Children
School is out for the summer. I'm landed with two boisterous boys (10 & 12) for the long summer. Luckily my boys are old enough to go about entertaining themselves, playing console games, visiting their friends or having friends around, or sleeping over for the odd night or two.
It doesn't matter how much they annoy me and frustrate me sometimes, as a mother I still love them unconditionally. However, there's always been a indistinct sadness in my heart over the kids - not that they've endured a great deal of afflictions from not having their natural father with them since young. Watching them grow makes me feel both released and sad - sad because I know they are moving closer to the day when they lose their purity and innocence in face of the competitive and hostile world. Acquired temperaments and intellect will take hold invading over the pristine purity of the child's mind therefore destroying the pristine joy of the heart - the joy a child experiences when having a plash in a puddling pool, having a mock fight with their mates, having a jumping and rolling session on the trampoline, being taken to the cinema to watch the latest 'Harry Potter', rushing downstairs on a Christmas morning to open their gifts ... the list is almost un-exhaustive. The kids' joy never fails to melt my heart; but at the same time my heart always twitches with a very indistinct sadness that the 'child' will 'die' one day to give away to a disillusioned adult ruled by his ego and head. The pristine sane and pure energy will be wane and buried; the conditioned impure energy will be dominant. Further and further will life and essence be disintegrated from each other until the day the individual dies.
Travelling away from the Source, the Unity will always lead to death. What then can deliver the individual from this fate and lead to life instead? This is the Way Lao Tzu was trying to point out to us:-
Can you keep your soul from wandering, but
always embracing the Oneness without ever straying from it?
Can you, when concentrating your breath, make it soft
like that of a little child?
Can you un-obscure your vision of the Mystery
till all is without blur?
Can you love the people and rule the land, yet remain
submissive?
Can you in opening and shutting the heavenly gates
play always the female part?
Can you keep watch over the four corners of the land
without stirring of the mind?
[rendition based on Arthur Waley's translation]
The 'breath' here doesn't mean the mundane breath through the nostrils; it refers to the primordial chi or energy that gave birth to the cosmos and every sentient being. It is the 'Oneness', the 'Mystery' that will remain even when heaven and earth has come to an end. How can we get in touch with it? Lao Tzu is saying one has to 'keep his breath soft like that of a child', 'love the people' (one's vitality) and 'rule the land' (one's chi/energy). The 'heavenly gate' is the crown of one's head where the spirit, once purified and accumulated, eventually breaks free from the physical body and reunites with the primordial Oneness. But this is not a contrived effort achieved through one's will. Even the process of accumulating and purifying the chi/energy is not done through the works of mind ('stirring of the mind'). One has to render the mind 'submissive' and 'plays always the female part'.
Children are closer to this 'Oneness' than us and therefore are naturally imbued with more joy. The path of return for us is to become as pure as children again.
It doesn't matter how much they annoy me and frustrate me sometimes, as a mother I still love them unconditionally. However, there's always been a indistinct sadness in my heart over the kids - not that they've endured a great deal of afflictions from not having their natural father with them since young. Watching them grow makes me feel both released and sad - sad because I know they are moving closer to the day when they lose their purity and innocence in face of the competitive and hostile world. Acquired temperaments and intellect will take hold invading over the pristine purity of the child's mind therefore destroying the pristine joy of the heart - the joy a child experiences when having a plash in a puddling pool, having a mock fight with their mates, having a jumping and rolling session on the trampoline, being taken to the cinema to watch the latest 'Harry Potter', rushing downstairs on a Christmas morning to open their gifts ... the list is almost un-exhaustive. The kids' joy never fails to melt my heart; but at the same time my heart always twitches with a very indistinct sadness that the 'child' will 'die' one day to give away to a disillusioned adult ruled by his ego and head. The pristine sane and pure energy will be wane and buried; the conditioned impure energy will be dominant. Further and further will life and essence be disintegrated from each other until the day the individual dies.
Travelling away from the Source, the Unity will always lead to death. What then can deliver the individual from this fate and lead to life instead? This is the Way Lao Tzu was trying to point out to us:-
Can you keep your soul from wandering, but
always embracing the Oneness without ever straying from it?
Can you, when concentrating your breath, make it soft
like that of a little child?
Can you un-obscure your vision of the Mystery
till all is without blur?
Can you love the people and rule the land, yet remain
submissive?
Can you in opening and shutting the heavenly gates
play always the female part?
Can you keep watch over the four corners of the land
without stirring of the mind?
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The 'breath' here doesn't mean the mundane breath through the nostrils; it refers to the primordial chi or energy that gave birth to the cosmos and every sentient being. It is the 'Oneness', the 'Mystery' that will remain even when heaven and earth has come to an end. How can we get in touch with it? Lao Tzu is saying one has to 'keep his breath soft like that of a child', 'love the people' (one's vitality) and 'rule the land' (one's chi/energy). The 'heavenly gate' is the crown of one's head where the spirit, once purified and accumulated, eventually breaks free from the physical body and reunites with the primordial Oneness. But this is not a contrived effort achieved through one's will. Even the process of accumulating and purifying the chi/energy is not done through the works of mind ('stirring of the mind'). One has to render the mind 'submissive' and 'plays always the female part'.
Children are closer to this 'Oneness' than us and therefore are naturally imbued with more joy. The path of return for us is to become as pure as children again.
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