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Translation and Commentary by Nina


	Dao De Jing Chapter 10 When you transfer the management of your base instincts to being embraced by integration, can you not part from that?  When you focus on the energy of your spirit until it becomes gentle, can you be like an infant?  When you eliminate the need to carefully examine every mystery you come upon, can you give up looking for flaws?  When you love people as though you were administering to them, can you not expect to understand them?  When you let your spiritual gateway open and close, can you act with femininity?  When you see clearly in every direction you might travel, can you still realize you know very little?   Encourage the growth of life and nourish it.  Encourage life, but realize you'll never possess it.  It increases, and yet you won't regulate it.   This is known as mysterious De.  Commentary: 10 ~ Integration -When you transfer the management of your base instincts to being embraced by integration, can you not part from that?   There are times when we tend to lose sight of ourselves because we've become so involved in our joint experiences with others. It can seem as though our own needs and desires vanish when we feel like we're in an intimate connection with others. Instead of forcefully trying to control those parts of ourselves that we feel are unsavory, another force seems to take over and those parts of us don't seem to exist any more. Would it be possible to retain that sense of integration?   -When you focus on the energy of your spirit until it becomes gentle, can you be like an infant?   Our energy becomes scattered and distracted at times - we seem to be pulled in so many different directions. That can cause many uncomfortable emotions to arise. By learning to focus our attention on whatever task is at hand at the moment, we become like an infant who's amused by motion or light. Without aggression, animosity or apprehension - by gently approaching whatever comes our way - would it be possible to rest comfortably in the moment?   -When you eliminate the need to carefully examine every mystery you come upon, can you give up looking for flaws?   Our scientific and analytical minds try to solve all the mysteries of life. If there's a darkness we don't understand, we examine it very carefully in an effort to bring it into our scope of understanding. In this way, we tend to find more flaws than solutions, which can lead to frustration. By realizing that there's no need to examine everything in minute detail, would it be possible to give up on looking for flaws in our knowledge?   -When you love people as though you were administering to them, can you not expect to understand them?   There seems to be a criteria in our minds that determines who we'll love and who we won't love. We strive to understand other's motivations in order to feel that we can safely give them our love. Laozi speaks about a type of "Unconditional Love", wherein a person just exudes love as though she were serving others. There's no need for reciprocation, as love comes as naturally as the sun appears in the sky. Would it be possible to not need to understand anything about another person in order to show the glow of love to them?   -When you let your spiritual gateway open and close, can you act with femininity?   We all build walls of protection around ourselves, as though we have to build a very strong fortification that won't let any discomfort in or out. The spiritual gateway is like a doorway in our walls. There are times when we allow it to open, and other times when it slams shut. If that door could open and close freely without our intervention, the rigid stance of masculine strength would evaporate. Would it be possible to put out a welcome mat of feminine receptiveness and gentility?   -When you see clearly in every direction you might travel, can you still realize you know very little?   New insights keep opening to us all the time. Occasionally we have moments when we just know what's going to happen, or know which path to take without understanding where these insights come from. The more these kinds of things happen to us, we might get tempted to think we have special abilities that place us above the rest of the people, and feel a compulsion to tell others which paths they should take themselves. If, on the other hand, we treat these insights as merely a natural progression that occurs during self-cultivation, we won't get caught up in thinking we've hit upon something that sets us apart as being enlightened human beings. Would it be possible to have these insights and at the same time realize they don't prove we have any special kind of knowledge?   -Encourage the growth of life and nourish it.  -Encourage life, but realize you'll never possess it.  -It increases, and yet you won't regulate it.   Laozi suggests that we encourage our own growth and the growth of others. We may even nourish ourselves and others along the way, but that's no reason to think that we actually possess anything we've created or nourished. Others may progress due to our encouragement and nourishing, but we have to know when to let them fly freely on their own without our intervention.   -This is known as mysterious De.   At the end of this chapter, Laozi says that everything mentioned above is called "Mysterious De." De has been defined as virtue, which gives the connotation of compassion and benevolence. However, I see De as "perfection of the heart." When your heart is perfectly attuned, you've connected to an essence inside you that embraces all the myriad things. The words written at the beginning of this chapter show the outward manifestations of De. It may be called "mysterious" because it's very hard for most people to understand. Dao Is Open Site Map \| BY: Nina \| Guodian Laozi \| DDJ Concordance \| Comparisons \| From the DIO Forum \| BY: Bao Pu \| By: Joshua \| Who was Laozi \| \| Return Home \| Laozi's Dao De Jing \| Your Dao De Jing \| Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) \| Links \| Meditation \| Dao (Tao) is Open Forum \| Book List \| Other Stuff \|