Tao Te Ching and the Spirit of Life

We’d had no rain in our area for about 2 months, and whole areas of our lawn just dried up and looked dead. The rains did finally come this week, blessing the earth with several inches of rain locally, and today I found that in the “dead” patches—not just ours, but in all the scorched lawns around us—signs of life have emerged. What seemed dead was full of potential energy, just waiting for the right conditions to release that energy and break through.

As I’m reading Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching” as translated by Ralph Alan Dale, I feel this spark of energy in everything—that potential for being, flowing with the Tao, experiencing all the potential that exists in the cosmos. According to Dale’s interpretation of Lao Tzu’s philosophy, “To live life in accord with the Tao is to be in harmony with all others, with the environment and with one’s self. It is to live in synchronicity with processes, and to be completely authentic, sincere, natural and innocent.”

In section 6 of this book (“Life’s Spirit”, page 13), I found a verse apropos to my discovery today:

“The spirit of life never dies.
It is the infinite gateway
to mysteries within mysteries.
It is the seed of yin,
the spark of yang.
Always elusive,
endlessly available.”

I’m reading “The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics” on Project Gutenberg at the same time. The wording in “The Tao Teh King” tries very hard to capture the literal translation of the Tao Te Ching, but can be difficult to read. I really like the way Dale and his photographer and illustrator, John Cleare, captured Lao Tzu’s work in a poetic, pleasing, inspirational format, including the original Chinese characters on each page. Dale enlisted the help of several colleagues and reference texts to complete this edition. I am very glad to have this book as part of my collection of texts as I travel the path toward enlightenment.