Redifining Tao and Its Power

As I move on with the teachings of the Tao, I'm discovering there is still too much of it I don't understand, and as I read on, I keep finding more and more teachings that try to explain the Tao better.
From the chapters I read, I've confirmed that the Tao is something impossible to fully understand. Like the book says, "The Tao is forever undefined. Small though it is in the unformed state, it cannot be grasped."(pg.34 chapter 32). As I previously thought, it is the way of nature, and all the "ten thousand things" to which Tao is their source come back to it as it were their master, even if it's not. (pg. 36, chapter 34). The book also mentioned that if someone were able to control the Tao, he/she would be in control of the "ten thousand things". All the world would obey easily and everything would be as the controller of the Tao wants it to be. It's very good luck for us that the Tao is so impossible to grasp. I couldn't imagine what would happen if so much power could fall in a single person's hands. That would mean that everything and everybody on Earth would have to obey that person like we obey the Tao now (only this time we would be able to see what is that weird force that's making us do so many weird things). So I really hope the Tao stays just as it is: invisible, untouchable, unchanging and free (especially).
I also found that the Tao teaches about war. It obviously recommends not to use violence or weapons, but it said that when there's no choice, you must conquer without rejoicing over your victory, and you must not delight in it because it means you find pleasure in killing.
I wonder why the Chinese thinkers (Confucius and Lao Tze) I've been reading lately are so inclined to make their books so political. Confucius makes some of his teachings as if they were directed to someone with power. From the Analects for example:
 "Do not impose on other what you yourself do not desire."(15:24). "Impose" to me sounds like a ruler making choices for others who have no way of making their own or even protesting. From this I concluded that Confucius is trying to tell rulers to be fair with their people. I also came to think that maybe his book was indirectly written to people of high power so they would become better rulers from reading his book. Tao Te Ching makes its political appearance when the narrator says, "Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao..."(pg.32, chapter 30), and then advises about avoiding violence and war.
These two books were clearly trying to make a difference on the Chinese rulers of that time, and mold them the way each one of them thought a ruler should be. That's just something I thought of as I read, so it's not necessarily true. It was just a thought I wanted to consider.

What is the Tao?

The Tao Te Ching is starting to give some very important concepts of life. I recall that one of our class QUESTions was, "Why is  the world unjust?". The Tao Te Ching answers that question very simply, and quite originally. Its answer was:
"Accept disgrace willingly. Accept misfortune as the human condition."(pg.15, Chapter 13). The book explained that accepting disgrace willingly meant accepting being unimportant, and you shouldn't worry about losing or gaining, but simply satisfy yourself with what you already have.  Accepting misfortune as the human condition meant that being human meant having misfortune, and that's all there is to it.
From what I am understanding, the Tao is something you can't feel, touch or hear, but it's there all the same. It mysteriously formed, and is standing alone and unchanging. According to the text, it is one of the four powers of the universe, and it follows what is natural. It tells you it is impossible to do anything to achieve it, so you have to do exactly the opposite: do nothing. One of the teachings the Tao has is, " Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom, and it will be a hundred times better for everyone. Give up learning and put an end to your troubles." (pg.21-22 Chapter 19-20). It was impressive to read this ,especially after reading the Essential Analects of Confucius, which were all about learning and gaining wisdom. The Tao says not to bother yourself with those troubles, and instead follow its natural flow. It says that you'll achieve great things by not acting. For example:
"...the wise embrace the one and set an example to all. Not putting on a display, they shine forth. Not justifying themselves, they are distinguished. Not boasting, they receive recognition. Not bragging, they never falter. They do not quarrel, so no one quarrels with them. Therefore, the ancients say, ´Yield and overcome´." (pg.24 Chapter22). It's interesting how effective not acting can be. This must be what the Tao is about: not acting is the way of nature.

