I’ve been looking at this dualistically, as if presence is not the form. It’s not form, but it is. This is what the first Tao means. Desiring and desireless are the same. “When they appear, they are named differently. This sameness is the mystery.”
The form is not who I am, but it is a part of everything, even if temporarily. Words, thoughts, body: these are forms, they are not the formless. Yet they point to the formless, and in fact, they are a part of the formless, however temporarily.
To embrace one, while rejecting the other is dualism. Dualism leads to dogma. Dualism leads to legalism. “You are not spiritual because you believe such-and-such, but I am spiritual because I believe the opposite...”. Tao precept number 2- “All the world recognize the beautiful as beautiful. Herein lies the ugliness. All recognize the good as good. Herein lies the evil.”
When we label, we enter into that dualistic world: everything is either/or. We declare that something is beautiful. That sounds wonderful. But the Tao points out that the labeling is “ugly”. When we say, “that is good”, we have judged it, therefore, we are “bad.” Jesus said, “Judge not, lest you be judged.”
Jesus saw the “acts of righteousness” of the Pharisees and pointed out this very precept. As soon as we think, “Aha, I have done something good”, the dualism of that judgy thinking produces “evil”, pride, arrogance, superiority in me. The Tao goes on, “Therefore, the sage produces without possessing, acts without expectations, and accomplishes without abiding in her accomplishments.”
Jesus instructed us to do our acts of righteousness in secret, lest the form (that is the thought and action) be attached to our sense of identity. The Tao instructs us to “get rid of ‘holiness’ and abandon ‘wisdom’ and the people will benefit a hundredfold” (precept 19). This does not mean don’t ever do good things or go around being foolish. It means “Don’t attach your idea of self to these acts”. As soon as we cling to these ideas or words as descriptors of ourselves or others, we have lost touch with our spirit.
In my eagerness to rid myself of my old way of thinking and being....I oversimplified as usual to the age-old habit of labeling. Forms are bad. The formless is good. Forms like my thoughts and old narratives are negative. Spirit is good. While those statements may be true, they are also not true.
Reminder to self: Don’t try to convert everyone else. My path is not necessarily the path for everyone. I may find it liberating, but others may find it appalling. Even in spite of this, I still see dualism as evil, insidious, or a type of dictator, and I pronounce it bad. But for someone who is trying to make sense of their world, perhaps duality is all they can perceive: it’s good or bad, right or wrong. Nothing in between.
Then I found this old blog and thought, “Physician, heal thyself.”
It is unfortunate in any situation, whether in the guise of religion or education or corporation or whatever, when leaders use a prescriptive approach. I've been guilty of this myself. A prescriptive approach usually comes in the form of language such as, "Should", "Must", "Have to", "It's my way or the highway" or "You have to do it such-and-such a way or else..." or "There's a right way to do things and wrong way to do things..." This dualistic approach (right OR wrong, left OR right, black OR white, good OR bad) sets people up for failure, not meeting expectations, not living up to someone else's standards, guilt, shame, and grief.
The prescriptive approach in teaching says, "You must learn what I tell you to learn and how I tell you to learn it." In the corporate world, it may sound like..."This is the way we've always done it." It even invades our cultural expectations, "But WE don't do it like that. My way is the best way. Everyone SHOULD do it my way."
I have to laugh, because MOST adults begin to transform their narrow view of things as they approach the age of 18. We begin to question why we do what we do, why we believe what we believe, is it truth for us? We begin to differentiate ourselves from our parents' values and norms. We see that the world doesn't fall into Either/Or categories. Unless you are like my old friend, Bob....
I remember camping with him many times over the years. On one particular occasion, he actually told me that I had heated up the water (to be used to wash our dishes) wrong! I laughed! He was dead serious. At which point, I asked him if I had the basic concept of boiling correct: fill pan with water, apply heat to the pan, water comes to boil. He still insisted that HIS way of bringing water to a boil was somehow different than my way and that HIS way was better. (I'm still unsure to this day how our ways differed at all!) Bob earned the nicknames of Vanilla Dictator (for insistence that HE was the standard of normal and that everyone else should think and act like him), Fluid Intake Police (for his insistence on a road trip that my roommate could not and should not purchase a large drink for the road, lest she have to stop along the way to pee, causing delays for the rest of the group), and Herr Smith** (another reference to his dictator style). ** I've changed my old friend's name to protect his identity and also in faith that perhaps even he has opened his perspectives a bit in the last few years.
It's a human condition, this wanting everything to be black OR white, right OR wrong. Wouldn't the world be easier to manage, to navigate if everything was clearly marked? But it isn't. Christians have lived in the realm of Either/Or for too long. We have forgotten that Jesus was the Paradox King. The paradox says things are Both/And, both Either/Or. Didn't Jesus say that one who seeks to save his life will lose it, while the one who loses his life will save it? That's the paradox. If you lose, you also gain. If you gain, you also lose. It's BOTH losing AND gaining. It's not either/or. What is sad to me is that after all these years, we're still writing formulas for living. Do this. Don't do that. It's the same thing Jesus held against the Pharisees, not that they kept the law, but that they kept it to the exclusion of others, to the adding to the burden of others, to the exclusion of mercy and love and grace and kindness and peace.
But this is the danger inherent even in coming out of an abusive relationship like so many have had at Teen Mania, Open Bible Fellowship, pick a church or school or institution... the danger is that we the abused, in turn, begin prescribing a different way to live. We say, "Manipulative pastor or teacher or administrator, your way is wrong. Everyone else, follow me! My way is better!" And now, we have made a prescription out of our experience for everyone else to follow.
In Chela Sandoval's (2000) dissertation on the Methodology of the Oppressed, she would call this meta-ideologizing. It is the term used to describe replacing one ideology for another. This is the danger: in our zeal to break away from oppression and to resist it and to renounce it, we form our own ideology and condemn our oppressors and establish a new form of oppression. This is the point where those who were oppressed now become the oppressors! When our old oppressors don't see the error of their ways, we begin to persecute them for not seeing the world as we do, for not following our ways, our prescription for life. This is that delicate spiderweb on which we try to balance our lives, our being... following Christ without making our experiences the dictation and prescription for everyone else. Here the old Greek saying plays out well: "To thine own self be true." To which I might add: "And stop worrying about everyone else. Extend enough grace to them to allow them figure it out on their own, in their own time, in their own way."
How easy it is for me to see the dualism in my old friend, Bob. But the real key to spirituality is to recognize it at work in myself and to accept what is. What is can be both form and formless. What is can be good and bad. What is can be liberty and oppression. What is can be life and death. I do not have to label it. It can just “be”.
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