Capacity

Rain is falling outside the window, softening the hard soil, as needed, for example, by the newly planted seedlings in our “colossal pollinator garden,” a vital niche in life on earth. This rainfall is also required for raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries to fill and sweeten, and it’s wanted further on throughout all the burgeoning summer growth for continued nourishment. 

     Thunder now rumbles overhead with a reminder of the potential power of water, referenced in the Tao cited below as the weakest or softest, yet capable of galloping through the strongest.

The weakest in all beneath heaven gallops through the strongest, 

and vacant absence slips inside solid presence. 

I know by this the value of nothing’s own doing. 

The teaching without words, 

the value of nothing’s own doing: 

few indeed master such things.

[from p. 83, David Hinton. The Four Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching, Analects, Chuang Tzu, Mencius. Kindle Edition] 

     James Legge translates line 2: “that which has no (substantial) existence enters where there is no crevice” and comments “Ho-shang Kung says that ‘what has no existence’ is the Tao; it is better to understand by the insubstantial air which penetrates everywhere, we cannot see how” (p. 87, The Texts of Taoism). The passages on Tao extend understanding of emptiness attended in previous blog entries. 

     The closing line notes that “few indeed master such things.” Being able to live like this, in harmony with the Way, which might also be understood as living by the Spirit, is perhaps the ultimate goal of a life well lived, mastered by “few in the world,” certainly worthy of dedicated focus. And very interestingly, the way is made not by brute force but marked by the “weakest” (Hinton’s translation in line 1), by the “softest” (as Legge and Nasr translate the opening line).

     Nasr also comments on the last line: 

“Only the sages and a selected few comprehend teaching without words and the possibility of acting without acting [wu wei ] and put them into practice. Understanding this truth is not possible for everyone” (p. 123, S.H. Nasr, A Sufi Commentary on the Tao Te Ching: The Way and Its Virtue).

     While the understanding referenced in this text may be quite demanding, current conditions indicate that such work is crucially needed.  Jim Palmer has been writing eloquently about the urgency of developing such capacity.  

"A person’s ability to tolerate uncertainty, remain present during grief, sustain belonging, exercise restraint, or stay grounded when familiar structures collapse … Capacity often becomes visible only when circumstances become difficult. It reveals itself not through performance but through what a person can carry without avoidance, fragmentation, or retreat into illusion." 

Palmer explains how the collapse of structures (especially including organized religion) calls for significant investment in nurturing existential health, like the soft strength of rain, because the well-being of individuals today is confronted by a flood of troubles.

"Questions once answered collectively become questions individuals must answer for themselves. What gives life meaning? Who am I? How should I live? What should I believe? What matters? How do I face suffering? What makes life worth continuing when certainty disappears?

Modernity did not solve these questions.

It privatized them.

The result is a profound transfer of responsibility from external structures to the individual. Increasing numbers of people are being asked to carry psychological and existential responsibilities that previous generations often shared with religion, culture, family, community, and tradition. Yet society rarely pauses to ask whether people possess the capacities necessary to meet these demands.

This may be one of the defining developmental challenges of our age."