Tao Te Ching Chapter 74-6 Carved or uncarved block

Today's Tao

If you carve wood on behalf of Big's carpenter, you surely hurt your hand. (Ch.74)


Don't try to carve "an uncarved block".

That is to say, don't try to control Tao and its holograms.

Let the carpenter of the holograms do his work.

In Zen Buddhism, they wisely call them Inmo butsu 恁麼物, or "what on earth" thing. (☞See Inmo and No mind 49-10)

Let your hologram come and go.

Surely you will hurt your hand if you try to control something uncontrollable.

You will feel you are stuck in the world because you forget that this life is your hologram.

If you cannot help feeling that you are lost in Mayoi, don't worry.

This Mayoi, or being lost, is Satori itself.

Your life itself is Satori the enlightenment.

Do you have to carve something already perfect?


«Related Articles»
-End of Life 74-1
-Don't terrify them 74-2
-Fear of End 74-3
-Reincarnation 74-4
-Big's carpenter 74-5
-Carved or uncarved block 74-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 74
-Big 25-9


Tao answers your question!



☞«Tao of ****» The first line comparison (15) / "Recently, a friend asked me why I'd bother to write another book about writing." On the left, «The Tao Of Writing: Imagine. Create. Flow.» written by Ralph L. Wahlstrom. / "The Tao embodies principles of a natural flow and non-resistance. Incorporating these principles into your legal research and writing practices can help you become a more efficient and more effective legal writer. " On the right, «The Tao of Legal Writing» written by Judith M. Stinson. / Legal or non-legal, Tao will help you in improving your writing skills. Tao will help you with anything.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 74-5 Big's carpenter

Dear Tao friends,

Thank you for your patience, and let's resume our journey of Taoism.

Now we are reading the final chapters of Tao Te Ching, and let's cherish every bit of them.

One sentence a day (without Saturdays and Sundays) as if we were finishing the final pieces of chocolate.


Naoto Matsumoto

Today's Tao

If you end life on behalf of those who are in charge of ending life, it is like carving wood on behalf of Big's carpenter. (Ch.74)


"Big's carpenter" means Tao's carpenter. (☞See Big 25-9)

Tao is not supposed to be carved. It is an uncarved block. (☞See Thick 15-8 and Uncarved block 28-12)

Would you like to be a carpenter to carve Tao? In other words, would you like to intervene the natural course of Tao by trying to influence your holographic "life"?


We have precious pieces of advice by Zen Master Dogen if we want to detach ourselves from life.

"If you have Buddha between the beginning of life and the end of it, there is neither the beginning of life nor the end of it."

"If you don't have Buddha between the beginning of life and the end of it, you will not be lost between the beginning of life and the end of it."

「生死の中に仏あれば生死なし」

「生死の中に仏なければ生死にまどはず」

(Shoji 生死, «Shobogenzo»)


Get lost in life.

Lost completely.

Being lost in Mayoi is Satori.

You will find Buddha's love while lost in the life of Mayoi.

But, if it is too painful for you, remember that your life is just a hologram and catalyst.


«Related Articles»
-End of Life 74-1
-Don't terrify them 74-2
-Fear of End 74-3
-Reincarnation 74-4
-Big's carpenter 74-5
-Carved or uncarved block 74-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 74


Tao answers your question!



☞ Previous video / Ch.74 text / Next video


☞«Tao of ****» The first line comparison (14) / "The world is hazy / No clean lines or sharp points / Focus the camera" On the left, «The Tao of Statistics: A Path to Understanding (With No Math)» written by Dr Dana K. Keller. / "Doesn't it take just one side to start a conflict?" On the right, «The Tao of Negotiation: How You Can Prevent, Resolve, and Transcend Conflict in Work and Everyday Life» written by Joel Edelman and Mary Beth Crane. / The ways of statistics and negotiation are intertwined like Kudzu and wisteria vines.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 74-4 Reincarnation

Today's Tao

There are always those who are in charge of ending life, and they end their life. (Ch.74)


What is reincarnation?

It is the circulation of Tao's energy with the constant emission of holograms.

Our own self is part of a hologram.

There is no such a thing as life.

So, there is no such a thing as the end of life.

Life, its end, and Self are all just names.


That's why Lao Tzu says in the very first chapter of Tao Te Ching:

"If you can name something, the word does not stand for what it really is."

(☞See A name can't 1-2)


Time is just a concept.


That's why Zen Master Dogen says:

"A pine tree is time. A bamboo tree is time."

(Uji 有時, «Shobogenzo»)


The beginning and the end take place simultaneously.


[Note]
Kitaro Nishida 西田幾多郎 said: "(One can find his true Self) by eliminating your false self. In Christianity, it is called reincarnation. In Buddhism, it is called Kensho 見性, seeing into one's nature" («A Study of the Good / Zen no Kenkyu 善の研究», which is also called «An Inquiry into the Good»@Amazon ☞See Goodness 49-5)


«Related Articles»
-End of Life 74-1
-Don't terrify them 74-2
-Fear of End 74-3
-Reincarnation 74-4
-Big's carpenter 74-5
-Carved or uncarved block 74-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 74


Tao answers your question!



