Scholar Warrior by Deng Ming-Dao

Currently reading this excellent book, an introduction to the practical application of the Tao and Taoist principles in everyday life. For me, the Tao and the Force are synonymous.

The book includes this fantastic quote which I had to share here:

“It is here with us every day, yet it is difficult to sense. It is within us, like a bright candle smothered inside a steel lantern, but we see only darkness. It moves constantly, yet we fail to detect its flow. It is emptiness, but we dwell only in the world of appearances. The Tao is truly great, beyond all descriptions, beyond all conceptions, and beyond all names. It is a mystery, but there is no awakening to life without it. Those who enter into the Tao become one with eternity. Those who enter into the Tao dissolve into Tao itself.”

The Balancing Force – A Jedi reading of The Jade Pivot

Written on 31st October 2014

I thought I’d give a Jedi interpretation of the Yü Shû King, by Hsüan-yang Dze, also known as The True Classic of the Pivot of Jade, delivered by the Heaven-Honoured One, Who produces Universal Transformation by the Sound of His Thunder. This short Taoist text is central to religious Taoism and is part of many religious Taoist services.

It also provides a brief, practical guide to those who would become one with the Tao.

The purpose of the text is, the author tells us, “to teach men to discipline and refine their spirit”, in line with a belief in the Tao. I feel this has value for us as Jedi and our central belief in the Force. As such, my Jedi reading follows.

1
The Force is transcendent.

The Force is impossible to know directly, and can’t be adequately described except by itself. You can’t see or hear it; all you see or hear are things. Things come, things go, but the Force is that which is beyond mere things, and remains constant throughout even these seemingly universal transitions.

Until you understand the transcendent nature of the Force, you can’t begin to approach knowledge of it.

2
Difficulty is valuable.

If you wish to know the Force, you must approach it with sincerity. To maintain this knowledge of the Force once you have it, you must be silent. If you wish to use the Force, you must be gentle.

If you’re sincere about the Force, you’ll look stupid to others. Similarly, cultivating the silence required to remain aware of the Force will look like you’re unable to speak. Acting gently enough to use the Force looks like a lack of ability.

However, if you can do these three things and truly know the Force, you will transcend your body, transcend mere knowledge, transcend even your notion of “self” and become one with the Force.

3
Intellect is limited.

Even a passing knowledge of the Force is enough to understand one’s intellect can’t give the complete picture of it. Likewise, one who understands the Force is naturally valiant in action, without having to think about it. Finally, working with the Force reveals tremendous subtleties to everything, without engaging the thinking process.

So understanding these subtleties, one attains an air of intelligence. In being valiant by nature, the air of a true Jedi Knight is acquired. And in putting aside the desire to understand everything intellectually, rather than over-thinking or worrying about everything, true wisdom is attained. This is how Jedi become one with the Force.

True transcendence of one’s self in the Force is something which becomes natural, with true understanding of the meaning of the Force. You can’t lose it – you’ll forget there was ever any other kind of understanding of reality. It is the underlying truth of all reality.

4
Ignorance is environmental (and the Force transcends it anyway).

Jedi are sworn to the benefit of all life. Through service we become greater than our short lives. A belief in the Force presupposes a sort of “destiny”. However we are wise and ignorant in equal, balanced measure; for knowing that destiny is the underlying truth is not enough to actually predict it in any meaningful way. We are human; we will never know the future with absolute certainty.

The best way to approach this is, as the previous verse describes, recognising that intellect can’t give us the complete picture. In doing so we make our ignorance a form of knowledge, and our weakness a form of strength.* Weakness and ignorance are natural for humans, but the way of the Force is also a natural current in human lives. To achieve knowledge and strength in this way, all we have to do is surrender to the current of the Force.

This happens spontaneously, sometimes without intellect, will or desire, sometimes with the greatest intellect, will and desire in the world. The conditions for its realisation cannot be manufactured, because the Force is not predictable by human intellect, and thus appears inherently spontaneous. This spontaneity is even more mysterious than the understanding it imparts in us. This spontaneity is the true nature of the Force.

