The Mysterious Power

Carl Abbott –  D.C. Lau, Translator, Tao Te Ching 51 [Excerpt from Passage]

While we can pick apart various factors which are at work in the process of life, in the end, it’s really the way (that) gives them life and rears them. Of course toiling away in the ‘trenches of life’, we all get pulled this way and that. However, the quicker I can return to this simple view, the quicker I return to personal equilibrium. Knowing that this is the only true reality is soothing and limits my (and everyone else’s) responsibility for how things are.

It gives them life yet claims no possession;
It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude;
It is the steward yet exercises no authority.
Such is called the mysterious virtue.

The sentiment expressed here of being a steward yet exercises no authority is much more the cultural ethic of primitive native people than modern industrialized ones. The inflated sense of power and control that comes with tools and technology gives us a distorted sense of ourselves and our role in nature. All though, many environmentalists struggle to protect nature, I don’t see them willing to give up some power and control. Being a steward involves giving nature its due, which requires giving up some of our benefit and authority. We must learn to value a degree of discomfort, for as we accept more discomfort in our lives, other creatures increase comfort in theirs. Of course primitive people have no choice; wisdom must be our guide. We must await an increase in humanity’s wisdom. Don’t hold your breath.

I can benefit them yet exact no gratitude when I don’t claim credit. However, when I seize responsibility for events I take either credit or discredit depending on the outcome. When I take credit, I exact gratitude. Which way I go arises out of what role I see myself playing in the cosmic eternal now.

Virtue often takes on a moral meaning along with notions of good and evil. Virtue, here, is called mysterious virtue because it goes deeper than any notion of good or bad, right or wrong.

–D.C. Lau, Translator [The Tao Te Ching (Chapter-51-Commentary by Carl Abbott)].