us were taught.
We carry two souls simultaneously. Hun, the heavenly soul, the yang aspect, the part that reaches toward the invisible, that dreams, that longs for something it cannot name. Po, the earthly soul, the yin aspect, the part rooted in the body and the ground beneath it, the instincts, the emotions, the physical intelligence that knows before the mind has formed an opinion. Heaven and earth. Yang and yin. Both present in the same body at the same time. At birth these two are unified. Moving through each other the way the light half of the yin yang symbol contains the seed of dark and the dark half contains the seed of light. Neither one dominating. Both held within the circle.