The Force can’t be known through conventional, coarse means. It can never be reduced, compromised, cheapened.

This is why it is supreme.

*My interpretation of this passage: We give up self-destructive habits like over-thinking and worry, and instead trust in the Force and the path we’re taking as the right one in each moment, whether that be moving straight ahead, turning left or right, or retreating. We accept the moment and stop obsessing over the future or the past. We accept our one life has one un-branching course, not many, however habitually we imagine we might have acted differently.

T’ai-Shang Kan-Ying P’ien – Treatise On the Response of the Tao

I think of the T’ai-Shang Kan-Ying P’ien (太上感應篇英⽂讀誦本; “Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Retribution”, or “Treatise On the Response of the Tao”) as kind of a big brother to yesterday’s Yin Chih Wen – it is similarly a chastisement of evil-doing rather than an instruction for living well, or being good. There are also elements of it which I don’t agree with (an example is, I am pro-choice). But, writ large, there is some good advice here (along with the usual interesting anachronisms – hopefully none now require instruction not to “causelessly kill tortoises and snakes”, for example).

This is again a Taoist text in nature, and thus it informs some of what we might like to practice when working with, and within, the Force. Some of it owes more to Confucianism (it was authored by Li Ying-Chang, a Confucian scholar, in the 1100s, although it is usually attributed to Lao Tzu himself) , which is not always compatible with Taoist/Jedi beliefs.

Below I have included only the “treatise” itself, in reality it is accompanied by various folk tales which illustrate some of its central concepts. For me these are less useful to the contemporary reader (though no less interesting from a historical perspective). The complete text can be read here.

I’d like to also note a recent contemporary translation, which is fascinating though not my preferred version (perhaps due to the parochiality of language, or simply my familiarity with, the 1906 translation by Suzuki and Carus which is presented below). This can be read here.

Now, on with the Treatise:

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TREATISE OF THE EXALTED ONE ON RESPONSE AND RETRIBUTION

THE Exalted One says:

Curses and blessings do not come through gates, but man himself invites their arrival.

The reward of good and evil is like the shadow accompanying a body, and so it is apparent that heaven and earth are possessed of crime-recording spirits.

According to the lightness or gravity of his transgressions, the sinner’s term of life is reduced. Not only is his term of life reduced, but poverty also strikes him. Often he meets with calamity and misery. His neighbours hate him. Punishments and curses pursue him. Good luck shuns him. Evil stars threaten him; and when his term of life comes to an end, he perishes.

Further, there are the three councillor, spirit-lords of the northern constellation,residing above the heads of the people, recorders of men’s crimes and sins, cutting off terms of from twelve years to a hundred days.

Further, there are the three body-spirits that live within man’s person. Whenever Kêng Shên day comes, they ascend to the heavenly master and inform him of men’s crimes and trespasses.

On the last day of the month the Hearth Spirit, too, does the same.

Of all the offences which men commit, the greater ones cause a loss of twelve years, the smaller ones of a hundred days. These their offences, great as well as small, constitute some hundred affairs, and those who are anxious for life everlasting, should above all avoid them.

Yin Chih Wen – The Tract of the Quiet Way

Yin Chih Wen (“the mysterious dispensation of Heaven showing itself in man’s unostentatious virtue”, more commonly abbreviated to “The Tract of the Quiet Way”) is an ancient Chinese text. I can attest to little of its provenance, except to say it was once widely known and read in China, and that it contains some Taoist wisdom which may be relevant to the practising Jedi.

I like it especially because for a large part, it reads as a list of “naughty behaviours” practised in China several hundred years ago. However there are passages which have genuine insight and value to the Jedi, in how to walk one’s path in balance with the Force. And who knows… if sharing this stops one of you from “going into the mountain to catch birds in nets”, or if indeed while walking you become “mindful of worms and ants”, then my work as a Jedi is done for the day.

