We Use (Where Are We Going)

The first time I heard about the Tao Te Ching was in the drama show we did last year. In one of my scenes I said: “The Tao Te Ching says that in order to move one kilometer you have to give the first step…” I didn’t pay too much attention to the line. I was just worried about memorizing it. When we got the book I remembered about the play and went back to the line. I imagined the book would have similar lessons to the ones in Confucius, I actually found out they both have a very big lesson behind them, a lesson from which other lessons derive. They both talk a lot about virtue. “Te” actually means virtue, but not the meaning of virtue we’re accustomed to. “Te refers to nothing less than the quality of human action that allows the central, creative power of the universe to manifest through it.” (p.10 of introduction) What is so great about the Tao Te Ching is that its intention is to make the reader “live a direct relationship to all these forces” (forces refer to the cosmos forces.) At first I couldn’t understand what this meant. I had heard about this in movies like The Secret and What The Bleep Do We Know but not until I read “Tao Te Ching” did I understand what it meant. Living in “direct relationship” with the cosmos forces simply means to live WITH Earth instead of living IN it. We are using Earth, that’s what takers do. Everything that you use will be over, its like in chapter 3 were it says “If nothing is done, all will be well.” If we didn’t see Earth as material and instead saw it as a living thing, it would remain “un-mortal, un-born” just as described in chapter 7.
The “Tao Te Ching” is like a maze. Each chapter is a key which opens a new door to the Tao, the way. It starts out warning the reader. “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” p.3 The first thing you wonder is what is “the Tao”? It is necessary to read the introduction before starting the book. Here it states that the “Tao” can’t be translated but it’s meaning is “way or path” referring to how humans are in relation to other living things. The path refers to the guidance we need. Coming back to the Tao not being the “eternal Tao”, the path won’t always be the same, the relationship between human beings and other living things is constantly changing. I think it’s actually a cycle. It like what Carlos Fuentes talked about in his story “Quien Invento La Polvora”, we started out learning how to make fire. Then we “evolved” and made all sorts of inventions. This evolution is starting to make everything go backwards and we’ll end up either where we started or no where at all.

Where are we going?
If, our ambition continues, back to the beginning