The Beginning of Tao

I just began to read Tao Te Ching, and I'm beginning to tag it as one of the strangest books I've ever read. I don't mean it in a bad way, because I'm actually starting to like it a little. What strikes me as weird of the text is that it bases its teachings upon very common aspects of life we can relate to, but we have never thought of before in that way. He uses a very common thing like a door to show us how important empty space is.
For example, "Cut doors and windows for a room; it is the holes which make it useful. Therefore, benefit comes from what is there; usefulness from what is not there." (pg. 13, chapter 11).
I had never thought the real usefulness of a door was the space in the middle which lets you in and out. If you think about it, the main difference between a door or window to a wall, is that it has space, which make your house accessible to light, wind and people.
However, I wonder what the difference between usefulness and benefit are. Wouldn't the usefulness of something be beneficial for you? In some way or another, something useful will be useful because it benefits you. So maybe, the useful and the beneficial are somehow connected.
 Also, if you look at it in another way, there are many examples in which I would doubt a useful thing is not there. For example, a lamp is very useful, and there's nothing taken off which makes it useful. The space around the bulb doesn't give the light, the filament with electricity does. In fact, many new light devices have eliminated that useless space to make smaller and more useful light devices.
In any case, I hope to find some explanation ahead in the book to explain my doubt over useful vs. beneficial.
The rest of the teachings I've read until now are very interesting too, and as I read, I hope I find some magic revelation that will help me understand them fully. I'm sure there's some important concept that connects all the teachings, and I'm curious to see if I'm right.
I'm also wondering what the Tao really is.

Science Vs. Religion

As a student, it is inconceivable to me to think that any law would prohibit teaching. What's even stranger to me is that anyone would want to deny the existence of science and how it affects every single aspect of our physical world. This is why I'm entirely opposed to the law that forbids the teaching of the evolution and sending a man to jail for doing so.

Science is one of the things I am completely certain of. Everything in our lives can be somehow related to science: astronomy, anatomy, chemistry, genetics, evolution, physics, etc. Every single aspect of our universe can be explained by science, and they are all somehow connected.

Religion is one part of life that is a little vaguer. It is all based on faith, and believing in a superior force we are not capable of fully understanding, and have never even seen before. I don't disagree with the moral teachings the Bible gives us because they are very valuable ones. I believe everyone needs some type of moral guidance in order to live peacefully in a community, and it’s not wrong to believe there is someone out there which could possibly be keeping on eye on us.

Many things in the Bible have miracles and occurrences that wouldn't be possible in the physical world. For example, during that time, people lived about 900 years, with each generation dying younger. Like it is mentioned during the first part of Genesis, “And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.” (Genesis 5:8). This is entirely impossible. Humans could never live that long: a regular human lifespan is about 70 years, depending on which country you live in. Even today with technology and medicine no one can live more than 120 years.

Another “fact” the Bible claims is every single person in the world comes from the blood of Adam and Eve. As far as I know, God only created Adam and Eve as the first humans. However, it is blatantly contradicted in Cain’s situation:

“And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.” (Genesis 4:17-18) Where did Cain’s wife come from? How did his children have more children? Did their wives suddenly pop out from the same place Cain’s wife came from? The same happens with Seth. How did he begat so many children? I seem to remember breeding from the same line of DNA can give offspring with damaged DNA, and many times these offspring have strange diseases that kill them young. How then, could generations and generations of humans come from only one couple (Seth and his unmentioned wife)?

In my personal opinion, the Bible shouldn’t be treated as fact or ancient history, as they want to treat it in the Scopes Trial. It’s absurd that people claim that the beginning of our human race is just as the Bible claims it to be, and refuse to accept other theories that have actually been physically proven and are based on real life that is happening right now (or certainly happened millions of years ago). We cannot deny that the universe and everything around us can be explained by terms other than a book.

It is great to follow the Ten Commandments and follow Jesus’ example of a good human. What I really wish people don’t do is limit the levels of our understanding to a book full of impossibilities that couldn’t possibly apply to the material reality we live in.

It's foolish to prohibit the learning and enrichment of our own knowledge, because for one thing, God gave us good brains to think, (if you want to believe it that way) and achieve great things. As great human thinkers, we should concentrate on moving forward in our path of wisdom and discovery, always open to new possibilities.

