Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
Chapter 14Finding and Following the Formless Form
Chapter 14
We look but don’t see – it’s beyond form.
We listen but don’t hear – it’s beyond sound.
We grasp but can’t hold on – it’s intangible.
All three undifferentiated, it merges into oneness
With no light above and no shadow below -
Continuity
It returns beyond the realm of things
To emptiness: the formless form,
The empty image,
Unthinkable thought beyond imagination.
Face it but you will see no beginning,
Follow it but you will see no end.
Yet upholding this ancient way,
You will merge with and rule the present
Holding fast to the perpetual, momentary flickering of mind.
Commentary
“About what has no color, sound, or form; mouths can’t speak and books can’t teach… We cannot find it through investigation.”
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“Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.”
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“we call it ‘the formless form.’ But although it has neither shape nor form, neither sound nor echo, there is nothing it cannot penetrate and nowere it cannot go.”
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“If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both.”
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“there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient being are attached to forms and so seek externally… By their very seeking they lose it.”
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“The treasury of teachings of the whole age cannot explain it thoroughly.”
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“After awakening, continuity is the function of self dropped away.”
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“There is no beginning to practice nor end to enlightenment; There is no beginning to enlightenment nor end to practice.”
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“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
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“Originally, thoughts have no real substance… if they arise, just let them arise; if they stop, just let them stop. As long as you’re not attaching to these reflected traces, delusions won’t be produced.”
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“looking upon others and oneself as the same there will be no discordant action.”
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“Without a center, without an edge… without an inside, without an outside… as far as the sky pervades, so does awareness.”
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“It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.”
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“What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.”
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“'I live' becomes the objective 'it lives me'… In the Pauline Christ-symbol ('No longer do I live, but Christ liveth in me.') the deepest religious experience of the West and East meet.”
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“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem.”
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“My consciousness is the world and the consciousness of the world is me.”
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“We have to believe in something that has no form and no color – something that exists before all forms and colors appear… By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing.”
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“…the endlessness of all that is, and the limitation of mortal bodily life, are the same, and their sameness is the key to the door.”
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“‘Mind’ is a tool invented by the universe to see itself; but it can never see all of itself, for much the same reason that you can’t see your own back… ”
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“‘Mind’ is a tool invented by the universe to see itself; but it can never see all of itself, for much the same reason that you can’t see your own back… ”
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“There are enormous problems with thinking that we can only trust in what we were told rather than in how we feel… we are trying to become perfect actors rather than real people.”
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“The ‘face’ and ‘back’ we don’t see refer to the darkness of the moon as it waxes and wanes.”
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