Religious Zen

Chapter 2 - Abstraction

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

Contrast and compare

Only when things are called beautiful do we judge the ugly. We need bad, in order to know what good is. We are so ingrained in our culture today to judge things as this or that, or right or wrong. We can learn much from the master in this chapter, who does not see things as good or bad. They just are. They are one with the Tao.

Neither the tree, nor the flower, nor the bird singing in the noonday consider the others as beautiful or ugly, they just are. It is in this radical thinking that true unity comes into play. We learn to stop labeling others, and accept them as who they are.

Why should we continue to call things beautiful, when we know that by doing so we create ugliness? Practice perceiving things as just being, rather than being in a state of good or bad or aesthetically pleasing or not. Choose the Tao way of thinking as often as possible.

The master may own things, but what he owns doesn’t possess him. It is fine to gain things in the pursuit of happiness, but don’t let your happiness depend on getting things. Don’t let your well being depend on whether you succeed or fail. It is all judgment. Instead, practice the Tao and be like the ebb and flow of the ocean.

In doing this, all of your accomplishments will be amplified a hundredfold, even to the point of truly lasting forever.

Gain confidence within the Tao.

Realize that you may only be considered ugly because there is someone who is considered beautiful.

Realize that you are only considered poor because someone else is considered rich.

Realize that you are only considered fat because others are considered thin.

Know that in all these judgments and labels, it is the consensus of other people that defines good, bad, right, wrong, short, thin, wide, narrow, rich, poor, fat, thin, ugly, and beautiful. They are only other people, much like you. Even though somebody else may numerically have more money than you, that doesn’t make them truly rich. Don’t rest on the opinion of others, because they shouldn’t define you. Only you should define you.

Once you begin defining yourself as you want to be- rather than what others consider you- you will begin to change into what it is you define yourself. Begin choosing to be thin, and not caught up in what others think of your weight. Consider yourself successful, and you will begin making successful decisions.

Whatever attribute others may call you, change is only a definition away. Define yourself, and don’t let others define you.

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