What Is Power (3i) Tao Te Ching (9d)

III (B).  Return to sacred Being, by Way of Discernment:  Turning away from ego.

As Rilke put it, “You must change your life.”  You have it in you to do it—by insight, illuminated by the Way (52).  Look well.  Be well.  

In III (A) we were considering the reliable use of perpetual change of everything as a perspective on each moment—moments of dying and death, equally with (indeed as) moments of birth and growth.  Here we’ll think about changes that we make of ourselves, with the intention of exercising the real power of good.

I especially want to call attention (albeit only briefly) to discerning the self, as distinct from the ego—and of course, thereby, disempowering ego and restraining it from being abusive.

The key to changing one’s life is to turn away from the ego, to the self—a return to ourself when we were “newborn,” in a moment by moment gesture of being reborn.  Keeping our integrity, our sacred being, we remain true to who we are, re-becoming who we’ve been all along – boundless – natural” (28)*.

The first discernment is self from ego.  By turning back to the source and harmony of sacred Being, we can turn our back upon our own ego.  Then we discover that we are not our ego, turning away from self; but rather we are our self, turning away from ego.

Voilà, “letting the one go, keeping the other” (38).

This frees the self from the grand archetypal delusion that has evolved during at least the last 5K years. Ego pulls everything to itself, and turns everything into the knot of itself.  Each of us has to figure out how to loosen that bond, and untie that knot, for our self, as we discern our good being in Being, and are empowered by that harmony.

In letting go of ego we discover that the ego is what grasps, futilely; but it is the self that lets go.  That’s good.  That’s real power.  

And of course as we let go we become the “unwanting soul’ that Lao Tzu recommends (1).

“If my mind’s modest, / I walk the great way. / Arrogance / is all I fear.” (53).  In this single stanza LT dispenses with warlord ego, fear, and greed.  To walk the great way is simply to be, clearly, in harmony with Being, as we know it in successful, successive, being(s).  We don’t do pride, don’t do greed, don’t do fear.  When we are just doing life, change by change, there is no point at which death can enter our consciousness, until we are living that phase of our living.

 “To have without possessing, / do without claiming, / lead without controlling: / this is mysterious power” (10, 51).

*Trans Ursula K Le Guin (Shambhala 2009, 2019).

[Episode, “What Is Power?” Intro page (1), basic position (2), consulting Lao Tzu (3a), (3b), (3c), (3d), (3e), (3f), (3g), (3h), (3i-9a), (3i-9b), (3i-9c), current (3i-9d), and further reflections (4).  Contents page to chapter, “WhatIs?”]