Tao Te Ching Chapter 16-17 The body decomposes

Today's Tao

The body decomposes, but Tao has no danger. (Ch.16)


Do you like black and white Japanese film classics like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Tokyo story?

Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu; they are true master film makers, aren't they?

By any chance, do you know another classic film called «Ugetsu Monogatari» by Kenji Mizoguchi?

The original was written in the Samurai era. It is a collection of short stories.

In it, there is a beautiful story of love.

An old Buddhist priest adored a boy-monk. The boy-monk got sick and met his end.

The old priest could not bear the site that the body of his beloved was decomposing.

So, he ate it.

Now, his beloved is eternally safe in the stomach.

It is a story called «Aozukin (Blue hood)» in «Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain)» by Ueda Akinari.


Some people search an eternal life.

Would you like to live eternally?

In fact, you do.

Your hologram "decomposes", but true You are Tao.

Tao simply keeps on creating holograms.


Dogen's caution:

We must not think that our individual spirit goes somewhere after life.

There is no such thing as the sea of eternity.

(Soku shin ze butsu 即心是仏, «Shobogenzo»)


Naoto Matsumoto says:

It is easier if we think our individual self does not exist.

A so-called "self" is part of the rest of the world.


«Related Articles»
-Do emptiness 16-1
-Guard stillness 16-2
-Material beings 16-3
-Go back 16-4
-Root 16-5
-Stillness 16-6
-Destiny 16-7
-Constancy 16-8
-Satori 16-9
-Calamity 16-10
-Know constancy 16-11
-Public 16-12
-King 16-13
-King = Heaven 16-14
-Heaven = Tao 16-15
-Eternal 16-16
-The body decomposes 16-17
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 16


Tao answers your question!



Previous video / Ch.16 text / Next video


-It is a great pleasure to talk about our national heritage. The original tales are one of the best literary works in Japanese along with «The Tale of Genji». Although its story is not truly related to the original, the film might be called a cinematographic masterpiece.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 16-16 Eternal

Today's Tao

Tao is eternal. (Ch.16)


A: "Would you like to see a football game tonight?"

B: "I am sorry I have no time."

A: "How about a cup of coffee before you leave?"

B: "No, I can't. Even if you buy me an organic Soya bean cream double mocachino from the Michelin three star restaurant downstairs, I can't. I have no time."


We know it very well, don't we?

We have no time.

No one possesses time.

Even Tao doesn't.

Tao has no time.

Time is just a parameter in order to organise incoming information in our brains.

It is like the speed of the wheel of a movie projector.

You are the one who decides the speed.

Everything takes place simultaneously in Tao.

So, everything is ephemeral and eternal.

Have a nice cup of coffee. You are eternal.


«Related Articles»
-Do emptiness 16-1
-Guard stillness 16-2
-Material beings 16-3
-Go back 16-4
-Root 16-5
-Stillness 16-6
-Destiny 16-7
-Constancy 16-8
-Satori 16-9
-Calamity 16-10
-Know constancy 16-11
-Public 16-12
-King 16-13
-King = Heaven 16-14
-Heaven = Tao 16-15
-Eternal 16-16
-The body decomposes 16-17
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 16


Tao answers your question!



Previous video / Ch.16 text / Next video


-Yasunari Kawabata is a Nobel Prize winner. His other stories and novels are in Japanese school text books. But one of the best pieces cannot and will not be recommended to school children. Or, probably, it should be used in the part of a precautionary measure for girl students. You can take your child to Tchaikovsky's «Sleeping Beauty», but you will never want to read Kawabata's «Sleeping Beauty» to your child.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 16-15 Heaven = Tao

Today's Tao

Heaven is Tao. (Ch.16)


Heaven. The heavens. The sky. The firmament.

Do you remember what I am asking you all the time?

When you see those words in Tao Te Ching, please paraphrase them with «your hologram».

So, what happens with Today's Tao sentence?

It is interpreted as:

Your hologram is Tao.

That's it!

That's the most important thing.

Zen Master Dogen says that this world is Buddha's prayer. (Jishozanmai 自証三昧 etc, «Shobogenzo»)

You don't have to look to somewhere else.

Life is the prayer.

Living itself is the Za-zen meditation.


«Related Articles»
-Do emptiness 16-1
-Guard stillness 16-2
-Material beings 16-3
-Go back 16-4
-Root 16-5
-Stillness 16-6
-Destiny 16-7
-Constancy 16-8
-Satori 16-9
-Calamity 16-10
-Know constancy 16-11
-Public 16-12
-King 16-13
-King = Heaven 16-14
-Heaven = Tao 16-15
-Eternal 16-16
-The body decomposes 16-17
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 16


Tao answers your question!



Previous video / Ch.16 text / Next video


-The Japanese living in Edo, the old name of Tokyo, tried to create a paradise in the area authorized by the Shogun government. For the Japanese, even nowadays, life is a floating world. You should enjoy it while you can. Nagai Kafu is a great writer and connoisseur of the practice of a floating heaven, both legal and ilegal. The book «A Strange tale from East of the River / Bokutokitan 濹東綺譚» is not just a literary masterpiece but an important record of the despised ladies.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 16-14 King = Heaven

Today's Tao

A king is heaven. (Ch.16)


"King" means the creator of the hologram.

At his birth, Buddha was believed to say:

"Above heaven, below heaven, I am the only important (respectable) one. 天上天下唯我独尊 [ten jo ten ge yui ga doku son]"

It is logical.

If you are the creator of the hologram called "the world", definitely you are the most important one.

A harder point to understand is that you are part of that hologram you create.

You create your hologram, and, at the same time, your hologram defines what you are and what you do.

Maybe, with a little help from the design of the Yin Yang circle, we can comprehend this twisted logic of the creator and the created.


«Related Articles»
-Do emptiness 16-1
-Guard stillness 16-2
-Material beings 16-3
-Go back 16-4
-Root 16-5
-Stillness 16-6
-Destiny 16-7
-Constancy 16-8
-Satori 16-9
-Calamity 16-10
-Know constancy 16-11
-Public 16-12
-King 16-13
-King = Heaven 16-14
-Heaven = Tao 16-15
-Eternal 16-16
-The body decomposes 16-17
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 16


Tao answers your question!



Previous video / Ch.16 text / Next video


-Osamu Tazuka is a Walt Disney of Japan and the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, who challenged the task of reincarnate the founder of Buddhism in his comic strip. Hermann Hesse, a pacifist who was treated as a traitor during World War 2, is an exceptional western guide to the world of Buddhism. His book «Siddhartha» will tell you about many practical solutions of Buddhist way of living in the occidental context. Highly recommended.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 16-1 Do emptiness / video

Today's Tao

Do emptiness perfectly. (Ch.16)


Geisha are gone.

We don't have them any more.

It is what we call social engineering.

We have transformed our town.

We got cleaner, better organised, and even wealthier.

I used to go to school with sons and daughters of Geisha.

Geisha got wealthier as well.

They abandoned their kimonos, and bought a Dior and a Louis Vuitton.

They shipped their old Toyota to Russia and asked AMG to upgrade their new Mercedes.

And they have become invisible.

Old businesses continue, of course, but they have put their money safely on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Oh, excuse me. Not so safely.

You never know. One day they may have to wear old kimonos again and stand at the street corner.


To read the text of Today's Tao, please see Tao Te Ching 16-1 Do emptiness.

To read other episodes of Japan stories, please click the label below.


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