There is a lovely new translation of the Tao te Ching online, which I discovered thanks to the ever mercurial wood s lot. From the introduction to the Book of the Forest Path:
I am trying to accomplish a couple of things in the translation that follows. First of all, I have a particular philosophical interpretation of Taoism, and I am trying to see how far it can be reflected in a translation. I think it is not compatible with the translations I’ve seen. Second, I’ve tried to make it plain and cool English. My objection to the existing translations is basically philosophical and it is fundamental. I think the going translations (even the ones I like the most (Mitchell’s and Red Pine’s, for example)) still reflect a dualistic metaphysics. They take Taoism to privilege emptiness over existence, inaction over action, yin over yang, and so on. That is understandable and does emerge from the text. But I think the reasons for that are, from a certain view, historical accidents: they reflect a Taoism that is dedicated to a critique of Confucianism. Nevertheless the considered position of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu (another great Taoist sage) is that, finally, both yin and yang, both the world and the emptiness at its heart, must be approached with a perfect affirmation, and that they are, in fact, the same thing. I have tried to apply that insight – surely fundamental to Taoism, throughout the text. So, for example, the first chapter in my view just can’t possibly say that namelessness is good and naming bad, that desirelessness is good and desire bad, and so on. Such views would be more proper to Buddhism, for example.
In addition, the Tao Te Ching is an anarchist political text, and its radical attack on political authority and wealth have often been obscured by translators: I have tried to restore a sense of its pointed political critique, its direct attack on inequalities of wealth and power in ancient China.
Finally, I regard the work as more playful and aware of its paradoxes than most other translations make it out to be. There is a touch of irony, emerging in part from the self-awareness with which it says what it says cannot be said.
I never get tired of reading this book, in its myriad interpretations and translations. It is the best life guide I know of, and has the best sense of itself of any sacred text: what I am about to tell you is a teaching that cannot really be told. It exhorts us to practice.
My own version of the classic, The Tao of Holding Space, is free for you to download, and this summer I will be releasing a printed version as well.
[tags]taoism, tao te ching[/tags]
My friend Kathy Jourdain out in Halifax recently published a nice set of thoughts on inclusion prompted by an experience she had at a leadership network meeting:
…we need to stop patting ourselves on the back about how inclusive we think we are being and begin to look at our own assumptions and beliefs and look into where the tension resides within each of us around this topic.
When asked, how will we know we are being inclusive there were quite a range of responses. To me, it’s becoming very simple. We will know we are better at being inclusive when we stop responding to the statement we are not being inclusive with all the reasons why we are and begin to ask – with honest curiosity – why that question is being asked so we can learn from the perspective of the person who made the statement who may be someone who is feeling excluded.
This is hard for most of us to do because it requires us to challenge our own assumptions about we are and how we really respond when confronted with what we consider to be accusations about not being inclusive. We want to believe we are inclusive and welcoming and it is hard to face a reality where that might not be the case.
A big question to confront when one makes a true commitment to inclusion is “Am I willing to live in a world that includes what I think I hate?”
I had a great conversation with a young activist at a recent gathering. She was talking about the need to have a world free of war and that is what she works for. She was objecting to the idea that warriorship could be a practice or that any kind of agreesiveness or violenece was acceptable in her world view. Her world view was one of peace and inclusion, except for warriors and racists. I challenged her on that and appealed to her obvious warriorship (she is festooned in tattoos and is a strong powerful woman who fights for her beliefs – what else would I call her? Midwife seemed a little off the mark! 🙂 ). I asked her “Would you rather have this fantasy world of yours, or this real world right here, the one that includes war and racism and hate and fear?” She thought for a moment and smiled and replied “this one.” And that’s a good thing because it means she is living here with us and her energy can be put to use in this world, and more importantly, she can grow to accept the fact that war is a part of this world and it can also be a shameless part of her repertoire as well. How can you fight for a world of peace, unless you admit that such a world does indeed include warriors? (And what do most warriors fight for ultimately anyway?).
All of us have shadow sides, and those sides show up in the system, as the MLA in Kathy’s article points out. But because they are shadows, we don’t notice them…we can’t see that these are us. And if we hold dear this idea of inclusion, then we need to be able to include those parts of ourselves in the world in which we live, because without bringing them into play we can’t work with them. Ignorance of difference and hate is not inclusion. Inclusion makes things messy, which is just the world we process artists love to work within, eh?
I don’t care what your talent is, just do something like this whenever you can and the world becomes that much more livable.
I wasn’t at the Nexus for Change conference although I was there in spirit. I had a few lovely long design talks with Peggy Holman, Gabriel Shirley and Tracy Robinson who were hosting various parts of it. I also followed it online a little and even from a distance it was possible to pick up a thread and extend it a little into my own learning. What stood out for me was this emerging identity as a process artist.
John Abbe brought this to my attention with an update to his weblog in which he announced a Nexus project involving creating a wiki around process arts. It’s a great thought and a lovely enterprise, and it has given me some inspiration for talking about my work and what I try to bring to groups, organizations and communities.
I am certainly an artist in the traditional sense of the world, especially in the modality of music where I have practiced consciously since 1979. I am a martial artist, and I do rock balancing more as a meditation than as an art, but still. I have also spent times in my life working artistically with words, writing novels, poetry and other pieces from a place of deep artistic practice. I still practice that somewhat, although I wouldn’t count weblogging necessarily in that field. Blogging for me falls into another category, which I can now name as ProcessArts.
My practice as a process artist includes the following:
- open source learning here at the Parking Lot
- surfing with eyes, ears and fingers for ideas, inspiration and beauty
- parenting and living in a creative set of family relationships (which have their expression in the world in various ways!)
- the art of hosting, designing and convening conversations that matter.
- the art of harvesting learning from questions and learning journeys that I am on.
- Inspiring, creating and supporting change in a way that feeds evolution, life and peace at the many levels of social organization on this planet, from friendships to public service, in response to deep and heartfelt invitations to co-create and collaborate.
I’m going to give this some more thought, but I’d like to ask you two questions, dear reader(s):
- Where do you practice ProcessArts in your life?
- What experience of my ProcessArt practice have you seen that I’m missing in this broad list?
Curious…thanks to John, a little learning journey has begun.
[tags]processarts, john abbe, nexusforchange[/tags]
“The bird does not sing because it has answers. It sings because it has a song.”
— Chinese proverb quoted by Margaret Somerville in the first of her lectures on The Ethical Imagination.
CBC Ideas is rebroadcasting the 2006 Massey Lectures given by ethicist Margaret Somerville entitle “The Ethical Imagination.” I lay in bed last night battling a fever and a six hour flu listening to her wonderful cadence as she delivered her argument that finding and conversing about a human ethics has much to do with imagination, story and poetry. It’s a wonderful listen, on all week on CBC Radio (which you can stream) and you can catch the first part on the Massey Lectures webpage.
As they do with all the lectures in the series, the CBC and House of Anasi Press has published Somerville’s five talks. If last night’s lecture was any indication, the book will make an excellent addition to my library.
[tags]CBC, Ideas, Margaret Somerville, ethics[/tags]