☞ Previous video / Ch.74 text / Next video


☞The idea of reincarnation fascinated this "extraordinary" Japanese novelist. Yukio Mishima finished the forth and last novel of the series «Sea of Fertility» before he committed seppuku. The soul of the hero in the series is reincarnated three times, but the forth reincarnation does not take place although the person himself desperately tries to believe that he is the reincarnated one. In the 1st book «Spring Snow» the hero is born as an aristocrat. In the 2nd, «Runaway Horses» he is reincarnated as a modern Samurai swordsman. In the 3rd, «The Temple of Dawn», as a Thai princess. In the 4th, «The Decay of the Angel», the hero marries an ugly woman who believes that her beauty is a threat to the society.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 74-3 Fear of End

Today's Tao

If people are always afraid of the end of life, I can arrest those who do something strange and end their life. Who dares? (Ch.74)


Don't be fooled by strange stories.

"After the decomposition of your body, your soul goes to the sea of eternity."

Has anyone told you something like that?

Watch out!

Those who say something strange as this are worth being arrested, Lao Tzu insists.


Zen Master Dogen repeatedly cautions us:

"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 and Bendowa 弁道話, «Shobogenzo». ☞See also The body decomposes 16-17)


There is no such a thing as an individual spirit.

Life is like a stack of cards.

Holograms are the cards and life is a stack of them, we can think.

Life does not exist as a being.

It is a name for the combination of holograms.

If life doesn't exist, no one can scare us, telling the end of it.


«Related Articles»
-End of Life 74-1
-Don't terrify them 74-2
-Fear of End 74-3
-Reincarnation 74-4
-Big's carpenter 74-5
-Carved or uncarved block 74-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 74


Tao answers your question!



☞«Tao of ****» The first line comparison (13) / "No special effort is necessary to realize the Self." On the left, «The Tao of Now: Daily Wisdom from Mystics, Sages, Poets, and Saints» written by Josh Baran. / "We are in the midst of what some called 'a major turning point in history.'" On the right, «The Tao of Personal Leadership» written by Diane Dreher and Lao Tzu. / More than ever we need Tao now. But "What is «now»?

Tao Te Ching Chapter 74-2 Don't terrify them

Today's Tao

How can you terrify them by ending their life? (Ch.74)


Reincarnation is the creation and re-creation of a hologram.

It is not the story of a child in an exotic country who speaks about his former life in the language of the exotic country, not in the language he was supposed to be using while living the former life.


Tao is the exchange of the energy.

Every time the exchange takes place, Tao creates a hologram as a catalyst.

The end of life is the end of one cycle of this process.

Another one begins simultaneously.

Life is a catalyst, that is to say, an illusion.


That's why they say in Zen Buddhism:

"不生 不滅

[fusho fumetsu]

No life. No end of life".


Do we have to be afraid of the end of a holographic catalyst?

People in the world are not terrified at all by the end of a hologram/life, Lao Tzu says.

Of course not because they are just holographic characters in your catalytic movie.


«Related Articles»
-End of Life 74-1
-Don't terrify them 74-2
-Fear of End 74-3
-Reincarnation 74-4
-Big's carpenter 74-5
-Carved or uncarved block 74-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 74


Tao answers your question!



☞Reincarnation. Rin-ne Ten-sho 輪廻転生. One of the most successful modern novelists in Japan, Yukio Mishima 三島由紀夫 tacked the subject in the series of «Sea of Fertility / Hojo no Umi 豊饒の海». At the very end of the forth and last novel «The Decay of the Angel / Ten nin go sui 天人五衰», the woman who has been the heroine in the first book «Spring Snow / Haru no Yuki 春の雪» answers to the question of reincarnation. It is worth reading how she explains it if you are interested in this intriguing concept.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 74-1 End of Life

Today's Tao

People are not afraid of the end of life. (Ch.74)


One must not be afraid of the end of life.

Let's talk about reincarnation in this chapter.

First, I want you to forget about the stories of a boy or a girl born in India or China who remembers what he or she was doing in France or Germany a few decades ago.

Like miracle, reincarnation is everyday-life.

Reincarnation is happening right here and right now, constantly, without interruption.

Otherwise, we wouldn't exist.

Tao is creating and re-creating a hologram every moment.

The moment a hologram ends, another begins.

This is reincarnation.

What is life, then?

Life, as well as Self, is only a name you give to a part of a hologram, which is an illusion.

If life does not exist, how can the end of it exist?


«Related Articles»
-End of Life 74-1
-Don't terrify them 74-2
-Fear of End 74-3
-Reincarnation 74-4
-Big's carpenter 74-5
-Carved or uncarved block 74-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 74


Tao answers your question!



☞"RIN-NE 輪廻" is the Japanese word for reincarnation. Rumiko Takahashi, one of the most successful cartoon creators in Japan, has been treating this subject repeatedly. Please look at the first Kanji / Chinese character of the expression. Rin 輪 is the same kanji for "Tenborin 転法輪", which means "turning the wheel of manifestation". Rin 輪 signifies a wheel. Ne 廻, to turn. The expression itself probably knows better than the Japanese who use it. Reincarnation is turning the wheel of Tao.