A seriously overdue verse 2; I’m using a different translation this time because I feel it has more relevance today.

Verse 2.

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty,
only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Being and nonbeing produce each other.
The difficult is born in the easy.
Long is defined by short, the high by the low.
Before and after go along with each other.

So the sage lives openly with apparent duality
and paradoxical unity.
The sage can act without effort
and teach without words.

Nurturing things without possession,
she works, but not for rewards;
she competes, but not for results.

When the work is done, it is forgotten.
That is why it lasts forever.

–

The first two paragraphs of this verse lay the groundwork by offering real life examples of paradoxical unity. Definitions that oppose each other require each other to be defined.
The introduction of good and evil is perhaps the most important thought. If we continue from verse one, the notion of definition reducing or limiting the ‘thing’ applies just as much to adjectives as it does to nouns.

Our society is (supposedly) built on the ideals of justice; therein judgment is a prerequisite. We cast judgment every day, when we see another as fat we judge them instantly, attaching the negative almost as if as a conditioned response, limiting the person and reducing their other qualities. Can we as human beings – live in harmony with duality, see that fat could not exist without thin, that all is part of a greater whole, accept that oneness is devoid of judgment? This belief system of black and white is blinding us from unity.

I envy the sage, who is enlightened enough to live openly with duality. The sage that can see all of the particular as smaller parts of the eternal. Yet I wonder whether this reflects a personal desire to live a more stoic existence. But while this verse to me, sometimes conveys a less emotional – perhaps even cold – world view it also conveys warmth, acceptance, and unconditional love.

The part of this verse that never truly spoke to me is ‘effort’. As a man who suffers from a severe lack of general motivation – laziness some might say, and who has suffered the judgment (self directed as well as otherwise) of this term. This is the part I really wanted to find an answer in. I started to ask myself ‘what is effort?’. And of course, only when drawing upon Verse 1 the notion that desire is limiting did I realize that I was asking the wrong question all along.
Something becomes an effort to me when the work does not justify the reward, when the results do not justify the action. If we are to work not for reward, then what is it that we are to work for?
It was Andy who lead me to this thought in an earlier note – ‘the result is the hunger, but the enjoyment is in the eating’. Perhaps it is time for me to start enjoying the ‘eating’ (an appropriate metaphor, but a metaphor non the less) without being hungry.

Will letting go of the results (or rewards) allow me to act without effort, to teach without words, to find my motivation in the absence of motivation?

Perhaps I just found my answer.

Thank you for joining me today