qù, 取
Five times
the color—like from hand-clawing a kneeling person, tinting their complexion to a feminine charm albeit sometimes lewdly or even to a perverted countenance—
controlling someone—joining together from three sides over a kneeling person and ordering them to do something, perhaps sending them somewhere:
that person,
their eyesight,
is blind—what the eye sees is lost.
Five times
one tone—a note from your mouth—
controlling someone:
that person,
their ear,
is deaf—a dragon with an ice-cold bow ear.
Five times
the tasting—reflecting on the flavor in your mouth which is still forming like a tree whose top branches aren’t yet fully grown—
controlling someone:
that person,
their mouth—their words,
are cleared and bright as a person awake and alert in the morning sunshine.
Galloping—’oh yeah, vagina,’
galloping like a horse given free rein by a chivalrous knight with frank words on a sob
tilling a field, hitting it lightly, marking it up like a tattoo
with a bristly dog beating the game toward you on a hunt, a witch hunt—
controlling someone:
that person,
their heart-core,
is felled—shot, ‘thwang!’ by a bow…
a mad dog roaring as insanely, unrestrainedly, as a king.
Solidly hard
hand-picking-riches-along-the-road’s
transformation of riches—like from a right-side-up person to an upside down person—
controlling someone:
that person,
on a public road, practicing,
is oppositional—holding the tip of a sword over a kneeling young woman.
This list comprises the bulk of Chapter 12. It comes immediately after Chapter 11’s beautiful description of how Not-Being and Being work together (Being carves a physical shape that creates the perfect negative space of Not-Being which allows truly usable work, like a water bucket does with its carrying capacity). And I think it’s a cautionary list of what NOT to do. A list of five excessive practices that result in a person being controlled by sensory experiences and ending up not seeing, not hearing, not tasting, insane, and aggressively threatening.
Yikes.
Chapter 12 then concludes like this:
~
The sun—walking across the sundial a while, stopping a while—sees indeed
this means
the grounded sage
person is
efforting
inside—the gut, the meat belly—and
just the husk of the protective bud casing but not really the true inner flower of
efforting
what the eye sees;
OK, so because of that list of excesses, the wise person efforts internally. The wise person doesn’t really effort visibly—with the external. And then that’s followed by the last line’s summary of the sage:
therefore—anciently, for ten generations, this lightly hits and leaves this mark of reason:
withdrawing like a person with a mouth or cave between their legs—leaving
that—that fur stripped from its pelt on the road where you stepped slowly with only the left leg leading the way;
grabbing the ear of—marrying (qù, 取)
this here—the foot stops a person here on their footprint.
The wise person is leaving that entire list of behaviors and is holding onto this: to internal efforting and not to visible external efforting.
At least that’s how I interpret “that” and “this” in the last line. There are other ways to interpret the line (of course and as usual!). Maybe that and this directly point back to the previous line and to the order in which items are presented there. In that case, it would mean the sage is “leaving efforting inside” and “marrying not really efforting what the eye sees.” I kind of doubt it, although really the result isn’t too different, just perhaps a lot easier!
Either way, the sage ends up “qù (取) this here.” Qù, in the Western Zhou script of Lâozî’s era, looked like this:
On the left is an ear, and on the right is a hand. The pictogram’s considered to mean someone is taking hold of an ear. Modern meanings are to take; to fetch, get, or obtain; to receive; to select or choose. Most Dào translators prefer take or choose. But this character was the original form of the word to marry. (The later form of “to marry” added a drawing of a woman below the original drawing we have here.) The ancient Shuowen etymology thought this evolution was necessary because the pictogram we see here came to mean “to take an enemy’s ear and carry it in one’s hand.” Considering other ways in which the Shuowen’s been discredited, together with the fact that none of the modern meanings seem to have this sense, I left that connotation out of my definition. If the word DID come to mean that, I don’t believe it was the original sense during Lâozî’s time at any rate. You’ve seen that my definition, to include the actual drawings and the sense of commitment, is:
grabbing the ear of—marrying
This is the first time this character appears in the Dào Dé Jīng. And it appears only twice more in the first 37 chapters (i.e., the Dào part of the text). Both appearances are almost at the end of Act 2 when things are starting to get very dire:
~ In Chapter 29, we see our hero will soon be wanting to be grabbing the ear of—marrying—Heaven Here Below, and yet now, bearded… efforting what it has. Our narrator sees this does not really result in “gathering riches… already finished in the womb.” Because Heaven Here Below is a “lightning god” set of valuable vessels—sacred—and not something you can “effort.” In other words, you can’t have this heaven below (usually considered to mean Earth) AND “work it” or reshape it.
~ In Chapter 30, we learn traditional virtue Being is ripened, yet now, bearded, already finished “in the womb” and not really daring to effort grabbing the ear of—marrying—any strengthening of their outer casing like an insect.
It’s definitely not clear at this point what any of this means! But what intrigues me is of course the double meaning. Yes, all this stuff about what you do and do not qù can mean something cosmic about how to be a leader or live or engage with the spiritual. But what if it’s ALSO literally true? What if our hero is getting married?
As you recall, I like to (imaginatively! heretically?!) hypothesize that Lâozî’s a pregnant woman posing as a man and successfully functioning as an advisor to the Emperor despite or perhaps exactly because of her feminine, Not-Being sensibilities. This is the basis for the wisdom she’s gleaned on how to lead and live.
Remember, I mean no disrespect to the Taoist traditions or to Lâozî. If my ideas offend you, please believe that much and also of course, know that whatever the truth is, it is in no danger from me. The truth, after all, needs no defense. It is always true. And you, my dear reader, know your truth. So please don’t worry, and I will try not to also.
Of course, worrying is part of the human condition—so better yet, let’s not worry about worrying. And guess what? That’s the exact message of the next chapter as we’ll see next time. Meanwhile, thank you for being here, and I look forward to any comments you want to send me via the contact form.
The Dào of Lâozî 