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So, let’s con­tinue play­ing with the yin / yang con­cepts. Last week, I talked about the “look” of the sym­bol, and made a pass­ing attempt to help you to see the whole­ness con­tained in the symbol.

To recap, West­ern minds like to divide things up — me / not me, good / bad, right /wrong. We see the yin yang sym­bol, and think, “Divided.”

The sym­bol fights against this inter­pre­ta­tion by incor­po­rat­ing the colours into each “side,” so that (tra­di­tion­ally) the black “side” con­tains a cir­cle of “white,” and vice versa.

This is a key understanding.

I impress myself with the preva­lence of lit­tle bits of wis­dom that I see. Yes­ter­day, I was watch­ing TV, and a com­mer­cial for skin cream came on. One of the peo­ple, while rub­bing on the goop, said, “Noth­ing is as good as this.”

Noth­ing is as good as this!

My mind went, “Whoa! Zen!” Then, “They just came up with the per­fect line. They just negated all of their claims about the prod­uct. They said, “Our prod­uct is good, but using noth­ing is just as good.”

We sel­dom think of noth­ing as “good,” as noth­ing seems like, well, noth­ing. It’s like “empti­ness,” or “Be empty” Seems nihilis­tic. Nope.

Noth­ing is a yin ele­ment, and com­bines ele­gantly with “some­thing,” which is the yang element.

Unless we can see and hold on to both, all the time, we are doomed to be caught in the “Aren’t I some­thing!” trap.

What is, is, and what is, is every­thing. And noth­ing. I know. Hard to get your head around, right?

I tackle this in my book, Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall, in a chap­ter con­cern­ing the Tao te Ching. (The word Tao means “The Way.” Oh. More infor­ma­tion! When Bud­dhism came to China, it merged, in a sense, with Tao­ism, and became Zen. Or so the story goes.)

Tao te Ching, in a nutshell

The key idea to grasp is that men­tal for­ma­tions (judge­ments) are not real. What we think about a thing, and the thing itself, are dif­fer­ent. We grasp this by let­ting go of our cling­ing to what we think, and give our­selves over to “being present with.”

In this, noth­ing is everything.

Chap­ter 11 (an ele­gant trans­la­tion by S. Mitchell)

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the cen­ter hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the empti­ness inside
that holds what­ever we want.

We ham­mer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Com­ing into bal­ance is the point of all of this.

The above “chap­ter” of the Tao, far from extolling empti­ness (the cen­ter hole, the void in the cup, the space inside a house) over sub­stance, (the wheel, the cup, the house) instead invites us to see.

Our eyes, as West­ern­ers, always fall to the outer.

To the cup, and not the void. To how some­one appears, as apposed to the depth of their soul. The invi­ta­tion is to see the total­ity, not to stare into the void.

So, we might need to push our­selves a bit (or a lot!) here. In Tao 22, we read,

If you want to become whole,
let your­self be par­tial.
If you want to become straight,
let your­self be crooked.
If you want to become full,
let your­self be empty.
If you want to be reborn,
let your­self die.
If you want to be given every­thing,
give every­thing up.

This push­ing against our nature allows us to actu­ally expe­ri­ence the “other side,” and then, to bring all things into har­mony.

Like last week’s golf anal­ogy. I had to learn and prac­tice a “clean swing” for many hours, before incor­po­rat­ing it into my game.

Or, I had to spend years danc­ing with my yin energy, to bal­ance my 32 years of exces­sive yang-ness. Patience is required!

Dan­gers along the Way

What I find inter­est­ing in all of this is how many peo­ple get a glim­mer of this, and imme­di­ately think they can teach it to oth­ers. Yet, as I look at their lives and rela­tion­ships, there’s noth­ing but tur­moil, impre­cise­ness, and a real pull to be “special.”

I see this as exces­sive yang, and pre­scribe hav­ing a breath, and fix­ing their own stuff before start­ing with oth­ers. To do this requires giv­ing up con­trol, or try­ing to direct the path of others.

I was get­ting ready to write today, and got a blog mis­sive through Shamb­hala Sun. I’ll give you the link, and quote the 3 main paragraphs:

1. Don’t deceive your­self. In the Ten Grave Pre­cepts we vow to “refrain from lying” and yet in the early stages of our prac­tice we might inter­pret this admo­ni­tion dual­is­ti­cally to mean not lying to oth­ers. In truth, every time we lie we lie to our­selves, and were the only one we con­sis­tently fool! Oth­ers are sel­dom conned by us for as long as we con our­selves. At its most pro­found level, my great­est self-deceit is the deceit of self, with all my ego-reinforcing views. In daily life, this teach­ing reminds me that unless I prac­tice con­sis­tently and devot­edly on a cush­ion, I can­not prac­tice at the kitchen sink. With­out prac­tice, my views devolve into either self-congratulation or self-criticism, and both are decep­tions. Prac­tice starts with me.

2. Don’t make excuses for your­self. The list of all the peo­ple and things I can, and do, blame is end­less. Don’t get me started! Blam­ing exter­nal, or even inter­nal, con­di­tions for what I do or don’t do is dual­is­tic. As long as I’m cast­ing blame else­where, I am rein­forc­ing my own wrong-headed view as sep­a­rate. Tak­ing this teach­ing at its most pro­found level, I must begin to see that any excuse for myself is a self-deception. The power to change is only mine. The power to prac­tice is only mine. Wak­ing up is up to me. The respon­si­bil­ity for my life begins and ends with me, and only when I stop excus­ing myself does my life ben­e­fit every­one and everything.

3. Take respon­si­bil­ity for your­self. If you’re like me, you might imag­ine your­self to be the most respon­si­ble human being on the planet! But that’s not respon­si­ble enough. To take com­plete respon­si­bil­ity for your­self is to no longer deceive your­self, no longer make excuses for your­self, and thereby serve the entire world by wak­ing up. At its most pro­found level, tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for your­self means tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for every­thing. In these three lit­tle instruc­tions we thus find both the seed and the fruit of con­tin­u­ous practice.

Same idea. The proof of who you are is star­ing you right in the face. It’s in your rela­tion­ship to oth­ers, and mostly in how you relate to yourself.

We lie to our­selves, and make excuses for our­selves, all the time. Fine.

The key is that we notice, accept this this is so, and then change what we are doing!

In other words, I don’t care how wise some­one sounds. I look at their peace of mind, the con­gru­ence of their bod­ies (how they use their body, ener­get­i­cally) and how they relate to oth­ers. If they are out of bal­ance, or try­ing des­per­ately to be in con­trol, I laugh and walk away. I find self decep­tion boring.

This week, focus on your level of bal­ance — how you bal­ance yin and yang, whether you are elim­i­nat­ing judge­ment and “right­ness” and “spe­cial­ness” from your thoughts and deeds. Notice how you are embrac­ing and danc­ing with empti­ness. Explore the 3 key points, above, and get on with your walk.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

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Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

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1. Bal­anced Living
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Tagged with: balance • enlightenment • yang • yin

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