The Dao is unlike any text I’ve read. In a way, its purpose or aim is paradoxical, which makes it uniquely insightful: Its main theme is Nothingness, or Emptiness. How is a text, the very format of which forces it to evoke something out of nothing, words from a blank page, meaning (order) from the chaos (disorder), able to make us reflect on the very emptiness of meaning. Is this even possible? Isn’t emptiness antithetical or fundamentally incongruent with reflection and thought. This reminds me of the stoics who argued that it is senseless to worry about death, as the moment one is dead, one loses all capacity to worry; eternal nothingness isn’t compatible with human conception, and so it is senseless to lose sleep over it. Or, I think of neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris, a popular atheist thinker, who asks his listeners what it was like the billions of years before they were born. Impossible to say. Well, essentially non-existence after death is the same. The brain capacity required to dread the infinite years for which one will be dead, is itself gone, making nothingness literally unfathomable.
But so what is the purpose of the text lying before me? Does the Dao ask us to do the impossible: Reflect on the very absence of thought? Perhaps give up reflection altogether. The way I understand it, this text paradoxically shows us the limitation of all text, the very thing that cannot be bounded by thought, namely the Tao ( = ‘the way/path’). It is a natural human instinct to give everything a name, and to attempt to understand everything surrounding us. Yet, what this text draws attention to, is that what is most important to understand is that the deepest things most worthwhile in life cannot, and should not be attempted to be understood. One is to embrace this uncertainty, unpredictability, and natural disorder to life, as it is when one stops looking for a path, that one emerges. Meditation suddenly takes on a new dimension given this aim (or lack of such): calm thoughts down to prevent them from coming in the way of experiencing the infinite complexity of the present moment.
Of course, Daoists may notice that the irony of this post cannot be overstated: Attempting to illuminate this concept is antithetical to truly following it (which does not involve thought or weekly philosophy reflections). Perhaps one can never truly let go (as it would involve death), but the aim is to come closest to reaching it, in which case I have a long way to go. I shall now end my reflection as a true Daoist would advise me to. Or would advice itself involve leaving the path? I’m being pulled in an inception of irony and paradox spinning on itself. Perhaps I should really stop writing before I get a concussion.
- Aurélien Saphy
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