Without further ado, the text:

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THE TRACT OF THE QUIET WAY

The Lord says:

For seventeen generations I have been incarnated as a high mandarin, and I have never oppressed my people nor maltreated my subordinates. I have helped them in misfortune; I have rescued them from poverty; I have taken compassion on their orphans; I have forgiven their transgressions; I have extensively practised secret virtue (yin chih) which is attuned to heaven above. If you are able to keep your hearts as I have kept mine, Heaven will surely bestow upon you blessings. Therefore, these are the instructions I declare unto mankind:

Pioneers of the Force

Written on 15th June 2016

“Happiness is the struggle towards a summit and, when it is attained, it is happiness to glimpse new summits on the other side.”

Fridtjof Nansen

Nansen speaks from experience. An accomplished explorer, his “dash for the pole” has become legendary (if you’ve not read about it, I urge you to!). But Nansen didn’t stop there, and later in life devoted himself to the service of displaced citizens in the aftermath of the First World War, gaining a Nobel Prize in the process. Nansen embodied Jedi values in many ways – courage, service and a commitment to the world “as it is”. Nansen is in my mind when I speak to you today, because it was his ability to try new approaches, see new things, and live a new kind of way which let him become one of the greatest pioneers in history.

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Every day the world is remade. An infinite waterfall of changes cascades through the universe, sweeping away what we knew, what we expected, what we believed. The universe does not know how to sit still, and our study of the Force shows us quite clearly: the only constant is change. That which is, will evolve. That which will be, will confound our expectations. The Force is chaotic and vast, and in such systems we can only expect a few things. How wonderful to know that we know so little! There is a vast universe out there, and even the same park, the same garden is new with each passing day.

As Jedi, we are more attuned with this constant flow of change than many other humans. Other animals seem, to me at least, more capable of holding this changing nature of the fabric of reality in mind. A birth, a sickness, a victory, a death. These punctuating moments of our lives can strike us hard and shatter our ideas of what was, what is, what may yet be. Causal chains ripple unseen in the dark, hidden waves and eddies in the surface of things. Tiny in comparison, we pilot our fragile vessels through the chaos.

The world itself is wide, strange, beautiful and terrible in equal measure. For me, my path as a Jedi is one of getting out amongst it. Seeing things with my own eyes, touching, tasting, smelling, hearing and truly feeling the terrain and cultures we find ourselves amidst. We are blessed with a menu as long as time, and can paint from a palette of undiscovered colours. Every space is wild space, because in every area of our life there is the potential for surprise. Likewise, every action we take is a new creation, with a life all of its own. By doing, thinking, just BEING at all, we contribute to the unpredictable nature of all that is.

Go boldly into that unknown, unknowable reality! Face the death of a thousand dreams and the birth of a thousand more with an explorer’s attitude, confident enough in yourselves that you may observe, experience, and then return home richer, wiser for the experience. Be brave! Bring back what you’ve learnt so that your communities may benefit from your new-found wisdom. Let yourself be wrong. Let your constants become your doubts, your doubts become your mistakes, your mistakes become your lessons. Let your lessons teach you. So often in life we “complete” lessons so we may ignore them, rather than to learn from them. Everything in this multifaceted, crystalline reality contains a lesson, if we only have ears to hear it.

Each morning remember you are reborn from the little death of sleep. Each night remember you die to the passing day. Every time you blink, open your eyes to a new world. Every time you breathe, breathe in the new air. Every time you look, see the difference; it’s there, even if it’s hard to see.

Be pioneers of this new world – our ever changing, ever growing, ever evolving universe.

–

I am a Jedi, a pioneer of the Force.

Let me see for the first time, every time
Let me build on what I have learned,
Let me find the lesson in all things.

May I embrace the ever-changing universe with my whole being.

Let me walk unafraid over new earth,
Let me discover all which awaits me,
And in this let me be renewed, each day.

I am a Jedi, a pioneer of the Force.

The Way of the Force – A Jedi Reading of the Tao Te Ching

You can download a formatted PDF of this document here.

