The Dao and Its De

Last spring semester I was in a class on Daoism and Chinese Medicine and became intimately familiar with certain concepts within the philosophical system of Daoism (as intimate one can get in a mere sixteen weeks). The two concepts that were returned to again and again were dao and it’s relation to de, or the other way around. Some may be familiar with the popular text of Daoism, the Daodeching. Ching is a word that can be translated as “classics;” the title is simply stating that this book is about these two other terms, dao and de.

I won’t go in depth here of all the possible ways that dao can be translated, but will suffice to say that this text emphasizes that if one can define the dao, then they are not defining the dao at all. I will offer up one of my favorite attempts at translating a word that cannot be defined in its own language. In English, dao can be described as way-making, the simultaneous movement of all the world forward in this moment, and it is indeed the most verby any noun could possibly ever be.

This is where de comes in. De is pronounced as our aspiration of another's ignorance, “Duh,” and it was a challenge getting used to a professor that would say this expression sometimes several times during lectures. De is a particular manifestation of the dao, a focalized unit of this way-making process. It is us. It is this computer, it is the sunrise, it is what I will eat for dinner, it is every individual thing and yet each are still completely the dao. I find it appropriate to reference the scene from the film, I Heart Huckabees (a fabulous philosophical comedy that I dream of teaching a course on someday) where Dustin Hoffman is explaining the idea of the blanket. He holds up a blanket and says to Jason Schwartzman’s character that the blanket represents everything, but various parts of the blanket are the individual manifestations in the world. (Not familiar? Check out the clip at the bottom of this post) De is each individual parts of the blanket representing any and everything in this world, and even with their differences as manifestations they are all still the blanket, the dao.

De is never distinct or separate from dao, it is the dao in this particular time and place interacting with many other de in this movement, this moment. There is something magical that happens when we live our life with this truth in mind. We are all separate parts of this conclusive whole, though we may be apart from each other we are still a part of each other. I will return to and expand on this idea in further posts, including how the practice of seeing oneself as de immersed in dao (or as dao localized as de) creates highly effective actions even in our most mundane routines.

I will say here that the translators of my copy of the Daodeching, Roger Ames and David Hall, sum up the overall message of this text as “making this life significant.”

Introduction

Two weekends ago I was at a workshop at the Structural Energetic Therapy Training Center; it was an annual workshop called SET Review, designed for graduates of the twelve-workshop training so that we can get updates on new information and discoveries. It is hard to say whether it was the information in the workshop that was enlightening or the energetic enrichment of other fellow SET therapists, probably the synergy of the two aspects, and either way I returned to my practice the next week invigorated.

One of the most transformational occurrences during this weekend was what I called my “incoming message.” Since I accepted an administration position at the SET office a year ago, coordinating the intermediate trainings, I have found that in each workshop I have assisted I have received some important message during the weekend. I could perhaps describe these messages as very loud thoughts, ones that I can’t ignore and seem to be somewhat distinct from the usual babble going on in my head most of the time. I am consciously paying attention to these because I consider them to be originating from somewhere outside myself, and I am sure that they happen more often than I realize. My experience so far is that they contain very important information, which may not be entirely clear at the time, but I can recognize them because when they come up it is as if a piece of a puzzle has just revealed itself to me. The piece had been there the whole time, but until this particular moment it had blended in with all the other separate pieces; I was unable to see how it fit with the picture that is already half assembled.

For example, during the workshop at the end of March, I got this very clear message that I needed to find another place to live. This life transition had not currently been on my list of things to do, and uprooting my life from a place that I was fairly comfortable felt both terrifying and exciting. But as soon as that thought arose as a likely possibility for my near future, it felt so right I couldn’t help but move forward. I won’t expound right now on the enchanting story of how I have now become the homeowner of a house that I saw four years ago and thought, “Man, I would LOVE to buy this house,” but let that detail be a testimony of the importance of listening to incoming messages.

So at some point during the SET Review workshop, I got a very clear message of the title of a manuscript that I have known I will be writing for at least a year now. I only knew of the topic generally, that this book would be a connection of all these ideas I have floating around about the body, healing, personal transformation, social activism, and the unending process of self-actualization. Playing off the title of the groundbreaking compendium of women’s health compiled by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves, I heard very loud and clear the title, “Our Bodies, Our Spirit,” as a working title. For some reason, having those four words together made me able to very quickly visualize this hypothetical manuscript coming into manifestation.

Right now my aim is to use my knowledge of the body (which includes the valuable information I receive by continuously learning about my own body), as well as wisdom I have gained regarding personal growth, as the guideposts in an exercise of articulating the connections between the individual bodies that we all have and the universal body we all share.

Last March, I purchased a gift certificate for design services by Angel He at the live auction for Kaleisia Tea Lounge’s annual charity event, Gifts of Love. Angel is a very talented photographer (check out http://blog.angelhe.com/) who does some design work on the side and offered me some insights about how to get my business out there. One of the best ways is to create a website, which is still on my list and is hopefully forthcoming, though she also mentioned the importance of keeping a blog. I had never thought of this idea, but it has been on my mind since we spoke.

So for the past two weeks or so I have begun to explore the ideas I have previously had for this manuscript, and have gotten to the point where I just need to start writing. Everyday I have new insights and ideas, many of them coming from dialoging with other SET therapists or experiences I have working with clients. Realizing this, it only seemed to make sense to use a blog as a continual format for my writing and ideas for this project. And so, here it is.