Verse Seventy One

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009

Verse Seventy One
Feng and English, 1972

Knowing ignorance is strength.
Ignoring knowledge is sickness.

If one is sick of sickness, then one is not sick.
The sage is not sick because he is sick of sickness.
Therefore he is not sick.

Verse Seventy One
Ray Grigg, 1995

The wise know they do not know;
The fools do not know they do not know.

Those who recognize the ignorance in ignorance
Are not ignorant;
And those who recognize the foolishness in foolishness
Are not foolish.

Therefore,
By knowing both ignorance and foolishness,
The sage becomes wise.

Verse Seventy One
Jerry O. Dalton, 1994

To know you do not know is best.
Not to know you do not know is a defect.
To recognize a defect is to be not defective.
Because he recognizes a defect,
The sage is not defective.

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2009

This is pretty powerful. To claim you know when you don't know is a sickness. Headlessness cuts right past this problem. We don't know. We see.

Those who claim to know must be able to show others. Telling them is not enough.

Seers are sick of sickness. As Douglas sometimes said, they are fed up "to the back teeth." That's plain enough, isn't it?

Jim

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From: simon
Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009

Yes, it is! (plain enough)
And the fact that it is plain to see (and elusive to try to explain) is a great grace!
No need to conceptualise... just admit!
Happy evidence, one and all.
Simon

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From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009

Recently I read in Douglas's Open To The Source,
a section on not knowing and surrendering to the Clarity.
The italics and bold last phrase are used in the book.

NOT KNOWING:
The Great secret of life, the great know-how,
is not to know,
to be at a loss-
to be,
precisely, at my wit's end,
which is the beginning of the Wit of the One I really really am.

Every " choice" that is made
from not having it all taped,
from not having it in a briefcase,
from not having a script or rule,
but from the Clarity Here and what fills it,
seems to me to be a whole different deal,
the true surrender.

Everything I do is either coming from my human nature,
from my " Douglas image "
illegitimately and nonsensically superimposed on the Center of my life,
or else it is coming from
what is at the center of my life ,
Who I am.

The difference between those two kinds of action doesn't look like much, but it is very very deep.

( there's something about this line that draws you in. I sense it in great musician when everything is just flowing and the music just pours out of their instruments : ))S.P. )

You could sum up the authentic one as not knowing.

Only don't know.

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009

Thanks for posting that, Steve. It really goes to the heart of this verse. I especially like "not having it in a briefcase." Just the opposite -- wide open and free and unpredictable.

Jim

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009

This verse reminds me that Ira Gershwin had something to say on the subject.

Anyone with vision comes to this decision--
Don't make up your mind

Jenny made her mind up when she was three
She herself was going to trim the Christmas tree
Christmas Eve she lit the candles, tossed the tapers away
Little Jenny was an orphan on Christmas day

Poor Jenny, bright as a penny
Her equal would be hard to find
She lost one dad and mother, a sister and a brother,
But she would make up her mind

Jenny made her mind up when she was twelve
That into foreign languages she would delve
But at seventeen to Vassar, it was quite a blow
That in twenty-seven languages she couldn't say no
Poor Jenny, bright as a penny
Her equal would be hard to find
To Jenny I'm beholden, her heart was big and golden
But she would make up her mind

Jenny made her mind up at twenty-two
To get herself a husband was the thing to do
She got herself all dolled up in her satins and furs
And she got herself a husband--but he wasn't hers

Poor Jenny, bright as a penny
Her equal would be hard to find
Deserved a bed of roses, but history discloses
That she would make up her mind

Jenny made her mind up at fifty-one
She would write her memoirs before she was done
The very day her book was published, history relates,
There were wives who shot their husbands in some thirty-three states

Jenny made her mind up at seventy-five
She would live to be the oldest woman alive
But gin and rum and destiny play funny tricks,
And poor Jenny kicked the bucket at seventy-six
Jenny points a moral with which you cannot quarrel,
Makes a lot of common sense--
Jenny and her saga prove that you're gaga
If you don't keep sitting on the fence

Jenny and her story point the way to glory
To all man and womankind
Anyone with vision comes to this decision--
Don't make up your mind

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From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009

You surprised me with this one Jim, the you tube clips and all,
but I always did like the Gershwin's

( Though they do get a bit scrabbled up with Rodgers + Harts , Cole Porter, Jerome Kern etc in my mind. I blame the Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks ! )

: )

Steve

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009

Hi Steve,

A lot of wisdom came from Tin Pan Alley.

