Lao Tzu: The tao that can be told is not the eternal tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The ring of truth. What Lao Tzu calls tao I call truth. As Lao Tzu says, truth can't be put into words. Language and thinking can't express truth. Truth can only be discovered by making progress with love, which could just as easily be called making progress with truth. Truth can only be discovered by doing the grueling inner work of the spiritual quest. Words are empty, arbitrary symbols that point to things, actions, relations but have no real content. The simplest real thing is out of the reach of words. But when a wise man like Lao Tzu has something to say, his words may have the ring of truth for someone who's ready to hear. Hearing the ring of truth marks a moment of waking up a little. Truth can also be smelled and tasted.
Finding my truth. When I was a young child, my spontaneous meditations all had the ring of truth. That's what was so compelling, so mesmerizing about them. They shone with an otherworldly beauty I can still see, though at the time I had none of these words. The spontaneous meditations I had in Louisiana, Marianna, and Asheville had nothing to do with anything I'd been taught, anything that came from someone else. I knew they were mine and mine alone, like nothing else was. In Kenya I lost touch with the truth inside me because I started using recreational drugs, booze and dope. I didn't get back in touch with my own truth until I was drowning in the misery in a failed marriage. It took that pit of despair to jolt me hard enough, deep enough to open a door so I could begin making my way back into what I now know to be Leela's arms.
Chaotic and mysterious. I live in the real world, chaotic and mysterious. The real world is playful and unpredictable. I give things names, I put them in categories, I make up abstractions about them in an attempt to make the world feel safer and more predictable. Of course it doesn't work. But having made up all these names etcetera I sometimes confuse real things with their name and all those other mental projections. Mental projections work and relate neatly because that's what I'm after: order, neatness. The world is not orderly or neat, and words can't make it that way. Words don't impose order on the world because a thing is not its name or category. It's a real thing, out of the reach of words. Words often get in the way, keeping me from seeing and feeling the chaotic and mysterious world, beautiful and terrifying. The world isn't safe or orderly. Nothing can make it that way.
Abstractions. We start with seemingly simple words: god, heat, time. None of those is a thing you can point to. They're abstractions, words that don't point to anything except other words, crap we've made up in our heads. We make up vastly complicated systems that those words are important entities in, but all of that is imaginary. Made up by thinkers thinking in words. Those simple words are imaginary creations of the human mind with no substance.
So are the complicated systems built up around them. Abstractions can be useful. They can also be poisonous.
Perfection is a perfect example of just how poisonous abstractions can be. We have the concept of perfection, so we assume it's something worth striving for, something we should try to embody. But perfection doesn't exist. Nothing is perfect, and that's a good thing. Imperfection means there is room for improvement, for ongoing refinement: in other words there's headroom. Perfection means progress isn't possible, and that's spiritual death. The truth is this: grow or die. My skin, on my legs in particular, is the battleground for a struggle I have, caused by the perfection delusion. Growing up I was a thin-skinned child in the buggy South, and the mosquitoes loved to feast on me. The bites itched, and I scratched at them until they bled, then picked the scabs that formed. Now in my seventies I still pick at scabs, and it's a source of shame and frustration. Contemplating perfection helps me understand my habit: my skin is supposed to be perfect, unblemished. I have a deeply seated habit of exploring my skin with my fingertips, especially while seated at the computer to watch a video or listen to music. When I feel and bump or some roughness, my automatic response is to squeeze the bump, scratch at the rough. I hope that coming to this understanding and making this confession will help me master this lingering bad habit.
Proper nouns seem to point to something real: Louisiana, Jeff Fairhall. But they don't hold any truth either. The stability of those proper nouns hoodwinks us into seeing imaginary stability, stability that isn't there in the real world. A person a place an object changes every instant. We usually can't see the change happening. We only see the change once there have been enough instantaneous changes. Louisiana in 1951 was not like Louisiana in 2021. Jeff before his tumor manifested was not like Jeff after. TH when I met him was not like TH when I left. Even proper nouns can't hold truth.
With the angel standing for truth. When I encounter the truth, even for an instant, it's overwhelming. Everything stops. It wakes me up. In Kenya I was shocked awake when I encountered a cobra way too fucking close to me in the coffee. That was the truth staring me in the face. The truth takes my breath away, it stops my world. I can't bear more than an instant of it. Rilke writes about this in his First Duino Elegy.
A particular cobra. A cobra is real, but the word cobra points to millions of real things. The word cobra can't take my breath away, for an instant or for good; a cobra can. But only a particular cobra at a particular moment and there's no word for that. The cobra that took my breath away existed only in that particular 1966 moment. A hundred people looking at a cobra each have a different cobra each instant. Each instant of my life has its own particular truth. Making progress with love is paying attention so I can see that truth and inhabit it.
Body sensations are true. How I feel right now is true, and it can't be put into words. But if I pay attention to my body sensations, I can find truth; I can make progress with love. Paying attention is how I gain wisdom. Wisdom, Leela, is my connection with everything that exists. Leela has the answers I need because she is all of this, everything in time and space. Leela sees through time. If I surrender to her and follow her guidance, she will unerringly guide me to the outcome I want: progress with love. She is my spiritual guide.
Ignorance. There's as much intolerance, greed, hatred, repression and injustice as there is goodness and fairness; probably more. It's been that way since the neolithic revolution, when humanity began. None of those bad things will ever go away. If I say they will, if I say we can do this, I'm just showing my ignorance. History insists that revolutions and popular uprisings simply replace one brand of bullshit with another. Always been that way. Your revolution will not be any different. And if I waste my precious time trying to change the world, or other people, I lose my chance to do the one good thing I can do: make progress with love.
I can do this. I can't make the world a better place; no one can. But I can make my own life better. I can stop drinking, stop taking drugs, get the right kind and amount of exercise, eat healthy natural foods, and meditate. I can love not hate, be kind not cruel, be tolerant not judgmental. My negativity causes me more suffering than anyone else. I need to overcome it for me. I can remember that all my fellow humans are suffering. I can't save the world, I can't save anyone. No one can save anyone else. But I can make my life better, and I can connect deeply with other people who are working to make their lives better. I can make progress with love.