In our truck camper, St. George, between nowhere and nowhere and yet everywhere. On the stereo: “Hope for a generation, just beyond my reach, but not beyond my sight.” —Fat Freddy’s Drop. Don’t lose heart friends. Good may yet prevail.

14.

Look, but you can’t see it:

it’s vague.

Listen, but you can’t hear it:

it’s silent.

Reach, but you can’t grasp it:

it’s intangible.

Yet these three longings to perceive

lead back to the One.

There’s no heaven more wondrous than this.

There’s no shadowy world darker than this.

It’s everlasting and nameless.

Wave upon wave,

threads of energy

spool out from it.

Then everything drifts back

into the void.

It is the shape of the shapeless.

The portrait of the invisible.

It’s incomprehensible.

Greet it, and you’ll see it has no face.

Chase after it, and you’ll find it has no backside.

Master the ancient art of being present;

recognize the timeless source of all existence:

follow this ancient thread

and you’ll discover the secret

to surfing the Tao.

Reflection

This chapter is an epitome of how to surf the Tao. Indeed, the final line states that understanding the ways in which the sensible goes out from the original source of all things and then returns back to the One is the “Tao Axiom.” As simple as that sounds, this chapter also points to the elusive character of ultimate reality. We might rightly connect this Tao to the Logos of Greek and New Testament thought. To do so would not be syncretism (the merging of two religious traditions) so much as philosophical translation.

Consider John 1:1. “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.” This text uses Greek words that a beginning student of the language would know. They’re all one or two syllable words in the original. They are clear and simple, and yet the meaning can never quite be exhausted (which resonates with our chapter of the Tao Te Ching, here). The most difficult word to translate in John is “Logos” which can be rendered “word” but has to do with the creative logic of the universe in Greek philosophers like the Stoics. In this sense, it is as indefinable as “Tao.” But note that for the Gospel according to John, this indefinable, ineffable reality is also equated with God.

According to our usage here, therefore, we aren’t trying to force a Western theistic interpretation onto the text. If you’d like, you might say that “God” exists by definition (something the medieval philosopher Anselm proposed, which in a philosophical sense seems problematic but makes sense in the way Lao Tzu describes reality). Western religious perspectives tend to conceive of this divine reality as personal and providential in human history. Eastern thinkers may conceive of it as impersonal. Despite this important point of difference it does not negate the common reality after which we strive. The Tao may be personal, or it may not. The Logos may be personal, or it may not. John may or may not be right that Jesus embodied the Logos. But if Jesus didembody the Logos (which we happen to affirm), then he also embodied the Tao. In other words, while world religions may disagree with one another about the Way to ultimate reality, they agree on the importance of the Way. Tao can be rendered Way.

In any case, an ancient and longstanding question in Jewish and Christian theology has been whether or not religious language can encapsulate the reality called God. This was such a concern for many within Judaism that they historically avoid saying God’s proper name YHWH, for fear of misapplying it or describing it inappropriately. Medieval mystics sometimes turned to the via negativa or “apophatic tradition” which involved limiting religious language to descriptions of what God was not (for example: God is not limited, wicked, fickle). Even those philosophers who thought we could say something positive about the divine did so through the via analogia, or way of analogy. In this way of thinking, one could say that God was like a mother hen gathering chicks under her wings. For instance, the prophet Hosea (13:8) describes God as a mother bear robbed of her cubs, yet God is only like that.

This chapter also reminds us of Exodus 33. This is the part where Moses goes up the mountain to meet with God. Moses asks to see God’s glory. God says that Moses needs to hide in the crevice. Even then, God says he has to cover the crevice with his giant hand as he’s walking by. Only then can God let Moses see anything of note, which turns out to be only God’s back side. On top of all that, when Moses goes back down the mountain, the people can’t bear the brilliance of Moses’ glowing face, which has to be veiled. It’s a stunning piece of ancient text, and it rightly captures the impossibility of beholding ultimate glory directly. This is why the language in the text about not being able to go up and see the Tao’s face directly or even its backside when chasing it caught our attention.

What then of this chapter’s resolution, where the hunt for three phenomena of the senses—seeing, hearing, and feeling—are unable to bring what medieval mystics called the beatific vision. And yet, they somehow lead back to the ultimate, to the One. We took the liberty of capitalizing it, but if you can’t capitalize that, which proper noun does deserve capitalization? Perhaps the ways in which our various sensory experiences bring us back to the One is similar to what St. Augustine was after when he remarked, at the start of his Confessions: Lord, our heart is restless until it rests in You. This is the famous concept of the God-shaped vacuum, which at its core speaks to our human tendency to try (without success) to satisfy our spiritual longings with ephemeral, cheap parodies of real, lasting fulfillment.

Peace to you, friends!

The Secret To Surfing the Tao (Tao Te Ching 14)