Standing Out

I kept reading the Analects, and found more teachings I appealed with. For example:
"When the multitude hates a person, you must examine them and judge for yourself. The same holds true for the man the multitude love." (15.28). I like this once because it tells you to judge for yourself over anyone else's opinion. Many times, the crowd isn't right about something and you cannot let their erroneous opinion influence yours. From this passage, I also noticed a very important thing: Confucius wants us to be individuals. I hadn't noticed before, but Confucius wants us, as single individuals, to become great gentlemen for the benefit of the society. Each person should strive to reach "Goodness" so the world can be a better place. What's best is that he doesn't want us to be part of the crowd. He wants us to have our own opinion over something, not letting the general opinion change our own judgement. This is the great difference between the Essential Analects and the Baghavad Gita. There, Krishna condemned individualism, which is something I didn't like about it.
This last reading let me realize something. Women are never mentioned! All Confucius says is man has to be good and the gentleman will be righteous, etc. Women are never part of his visions of a good human. The only part he thought of speaking of women, he insulted them:
" Women and servants are particularly hard to manage: if you are to familiar to them, they grow insolent, but if you are too distant, they grow resentful."(17.25). Since when are women unworthy of any comment but criticism? Doesn't Confucius see the real value of women? I do notice many cultures consider women as simple housewives that only belong at home, but at least some of them see them as a respected partner. I wonder if Confucius would ever try to give his teachings to a woman. It's so typical men have to be sexist pigs!

The Fear to Fail

These new readings have brought new thoughts to me. One of the passages I read was:
"That I fail to cultivate Virtue, that I fail to inquire more deeply into that which I have learned, that upon hearing what is right I remain unable to move myself to do it, and that I prove unable to reform when I have done something wrong-such potential failings are a constant worry to me." (7.3). Is this not what everybody fears? Isn't our possible failure of doing things right what scares us all? Or even not being able to correct the mistakes we've done?
We all come across crossroads in life, each turning to different directions. They depend on the decisions we make, and not all of them are good choices. The problem is, we never know which choice is best, and in life, there isn't a certain way of knowing that. People can advice you, or even incite you to take certain ways, but only you are the one able to make you final choice. The possibility of failing is always there, and many times, we can't be as good as we expected we would be. As time goes by, we trip, fall, trip again, and fall again. Fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes and learn to trip less often. This is probably why Confucius thinks elders are wiser than young people. Many times, time can be related to wisdom. Like Confucius said:
"If I were granted many more years, and could devote fifty of them to learning, surely I would be able to be free of major faults." (7.17).
There is something that bothers me still. Is age really a sign of wisdom? True. Elders have had enough time to make mistakes and learn from them, but have they made the same mistakes as you have done during your shorter life time? During the time they have lived and you are starting to live, a lot of things change. People, as well as society in general change, and choices that might have been the right ones during that time might not be the best ones for this time. I think that what we should do is find a balance between preserving ancient values and traditions, and welcoming progress and new ways. In my opinion, both of the have great advantages.
However, there is only one thing that will never change, and that is that we are all humans. No matter what type of choices or paths we want to take, we will somehow fall in our path to success, and we will somehow get up and move on.

Learning

Reading the Analects is an extremely hard task. The text has no logical order I can find, and the small "verses" or paragraphs are very dense and hard to understand. Sometimes I can't keep track of what I'm reading, and other times I have to reread a passage over and over again, to even understand what the words mean. However, I have been able to understand some small parts of what I started to read. From these little parts, I realize Confucius had some very good teachings, and they also have a very meaningful message. One of the passages I liked was:
"When you see someone who's worthy, concentrate upon becoming their equal; when you see someone who is unworthy, use this as an opportunity to look within yourself." (4.17). I interpreted this passage as Confucius' technique to help us become the best we can be. When we see the example of a "good" person, we can try to follow their example. When we see someone who is not "good", we can make a review of the example we ourselves are giving. This way, we can always strive to be the best we can be (in theory).
At the same time, I found some teachings that were a little exaggerated, and probably unnecessary. For example:
"While your parents are alive, you should not travel far, and when you do travel you must keep to a fixed itinerary." (4.19). Does this mean we need to be beside our parents until they die? Are we supposed to live with them and never be far for too long? I don't think our parents would like to take care of us for the rest of their lives. I do understand that Confucius wants us to respect our elders, but even for him, that's an unnecessary teaching (in my opinion).
I'll keep reading the Analects and maybe with practice, I'll get better at understanding the deep meaning each passage conveys. I really think it's important to be able to do so, because once you get the meaning of them, they become into valuable lessons (that you might or might not be able to apply in life. I don't think anyone could be as "good" and "worthy" as Confucius wants us to be).