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Living Within Your Own Nature
by Wayne Dyer
38th
Verse
A truly good man is not aware of his goodness
and is therefore good.
A foolish man tries to be good
and is therefore not good.
The master does nothing,
yet he leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
yet many more are left to be done.
The highest virtue is to act without
a sense of self.
The highest kindness is to give
without condition.
The highest justice is to see
without preference.
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.
The great master follows his own nature
and not the trappings of life.
It is said:
“He stays with the fruit and not the fluff.”
“He stays with the firm and not the flimsy.”
“He stays with the true and not the false.”
Here’s the message behind
this seemingly paradoxical verse of the Tao Te Ching: Your nature is to
be good because you came from the Tao, which is goodness. But when
you’re trying to be good, your essential nature becomes inoperative. In
your effort to be good, moral or obedient, you lose touch with your Tao
nature.
There’s one sentence in
this verse that I pondered for days before writing this short essay:
“When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.” I felt perplexed because it
seemed so contradictory to what the Tao Te Ching was teaching. Finally,
in a moment of contemplation while I meditated on a drawing of Lao-tzu,
it became clear to me: Nature is good without knowing it were the exact
words I heard in my meditation. I then understood what Lao-tzu seemed to
want me to convey about this somewhat confusing (to me) 38th verse.
Live by your essential
nature, the Tao, which is oneness; it has no polarity. Yet the moment
that you know you’re good, you introduce the polarity of “good” versus
“bad,” which causes you to lose your connection to the Tao. Then you
introduce something new you figure that if you can’t be good, you’ll try
to be moral. And what is morality but standards of right and wrong that
you try to uphold? As Lao-tzu seems to be saying to me, The Tao is
oneness; it has no standards for you to follow. In other words, the Tao
just is; it isn’t doing anything, yet it leaves nothing undone. There’s
no morality; there is only the unattached Tao. It isn’t right and it
isn’t fair, but it is essential nature and you’re encouraged to be true
to your own.
As morality is lost, the
idea of ritual surfaces, so you try to live in accordance with rules and
customs that have defined “your people” for centuries. But I could
almost hear Lao-tzu saying: The Tao is infinite and excludes no one.
Rituals keep you disconnected from the Tao and you lose them by trying.
So you rely upon laws, further dividing yourself and creating chaos for
yourself. Again, the Tao just is its own true, essential nature – it has
no laws, rituals, morality or goodness. Observe it and live within its
nature. In other words, act without, being concerned for your own ego.
Give as the Tao does, without condition or trying to be good, moral or
just. Just give to all without preference, as Lao-tzu advises.
I admit that living by
this 38th verse may be the total opposite of what you’ve learned in this
lifetime. It certainly represents both an intellectual and a behavioral
challenge for me at times. You may appreciate knowing that many of the
scholars whom I researched regarding this verse said that Lao tzu wrote
it (and the next one) in response to his opposition to Confucius, his
contemporary who laid out specific edicts and codes of conduct for the
people. What Laotzu seemed to be saying to me through meditation was:
Trust your own essential nature. Let go of all polarities and live in
the indivisible oneness that is the Tao. The dichotomies of good/bad,
right/wrong, proper/improper, legal/illegal and the like can be
difficult – just remember that when they surface, the Tao is lost.
Here’s some more advice
for you, through me, from Lao-tzu: Live in your essential nature by
rejecting artificial principles.
These principles in
descending order are goodness, fairness, rites and laws. Artificial
goodness is an attempt to live by not being “bad,” so you allow others
to decide where you fit in on a goodness scale. Affirm: I am of the Tao,
a piece of God and I need no human-made device to confirm it. Goodness
and God-ness are one and I trust who I am and will act from this
perspective. I am staying with this truth and not what is false.
Furthermore, see that the Tao isn’t concerned with fairness – give of
yourself knowing that this is an artificial contrivance that cannot
exist from a perspective of oneness. You are from and will return to,
that oneness, regardless of your opinions about it. So open up
generously without desiring to be treated fairly.
Abandon outmoded familial and cultural customs. Relinquish rites that
you feel compelled to follow simply because they’ve been that way in
your lifetime and particularly in your family. Peacefully affirm: I am
free to live, trusting in the eternal Tao. I do not have to be as my
ancestors were. I relinquish ancient rituals that no longer work or that
perpetuate separation or enmity. Remind yourself that goodness isn’t
accessed by obeying laws; rather, it is what resonates with your
essential nature. You don’t need any sort of code to decide what is
proper, good, moral, ethical or legal. Trust yourself to be an
instrument of love by surrendering to your highest nature rather than
being seduced by mortal laws.
This poem from the
16th-century mystic Saint John of the Cross, titled A Rabbit Noticed My
Condition, beautifully describes this attitude:
I was
sad one day and went for a walk;
I sat in a field.
A rabbit noticed my condition and came near.
It often does not take more than that
to help at times –
to just be close to creatures who
are so full of knowing,
so full of love
that they don’t –
chat,
they just gaze with
their marvelous understanding.
Do the Tao Now
Spend a day consciously
choosing to notice one of God’s creatures, such as a dog, a butterfly, a
moth, a spider, an ant, a fish, a cat, a deer or whatever attracts you.
You can learn a lot from them about trusting your inner nature. They
are, as the poet says, “so full of knowing.”
Excerpted from “Change
Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao.”
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