The Hua Hu Ching
Edward Edinger, one of my favorite Jungians, is the source of one of my favorite quotes:
Man cannot live by spiritual [or maybe he said “eternal”] verities alone; he also needs bread.
I find that as important as it is to keep one’s life in balance, an accompanying need is to determine when we are more in need of one than the other. Bread or Truth?
Truth at the moment is ringing more clearly for me than bread. This, however, is not knowledge about truth; rather it is a level of truth by which to live in a way that leads or opens to what Sri Aurobindo describes as the supra-mental, a level others call Buddhic or Christ consciousness.
Into the equation of knowing if it is really bread or truth I need, is knowing where I am in the cycles of my life, but life cycles is a subject I have written about elsewhere.
I am grateful to my friend Marnia for introducing me to Brian Walker’s translation of Lao Tzu’s Hua Hu Ching. Since the first of this year I have been appropriating these ancient wisdom teachings as words by which to live, and keeping notes on how they are speaking to me personally.
The first saying is about the path that leads to peace. This verse also promises that the collection of eighty sayings contains the entire truth of the universe, and joy as well in carrying out the everyday things of life.
In the teachings of contemporary mystic Eckhart Tolle I hear echoes of the Hua Hu Ching, and hear it also in The Work as taught by Byron Katie.
I reach the Integral Way of uniting with the great and mysterious Tao. My teachings are simple; if you try to make a religion or science of them, they will elude you. Profound yet plain, they contain the entire truth of the universe. Those who wish to know the whole truth take joy in doing the work and service that comes to them. Having completed it, they take joy in cleansing and feeding themselves. Having cared for others and for themselves, they then turn to the master for instruction. This simple path leads to peace, virtue, and abundance.