The Invited Philosopher
Paula
The Menu
- One Course – ladies eat less: Spicy Tunisian Chickpea Tagine
- Drinks: California Red Wine*
*Courtesy of Paula
The Philosophy
Chapter #27 of the Tae Te Ching is one of my favorite chapters in the Tao Te Ching. The link I posted has a great interpretation of the chapter and I made sure during the dinner we did not repeat what was already said there but to find fresher and more personal insights into the teachings.
Summary
The chapter starts with these two lines:
A good traveler has no fixed plans
And is not intent upon arriving
The rest of the lines convey a similar message with the example of a good artist and a good scientist, and a master. The chapter teaches us, by painting these different situations around people who engage in different activities, that we all can be masters of life, if we are open-minded and embrace any situation and any person we encounter in our life. It asks us to view life as a journey and our actions as a creation process, in art, science, teaching, in any area, making the best of each situation. If we do that, we become enlightened. What does “enlightened” mean? As in our previous dinner, discussing Plato’s Cave, we could spend a whole evening talking about enlightenment, but to make it short, I believe it means to be free from ignorance and the limitations of our preconceived notions and the perceived obstacles in the outside world. It means to be fearless.
New Interpretations
Intuition
Paula started the conversation with the second statement in the chapter:
A good artist lets his intuition
Lead him wherever it wants
She feels she has very strong intuition in certain situations. Sometimes she feels she knows what is the right action to take or knows what will happen before the situations appears. For example, as a kid when the phone rang, she often knew who was calling, and back then there was no caller id. I can see that intuition in her. And I believe she should use it more, and trust it more. Perhaps the master who uses all situations is practicing using his intuition, and learning to trust it. If you trust your intuition, you don’t fear any situation because you will know how to react based on your good instincts.
I agree with Paula that women have better intuition, but until recently, that was not my case. As an engineer, my mind was too objective to trust a non-objective intuition to make a good decision. When not paying attention, my intuition would actually make good decisions in the past, but if I had a particular goal and was keen on getting to a solution, I would push my particular solution too hard and perhaps ruin the situation. Even today, my mind still grasps at formulas and objective evidence pro or against a course of action, but because I meditate every day and shut down my thinking mind, I am noticing my intuition guiding me more and more often, and me trusting it more and more because I am liking the outcome, and really enjoying the fearlessness that comes with it.
Thoughts about Past and Future
Paula said that she finds herself thinking a lot about the past and future and about situations when she feels, perhaps with regret, that she did not react well or finds herself repeating a pattern. I took the conversation back to the Tao Te Ching, and to the master, who “is ready to use all situations and does not waste anything”. What does that mean, not wasting anything? Perhaps it refers to situations we do not like, decisions we regret, but every situation had a purpose and was useful for our growth. The question then is, is it useful to think back to those situations and learn from them? Is it ever useful to go back to the past? I think that, like Eckhart Tolle writes in The Power of Now, it is fine to look back to the past for practical reasons, to learn from a mistake in the past, but if we start getting emotional about it, then we are not a good life traveler, because we are not enjoying our current moment and are too distracted or conflicted to use our “intuition” to choose the next path in our life.
Do Not Seek Enlightenment
Paula asked some great questions and it seems she initiated the different discussions but I saw how the lessons from chapter 27 had an answer to her questions, including the question she asked me: Once you become fearless or become a master and nothing in life bothers you, then you have nothing to learn, you stop growing, then what?
My answer is simple: We reach enlightenment and are ready for Nirvana. But it helped me see that I am making the mistake of actually looking forward to that state, and looking for enlightenment. If I “look for it”, in my journey through life, I am no longer a “good traveler” because I am intent upon arriving. One thing we should seek in life for ourselves, moment to moment, is to enjoy this moment or learn from it with a peaceful, untroubled, and fearless mind. Expectations ruin that.
Do Philosophers Need to Lighten Up?
I have asked myself this before, and I wondered whether I would enjoy the conversation with a real philosopher, due to the fact that philosophers can be very deep, and sometimes dark, and the question I have is: Do philosophers ever lighten up? Do they need to?
Paula asked it in a different way: She asked if I ever just want to be goofy. I am not sure if I understood her right but I think it was more of a need for her to sometimes just be funny and goofy and not take things too seriously. I do worry that by enjoying my books and philosophy, I may alienate some of my friends who are keener on small talk. I have my Sartre book, written in original French, in my bookshelf. The book has 821 pages written in small letters. Every time I read the first 2 pages, and even though I understand them well, because they are so wisdom-deep and I end up reflecting so much, I cannot read past the first 2 pages.
Was Sartre funny or goofy? By all accounts he was not. But not all philosophers are boringly serious. It seems the Greek philosopher Socrates was more of a free spirit and he took some risks in life which ended costing him his life.
To bring the discussion back to “The good traveler” that we or at least I would like to be, does it matter if the traveler is goofy, if he has the ability to lighten up, or if he is introspecting and serious? I don’t think it matters either way. I think what matters is that the traveler feels free to express who he is at the moment, without seeking an identity as goofy or serious. If your friends find philosophy boring, but you like it, I would refer to the Baghavad Gita and say yes, philosophers have to lighten up. The Gita recommends we focus on the needs of others and have no needs for ourselves. I once took a stand-up comedy class to overcome my fear of public speaking. By following the instructions of the teacher, I managed to make people in the audience laugh. So perhaps I, as a rookie philosopher, and other more seasoned philosophers, we should all take stand-up comedy classes. Perhaps we can share some wisdom that way as people would be more receptive. Buddha called that using “skillful means”. Or perhaps, like the good artist, we should let our intuition lead us wherever it wants.