I have to laugh how the mind works. Thoughts pop up seemingly out of nowhere, but they're really brewing somewhere in the void. I was surprised by the appearance of this song too.

Jim

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From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009

Hi Jim

Talking about
Quote:
Thoughts pop up seemingly out of nowhere, but they're really brewing somewhere in the void.

Have thoughts of putting the DaoDeJingle on an audio file been brewing?
It would be great to be able to hear it.

Happy brewing as Simon might say

Steve

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009

Audio Daodejingle? Maybe I should try a verse or two. I have a microphone. Maybe I have the software to do it in Vista.

If it wasn't brewing, it is now.

Jim

The Tao Te Ching probably began as an oral tradition. That's no doubt why so much of it rhymes in Chinese. The parts that rhyme may be the oldest parts of the poem.

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From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009

Hi Jim

I didn't know parts of the TTC rhymes in Chinese. And now have images of Taoist sages gently mumbling the Tao Te Ching rhymes as they potter around the mountains and valley's : )

RE: Software I was told Audacity, which is free, is good for recording.

Steve

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From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009

Talking of Gershwin and Tin Pan Alley wisdom.
Sam Blight posted this on the No-Facebook site )

I got Plenty of Nothing

I got plenty of nothing
And nothing's plenty for me
I got no car - got no mule
I got no misery

Folks with plenty of plenty
They've got a lock on the door
Afraid somebody's gonna rob 'em
While there out (a) making more - what for?

I got no lock on the door - that's no way to be
They can steal the rug from the floor - that's OK with me
'Cause the things that I prize - like the stars in the skies - are all free

I got plenty of nothing
And nothing's plenty for me
I got my gal - got my song
(I) Got heaven the whole day long

Heyward/Gershwin/Gershwin

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009

Plenty of Nothing. Amazing that that's what Lao Tzu and Douglas have given us. Come to think of it, Plenty always accompanies Nothing.

Got no heirlooms
For my kin
Made no will but when I cash in
I leave the sun in the morning and the moon at night
And with the sun in the morning
And the moon in the evening they're all right

Irving Berlin

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From: Janet
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009

beautiful!

love,
janet

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From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009

Plenty always accompanies Nothing
Well that sums up the opposites,
downstream and upstream
and the two way pointing
in one sentence,

Plenty always accompanies Nothing

Without Douglas that sentence could have kept you going for years.
Like a zen koan or riddle

Q. Student Caine in the Shaolin Temple: Master what is the original nature of the true Tao ?

A. Master Po: Grasshopper, only when you realize, Plenty always accompanies Nothing, can you leave the Temple......
( fade in the kung fu theme music....)

The Kung Fu script writers would have loved it !

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009

Those were great clips, Steve. I used to watch that show every week. That was before I had discovered the Tao Te Ching.

I had to look up the word Anoraks. "In British slang an anorak is a person, typically a man, who is an enthusiast interested in information regarded as boring or unfathomable by the rest of the population." I think I've always been one of those. I wish I could decipher ?€n?r€k so I could pronounce it correctly. I love learning new words.

Headless Anorak Jim

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From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009

Hi Jim

I never thought I'd be doing this on the forum !
but try Ann-or-Rack or Ann -ur -Rack said quickly : )))) for anorak

Headless Anorak Steve

PS
Did you see the new post for verse 61 ?
It has a link for Douglas talking about The Country Of Everlasting Clearness.

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From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009

Thanks, Steve, I'm listening to The Country of Everlasting Clearness right now. I'm glad to have the link to all those talks.

I think my guess was right about saying Anorak. It's pronounced just as it's spelled. I don't know what they thought people would make of anorak.

Jim

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