Written 14th-28th July 2014

Because I felt it relevant to my path, I recently produced a Jedi version of the Tao Te Ching, analysing it verse-by-verse for Jedi insights.

I should add that as time goes on, my conception of the Force is largely synonymous with the Tao. As such I haven’t sought to “correct” things in line with our Doctrine, only to draw out parallels where relevant.

I’ve used a combination of my favourite translations of this familiar text to complete my reading, including but not limited to Addiss and Lombardo (1993), Stephen Mitchell (1988), and Ron Hogan (2004).

I know this isn’t the only Jedi version of the Tao Te Ching available, but it’s the only one I’m aware of which is not simply the result of taking an existing translation, replacing the word ‘Tao’ with ‘the Force’, and ‘sage’ with ‘Jedi’.

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1. Words are an imperfect way of making sense of the Force.
2. Duality is humanity’s ordinary way of understanding reality.
3. Our true nature is not based in duality.
4. The Force is infinite.
5. The Force is indifferent.
6. The Force will remain a mystery.
7. The Force is old and vast.
8. Jedi follow the Force’s lead.
9. Jedi avoid excess.
10. The Force is the true nature of all we experience.
11. Emptiness is the best state to rest in.
12. The world is full of distractions.
13. Dualities are false perceptions in both directions.
14. The Force is transcendent.
15. Perfection is not necessary for harmony.
16. Jedi prefer stillness.
17. Jedi are subtle.
18. Jedi are not pompous.
19. Jedi are open-minded.
20. Jedi do not over-think things.
21. Jedi remain focused on the Force.
22. Jedi work with duality.
23. Jedi do not cling.
24. Jedi practice moderation.
25. The Force is formless.
26. Balance is essential to living.
27. Jedi don’t create a stir.
28. Jedi are not partisan.
29. Jedi do not try to control things.
30. Jedi use the Force to lead people.
31. Jedi reject weapons.
32. The Force can’t be perceived “directly”.
33. Self-knowledge is wisdom.
34. The Force is in everything.
35. Those in harmony with the Force are attractive.
36. Jedi are patient.
37. The Force does not “do” anything.
38. Jedi find integrity natural.
39. The Force is enough.
40. The action of the Force is return.
41. The Force affects people differently.
42. The Force is the root of everything.
43. Softness overcomes hardness.
44. Jedi prioritise.
45. The Force can seem “imperfect”.
46. The Force teaches acceptance.
47. The Force is right here.
48. Jedi focus on the Force.
49. Jedi are not stubborn.
50. Death, yet the Force.
51. The Force is something different to all creatures.
52. The Force is the only source.
53. Following the Force is always right.
54. The Force endures through generations.
55. Jedi minds are like the minds of children.
56. Wisdom speaks for itself.
57. The Force presents a model of leadership.
58. Good leaders encourage simplicity.
59. Jedi lead through moderation.
60. Treating things appropriately prevents harm.
61. Power tends to grow.
62. The Force is refuge for everyone.
63. Jedi do without doing.
64. Jedi use the opportune moment.
65. Jedi keep things simple.
66. The Force is like an ocean.
67. The Force and the Jedi path can seem ridiculous.
68. Jedi avoid conflict.
69. Jedi exercise restraint.
70. Jedi are realistic.
71. Jedi are self-aware.
72. Authority is restrictive.
73. Jedi act as required.
74. All that happens is of the Force.
75. Authority interrupts the natural order.
76. Jedi are soft and yielding.
77. The potential of the Force is like a bow.
78. The nature of the Force is like water.
79. Failure is an opportunity.
80. Small communities can achieve great contentment.
81. Truth is not always beautiful.

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1
Words are an imperfect way of making sense of the Force.

What’s behind all names is a unity, a totality and wholeness which we are also part of, and by naming this we think of it as a distinct object in some sense. It’s not, and in fact the very concept of “distinct objects” is false. In reality there is only one thing: the Force.

There’s no easy way to understand what’s behind the names because that’s how our brains are wired, but if we manage to clear the fog of concepts and delusion for a second we can feel this connectedness and unity of things.