Reading A Book That Is Not The Book

So here I am beginning the Tao Te Ching. As I begin reading it I realize I am reading a book that is actually not the book and the title is actually not the title, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name” (one). Confused? Yeah well me to. So, I’m reading a Tao that isn’t a Tao and isn’t even called Tao. This is going to be fun.

In the second poem I found a lot of resemblance to the Bible. I found this quote to be extremely true, and have a lot of resemblance to the tree of knowledge, “Under heaven all can see beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil.” (two). There are so many arguments to the tree of knowledge. How would we know it was bad to eat an apple from the tree of knowledge if the knowledge of good and bad was hidden in that apple? To be able to know good you must know evil. To be able to know beautiful you must know what ugly looks like. This is what the passage is trying to say. What supposedly released this knowledge was the tree. This also reminds me of ying and yang, a contrast. You must have a contrast to fully understand something.  The contrasts complement each other.

The last passage really stood out to me aswell. It was hard to interpret but I think ive been qable to see through it a bit, “Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.”(twelve). My interpretation actually comes from my own emotions. Sometimes you hear rumors and are lead to belive they are true, but you know deep down the truth of it all. This is why you should let you feelings take control, not what you see or hear.